Master Yin-Shun, who has suffered more than his share of calamity and illness in his long life, comes from an average working-class background. He was born in 1906 in Zhejiang Province, where his family made ends meet through a combination of farming and small business. Introverted and cautious by nature, during his early years he was deeply engrossed in Taoist religion. He was already 20 years old when he first encountered the term "dharma" (Buddhist doctrine), and the encounter set him on a long and circuitous path in search of Buddhist enlightenment.
In 1930 he became a monk at Fuquan Temple on Zhejiang Province's Mt. Putuo, one of China's four most sacred Buddhist mountains. In a temple at the peak of the mountain, Yin-Shun shut himself away to read the Chinese Tripitaka, an enormous collection of the Buddhist canon. He would wake up every morning at 4 a.m. and read 50-60,000 characters per day. The undertaking required tremendous tolerance for solitude and frustration, for the canon is vast and the content arcane. Off and on for a total of three years he plugged away, reading and meditating, achieving a solid grounding in Buddhist learning. In subsequent years, whenever disagreements and controversies over Buddhist doctrine have arisen, Master Yin-Shun has always been able to set things straight by providing an objective analysis backed up by solid evidence. This unique ability has made him the leading force in the move to modernize Chinese Buddhist learning.
One particularly well-known incident occurred in the 1960s when noted intellectual Chien Mu delivered a talk on Buddhism. In mentioning the Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra, Chien repeated the generally accepted view that the sutra represented the spoken words of the Zen Master Hui Neng, as recorded by his disciples. Others disagreed, pointing to Dr. Hu Shih's discovery in Europe of a Platform Sutra text from Dunhuang. The Dunhuang version included writings by Shen Hui, one of the sixth patriarch's disciples, which led Hu Shih to conclude that the Platform Sutra was actually authored by Shen Hui. Much ink was spilled in the ensuing debate over the origin of the Platform Sutra.
The whole time the debate raged in Zen circles nary a word was heard from Yin-Shun, who identified with no particular sect of Buddhism and thus didn't consider himself an adherent of Zen. Later, however, he published an entire book on the history of Chinese Zen, in which he clearly set forth how Zen was transmitted and transformed over the years. Yin-Shun took the position that Shen Hui did not have sufficient stature within Buddhist ranks to write the Platform Sutra in the sixth patriarch's name. An outstanding work of modern scholarship, the book was eventually translated into Japanese and garnered Yin-Shun an honorary doctorate from Taisho University, thus making him Taiwan's first Buddhist monk ever to receive a PhD.
Precisely because Yin-Shun doesn't align himself with any particular sect, he often raises hackles unintentionally. In two books that he published in the 1950s (A New Look at the Jodo Sect and Cursory Comments on the Nembutsu Practice), for example, while praising the Jodo sect (literally "the Pure Land sect") for its many great works, Yin-Shun also pointed out bluntly that most Jodo followers simply recite the name of Amitabha while ignoring the fundamental teachings of Buddhism. Yin-Shun was hit by a barrage of criticism from Jodo adherents, and book burnings were even held in protest. Fortunately, however, the admonitions of Master Yin-Shun prompted a round of self-critical reflection within Jodo circles that led to reforms.
In an effort to "build a pure land" here in our current surroundings, Master Yin-Shun has energetically pushed the idea of a "Buddhism in our midst," and this idea has enjoyed mainstream support in Taiwan's Buddhist community for nearly a half century now.
The "Buddhism in our midst" concept was first voiced by Yin-Shun's teacher, Master Tai-Hsu, back in 1926. The historical background of the concept can be traced back to the edict against religious propagation issued by the Qianlong Emperor in the first half of the 18th century. After the edict, Chinese Buddhism gradually retreated into the mountains and became cut off from society. During the Taiping Rebellion (an uprising of Christian believers) in the mid-19th century, Buddhism came under withering assault, and Buddhist practice in the end became quite thoroughly debased, amounting often to little more than robed peddlers eking out a living by charging for such services as chanting sutras, performing rites to send departed spirits off to the next world, and whatnot.
To get Buddhism back onto the right track, Master Tai-Hsu exhorted adherents of Buddhism to first work on cultivation of character before going on to seek a more specifically Buddhist sort of enlightenment. Then Yin-Shun vigorously started promoting an idea that he found in one of the Agamas (discourses of the Buddha): "All buddhas are in our midst, and do not attain their buddhahood in heaven." He wanted to steer the attention of the Buddhist community away from abstruse doctrinal musings (about such things as kalpas, the ten directions of space, and the three states of mortal existence) and more toward people living in the here and now. He wanted to see to it that Buddhist doctrine would truly cleanse people's hearts and improve reality.
To achieve the "Buddhism in our midst" ideal, Yin-Shun has written and lectured constantly despite being wracked by disease throughout his life, including several times when he has been near death. He has written more than 7 million Chinese characters, commenting on Indian Buddhism, wei shi (the doctrine that nothing exists apart from mind), wei xin (the theory that the only reality is mental), and zhong guan (a syncretic combination of kong guan [study of all as void, or immaterial] and jia guan [study of all as unreal, transient]), and expounding on many important Buddhist classics, including the four Agamas and the Commentary on the Prajnaparamita. All his writings are lucid and easily readable even when dealing with very abstruse subject matter, so that everyday people can understand them.
While Master Yin-Shun heads no Buddhist organization, those who regard him as their teacher have had a big impact on society. They include Master Cheng Yen (who has acted in full measure on Yin-Shun's "Buddhism in our midst" idea by establishing the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation), Master Chuan Tao (the first Buddhist monk to play a prominent role in the environmental protection movement), and the highly outspoken Master Chao Hui (first director of the Life Conservationist Association). With his rare combination of erudition and forceful social action, Master Yin-Shun truly personifies the "Buddha in our midst" ideal that he himself has long championed.
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