The Founder of Dharma Drum Mountain

Venerable Master Sheng Yen has called himself "an itinerant monk pressing ahead through the wind and snow," yet in Taiwan he was named as one of the fifty most influential people of the past four hundred years. He is a Dharma heir in both lineages of Chan/Zen, and a renowned meditation master. He is the first Chinese cleric to receive a doctorate in Buddhist literature, and is now one of the most eminent Buddhist educators in Taiwan. He is also a great advocate and exponent of humanitarianism and environmentalism.

Master Sheng Yen became a monk at age 13. After escaping Mainland in 1949 by joining the army, he continued his rigorous study of Buddhism. After re-ordination, he entered into an intensive six-year solitary retreat, and later went to Japan to pursue a doctorate in religious studies in order to promote Buddhist education for Chinese Buddhist monastics. In 1978, he began to spread the Dharma in the United States and Taiwan.

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