Interview with Tracy Sorensen (Australian Novelist, Scholar, and Environmental Activist)

Interview with Tracy Sorensen (61 years old)

Tracy Sorensen is an Australian novelist, scholar, and environmental activist. She is known for her unique narratives from non-human perspectives, and her representative work, The Lucky Galah, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Interviewer: Venerable Shi Fa Ru

June 3, 2026

Tracy Sorensen:

It is a joy to meet everyone again. I truly did not expect to be able to speak with you all, especially my family. I am truly sorry for leaving you all so early.

Although there is much I would like to say, I am now only a spirit, unable to create as I did before, or write beautiful articles, or produce documentaries. As a spirit, my capabilities are quite limited. If I could have lived a little longer, I would surely have cherished it more. However, my life was also quite full of suffering, caught in a tug-of-war between life and death. I was even diagnosed with cancer, and I knew that I was born with this physical constitution. I also knew it was my mission to do my best to express my life and compose the most perfect symphony. But now it has ended, and I am only a spirit.

What you might not have expected is that even after becoming a spirit, I could still speak with you. The even crueller truth is that after I died, my spirit did not go to a good place; it was not a beautiful heaven or a wonderful world, but rather a place called hell to undergo punishment. This hell is known as the heart-gouging hell. In it, my heart is constantly gouged out, leaving me bloodied and mangled, and then I die and am constantly resurrected, repeating this over and over.

This punishment is as it is because, when I was young, I participated in many social movements. At that time, my behaviour was indeed quite intense, and my thoughts and lifestyle were rather radical. I also created many articles and wrote many commentaries on social issues. However, among these commentaries, there were inevitably some rather radical remarks. Later, after I fell ill with cancer, the novel I wrote was read by many, but it did not promote many truly correct concepts. In fact, from the perspective of a spirit as I am now, basically no one understands what true concepts are. Having walked this path in life, and finally ending up in hell, you can all understand that no one truly grasps this principle.

I always believed that I should have gone to a good place, but I never expected to truly enter hell and suffer punishment repeatedly. In truth, I was very resistant and unwilling to accept this. But now, my heart has completely calmed down, and I have calmly examined my own life. In fact, my own problems have slowly surfaced, and I know where my issues lie. The main point is that one cannot use this heart to create opposition, one cannot use one's own heart to criticise, to stir up disputes, or to cause more people's hearts to be unsettled and turbulent.

And what I created was actually mixed with a desire to make myself famous. I was not purely wanting to share my story or raise social issues. Behind it was a desire for everyone to recognise me, to know my name, and for my views to be widely accepted, so that people would recognise me, acknowledge me, and identify me as a critic and novelist with depth, insight, and intellectual planning. But after these works were published, they were a form of pollution to the human heart. A life that was originally peaceful and uneventful would be affected in ways that were not necessarily positive due to the injection of these works I created. And these are the reasons why I went to hell to suffer punishment.

This world of spirits is not that simple, nor is it a conclusion that can be reached by thinking in the way humans take for granted. One must truly understand the workings of the spirit world to realise that any deviation in belief, even the slightest, will lead one to suffer in hell. It is just that the degree and duration of the punishment differ. Fortunately, after less than a year of suffering, I was released from the pain of hell.

The reason I was able to leave hell is not because my sentence was truly finished, but because there is a temple called the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre, located in Goombungee, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. They saved my spirit from hell and have now placed me in a clean, bright, and beautiful world called the Western Dharma-Nature Land. To use a description, it is similar to the heaven that everyone knows. In this heaven, my spirit no longer has to suffer any pain; my heart is very peaceful, without any turbulence, and I am quietly enjoying this hard-won peace, stability, and tranquillity in this world. It is because of this that I have the opportunity to speak to you all again. In the Dharma-Nature Land, I am just a spirit, and the most remarkable thing about this temple is that they specialise in dealing with matters concerning spirits.

