More on Master Xuyun (虚云), "Empty Cloud"

[This essay was originally posted to "The Third Tale," a blog on Weebly. In transferring it I have updated and made corrections where necessary.]

In a previous post, I mentioned the great 20th-century Chan (Zen) Master Xuyun. Here's a little more information about him.

Master Xuyun with his disciple Benhuan, subject of a previous post

There is a fairly active group of Chan (Zen) practitioners in the West who claim lineage from Master Xuyun, and they've published a number of things about him.One of his disciples, of the same vintage as Master Benhuan, was Master Hsuan Hua, who founded (among other things) the City of 10,000 Buddhas. He wrote a biography about Xuyun which can be found beginning here. It's quite long, and the navigation is a little tricky. Use the link like this "下一頁" in the upper right to move to the next page. When you reach page 104, you'll need to go here to see 105.

It's well-worth a read, if nothing else for the picture it paints of Buddhism in China in the 20th century. I'm still trying to figure out what some of the place names are (I'm used to the Mainland, not the "Taiwanese," spellings), but the Chinese text helps a lot.

If you want a shorter, more concise look at the Master's life, try Wikipedia; or this slightly longer one by Charles Luk.

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Categories: Buddhism, China

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