Hsing Yun

Hsing Yun 星雲
Hsing Yun in 2009
School	Fo Guang Shan
Personal
Nationality	Han Chinese
Born	19 August 1927 Jiangsu, China
Senior posting
Successor	Hsin Ping
Religious career
Present post	Spiritual advisor of Fo Guang Shan

Hsing Yun (Chinese: 星雲大師; pinyin: Xīngyún Dàshī; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Seng-hûn tāi su; born 19 August 1927) is a Chinese Buddhist monk and the founder of the Fo Guang Shan new religious movement as well as the affiliated Buddha's Light International Association. He was abbot of the order until his resignation in 1985.

Hsing Yun is a proponent of "humanistic" Buddhism, as taught by the Fo Guang Shan order.

In Taiwan, Hsing Yun is notable for his activity in political affairs, particularly as a supporter of the One-China policy as well as government legislation supported by the Kuomintang, and has been criticized for his views by those in favor of Taiwan independence and by religious figures, as being overtly political and "considerably far afield from traditional monastic concerns". During the 2008 presidential election, Hsing Yun publicly endorsed Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou. During the second World Buddhist Forum in 2009, Hsing Yun asserted that there are "no Taiwanese" and that Taiwanese "are Chinese". In 2012 he said that the Senkaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyutai Islands) belonged to China. He has encouraged reconciliation between China and the Dalai Lama, though he has distanced himself from the Dalai Lama in the past for fears of causing rifts between him and his organisation and the Chinese government.