Yinguang

CHINA, Shaanxi, Weinan

Yinguang was also known as Zhao Shaoyi and his Dharma name was Shengliang. He was a Pure Land school master who renounced at the age of 21 under Master Daocun. He led a simple life and was thrifty and assiduous. He went to Fayu Temple in Zhejiang, where he studied sutras and practiced for over 20 years. There, he printed over 1,000 volumes of Pure Land sutras and commentaries for free distribution to the public.
In 1926, Yinguang was invited to Lingyanshan Temple in Jiangsu to establish regulations, and thereafter, he founded Fayu Temple in Jiangsu where he established an orphanage. He also formed a prisoner’s corrective group and was involved in charity work, including disaster and emergency relief missions. When he passed away in 1940, several relics were recovered upon his cremation.
Devoting his life to Pure Land practice, Yinguang taught the Dharma in Putuoshan, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. His extensive writings on the teachings of the Pure Land school influenced later generations, and he was ultimately recognized as the Thirteenth Patriarch of the Pure Land school.
Yinguang’s other written works include magazines and books such as Collected Works of Master Yinguang, Treatise Resolving Doubts About the Pure Land, and Propitious Sayings of Master Yinguang. His calligraphic works include Verse by Master Huineng on a Good Heart, engraved into the Stele Wall at Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and Letter from Master Yinguang to Mao Sanpu, kept at Ho’s Calligraphy Foundation in Taipei, Taiwan.