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Reflections on Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Temple-Building Endeavor between 1988 and 2000
Fo Guang Shan (FGS) operates one of the most extensive networks of Buddhist temples around the world. This essay reflects on Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s aspiration to spread the Dharma by building temples, and the extent to which his vision of spreading the Dharma to five continents was fulfilled. As a religio-cultural space that can be shared by both monastic and lay, insiders and outsiders, the temples ground the FGS mission of spreading Humanistic Buddhism by creating a shared space and allowing temple goers to transition roles. These roles, which can be overlapping, include visitor, devotee, volunteer, and member.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Environmental Thoughts: A Beautiful Mind for a more Sustainable World
The world is on fire. 2020 saw global temperatures rise 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels. The rising temperatures have triggered violent weather events such as recent heatwaves in Canada, floods in Germany, and wildfires in Australia. Adversely, impacting our food supply, health, economic livelihood, and living conditions. From the famous Fire Sermon in Ādittapariyāya Sutta of the Pāli canon, the Buddha depicts a seemingly similar burning world where “everything is burning…burning with the fires of greed, hate, and delusion.” Our degrading environment can thus be seen as a man-made crisis driven by the three fires of “greedy consumer cultures (i.e. greed), dissatisfaction (i.e. hatred), and other attitudes that can be looked upon as vices (i.e. delusion).” Traditional Buddhist texts indicate this plausible connection between our degrading environment and our deteriorating human nature. As world leaders gather at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) for a way out of our environmental mess, we also look to one of the world’s renowned Buddhist leaders for how Buddhist teachings may offer guidance to address our looming environmental problems.
Humanistic Buddhism in the Digital Age: Make Truth Great Again!
The new religion of the 21st century is turning out to be dataism. First mentioned by New York Times columnist David Brooks in 2013, the data revolution enables human cognition to be augmented by algorithms that could work on all kinds of information (Brooks 2013). In dataism, the value of humans or an enterprise is assessed by their ability to contribute to data processing. This may seem surprising to some of you in the audience but perhaps, a question may confirm this fact. If you were to employ an administrative assistant, would you choose one who can use the mobile phone to help you manage your busy calendar, employ the latest software to turn your ideas into stunning presentations, and churn out reports as you speak with voice-recognition technology or one who slowly punches on a keyboard and still rely on shorthand to take minutes? Alright, you may say that history has seen many jobs being replaced and people simply must learn new skills. However, what we are about to experience in the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Digital Age is not only a simple paradigm shift.
Buddhism, Euthanasia, and Hospice Care
The debate regarding euthanasia has attracted increased public attention in recent decades. Opinion polls indicate support for euthanasia in many Western countries, reflecting legal developments which make euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide possible. The meaning of euthanasia can be summarised as the merciful killing of those who are incurably ill or greatly suffering from pain. This motivation distinguishes euthanasia from other types of killing. Despite the motivation, there is still much vigorous debate on the question of whether it is appropriate for doctors to kill. Most of the current debates have been conducted within Western, namely Christian, religious frameworks; few Eastern religious voices, such as Buddhist ones, have been heard. Therefore, an investigation of the Buddhist perspective on euthanasia provides a new viewpoint with regard to end-of-life resolutions.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun and the Reinterpretation of the “Pure Land” within Humanistic Buddhism
This essay examines the teaching of Venerable Master Hsing Yun, one of the leading active proponents of Humanistic Buddhism. It begins by discussing the historical and contemporary status of Humanistic Buddhism, contextualizing it as a movement borne out of modernist influences and demands placed upon Buddhism to adapt and reform according to an everchanging social world. Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s notion of “the Pure Land,” a Buddhist concept he reinterprets as demanding the creation of an “earthly” Pure Land is examined. This interpretation, it is argued, is tied to pragmatic concerns regarding the necessity to reform Buddhist practices in order to successfully spread Buddhist teachings in the modern world. The essay draws parallels between the example of socially engaged practices of Christian missions at the turn of the century in China and the rationale underlying the drive to reform among nascent Humanistic Buddhists, such as in the teaching of Master TaiSxu. The example of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s advocacy for creating an “earthly” Pure Land demonstrates how contemporary Humanistic Buddhist theory follows this logic and interprets traditional Buddhist teachings as advocating for socially engaged practices among both monastics and laypeople. To this end, Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s teaching regarding “life education” reinterprets spiritual development as practices designed to improve the external world rather than solely the individual’s internal world. This is demonstrated in Fo Guang Shan’s strategy of spreading Buddhism in mainland China through cultural education and activities rather than proselytization.
Beyond The Stroke: The Dharma of One-Stroke Calligraphy
In his book, Travel Like the Clouds and Water , Venerable Master Hsing Yun, who is one of the main proponents of Humanistic Buddhism, instructs the viewers of his one-stroke calligraphy to look inside his heart and not just at the characters he uses in calligraphic writing. Considering that calligraphy is the highest form of East Asian art, anyone who is not familiar with its immense and complex body of theory and principles could find this simplistic instruction intimidating. How does one look beyond the cursive black lines and forms of an ink artwork that appears to be unskillfully brushed on white paper? Can the core concepts and guiding principles of Humanistic Buddhism help one realize the altruistic meaning of a monk’s contemporary calligraphy? More importantly, can Humanistic Buddhist art inspire the awakening of bodhi in the viewer?
Translating Fo Guang Dictionary of Buddhism: Building Online Collaborative Buddhist Translation Projects with Small Crowdsource Platforms
As a second generation Chinese immigrant in Australia, my parents provided well for us to grow up and to receive an education in the Australian language and culture. Nevertheless, on the weekends, they also brought us to the local Fo Guang Shan temple—the Nan Tien Vihara, so that we can reconnect with our Chinese roots through continued learning of the Chinese language and participation in the Chinese religious experience inside Nan Tien Temple. Certainly, we were very happy to have that opportunity to also witness the development of Humanistic Buddhism in Australia.
D.T. Suzuki’s Relevance to the Modernization of Buddhism
McMahan considers the Japanese Zen scholar Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (1870- 1970) to be an important figure in the modernization of Buddhism, who transcends boundaries of any particular religion, culture, and tradition. This paper revisits the significant role of D.T. Suzuki on the modernization of Buddhism through his teachings of illogical Zen, and evaluates the literature that supports and contradicts this claim.
Buddhist Humanism in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
The Platform Sūtra ranks as one of the most popular texts ever produced by Chinese Buddhism. While Buddhists such as Daisaka Ikeda have linked the Lotus Sūtra to Buddhist humanism, few studies have investigated the Platform Sūtra for its humanistic elements. The earliest extant version of this sūtra is the Dunhuang edition, which arguably represents an early transformation from Indic to Chinese Buddhist humanism. Of greater interest is how the form of ninth century Chinese Buddhist humanism encapsulated in this sūtra becomes a form of posthumanism in the twenty-first century. This paper argues for this makeover through Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s commentaries on the Platform Sūtra. Of particular concern is how such Buddhist posthumanism may inform future discourses in the twenty-first century as humanity faces the sixth mass extinction caused by the Anthropocene.
Military Chaplaincy
Should Buddhist Chaplains serve in the military of the United States of America? This question holds many assumptions that deserve as much attention as any answer. As gong’an practice teaches, sometimes asking a question can illuminate our situation even if there is no concrete resolution. For this reason, the first half of this essay will unpack the subtleties of this question and explore its real-world circumstances, before moving on to different ethical considerations in forming a response. For brevity, terms such as “military,” “government,” and “chaplain,” etc. refer to the United States/ US military context, such as “US military,” “US overnment,” or “US military chaplain,” etc. unless otherwise noted.
