The Venerable Master, whose names were An Tse and To Lun, received the Dharma
name Hsuan Hua and the transmission of Dharma from Venerable Master
Hsu Yun in the lineage of the Wei
Yang Sect. He was born in Manchuria, China, at the beginning of the century. At
nineteen, he entered the monastic order and dwelt in a hut by his mother’s grave
to practice filial piety. He meditated, studied the teachings, ate only one meal
a day, and slept sitting up. In 1948 he went to Hong Kong, where he established
the Buddhist Lecture Hall and other Way-places. In 1962 he brought the Proper
Dharma to the West, lecturing on several dozen Mahayana Sutras in the United
States. Over the years, the Master established more than twenty monasteries of
Proper Dharma under the auspices of the
Dharma Realm Buddhist Association (DRBA) and the
City of
Ten Thousand Buddhas. He also founded centers for the translation of the
Buddhist canon and for education to spread the influence of the Dharma in the
East and West. The Master manifested the stillness in the United States in 1995.
Through his lifelong, selfless dedication to teaching living beings with wisdom
and compassion, he influenced countless people to change their faults and to
walk upon the pure, bright path to enlightenment.
Dharma Propagation, Buddhist Text Translation, and Education
The Venerable Master Hua’s three great vows after leaving the home-life were (1)
to propagate the Dharma, (2) to translate the Buddhist Canon, and (3) to promote
education. In order to make these vows a reality, the Venerable Master based
himself on the Three Principles and the Six Guidelines. Courageously facing
every hardship, he founded monasteries, schools, and centers in the West,
drawing in living beings and teaching them on a vast scale. Over the years, he
founded the following institutions:
The City of Ten
Thousand Buddhas and Its Branches
Although the Venerable Master Hua was the Ninth Patriarch in the Weiyang Sect of the Chan School, the monasteries he founded emphasize all of the five main practices of Mahayana Buddhism (Chan meditation, Pure Land, esoteric, Vinaya (moral discipline), and doctrinal studies). This accords with the Buddha’s words: “The Dharma is level and equal, with no high or low.”
(Source: Shurangama Sutra, Ven. Hsuan Hua, V1: 2002)