Venerable Master Zhi Kai's Influence on Venerable Master Hsing Yun
Venerable Master Haing Yun was Venerable Master Zhi Kai’s only disciple. Rather than giving him a "loving" and lax education, his master treated him with "iron discipline." During Verable Master’s youth, his master did not easily let him take time off to go home. Afraid that exposure to the outside world would be distracting and lead him to regress in his practice, his master trained Venerable Master to let go of the desire for material goods by allowing him endune pain and poverty.
From “Jin Chueh” to “Hsing Yun”
When Venerable Master Hsing Yun was tonsured in 1938, he was given Dharma names "Jin Chueh (to become awakened today)" and "Wu Che (thoroughly enlightened)." While he was a student, he chanced upon the characters "hsing yun tuan" (nebula) in a dictionary, which was defined as clouds of ancient, boundless, and giant compositions of interstellar material that existed before the universe was formed. He greatly admired the
infiniteness and boundlessness of these nebulas, and aspired to become a star within a nebula; to illuminate the universe by combining the faint light of one star with the light of other stars. After the war against Japan, when he needed to register for an identification card, he gave himself the Dharma name
"Hsing Yun" (star and cloud).
