By Fritz Grohmann with Shen Mei-jen

New Life South Road is not just any avenue cutting through the heart of modern Taipei. If you look for the mosque in town, here it is, a few steps’ distance from the main Catholic house of worship. Churches of the major Protestant denominations are easily found in the vicinity too, as is the large Kuan-yin statue gazing down in benign silence on the traffic roaring by.

But today we direct our steps into one of the narrow alleys flanked with rows of apartment blocks and, hidden wild growing gardens, an occasional wooden house in traditional Japanese style, which has managed so far to escape the recent reckless trends towards concrete.

The noise of the main road disappears behind us, and we reach our destination. No sign, no plate indicating a lawyer’s office on the fifth floor, yet this is the place where one of the most outspoken women in Taiwan lives and works – Shen Mei-jen, social activist, human rights lawyer, mother of three little boys. She’s also chairperson of FPMT Taiwan, and we’ve asked for an interview.

Just back from a court session, Shen Mei-jen is already on the phone. Her life is busy but not because she takes on many cases. “I’m not ambitious in this respect,” Mei-jen admits. “For me it’s fine when the income covers the expenses. Many lawyers cultivate important connections by indulging in social appointments and parties or join clubs where they can meet lots of businessmen. But what I’m interested in are organizations working for the public welfare.”

“I might be well known to some degree because of my involvement with civic bodies striving for the common good, but in terms of court cases it usually means voluntary service. How could you charge a child prostitute you’re trying to protect from further harm? It’s bad enough that you don’t support her financially!”

Her work with child prostitutes started in 1987. There had been many press reports about girls sold by their parents and forced into prostitution. Remembering similar stories from a decade earlier, Mei-jen realized the problem hadn’t been dealt with and felt compelled to act. She brought together people from human rights and feminist organizations to found the Taiwanese Women’s Rescue Association, and invited many lawyers and judges to join.

“At first, we tried to help individual girls. But then we discovered that many of the problems had to do with legal imperfections, so we turned our attention to revision of the law. We submitted petitions and developed a strategy for social movements.” They also found that many of the rescued child prostitutes resisted reintegration into society. Gradually they realized that the best solution was to prevent children from becoming prostitutes in the first place. “How can the limited number of girls saved compare with the one or two thousand sold into slavery each year?”

It’s also a question of common social practices. “If you don’t have so many men lusting for sex with little girls, you don’t create this market situation. No demand, no need for supply. But in the present environment the pimps make huge profits and they use this money to buy the police. Even high-ranking officers are said to protect organized crime. This creates many problems for us,” says Mei-jen matter-of-factly.

Originally in favor of regulating prostitution, Mei-jen’s attitude changed as she researched women forced into prostitution and the law for her master’s thesis. She became convinced that it was such an inhumane business it should be prohibited altogether. With her, the Rescue Association took an active part in passing legislation to protect the rights of women.

When the association became a foundation in 1988, Mei-jen stayed on the board and went on to work with other socially engaged groups. She helped Ven. Ching-yao establish the Young Buddhists Association and served on the first board. Aware of the impact of social customs, she joined the Purification Cultural and Educational Foundation founded by Ven. Ching-yao in 1990, serving as executive director. She created an alliance of forces instrumental in revising the Child Protection and Welfare Law to offer more benefits to children and adolescents. The new law passed in 1991 and the alliance became a foundation.

Although attracted by the Buddhist term “reaching the other shore” and the prospect of a state without afflictive emotions, Mei-jen has never found this to be enough. Benefiting others has always been more important. And all her experiences point to change in attitude as the most powerful means of attaining happiness.

The last of nine children, Mei-jen was given away by her real parents to her mother’s younger sister whose marriage was childless. When her foster father took a second wife and they had two sons, a power struggle broke out. “The second wife gave me a very hard time. Maybe she thought that if I left, my foster mother would leave,” Mei-jen recalls. “It was more difficult to understand my foster mother’s behavior. She didn’t dare to blame the second wife, so she cursed me. From her side I experienced only hatred.”

The second wife died while Mei-jen was a university student. “I hoped that my foster mother would become nicer, but nothing changed. Maybe because my foster father didn’t treat her well she needed someone to vent her anger on. Whenever I came home they showered constant verbal abuse on me without any apparent reason.”

