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Buddhist Economics: A Cultural Alternative
Watching weeds grow in the garden turns out to be a powerful lesson outside the classroom. First, the weeds look innocently beautiful until they start invading the space of the expensive grass that is fighting for survival. Alarmed, the gardener moves into action with industrial-strength weedkiller. Before long, the herbicide poisons both the weeds and grass. Alas, weeks later, it is the weed that manages to survive the new level of toxicity in the soil and springs back to life ahead of the grass. The battle resumes with the weeds ahead.
A Proposal for Experimental Application of Humanistic Buddhism to Psychotherapy and Counseling
At a time when Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings are emerging from the shadows of philosophical thought, our world is becoming more open to applying Buddhist views in search for Ultimate Reality. A merging of these doctrines with modern psychology is a challenge to be met by proponents in the varied arenas of human behavior. There is a significant moνe within the Behavioral Sciences to break through parochial, stilted barriers in order to seek a more humanistic, holistic view of a person in ethical relations with states of well being. This paper posits methods whereby the principles of Humanistic Buddhism (HB) can be integrated within a theoretical system of activities which perceives and analyzes foundations of social harmony, reaching the roots of conflict within complex human systems. In this, the work of psychotherapy and counseling can be effective in fostering changes in clients by teaching self-analysis and how to search for the paths of moral, social and psychological wellness. Points of emphasis in this proposal define and discuss the elements envisionednecessary to effect a counseling and research center modeled after the principles of HB. Not confined within the specifics of organizational, cultural or geographic restrictions, the system approach is meant to be broad-based to allow flexibility of such a center’s operation. The theoretical background and philosophy of both psychotherapy and counseling, as currently styled, includes a description of tried and proved techniques devised by four noted 20th century Western psychologists, νiz. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, and Albert Ellis. To this I have suggested ways of broadening these somewhat diverse techniques to include HB. An integration of this nature would not restrict but rather provide another, (perhaps now lacking) spiritual dimension in therapeutic services, which is our proposed product, to a given target population. Hence, more effective psychotherapy and counseling can be offered, and feedback loops would identify the needed elements of a scientific research effort to be built into the system design and operation.
Toward a Modern Buddhist Hagiography Telling the Life of Hsing Yun in Popular Media
My interest in the biography of Master Hsing Yun (Xingyun 星雲, 1927–) began when I co-taught the “Buddhism in Asia” summer program in 20091 and visited the Fo Guang Shan ( 佛光山; Wade-Giles: Fo Kuang Shan, literally “Buddha’s Light Mountain”) headquarters in Kaohsiung (Gaoxiong 高雄) and a branch temple in Ilan (Yilan 宜蘭).2 My college students and I were rather impressed with the scale of the monastery in Kaohsiung and the global reach of its branches (Fo Guang Shan 2011).3 However, what intrigued me the most was our visit to the Fo Guang Shan Museum located in the Ilan branch temple. At the museum, our guides, who were nuns from the temple, showed us an illustrated comic biography of Hsing Yun, the founder of Fo Guang Shan. They told us stories, which are illustrated in the comic book, about their master’s arrival in Taiwan, the difficulties he encountered in his early religious career, and his successful missionary activities. Reading this comic helped me understand Hsing Yun’s leadership and the influence he has over his disciples and devotees. Following this, I started to consider the possibility of studying the life of Hsing Yun as portrayed in popular media and, with the help of some friends, began to track down the biographies of the monk as presented in various media.
