Biography of Venerable Chang Hu
Venerable Chang Hu (常護法師) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1978. He took refuge in the Three Jewels at age 10 and completed his first seven-day Amitabha retreat at 12. He began studying Buddhist studies at the Sangha University of Dharma Drum Mountain in 2004 and graduated in 2010 from the first Chan Studies cohort.
Since 2008, he has studied with and assisted Venerable Chi Chern and Venerable Guo Yuan in leading Chan retreats across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. He served at the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in New York and later as Weino (chant leader and ritual discipline officer) at Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan, where he assisted in training ritual practitioners.
In 2022, he received formal Dharma transmission from Venerable Chi Chern as an heir for Chan meditation teaching and was entrusted to independently lead intensive meditation retreats. Later that year, Dharma Drum Mountain Chan Hall also authorized him to conduct intensive Chan retreats independently.
He currently serves as a Dharma teacher at the main monastery of Dharma Drum Mountain and regularly assists in intensive Chan retreats there, as well as in Poland and Malaysia.