The Venerable Abbot Shi Yong Xin is the current Abbot of the Shaolin Temple, China. He is the thirteenth successor after Shi Xing Zheng. He is also one of the first Chinese monks to get an MBA degree.
Abbot Shi Yong Xin joined office as Abbot in August 1999, but he has been a monk since childhood. He was born into a family in Yingshang in 1965 with the name, Liu Yingcheng. At the age of 17, he came to Shaolin Temple, where he received the Dharma name Yongxin, from the Abbot at that time, XingJheng. When the former Abbot Xingzheng passed away in 1987, Yong Xin took over the reins for management of the Shaolin Temple.
In March 1998, he was elected as representative of the Ninth National People's Congress and Chairman of the Henan Province Buddhist Association that July. In September 2002, he was elected as Vice Chairman of the Buddhist Association of China. In March 2003 and 2008, he was respectively elected as representative of the Tenth National People's Congress and representative of the Eleventh National People's Congress. In February 2010, Ven. Yong xin was elected as Director of Overseas Communication Committee of Buddhist Association of China.
Abbot Yong Xin has been diligently working towards reviving the heritage of Shaolin Temple. He has renovated several parts of the Temple's architecture. He has also done important work in the preservation and compilation of the classic books of the Temple. He has also initiated several domestic and foreign cultural exchange programs. The Venerable Abbot Shi Yong Xin has immensely contributed towards the development and spread of Shaolin culture across the globe.
On 9th of July 2014, Ven. Abbot YongXin accepted Shifu Kanishka Sharma as his Disciple. The ceremony took place in the Morning in a hall full of monks chanting Buddhist Mantras, where Shifu Kanishka Sharma was blessed with the name "Shi Yan You" meaning "The Perfect Warrior Lay monk".
