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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.
【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.
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.
Interpreting the “Humanistic” in Renjian Fojiao (人間佛教) as Advocated by Venerable Master Hsing Yun of Fo Guang Shan
Sakyamuni Buddha expounded the Four Noble Truths as his very first teachings out of the intention of showing human beings the cause of suffering, and more importantly, to give hope in that such sufferings can be ended. For this reason, Buddha is often referred to as the doctor who tends to human beings in their very fundamental needs: fulfillment in attaining freedom from suffering. As human interests and values are given broader definitions, the Buddhist movement also becomes much more diverse in scope, giving Buddhism the characteristic of humanism on various aspects of life. The purpose of this paper is to examine the elements of humanism traceable in the teachings and practices of Buddhism and find relevance between such and Renjian Fojiao (Humanistic Buddhism).
Transcending Borders: Using Regional and Ethnographic Studies to Envision the Future of Humanistic Buddhism
Arizona is a region where the population of Chinese Buddhists is low and the general populations of both Asian-Americans and Buddhists are small. Thus Buddhist communities find themselves not only distant from large centers of Buddhism in California, but also isolated from each other. A study of two very different approaches to Buddhism in Arizona may shed light on the future of Humanistic Buddhism (literally “Buddhism in the midst of people”) in similarly sparsely- populated regions of the United States.
Remarks on Current Research on Taixu and the Pure Land in the Human Realm
One could translate the Chinese term commonly rendered “Humanistic Buddhism” more literally as “Buddhism in the Human Realm” (renjian fojiao 人間佛教). The term “human realm” (renjian 人間) has both an everyday meaning in modern Chinese and a more expansive technical Buddhist meaning. In everyday parlance, it means “the human world,” “humanity,” or “social relations,” and within a modern scientific world view, humanity exists in only one place—the planet Earth. Hence, English-language texts sometimes render the term “Humanistic Buddhism” as “Earthly Buddhism.” In traditional Chinese Buddhist texts, however, the term has a more specialized, technical meaning arising from premodern Buddhist cosmology. In this context, it indicates one in a list of five or six possible paths of rebirth. To be reborn in the human realm means that one’s past karma has led to rebirth as a human being, and in Buddhist cosmology, the Earth is not the only place where humans reside. The fact that the term renjian has different definitions in these two contexts has led to some confusion when scholars confront the terms “Humanistic Buddhism” and “The Pure Land in the Human Realm” (renjian jingtu 人間淨土). Variations in the way Buddhists and scholars understand the meaning and purpose of Humanistic Buddhism only compound the confusion.
Chinese Origin of Humanistic Buddhism and Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Contribution in the Contemporary Humanistic Buddhist Movement in Taiwan
Humanism has been defined in various ways. It is a contemporary cult or belief calling itself religious but substituting faith in man for faith in god.1 Similarly, humanism is also explained as the faith in the supreme value of self-perfectibility of human personality. However, humanism broadly indicates to a shifting of focus from supernaturalism to naturalism, from transcendental to the existing, from absolute reality to the living reality. Humanism is the term for those aspirations, activities and attainments through which natural man puts on “super nature”.
Modern Buddhism Without Modernity? Zhaijiao (“Vegetarian Sects”) and the Hidden Genealogy of “Humanistic Buddhism” in Late Imperial China
The concept of “Humanistic Buddhism” as it came into being in the past century is generally acknowledged as a leading feature of the modern transformation of Buddhism in Chinese societies. It has been understood as an answer to the urgent task of adopting Buddhism to the profound and unprecedented political, social, and economic changes that the Chinese world had to face since the late nineteenth century. Therefore, Humanistic Buddhism may be interpreted as a way to fit into the “national body” of the evolving nation-state in the first half of the twentieth century. Particularly during the 1920s and 1930s, countless Buddhist as well as other temples and monasteries were object to large-scale acts of confiscation and expropriation for the aim of building a new China. The KMT government imagined Buddhism in particular and religion in general to contribute financially, socially, and morally to their project of modernity. On the other side, Humanistic Buddhism may be seen as part of a larger reform movement which has been initiated in the late nineteenth century by such notables as Buddhist layman Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837–1911). This development too can be traced back to the encounter of clerics and laymen with modern Western notions of how to define the proper place of religion in both the state and society as well as in the life of the people.
Chan Buddhism During the Times of Venerable Master Yixuan and Venerable Master Hsing Yun: Applying Chinese Chan Principles to Contemporary Society
Linji Venerable Master Yixuan 臨濟義玄 (d. 866) and Fo Guang Venerable Master Hsing Yun 佛光星雲 (1927–), although separated by more than a millennium, innovatively applied Chan teachings to the societies in which they lived to help their devotees discover their humanity and transcend their existential conditions. Both religious leaders not only survived persecution, but brought their faiths to greater heights. This paper studies how these masters adapted Chan Buddhist teachings to the woes and conditions of their times. In particular, I shall review how Venerable Master Yixuan and Venerable Master Hsing Yun adapted the teachings of their predecessors, added value to the sociopolitical milieu of their times, and used familiar language to reconcile reality and their beliefs.
