International headquarters: c/o The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 11 Fl., No. 55, Hang Chow S Rd., Sec. 1, Taipei, Taiwan Republic of China

The Ven. Master Jing Kong, a teacher of Pure Land Buddhism, was born in China in 1927. In Taiwan following World War II (1939–1945), he studied toward ordination, which was granted in 1959. He has subsequently spent his time as a teacher and founder of Buddhist centers both in Taiwan and around the world. He founded a series of organizations that form the nexus of the network of Amitabha Buddhist societies, including the Hwa Dzan Society of Propagating Teachings, Hwa Dzan Monastery, Hwa Dzan Buddhist Library, Hwa Dzan Lecture Hall, and the corporate body of the Buddha Educational Foundation. He pioneered the publication of Buddhist materials on audio and video tapes and, through the educational foundation, has distributed millions of pieces of Buddhist literature, including his own writings.

Jing Kong has seen Buddhism as an educational endeavor and defined authentic Buddhism as the “education of understanding the true face of life and the universe”as originally put forth by Shakyamuni Buddha. Pure Land Buddhism is most identified with the popular practice of invoking Buddha Amida’s name with the intention of it being the means of allowing the individual to be born in the heavenly realm called the “pure land of bliss.”The Pure Land is the central tradition of Chinese Buddhism.

The Pure Land teachings are derived primarily from five Buddhist texts: The Sutra of Amitabha’s Purity, Equality, and Understanding; A Principle Explanation of the Amitabha Sutra; The Chapter of Universal Worthy Bodhisattva’s Conduct and Vows; The Sutra on Contemplating Amitabha and His Pure Land; and The Chapter on the Foremost Attainment of Great Strength Bodhisattva through Buddha Recitation. These are among the materials regularly reprinted by the Educational Foundation.

The texts also have given rise to four courses offered at the Amitabha centers that lead to an understanding of Buddhism and how to embody it in one’s life. The basic course teaches a set of moral principles and the basic practice of reciting the Amida Buddha’s name. Subsequent courses emphasize harmony and self-discipline. A final course centers upon the 10 great vows of bodhisattva conduct: respect for all people, praise for the virtues and kind practices of others, giving, repentance and reform of all one’s faults, rejoicing in the virtuous deeds of others, promoting the broad spread of Buddhist teachings, seeking the guidance of the societies’ teachers, holding the Buddha’s teachings in one’s heart, seeking accord with the wishes of people in one’s environment, and dedicating the peace gained from practicing to all living beings.

Centers began to appear in the United States in the 1980s, primarily within the Chinese American community. The Amitabha Buddhist Society of U.S.A. was founded in 1989 to advocate the Pure Land Study of Buddhism. With the publication of an English-language translation of Master Jing Kong’s writing, centers began to spread to the wider society in the 1990s.

Membership

Not reported. There are 20 centers in the United States and 3 in Canada. Additional centers are located in Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.

Sources

Amitabha Buddhist Society of U.S.A. www.amtb-usa.org/eindex.htm

Jing Kong. Buddhism: The Wisdom of Compassion and Awakening. Taipei, Taiwan: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, n.d.

———. To Understand Buddhism. Taipei, Taiwan: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 1998.

Jy Din Sakya. Empty Cloud: The Teachings of Xu Yun. Taipei, Taiwan: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, n.d.

Buddha’s Universal Church

720 Washington St., San Francisco, CA 94108

The largest of the Buddhist organizations centered upon the San Francisco, California, Chinese community is Buddha’s Universal Church, founded during the late 1920s in Chinatown. The church is currently housed in a million-dollar temple begun during the 1950s, built by volunteers, and dedicated in 1963. It is one of the largest in the continental United States and contains a unique mosaic image of the Buddha.

Among the founders of Buddha’s Universal Church was the late Dr. Paul F. Fung, a physician, a doctor of the Dharma, and vice president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. Currently the church is led by Dr. Frederick Hong. A focus on scholarship enabled the church to become an American Buddhist intellectual center that now houses a fine library and research facility. A project of translating Buddhist texts led in 1964 to the publication of The Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch on the Pristine Orthodox Dharma, the first of several projected volumes. The Pristine Orthodox Dharma, Volume I, was published in 1977.

Public services are held every second Sunday at 11:15 a.m. and include a lecture and tour. On the fourth Sunday of each month at 10:30 a.m., meetings on the books of Buddhism are held for church members only. Members and visitors are invited to listen to the choir and then to a lecture given in both Chinese and English. The topics of these lectures include the history and teachings of the Buddha, classical stories and narratives, and lessons drawn from present-day circumstances. Tours of the church are given immediately after lectures and start with the golden image of the Buddha at the main altar. On the roof is a garden with a Bodhi tree, grown from a cutting of the tree under which Buddha is believed to have sat, and a lotus-shaped pool. A yearly bilingual (Chinese-English) costumed musical production depicting ancient China is presented by the young people of the church.

Membership

There are approximately 400 members of the church at the single center in San Francisco.

Sources

Buddha’s Universal Church. www.bucsf.com.

Fung, Paul F., and George D. Fung, trans. The Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch on the Pristine Orthodox Dharma. San Francisco: Buddha’s Universal Church, 1964.

Hong, Frederick, and George D. Fung, trans. Pristine Orthodox Dharma. San Francisco: Buddha’s Universal Church, 1977.

Buddhist Association of Colorado

8965 W Dartmouth Pl., Lakewood, CO 80227

The Buddhist Association of Colorado is a Chinese Pure Land organization (analogous to the Buddhist Churches of America, the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist organization) established in 1990 under the direction of the Rev. Pat Leong. The majority of members are of Chinese descent, but all are welcomed. The primary gathering is a Sunday service at which the chanting of Buddha’s name (Namo Amitabha) is a primary element.

