Ching Hai

Life and career

Ching Hai was born to a Vietnamese mother and an ethnic Chinese father, on 12 May 1950 in a small village in the Quảng Ngãi Province in Vietnam. At the age of 18, she moved to England to study and later to France and then Germany, where she worked for the Red Cross. In 1969, she began a relationship with a German scientist. They married, but separated after two years to focus on spiritualism and she moved to India to study different religions. In 1979, she met a Buddhist monk in Germany whom she followed for three years, but his monastery denied entry to women.

Ching Hai attempted to buy a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from a bookshop near the Ganges. Despite the shopkeepers' assertions that they did not have a copy, an extensive search revealed one in a sealed box. This led to rumours of her having a third eye circulating by 1982. In 1983, she met a Vietnamese Buddhist monk in Taiwan named Jing-Xing, who ordained her in 1984 as "Thanh Hai", meaning "pure ocean".

According to her official biography, Ching Hai was born to a well-off naturopathic family in Âu Lạc, Hanoi, Vietnam. Though raised as a Roman Catholic, she learned the basics of Buddhism from her grandmother. A Himalayas spiritual teacher showed her a particular meditation method which she named Quan Yin method.

According to Ting Jen-Chieh (Ding Renjie), assistant research fellow in the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, by the early 1990s Ching Hai was at odds with the Buddhist establishment in Taiwan. Rather than submit to their demands, she severed all connections to Buddhist organizations, abandoned the traditional robe, grew out her hair, dressed fashionably, and set out to create her own independent group.

Currently, Ching Hai does not operate under the guise of traditional Buddhism. Her home page calls her "Supreme Master Ching Hai, a renowned humanitarian, artist, and spiritual leader" (lingxiu daoshi 領袖道士). Her current irreverence for religious traditions in general, have made her more synonymous to a Zen master.

Ching Hai calls her meditation method the Guan Yin (Chinese) or Quan Yin method because she gave her first public teachings in Taiwan. Quan Yin is a Chinese term that means "observation of the inner vibration". Her meditation centres in American cities such as Los Angeles benefit from tax-exempt status as religious organizations. She presides over an organization which owns restaurants and sells her jewellery and clothes.

A 1996 United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs report states "Published criticisms of Ching Hai generally fail to credit her organization's good works. Her members reportedly are active in many humanitarian and charitable causes...Ching Hai's greatest humanitarian activity continues to be working for the more than 20,000 Vietnamese refugees still in camps dispersed throughout Southeast Asia." The report also lists humanitarian aid to the victims of: 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the Great Flood of 1993 in the United States and the 1995 food shortage crisis in Cambodia. According to a report issued by the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong: Prior to the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong, Hai donated 6 million dollars to Vietnamese refugees and other people who needed help.

Upon receiving the Gusi Peace Prize in 2006, Political journalist Fel Maragay wrote in the Manila Standard that while "to her disciples and admirers, she is a messenger from the world of spirituality who has set the directions their lives aright by teaching them "method of enlightenment" through meditation", to the people she provides humanitarian assistance; "she is a good Samaritan who has come to their succor during times of natural calamities. She has always carried out her charitable mission without fanfare in any country hit by major disasters.".

ReliefWeb cites Hai Humanitarian aid to the victims of 1996 Bangladesh tornado, the 2009 Namibia floods, the 2015 European migrant crisis via the Croatian Red Cross and in 2017 to South Sudanese refugees via the Sudanese Red Crescent. Humanitarian aid has also been reported in local news outlets in Florida (USA) during Hurricane Ian, 2011 flood victims in Belize 2018 Northern Province floods in Sri Lanka, 2020 COVID-19 support for Ghana Red Cross Society, 2022 Assam floods in India. In Taiwan, Hai has been active in Homeless street outreach. In 2018 Lu Wei-Ching, deputy mayor of New Taipei City stated that "the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association has always paid attention to the disadvantaged, and usually donates all kinds of clothes and shoes to the homeless.".

Hai has created a series of awards under the umbrella title "World Shining Awards", "...to recognize some of the most exemplary, generous, caring, and courageous people who walk amongst us and go beyond the call of duty to help others unconditionally". A representative of Hai Association stated to The Washington Post that "An association committee selects individuals and organizations for donations based on their efforts to help others....Hai provides the money for the awards from the proceeds of her businesses, which include jewelry, clothing and vegetarian restaurants".

