Master Sheng Yen

Master Sheng Yen was born in 1930 to a farming family in China. At about thirteen he entered a monastery as a novice, in a Chan temple where, he later said, the theory and practice of Chan were hardly discussed. In 1949 he joined the army and went to Taiwan. While a soldier he met Master Lingyuan, and a night of guidance from him brought what he called a sudden release.

In 1960 he returned to monastic life under Master Dongchu, receiving the Dharma name Sheng Yen. He then spent years in solitary retreat in the mountains of Taiwan. In 1969 he entered Rissho University in Japan, where he completed a master’s degree and a doctorate in Buddhist literature. Dharma Drum Mountain says he later became a Dharma heir of both the Caodong line, through Dongchu, and the Linji line, through Lingyuan. Caodong is known in Japan as Soto and Linji as Rinzai. He taught both silent illumination from the Caodong tradition and the huatou method of the Linji tradition.

He was invited to the United States in 1976, where his first class had four students. The Chan Meditation Center in Elmhurst, Queens, which grew from that group, opened in 1981. After his teacher Dongchu died, he took charge of Nung Chan Monastery in Taiwan, and for decades he spent about half of each year in each country. He established Dharma Drum Mountain, now one of the major Buddhist centres in Taiwan, and led retreats in Europe and elsewhere. In 2006 he founded the Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan, which draws together his two transmissions.

He wrote over a hundred works in Chinese and English, among them Hoofprint of the Ox, written with Dan Stevenson, which sets out the principles of the Chan path. Illness ended his travels in 2006. He died in Taiwan on 3 February 2009.