I am a Theravada Buddhist monk, monk’s name: Bhante (Venerable) Vilasa [Bhante Vilāsa] – also, Luangta Vilāsa –, lay name: István J. Schütz, that is, István János Schütz. I was born on 25 August 1954, under the zodiacal sign of Virgo, in Budapest, Hungary.
I received my higher ordination (upasampadā) as
a monk on 31 January 2013 at Shwe Oo Min Dhamma Sukha Tawya Yeiktha,
Mingaladon Township, Greater Rangoon (Yangon), Burma. I thus have, as of June 2023, ten vassa, i.e. rains. On grounds of seniority
I am, therefore, a thera (or: therabhikkhu), a so-called ”elder”.
I have since
stayed in diverse monasteries and meditation centres in Burma, Thailand, Sri
Lanka, Malaysia, Hungary and Italy, and tried, due to health reasons, to return
to my home country during the years 2016 through 2020. Between end-July 2018
and 13 March 2019, I was one of the then two resident monks at the official
Thai temple Wat Thai Rattanaprateep (วัดไทยรัตนประทีป) in Budapest. See: https://www.facebook.com/vilasa.bhante.3 . (The official website of the
temple https://watthai.hu is no longer available.) — Since 2 July 2021 I am in Sri
Lanka again.
In lay life,
I had two professions. I was trained as a bookseller two times in
my life: in Hungary, 1978, and in Germany (West), 1988–1989, specializing on
book imports. After more than seven years in Germany between 1983 and 1990 I
returned to Hungary where, by 1992, I set up a tiny enterprise importing and
selling books from three continents. The company was shut down 2004.
I pursued university
studies as well. From 1991 onward, German studies at ELTE
University, Budapest, along with Tibetan studies at the same,
whereas I was forced to quit latter owing to a lack of time. M.A. in German,
1999. Thesis on tense and aspect in Icelandic and German, see: https://books.google.hu/books/about/Zeit_re_produktionen_Zeit_re_konstruktio.html?id=CwfFwQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y
Following
areas were covered in linguistics during my German studies, both lectures
and seminars, as well as by way of individual study and research:
morphology, lexicology, semantics, prototype semantics, (bilingual)
lexicography, syntax, valency theory, ergativity, grammaticalization, language
change, historical linguistics, the history of German, (bilingual) phraseology,
phonetics and phonology, tense and aspect, and (language) typology.
– In the meantime, Icelandic studies at
the University of Iceland (Háskóli Íslands), 1993 through 1995,
concluding with a B.Ph.Isl., the equivalent of a B.A. – http://sagnagrunnur.com/scholarly-work-on-folk-legends/ see under ’Schütz.’ – In actual
fact, I had stayed in Iceland 1977 for the first time, and was enrolled as a
student, only to return to Hungary shortly afterwards.
Finally,
already as a monk, I pursued Buddhist studies – 22 lectures weekly, in
nine subjects, Pāli and Burmese included, at the International Theravāda
Buddhist Missionary University (ITBMU), Rangoon/Yangon, Burma, in the
academic year 2013–14, leaving with a Diploma in Buddha-Dhamma [Dip.
(B.Dh.)].
Language
skills
• Native
language: Hungarian.
• Second
language: German. Also the medium of earlier scientific activities. –
Limited understanding of Dutch and Flemish in writing.
• Third
language, as well as main area of study and academic research, further, that of
translation work and teaching at university level: Icelandic, both Modern
and Old Icelandic (Old Norse). – Passive Faroese, that is, reading. – Further,
reading skills, depending on text type (and: genre), in Danish, Norwegian
and Swedish.
• Fourth
language: English. At an advanced level.
• Japanese,
both written and spoken; at present, at a lower intermediate level, owing to a
lack of practice.
• Some French,
mostly passive knowledge, the reminiscences of secondary school studies. –
Limited understanding of Italian in writing.
• Turkish
at everyday conversational level, limited though on grounds of modest
vocabulary; a general understanding of the grammatical structure of the
language.
• Finnish:
by now at a very, very modest level, owing to a lack of practice; an
understanding of the grammatical structure of the language.
• Burmese:
after intensive individual studies, Burmese course at ITBMU; low level
daily interaction, modest vocabulary; reading and writing skills. A general
idea of the structure of grammar.
• Pali:
intensive studies at ITBMU, lower intermediate level – also active,
thanks to all those exercises, translation from English included! – During my
Tibetan studies, I attended a basic course in Sanskrit and Buddhist
Hybrid Sanskrit, resp.
• Thai:
mostly in speech, everyday situations; modest vocabulary, minimal grammar; with
a command of the writing system. Basic understanding of the typology of the
language.
• Tibetan
(classical): by now, just the capability of low-speed reading and writing
remained to a very modest extent.
• Russian:
was the subject of my choice for the final examination at secondary school back
in 1973. Hardly any opportunity to use it for fifty (!) years by now: buried in
the deepest layers of memory. Anyhow, reading and writing skills of Cyrillic
script is still there. – Same applies to Greek script.
• Devanāgarī
script: for identification purposes.
• Sinhalese
script.
Teaching
activities
• Icelandic language
and culture, also, translation workshop, between 1992 and 1999, at the Dept. of
Scandinavian Studies, ELTE University, Budapest. – One term at Eötvös
Collegium, 2006–2007, see: http://honlap.eotvos.elte.hu/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/skandikurzusok.pdf
• Reading Theravāda
/ Pāli Buddhism in German: seminar, one term (autumn 2006), on behalf of Dharma
Gate Buddhist College (A Tan Kapuja Buddhista Főiskola), Budapest.
