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Hsing Yun - Early life. Master Hsing Yun was born 1927 in Jiangsu province in China in a family under the surname of Li. (李) His birth name was Li Kuo-shen. (李國深) He was the third of four children, with an older brother, an older sister, and a younger brother. His father left home to do business and was never heard from again. When his mother, who was a faithful Buddhist herself, was desperately searching for her husband, he went to Nanjing. By chance, he came across the host monastic as Chi-Hsia Shan Monastery. The host monastic asked young Li if he wanted to become a monastic, to ...

Read more here: » Hsing Yun: Encyclopedia II - Hsing Yun - Biography

In Taiwan and the United States, many detractors call Master Hsing Yun a political monk, most likely because of his involvement with politics, especially his promotion of the democratization of Buddhism. He also had used democratic ideals to help govern Fo Guang Shan monastery, which is an oddity for a traditional Buddhist monastery. Master Hsing Yun set a paradigm of democracy in the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order by vowing to abide by the Buddhist regulations, passing down the traditions, managing with system and guide with org ...

Read more here: » Hsing Yun: Encyclopedia II - Hsing Yun - Criticism

In 1967, Master Hsing Yun made plans to build a large Buddhist monastery in the mountains. During that time that was spent clearing the moiuntains, the endless toiling away, wave upon wave of physical strain, the planning that carried on into all hours of the day, the barrage of floods and other natural disasters, and the belligerant mobs that surrounded the mountain were all quite beyond description. On windy and sunny days, the workers clothes would be soaked in sweat, dried up, and then soaked up again. They would be discussing throughout the day and go to be ...

Read more here: » Hsing Yun: Encyclopedia II - Hsing Yun - The founding and involvement with Fo Guang Shan

Starting in the 1950s, Hsing Yun started making many achievements at an early age. He taught numerous classes, built many schools for children, recorded the first Buddhist hymns, and was promoted as an executive in many Buddhist associations. In 1957, Hsing Yun established a Buddhist cultural center in which a variety of Buddhist books are published with training tools such as audio and visual aids. In 1959, Hsing Yun also supported the Tibetan movement against communist supression, and organized the first float ...

Read more here: » Hsing Yun: Encyclopedia II - Hsing Yun - Achievements

In 1949, Hsing Yun wrote his first book, "Singing in Silence", the first stepping stone in his writing career. In later years, he founded several Buddhist publications, and was promoted as editor-in-chief for many Buddhist periodicals and newsletters for various temples and wrote articles for major Taiwanese newsletters. In 1955, he published one of the first hardback biographies of Sakyamuni Buddha. Hsin ...

Read more here: » Hsing Yun: Encyclopedia II - Hsing Yun - Writing

Triratna, or Ratnatraya (Sanskrit) The Three Jewels, the technical term for the well-known formula "Buddha, Dharma and Sangha" (or Samgha), the two latter terms meaning, in modern interpretation, "religious law" (Dharma), and the "priesthood" (Sangha).
 
Esoteric Philosophy, however, would regard this as a very loose rendering. The words "Buddha, Dharma and Sangha", ought to be pronounced as in the days of Gautama, the Lord Buddha, namely "Bodhi, Dharma and Sangha and interpreted to mean "Wisdom, its laws and priests ", the latter in the sense of " spiritual exponents ", or adepts. Buddha, however, being regarded as personified " Bodhi" on earth, a true avatar of Adi-Buddha, Dharma gradually came to be regarded as his own particular law, and Sangha as his own special priesthood. Nevertheless, it is the profane of the later (now modern) teachings who have shown a greater degree of natural intuition than the actual interpreters of Dharma, the Buddhist priests.
 
The people see the Triratna in the three statues of Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya Buddha; i.e., in Boundless Light" or Universal Wisdom, an impersonal principle which is the correct meaning of Adi-Buddha; in the "Supreme Lord" of the Bodhisattvas, or Avalokiteshvara; and in Maitreya Buddha, the symbol of the terrestrial and human Buddha, the "Manushi Buddha ". Thus, even though the uninitiated do call these three statues "the Buddhas of the Past, the Present and the Future ", still every follower of true philosophical Buddhism - called "atheistical" by Mr. Eitel -  would explain the term Triratna correctly. The philosopher of the Yogacharya School would say - as well he could - "Dharma is not a person but an unconditioned and underived entity, combining in itself the spiritual and material principles of the universe, whilst from Dharma proceeded, by emanation, Buddha [ Bodhi rather], as the creative energy which produced, in conjunction with Dharma, the third factor in the trinity, viz., ‘Samgha’, which is the comprehensive sum total of all real life." Samgha, then, is not and cannot be that which it is now understood to be, namely, the actual " priesthood"; for the latter is not the sum total of all real life, but only of religious life.
 
