Ching Hai

Ching Hai

Supreme Master Ching Hai
Born (1950-05-12) 12 May 1950
Vietnam
Known for Founder of Quan Yin Method

Supreme Master (or "Suma") Ching Hai, (born 12 May 1950), is the spiritual teacher of the Quan Yin Method with an estimated 20,000 followers worldwide.[1]

Ching Hai is a self-published writer and entrepreneur who heads the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association, a business group with worldwide interests in restaurants, fashion and jewelry design.[2] [3]

Biography

The San Francisco Weekly cites 1995 research by a Berkeley graduate student in journalism which says Ching Hai was born Hue Dang Trinh to a Vietnamese mother and an ethnic Chinese father, on 12 May 1950 in a small village in the Quảng Ngãi Province in Vietnam.[4] At 19, during the height of the Vietnam War, she developed a relationship with a German scientist and doctor who was a relief worker: Trinh worked as a Red Cross interpreter in Europe.[1][5] They married, but separated after two years when she left him to pursue spiritual enlightenment.[4] In 1979, she met a Buddhist monk in Germany whom she followed for three years, but his monastery denied entry to females.[5] She moved to India to study different religions, and became a disciple of Thakar Singh.[4] During her stay at his ashram,[5] she learned the Sant Mat 'Light and Sound' meditation technique which Thakar Singh taught,[6] and from which her Quan Yin Method is derived.

According to an account by Patricia Thornton, Ching Hai's recognition as a spiritual leader began in 1982, when she tried to buy a copy of the Hindu sacred work Bhagavad Gita from a small shop beside the Ganges. The shopkeepers denied having a copy, but she insisted she had seen it there. An extensive search uncovered a copy hidden in a sealed box; word quickly spread that Ching Hai had an "unusually well-developed third eye."[7]

Suma Ching Hai
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 清海無上師
Simplified Chinese 清海无上师
Literal meaning pure ocean Supreme Master
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese Thanh Hải Vô Thượng Sư

In 1983, she followed a Vietnamese Buddhist monk in Taiwan named Jing-Xing. Unaware of her prior connection to Thakar Singh, Jing-Xing ordained her in 1984 as "Thanh Hai". In Mandarin this is Ching Hai, which means "pure ocean".[5]

According to her official biography, Ching Hai was born to a well-off naturopathic family in Âu Lạc (old name for the region north of Hanoi) in Vietnam. Though raised as a Roman Catholic, she learned the basics of Buddhism from her grandmother. After being given a divine transmission of the Inner Light and Sound by a true Master in the Himalayas,[8] she renamed the technique the Quan Yin Method.[9]

No initiation or membership fees are collected from disciples, but the bulk of her financial support comes from Taiwan,[4] where her following is the strongest; her followers in the US are predominantly new immigrants from China and Vietnam.[5] Her Supreme Master Meditation Centers, incorporated in Los Angeles and San Jose and several US states, benefit from tax-exempt status as religious organizations.[4] Ching Hai has been described by Rafer Guzmán of Metroactive as a "tireless publicity seeker". By her own admission, she presides over a "rather big organisation" with "a lot of centers around the world—40 or 50 countries". The organisation includes restaurants and outlets for jewelry and clothes designed by her.[5]

International profile

In 1994, $200,000 which she promised to a relief organisation after the Southern Californian fires reportedly never arrived.[5] Metroactive reported that it was alleged in Taiwan that Ching Hai set up two front organisations to make awards to her, and manipulated a United States official into posing as the president of one in a public ceremony.[5]

In 1996, in an attempt to build political support abroad, Ching Hai asked her followers to contribute money to the Clinton Presidential Legal Expense Trust.[10] US$880,000 was raised. However, the donations were returned when the Trust found irregularities involving identical signatures and consecutively numbered money orders. They also found donors listed who did not have the financial means to give that amount of money. The year-long scandal had a negative effect on her organisation, further damaged perception of the Clinton administration,[7] and rather than the intended "boomerang of international support" for her efforts, resulted in an extensive investigation and a congressional subpoena.[7] The Taiwan government also investigated her organization for "alleged fund-raising improprieties", which included a transfer of $2 million outside of the country.[2]

Ching Hai was criticised in the Western press as "The Immaterial Girl: Part Buddha, Part Madonna", and as "The Buddhist Martha Stewart ... merchandizing mystic from Taiwan."[11]

Ching Hai was awarded the Gusi Peace Prize in 2006 in Manila, Philippines for her work in Philanthropy and Humanitarianism.[12]

