Dharma Drum Mountain (DDM; Ch: 法鼓山) is an international Buddhist spiritual, cultural, and educational community founded in Taiwan by Chan Master Sheng Yen (1931–2009), one of the country’s most influential Buddhist leaders. He is popularly known as one of Taiwan’s “Four Heavenly Kings” of Buddhism, together with Master Cheng Yen (founder of Tzu Chi), Master Hsing Yun (founder of Fo Guang Shan), and Master Wei Chueh, (founder of Chung Tai Shan). Alongside these four global Buddhist orders, collectively known as the “Four Great Mountains,” Dharma Drum Mountain has grown to become one of the most influential Chinese Buddhist organizations in the world.
Master Sheng Yen founded Dharma Drum Mountain with the aspiration to uplift the character of humanity and build a pure land on Earth. Among the many projects, initiatives, and campaigns he brought into being to support this aspiration is DDM’s Threefold Education program, which consists of Academic Education, Public Buddhist Education, and Social Care Education.
Through this framework, DDM integrates rigorous academic study, public education on inner cultivation, and compassionate social service to address both personal spiritual growth and societal well-being. This is in line with Master Sheng Yen’s holistic vision that blends traditional Buddhist values with contemporary needs—a comprehensive approach that integrates intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development to nurture individuals who are knowledgeable, compassionate, and actively engaged in serving society.
Seeking to learn more about this unique approach to Buddhist practice, BDG spoke with Dharma Drum Mountain’s Venerable Yan He, a devoted Buddhist nun and an accomplished scholar, who shared her insights into the scope and impact of Master Sheng Yen’s Threefold Education.
Born into a Buddhist family, Ven. Yan He began studying at Dharma Drum Sangha University in 2012 and was ordained as a nun in 2013. In 2016, she began her first monastic assignment at the Dharma Drum Mountain World Center for Buddhist Education in Jinshan, Taiwan.
Ven. Yan He once led a session of the Rotary International Youth Exchange Program (國際扶輪社宗教體驗營) at Zhai Ming Monastery, where she taught Buddhist etiquette to young people from 17 countries. In 2021, she was assigned to serve at Dharma Drum Vancouver Center in Canada, where she organized meditation activities for the public, especially young people, to integrate Chan practice into sustainable actions, such as beach and river cleanup campaigns to practice walking meditation, and organic farming to practice working meditation.
Ven. Yan He is currently a member of the Office of Supervision at DDM Yunlai Monastery in Taipei, Taiwan.
BDG: Could we begin by talking a little about your personal background and your history with Dharma Drum Mountain?
Ven. Yan He: I entered Dharma Drum Sangha University in 2012 and have been ordained for more than 10 years. I received my first monastic assignment in 2016. Initially, I worked in Dharma Drum Mountain (DDM)’s central kitchen, preparing meals for thousands of people during large events. Later, I became a member of the events-planning team at DDM headquarter, organizing activities such as Dharma assemblies, camps for children, Lunar New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ceremonies, and training programs for volunteers.
Three years ago, I was assigned to serve at Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre in Canada, where I managed the kitchen and youth activities. I currently serve in the Office of Supervision at DDM Yunlai Monastery in Taipei. My duties include convening important meetings and overseeing special projects and activities.
BDG: Dharma Drum Mountain’s Threefold Education model encompasses Academic Education, Public Buddhist Education, and Social Care Education. Could you describe the basis for this system and how it reflects Master Sheng Yen’s vision for integrating Buddhist practice into modern society?
VYH: Venerable Master Sheng Yen, once said: “Why does Guanyin Bodhisattva have a thousand hands and a thousand eyes? Because the bodhisattva helps people with a multitude of different methods.” In the same way, students of different levels receive different teachings from their teachers. Likewise, DDM’s Threefold Education presents different pathways for different methods. Although these pathways might appear to be independent, they are deeply interconnected.
In 1983, Master Sheng Yen wrote an article titled “Compassion, Culture, and Practice.” In this article, the Master emphasized that the consistent purpose of the Buddha’s teaching is to help and benefit all sentient beings, and that Buddhism places great emphasis on compassion. Therefore, Master Sheng Yen proposed three major tasks for Buddhism in liberating and benefiting people: charity, culture, and practice.
Based on this perspective on human needs, Master Sheng Yen taught that both material and spiritual aspects are necessary and should not be neglected. The material aspects are related to the survival of life, while spiritual aspects are related to quality of life.
Among the three major tasks, DDM’s charitable work includes emergency relief and care for the disadvantaged—regardless of race, religion or nationality. We aim to serve all of humanity. DDM’s cultural work includes giving Dharma talks to the public, publishing Buddhist publications, and propagating the Buddhadharma through print and digital media, among other methods. In this way, the teachings of the Buddha are disseminated through mass communication tools, serving as a guide for purifying life and elevating spirituality.
