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A Study of Humanistic Buddhism Returning to India: Observations and Reflections on the Fo Guang Shan New Delhi Educational and Cultural Centre
The journey of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Humanistic Buddhism back to India can generally be divided into two stages. The first stage spanned from 1963 to 2008, when the Venerable Master made eight pilgrimages to India and gradually affirmed his desire to bring Buddhism back there. He and some of his monastics began to develop a preliminary plan. The second stage began with the establishment of the New Delhi Educational and Cultural Centre (hereinafter referred to as the Centre). By building a temple, initiating educational programs, setting up charitable clinics, and engaging in cross-cultural exchanges, Buddhism was reestablished in India.
Issues of Acculturation and Globalization Faced by the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order
Ever since Buddhism began disseminating from India to other parts of the globe, it has had to find its way through a seemingly endless array of host cultures. As the world’s largest Buddhist order, Fo Guang Shan has successfully taken root in some 200 major cities across the five continents. How has Humanistic Buddhism as advocated by Fo Guang Shan’s founder Venerable Master Hsing Yun acculturated in a wide range of cultural locations across the world? This paper assesses the progress and acculturation of Fo Guang Shan, and discusses the factors of success and failures in terms of its acculturation strategies, changes in the approaches of Dharma propagation, and the acculturative stress experienced.
The Relationship between Buddhism and Life
There are two main schools of Buddhism, Theravāda and Mahāyāna. The former spread from southern India to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and the island of Java during King Asoka’s reign in ancient India. The latter spread from northern India to Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and the Ryukyu Islands during the reign of the Chinese Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty. It has since disseminated into all parts of Malaysia in the last two or three hundred years. Buddhism has spread throughout the world in two thousand and five hundred years. Today, it is distributed vastly, found not only in the Southeast Asian countries, but also Europe and the United States. The religion is practiced by people in the East and West, and has a significant number of devotees.
The Spread of Humanistic Buddhism
Today, we are discussing the spread of Humanistic Buddhism and I want to put it into the context of the history of how Buddhism has spread over the centuries. Buddhist sources of history recount the first spread of Buddhism outside of India to Sri Lanka during the lifetime of the founder, sometime in the 5th century BCE. By the 13th century of the Common Era, the religion could be found in a wide area of southeast Eurasia in what I have termed “The Great Circle of Buddhism.”