Awards & Honors

Year Awards & Honors
2006
1994
  • May 25 World Humanitarian Leadership Award (1994) presented by Barbara J. Finch, Chairperson of the International Federation for Human Rights, USA. Supreme Master Ching Hai was also invited to become Honorable Advisor in Chief of the International Federation for Human Rights [15][16][17]
  • February 22 World Spiritual Leadership Award & February 22 Supreme Master Ching Hai Day presented and proclaimed by the US governors of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota, along with General Secretary Chen Hung Kwang of the World Cultural Communication Association, for Supreme Master Ching Hai's kind assistance for flood victims in these six Midwest states. [18][19][20] [21][22][23]
1993
  • October 25 Mayor Frank Francis Fasi of Honolulu, Hawaii, USA., proclaimed October 25,1993 as Supreme Master Ching Hai Day, and also awarded Supreme Master Ching Hai with an Honorary Citizenship, and unveiled a bronze statue of her that is publically and permanently displayed in the city of Honolulu [24][25][26]

Operations

Ching Hai supports many vegetarian and vegan restaurants, and is described as the innovator of the international Loving Hut vegan restaurant group,[27][28] with 138 restaurants worldwide in 2014.[29]

Admission to her public seminars is free. She launched an expensive clothing line in New York and Paris in 1995. Her business activities have led some detractors to question her motives, and she has also been criticised because her disciples are reported to buy much of her artwork, which is seen as a de facto donation. One disciple is believed to have bought a pair of used sweat socks for US$800 because "when the Master leaves the physical world, at least I will have her socks".[4] In 1997, she stated that she earned more than former U.S. President Bill Clinton's annual salary of $200,000.[10] Followers respond that much of the money she makes is used for helping the poor and providing necessities to refugees and victims of environmental disasters.[30]

She offers a $64 catalogue of 50 books called "Elevation of the Soul" which include a Supreme Master cookbook, more than 400 videos of public appearances by the "Supreme Master" and an $8 video of "Funny Non-Saint Stories" taped in Los Angeles, plus footage of "Master's Birthday Celebration" in Taiwan. The San Francisco Weekly said: "Some of the videos have the ring of a Zen koan – 'To Do Without Doing' – while others are as unambiguous as 'A Message From God.' There are even lip-synched pop music videos..."[4]

She has authored self-published picture books, such as The Birds in My Life and The Noble Wilds.[31] The books consist of hundreds of photos described as being personally taken by Ching Hai.

The group maintains websites in at least 17 languages, offering in-house news magazines, RealAudio and downloadable MP3 versions of radio broadcasts, and online WindowsMedia versions of Supreme Master television programs for those without access to cable stations.[7] The main website of the group contains a prominent link to the "Celestial Shop", along with the Suma Hai Ching publishing company. Items available online include a line of "Celestial" apparel and jewelry designed by the Supreme Master, along with a range of other items that included, as of August 2010, products from the Loving Hut restaurant chain, and many assorted lamps with names such as The Lucky Bagwa, At One With All Creation, Blessing Light, and Celestial Rain, among many others.[7][32]

Supreme Master Ching Hai International

Supreme Master Ching Hai International is the corporate entity behind Guanyin Famen / Quan Yin Method. It is affiliated with World Peace Media, Oceans of Love Entertainment, Supreme Master Television, and several cable television series, all groups and businesses established by Ching Hai. Her organisation runs a string of vegetarian restaurants around the world, some of which sell her merchandise.

In late 2008 Ching Hai launched a media campaign in Australia and New Zealand asking people to "Be Green, Go Veg, Save the Planet".[33] Veganism, clean energy, and tree planting were promoted as a solution to climate change and pollution. The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association also made submissions to the Garnaut Climate Change Review advocating large cuts to livestock production.[34]

According to political scientist Patricia M. Thornton at the University of Oxford, the Ching Hai World Society's heavy reliance on the internet for text distribution, recruitment and information-sharing, marks the group as a transnational "cybersect."[7]

The source of wealth behind the group's charitable efforts and its media empire is a mystery, according to Thornton. Like the Qigong organisations that came to the fore in China in the 1980s and 1990s, Suma Ching Hai International adopted the structure of a business enterprise early on.[7]

Much of the media produced by Suma Ching Hai International is heavily self-referential and promotional, according to Thornton, and aims to "build a public record of recognition for group activities."[7] In 1998 the organization staged a concert for donating to several prominent children's foundations in the U.S., while highlights of the event were captured in a coffee-table book. Ching Hai has had local authorities in various countries declare particular dates "Supreme Master Ching Hai Day."[7]

Quan Yin Method

In 1986, Ching Hai founded the Immeasurable Light Meditation Center and the Way of Sound Contemplation (Quan Yin Method) in Miaoli, Taiwan.[7] The Quan Yin Method is markedly similar to the much older Surat Shabd Yoga from the Sant Mat tradition which also teaches meditation on light and sound.[35] In 1988 she severed any connection with Buddhism and developed the flamboyant style with which she is now associated.[7]