Affiliated with the association is the Nan Hua Zen Buddhist Society of Las Vegas founded by two American teachers, Chaun Yuan Shakya and Chaun Chang Shakya, both of whom traveled to the People’s Republic of China to be ordained at the monastery originally founded by Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch (of Zen Buddhism).

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Morreale, Don. The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.

Buddhist Association of the United States

c/o Temple of Enlightenment, 3070 Albany Cres., New York, NY 10463

The largest of the Buddhist organizations centered in the Chinese community of the New York area is the Buddhist Association of the United States, formed in 1964. The association attempts to synthesize various Buddhist trends, the two most important of which are Ch’an, the Chinese form of Zen, and Pure Land Buddhism, which focuses on the worship of Amida Buddha.

The association’s Sunday schedule includes meditation, a lecture, and discussion. The association was led until recently by President Lok To and Vice President Chia Theng Shen (1913–2007). Shen, a popular author and lecturer, passed away on November 29, 2007.

The association’s Great Buddha Hall, located at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York, was dedicated in May 1997. Inside the hall is a 37-foot statue of the Buddha Vairocana—the largest Buddha statue in the Western hemisphere. Encircling the large statue are 10,000 small statues of the Buddha on a lotus terrace. Surrounding the pedestal of the Buddha statue are 12 bas-reliefs of Bodhisattvas. A mural covers the wall of the lotus terrace and depicts scenes from the “Pure Land”or “Western Paradise”of Amitabha Buddha. At the back of the terrace is another mural with paintings.

The Woo-Ju Memorial Library at the monastery contains more than 70,000 books, the bulk of which are Buddhist reference works, including sutras in Pali, Sanskrit, Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French, and German. Ancient documents from the Duan Hwang Cave, contained in the original microfiche, are stored in this library, along with Tibetan holy books

Also at the monastery is Kuan Yin Hall, which contains the largest colored porcelain statue of Kuan Yin Bodhisattva in the world. It is believed to date back to the Ming Dynasty, and is about 700 years old. The monastery also is home to a six-foot wooden statute of Kuan Yin that is more than 1,000 years old.

The association’s BAUS Prison Program provides free books and, when available, tapes about Buddhism to prisoners who request them and seeks to answer questions prisoners may have about Buddhism or Buddhist practice.

Membership

The association reports approximately 800 members.

Periodicals

BAUS Wisdom Journal. Available from www.bauswj.org.

Sources

Buddhist Association of the United States. www.baus.org/.

Associated Content. www.associatedcontent.com/article/410773/visit_the_chuang_yen_monastery_in_carmel.html?cat=16.

The Enlightenment Sutra with Annotations. Bronx, NY: Buddhist Association of the United States, 1955.

Hsu, T’an. On Amidism. Bronx, NY: Buddhist Association of the United States, 1973.

Shen, C. T. A Glimpse of Buddhism. Taipei, Taiwan: Torch of Wisdom, 1970.

———. What We Can Learn from Buddhism. Taipei, Taiwan: Torch of Wisdom, 1975.

Thera, Narada. An Outline of Buddhism. Bronx, NY: Buddhist Association of the United States, n.d.

Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association

USA National Headquarters, 1100 S Valley Center Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773

Alternate Address

International Headquarters: 21, Kang Leh Village, Shin Cheng Shiang, Hualien County, Taiwan.

The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association is the largest Buddhist organization in Taiwan. It was founded in 1966 by a female Dharma master, Cheng Yen (b. 1937), along with five disciples and some 30 followers. The organization has contributed greatly to the rise of a humanistic/this-worldly approach to Chinese Mahayana Buddhism in Taiwan (and Chinese overseas communities). This approach was developed in the decades prior to World War II by Tai Hsu (1890–1947) in mainland China, and then after the war by Yin Shun (b. 1906), his disciple, in Taiwan. Tai Hsu emphasized the importance of the laity (as opposed to priests and monks) and charitable activities (as opposed to religious services) in the propagation of the Dharma. For more than three decades, Tzu Chi has concentrated its activities in the four major missions of charity, medicine, education, and culture. Tzu Chi has built hospitals, colleges, and research centers, as well as developing educational, social, and cultural programs for its local communities. Cheng Yen became known for speaking in Minnanhua, the local Taiwanese language, rather than in Mandarin. She has also earned the admiration of the media, which has called her the “Mother Teresa of Taiwan.” Master Cheng Yen was awarded the Eisenhower Medallion for her contributions to world peace. In 1996, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her dedication to a renewed vision of compassion in action. In a July 2000 issue of Business Week, she was named one of 50 “Stars of Asia”—leaders at the forefront of change.

Cheng Yen’s teachings have been summarized in a series of aphorisms that emphasize the performance of good deeds. Cheng Yen, now in her seventies, has led her followers to create an expansive program dedicated to providing relief services and free health care to the poor and vocational education for nurses. A notable campaign to create a bone marrow registry helped make this program widely respected, and reflected Cheng Yen’s goal of “helping the poor and educating the rich.”

Tzu Chi is notable for its female leadership. In Chinese Buddhism, only nuns can initiate women; thus, the small monastic community in which Cheng Yen resides is exclusively female. The majority of the membership at every level is female.

Members of the organization began to arrive in the United States in the 1970s, and centers emerged in the 1980s. Originally composed of first-generation emigrants from Taiwan, the association now counts many people who are not ethnic Chinese as adherents. The community in Los Angeles gained some publicity for the assistance it provided to victims of the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh. Today, Tzu Chi centers in America support relief efforts worldwide.

Four American Tzu Chi offices are found in California; there also are offices in Illinois, Hawaii, New York, Texas, and Virginia. Canada has offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Markham, Ontario.

Membership

There is a core monastic community of 110 nuns. As of 2008, Tzu Chi is an international organization with more than 5 million supporters and more than 30,000 certified commissioners around the globe. As of August 2005, more than 57 countries in five continents have received Tzu Chi’s aid. With offices in more than 20 countries, the Tzu Chi Foundation is one of the largest charity organizations originating from Taiwan.

