"Kindness and compassion have no enemies; wisdom engenders no vexations."

Throughout his life, Chan Master Sheng Yen (Shifu) (1930-2009) had devoted himself tirelessly to reviving the tradition of rigorous education for monks and nuns, establishing monasteries and centers of learning, teaching and leading Chan retreats worldwide, as well as advocating interfaith outreach, world peace, youth development and gender equality. In his teaching, Shifu also emphasized protecting our four environments - the spiritual/mental, the social, the living and the natural.

Shifu taught in a concise, direct and practical manner, with an approach to understanding that people can easily relate to and apply in their daily lives. With hundreds and thousands of disciples and Dharma heirs worldwide, Shifu had planted the seeds for the continued cultivation of Chan in the world today and the future for the benefit of all who wish to learn and practice this tradition.

Novice Changjin

Born into an impoverished peasant’s family in a village near Shanghai in l931, Shifu entered Guang Jiao Monastery in the Wolf Hills of Nantung with a fourth grade education at age thirteen. As Novice Changjin, he carried out the traditional duties required of monks in China's Buddhist monasteries at that time.

"The local monastery I entered, like most others in China, was called a Chan temple. Despite what the name of the place may suggest, the theory and practice of Chan were almost never discussed there. As young monks, most of us did not have any clear idea of what Chan practice really was. Our training simply consisted of the rigorous discipline prescribed for monks including daily routines such as laundry, working in the fields, cooking and performing daily services. Conventional Chinese Buddhism did not provide a systematic education for monks. A monk's training was usually completed gradually and imperceptibly through the experience of everyday life."

It was during a time when hunger was far and wide and the society was oppressed with ruthless warlords. At the tender age of thirteen, Shifu began to dedicate himself to the teaching of Buddhism in the spirit of inheriting the past and inspiring the future even during the chaotic periods of civil war.

Due to the communist take-over in the area, at age sixteen Shifu was transferred from countryside to Da Sheng Monastery in Shanghai with his fellow monks. At Da Sheng Monastery, he learned that a formal Buddhist education could be obtained at a seminary called the Buddhist Academy at Jin An Monastery. With an undeterred will of furthering his acquaintance with Buddhism, Shifu decided to abort Da Sheng to study at the academy, a decision that was later approved by his master. It was at the academy where Shifu was inspired by the teachings of Chan Masters Xuyun (Hsu-Yun, Empty Cloud) and Taixu on their visits to Shanghai. The seminary was actually founded by a student of Master Taixu (Tai-Hsu), one of the great revivers of modern Chinese Buddhism. Master Taixu was greatly influenced by Great Master Ouyi (1599-1655), which dates all the way back to the Ming Dynasty. The seminary also preaches on achieving a cohesive state of mind and body through physical exercises such as Taiji and Shaolin boxing.

Zhang Caiwei

During the civil war in 1949, China was in a chaotic state. With gun shots and artillery firing infiltrating every corner, the entire country seemingly became a common battleground. After much deliberation, Changjin decided to change his name to Zhang Caiwei and took refuge in the Nationalist Army and left for Taiwan. Despite the irrevocable change of events caused by the war, Zhang Caiwei never forgot that he had been a monk, even when he was dressed up in a soldier’s uniform fulfilling his missions. His conviction of taking up his monastic robes and returning to the path to enlightenment were never swayed.

Serving as a wireless telegraph operator, a telecommunications officer and a warrant officer in the army, the young Zhang Caiwei closely observed life in the lay world and started to wonder about the origins of life. His curiosity and propensity for learning eventually casted a shadow of doubts in his mind. He wanted to overcome the doubt and unravel the questions that had buried inside him for the longest period. The opportunity came when Zhang met Master Lingyuan, a lineage disciple of Master Xuyun. That night, under Master Lingyuan's guidance, Zhang Caiwei experienced a powerful awaking and revelation to the truth he had been looking for. A strong feeling of release swept over his whole being. Describing the experience later, Shifu said: "It was as if my life suddenly exploded out of the tin can in which I had imprisoned it."

During his service in the army, Zhang continued his studies and wrote his first book in 1956 followed by numerous articles during a sick leave from military service. At age twenty-eight, he encountered one of the deepest spiritual experiences of his life while sojourning at various monasteries during his leave. His experience was later recognized by masters in the two main lineages of Chan Buddhism: the Linji (Japanese: Rinzai) and Caodong (Japanese: Soto). Shifu would ultimately become the Dharma heir in these two traditions.

Sheng Yen

In 1960 Zhang Caiwei re-entered monastic life under Master Dongchu at the Chung-Hwa Buddhist Culture Center in Peitou, Taipei, and took the Dharma name Sheng Yen. The Ven. Master Dongchu was a disciple of Master Taixu.

