Biography
Yù's family originally came from Kūnmíng 昆明, but his parents had moved to Pyongyang 平壤 for business reasons. He studied at a college started by the Japanese. He engaged in some kind of revolutionary activity while in school. He was imprisoned at 19 for starting a revolutionary newspaper with an Englishman. In prison he studied politics, economics, and literature. When he got out of prison, he gave up radical activities and through family connections became assistant manager at a bank. Then he went on to start his own lumber company, but owing to his past activities he had difficulty with the the Japanese authorities.
Yù moved to China in 1919. Never severing his connection with Korean-born Chinese radicals, he went to work in Shanghai at the American-founded Sāndé 三德 Bank.
In November of 1926, Yù attended a lecture given by Tàixū 太虛 (at the invitation of Lǐ Guībái 李佳白). The lecture as titled "How the Buddha-dharma Should be Spread in the Modern Modern 佛法應如何普及今世". Yù was so impressed with the talk and with Tàixū’s attack on Christianity’s creationism, that he converted from Christianity and took refuges under with Tàixū. Subsequently he began reading extensively in Buddhism.
In 1928, Tàixū came back to Shanghai and introduced Yù to certain Japanese Buddhists (such as Japanese literary scholar Yamada Kenkichi 山田謙吉) hoping they would make a world Buddhist library. The following year, Yù became a member of the domestic government as a representative for Kūnmíng. He joined the Kūnmíng Association, as well as the Overseas Chinese Mutual Support Association, he also contributed articles to the magazine Guómín gōnglùn 國民公論.
In 1930, Yù and two friends opened the Buddha's Compassion Pharmaceuticals Factory 佛慈藥廠 which sought to use scientific methods to make medicine and included both the factory and a clinic for treating people. Yù became a representative at the Chinese Buddhist Association 中國佛教會 in April, 1931. That year he and Dù Dǒng 杜董 provided the entire funds of 400 yuan for the Hǎicháo yīn 海潮音 [1] Yù was killed by robbers in Shanghai on August 1, 1933.
References:
Yú Língbō 于凌波. Zhōnguó jìnxiàndài fójiào rénwù zhì 中國近現代佛教人物志 (Biographical Almanac of Early Contemporary and Modern Chinese Buddhism). (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua, 1995), 578-581.
Yú Língbō 于凌波, ed. Xiàndài fójiào rénwù cídiǎn 現代佛教人物辭典 (A Dictionary of Modern Buddhist Persons), 2 vols. (Taipei: Foguang, 2004), 1:261b-6a.