• Buddhism:
Questions and Answers, on a daily basis for foreign volunteers at ThaBarWa
Taya Yeiktha Centre in Thanlyin, Burma, 2017.
• English
for Burmese monks, all levels, at Mettānanda Sāsana College of Nga
Kyan Pyan Thathana Yeiktha, Rangoon/Yangon, Burma, 2017.
• English
for Indian and Sri Lankan monks and novices at Dharmāyatana, the
training centre of Nā Uyana Forest Monastery and Meditation Centre, Sri
Lanka, 2019.
Scientific
work
• Compilation and
publication of a handbook of Icelandic declensions under the title Izlandi
alaktan / Íslensk beygingardæmi, 1994, along
with a textbook of Modern Icelandic for university use (Sæmundur á
selnum, ’S.
on the Seal’), distributed in photocopies, see: http://english.arnastofnun.is/page/kennslub_ungverska_en
• Icelandic
university thesis as a work of basic research on Icelandic folk legends (more
exactly, the forms of appearance of the devil), see: http://sagnagrunnur.com/scholarly-work-on-folk-legends/ under ’Schütz’; an abbreviated
version in German appeared in: „swer sînen vriunt behaltet, daz
ist lobelîch“ – Festschrift für András Vizkelety zum 70. Geburtstag, 2001,
see:
http://mek.oszk.hu/01700/01793/pdf/01.pdf https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/92006/BibliographicResource_1000095226989.html , reprinted in the German monthly Island,
2005, see: http://www.islandgesellschaft.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=36%3Azeitschrift-island&id=76%3A11-jahrgang-heft-2-november-2005&Itemid=15 .
• Scientific
article Isländisch, in German, covering the system of Icelandic,
synchronic and diachronic, in: Roelcke, Thorsten (ed.), Variationstypologie
/ Variation Typology. Ein sprachtypologisches Handbuch der europäischen
Sprachen in Geschichte und Gegenwart / A Typological Handbook of European Languages,
pp. 149-182. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003, see:
https://glottolog.org/resource/reference/id/419117 ill. https://epdf.pub/variationstypologie-variation-typology-a-typological-handbook-of-european-langua.html ,
further:
• A new,
enormously enlarged version of the above-mentioned Icelandic textbook Sæmundur
á selnum – ’S.
on the Seal’ –, in Word format: appr. 1,000 pages (A4) in print, about
three million characters one third of which are commentaries in Hungarian on
grammar and language usage, as well as intercultural semantics. This is the
most detailed textbook of Icelandic ever written (2005–2009). Unpublished
manuscript.
• Work on an
Icelandic–Hungarian Dictionary started as early as 1975. By 2009, appr.
20,000 entries. Unfinished – and unpublished. One of the altogether two printed
copies was presented to Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, then
president of Iceland, at a reception on the occasion of his official visit to
Hungary in March 2003.
Translation
work
• English:
— The short
story Text by Iain Bamforth in Hungarian, 1980, see: „ifj. Schütz
István”: https://opac.rfmlib.hu/WebPac_OZD/CorvinaWeb?pagesize=10&view=longlong&sort=0&page=0&perpage=0&action=look&actualsearchset=SELECT+1+&actualsort=-1&language=¤tpage=result&text0=&index0=&whichform=&showmenu=&itemOrder=&itemOrderAD=&resultview=longlong&recnum=36998&marcposition=50&text0=&index0=&ccltext=&resultsize=12
— Sayadaw U
Pandita’s In This Very Life as Dhammadāna, 2010. Reprint: 2017.
See:
https://rukkola.hu/konyvek/14602-meg_ebben_az_eletben
— Richard F.
Gombrich’s What the Buddha Thought, on behalf of Dharma Gate Buddhist
College, 2016; main body of the text finished.
• Icelandic:
— Nine short stories of Gyrðir Elíasson, translated within the framework of a translation workshop
(see further above), published in the literary monthly Nagyvilág, 2003,
see:
https://webzone.ee/aurin/proza/GEafuvesasszony.html
— Halldór Laxness’ Kristnihald undir Jökli, published 2004. See:
http://www.islit.is/media/pdf/ISbokmenntiraungversku.pdf
— Occasional
translations both from and into Icelandic for OFFI, the Hungarian Office
for Translation and Attestation, Ltd.
Other
activities
• Guided sightseeing
tours in Japanese and interpreting for the (then) National Council of
Trade Unions, SZOT, between 1974 and 1982, on unpaid leave.
• Proof-reading
and copy preparation in English for Corvina Publishing House as
a part-time job between 1979 and 1983.
• Guided
sightseeing tours in German and English, and, sporadically, in Hungarian
and Japanese, resp., during employment by the Board of Tourism of the
City of Stuttgart, Germany, 1984–87, then part-time till 1990.
• Escorting tourist
groups from Iceland in Hungary in the 1990s.
Blog
The by now over 90 posts
of my blog https://luangtavilasa.blogspot.com address many important Buddhist
topics, including a critical series of articles on ”vulgar” (= eclectic, pick
& mix) Buddhism in Hungary, along with detailed analyses of Hungarian translations
of some sutta texts; also: criticism of Buddhist terminology – and of Wikipedia
articles on Buddhism – in Hungarian. All posts, with the exception of one, are
in Hungarian. (Since late summer 2019.)
Updated in Sri Lanka, 3 July 2023.
end of 2021
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