Taken from the website http://www.lightawakeningtemple.com/
Master Yu Tian Jian – Living Buddha
Recognized as a Living Buddha in China, Yu, 52, has reached the highest possible rank in Buddhism, and is thought to be the reincarnation of a high spiritual leader in a 1,700-year-old tradition. Some people consider his rank similar to or even higher than the Dalai Lama’s. He has been honoured by Buddhist leaders from other countries. His full title is Master Yu Tian Jian the Great Enlightener Golden Crown Dharma King.
Yu is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine as well as author of a book about HanMi Buddhism that has sold a million copies in China. He was born in 1951 in Chaoyang City, Manchuria, just in time to grow up in the oppressive early years of the Chinese Communist regime. Yu became, he says, “an excellent Communist.” He had only six years of formal education in elementary school, and his youth was full of hardship, “a rough life.”
As a young man he was attacked by bandits and shot through the head, leaving scars still visible today. Miraculously, he survived that and other attacks. His body bears the marks of 27 knife wounds and two bullet wounds. Through the tough times there were bright notes. One was Yu’s amazing memory: he read anything once and remembered it. Another was a man who seemed to be a spirit guide of some kind, who appeared whenever Yu most needed help. When he was 39 and head of the heavy machine factories in his province, he says he was amazed when the man who had appeared to him in spirit form over the years approached him in flesh and blood and told him his destiny as a high Buddhist leader. “My teacher came to me in physical form, a real man, Oct. 24, 1989,” Yu says. “I made my decision right then and within three days I resigned my job, resigned as a member of the Communist party, and donated all my savings to charity. My relatives thought I was a fool. “I spent six months with him at a monastery, learning and practising. Much of what I know, I learned from him.”
He was trained in the traditions, theory and thought of the HanMi Mystery School of Esoteric Buddhism. Yu attained enlightment as a result of these experiences. At the end of the six months, his teacher left him and returned to spirit form, he says. Yu has spent the last 13 years travelling throughout China, teaching and healing. Some of his students have established a temple of HanMi Buddhism in California, of which he is abbot. He also has sanghas in several other places, including Japan, Taiwan, Toronto, Amherst, Massachusetts and Las Vegas. He has recently been followed around by a film crew making a documentary about him. Since his own destiny has taken such a dramatic turn, Yu says he hopes to help other people improve their own. “I would like to let people get to know Buddhism and to learn how Buddha dharma (teachings) can relieve suffering,” he says. “I would like to see people learn it for themselves so they can change their destinies.”