Master Sheng Yen was a respected Buddhist educator in the modern era and the creator of a new meditation method called the Dharma Drum Lineage Chan school within Chinese Buddhism. This Dharma Drum Lineage united both Master Sheng Yen’s Buddhism heritages, namely the Linji and Caodong lines of Chan with a characteristic focus on Humanistic Pure Land and moral education, which is also the characteristic of the 20th and 21th Century Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan. Apparently, the emphasis on education is influenced by the Buddhist reform and philosophers during the Minguo era (1912-1949). Even though the modern meditation method taught by Master Sheng Yen is closely related to various traditional and historic Chan masters, it is at the same time, the result of his personal teaching experiences with the Western students and response to the Taiwanese followers. The main points of his method base on the threefold training: sila, dhyana, and prajna, of the earlier stage of Buddhism and the meditation methods of the Southern Song Dynasty. And then Master Sheng Yen reconstructed the said incorporated important points into the modern meditation method which is both sudden and gradual at the same time. The purpose of reconstruction was to make sure the continuum of Chinese Buddhism in the modern era and the process is complicated and progressive, which is a classic paradigm shift Chinese Buddhist development. Even though he was inspired by the ancient masters, his unique construction excelled all contemporaneous Buddhists. The main point of this paper lies in retracing the historical context of his construction of the meditation method, essential elements of his teachings, and core characteristics of the Dharma Drum Lineage of Chinese Chan Buddhism.
