" Venerable Master Sheng Yen, the founder of the “Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan Buddhism”, had committed himself to transmit and promote the revival of Chan Buddhism as his life’s mission and responsibility. By inheriting both mainstream Chan lineages, the Caodong and Linji lineages, he redefined the Chinese Chan meditation and introduced it to the Americans, Europe, and Asians, as the first Chinese Chan master in the western world. His teaching of meditation, responded to the needs of modern people. This thesis will investigate his way of incorporating and transforming traditional Chan into a systematic education for contemporary followers. First, I will introduce the official teachings in his meditation hall, including how he integrated two methods of Huatou and Silent Illumination in terms of dividing the courses of Chan practice into sequential stages. Moreover, he simplified and assimilated traditional Chan language into more friendly modern vocabularies in spreading his meditation method to modern-day people and provided it in more adaptable way. Consequently, he proposed a series of social movements to internalize Chan practice into daily life. These campaigns include Spiritual Engagement (literally, Protecting the Spiritual Environment), the New May Fourth Movement (here, “New” is pronounced as “mind” in Mandarin in signifying the Spiritual Renaissance ), and the New Six Ethics enlarging the Five Confucius Ethics from socio-family relation to spiritual cultivation. Master Sheng Yen had completed his meditation education system in his very late days, leaving relatively uncertainty and creativity to his disciples. This explains the reason for him to initiate the Dharma Drum lineage in 2005. To put the responsibility on his monastic and lay followers of spreading Chinese Chan Buddhism to benefit people in the world, Master Sheng Yen integrated his lifelong learning and teaching Chan Buddhism experiences into a new Lineage of Chan Buddhism. This thesis will discuss the origin, contents, methods and practice of the “Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan Buddhism. That Master Sheng Yen founded his lineage and referred it as Chinese Chan Buddhism has enlarged the scale of Chinese and world history of Chan. This thesis mainly explores the historical background of """"Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan Buddhism” in terms of its meditation educational system, especially the meditation within a modern society. In spite of historical analysis, I will also conduct"
