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Our Faculty
Resident Teachers | Monastic Dharma Heirs | Lay Dharma Heirs | Lay Dharma Teachers | Dharma Teachers in Training
Resident Teachers
Guo Xing Fashi
 Our abbot, Guo Xing Fashi, one of Chan Master Sheng Yen's Dharma heirs, was born in Taiwan in 1953. After studying yoga and meditation, Guo Xing Fashi began to study Chan under the guidance of Chan Master Sheng Yen in 1984, and became ordained under him two years later, in 1986. After years of service in the Dharma Drum Mountain sangha, he was sent to Thailand in 1991 to enter into solitary retreat, studying Theravadan meditation. Upon returning to DDM, he continued to assist the Master in leading meditation retreats in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the United States, for a period of 20 years, totaling over more than 50 retreats, including the first 49-Day retreat at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in 2000. He previously served for eight years as the counselor for the DDM Chan Meditation Group of Nong Chan Monastery, six years as the guiding instructor for the DDM Sangha University Chan practice curriculum, as well as two years as the director of DDM's Chan Practice Center, the Director of the Chan Hall, as well as the supervisor of the Department of Transmitting the Lamp. Guo Xing Fashi is now a new resident teacher at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center. He speaks Taiwanese, Mandarin, and English.
Chang Wen Fashi
 A native New Yorker and current Director of the Dharma Drum Retreat Center, Chang Wen Fashi is a western monastic disciple of Chan Master Sheng Yen. After his ordination as a novice in 2004, he lived at the Dharma Drum Mountain World Center for Buddhist Education, Taiwan, and received a monastic education at the Dharma Drum Sangha University. After graduating from the University, he received full ordination in 2006, and then continued to serve as the counselor for the male students of the Chan Meditation Studies Department. Over this period of training, he attended and assisted with numerous intensive meditation retreats in the Chan Hall and abroad, as well as served as the leader for DDM's International Meditation Group in Taipei. Chang Wen Fashi holds a Bachelor's Degree of Science from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He is fluent in both English and Mandarin.
Chang Chi Fashi
 Chang Chi Fashi is a monastic disciple of Chan Master Sheng Yen, and was ordained in the year 2000. During his tenure at Dharma Drum Mountain, Taiwan, he took on various roles in serving the sangha, such as Secretary to the Abbot President, and also as teacher and counselor in the Dharma Drum Sangha University. Most recently, he was one of Chan Master Sheng Yen's attendants, taking care of Shifu right up until the time of his death in 2009. Currently, he is one of DDRC's resident teachers, supporting and leading Chan practice activities, as well as traveling to local venues to give Dharma talks and presentations. Chang Chi Fashi is a native of Taiwan, and has a bachelor's degree in Law from National Taipei University, and is also fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, and English.
Monastic Dharma Heirs
Chi Chern Fashi
 Ordained by Master Zhu Mo in Penang, Malaysia, Chi Chern Fashi studied at the Fo Guang Buddhist College in Taiwan. Around 1980, he participated in several seven-day retreats and a period of fasting with Master Sheng Yen at the Institute of Buddhist Culture (Wen Hua Guan). During this time he had a profound experience. With Master Sheng Yen's confirmation, he returned to Malaysia to teach meditation. He received transmission from Master Sheng Yen in 1986, becoming his first Dharma heir. Chi Chern Fashi is currently the principal of the Malaysian Buddhist Institute, and is one of the most respected meditation teachers in Malaysia and Singapore.
Guo Ru Fashi
 At the age of thirteen, Guo Ru Fashi became a monk under the guidance of Chan Master Sheng Yen (Shifu). For over 20 years, has been teaching Buddhist principles and Chan practice extensively throughout Asia. In 2005, he received Dharma transmission from Shifu, thus taking on the role of one of the Head Trainers at Dharma Drum Mountain's Meditation Hall in Taiwan. Guo Ru Fashi has carried on the style of Chan training that Shifu utilized in his early days of teaching, by making use of methods which are specifically characteristic to huatou practice-such as shouting, hitting, and pressing students in a dynamic and spontaneous manner. In this way, he helps huatou practitioners to suddenly put a stop to the mind's grasping consciousness, thus allowing the mind to be without any attachment. In this way, one opens up to the reality of life, experiencing completeness and freedom.
Lay Dharma Heirs
Zarko Andricevic
 Founder of the Buddhist Center in Zagreb, Croatia. Zarko first encountered Buddhism in 1975 and has been a martial arts and yoga teacher since the 1970s. In 1985 he started the first Buddhist study and meditation group in Croatia which in time grew into the first Buddhist community there. This community is known as Dharmaloka nowadays. In 1996, while seeking a new teacher, he met Chan Master Sheng Yen, attended his seven-day retreat and became one of his students. Seeing Chan as the very core of the Buddha Dharma and Master Shen Yen as the man whose teaching stems directly from the meditative experience, he has dedicated himself to the practice of Chan meditation and has attended Master Sheng Yen's retreats regularly. In June 2001, during a two-week retreat in the USA, Zarko received Dharma transmission from Master Sheng Yen, thus becoming one of his five Dharma heirs in the West.
Simon Child
 Resident in UK, first encountered Chan as a medical student on retreat with John Crook, with whom he has continued training since 1981. His first retreat with Chan Master Sheng Yen was in 1992. He recieved Dharma transmission in 2000. He is secretary of Western Chan Fellowship, the European lay Chan organization, founded in 1997 by Dr John Crook. He works as a family doctor, and is married with two adult sons.
