Taiwan Buddhist Accused of Killing, Profiteering and Vanity : Controversial Monk Gives Up ‘Earthly Affairs’

In his 60 years, Abbot Hsin Yun has led an army of robed soldier-monks to war, hosted a television show and incurred the fury of more orthodox Buddhists by installing computers at his temple and running it like a banker.

Now Taiwan’s most controversial religious leader is quitting.

“I’m not retiring from Buddhism, but from earthly affairs,” said Hsin Yun at his huge hilltop temple complex in the south of the island. “I’ll continue to be a monk and pursue the truth preached by Buddha.”

It is earthly affairs that have brought the anger of other Buddhists down on Hsin Yun.

“He has violated many basic principles of Buddhism by killing, profiteering and vanity, with his business practices and television shows,” said Abbot Yuan Yi of the nearby Pu Du Temple.

But the followers of Hsin Yun--his name means Star Cloud--see it differently. “All great men with new ideas were invariably persecuted in their lifetimes,” said Hui Ming, one of his disciples. “They are only vindicated years later.”

Hsin Yun, born in China’s Jiangsu province, became a monk when he was 12.

“My mother dedicated me to Buddha when I was born,” he said.

As a youngster in 1940, he joined a small army of monks fighting first the Japanese, then the Chinese Communists. He rose through the ranks to become commander.

The burly abbot, who has practiced the martial art of kung fu for five decades, said the monk-soldiers went into battle wearing their robes and armed with prayers as well as rifles. Most of them were in their teens and full of patriotic fervor.

“At first some of the boys could never open their eyes when they were firing and prayed for forgiveness whenever someone fell,” he said.

“Later we fought like other soldiers although we had one advantage: Sometimes our enemies fled when they saw us. They were apparently Japanese Buddhists and didn’t want to kill monks.”

When the Communists won China’s civil war in 1949, Hsin Yun’s soldier-monks retreated to Taiwan with the Nationalists.

He spent the next 15 years wandering the island, sleeping in fields and empty temples and surviving on food given him by villagers to whom he preached the virtues of forgiveness and endurance.

“The devastation and suffering during the wars had greatly troubled my conscience,” he said.

Eventually he came to Kaohsiung, a port city in the south, and asked the government for land for a temple. He was given a barren hilltop.

Over the next two years Hsin Yun and three disciples erected a rough building of stones and bricks. It was to grow into his present 150-acre Fu Kuang Shan complex containing more than 15 temples and 1,200 statues of Buddha.

Five years ago, Hsin Yun was criticized for collecting entrance fees to finance expansion projects. Taiwan’s Buddhist Assn. said temples should be free for all worshipers. Another fund-raiser has been Hsin Yun’s “Everlasting Light” scheme. A worshiper who pays $25 (U.S.) can own a small oil lamp in the main hall of the complex to commemorate ancestors.

The scheme started three years ago, and now 2 million lamps are flickering at Fu Kuang Shan. According to one of the monks, the number is still increasing by about 1,000 a month.

An estimated 10,000 people visit the temple every day, offering tributes of incense, cooking oil and fruit, as well as money.

A Taiwanese newspaper reported that the temple’s income is the equivalent of several million dollars a month, tax-free.

The treasurer at Fu Kuang Shan declined to give figures but said most donations go to an orphanage, schools and libraries run by the monks.

Hsin Yun’s critics accuse him of an appetite for publicity, especially over a weekly television show on which he answers theological questions from followers. To which he replies: “Scientific progress has enabled us to reach out to more people.”

Last year, Hsin Yun installed computers as aids in teaching theology students, drawing protests from conservative monks. They argued that a student’s spiritual powers would be placed under control of a machine and his meditation would be confused.

But sociologist Chang Yung-hsiang says Hsin Yun’s methods are drawing increasing support.

“His brand of Buddhism is apparently more exciting and more suited to some Buddhists who have been disillusioned with the almost puritanical style of life preached by other monks.”

Hsin Yun, who retired as head of Fu Kuang Shan at the end of September, said he will continue teaching and appearing on his TV show. He added that his retirement showed that he was not building a personal fortune through his business-style methods.

“Buddha tells us everyone comes to this world empty-handed and will leave just the same,” he said.