National Recognition of a Religious Festival: Comparing Buddha’s Birthday Celebration Organized in Taipei to the Northern Wei Buddha’s Birthday Parade
Festivals make up a major feature of all religions1 and human societies. A festival means to most people a “special day or period, usually in memory of a religious event, with its own social activities, food and eremonies,” or an “organized set of special events, such as musical performances.” A religious festival presents a unique opportunity to gain insight into the confluence of religion, culture, and politics. Among Buddhist festivals, Buddha’s birthday stands out as the most popular and most public. When religious celebrations go outside the temple gates, it is an indication of wide acceptance of Buddhism by its host populace. In this paper, I shall compare two significant Buddha’s birthday celebrations: one in antiquity and one in recent times. These two circumstances are significant because the heads of state are conspicuously present outside their symbols of power and the entire capital city observed the occasion. By comparing large-scale commemoration of Buddha’s birthday celebrations held before the Office of the President in contemporary Taipei with a city-wide parade held in Luoyang during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), this paper will identify the factors critical to indigenous Chinese people accepting major festivals of a foreign religion.
The Influence of Indian and Buddhist Elements in Medieval China: A Study of Buddha’s Birthday Celebrations In Luoyang during the Northern Wei dynasty
The Buddha’s birthday festival reached an unprecedented level of grandeur during the rule of Northern Wei when its capital was at Luoyang (495 to 534 CE). Buddhism was indigenous to neither the rulers nor the native Han Chinese. Yet, the Buddha’s birthday celebration on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month became a popular ritual in which the entire city participated. This paper studies a particular phenomenon in this public ritual, the use of carriages in image processions, tracing the heritage of these carriages back to the religion’s land of origin, India, and their literary sources. The intention of this paper is to study the reasons for such phenomenal success, in particular as they relate to the functional role of a religious festival and how the tenets of a religion can enable itself to be popular and sustainable. The Buddha’s birthday is a relevant case study because over 1,500 years later, countries such as Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam continue to celebrate it as their public holiday.
Geneaology and Taxonomy of the “Twentiethcentury Renjian Fojiao 人間佛教” Mapping a famen 法門 from Mainland China and Taiwan to Europe
Since the late Qing, Chinese Buddhists had been rethinking and restructuring Buddhist institutions and practices in order to fit a new historical period, the challenges posed in 1898 by the Hundred Days Reform and the movement (Goossaert 2006), and the framework created by the recent new phase of globalization (which includes, first of all, the successful spread of Christianity in Asia) (Tze Ming Ng 2012).
【Buddhist Encounters: Finding a Home in the Human Condition】Introduction
Since the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Dr. Lewis R. Lancaster, Emeritus Professor of the University of California, Berkeley, USA, has been giving online lectures for the Department of Religious Studies at University of the West, USA (one of the universities established by Fo Guang Shan). Through his engaging teaching approach, he has guided students to explore the depths of Buddhist teachings and its application. In the hope for more people to benefit from his lectures, they will be featured as a column series in the Humanistic Buddhism: Journal, Arts, and Culture journal, which will be published in both Chinese and English. Dr. Lancaster has granted permission for the FGS Institute of Humanistic Buddhism to translate the content into Chinese. We included an introduction written by Dr. Lancaster in this current issue of the journal to set the stage for this unique column series.
Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan
Only in the last decades has modern Buddhism become a serious topic of academic investigation. Today, however, the field is flourishing. Modern Buddhism in its many forms is studied in many languages and disciplines. Despite this recent advancement, the subject of investigation is not always that clear. What are we talking about when we are speaking of modern Buddhism? This paper aims to tackle this question by considering the global spread of Fo Guang Shan from a transnational perspective. Transnationalism describes a recent advance within the social sciences and humanities to move away from a research approach that examines its object of interest solely by placing it within the context of one nation state.
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My Understanding about Humanistic Buddhism
Humanistic Buddhism inspires us to elevate and have faith in ourselves; because this self embodies the wisdom and virtue of the Buddha. Thus we must realize that we are all buddhas and be proud to say that “I am a buddha.” Such is the spirit of Humanistic Buddhism. Instead of placing our fate in the hands of divine entities, we should take responsibility for our own lives. The saying in the Āgamas, “Rely on the self, rely on the Dharma, rely on nothing else,” is a rendition of the faith of Humanistic Buddhism.