Ching Hai has said, "It's not that I invented the Quan Yin Method; I just know it. This method has existed since the beginning of time, when the universe was first formed. And it will always exist. It is not a method; it is like the way of the universe, a universal law that we must follow if we want to get back to the Origin, back to our true Self, back to the Kingdom of God or our Buddha nature."[36] In her book The Key of Immediate Enlightenment, it is said that those who recite her name would become elevated.[37]

Ching Hai initiates spiritual aspirants into the Quan Yin Method, which is purported to exist in various religions under different names, as the "best, easiest, and quickest" way to get enlightenment.[38][39] The method involves meditation on the "inner light and the inner sound of God", or the Shabd that she claims is also referred to in the Bible and said to be acknowledged repeatedly in the literature of all the world's major spiritual traditions. Ching Hai accepts people from all backgrounds and religious affiliations for initiation. One does not have to change one's present religion or system of beliefs.[4] Neophytes to the Ching Hai way may cease eating animal products gradually (for ten days per month) in what is termed the "Convenient Method" and do half an hour of meditation a day.[4] The Quan Yin Method requires two and a half hours of meditation per day and adherence to five precepts[40] borrowed from the Five Precepts of Buddhism:

Quan Yin Method in China

Quan Yin Method was introduced on the Chinese mainland in 1992, where it is commonly known as "Guanyin Famen" (Famen is Chinese for method). It spread without notice for several years, but in July 1996, two years before the onset of a campaign to stamp out "heretical sects", authorities in Sichuan found a list of several thousand practitioners of the method in seven provinces; it included many Chinese Communist Party members, and some high-ranking cadres.[7]

The authorities asserted that the organization's beliefs and activities were fundamentally "anticommunist", and it was labelled a "reactionary religious organization."[7] In 1995, it was also labelled a "cult organization".[41] At the time that the ban against "heterodox religions" was put into law in July 1999, Guanyin Famen / Quan Yin Method claimed an estimated 500,000 followers in 20 provinces and cities.[7]

In January 2002 the manager of the Wuhan Zhongzhi Electric Testing Equipment Company was accused by the Chinese authorities of using the business as a cover to "support heresies" associated with Guanyin Famen.[7] The enterprise allegedly supported 30 Guanyin practitioners who "masqueraded as employees and business associates." The manager was charged with using the company's offices and buildings as "retreat sites", organizing "initiations" and "screenings" to recruit members, and illegally printing and distributing more than 6,000 copies of "heretical texts."[7]