"There was a certain master, Dongchu, whom I sensed to be an extraordinary individual. He did not lecture, nor did he give people instruction in practice. Seeking neither fame nor followers, he was widely known and respected. His speech was unusual and had a startling effect on people. [...] He constantly harassed me. For example, after telling me to move my things into one room, he would later tell me to move to another room. Then he would tell me to move back in again. Once, he told me to seal off a door and to open a new one in another wall. I had to haul the bricks by foot from a distant kiln up to the monastery. We normally used a gas stove, but my master often sent me to the mountains to gather a special kind of firewood that he liked to brew his tea over. I would constantly be scolded for cutting the wood too small or too large. I had many experiences of this kind. In my practice it was much the same. When I asked him how to practice, he would tell me to meditate. But after a few days he would quote a famous master, saying, 'You can't make a mirror by polishing a brick, and you can't become a Buddha by sitting.' So he ordered me to do prostrations. Then, after several days, he would say 'This is nothing but a dog eating shit off the ground. Read the sutras!' After I read for a couple of weeks, he would scold me again, saying that the patriarchs thought the sutras good only for cleaning sores. He would say, 'You're smart. Write an essay.' When I showed him an essay he would tear it up saying, 'These are all stolen ideas.' Then he would challenge me to use my own wisdom and say original things. All these arbitrary things were actually his way of training me. Whatever I did was wrong even if he had just told me to do it."

Two years after becoming Master Dongchu's disciple, the Ven. Sheng Yen went into solitary retreat at Chao Yuan Monastery from 1961 to 1968.

"Six years passed very quickly; I had little sense of time. I hadn't accomplished what I had hoped to, but others persistently urged me to return, so I left the mountains. Returning to Taipei, I still felt inadequate. I thought that to teach Buddha Dharma in this age, I needed a modern education and a degree."

In 1969, on the strength of his works on Buddhism published during his retreat, the Ven. Sheng Yen was admitted to Rissho University, Japan, and earned a doctorate in Buddhist Literature in 1975.

"During this period I visited various masters of Zen and esoteric Buddhism. I received the greatest influence from Bantetsugu Roshi, a disciple of Harada Roshi. I attended several winter-long retreats at his temple in Tohoku. Being in northern Japan, the temple had a very harsh environment. Moreover, the master seemed inclined to give me an especially hard time and constantly had his assistants beat me. Of the people there I had by far the most education, and he would say, 'You scholars have a lot of selfish attachments and vexations. Your obstructions are heavy.' "

In 1975 the Ven. Sheng Yen formally received transmission from Chan Master Dongchu in the Caodong (Japanese Soto) tradition of Chan and in 1978 he received transmission from Chan Master Lingyuan of the Linji (Japanese Rinzai) tradition of Chan. Subsequently he became the second generation descendant of Chan Master Xuyun, who is widely recognized as the greatest contemporary patriarch and reviver of Chan Buddhism. In between this period, the Ven. Sheng Yen also traveled to the United States where he served as the Abbot of The Temple of Enlightenment in New York in 1977.

In 1978 he became a professor at The Chinese Culture University and later the president of the Chung-Hwa Buddhist Cultural Institute in Taipei. In l979 Master Sheng Yen became the Abbot of Nung Ch'an Monastery in Taiwan, where it is currently the residence of monastics. In the following year, he founded the Ch'an Meditation Center and The Institute of Chung-Hwa Buddhist Culture in New York. In 1985 he founded the Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies in Taipei, which serves as both a graduate school and a conference center. Four years later in 1989, Master Sheng Yen established the International Cultural and Educational Center of Dharma Drum Mountain. A Buddhist University and monastery were incepted at Dharma Drum Mountain in 2000 and that marked the beginning of an era of systemized teaching and unfettered exchange of ideas and mutual enrichment for all who wish to learn and practice. As of today, Master Sheng Yen has many students in Asia, North America and Europe.

Being a dedicated writer throughout his life, Master Sheng Yen published more than ninety books, many of which are available in English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and French. He lectured at more than forty universities in the United States and continued his lectures in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Europe. He led more than 140 week-long intensive Chan meditation retreats in the United States, England and other parts of Europe.

While he was responsible for the revival, dissemination and expansion of Chan practice in China and the West, Master Sheng Yen was also an active environmentalist. In August 2000 he was invited as one of the keynote speakers at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders at the United Nation, and in the environmental protection workshop held at Waldorf Astorial Hotel. Amongst the numerous achievements and recognition he had received for his contribution in the rekindling of Chan practice, Master Sheng Yen also received numerous honorable government awards for his humanitarian, cultural and scholarly work around the globe.

Lineage

Master Sheng Yen received Dharma transmission in two major branches of Chan Buddhism, the Linji (Japanese Rinzai) and the Caodong (Japanese Soto).

In the Linji lineage, Master Sheng Yen is:

• sixty-seventh generation descendant of the First Patriarch of Chan, Bodhidharma ( ?-ca. 530)
• sixty-second generation descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng (638-713)
• fifty-seventh generation descendant of Master Linji (?-866)
• third-generation descendant of Master Xuyun (1840-1959)
• direct descendant of Master Lingyuan (1902-1988)

In the Caodong lineage, Master Sheng Yen is:

• sixty-second generation descendant of the First Patriarch of Chan, Bodhidharma (?-ca. 530)
• fifty-seventh generation descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng (638-7130)
• fifty-second generation descendant of co-founder Master Dongshan (807-869)
• direct descendant of Master Dongchu (1908-1977)

For more details, please refer to Master Sheng Yen Biography