“My real parents were very upset. At first I consoled them that this was a good training, preparing me to cope with difficulties in the future. But later when I was in graduate school, an incredible hatred built up within me. I got so angry and wanted to take revenge. This rage was extremely painful, unbearable. I became totally exhausted and unhappy just by this thought of hatred! So I thought about reasons to get rid of that suffering and came up with three. First, since good actions yield happiness and bad ones suffering, it’s possible that in the past I did something to them which I now had to repay. In this case, there was no reason to be upset. Secondly, since suffering is impermanent, it can’t last forever but has to decrease. Finally, as good deeds bring about happiness I should engage in many wholesome actions to improve my lot. This threefold reasoning, I discovered, helped me to regain balance.”

Mei-jen gladly shares her experiences with others. Once a woman came into my office with hatred just burning in her eyes. She was prepared to douse her husband with petrol and set him aflame, and just wanted to know that the courts would do with her. I explained how she could try to change her outlook, and when she left her whole expression was different. And later she joined us at the center for an animal liberation.”

“So I earned that one’s own suffering offers options to help other people in the future. Because of my past, for example, I can better understand why abused children are prone to be filled with such a hatred. When it happens, you suffer, but you can discover that it actually is a positive experience.”

Throughout her life, Mei-jen has relied on intuition when making decisions, even when family, society and logic would have dictated a different path. As a student, she opted for social sciences even when her top scores in math and biology qualified her for medical school. “I wanted to save the world and humanity,” Mei-jen remembers.

Mei-jen entered the economics department at highly regarded Taiwan National University, but found she didn’t like subjects that didn’t deal with people, and she had no wish to become rich.  She changed her course of studies several times, attending classes in sociology, psychology, and philosophy until she found what fit her. “It turned out to be in jurisprudence. I’ve been always interested in social work but if you deal with individual cases, no matter how much energy you invest, only a limited number of people can be helped. But if you know law you can work on its revision, on the establishment of a just legal system, and in this way help many people.”

After graduating, instead of following the usual path of preparing for examinations to get a lawyer’s or judge’s license, Mei-jen attended graduate school. “I had no motivation to take these tests,” she explains. “I looked for a reason, and thought to get the license for my parents. Our family was poor, and if I could get licensed I could help with the finances.

Mei-jen passed both exams, but didn’t want the career of a judge. Like her real father, Mei-jen thought it wrong for judges to accept bribes. Her foster father, however, thought that being a judge was an easy way to become rich and bring glory to the family. “When I insisted on my refusal to be a judge, my foster father demanded that I open my own law office. However, I didn’t feel confident enough and began to work in another office. He got mad again,” says Mei-jen, remembering turbulent times.

That was in 1985. Mei-jen’s foster father died shortly thereafter and the burden of supporting the family rested on her. Her parents had earned their living by selling soup or noodles or ice cream on the roadside. “Whenever I had free time I cooked for them or washed the dishes. All that became much simpler after I started working at that lawyer’s office. There were still some debts to pay, but I could take care of my foster mother and my two younger brothers and the elder one’s wife and kid. One year later, I opened my own office. That gave me the freedom to devote myself to social concerns.”

Mei-jen’s first formal encounter with Buddhism came as a freshman when she joined the Buddhist student club. “But I felt these guys were too pessimistic, too passive,” she explains. “Life shouldn’t be like that! And when they talked about compassion, it sounded like hollow bragging. So I left after first term.”

Then she was introduced to the Catholic student club. “I liked their teachings about love and the songs and the guitar playing, but I couldn’t accept their tenets in general.”

The connection to Buddhism was reestablished when a classmate was ordained at Fo-Kuang Shan, a Buddhist monastery in South Taiwan. Mei-jen, then a graduate student, attended a students’ summer camp there. “I asked a lot of questions but didn’t get the answers. So I didn’t take refuge,” Mei-jen recalls. “The last day was devoted to Ch’an and Pure Land practice. We were supposed to meditate and recite the Buddha’s name, and I had nothing but confused thoughts. But then came a session where I told myself there was no need to look for more logical reasons. I just recited and finally got a feeling for Amitabha’s compassion. I started crying. I had had problems with making prostrations, and here I sat crying. How embarrassing! I lowered my head but when we circumambulated I just couldn’t control my tears.

