Kai-Tsan

TAIWAN, Kaohsiung

Kai-Tsan had a family name of Wu and a monastic alias of Wei-Hsueh. Gifted with great wisdom at a young age, he regularly chanted and participated in activities at Chaofeng Temple in Kaohsiung. By the age of eight, he renounced under Master Yung-Ting with the guidance of Master Kai-Chao.
He rebuilt Chaofeng Temple and assumed abbotship after the Japanese army ordered the temple and its branches to move their locations in 1942. Kai-Tsan was later invited by Daxian Temple in Tainan to become the abbot and help rebuild the temple in 1946. With his solicitation efforts and supervision, the monastic order laid down the patio behind the Great Hero Hall and built several halls, pagodas, and dormitories on the temple grounds. The inner main temple gate was designed and built by Kai-Tsan himself.
Kai-Tsan organized a full ordination ceremony at Daxian Temple in the winter of 1952, the first to take place in Taiwan after World War II. A total of 175 monastic preceptees took part in the ordination and over 300 lay devotees vowed to uphold the precepts at the ceremony. This event greatly impacted the further development of Buddhism in Taiwan.
At the age of 70, for cultivation practice, Kai-Tsan became a recluse, only taking simple meals and wearing minimal clothes and no shoes. He was pragmatic throughout his life and endured hardships in order to serve as an example for other who desired to cultivate themselves. After entering nirvana, many relics were found in his remains. Kai-Tsan is today regarded as a highly-cultivated monk.