Educational Facilities

Tzu Chi College of Nursing, Hualien, Taiwan.

Tzu Chi College of Medicine, Taiwan.

Publications

The Tzu-Chi World. • The Tzu Chi Quarterly.

Sources

Tzu Chi Foundation. www.tzuchi.org/global/. (In English).

Tzu Chi Foundation. www.tzuchi.org.tw/. (In Chinese).

Tzu Chi Foundation, Northern California Chapter. www.northerncal.us.tzuchi.org/.

Ching, Yu-ing. Master of Love and Mercy: Cheng Yen. Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1995. 278 pp.

Jones, Charles Brewer. Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State, 1660–1990. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999.

Laliberte, Andre. The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan, 1989–1997. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, Ph.D. dissertation, 1999.

Chinese Buddhist Association of Hawaii-Hsu Yun Temple

42 Kawananakoa Pl., Honolulu, HI 96817

The Chinese Buddhist Association of Hawaii-Hsu Yun Temple, established in 1955 at the suggestion of the Hong Kong Chinese Buddhist Association, invited and received Abbot Sic Tse Ting (Abbot Sakya Jy-Din) the following year. The name of the temple was named in memory and honor of one of the greatest Buddhist monks in mainland China in the last century, Ven. Hsu Yun. There is a main temple for worship and two memorial halls for paying respect to ancestors. The temple has three 10-foot, gold-leaf statues of Buddha as the center of worship; the life of Buddha is depicted on its walls.

Membership

In 2002 there were about 1,500 members in one center, and about 500 are current members.

Chung Tai

c/o Buddha Gate Monastery, 3254 Gloria Terr., Lafayette, CA 94549

The Chung Tai Chan (Zen) Buddhist movement is the lengthened shadow of Ven. Wei Chueh, who began his career as a Buddhist teacher under Master Lin Yuan at the Shi Fan Da Jue (“Great Enlightenment”) Chan Monastery in Keelung, Taiwan. Several years after his ordination (1963), he entered into a retreat in the mountains near Taipei that lasted a decade. There, in the early 1980s, he was sought out by disciples who increasingly asked him to leave his retreat and become a public teacher. He did so in the mid-1980s and subsequently assembled the resources to construct the Lin Quan Chan Monastery (1987), located on the site of his lengthy retreat. As the original center became too small for his disciples, he led in the building of Chung Tai Chan Monastery in the town of Puli in central Taiwan (completed in 2001).

By that time Grand Master Wei Chueh had become a well-known leader in Taiwanese Buddhism. The monastery nurtured the development of meditation centers around Taiwan and then among the Taiwanese diaspora community abroad in the United States, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong. The movement became quite expansive and developed programs around its notion of the “Five Modern Approaches of Propagating Buddhism” through academic research, education, culture and the arts, science, and daily living. Disciples are expected to created a well-rounded Buddhist life based on the integration of three disciplines—the cultivation of merit (through good works), scriptural understanding through study, and regular meditation.

The first center in the United States emerged in the 1990s as the Buddha Gate Monastery, now located in the San Francisco Bay area. Subsequently several more centers were founded in California, and one each in Texas and Oklahoma. Programs are offered in both Chinese and English.

Membership

Not Reported. There are five centers in the United States.

Sources

Chung Tai. www.ctworld.org/english-96/html/index.htm.

Dharma Realm Buddhist Association

City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, 4951 Bodhi Way, Ukiah, CA 95482

The Dharma Realm Buddhist Association was founded as the Sino-American Buddhist Association in 1959 by disciples of Tripitaka Master Xuan Hua (1918–1995). In 1962, he moved from Hong Kong to San Francisco, California, and in 1968 established the Buddhist Lecture Hall as a center for the study and practice of Orthodox Buddhism in the West. Originally founded by Chinese Americans, the center quickly attracted a large Caucasian membership. The organization expanded rapidly. The Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco was opened in 1970; the Buddhist Text Translation Society (International Translation Institute) was founded in 1973; and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, an international study center for Western Buddhists, opened in 1976. In the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas there is a nearly 20-foot-high wooden statue of the thousand-handed, thousand-eyed Guanshiyin (Avalokiteshvara) bodhisattva carved by Layman Wang Taisheng, a master carver of wooden Buddhist statues from Hong Kong. The walls are lined with a grid of compartments, each containing a statue of a Buddha. There are a total of 10,000 Buddha statues of various sizes.

Among the many other temples, monasteries, and retreat centers established by Master Hua are the Gold Wheel Monastery in Los Angeles, California (1976); the Gold Summit Monastery in Seattle, Washington (1984); the Gold Buddha Monastery in Vancouver, British Columbia (1984); Long Beach Monastery in Long Beach, California; Avatamsaka Monastery in Calgary, Alberta; the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and Institute of World Religions in Burlingame, California; the administrative headquarters and International Translation Institute also in Burlingame, California; the City of the Dharma Realm in West Sacramento, California; and the Blessings, Prosperity, and Longevity Monastery in Long Beach, California.

Master Xuan Hua had been a longtime student of Master Xu Yun (1840–1959) in China. He moved to Hong Kong after the Maoist revolution in 1949. In accepting the invitation to come to the West, he did so with the intention of establishing Buddhism in its entirety (Chan meditation, Pure Land, esoteric, Vinaya [moral discipline], and doctrinal studies). Among the young converts to Buddhism attracted to the lecture hall, he accepted some into monastic vows. In 1969, five disciples went to Taiwan to receive final ordination as bhikshus (monks) and bhikshunis (nuns), and by 1972 there were 10 fully ordained monks and several novices preparing for ordination. The first full ordination of disciples in the United States occurred in 1976 at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Since that time, the association has held such ordinations every three or four years.

The Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, though based in the Chan (Zen) school of Chinese Buddhism, teaches all five main varieties of Chinese Buddhism. New members accept Chinese Buddhist names. Lay members add “Kuo”as part of their name; those destined for the priesthood who received their novice vows from Master Xuan Hua have “Heng”added to their name; and the fully ordained monks receive the surname Shih, the first character of the Chinese word, Sakyamuni (Gautama Buddha). Each new member takes the Three Refuges (a ceremony similar to Christian confirmation, by which the new member promises to take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma or teachings of Buddha, and the sangha).

The association has emphasized the development of a Buddhist monastic community, an element of Buddhist life frequently missing in Western Buddhist organizations. More than 50 persons have entered the orders. Members of monastic communities lead a very disciplined life of practice and study. They are sexually celibate, are strict vegetarians, and do not eat after noon. The program emphasizes Sutra study (including language studies and translation, lectures, and chanting) and meditation.

The Dharma Realm Buddhist University was the first Buddhist university to be established in the Western world. It offers degreed courses in Buddhist studies, letters and science, and the creative and applied arts. It is located in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California. Through the sangha (or clergy) training and laity training programs, the Buddhist equivalent of seminary education is offered for Buddhist leaders. Since its founding in 1973, the International Buddhist Text Translation Society has become a major publisher of Buddhist literature. Managed by both sangha and lay scholars under the guidance of Xuan Hua, it had by 1980 published translations of more than 100 volumes of Chinese Buddhist writings in various Western languages.

Membership

In 1992 the association reported 25,000 members in five centers served by 50 ministers in the United States and 5,000 members, two centers, and five ministers in Canada.

Educational Facilities

Dharma Realm Buddhist University, Talmage, California.

Periodicals

Vajra Bodhi Sea. Available from the Gold Mountain Monastery, 800 Sacramento St., San Francisco, CA 94108. • The Proper Dharma Seal. Available from City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, PO Box 217, Talmage, CA 95481.

Sources

Dharma Realm Buddhist Association: History. www.advite.com/sf/drba/drba2.html

Biographical Sketch of the Elder Master Venerable Xuan, Noble Hua. Talmage, CA: Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, 1996.

City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. www.cttbusa.org/

Hua, Xuan. Buddha Root Farm: Pure Land Talks. Burlingame, CA: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 1976.

———. Out of the Earth Emerges: Wonderful Enlightenment Mountain. Celebrating 40 Years of Dharma in the West—as Transcribed by the Venerable Xuan Hua and the 25th Anniversary of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Burlingame, CA: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 2001.

———. The Ten Dharma Realms Are Not Beyond a Single Thought. San Francisco, CA: Sino-American Buddhist Association, 1976.

World Peace Gathering. San Francisco: Sino-American Buddhist Association, 1975. Yin, Heng. Records of the Life of the Venerable Master Xuan Hua. 2 vols. San Francisco, CA: Committee for the Publication of the Biography of the Venerable Master Xuan Hua, 1973–1975.

Eastern States Buddhist Association of America

64 Mott St., New York, NY 10013

The Eastern States Buddhist Association of America was founded in 1963 as the first New York–area Chinese temple with a priest in attendance. Largely through the help of Mrs. James Ying, the program has grown and developed. In 1971 Dharma Master Bhikshu Hsi Ch’en, who had escaped China when the Communists took over, was brought to the United States to head the Temple Mahayana, an Association retreat center in the Catskill Mountains in New York.

The Eastern States Buddhist Association follows the T’ien-t’ai school founded by Chih-i (558–597), a monk at Mount T’ien-t’ai in China. The members emphasize the Lotus Sutra as inclusive of all of Buddha’s teachings. Meditation, the study of the Sutras, repeating the name of Amitabha Buddha, and living a disciplined life are emphasized.

Membership

Not reported.

Falun Gong (Falun Dafa)

Falun Dafa Information Center, 331 W 57th St., Ste. 409, New York, NY 10019

Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa, the “Great Way of the Law Wheel”) is one of a number of new spiritual disciplines that rose to prominence in China following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. It was founded in 1992 in Changchun, in northeastern China, as a qigong practice group. Qigong is a popular indigenous health practice that uses movement and meditation to harness subtle energies such as qi, an energy believed to underlay the cosmos and which is basic to the practice of Chinese medicine. Founder Li Hongzhi (b. 1952) is regarded as a master of qigong and the sole instructor of Falun Gong. Prior to the founding of Falun Gong he served in the army and worked for a grain corporation. He is said to have studied with several Daoist and Buddhist masters over the course of four decades.

Through the rest of the 1990s, the practice spread across China and to Chinese diaspora communities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. Falun Gong first caught the attention of the West when on April 25, 1999, some 10,000 adherents appeared in front of government offices in Beijing, where they peacefully, but boldly, petitioned the government over alleged mistreatment and a general ban on the group’s publications. Subsequently Falun Gong became subject to ongoing suppression by the Communist Chinese state.

The group’s name denotes a spiritual/meditation practice (gong) that implements a metaphysical wheel (falun) familiar to Buddhist doctrine. Falun Gong teaches members to lead a life of moral rectitude in which the abandonment of selfishness and problematic “attachments”figure centrally. It includes two components, described as “practice”and “self-cultivation.”Practice consists of five qigong and meditation exercises, usually done each morning. Self-cultivation aims at removing negative tendencies of thought and behavior in pursuit of a higher state of purity and rectitude. Good health and inner calm are commonly cited benefits.

Adherents seek to align their life and being with what are understood to be the most basic qualities of the universe, that is, zhen shan ren—truth, compassion, forbearance. These properties inhere in all life and matter but are imperceptible to the average person, who cannot know other planes of existence. Selfish desires, attachments, and various notions formed in a person over the course of life distance him or her from zhen shan ren and hasten the accrual of karma, which further insulates a person from these higher qualities, creating a vicious cycle of spiraling alienation. Suffering and ordeals are given positive valuation in the practice insofar as they can diminish one’s karma. The ultimate promise of the practice is a state of higher awakening, or enlightenment.