After establishing a solid material foundation and elevating spirituality, the next step is practice. The purpose of practice is to reduce our afflictions and eliminate karmic obstacles. This requires following the Five Precepts and Ten Wholesome Actions as fundamental guiding principles in our daily life as Buddhists. Additionally, engaging in Buddhist practices such as meditation and chanting helps to eradicate mental afflictions, allowing the body and mind to attain true peace and happiness.
Therefore, charity, culture, and practice are closely interconnected and mutually reinforcing. These three aspects are equally important to form a complete and unending circle, and none should be neglected. For example, if our work leans too much on charity, it would resemble an ordinary charitable organization, providing material assistance without contributing to spiritual development, thus losing the essential characteristic of transforming the world through the Buddhist teachings.
On the other hand, if our work focuses too much on culture, it may turn into typical cultural education that focuses on theories and ideas, but lacks a transcendent attitude. Similarly, if one emphasizes practice without a foundation in Buddhist principles, it will lead you nowhere. Moreover, if one prioritizes practice while neglecting the compassionate action of charity—like someone who meditates all day and attends retreats—it leads to passivity, indifference, and selfishness.
Put simply, charity embodies DDM’s Extensive Social Care Education, while culture and practice represent DDM’s Extensive Public Buddhist Education. Through Extensive Social Care Education, we can stabilize the body and mind, and through Extensive Public Buddhist Education, we can achieve the function of purifying body and mind, and extend that to society.
BDG: How do these three aspects of education work together to meet the needs of contemporary society?
VYH: Earlier, I mentioned charity, culture, and practice. Through Extensive Social Care Education, individuals can achieve peace of mind and body; through Extensive Public Buddhist Education, it’s possible to achieve the purification of society through purifying body and mind. The fundamental core of DDM’s Threefold education is the mind, which is related to our spiritual environment.
First, we must understand the needs of people in contemporary society: Do they relate to material poverty or spiritual poverty? Is it external or internal poverty? Everything we promote at DDM has an educational function and a purpose toward practice. In response to the needs of society, we aim to help the public and enable people to apply the compassion and wisdom of the Buddha’s teachings in their daily lives.
Let’s take DDM Community University as an example. DDM Community University is part of our Extensive Public Buddhist Education, which is a form of public welfare education. However, it also integrates academic strengths with caring systems, combining community service with emergency relief and care. This demonstrates how they work together to meet the needs of society.
BDG: What are some of the ways that DDM engages in Public Buddhist Education to reach laypeople?
VYH: The content of Extensive Public Buddhist Education can be divided into two types: one is traditional while the other is more progressive. The traditional form includes Buddhist practice activities, such as Dharma assemblies, ordination ceremonies, pilgrimages, and meditation retreats. The progressive form, on the other hand, involves cultural activities, such as children’s camps, youth camps, lectures, publications, and online platforms, which offer new avenues, such as digital learning and online education.
For example, you can join Dharma assemblies online and practice under the guidance of monastics. DDM has also designed a series of Buddhist courses that play a significant role in DDM’s Extensive Public Buddhist Education. The courses range from beginner-level classes for those who are new to Buddhism, to a more advanced, structured curriculum that emphasizes practical application in daily life. Additionally, we offer specialized courses for volunteers, helping them to understand the vision of DDM and the significance of being a volunteer.
The purpose of Extensive Public Buddhist Education is to make the Buddhist teachings accessible to the general public, uplifting the character of humanity. This reflects the true intention of Buddhist education.
DDM’s academic research and Dharma promotion go hand in hand; DDM conducts interdisciplinary research and promotes the Buddhist teachings through domestic branches and international Dharma centers. In this way, we can guide practitioners in learning the Buddhist teachings while making them accessible to all.
BDG: Are there any misconceptions about Buddhism or Buddhist education that the Threefold Education system aims to address?
VYH: Master Sheng Yen often said that the Dharma is so good, yet so few people know about it, and so many people misunderstand it. This statement highlights that few people truly understand the Buddhadharma. Instead, they may learn from hearsay or accept what others have told them without genuinely comprehending the teachings.
First, the Master vowed to use contemporary ideas and language to introduce the true meaning of the Dharma to everyone and to revive the spirit of Shakyamuni Buddha. With this aspiration in mind, Master Sheng Yen wrote many books, such as Orthodox Chinese Buddhism (正信的佛教) and Common Questions in the Practice of Buddhism (學佛群疑).
Additionally, by organizing the Great Compassion Water and Land Dharma Service—a huge annual event celebrated at the Dharma Drum Mountain World Center for Buddhist Education—Master Sheng Yen aimed to revitalize this centuries-old ritual tradition to meet the needs of modern society, all while staying grounded in the Buddha’s compassionate spirit.
