Venerable Master Cheng-Yen (b. 1937)

Venerable Master Cheng-yen is the founder of the Tzu Chi Foundation, one of the largest Buddhist philanthropic organizations in the world. She was born in 1937 into a middle-class family in the central city of Taizhong, Taiwan. At the age of 16 years, she took an oath to the Compassionate Bodhisattva Guanyin, whereby she vowed to become a lay Buddhist for 12 years if her mother recovered from a serious illness. Her mother did recover, which inspired her desire to become a Buddhist nun and dedicate her life to the Buddhist dharma. Her father died from brain hemorrhage caused by a stroke when she was 24 years. Chengyen's compassion and empathy resulted in her feeling some sense of responsibility for his death. As a result, and against her mother's wishes, she left home to become a Buddhist nun. However, she could not secure a Buddhist teacher to accept her vows without her family's permission, and she reluctantly returned to her mother's home. After a few years, she left her home again, but this time, she headed for the quiet rural county of Hualian, on Taiwan's poor east coast. After wandering around various temples for several years, she finally took her vows in 1963, under a well-known secularizing and reformist monk named Yinshun (b. 1906). This inspired the fastest growing humanistic Buddhist movement in cultural China.

Cheng-yen established Tzu Chi in 1966 to perform a mission of helping the poor and educating the rich. She, along with five disciples and about 30 others, mostly homemakers, vowed to set aside half a New Taiwan dollar each day for a fund to aid poor families (equal to US1.3 cents). During their first year, they distributed about 435 U.S. dollars; today, Tzu Chi Foundation claims to have dispersed more than 100 million dollars. Chengyen's Tzu Chi Foundation is one of the first Buddhist organizations in the history of Buddhism in any Chinese society to carry out large-scale [Page 1349]humanitarian missions around the globe. In recognition of these accomplishments, Cheng-yen was awarded the Philippine Magsaysay Award in 1991 and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Cheng-yen emphasizes the importance of the laity and charitable activities in the propagation of the Buddhist dharma. Although the members of Tzu Chi follow the precepts of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, there is a distinctly Taiwanese dimension to the teachings of Cheng-yen, which are often transmitted in Minnanhua, the local language, intermixed with Mandarin. Cheng-yen's theology does not rely on original scriptures and can be summed up as a series of aphorisms that emphasize the performance of good deeds.

One distinguishing feature of Tzu Chi is the seemingly matriarchal nature of the organization. Because of a Buddhist practice that allows nuns to initiate only women, Cheng-yen's following within the small monastic community she leads is exclusively female and ethnic Chinese. Indeed, the prevalence of women in Tzu Chi is not limited to the monastic community but extends to the whole of the lay organization, whereby 80% of the members are women. Despite this reliance on lay women, the functioning of Tzu Chi rests entirely on the authority of Cheng-yen. Her awe-inspiring authority is sustained by devotion to her within the organization and admiration from members of the Taiwanese media, who dub her the “Mother Teresa of Taiwan.” Despite this reverence, however, the lifestyle of Cheng-yen is modest. The prestige of Cheng-yen and the success of her organization dramatically illustrate the ascendancy of engaged humanistic Buddhism, first in Taiwan and then around the globe.

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