Falun Gong’s teachings are found in Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun (Turning of the Law Wheel), as with additional books that collect talks given by the founder, Li. A collection of poetry authored by the founder, Hong Yin (The Grand Verses), is also available. All of Falun Gong’s texts can be found online at the group’s main Web site.

Falun Gong’s community and organization in China have been drastically altered by official persecution. Outside of China it continues to be organized around practice groups, with a set of more formal national organizations that provide coordination and a flow of information. Li Hongzhi, who has resided in the United States since 1996, remains the recognized leader. Adherents gather annually for “experience sharing” conferences at which individuals reflect upon their progress in the practice and efforts to counteract state suppression in China. In Taiwan, a democracy, the practice is legal and enjoys widespread appeal.

Membership

It is not known how large the group is internationally, owing to its loose organization. According to an April 27, 1999, New York Times report, official Chinese sources once put the number practicing at 70 million. That number is thought to have since diminished after close to a decade of suppression and rights abuses. Falun Gong groups may now be found throughout the Chinese diaspora worldwide (especially in Southeast Asia) and are reaching out to the indigenous populations of those countries. Numbers of adherents outside China are hard to establish, though some 400,000 practitioners reportedly live in Taiwan. There are groups in most cities across the United States and Canada, and volunteer contacts can be found in some 80 countries.

Remarks

Falun Gong was officially banned in China on July 22, 1999. Subsequently many members have been arrested and tortured in police custody, with human rights groups documenting over 3,000 wrongful deaths. It has also been the subject of a government media campaign that has presented the group in a most negative light. In response, Falun Gong members have labored to document rights abuses perpetrated in China and raise public and government awareness. In this effort they have developed an extensive Internet presence. The campaign to “eradicate”Falun Gong continues in China in spite of international criticism and following a change in China’s leadership in 2002.

On the Internet are numerous sites on Falun Gong in a variety of languages, though with varying degrees of reliability. Especially good starting points are some of the official sites such as the Falun Dafa Information Center and the Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) sites. For a learned appraisal and periodically updated bibliography, see the site maintained by the Sinological Institute at the University of Leiden. An additional source is historian David Ownby’s scholarly 2008 account.

Sources

Falun Dafa Information Center. www.faluninfo.net.

Falun Dafa (Falun Gong). www.falundafa.org.

Li Hongzhi. Falun Buddha Law (Lectures in the United States). Hong Kong: Falun Fo Fa Publishing, 1999.

Ownby, David. Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Sinological Institute, University of Leiden. “Falun Gong.” website.leidenuniv.nl/~haarbjter/falun.htm.

Wong, John, and William Ti Liu. The Mystery of China’s Falun Gong: Its Rise and Sociological Implications. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing/Singapore University Press, 1999.

Hawaii Chinese Buddhist Society

1614 Nuuanu Ave., Honolulu, HI 96817

In 1953, a number of Chinese-American residents in Hawaii decided to take advantage of the movement of many Buddhist monks into Hong Kong after the Maoist revolution by establishing work under their leadership. The initial Hawaiian group divided between those who wished to choose the monks from among their acquaintances and those who wished the Hong Kong Chinese Buddhist Association to select the most qualified.

The Hawaii Chinese Buddhist Society chose to make its own selection and brought the Rev. Chuen Wai from Hong Kong to head the temple in Honolulu. He was joined in 1957 by Dharma Master Tsu Yin. These two men emphasize the Buddhist nature of the Society, as opposed to the strong Taoist influence found in some Chinese temples. All the statues are of traditional Buddhist bodhisattvas: Omito (Amida); Kwan Yin; Wei Ton (sometimes called General Wei Ton), who was asked by Buddha to protect Buddhist teachings; and Tay Chong Wong, the god of wisdom.

Membership

In 1982 there were 1,000 members in one center in Honolulu.

Hsu Yun Temple

42 Kawananakoa Pl., Nu’uanu, Honolulu, HI 96817

Hsu Yun Temple, a Chan Buddhist temple serving the Chinese-American community in Honolulu, Hawaii, was founded in 1956 by Jy Din Shakya (1917–2003). Shakya was born in China. At age thirty he encountered the aging Zen master Hsu Yun (1839–1959), the most outstanding Chan master of the twentieth century, credited with reviving what had been a declining tradition. Shakya studied with Hsu Yun at the Nan Hua Monastery in Guangdong Province, the home of Hui Neng (638–713), the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism.

Shakya was ordained in 1937. He later was asked to bring Chan Buddhism to Hawaii and began that mission in 1949 with a move to Hong Kong. From there it took another seven years to get to Honolulu. A year later, he was able to build the temple located on Kawananakoa Place. He retired in 1987 and passed the leadership to Fat Wei Shakya, who also heads the sister temple in San Francisco.

Hsu Yun Temple and its sister temple in San Francisco serve primarily Chinese-speaking residents of its community. In 1997 Jy Din Shakya authorized the development of an English-based Internet outreach, the Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun, and in 1998 he elevated his disciple and dharma heir, Chuan Zhi Shakya, to become the order’s Abbot. While developing an expansive Internet presence, the Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun has become the basis of a new Zen community that continues to value its spiritual ties to Jy Din Shakya and Fat Wei Shakya.

Membership

Unreported.

Sources

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun (Chan). www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Home/home-index.html.

Shakya, Jy Din. Empty Cloud: The Teachings of Xu Yun and a Remembrance of the Great Chinese Zen Master. Hong Kong: H.K. Buddhist Book Distributor, 1996.

