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A Letter to Dharma Protectors and Friends in 2018
Spring flowers, autumn moon, winter goes, and spring arrives once again. As the seasons follow their order of time, we welcome 2018. Venerable Master Hsing Yun gives his blessings and encouragement to all through his spring couplet, “A Family of Loyalty and Honor.” Loyalty and honor are most important in life. We must remain loyal and righteous towards people. We must stay loyal in our relationships, responsibilities, friendships, and towards our leaders. We must show sensibility towards human relationships, remain righteous towards the world, have benevolence for society, and sense our connection with the whole universe. It is essential to understand, be grateful for, realize, and keep as family legacy the spirits of loyalty and honor.
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.
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.
【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.
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).
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”.
Human Condition: Earthly and Cosmic
Humanistic Buddhism: Holding True to the Original Intents of Buddha-Chapter Two: The Humanistic Lifestyle of Buddha
The Buddha lived an extraordinary life. Growing up as the gifted Prince Siddhartha, he mastered the Five Sciences and Four Vedas at a young age. Life inside the palace meant he could have all he desired, including the power to reign over his kingdom. Despite this, he instead drew his attention to the forces of impermanence experienced in life and society such as the significant issues of suffering caused by birth, old age, sickness, and death; discrimination of the caste system; the oppression of power; wealth disparity; and the weak preyed upon by the strong. All these signs of inequality amongst living beings left him perturbed and perplexed.
Humanistic Buddhism: Holding True to the Original Intents of Buddha Foreword
“What is your faith?” A asks B. “Humanistic Buddhism.” Answers B. “If your faith is Buddhism, then it’s just Buddhism. Why add ‘Humanistic’?” Asks A again. “Because the founder of Buddhism, Sakyamuni Buddha, was not a god but simply a human being. The uniqueness of Buddhism is that it was founded by a human being, that is why it is called Humanistic Buddhism.”
