OUR FACULTY
Resident Monastics
Guo Yuan Fashi
Abbot
In 1985, our abbot, Guo Yuan Fashi, encountered Master Sheng Yen’s teachings while attending a seven-day retreat in New York. He became a disciple before finally leaving his job in Toronto, Canada, to become a monk in the Chan tradition. He was ordained in 1987 in Taiwan. Then, for over twenty years, he accompanied and worked as translator to Master Sheng Yen in various Chan meditation retreats around the world. In 1991, he studied Theravada Buddhism for a year in Thailand. Upon his return, Guo Yuan Fashi was elected abbot of both the Chan Meditation Center (CMC) in Queens and the Dharma Drum Retreat Center (DDRC) in Pine Bush, New York. His responsibilities include attending interfaith services, teaching meditation, and giving lectures on Buddhism. In 2006, he became the director of the International Chan Retreat Center in Dharma Drum Mountain, Taiwan. In 2016, he returned to Pine Bush to become once again the abbot of DDRC. Fluent in Mandarin, Vietnamese, and English, he leads Chan retreat in many countries around the world.
Enjoy a guided meditation led by Guo Yuan here.
Chang Yuan Fashi
Director
Director of the Dharma Drum Retreat Center, Chang Yuan Fashi manages the center and is a meditation teacher with over ten years of experience. He first entered the Dharma Drum Sangha University in 2002, where he studied a formal Buddhist education. In 2006, he received full ordination. After graduating from DDSU, for the next four years he devoted himself to the education and administration of a youth group.
From 2010-2014, while at the Dharma Drum Mountain organization meditation center, Chang Yuan Fashi managed an administration unit to promote meditation, including training courses, meditation classes, and short-term retreats. During that time, he ran two large and remarkable meditation events for 10,000 people. From 2010-2017, at DDMO, he completed his meditation training in a meditation hall and became a meditation teacher. He then spent several years teaching and spreading meditation in Taiwan, holding many retreats.
Although he is a teacher, he still schedules meditation retreats for himself, including long-term retreats, several times a year to further his own practice. In 2019, he became a resident monastic in the United States. He continues to teach meditation.
Yan Xi Fashi
Venerable Yan Xi first encountered Chan meditation during his college years, when he began searching for a path to understand and transform human suffering. Through the teachings of Venerable Master Sheng Yen, he came to realize that Chan practice has the power to transform the mind, enabling one to face life’s challenges with wisdom, clarity, and a renewed perspective.
Motivated to deepen his practice, Venerable Yan Xi left his professional career in Macao and traveled to Taiwan to pursue the monastic path. He joined the monastic community of Dharma Drum Mountain in August 2016 and later completed a six-year training program in Chan Meditation Practice at Dharma Drum Sangha University.
He previously served as a Buddhist minister at the International Chan Retreat Center of Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan. He currently serves as a resident monastic at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in New York, where he leads retreats and teaches Dharma programs.
Yan Wu Fashi
Venerable Yan Wu joined Dharma Drum Retreat Center (DDRC) in August 2021 as a Buddhist minister. Prior to DDRC, he was a monastic advisor at Dharma Drum for Young People (DDYP) Degui Academy in Taipei for three years. During his tenure at DDYP, he has taught Chan meditation in a systematic and methodical approach to educating and helping young people in the art and science of stillness. He also led meditation, taught Buddhist chanting, and supported activities for meditation camps. He was a graduate of Dharma Drum Sangha University, majored in Buddhist studies and Chan meditation practice, a four-year seminary program.
Chang Ji Fashi
Chan Master Sheng Yen's Heirs In The Dharma Drum Mountain Lineage
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 1985, 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.
Simon Child
Simon Child received Dharma Transmission from Chan Master Sheng Yen in 2000 and is the Guiding Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship, a Chan organization based in the UK. A resident of England, he is married with two adult sons. He is a family doctor and also does work in Clinical Informatics. Simon started his training with John Crook in 1981 and trained with Chan Master Sheng Yen starting in 1992. His teaching approach uses the orthodox methods of Chan Master Sheng Yen and also some adaptations to help the Western personality engage with traditional practice.
Zarko Andricevic
Zarko Andricevic, is founder of Dharmaloka Chan Buddhist Community and Chan Retreat Centre in Croatia. Zarko first encountered Buddhism in 1975 and has been a martial arts and yoga teacher since the 1970s. In the mid-80s, he started the first Buddhist study and meditation group in Croatia. In 1996, he met Chan Master Sheng Yen and became one of his students. Zarko received Dharma transmission from Master Sheng Yen in June 2001. Since then, he has been teaching and leading Chan retreats in Europe, USA, Canada, Taiwan and Australia. He currently lives and teaches at Chan Retreat Center in Croatia.
