Chin Kung AM (淨空; pinyin: Jìngkōng; 13 March 1927 – 26 July 2022) was a Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar from the Mahayana tradition. He was the founder of the Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, an organization based on the teachings of Pure Land Buddhism. He was known for his teaching of Pure Land Buddhism and work in promoting inter-faith harmony in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Early life
He was born in Lujiang County, Anhui, China as Hsu Yeh-hong (徐業鴻, Xú Yèhóng), and received some classical Confucian education from a tutor in his hometown. At the age of ten, he moved with his family to Fujian where his father was posted as a chief secretary for the country government. When the Second Sino-Japanese War erupted, Hsu's father joined the National Revolutionary Army. Due to the disruptions of war, which he described as 'unsettling and traumatic', he had to hike with other schoolchildren further inland to Guizhou province in the southwest to avoid battlefront areas. He studied at the National Third Kuichou High School during the Second World War, and then at Nanking First Municipal High School following the war. His formal secular education ended in 1947, when his father died, depriving the family of their only breadwinner.
In 1949, after the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, he moved to Taiwan and spent thirteen years as a clerk at the Shihchien Institute, a training institution for military officers, studying Buddhism and Philosophy in his spare time under the guidance of Professor Fang Tung-mei (), Changkya Khutukhtu (章嘉呼圖克圖 a master in Mongolian Buddhism), and lay teacher Lee Ping-nan (). He entered the monastic life in 1959, and was ordained at Lintzi Temple at Yuanshan in Taipei, Taiwan. It was then that he received the dharma name of Chin Kung, meaning "pure emptiness". He started studying under Lee Ping-nan in Taizhong in 1958 and trained under him for ten years. At the time, there was an oversupply of monks in Taipei, due to an influx of refugees from mainland China, and there was not enough positions in temples for them. Furthermore, associates of Lee were viewed unfavourably by the establishment, as lay dharma teacher Lee was frowned upon for intruding into what was seen as the domain of ordained monks.
Establishment
Chin Kung was unsuccessful in finding a temple in Taipei, so in 1966, he accepted the offer of lay supporter Han Ying, and moved into her family home for 17 years. Han helped Chin Kung by renting venues for him to give dharma talks, and he also travelled to the south of the island to give teachings, including at Buddhist institutions run by Hsing Yun. Chin Kung also taught at the Chinese Culture University from 1975 to 1980. In 1979, with the help of Han, Chin Kung set up the Hwa Dzan Buddhist Library in Taipei, allowing him a stable physical base for his activities. From the late 1970s on, Chin Kung's international profile increased, and he received requests to travel to Singapore, Hong Kong, the US and Malaysia among other places to give Buddhist teachings, and in the process, set up like-minded local Buddhist groups. In 1997, after Han's death, he relocated his base to Singapore, where he was patronised by businessman and lay Buddhist organiser Li Muyuan, before relocating to Australia in 2002.
Teaching and writing
Chin Kung became well known for using modern technology to spread the Buddha's teachings. Starting in the 1970s, his lectures were recorded on audio, videotapes, and then later on CDs and DVDs and the internet for wide distribution in many temples, where they can be freely passed on, at a time when Buddhist teachings were not readily available in electronic formats. In 2003, a lay disciple named Chen Caiqiong founded Hwazan TV, a cable channel that broadcasts Chin Kung's teachings 24 hours a day, seven days a week.