BDG: Does this system help to prepare Buddhists to engage with and address global challenges such as climate change, social inequality, and mental health crises?
VYH: I believe that crises like these, and all human problems, stem from our minds. Therefore, we focus on protecting the spiritual environment. All of these problems emerge from self-centeredness and the pollution within our minds. The Threefold Education helps Buddhists to become aware of ourselves, others, and society as a whole. It’s a way to benefit oneself and others on the bodhisattva path across lifetimes. For non-Buddhists, Master Sheng Yen drew up the Fivefold Spiritual Renaissance (心五四運動) and Six Ethics of the Mind (心六倫).
BDG: Has the Threefold Education model evolved since Master Sheng Yen first introduced it? How does DDM ensure that its programs remain relevant while adhering to traditional Buddhist principles?
VYH: I think the fundamental structure of DDM’s Threefold Education system remains unchanged, but the individual lessons have evolved. For example, during the pandemic, we implemented online and digital learning. After the pandemic, we also began considering how to integrate online and offline approaches.
For instance, DILA (the Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts) offers programs in various fields such as humanities and social sciences, as well as continuing education and academic research centers. The courses in the humanities and social science programs still focus on spiritual environmentalism at their core, covering subjects such as life education, social enterprise, community revitalization, and other social issues. DDM puts a lot of effort into ensuring that our programs remain relevant!
BDG: Does technology play a prominent role in the Threefold Education, particularly in light of the advent of AI and the challenges it presents for society?
VYH: DDM is involved in several projects applying AI technology. One tool is known as CBETA—the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association—in fact, I’m a heavy user of this database. It functions like an online dictionary and is a very useful tool for us.
The aim of CBETA is to help coordinate and promote the creation of scholarly digitized Chinese Buddhist scriptures, and it has been successfully serving the global Buddhist studies community. For future AI applications of CBETA, we plan to expand its collections to include cross-linguistic scriptures. We aim to develop multilingual Buddhist texts using automatic AI correspondence technology to improve the quality of scripture translations. This will involve using AI models to perform text recognition on images of the Tripitaka and linking different versions of the Tripitaka. We also hope to enhance its internal functionality and expand external collaboration.
This is just one of many projects involving the application of AI. I’d also like to share another idea from Master Sheng Yen. In 2001, he wrote an article on the development of technology and caring for humanity. He said: “I believe that when technology and humanity complement each other, the entire human race will feel more connected as a whole. Perhaps within the next 50 years, the concepts of nations, ethnicities, and cultures will still exist, but in our interactions, there may no longer be a need for passports or geographic identity as labels—a global community will emerge, and technology will become a shared culture of humanity and a common intellectual property.”
So, in the 21st century, the Master told us that everyone should adopt the mindset of “rooted in the local, yet looking at the world; grounded in the present, yet looking toward the future.” In this way, the development of technology can guide humanity to a better and more beautiful place.
BDG: Can you share any advice for Buddhist practitioners seeking to navigate our increasingly materialistic society?
VYH: I think that we should protect the spiritual environment. This means that we should encourage people, especially young people, to understand the importance of Right View—which involves the willingness to see things as they truly are.
Although change is constant, people often resist it. As a result, it’s easy to become lost in this increasingly materialistic society. When we resist change, it creates a lot of suffering within ourselves. Not only that, but this suffering can also manifest externally, in our interactions with others and in our life experiences.
We aim to teach young people that having the right view means having the right courage—the courage to see things as they are, and to look at them with wisdom and compassion. By doing so, we can identify the best ways to bring about change and recognize how to confront and embrace it.
DDM’s annual theme for 2025 is: The Power of Great Aspiration. It emphasizes the importance of having aspirations in spiritual cultivation, as well as the value of having and fulfilling great aspirations to help oneself and others. This theme encourages practitioners to cultivate compassion and take proactive steps for personal growth and the benefit of society. Through this, DDM aims to inspire people to understand that great inner strength arises from great aspirations, and that these aspirations can lead to individual and collective transformation.
DDM’s affiliates, at home and abroad, are planning to introduce more meditation activities focused on environmental and public welfare initiatives, aiming to engage and attract more young people. By applying the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhist teachings, these upcoming activities will continue our focus on benefitting oneself and others. In line with DDM’s mission to promote spiritual growth while addressing the needs of society and the environment, this initiative will encourage younger generations to actively contribute to positive change through mindfulness and compassion.
BDG: Ven. Yan He, thank you for sharing your time with us!
See more
Master Sheng Yen
Dharma Drum Mountain
Master Sheng Yen (YouTube)
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