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 Chan 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 Riverside Chan Meditation Group in California. Gilbert teaches in a classical Chan style which inspires his students to investigate Chan through diligent practice.
Learn about Chan from Gilbert here.
Third Generation Dharma Heir
Rebecca Li
Rebecca Li, Ph.D. is a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community. She attended her first intensive retreat with Chan Master Sheng Yen in 1996 and began serving as his interpreter in 1998. Later on, she trained with John Crook and then Simon Child, both Dharma heirs of Master Sheng Yen, to lead intensive retreats. She received full Dharma transmission from Simon Child in 2016. She teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures, and leads retreats in North America and Europe. Her talks and writings can be found at www.rebeccali.org. She is a sociology professor and lives with her husband in New Jersey. She is the author of Allow Joy into Our Hearts: Chan Practice in Uncertain Times, and her new book is Illumination: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method (Shambhala Publications, October 2023).
Teachers
David Listen
David Listen has been sharing Chan/Zen meditation and Buddhist teachings for 20 years, leading intensive meditation retreats, classes, and activities at various monasteries, college campuses, and private institutions throughout North America, Europe, and East Asia. Previously known as Venerable Chang Wen (常聞法師) he was one of the few Western monastic disciples of Chan Master Sheng Yen. He had been a monk for over a decade, and in 2015 returned to lay life to share the insights of the Buddha in his own creative way. David is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and has done extensive work translating the teachings of Chinese Buddhism into English, both on retreat and in published works.
He holds a Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies, a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling, and is currently licensed counselor in the State of New York. He also has his own life mentoring/coaching practice, guiding people in their cultivation of wisdom and compassion on an individual basis. He currently lives with his wife in New York and hopes to continue to share Buddhism in a practical and down-to-earth way via social media and upcoming publications.
See his YouTube channel on Buddhism here.
Harry Miller
Harry Miller has studied and practiced meditation for five decades. He studied with Master Sheng Yen for over 30 years. He was editor of The Chan Newsletter for over 10 years, and he is a frequent contributor to Chan Magazine, and a certified Dharma Teacher at the Chan Meditation Center.
In addition, he is a board member at CMC, and he was a docent at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, in NYC where he led tours of concerned with Buddhist art and teachings until it closed in November, 2024.
He is a Dharma Teacher for the Buddhist Sangha at All Souls, NYC, where he leads a bi-weekly Dharma Study group.
He holds a B.A in French and English literature from Sarah Lawrence and an M.A. in Chinese Literature and an M.Phil. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
He is a recipient of an NEA grant for his Chinese translations, and he is the translator of the soon-to-be-published The Need to be Gentle, a book by Master Sheng Yen, which is about incorporating Chan into everyday life.
He recently finished giving thirty lectures on the Lotus Sutra, and he is currently writing a book on the sutra with the working title, A Practitioner’s Guide to the Lotus Sutra.
Nancy Bonardi
Nancy met Chan Master Sheng Yen in 1978, when he was a student in her English class. She became his meditation student shortly thereafter. She has taught metta contemplation and beginner meditation classes, and she has led one day retreats at the Chan Meditation Center (CMC) in Queens. At the Dharma Drum Retreat Center, she co-led the Beginner’s Mind retreat. She has been a guest speaker at the Insight Meditation Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nancy lives in Virginia and Indiana.
Nancy shares about daily meditation practice here.
David Slaymaker
DDRC Staff
Jacob Isbell
Facilities Manager
Jacob participated in his first silent retreat at DDRC in 2011. He finished his PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2021, and then spent 1 year living at a Hindu meditation center in California. He then worked at a technology startup in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is originally from, for a year and a half. After recognizing how hard it can be to maintain a meditation practice in a stressful work environment, he left his job at the beginning of 2024 and transitioned to working for DDRC. He also enjoys hiking and playing piano and bass guitar.
Neil Medel
Assistant General Manager
Neil first began exploring Buddhism and meditation practice about 15 years ago. A pilgrimage to the holy sites of the Buddha’s story deepened his commitment. As he was exploring different Buddhist traditions, he was introduced to Chan practice and the Dharma Drum community. He began to attend the Chan Meditation Center in NYC, and then longer retreats at DDRC, where he would sometimes volunteer. He is grateful to be part of the DDRC community and to participate in making the tradition’s wise teachings available to others.
Bianca Chang
Marketing Specialist
Bianca first learned about Master Sheng Yen from her grandmother in high school. The personal accounts her grandmother had shared about Master Sheng Yen‘s humility and unwavering devotion to the Dharma have since left a deep impression on her. 15 years later, Bianca joins DDRC to provide communication support after leaving the EdTech industry and is happy to contribute a humble part to Master Sheng Yen‘s vision. One of Bianca’s favorite forms of meditation is cooking meditation. She loves how it nurtures both the body and the mind, and it’s a wonderful way to practice Chan in everyday life.