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Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan
Only in the last decades has modern Buddhism become a serious topic of academic investigation. Today, however, the field is flourishing. Modern Buddhism in its many forms is studied in many languages and disciplines. Despite this recent advancement, the subject of investigation is not always that clear. What are we talking about when we are speaking of modern Buddhism? This paper aims to tackle this question by considering the global spread of Fo Guang Shan from a transnational perspective. Transnationalism describes a recent advance within the social sciences and humanities to move away from a research approach that examines its object of interest solely by placing it within the context of one nation state.
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.
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.
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.
Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan
Appendix: Yang Renshan, a Bodhisattva
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.
Editor’s Preface: A Treasury of Academic Thought on Humanistic Buddhism
Taking the Retrocession of Taiwan in 1945 as the starting point of the restoration of Chinese Buddhism, along with the emergence of the four major monastic orders on this island, Humanistic Buddhism has just celebrated its seventy-first birthday. However, we should consider that Master Taixu (hereinafter Taixu) first proposed the concept of “Humanistic Buddhism” in his article “On The China Times and the so-called ‘Sūtras and Mantras to Save the Nation’” published in Ocean Waves Magazine Vol. 13, No. 9 (1932), and that he delivered his lecture on “How to Build Humanistic Buddhism” at the Hankou Chamber of Commerce in October of the following year. These first definitions of Humanistic Buddhism included a preliminary explanation of the methodology and philosophy of Humanistic Buddhism, and how it could be developed from this foundation. From this other perspective, it can be said that modern Humanistic Buddhism has been practiced for more than eighty years.
Dharma Function with Sound, Dharma Propagation with Music–A Study of Buddhist Chants and Buddhist Songs of Fo Guang Chan
This paper introduces the historical development and current state of Buddhist chants and songs at Fo Guang Shan, an international Buddhist headquarters founded by Venerable Master Hsing Yun. This study also offers academic analysis of the musical forms from a selected set of Buddhist chants and songs with a specific focus on how particular musical forms are manifested in these as well as why they have become popular. Most of the musical scores are transcribed by the author, some of them from recordings made in the main shrine of Fo Guang Shan, and others provided by the Fo Guang Shan Institute of Humanistic Buddhism.