Taiwan's Buddhist Nuns

Chapter 2: An Audience with Master Zhengyan

Chapter 2 An Audience with Master Zhengyan1 Shi Zhengyan has been compared with Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer, and her followers consider her to be the Bodhisattva Guanyin incarnate, a loving, patient, and kind mother, and a benevolent and wise teacher (Figure 2.1). Since 1966, Shi Zhengyan has led the Ciji Compassion-Relief Foundation (Fojiao ciji gongde hui), Ciji for short, an international NGO with a board of lay trustees claimed by some sources to be the largest civil organization in Taiwan.2 Worldwide membership numbers over five million members, with branches all over Taiwan and in over twenty countries.3 Ciji is primarily a lay organization whose missions include charity and disaster relief, medical care and research (including hospitals and the first bone marrow bank in Taiwan), an education system (from kindergarten to graduate school and a medical school), culture (TV stations, videos, magazines, books, cafés), and environmental protection.4 How did Zhengyan, “an unknown girl, a weak woman, a common nun,” as phrased in the Ciji promotional literature, gain such a fervent lay following and come to build this stupendous philanthropic and medical organization? Of all the major Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, Ciji is unique in that its Master is both native Taiwanese and a nun. The story of Zhengyan and Ciji is an indispensable part of the answer to the question, “how have women shaped Taiwan’s Buddhism?”5 In order to gain firsthand information, I made several visits to the Ciji headquarters in Hualian and also participated in a three-day camp for the Ciji Teachers’ Association held there. The Teachers’ Association is one of the various subgroups within Ciji, including the youth group and the entrepreneurs ’ group, that hold periodic camps and “retreats” at the Ciji headquarters. The Ciji’s Teachers’ Association was founded in 1992 and has developed its own pedagogy, with a series of textbooks, a TV program, a journal, camps, and workshops. The purpose of the Ciji Teachers’ Association Still Thoughts camp was to enable teachers from colleges and universities to learn more about Ciji and 29 30 Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns Zhengyan’s core text, Still Thoughts (Jingsi yu) and incorporate it into their teaching “in order to cultivate young people and thus build a healthier, more peaceful and stable society.” Zhengyan derived the title Still Thoughts from a passage in the Wuliangyi jing (Sūtra on Immeasurable Meanings), a favorite sūtra of Zhengyan’s on the Bodhisattva path of practicing compassion and the cultivation of bodhicitta in ourselves and for the benefit of all sentient beings. She explains this passage as follows: ‘Still Thoughts,’ as the term suggests, is to maintain a peaceful mind in any situation and to walk into the mundane world with a tranquil mind. Born into this world, we cannot detach ourselves from all the worldly affairs. However, affairs do not go as expected in this world. Therefore, we should deal with the constantly changing world by sticking to our principles while keeping a tranquil mind.6 Still Thoughts’ popularity lies in how it presents central Buddhist and Confucian teachings in simple language. Ciji has promoted Buddhist teachings Figure 2.1. Master Zhengyan (Ciji Foundation) 31 An Audience with Master Zhengyan skillfully blended with familiar Confucian values like filial piety, social harmony , fulfillment of one’s social roles, respect for authority, and the belief that individual moral rectification leads to rectification of the family, society, and nation.7 Still Thoughts also offers practical and pithy advice on how to face and overcome challenges in love and friendship, marriage and the family, the workplace, and various problems of modern life. Though other Buddhist masters in Taiwan like Hiuwan and Xingyun have also promoted a Buddhist and Confucian “ethical-religious synthesis” for laypeople, Still Thoughts has become a best-selling book in the commercial market, and the “Still Thoughts Pedagogy” materials have been used in the public schools since 1992.8 Notes from “Still Thoughts Camp,” April 1–3, 2000 The registration fee for the camp was NT $2500 (about US $80) and included lodging and meals. Ciji provided us with the unisex uniform for members of the Ciji Teachers’ Association: White trousers, blue polo shirt, and a sturdy navy-blue book bag embossed with the Teachers’ Association logo of three bodhi leaves nestled within lotus leaves shaped like two hands with palms upward. Also included was a reusable mess kit in a...