Criticism

Environmental violations

In 2004, an artificial island and 330-foot (100 m) long boardwalk created in Biscayne National Park cost $1 million USD to remove after being illegally constructed by Ching Hai, known locally as a wealthy property owner under the pseudonym Celestia De Lamour.[42] National Park workers replanted between 400 and 500 mangrove trees in the area once covered by the illegal boardwalk. The private property owned by Ching Hai adjacent to the national park was seized by police and later sold at auction to the village of Palmetto Bay, which planned to establish a park on the site.[43]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Partridge, Christopher (2004) New Religions: A Guide, Oxford University Press, p. 264
  2. 1 2 Chua-Eoan, Howard (20 January 1997). "The Buddhist Martha". Time Magazine.
  3. ↑ Maragay, Fel V. (20 November 2006). "Master of charity". Manila Standard Today.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Young, Gordon (22 May 1996). "God Inc.". SF Weekly.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Guzmán, Rafer (28 March 1996). "Immaterial Girl". Metro.
  6. ↑ "The Radhasoami Tradition: Chapter Five, THAKAR SINGH AND THE FOUNDING OF KIRPAL LIGHT SATSANG". Garland Publishing, Inc. 1992. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Thornton, Patricia M. (2008) Manufacturing Dissent in Transnational China in "Popular Protest in China", Kevin J. O'Brien (ed.), Harvard University Press, pp. 189–192
  8. ↑ Like the Theosophical and ECK masters, Ching Hai's purported master Khuda Ji remains a mythological, rather than historical, figure.
  9. ↑ Supreme Master Ching Hai (March 2009). "God's Direct Contact". Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association.
  10. 1 2 Jackson, Brooks; John Gilmore (9 January 1997). "Religious Leader Felt Sorry For Clinton". CNN's Inside Politics. CNN.
  11. ↑ "The buddhist martha". Time. 20 January 2007. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
  12. ↑ "PGMA confers 2006 Gusi Peace Prize to 15 great achievers of the world". Gov.Ph : The Official Government Portal of the Republic of the Philippines. 23 November 2006. Retrieved 11 June 2009.
  13. ↑ "Gusi Peace Prize International 2006". Gusi Peace Prize Foundation. 2006-11-22. Retrieved 2017-07-18. Supreme Master Ching Hai (Vietanam) for Philanthropy
  14. ↑ "Carlo among 15 Gusi Peace Prize awardees". philstar Global. 2006-11-17. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  15. ↑ 記者陳碧華、李彥甫 (1994-05-26). "談到同胞苦難 她三度淚下 國際人權大會 清海無上師致詞感人". 聯合報 (in Chinese). 台灣台北.
  16. ↑ 記者李秀姬 (1994-05-26). "國際人權聯盟發表人權宣言 立委建議 福爾摩沙收容悠樂難民". 自由時報 (in Chinese). 台灣台北.
  17. ↑ "重申國際正義人道精神 國際人權大會發表人權宣言". 中國晚報 (in Chinese). 台灣台北. 1994-05-29.
  18. ↑ 台北訊 (1994-03-01). "美國頒發世界精神領袖獎清海無上師". 聯合報 (in Chinese). 台灣.
  19. ↑ "清海無上師榮獲世界精神領袖獎". 中央日報 (in Chinese). 台灣. 1994-03-04.
  20. ↑ "清海無上師榮獲世界精神領袖獎". 中國時報 (in Chinese). 台灣. 1994-03-07.
  21. ↑ 台北訊 (1994-03-01). "清海大師獲「世界精神領袖獎」". 自由時報 (in Chinese). 台灣.
  22. ↑ 記者 黃宏玉／特稿 (1994-03-01). "清海無上師渡化眾生免除苦難實至名歸". 台灣公論報 (in Chinese). 台灣.
  23. ↑ 本報記者田人 (1994-02-25). "美中西部六州聯合舉辦「清海日」 及贈送銅像晚會 場面盛大 氣氛莊嚴 近二千人出席大會". 美國芝加哥時報. 美國.
  24. ↑ "檀香山市長代表美國政府頒贈 清海無上師 國際和平獎．榮譽公民和銅像". 聯合報 (in Chinese). 台灣台北. 1993-11-09.
  25. ↑ 記者劉乃游專訪 (1993-11-06). "清海無上師獲國際和平和平獎 赴美賑災行善獲美政府 頒贈榮譽公民並豎像". 中央日報 (in Chinese). 台灣台北.
  26. ↑ "清海無上師榮獲國際和平獎". 高雄晚報 (in Chinese). 台灣台北. 1993-11-06.
  27. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2 November 2010. Retrieved 27 October 2010.
  28. ↑ "Vegan Fast-Food Loving Hut Opens in San Francisco Centre Food Court". SF Weekly website: SFoodie blog. SF Weekly. 3 May 2010. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  29. ↑ "Loving Hut – International Vegan Chain Restaurant". 28 May 2014.
  30. ↑ "The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association, Humanitarian Relief Activities". Godsdirectcontact.org.tw. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  31. ↑ "The Supreme Master Ching Hai: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle". Amazon.com. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  32. ↑ "The Official Online Shop for Celestial Products". The Celestial Shop. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  33. ↑ "Bleak days at Cape Grim as beef bashed". The Australian. 26 October 2009. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  34. ↑ Ching Hai's submission Archived 21 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine. to the Garnaut Climate Change
  35. ↑ Quan Yin (Pinyin: Guānyīn / Wade–Giles : Kuan Yin / Vietnamese: Quan Am / Japanese: Kwanon / Sanskrit: Avalokiteśvara / Tibetan: sPyan.ras.gzigs) is a popular Mahāyāna bodhisattva. Literally, his Sanskrit and Chinese names mean "He Who Hears the Cries of the World." Esoterically, Kuan Yin means "enlightened through hearing."
  36. ↑ Supreme Master Ching Hai (17 December 1998). "Master's Words: The Quan Yin Method is an Eternal Universal Law". Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association Publishing Co Ltd.
  37. ↑ Chan, Charmaine (3 January 1999). "Cult branches spread worldwide". South China Morning Post. p. 7.
  38. ↑ "Soundless Sound – The Tone That Fills The Cosmos". Yoga International Magazine Issue 36. July 1997. Secondary copy.
  39. ↑ Supreme Master Ching Hai (28 November 1999). "Quan Yin Method is the Easiest Way to God". Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association Publishing Co Ltd.
  40. ↑ Supreme Master Ching Hai (25 March 2010). "Quan Yin – The Five Precepts". Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association Publishing Co Ltd.
  41. ↑ 中国已公布的邪教组织名单 [the list of cult organization in China]. website of Peixian People's government in China (in Chinese). 22 July 2009. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
  42. ↑ "Park service to eliminate island". The Washington Times. 16 March 2004.
  43. ↑ Morgan, Curtis (24 March 2004). "Park removes access to illegal bay island". The Miami Herald (Link to Ross Institute).
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