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

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2014

Sentence reduced from 15 to 10 years.
2014-08-07

Final appeal dismissed; conviction final.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

founder and master of a Chan temple

Organization

Shengde Chan Temple

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

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

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.

Documented coercion mechanisms

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

Cited 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.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

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Source and tier basis: https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/paper/629472 Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: final-appellate-disposition. SHA-256 32afab09082331da70047f50a2b7a4b7d443d34cd55679a33c21a2d8f4561077
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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