Wright, Walter. “Jy Din Sakya, Hsu Yun Temple Abbot, Dead at 85.”Honolulu Advertiser (March 21, 2003). Available from the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Mar/21/ln/ln46a.html.

Il Bung Zen Society

c/o Zen Center of Huntsville, 1412 Randolph St., Huntsville, AL 35801

The Il Bung Zen Society was founded by Zen Master Don Gilbert (1909–2006), also known as Ta Hui. In 1968, he was initiated into the Chogye Order of Korean Zen Buddhism by Seo Kyung-bo (1914–1996), one of the first Korean Zen teachers who settled in the United States. In 1973, Gilbert was named Kyung-bo’s dharma heir. Gilbert held services in three widely separated temples in Arcata and Carmel, California, and Huntsville, Alabama. He authored two cartoon books on Zen whose featured characters are a bloodhound and a canine Zen master.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Gilbert, Don. Jellyfish Bones: The Humor of Zen. Oakland, CA: Blue Dragon Press, 1980.

———. The Upside Down Circle: Zen Laughter. Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin, 1988.

International Buddhist Progress Society

PO Box 5248, Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

Alternate Address

3456 S Glenmark Dr., Hacienda Heights, CA 91745; International Headquarters: Foguangshan, Tashu, Gaoxiong 84010, Taiwan.

The International Buddhist Progress Society is an organization adhering to Chinese Buddhism in America. It was originally founded in 1967 in Taiwan by the Ven. Xingyun (b. 1926), the 48th patriarch of the Japanese Rinzai line of chan. When he was 12 years old he became a monk and received a monastic education. He was ordained in 1941. In 1949, in the wake of the Communist emergence as the ruling force in the country, Xingyun left for Taiwan. It was there in 1967 that he established Foguangshan, a forest monastery, said to be the largest in China.

During his life, Xingyun developed a great incentive to propagate “humanistic Buddhism,”and the society became the launching pad for his evangelistic endeavors to create a pure land here on earth. Entering America in the early 1980s, the society began building Xilai Temple, a monastic complex in Hacienda Heights, California, the largest such complex in the West. Xilai Temple was built to serve as a spiritual and cultural center for those interested in learning more about Buddhism and the Chinese culture. The temple’s objectives are to nurture Buddhist missionaries through education, to propagate Buddhism through cultural activities, to benefit society through charitable programs, and to edify the populace through Buddhist practices. Completed in 1988, it became the sight of the first meeting of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in North America.

This Buddhism is built around the teachings of the Venerable Xingyun, which emphasize the role of the monastic leadership in the Buddhist community and the presence of bodhisattvas (those who have attained enlightenment and have chosen to assist in the enlightenment of others) to assist Buddhists in their progress. The Hacienda Heights temple houses a large Buddhist cultural museum and sees itself as a focus for all of North American Buddhism.

Membership

In 2002 the society reported approximately 30,000 members in the United States and 10,000 members in Canada. By 2008, the society had established more than 100 temples worldwide. More than 1,300 monks and nuns serve in the Foguangshan Buddhist order. There are temples in Hacienda Heights, San Diego, and San Francisco, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; Leawood, Kansas; Edmond, Oklahoma; Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Arlington, Austin, and Houston, Texas; Godeffroy and Flushing, New York; Miami and Orlando, Florida; Honolulu, Hawaii; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Edison, New Jersey; and Guam. Canadian temples are found in Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto. Internationally there are four in Germany, three in Australia, two in Brazil, two in Britain, and one in Paraguay, Argentina, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, and Africa.

Educational Facilities

Chinese Buddhist Research Institute; Eastern Buddhist College; Daipei Women’s Buddhist College; Fu Shan Buddhist College; Gaoxiong, Taiwan; Hsi Lai University, Rosemead, California; Construction of a new Buddhist college in India has begun as of 2008; and the foundation-laying ceremony of Nantian University in Australia also took place.

Periodicals

Merit Times Newspaper. • Buddha’s Light Newsletter.

Sources

IBPS. www.ibps.org/

The Buddhist Liturgy. Monterey Park, CA: International Buddhist Progress Society, n.d.

Chandler, Stuart. Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

Fujiying. Handing Down the Light: The Biography of Venerable Master Xingyun, trans Amy Lui-Ma. Hacienda Heights, CA: Buddha’s Light, 2004. 500 pp.

Xilai Temple. www.hsilai.org/

Xingyun. How to Be a Foguang Buddhist. Gaoxiong, Taiwan: International Buddhist Progress Society, 1987.

———. Two Talks on Buddhism. Gaoxiong, Taiwan: International Buddhist Progress Society, 1987.

Institute of Buddhist Studies/Chan Meditation Center

90-56 Corona Ave., Elmhurst, NY 11373

The Institute of Buddhist Studies/Chan Meditation Center was founded by Chan Master Sheng-yan (b. 1931), who came to the United States from Taiwan in 1975. Chan is the Chinese word for Zen. Master Sheng-yan was born in China and became a Buddhist monk at age 13. During his years of practice he became deeply committed to the propagation of Buddhism. In the late 1940s, as communism was spreading through China, he fled to Taiwan. He continued his practice in Taiwan and spent six years in solitary retreat on a mountain. After the retreat, Sheng-yan saw the need to improve the quality of Buddhist education and felt that in this way the spread of Buddhism would be assured. He therefore went to Japan and received a doctorate in Buddhist studies from Rissho University. He received dharma transmission (affirmation of his enlightenment and the special qualification to guide others in Buddhist teaching) from both the Rinzai and Soto Chan Buddhist lineage.

After moving to the United States, Sheng-yan settled in the Bronx, New York, where he became affiliated with the Buddhist Association of the United States, a predominantly Chinese Buddhist organization. He organized a Chan meditation class and began to hold meditation retreats that attracted many non-Chinese students. The Chan Meditation Center, in Queens, New York, is also a small monastery where fully ordained monks and nuns live and practice traditional precepts, including spiritual harmony, celibacy, and purity of mind. Sheng-yan also founded the Dharma Drum Retreat Center, whose current resident abbot is the Ven. Guorun Fashi, dharma heir of Sheng-yan.

