The Chen Jianmin (1906-1987) Legacy: An "Always on the Move" Buddhist Practice

Abstract

According to his website, Chen Jianmin followed thirty-seven masters before establishing his own school, called “Adi Buddha Mandala”. Chen Jianmin’s Buddhist life impressed a large range of people, from his co-disciples in the 1930s and 1940s to his today’s Taiwanese and American disciples. He first lived among Tibetans in Khams province before spending 25 years in Darjeeling meditating and producing hundreds of Buddhist booklets. He created new Buddhist symbols mixing Tibetan and Chinese traditions, and finally died in the United States. His remains are kept in Taiwan. The aim of this paper is to follow the life of Chen Jianmin and to analyze the way his created Buddhist legacy is practiced and understood among his followers, Taiwanese people mainly, who founded yet another Buddhist identity revealing a mechanism of religion that is “always on the move”.