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Bodhisattva Precepts and Their Compatibility with Vinaya in Contemporary Chinese Buddhism: A Cross-Straits Comparative Study (Part 1)
Bodhisattva ideas have steadily developed since medieval times, to become key characteristics of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. Monks and nuns in the Mahāyāna tradition generally have bodhisattva precepts conferred upon them while undergoing the Triple Platform Ordination, and adhering to both these precepts and the bhikṣu/ bhikṣuṇī precepts is a conspicuous feature of Mahāyāna monastic practice. Against this backdrop, it is worth exploring Chinese monastics’ perceptions of the bodhisattva precepts and ideal, and the practices surrounding them, in the current sociocultural contexts of Taiwan and Mainland China. Though both these regions share the same tradition of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism, it has very different manifestations. This long-term, cross-Straits comparative study also reveals a hitherto under-theorized conflict between vinaya rules and the bodhisattva ideal.
Bodhisattva Precepts and Their Compatibility with Vinaya in Contemporary Chinese Buddhism: A Cross-Straits Comparative Study (Part 2)
Bodhisattva ideas have steadily developed since medieval times, to become key characteristics of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. Monks and nuns in the Mahāyāna tradition generally have bodhisattva precepts conferred upon them while undergoing the Triple Platform Ordination, and adhering to both these precepts and the bhikṣu/ bhikṣuṇī precepts is a conspicuous feature of Mahāyāna monastic practice. Against this backdrop, it is worth exploring Chinese monastics’ perceptions of the bodhisattva precepts and ideal, and the practices surrounding them, in the current sociocultural contexts of Taiwan and Mainland China. Though both these regions share the same tradition of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism, it has very different manifestations. This long-term, cross-Straits comparative study also reveals a hitherto under-theorized conflict between vinaya rules andthe bodhisattva ideal.
The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road (3): The Great Circle of Buddhism and Its Rim
The spread of the Buddhist movement throughout the peninsula and across to Sri Lanka was impressive. However, a far greater challenge awaited the tradition outside the cultural and linguistic domains of India. The “Great Circle”would carry Buddhist ideas and practices thousands of miles away from India. New homes for it were found along the coasts and rivers, wherever merchants needed to go. Eventually, the arcs of the “Great Circle” of Buddhism would encompass the whole of Southeast Eurasia. One portion of the arc went from the West Coast of India up the Indus Valley and around the far end of the Himalayas to the Tarim Basin leading to Chang’an (Xi’an), a route of more than 4,000 miles. The connecting maritime segment of the “Great Circle” started on the western shores of India, circling the peninsula and Sri Lanka up the East Coast to the Bay of Bengal and then moving East around the coastlines of Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malay Peninsula, across to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, before turning north to East Asia and the ports of China, Korea, and Japan. The circumference of both arcs land and sea, measured enough miles to encircle the equator of the earth; the indented shorelines contained 20,000 miles of surface, five times the land route mileage.
The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road (5): Conclusion
The study of the spread of Buddhism eastward from the shores of India to the South China Sea is being changed by contemporary views of political history for these regions. No longer is there a goal of describing nation-states, “empires,” that had firm boundaries and centralized governance in a fixed capital city setting. The previous descriptions, of ancient “kingdoms” in control of the three major riverine areas and the islands off the coast of mainland Southeast Asia, are being challenged. Whether it is the Irrawaddy River of Myanmar, the Chao Phraya basin of Thailand, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam and Cambodia, or the islands and peninsula of Malaysia and Indonesia, significant shifts are occurring in our understanding of how these areas were governed in the past.
A Study of Gender Equality in Humanistic Buddhism
Since Humanistic Buddhism was first proposed by Master Taixu, the issue of gender equality has gradually kindled widespread discussion in the field of Buddhism. During the Republican Era, Master Taixu and the female Buddhists of the Pure Bodhi Vihara have actively expressed their views on gender equality. Eventually, they reached a consensus of respecting a woman’s character, protecting her rights, and advocating equal status between men and women. After 1949, under the impetus of Venerable Master Hsing Yun, Venerable Yin Shun, Venerable Sheng Yen, Venerable Chaohwei, thoughts on gender equality in Taiwan have made great strides. After 1980, the rejuvenation of Humanistic Buddhism in Mainland China in turn developed thoughts on gender equality. As a result, the overall status of female Buddhists in Mainland China has remarkably improved.
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’.
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).
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.
Rethinking the Precept of Not Taking Money in Contemporary Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese Buddhist Nunneries
Around two and half millennia ago, the order of nuns was established when the Buddha allowed women to join the Buddhist monastic community. Buddhist nuns play prominent and respected roles in the Therīgāthā (Verses of the Elder Nuns) from ancient India. The historical work the Biqiuni zhuan 比丘尼傳 (Biographies of Nuns) reports how Buddhist nuns influenced and contributed to Chinese Buddhism in the medieval era. In recent decades, there has been a strong revival of Chinese Buddhism, amid which Buddhist nuns have exerted an ever-growing impact on the monastic environment, and their opinions have gradually become very influential, particularly in Taiwan. Indeed, as aptly put by Chün-fang Yü (Light 1), “Taiwanese nuns today are highly educated and greatly outnumber monks, characteristics unprecedented in the history of Chinese Buddhism.” In Mainland China, some prominent nuns (e.g., Shi Longlian) have held posts in the official organization of Chinese Buddhism or made significant contributions to Buddhist education and Dharma teaching. However, contemporary Mainland Chinese nuns’ religious life has scarcely been explored or discussed. This study aims to rectify this imbalance by examining a central ethical issue of monastic daily life to which scant scholarly attention has hitherto been paid.
