Dharma Drum Journal of Buddhist Studies

      Venerable Jiezong was an important Taiwanese monastic who had been through the transition of a society in flux and the developing Buddhism under Japanese rule post-WWII. Having received full financial support from his family elder, Lin Xiantang, Venerable Jiezong could afford to join the Sangha, learn Buddhism, set up Buddhist establishments, and become active in the Taichung area. Before WWII, He went to China several times and was the only Taiwanese monastic who received Dharma transmission from Master Yuanying’s Linchi Qita Lineage. He was dedicated to cultivating Buddhist Youth in Taiwan based on the Chinese Buddhism system developed by Master Taixu’s followers. As a self-appointed leader, he was highly visible by writing numerous articles to promote his socialistic ideology and trying to revive Buddhism in Taiwan. 
     After WWII, he was involved in the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC) administering work in the Taiwan Province, Taipei City, and Taichung County, and kept publishing essays and poetry. Even though he and Master Baisheng, the leader of the BAROC, were both Dharma heirs of Master Yuanying, he did not take part in its centralised power. Probably due to his family practice and Buddhist heritage, he was shy of political power and chose to promote practicing both Chan and Pure Land Buddhism, cultivating Buddhist education, and facilitating charities at the local level.
   As he was an erudite scholar of Buddhism and literature, Master Jiezong’s followers published his writings in An Anthology of Jiezong’s Dharma Writings on Philosophy of Foxin School, Philosophy of Faxing School, Philosophy of Tiantai School, Philosophy of Zhenyan School, and Philosophy of Buddhist Ethics. He expounded that the principles of “three meanings complimenting each other”, “three thousand realms in one single thought-moment”, “nature and cultivation are not different”, and the “Dharma method of the four truths” developed by Master Zhiyi are the core Tiantai doctrines and the fundaments in classifying Buddhism. Having established at least one of the Confucian “three eternals” criteria, namely merits, virtues, and words, Master Jiezong is considered a paragon among post-WWII Taiwanese monastics.

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