Compassionate Service Society East

Our Founder

Master Heng Chang (Thầy Hằng Trường) is a modern spiritual teacher whose life reflects a rare synthesis of ancient wisdom and contemporary consciousness evolution. His journey began at the age of 14, when he experienced a profound non-dual awakening. In that moment, duality dissolved, and he entered a radiant state of intuitive clarity. He could perceive truth directly, understand advanced knowledge effortlessly, and witness life without judgment or emotional attachment. This early realization sparked a lifelong quest: to integrate that luminous awareness with the complexities of worldly existence. 

​In 1982, Master Heng Chang entered the Chinese Zen Buddhist monastic path. For nearly 20 years, he immersed himself in rigorous spiritual training, including two extended 3-year solitary retreats. During this time, he memorized and deeply internalized the Avatamsaka Sutra—one of the most intricate and expansive texts in Mahayana Buddhism. Yet he found that monastic discipline alone was not enough to address the growing challenges of the modern world. 

​In 2001, he made a pivotal decision: to step beyond the monastery and into the world. He founded a dynamic spiritual community grounded in Green values but aspiring toward Turquoise consciousness. The community engaged in a wide range of service — disaster relief, health programs, intergenerational care, and the cultivation of contemplative practices — all designed to support human flourishing and inner transformation. 

​Master Heng Chang’s innovative teachings include a visual model of the bodhi mind — a cone representing the threefold development of bodhicitta.

This model expresses:

• Vertical growth: samadhi and wisdom (non-dual awareness)
• Horizontal growth: compassion, kindness, forgiveness, generosity
• Spiral growth: skillful means, arts, culture, and knowledge
   

This visionary diagram helps students visualize their spiritual evolution and integrate all facets of life into the path of awakening. 

​He also developed a modern Mandala of community practice based on the Avatamsaka Sutra. Rather than focusing on ritual, this mandala awakens inner vision and collective harmony, creating spaces for deep healing and the embodiment of non-dual presence in communal life. 

​Master Heng Chang’s life and work point to a powerful truth: that spiritual realization must evolve beyond personal attainment. It must become creative, compassionate, and collective. Through his presence, teachings, and community-building efforts, he offers a living example of Integral consciousness in action — a bodhisattva of our times, committed to awakening not just the individual, but the world.