Award recipients included organizations such as the Department of Environmental Affairs (South Africa) of its efforts to protect Seals, the Iranian Red Crescent Society, for its humanitarian aid to victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. and International Animal Rescue Indonesia for its work saving critically endangered orangutans in Borneo, protecting rainforest habitats and encouraging sustainable community development. Or to individuals, such as a young boy from Ohio who bought special harnesses to police dogs, a lady from India for inventing non violent silk saris.

In Uncompleted Transitional Justice in Taiwan: Repression of Religious and Spiritual Minorities and the Tai Ji Men Case, Associate professor of Business administration at Shih Chien University, Cheng-An Tsai wrote "After 1987 [in Taiwan], a post-authoritarian regime followed, which proclaimed religious liberty but still persecuted religious movements perceived as hostile to the ruling party. In 1996, after the first direct presidential election, the Taiwanese government launched a political purge, targeting religious and spiritual groups that did not show support for the president in power during the election. The crackdown hit several of the largest religious movements active in Taiwan, including Fo Guang Shan, Chung Tai Shan, Tai Ji Men, the Taiwan Zen Buddhist Association, the Sung Chi-Li Miracle Association, and later Guanyin Famen [Ching Hai Association]". Cheng-An Tsai added " Liao Zheng-Hao Minister of Justice, actively carried out the "religious crackdown" to purge dissidents including: investigations, tax inspections by the National Taxation Bureau, assets seizure, demolitions of "illegal" structures, and exorbitant fines. This elaborate campaign required the mobilization of a large number of media, judicial organs, national tax authorities, and so on. Angry ex-members were encouraged to make vague accusations, each of which guaranteed a good three weeks of media headlines. The crackdown was supported by the media, most of which were not independent from the ruling politicians.". In 2019, speaking in a freedom of religion conference in Taiwan, Li Jianzhong Judge and president of the Shilin District court in Taipe, mentioned that the series of religious suppression incidents in 1996, of Song Qili, Miaotian, Taijimen, Supreme Master Ching Hai, and many other groups that have been targeted: Some lawsuits have been going on for more than 20 years. "They have been prosecuted for "fraud" related to criminal matters. After careful judicial trials, all of them were found not guilty". SET News reported that in 1996 Miaoli County government demolished an illegal building in Hai's meditation center and that it was searched by prosecutors and police on a large scale, but in the end she was not prosecuted due to insufficient evidence. ETtoday quoted Hai followers stating "Why did the investigation bureau spend so much manpower, but finally closed the case? because there was no victim".

In 1996 Hai's American followers donated $640,000 to Bill Clinton's Presidential Legal Defense Fund which the trust returned. Following the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy the fund took caution to what it deemed "suspicious" funding sources. Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Professor & Chair of International studies at UC, Berkeley wrote "Are donations from charismatic Buddhists one whit more threatening than those from Pat Robertson?" Csikszentmihalyi described the alleged controversy as scapegoating members of minority religious groups in order to divert attention from the real problem of money in politics.".

In 2003, park rangers discovered a man-made island and a 330-foot (100 m) long boardwalk that had been illegally constructed in Biscayne National Park in Florida from Ching Hai's property just inland of the shoreline. The estimated cost to remove the boardwalk, restore the damaged mangrove forest, and remove the several tons of limestone boulders from the environmentally sensitive seagrass bed, was US$1 million. Miami-Dade seized the property of Ching Hai, known locally under the pseudonym Celestia De Lamour, to help recover the costs of restoration. The following year, park workers demolished the boardwalk and replanted between 400 and 500 mangrove trees in the area. The artificial island of boulders remained due to lack of funding to hire a barge, which would cost several hundred thousand dollars. According to the Miami Herald, "Federal agencies still hope to recoup costs from the landowner, but investigators say she and her workers have left the country." Removing mangroves without a permit is prohibited in Florida and carries a fine. Conversely, in 2010, when the Woodland Trust received a £100,000 donation from Hai's foundation in order to conserve an area of Snowdonia woodland in Wales, and was challenged about the Florida Mangroves incident and criticism, Woodland Trust Spokesperson stated "...the Woodland Trust has procedures to rigorously check out all high value donations against key criteria pertaining to legality and Trust policy." and that "the Trust always investigated corporate donors to safeguard its reputation. It found nothing untoward about Ching Hai, neither did the group request publicity."

She is a supporter of Donald Trump and claimed Trump was a "God-Chosen Leader of America and Bringer of World Peace". Hai supported overturning the results of the 2020 US election.