Many spirits are in great pain, without goals, and are even unable to leave the space where they suffer. This temple saves these spirits and places them in the Dharma-Nature Land of the temple, where everyone feels very secure.

The Venerables of this temple can communicate with spirits; they can receive messages from spirits through spiritual communication, which is why they were able to convey my message so that you could see it again. This is why, even though I have been deceased for nearly a year, I am now able to speak with you all again. In fact, looking back at this life from the Dharma-Nature Land, it was spent in considerable suffering. Why do I say this? Because life has no true goal. Although I did many things in this life—sixty-one years is neither short nor long—whether I was truly able to bring substantial help to this society, or whether I truly brought some progress to this world and this society, is actually quite limited.

No matter how glorious a career one has, or how rich one's life is, the reason why the help provided to this world is actually quite limited is that a human life is very short. No matter how much help is given, this life is short, and the people and things helped are only being helped for a few decades. But these people will eventually face illness and death. After death, everything from those few decades of life seems to cease to exist. What awaits them is the final reckoning and judgment brought about by what they created in this life, and they must suffer punishment according to everything they did while alive.

Looking at it this way, no matter how hard one works while alive, or how much one struggles for one's own achievements, when it comes back to the spiritual level, it is not the success of one's career or the prominence of one's field that determines one's good destination. Rather, it is whether one is truly selfless in the process, able to dedicate oneself to helping others. The more one does this, the more one can allow one's spirit to go to a good place.

The reason I am telling you all this is actually my greatest regret, because I did not understand this principle at all before I passed away, which is why I went to hell to suffer punishment after I died. Everything I am saying now is a principle I heard and learned at the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre in the Western Dharma-Nature Land. Only here could I truly have the opportunity to learn this so-called Buddhist education.

No one understands that the spirit world is like this, and even fewer people understand that everything obtained in this human world will be returned to oneself. No one knows these true facts, and no one knows that the spirit world is so closely related to everything one does while alive. After life ends, when one arrives in various spaces to suffer, one begins to regret, but how can it be in time then? Having already created a lifetime of sins, and having made mistakes with one's heart, it is impossible to be in time when the time comes to pay the price, only then to resist, to regret, and to think about changing. Therefore, I also want to advise my family and friends who know me here: everyone must learn the Buddha’s teachings. Learning the Buddha’s teachings means studying Buddhist education; it is not about learning some special religion, nor is it about letting everyone blindly engage in superstition. In fact, there are no such elements in Buddhist education; it is simply to let everyone know how to be a Buddha.

To be a "Buddha" means to let go of the "self" and help others; it is that simple. The more you let go, the more you help others, the closer you are to the existence of a Buddha. And to completely become a Buddha like Namo Amituofo, one must completely let go of the "self" and give for the sake of others.

This is why the tall, majestic, and dignified Buddha at the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre was able to save me. Because he has completely let go of the "self" and is entirely for the sake of others, it is with such ability and mind-capacity that he was able to save me from hell. There are still many details worth exploring, but I cannot explain them clearly in simple words right now.

If you are interested in continuing to explore this, you can search for "Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre" online. If you are willing to come and reminisce with me, and understand more about my life and what happened after I passed away, you are welcome to come to the temple to chat with me. I am in the temple, waiting for everyone at the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre.

If you want to find this temple, you can also look at the billboards on the Brisbane highway. It is this temple that saved my spirit. It has been working silently for many years and is a global charitable organisation that has already helped immeasurable and boundless spirits to reach good places. Some have entered the Western Dharma-Nature Land; regardless of which place, they are all bright, luminous, and incomparably comfortable and beautiful worlds. In these worlds, spirits no longer suffer, but enjoy a carefree life in a very calm, peaceful, and serene state.

So, you do not need to worry about me anymore; in fact, I am already living a very good life and am no longer suffering. Instead, for those of you who are still alive, I hope you can learn Buddhist education yourselves and understand what you should do within the limited time of your life so that you can truly help your spirit have a good destination after death. This is a little advice from me to you.

Tracy Sorensen