John H. Crook, PhD, DSC
 Resident in UK, long-term practitioner of Chan, received Dharma transmission in 1993. He is guiding teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship, which presents several types of retreat including the Western Zen Retreat and intensive Koan and Silent Illumination retreats. John was Reader in Ethology in the Department of Psychology at Bristol University for many years, a science now known as Evolutionary Psychology, and has held numerous visiting professorships in Europe, India, and America. He began his research work studying the evolution of social structure in birds and primates and moved towards the study of human life. His book, The Evolution of Human Consciousness, Oxford University Press, 1980, ISBN: 0198571747, pioneered the view that Buddhist psychology was relevant to Western studies of consciousness. Following a year as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, where he also encountered the humanistic psychology of the Esalen Institute, John Crook became more involved with therapeutic approaches to relieving human suffering. John has collaborated with Master Sheng Yen in two publications, Catching a Feather on a Fan and Illuminating Silence. Other books by John H. Crook are Space in Mind, Vega Books (2002) ISBN-13: 978-1843331490 ; Himalayan Buddhist Villages: Environment, Resources, Society and Religious Life in Zangskar, Ladakh, John H. Crook and Henry Osmaston, Eds., Bristol Classical Press (1994) ISBN-13: 978-0862923860; and The Yogins of Ladakh: A Pilgrimage Among the Hermits of the Buddhist Himalayas, with James Low, Motilal Banarsidass, India (1997) ISBN-13: 978-8120814622.
Gilbert Gutierrez
 Gilbert Gutierrez has over thirty-nine years of meditation experience, which includes his study of various martial arts as well as Chi Gong. In 2002, he received Dharma Transmission from Master Sheng Yen, making him the only western lineage holder currently residing in the United States. He conducts retreats and lectures throughout North America. His home base is in Southern California and he lectures regularly at the Los Angeles DDMBA chapter and with his own group in Riverside, California. Gilbert teaches in a classical Chan style which inspires his students to investigate Chan through diligent practice.
Lay Dharma Teachers
Guo Gu (Jimmy Yu, Ph.D.)
 Guo Gu is one of Master Sheng Yen's senior lay teachers and translators, assisting with and leading activities at the Chan Meditation Center, Dharma Drum Retreat Center, and Dharma Drum Mountain, Taiwan. In 1982, while still quite young, he learned meditation from Master Sheng Yen, and began practicing Chan intensively in 1989. He was also the personal monastic attendant and assistant to Master Sheng Yen for almost nine years, and then in 1995, he was given permission by the Master to teach (inka) Chan. He has led retreats in various parts of the United States, Europe, and Asia. Guo Gu is now the guiding instructor for the Western Dharma Teachers at the Chan Meditation Center. He received his doctorate in Buddhist Studies in 2008 from Princeton University, and is now an Assistant Professor at Florida State University. Currently, he is the leader of the Tallahassee Chan Group which meets regularly at the Tallahassee Buddhist Community in Florida.
Hilary Richards
 Resident in UK, has been practicing in the Chan tradition in the mid 1980s. She has trained with Shifu in the US and also with John Crook and Simon Child in the UK. She is past Chair of the Western Chan Fellowship and leads retreats for the Fellowship at Maenllwyd in mid Wales.
Dharma Teachers in Training
Rikki Asher, PhD
 Yoga teacher, artist, began practicing with Shifu in 1978. Rikki is a member of DDMBA of North America Board of Directors; a California Yoga Teachers Association member; a painter and printmaker; and Director of Art Education, Queens College, City University of New York. She teaches Beginners Meditation classes in Queens, NY.
David Berman
Gongfu teacher in New York City - he represents the 8th generation of Wu Mei Pai, a martial art from the White Crane Buddhist Monastery in Hunan. He began meditating with T.M. (Transcendental Meditation) in 1969; he became Chan Master Sheng Yen's student in 1993 and went on his first Chan retreat in 1995. He has been teaching meditation and lecturing on behalf of the Chan Center since 1999, and since 2001 has been Editor-in-Chief of Chan Magazine.
Nancy Bonardi
 Meditation teacher, began practicing meditation with Shifu in 1978. She is a member of the Chan Meditation Center Board of Trustees. She teaches Beginners Meditation Classes and conducts One Day Chan Retreats. She also teaches Metta Contemplation at the DDYP College Retreat and Wellness Chan Retreat at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in Pine Bush, New York. She lives in Connecticut and teaches English to seventh graders.
Buffe Laffey
 Disciple of Master Sheng Yen since 1976, Buffe is a regular leader of DDRC's Thursday Evening Meditation Group and teaches Beginners Meditation Classes. She is Assistant to the Director at DDRC, and is also an associate editor of the Chan Magazine.
Rebecca Li, PhD
 Attended her first seven-day retreat with Chan Master Sheng Yen, founder of Dharma Drum Retreat Center, in 1996. Since then, she has attended numerous intensive Chan retreats and began translating for Master Sheng Yen in 1999. She teaches the Beginner's' Dharma Class and Beginner's Meditation Class at the Chan Meditation Center and leads short retreats at DDRC. Rebecca is a board member of the Dharma Drum Retreat Center and professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at The College of New Jersey.
David Slaymaker, PhD
 Began practicing Soto Zen in 1992 and began practicing with Shifu in 1995. He teaches Beginners Meditation Classes and Beginner's Dharma classes at the Chan Meditation Center in Queens, NY and conducts One Day Chan Retreats in Queens and at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in Pine Bush, NY. David has previously served on the Chan Meditation Center Board of Trustees, and currently resides in New Jersey where he is a professor of biology at William Paterson University.
William (Bill) Wright
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