Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Buddhist institutions and contexts Buddhist institutions and lineages Taichung, Taiwan · 2014

Taiwan: temple founder convicted of coercing disciples into sex under a 'dual cultivation' doctrine

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

founder and master of a Chan temple

Organization

Shengde Chan Temple

Spiritual nexus

The complainants were his own disciples, and the mechanism was explicitly doctrinal: sexual acts were presented as 'dual cultivation', a spiritual practice, so that submission read to them as religious observance rather than assault.

  • Guru or spiritual-teacher authority
  • Sacred sex, purity, or sexual-energy claim
  • Ritual, oath, or initiation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2014-08-07 · conviction; sentence reduced on appeal; final appeal dismissed

    Taichung District Court; Taichung High Court; Supreme Court of Taiwan. Yang Zan-ru, known as Master Sheng Lun, founder of Shengde Chan Temple, was convicted of raping and molesting female disciples from 1991 onward, using the doctrine of 'dual cultivation' to obtain compliance and having disciples recruit younger devotees for him. The district court imposed 15 years; the High Court reduced this to 10; the Supreme Court dismissed his final appeal on 7 August 2014, making the conviction final. Four female disciples were also convicted as accomplices.

Appellate history

  1. 2014 · undefined

    undefined

  2. 2014-08-07 · undefined

    undefined

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • doctrine of 'dual cultivation' (雙修) presented as spiritual practice
  • senior disciples used to recruit younger devotees

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting final appellate disposition '性侵信徒逾10年 淫僧聖輪判15年', Liberty Times (Taiwan), reporting the conviction and subsequent appellate history through the 2014 Supreme Court disposition.

Taiwanese paper of record reporting the conviction, the dual-cultivation doctrine used to obtain compliance, and the final appellate outcome.

Related record

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