“This experience gave me the feeling that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas probably exist. Then I drew lots. I prayed to participate in activities for the public welfare, and asked the bodhisattva whether this was okay. But when I read the lot I got a shock. I expected an affirmative answer but it said that fame and wealth are impermanent and when you die it’s a lonely passage. Whether it was really an answer given by the bodhisattva or not is another matter, but I began to understand that material provisions are not the most important thing. They’re only temporal, like wealth or fame. At that time I didn’t think more in depth about it but I sensed that there had to be a change in the orientation of my life.”

Later at lectures given by a layman not far from the Buddhist dormitory where she lived, she immediately connected to teachings about the bodhisattva manifesting as bridges or crops to help sentient beings. It struck a chord deep inside. “In one of the short retreats we did at the Catholic student club we painted our image of the ideal. One other law student drew scales but I thought, ‘I’m striving for perfection.’ So I painted many smaller people around, each one in a circle – perfect. Actually, at that time I had no Dharma knowledge.”

When her foster mother became seriously ill in 1992, Mei-jen “clutched at the Buddha’s feet in the face of danger,” she says laughingly. “I had read in a book by Lei Chiu-nan that said saving lives can cure cancer. So I spent thousands of dollars on that. Fortunately I had some savings.  And I tried to contribute to meaningful causes, for example, helping build schools on the mainland. My mother recovered somewhat and lived for one more year. I became very serious about religion, visiting temples and praying to the bodhisattvas. I also read more about Dharma and got a very positive impression. I even thought it was a good idea to become a nun!”

About this time Taipei center director Sophia Su was looking for expert advice on establishing a legal FPMT body in Taiwan. Center member Yueh-mei offered to introduce Sophia to her former classmate and roommate, Shen Mei-jen. They visited Mei-jen in the hospital – she’d just given birth to her third child. Sophia showed her the Chinese version of The Boy Lama, Vicki Mackenzie’s book about Lama Yeshe and Lama Osel, and the center’s bi-monthly newsletter in which there were some teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Gen Lama Konchog. Mei-jen was impressed by their teachings on mind transformation. It was the first time she had read anything like this, and it fit her way of thinking perfectly, so practical and easy to understand.

Mei-jen’s foster mother succumbed to cancer, and Mei-jen visited the center for the first time when Gen Lama Konchog did a puja for the dead. The center moved, and Rinpoche came for a short visit. Mei-jen attended the only talk he gave at the new place. In the past she had had many misconceptions about Tibetan Buddhism, but here was a master who transmitted a practical teaching: how to transform problems into opportunities for practice. She loved it. But when Sophia told her she came out best in Rinpoche’s observation for a new center director, Mei-jen declined, being too busy and unfamiliar with the center. In the end, Sophia and Mei-jen became co-directors.

Mei-jen immersed herself in the center, doing the paperwork for establishing FPMT Taiwan and attending endless meetings and discussions. The center moved again, and directors changed. The foundation was legally registered last year with Mei-jen on the board of directors. Shortly after that the board of the Women’s Rescue Foundation elected her as chairperson, and she began to devote much of her energy to them.

The she had a dream. “A doctor told me I had liver cancer and just three months left. At that time there were only two thoughts in my mind: I wanted to promote hospice work, which I felt was very important, and I wanted to finish my cases or hand them over to other lawyers. In the dream I was not at all concerned about my husband or children. Shortly thereafter Rinpoche asked me to serve as the new chairperson of the FPMT Taiwan and I thought: what a great opportunity to do hospice work! I was very happy. And with the visit last year of Ven. Pende Hawter, the director of Australia’s Karuna Hospice Service, at least a beginning could be made.”

So Mei-jen became chairperson of FPMT Taiwan. Her decision might be closely related to a dream, but what she does is very realistic. Besides starting comprehensive hospice care, she hopes FPMT Taiwan can begin work with children and adolescents, helping them to develop their potential for love and wisdom in an increasingly materialistic and violent environment.

“Sometimes people ask me why I don’t run for public office like Wang Ch’in-feng, the former chairperson of the Women’s Rescue Foundation who is now a vice-president candidate in the upcoming elections. But I feel this is not important. It’s more important that what I do has real benefit for others. Look at all the emperors in China’s long history. How many do we remember? A handful. Some good, some bad. But many people who contributed to the welfare of society are no celebrities at all. They weren’t rich, they had no power, but they benefited human beings. This is what really counts.