Buddhist Grand Master Wei Chueh (惟覺), who founded the Chung Tai Chan Monastery (中台禪寺) in Nantou County’s Puli Township (埔里), passed away at 10:31pm on Friday night, the monastery announced yesterday. He was 88.
The grand master’s death was caused by a regression of marrow regeneration, which resulted in complications, the monastery said.
The monastery was closed yesterday, shutting out buses carrying Chinese tourists.
Photo: Tung Chen-kuo, Taipei Times
It plans to have a scripture reciting assembly from tomorrow until Sunday next week in remembrance of the grand master.
Born in Sichuan, China, in 1928, Wei Chueh was one of the most important religious figures in Taiwan in recent decades, with more than 1,000 monk disciples and hundreds of thousands of followers.
He was credited with preaching Zen Buddhism and reviving Chinese Zen Buddhism.
Photo: CNA
He became a monk in 1963, following Zen master Lin Yuan (靈源) in Keelung’s Shifang Dajue Chan Temple.
Wei Chueh woke at 2am every day when other monks were still asleep to clean up the temple and would salute Buddha at the main hall when other monks were taking noon naps.
He later conducted a retreat in temples in Yilan, Hsinchu and Hong Kong before settling in a cottage in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里).
Firm in belief and living an extremely simple life, he answered the public call to preach and built Lin Chuan Temple beside his cottage in 1987.
His way of preaching was said to be lively and flexible and had no fixed mode.
He used the seven-day Zen retreat and dharma assembly as a way to disseminate Zen teachings, and was said to have contributed to a clean society campaign.
However, due to his growing number of followers, he began to plan the Chung Tai Chan Monastery in Puli, which was inaugurated in 2001.
To nurture the young generation, he also set up an elementary school in 2004, a junior-high school in 2006 and a senior-high school in 2009.
He also constructed the Chung Tai World Museum to showcase Buddhist artifacts and rubbings from inscriptions on stone tablets donated by the Forest of Stone Steles Museum in Xian, China.
Ling Jiou Mountain, another Zen Buddhist society, extended its condolences over Wei Chueh’s death yesterday, saying that the Chung Tai Chan Monastery has contributed to religious exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and helped Chinese access and learn Buddhism.
However, Wei Chueh was not without his critics.
First, some people were not happy with his decision to build the Chung Tai Chan Monastery in a rural area, prompting controversy around land development.
Second, after attending a Buddhism camp at the monastery in 1996, scores of female college students shaved their heads to become nuns. The students’ new looks shocked their parents, with some filing complaints with the Nantou Prosecutors’ Office against Wei Chueh.
However, what was most controversial about him was his political stance.
In contrast with the public perception that a religious figure should keep away from politics, he was a staunch supporter of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and openly endorsed President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during the 2012 presidential election.
Wei Chueh’s health had deteriorated over the past few months. His last public appearance was on Jan. 17.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS