Bulletin No. 2, 2020

Intellectual Cross-currents   57  The Ven. Master Hsing Yun on Chan T he Venerable Master Hsing Yun, world- renowned religious leader and founder of the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Taiwan, delivered a lecture on ‘Chan and Enlightenment’ on the evening of 13 April 2010 at the Sir Run Run Shaw Hall. The hall was packed with over a thousand CUHK staff and students, and members of the public. In his lecture, the Venerable Master Hsing Yun explained what Chan was in simple words, using stories and anecdotes to elaborate on the ways of achieving enlightenment. He said practising Chan was like studying. Small inquiry leads to small enlightenment, great inquiry leads to great enlightenment, no inquiry leads to no enlightenment. Literary Festival Gems Come to Campus T wo event s of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival 2010, both organized by the Department of English, were held on campus on 15 March 2010. ‘Reading Gangsters, Writing Cops’ featured Indian novelist Vikram Chandra, who won both the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and the David Higham Prize for Fiction. Chandra told the audience how he had spoken to cops and members of the underworld while conducting first-hand research for his crime thriller Sacred Games . In the afternoon, celebrated Australian poet Les Murray (right), recipient of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Mondello Prize, engaged in a dialogue with Prof. Simon Haines (left), Chairman of the English Department, in ‘Les Murray in Conversation’. Murray read his own poems and talked about writing.