A monk like no
other
Ren Ci's honorary CEO confounds most people's views of what a
Buddhist monk is like
Sunday Times, The
(Singapore)
News, Pg 6
November 11, 2007
Author: Wong Kim Hoh
WHEN business consultant R.S. Ye met the Venerable Ming Yi in 2004,
he was struck by the bespectacled monk's business acumen.
Mr Ye was then an executive for a publishing firm and was
discussing with the Buddhist monk a proposed biography.
He recalled of the meetings: 'What struck me was how sharp and sure
he was. I felt like I was talking to a CEO instead of a religious
person.''
Of course, the Venerable Ming Yi is both monk and honorary chief
executive officer of Ren Ci Hospital and Medicare Centre, a charity
with an income of $30 million.
The centre has 120 nursing home patients and 324 chronic sick
patients. The Venerable Ming Yi is also abbot of Foo Hai Ch'an
Monastery in Geylang East, as well as temples in Hong Kong and
Malaysia.
To Singaporeans, he is the public face of Ren Ci, famous for his
daredevil stunts such as abseiling down the 45-storey Suntec Tower
2 and immersing himself in ice cold water to raise money for
charity.
He is also known to have easy access to Hong Kong celebrities such
as Andy Lau and Eric Tsang. The two are listed on the Ren Ci
website as the charity's patrons.
Last week, Ren Ci made headlines when the Ministry of Health (MOH)
announced that the charity is being probed for 'possible
irregularities in certain financial transactions'.
An audit found that the charity had made interest-free loans
amounting to a few million dollars to various companies since 1996.
There were discrepancies between what the charity recorded it lent
and what the companies involved recorded as having borrowed.
Not surprisingly, public attention has been trained on the
Venerable Ming Yi who founded the hospital in 1994 when he took
over the chronic sick unit in the former Woodbridge Hospital. He
was then just 33 years old.
A former Raffles Institution student, the abbot stood out among
Buddhist leaders then because he was articulate and
bilingual.
Mr Dennis Foo, CEO of St James Power Station, who has been
following the abbot's career, said: 'It's fascinating. For me,
religion and business are two different things. Religion deals with
the spiritual, business deals with finance and numbers. They are
two totally different tangents, it's very hard to mix them.'
Ren Ci's honorary CEO, however, is used to dealing with questions
from people who see him as a bag of contradictions.
At an interview in 2003, not long after his abseiling stunt on
Suntec Tower 2 prompted television viewers to call in with
donations of nearly $1 million, he brandished a sleek Nokia mobile
phone and was more than conversant with a PC.
He said then: 'I run a hospital. I carry a handphone not because I
want to look good but because I need it for communication in case
there are problems and emergencies at the hospital.'
The monk, who also has a Master's in Health Care Management from
the University of Wales, and a PhD in Philosophy from Mannin
University in Britain, said: 'In the past, great Buddhist masters
walked all the way from China to India to get the scriptures. Do
you need to do that now? You don't; you fly. You may not even need
to fly; you e-mail them over.'
Religion, said the abbot, has to adapt to modern life.
'Things have changed but the teachings are the same. In fact, monks
are supposed to bring Buddhism to the everyday lives of people, and
to help them with problems they face in the modern world,' he
added.
Which is why, he said, he reads books on 'how to be a CEO, and how
to run a hospital'.
Asked in another interview why he attempted fund-raising stunts
such as spending nearly 23 minutes in a container with 1,000kg of
ice and water, he replied: 'Sometimes dance and singing acts are
not special enough.'
He is known to go to the gym regularly: he runs on the treadmill
and skips.
While generous with access to reporters, he has not let on much
about his family. The youngest and only son (he has three older
sisters) of a bank employee and a housewife, he said he knew his
calling since he was a teenager.
"In school, everyone thought I was strange because I always went to
the temple, even on Saturdays and Sundays. But it was something I
liked to do,' he told The Straits Times in 2001.
His parents reluctantly agreed to him becoming a monk when he was
about 23.
Several people The Sunday Times approached declined to talk about
him, given the probe. But those who did described him as a
charismatic leader.
Financial analyst Taserine Chua, 30, was a member of the NUS
Buddhist Society in 1997 when the religious leader was its
spiritual adviser.
She said: 'We felt connected to him because he was young and spoke
very good English. Although he was serious, he was also open to
opinions and very approachable.'
Television and stage actor Adrian Pang, 41, has met the abbot
during Ren Ci charity shows.
He said: 'He has this implacable demeanour when he's doing his
stunts, which is amazing considering their degree of
difficulty.
'Each year, he sets himself a new bar, but never in a vainglorious
way. He always makes it a point to come by during rehearsals and
shake our hands. He has this really calming effect. We'd just stop
whingeing each time he's around.'
To those who said Buddhism and money should not mix, the abbot had
this retort: 'I'm not raising money for my personal use. I am doing
it for people who are suffering. I sign cheques but I don't handle
accounts or cash.'
When the National Kidney Foundation scandal broke in 2005, he
refuted talk that he earned more than $10,000 a month as Ren Ci's
chief. He said that he was just a volunteer and his salary was paid
by the monastery.
'No matter what, I'm a monk and I'm different from other people. My
conscience is clear. I'm human after all. I need to eat and go
overseas to spread Buddhist teachings.'
He raised eyebrows when he told Shin Min Daily News last year that
he would not decline offers of first-class travel overseas from
believers.
'If a believer invites you for a meal and takes you to a good
restaurant, does it mean I can go only to the foodcourt because of
my Ren Ci links?'
The probe into Ren Ci - expected to take three months - has led
many to wonder about his fate.
But those interviewed by The Sunday Times cautioned against jumping
to conclusions.
Ms Chua said: 'As organisations grow big, there are bound to be
problems. It's not fair to form judgments now, and I
wouldn't.'
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Copyright, 2007, Singapore Press Holdings Limited
