站內檢索
The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road (1)
Professor Lewis R. Lancaster is the founder and Director of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI). With over 20 years spent on the “Atlas of Maritime Buddhism” research, Dr. Lancaster has recently entrusted his writings The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road to the Fo Guang Shan Institute of Humanistic Buddhism for translation and publication. The book comprises five chapters, to be published chronologically in this journal.
The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road (2): Origin and Spread of Buddhism
The Buddhist tradition can be traced back to its founder Sakyamuni, a wandering ascetic, who traversed the Ganges River basin, teaching and attracting a group of followers. It was a significant time for the history of social and economic developments in the basin, which was covered with what can be called a “rainforest.” One part of the area, at the delta, was made up of the largest mangrove forest in the world. Along the embankments of the Ganges and its tributaries, some settlements have been characterized as the “Second Urbanization” of the subcontinent. Archaeological remains show that the “First Urbanization” of the Indian region had occurred along the Indus River as far back as the third millennium BCE. The “Second Urbanization” was in full bloom by the 6th century BCE, composed of cities and towns spread throughout the Ganges basin. The economy was based on active trade between the population centers.
A Letter to Dharma Protectors and Friends in 2020
In the Year of the Rat, I, Hsin Bau, on behalf of the Fo Guang Shan Board of Directors, Abbots, Abbesses, Superintendents, and sangha communities of Fo Guang Shan temples worldwide, wish for everyone to do good things, speak good words, and think good thoughts. With the Three Acts of Goodness, every journey in this world is a path to happiness. In January last year, Fo Guang Shan held the International Ten-Thousand Buddha Triple Platform Full Ordination Ceremony with preceptees from twenty-one countries and regions worldwide. The Sila Upadhyaya, Venerable Master Hsing Yun, encouraged everyone with this recollection, “Throughout my entire life, I have only focused on doing one thing, that is, to play the role of a monastic well.”
A Letter to Dharma Protectors and Friends in 2021
“A man’s lifetime diligence brings a lush land of green; an ox’s ever-trodding hooves turn over million acres of gold.” In the Year of Ox, I, Hsin Bau, on behalf of the Fo Guang Shan Board of Directors and worldwide Fo Guang Shan Sangha, wish for everyone to “Cultivate a Heart that Blooms in All Seasons.” May we practice diligently for the blooming of wisdom all year round.
A Letter to Dharma Protectors and Friends in 2022
A Letter to Dharma Protectors and Friends 2023
Humanistic Buddhism: A History of the Future A Report on the “Holding True to the Original Intents of Buddha” Panel
The annual Fo Guang Shan Monastic Seminar, held at Fo Guang Shan Headquarters in Taiwan, serves the purpose of reinforcing its 1,200 members’ grasp of the Order’s philosophy and spirit of Humanistic Buddhism, strengthening intercontinental networking, as well as participation in strategic planning of the Order’s global developments.
Modern Religious Tourism in Taiwan: A Case Study of Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial Center
Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial Center, founded by Venerable Master Hsing Yun, is a newly opened Buddhist site in Taiwan, which not only serves as a combined museum, art gallery and religious landmark, but also a diverse cultural, education and art center whose total number of visitors in the first year of its opening exceeded ten million, higher than that of the Louvre in 2012, and has continued to rise in successive years. The Center also became the youngest museum to be recognized as a member of ICOM, receive ISO50001 certification, and listed on Tripadvisor as one of the top three tourist destinations in Taiwan within the first four years of its opening.
Sacred Secularities: Ritual and Social Engagement in a Global Buddhist China
Surrounded by greenery and build on a quiet hillside in an unincorporated suburban community of Los Angeles County lies a brightly colored Chinese Buddhist temple. This Temple, Hsi Lai Temple xilai si 西來寺 or ‘Coming West Temple’ in English, is one of the biggest Chinese temples in the US and serves as the North American headquarters of the modernist Han Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan 佛光山 (Buddha’s Light Mountain). The Buddhist tradition promoted by Fo Guang Shan is renjian 人間or Humanistic Buddhism.1 It is a modern Buddhist tradition with its roots in late 19th and early 20th century China that has become Buddhist mainstream in Taiwan today (Long 2000). Fo Guang Shan is one of the biggest promoters of this tradition, not only in Taiwan but on a global scale, and while different groups have adapted different interpretations of renjian Buddhism, one of the primary characteristics of this modern tradition is a new esteem for society, or, in other words, the sphere of ‘the secular’.
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.
