Shan Li was born in Leipzig in 1981. At the age of seven he went to study music at the Johann Sebastian Bach School of Music in Leipzig where he spent ten years. In 1998 Shan Li went to the Shaolin monastery in Henan province in China, where he became an apprentice of Shi Yanlu, who made him a grand-disciple of Shi Yongxin, venerable abbot of the Shaolin monastery, and was given the religious name Shi Hengjin.

Some years later he became the Buddhist disciple of Dharma master Shi Yongliao, who is the monk in charge of the Shaolin Chan hall, and was initiated the dharma.

He has also been taught by Shi Yanlin, a senior monk of the Shaolin monastery.

Shan Li was then introduced by his master of traditional southern style Shaolin boxing Jiang Junbo to Shi Yongqun, a man extremely advanced in the practice of the dharma and its healing methods, who gave him further initiations. He was subsequently initiated by the Xiaga Living Buddha and by Dawa Jiangzuo, the abbot of the Tangxia monastery in Tibet.

After he had spent around three years in Shaolin, a short documentary made about him by a director from Shanghai won first prize in a nationwide contest and was widely broadcast on Chinese television, notably CCTV4 and CCTV5. He has appeared several times on German television, and has been featured in the American Shaolin Kungfu Magazine, as well as in numerous Chinese newspaper and magazine articles.

Shan Li was a member of the delegation representing the Shaolin monastery at the Liu Da Men Pai in 2001, a meeting between the historically great systems of Chinese martial arts and religious practice. Representatives from Mount Emei, Mount Hua, Mount Wudang, the Kunlun mountains, Chen Jia Gou and Shaolin were in attendance, as were monks and lamas from as far afield as Tibet. A gathering of this scale had not been held for over eight hundred years.

He was also amongst the selected twelve who performed at the Shaolin Kungfu International Academic Symposium held in 2003 to distinguish the true traditional Shaolin gongfu from modern wushu. As this only occurs once a decade or so, it is a great privilege for the martial artists who are selected to take part in the Shaolin Gongfu Guoji Xueshu Yantaohui performance, which is held in front of the monastery.

Shan Li appears in two books about all the members of the Shaolin monastery which are sold nationwide and called “Jimo Xuanxiao: Wo yu Shaolin de gushi” - “The : My story with Shaolin”, written by Yang Quan.

He also appears in a collection of ten VCD's introducing the famous places and people of Henan province, produced by the Cultural Bureau of the Henan Provincial Government.

Shan Li has been in Shaolin since 1998. Mainly leading a secluded life, he practices Chan and Wu till this day. In the year 2007 his first book The Discovery was published by the world famous Shaolin Monestary, followed by the publication of The Prohibitionist and his first German book Das Geschenk (en.: "The present") in 2008.