ABSTRACT
This chapter defines the scope of the book, centered around the tumultuous life of Sheng Yen (1931–2009) and how it uniquely shaped his presentation of Chan as the doctrinal and experiential fulfillment of the whole of Buddhism. Sheng Yen was one of the most respected and influential Chinese Buddhist clerics of the late twentieth century. He contributed to the widespread popular interest in Chan Buddhism in both Taiwan and the United States. He was also an intellectual who was able to articulate difficult Buddhist doctrine and precepts in accessible everyday language for modern people. His reinvention of Chan was intimately related to the volatile social and political realities of his life—the Communist takeover of China and the subsequent industrial boom that impacted Taiwanese society. Despite his many accomplishments, there has been very little substantive academic research on his life, his formulation of Chinese Buddhism, and his teaching on Chan Buddhism. This monograph aims to fill this lacuna. On a methodological level, the chapter examines the inseparability of intellectual and social history, doctrine and practice; the nature of biography as history; and the positionality of historians in relation to their subject of study.