The real primitive significance of the word Samgha or "Sangha" applies to the Arhats or Bhikshus, or the "initiates", alone, that is to say to the real exponents of Dharma - the divine law and wisdom, coming to them as a reflex light from the one "boundless light ". Such is its philosophical meaning. And yet, far from satisfying the scholars of the Western races, this seems only to irritate them; for E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, remarks, as to the above: " Thus the dogma of a Triratna, originating from three primitive articles of faith, and at one time culminating in the conception of three persons, a trinity in unity, has degenerated into a metaphysical theory of the evolution of three abstract principles "! And if one of the ablest European scholars will sacrifice every philosophical ideal to gross anthropomorphism, then what can Buddhism with its subtle metaphysics expect at the hands of ignorant missionaries?

 
(See also: Triratna, Ratnatraya, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Buddha Nature Dictionary

Trisharana (Sanskrit). The same as" Triratna "and accepted by both the Northern and Southern Churches of Buddhism.
 
After the death of the Buddha it was adopted by the councils as a mere kind of formula fidei, enjoining "to take refuge in Buddha ", "to take refuge in Dharma ", and "to take refuge in Sangha ", or his Church, in the sense in which it is now interpreted; but it is not in this sense that the "Light of Asia" would have taught the formula. Of Trikaya, Mr. E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, tells us in his Handbook of Chinese Buddhism that this "tricho-tomism was taught with regard to the nature of all Buddhas.
 
Bodhi being the characteristic of a Buddha"  - a distinction was made between "essential Bodhi" as the attribute of the Dharmakaya, i.e., "essential body"; "reflected Bodhi" as the attribute of Sambhogakaya; and "practical Bodhi" as the attribute of Nirmanakaya. Buddha combining in himself these three conditions of existence, was said to be living at the same time in three different spheres.
 
Now, this shows how greatly misunderstood is the purely pantheistical and philosophical teaching. Without stopping to enquire how even a Dharmakaya vesture can have any "attribute" in Nirvana, which state is shown, in philosophical Brahmanism as much as in Buddhism, to be absolutely devoid of any attribute as conceived by human finite thought - it will be sufficient to point to the following  -
(1) the Nirmanakaya vesture is preferred by the "Buddhas of Compassion" to that of the Dharmakaya state, precisely because the latter precludes him who attains it from any communication or relation with the finite, i.e., with humanity;
(2) it is not Buddha (Gautama, the mortal man, or any other personal Buddha) who lives ubiquitously in "three different spheres, at the same time ", but Bodhi, the universal and abstract principle of divine wisdom, symbolised in philosophy by Adi-Buddha.
 
It is the latter that is ubiquitous because it is the universal essence or principle. It is Bodhi, or the spirit of Buddhaship, which, having resolved itself into its primordial homogeneous essence and merged into it, as Brahma (the universe) merges into Parabrahm, the ABSOLUTENESS - that is meant under the name of "essential Bodhi ". For the Nirvanee, or Dhyani Buddha, must be supposed - by living in Arupadhatu, the formless state, and in Dharmakaya - to be that " essential Bodhi" itself. It is the Dhyani Bodhisattvas, the primordial rays of the universal Bodhi, who live in "reflected Bodhi" in Rapadhatu, or the world of subjective "forms" ; and it is the Nirmanakayas (plural) who upon ceasing their lives of " practical Bodhi", in the "enlightened" or Buddha forms, remain voluntarily in the Kamadhatu (the world of desire), whether in objective forms on earth or in subjective states in its sphere (the second Buddhakshetra). This they do in order to watch over, protect and help mankind.
 
Thus, it is neither one Buddha who is meant, nor any particular avatar of the collective Dhyani Buddhas, but verily Adi-Bodhi - the first Logos, whose primordial ray is Mahabuddhi, the Universal Soul, ALAYA, whose flame is ubiquitous, and whose influence has a different sphere in each of the three forms of existence, because, once again, it is Universal Being itself or the reflex of the Absolute. Hence, if it is philosophical to speak of Bodhi, which "as Dhyani Buddha rules in the domain of the spiritual" (fourth Buddhakshetra or region of Buddha); and of the Dhyani Bodhisattvas "ruling in the third Buddhakshetra "or the domain of ideation; and even of the Manushi Buddhas, who are in the second Buddhakshetra as Nirmanakayas - to apply the "idea of a unity in trinity" to three personalities - is highly unphilosophical.

 
(See also: Trisharana, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Buddha Nature Dictionary

Vajrapani (Sanskrit), or Manjushri, the Dhyani-Bodhisattva (as the spiritual reflex, or the son of the Dhyani.Buddhas, on earth) born directly from the subjective form of existence; a deity worshipped by the profane as a god, and by Initiates as a subjective Force, the real nature of which is known only to, and explained by, the highest Initiates of the Yogacharya School.

 
(See also: Vajrapani, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Buddha Nature Dictionary