Mao used to practice Buddhism under Master Xu Yun in his earlier years, of whom Premier Zhou Enlai was a devout disciple and had convinced Mao to join along. Huayan Buddhism’s approach to dialectics influenced Mao’s take on Marxist dialectics, which is most evident in his essay “On Contradictions”.

He saw Buddhism as the means to spiritual liberation & Marxism as the means to material liberation, spreading this teaching to the masses, & embodying it in his own life & conduct.

A really remarkable and admirable figure in histories of Buddhism and Engaged Buddhism that does not get his due. 6/6

He was the first Buddhist monk to become a member of the Communist Party of Indochina, and used the language of Buddhism to awaken class consciousness in the masses—a true forefather of Buddhist-Marxist apologetics, who provided the opening for Buddhists en masse to lend support to the Marxists. 5/

In 1928, Sư Thiện Chiếu organized a series of mass protests in Vietnam, demanding basic rights for Buddhists under French occupation. His efficacy as a leader at generating mass movements routinely caused issues for the French colonizers, and he was arrested multiple times for being a dissident. 4/

He opened up monasteries across Viet Nam to serve as orphanages to raise the children left orphaned from the war, and encouraged monks and nuns to use their education and social privilege to lend support to and shelter revolutionaries. 3/

Sư Thiện Chiếu argued that Buddhism was not compatible with colonial exploitation and worked hard to both spread literacy among the masses while simultaneously publishing literature that skillfully re-expressed Marxist revolutionary ideas in Buddhist language, using Buddhist doctrinal defenses. 2/