In 1977 he started the Chan Magazine, and two years later formally founded the Institute of Buddhist Studies/Chan Meditation Center. He has been active in spreading Buddhism in the United States ever since. He now divides his time between the Chan centers in New York and Taipei, Taiwan.

Chan center affiliates are located in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. International affiliates are located in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Toronto, Vancouver, Croatia, Luxembourg, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Mexico.

Membership

In 2006, Sheng-yan had 3,000 students in the United States and more than 300,000 students in Taiwan.

Educational Facilities

The Zhong Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei, Taiwan.

Periodicals

Chan Magazine.

Sources

Dharma Drum Mountain. www.chan1.org/

Hu, Muin. Sharing Dharma Drum Mountain: A White Paper on Happiness. Taipei, Taiwan: Dharma Drum, 2005.

Sheng-yen. Dharma Drum: The life and Heart of Chan Practice. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum, 1996.

———. Faith in Mind: A Guide to Chan Practice. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum, 1987.

———. Getting the Buddha Mind: On the Practice of Chan Retreat. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum, 1982.

———. Ox Herding at Morgan’s Bay. Elmhurst, NY: Institute of Zhong Hwa Buddhist Culture, 1988.

Tilling the Soil, Planting Good Seed: The 20th Anniversary of Zhong Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies. Jinshan, Taipei County, Taiwan: Zhong Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2001.

Kuan Yin Temple

170 N Vineyard Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96817

The oldest Chinese temple in America is the Kuan Yin Temple begun by Leong Dick Ying, a monk who in 1878 brought to Hawaii two gold-leaf statues—the Taoist Kwan Tai and the Buddhist Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy. A temple was built in Chinatown in Honolulu and, after several moves, in 1921 found a permanent home on Vineland Boulevard in Honolulu. Along with the statue of Kuan Yin, there are many statues of Buddha, bodhisattvas, and other deities.

The festival year that regulates the life of the various temples is followed at the Kuan Yin Temple. The Chinese New Year is the biggest festival, but throughout the year there are may festivals honoring the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and deities, including the Chinese Moon Festival (August 15) and the winter solstice.

Membership

In 1982 the temple reported 850 members.

Shaolin Buddhist Meditation Center

3165 Minnesota St., Los Angeles, CA 90031

The Shaolin Buddhist Meditation Center is part of a complex of structures founded in the late 1980s by Jefferson Chan, a teacher in the Chinese Shaolin tradition (the tradition made famous by the television series Kung Fu). The center of the complex is the California Buddhist University, opened in 1988, which offers a full curriculum (at the doctoral level) in Buddhist studies. The university sponsors the Kewanee Mountain Zen Center, the Bodhi bookstore, and a Zen garden.

Membership

Not reported.

Educational Facilities

California Buddhist University, Los Angeles, California.

Periodicals

The Shaolin Monastery.

Sources

Morreale, Don. The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.

Shaolin Temple

Overseas Headquarters, 132–11 41st Ave., Flushing, NY 11355

The Shaolin Temple, located in the Song Mountains of China, has attained legendary status as the originating point of kung fu, a practice intimately connected with the Chan Buddhism of its founder, the historically illusive character Bodhidharma (c. 470–c. 534). One of the many stories about Bodhidharma concerns his journey into the Song Mountains to the Shaolin Temple. Observing the poor physical condition of the monks there, he helped them by creating a program of physical techniques that strengthened their bodies, allowing them to endure both the rigors of their isolated existence and the concentrated Chan meditation program he had established. Those original techniques evolved into modern kung fu (gongfu), the first martial art.

The Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of martial arts and of Chan Buddhism. It has endured through the centuries, enduring the wrath of hostile governments. It was destroyed on several occasions, only to be rebuilt and continue. Having survived China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, its future is bright under its present abbot, Ven. Shi Yongxin.

In 1995 an outpost of the Shaolin Temple was started in Flushing, Long Island, New York, where many first-generation Chinese Americans reside. The Flushing temple, designated the foreign headquarters of the Shaolin Temple in China, offers a program of instruction in Chan Buddhism and in kung fu. It has spawned additional centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Venerable Shi Goulin, a thirty-fourth–generation Shaolin monk, is the leader the Temple’s Overseas Mission.

Membership

Not reported. There are three centers of the Shaolin Temple in the United States.

Sources

Shaolin Temple. www.shaolin-overseas.org/home.html.

Demasco, Steve. An American’s Journey to the Shaolin Temple. Valencia, CA: Black Belt Communications, 2001.

Guariglia, Justin, Shi Yong Xin, and Matthew Polly. Shaolin: Temple of Zen. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2007.

James, Andy. The Spiritual Legacy of Shaolin Temple: Buddhism, Daoism, and the Energetic Arts. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005.

True Buddha School

c/o Ling Shen Ching Tze Temple, 17012 NE 40th Ct., Redmond, WA 98052

The True Buddha School, a Vajrayana Buddhist movement operating in the Chinese-speaking community of the United States and Canada, was founded by Grand Master Sheng-Yen Lu, born in Taiwan in 1945. Following an awakening experience in 1969, Lu became a student of Buddhism and had frequent conversation with a spectrum of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that make up the Vajrayana Buddhist pantheon. In several steps, he reached a stage of enlightenment that has led his students to consider him a Living Buddha (Enlightened One).

Lu had already built a following in Southeast Asia when in 1981 he moved to the United States and built a large temple in suburban Seattle. In 1984 he reorganized his following as the True Buddha School. Through the rest of the century, he traveled widely and founded numerous centers, designated chapters, and temples.

