About
The Compassionate Service Society is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization based in Southern California, USA. Venerable Heng Chang founded CSS in year 2000.
Though founded on Buddhist principles, CSS takes an ecumenical and all-inclusive approach that transcends religious and cultural boundaries.
By integrating the ancient teachings of Buddhism with the best of 21st-century thoughts, practices, philosophies, and knowledge, CSS is guided by the philosophy described in the Hua Yen Sutra combined with the practice of the great compassion mantra, personified by Kwan Yin Bodhisattva.
Our Vision
Our vision is to create an altruistic culture.
Our Mission
Our mission is to create Bodhisattvas.
Bodhisattvas are beings who cultivate kindness, compassion, forgiveness, inner peace, meditation, and altruism.
Compassionate Service Society offers
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Exercise classes for the general population in order to bring them health, hope and healing. These are offered at our centers and, in collaboration with other non-profit organization, at community centers, as well as other sites in response to demand/needs.
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Meditation classes and trainings for all who look for relaxation, peacefulness, serenity, openness and to experience self-transformation, especially to be able to follow the Bodhisattva Path.
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Various charities in the community with the aim to heal and bring hope.
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Teachings and opportunities designed to unfold the light of wisdom and compassion present in all of us.
Master Heng Chang: A Life of Integral Awakening
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:
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Vertical growth: samadhi and wisdom (non-dual awareness)
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Horizontal growth: compassion, kindness, forgiveness, generosity
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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.