This essay aims to understand the ch’an originality and it’s application in daily life by observing the activities initiated and participated by Ven. Ming Kuang, to understand the social involvement of sangha shown by his enthusiastic and open-minded practices, to unlock the participants’ creative energy, to increase the audience’s knowledge of Buddhism and traditional arts through the process of practicing Buddha dharma, and to enable the public to understand the pluralistic features of Buddhist modernization from his inventions. This essay uses the life biography methodology to conduct in-depth interview on Ven. Ming Kuang’s life, mainly on his teaching originality, to collect relevant literature, and to interview the participants of his programs. The focus of the study is his creations and activities. Ven. Ming Kuang’s ch’an originality comes from his lineage of the Lin Ji Ch’an School and the Tien Tai School. He integrates the management science, the special education of ch’an, and the teaching techniques of Tien Tai School which emphasizes both knowledge and practice, and amalgamates phenomena and noumenon to develop people’s bodhi seed, displaying the function of dual practice of merits and wisdom of the originality technique. Ven. Ming Kuang’s ch’an originality is based on the originality teaching methods of Ch’an School and Tien Tai School. The former school applies ch’an in daily life, diagram, and meditation while the latter school uses the concentration and insight meditations of Lotus and Prajnana Sutras, and the five visualizations of Avalokitasvara Bodhisattva. He synthesizes the both schools to construct his system of modernized Ch’an School thoughts. Ven. Ming Kuang applies the three strategies of random teaching, blissful practice, and sudden enlightenment to the Buddhist and traditional festivals for cultural heritage and creation, and to the group activities for the internationalization of ch’an originality. To sum up, inspired by the teaching methods of Ch’an School and Tien Tai School, Ven. Ming Kuang gives an originality to let people nowadays understand that daily life and participation of various activities are all practices of Buddha dharma, i.e. Buddha dharma is not apart from worldly things.