Lu has assumed the role of a Tibetan lama and offers initiation and empowerments to those who wish to take refuge with him, either in his personal presence or through “remote initiation empowerment”offered twice monthly. He teaches a path to enlightenment very much like that offered in the Gelugpa Tibetan tradition. Lu’s primary lineage comes through a Mongolian Gelugpa tradition, though he also claims lineages through all four of the major Tibetan schools, as well as the Japanese Shingon tradition. Beginning in the middle of the first decade of the new century, Lu led a number of large gatherings at which he performed the Tibetan Kalachakre ceremony.

After receiving initial personal empowerment, the True Buddha School student receives a picture of the master and instruction in beginning practice. The master advises students to set up a personal shrine as a place for daily practice and offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Daily practice consists of meditation, chanting, the repetition of mantras, and visualization of one’s personal deity. Many practitioners also attend weekly group meditations at the local chapter or temple.

Membership

As of 2008, some five million people are alleged to have sought instruction from Lu, overwhelmingly by writing him for a distant empowerment. There were some 300 temples and chapters worldwide, the majority in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan. There were seven temples, nine chapters, and eight meditation centers in the United States, and an additional five temples, four chapters, and four meditation centers in Canada. The majority of the several thousand core members in the United States are Chinese Americans.

Periodicals

Enlightenment. • True Buddha News.

Sources

True Buddha School. www.tbsn.org/.

Casey, Noah. “The True Buddha School: A Field Research Report on the Chan Hai Lei Zang Temple.”Montreal Religious Sites Project. www.mrsp.mcgill.ca/reports/html/ChanHai/.

Lu Sheng-Yen. A Complete and Detailed Exposition on the True Buddha Tantric Dharma. Union City, CA: Purple Lotus Society of USA, 1996.

———. The Inner World of the Lake. San Bruno, CA: Amitabha Enterprise, 1992.

———. An Overview of the Buddhadharma. Union City, CA: Purple Lotus Society of USA, 1996.

Tam Wai-lun. “Integration of the Magical and Cultivational Discourses: A Study of the New Religious Movement Called the True Buddha School.” Monumenta Serica 49 (2001): 141–169.

U.S.A. Shaolin Temple

446 Broadway, 2nd Fl., New York, NY 10013

The U.S.A. Shaolin Temple is one of several structures in the United States that perpetuate the traditions of the Shaolin Temple founded 1,500 years ago in the Song Mountains of central China. The U.S.A. Temple originated from the defection in 1992 of Shifu Shi Yan Ming, a thirty-fourth–generation Shaolin Temple fighting monk, one of the monks taking part in an American tour sponsored by the Chinese government. Unable to speak English, he made his way to San Francisco’s Chinese American community. A short time later, he moved to New York City. Once his political status was secured there, he founded the U.S.A. Shaolin Temple as a center to teach authentic Shaolin martial arts and Chan Buddhism, the two being somewhat indistinguishable in the temple program.

At the temple, Shifu teaches Chan Buddhism, thought to be the core of the Shaolin martial arts and understood as action meditation, and kung fu (gong fu), tai chi (tai ji), and chi kung (qi gong).

Membership

Not reported. There are three branch temples in the United States and five satellite branches internationally in Austria, South Africa, Trinidad, Chile, and Mexico.

Sources

USA Shaolin Temple. www.usashaolintemple.com/.

Saunders, Nicole. “Inside the Shaolin Temople.” Fierce 1, 3 (2003–2004): 41–43.

Shi Yan Ming. The Shaolin Workout: Twenty-Eight Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior’s Way. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books, 2006.

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun (ZBOHY)

42 Kawananakoa Pl., Nu’uanu, Honolulu, HI 96817

In 1997 Grandmaster Jy Din Shakya (1971–2003), the founding abbot of Hsu Yun Temple in Honolulu, Hawaii, established the Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun (ZBOHY), a web-based effort to broaden the outreach of his work, which had been confined largely to Chinese Americans. The next year he named his dharema heir, Chuan Zhi Shakya (b.1960), a European American, as the abbot for the new Internet ministry.

In 1998 Jy Din Shakya took Chuan Zhi Shakya to China, where he participated in a month-long full ordination ceremony at Hong Fa Temple. Before founding ZBOHY, he had created a Zen site on the Internet that became the seed from which the present ZBOHY site developed. Following Jyn Din Shakya’s death in 2003, his successor Master Fat Wai Shakya assumed spiritual leadership of ZBOHY.

At its founding, ZBOHY’s mandate was to make Zen accessible through the web with a westernized approach to the Chan (Zen) tradition, and to make themselves available to teach interested persons. They also received guidelines to refrain from participating in conflicts within the larger Chan/Zen community and to stay clear of political issues and discussions.

ZBOHY was able to draw a number of Western practitioners to its cause, both from a few who had studied like Chuan Zhi, earlier studied with Jy Din Shakya, and many more who studied with and were ordained through ZBOHY. They also brought to the Order skills in a variety of Western languages from French and Spanish to Polish. While the majority work primarily on the multiple Internet sites, some offer workshops on a periodic basis, and some have become leaders of a growing number of local Zen communities.

ZBOHY sees as its mission the presentation of classical but contemporary Chan teachings, methods, and principles in the tradition of Hsu Yun but in the Western idiom. The teachings are offered as a guide to individuals as they pursue their path. No attempt is made to push believers into a rigid conformity.

Membership

Not reported. In 2008, ZBOHY reported 22 ordained priests and 9 affiliated centers, 5 in the United States and 1 each in Venezuela, Sweden, Cuba, and Sweden.

Sources

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun (Chan). www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Home/home-index.html.

Shakya, Jy Din. Empty Cloud: The Teachings of Xu Yun and a Remembrance of the Great Chinese Zen Master. Hong Kong: H.K. Buddhist Book Distributor, 1996.

Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions