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Our Founder
Chan Master Sheng Yen (DDRC Founder)
"Kindness and compassion have no enemies;
wisdom engenders no vexations."
 For over thirty years, Chan Master Sheng Yen (Shifu) (1930-2009) 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; interfaith outreach, world
peace, youth development, and gender equality. Shifu also emphasized
protecting the four environments we inhabit - 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 disciples and Dharma heirs
worldwide, Shifu has 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
Shifu was born in 1930 to a farming family in a village near
Shanghai, China. He entered Guang Jiao Monastery with a fourth
grade education at age 13. 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. But, in
fact the theory and practice of Chan was 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 - everyday activities
such as washing clothes, working in the fields, cooking and performing
daily services. 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."
At age 16, because of Communist opposition in the area, he was
transferred from the countryside to Da Sheng Monastery in Shanghai
with his fellow monks. Here Changjin heard of a seminary where
young monks could acquire a Buddhist education, the Buddhist
Academy at Jing An Monastery. He ran away from Da Sheng (a decision
later approved by his master) to study at the academy. There
he was inspired by the teachings of Chan Masters Xuyun (Hsu-yun, Empty
Cloud) and Tai Xu on their visits to Shanghai. The seminary was
founded by a student of Master Taixu (Tai-hsu), one of the great revivers
of modern Chinese Buddhism. Taixu himself was much influenced
by Great Master Ouyi (1599-1655). The seminary also
emphasized physical exercise with instruction in Tai Ji
and in Shaolin boxing from a teacher from Shaolin Monastery.
Zhang Caiwei
In 1949, China was in chaos. After much deliberation, Changjin changed his
name to Zhang Caiwei and took refuge in the army and left for Taiwan. Yet as
a soldier, Zhang Caiwei never for a day forgot that he had been a monk; he
never wavered in his conviction that he would once again take up his monastic
robes and return to the path to enlightenment.
In the army, the young Zhang Caiwei closely observed life in the lay world
and wondered about the origins of life. Eventually, his mind was totally immersed
in a great ball of doubt. Then chance brought Zhang to meet Master Lingyuan, a
lineage disciple of Master Xuyun. That night, under Master Lingyuan's guidance,
Zhang Caiwei experienced a powerful epiphany. A strong feeling of release swept
over his whole being. Describing the experience, Master Sheng Yen says: "It was
as if my life suddenly exploded out of the tin can in which I had imprisoned
it."
Sheng Yen
In 1960 Zhang Caiwei re-entered monastic life under Master
Dongchu at the Buddhist Culture Center in Peitou, Taipei, taking
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 (1961-1968).
"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." So
in 1969, on the strength of his works on Buddhism published during
his retreat, he 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 received
transmission from Chan Master Dongchu in the Caodong (Jp. Soto)
tradition of Chan and in 1978 he received transmission from Chan
Master Lingyuan of the Linji (Jp. Rinzai) tradition of Chan,
becoming the second generation descendant of Chan Master Xu
Yun, the greatest contemporary patriarch and reviver of Chan
Buddhism.
Lineage
Master Sheng Yen has received Dharma transmission in two major
branches of Chan Buddhism, the Linji (Japanese Rinzai), and the
Caodong (Japanese Soto).
In the Linji lineage, Shifu is :
- a sixty-seventh generation descendant of the First Patriarch
of Chan, Bodhidharma ( ?-ca. 530)
- a sixty-second generation
descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng (638-713)
- a
fifty-seventh generation descendant of Master Linji (?-866)
- a
third-generation descendant of Master Xuyun (1840-1959)
- a direct descendant of Master Lingyuan (1902-1988)
In the Caodong lineage, Shifu is:
- a sixty-second generation descendant of the First Patriarch
of Chan, Bodhidharma (?-ca. 530)
- a fifty-seventh generation
descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng (638-7130)
- a fifty-second generation descendant of co-founder Master
Dongshan (807-869)
- a direct descendant of Master Dongchu
(1908-1977)
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