Fertile ground for the Buddha

As their number of followers increased, Master Wei Chueh decided to build Taiwan's largest Zen monastery in Puli, Nantou County The building is expected to be completed this year. Chung Tai, meanwhile, has grown from four disciples and 300 followers in 1987 to more than 1,000 disciples and over 100,000 followers and it also operates a Buddhist study institute.

Master Sheng Yen (聖嚴法師) of Dharma Drum Mountain preaches attention to techniques to command one's "mental ways" (心法) and "self-extrication" (解脫). He began his career as abbot of the Nung Chan Monastery (農禪寺) and director of the Institute of Chinese Buddhism Study (中華佛學研究所) in Peitou, Taipei City.

In October, 1996, after careful planning for three years, Master Sheng Yen announced the group's plan to build a Buddhist University (法鼓山人文社會大學) in Chinshan, Taipei County. The university will function as an international Buddhist study center. The group's spokesman Master Guo-xuan (果選法師) said costs for the university, including a monastery and other facilities, would reach NT$7 billion. The group operates Nung Chan Monastery, the Institute of Chinese Buddhist Study and Tong Chu Chan Monastery in New York, as well as four regional monasteries and many small-scale temples and claims to have more than half a million followers.

All four groups have embarked on massive expansion projects. Given Taiwan's slumping economy, it remains to be seen whether these groups can see their plans to completion. Another hurdle will be the groups' transition to their next generation of leaders, as the current masters are quite advanced in years. The youngest, Master Cheng Yen, for example, is 65. The issue of succession within these groups is unresolved, but when changes come they will affect hundreds of thousands of followers.