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One-sided philanthropism is not the pursuit of Humanistic Buddhism

Other articles 2016-06-12

In recent years, Humanistic Buddhism has developed rapidly. Although human Buddhism is neither a new religion nor a sect of Buddhism, it has been recognized by the entire Chinese Buddhist community as a development orientation, and it has shown a trend of diversification and prosperity. On the one hand, this diversification certainly embodies the principle of human Buddhism and shows the prosperity of human Buddhism in contemporary China. On the other hand, however, it is inevitable that there will be some undesirable orientations that deviate from the original purpose of human Buddhism, such as the regression from Buddhist mysticism to the one-sided development of ghost and god Buddhism, politicization, and philanthropy, which have greatly hindered the normal development of human Buddhism.

(1) Buddhist fundamentalism and mysticism, regressing to ghost and god Buddhism

Buddhism in India developed in the struggle against Brahmanism and Shamanism, and many Buddhist disciples at that time were converted from Brahmanical beliefs, and the Brahmanical concept of gods and the quality of their thinking were difficult to eradicate, coupled with the strong worship of the Buddha, they were accustomed to understanding the Buddha as a god. The deification of the image of the Buddha made the belief in the wisdom, words and deeds of the Buddha in the world replaced and became popular in the form of Brahmanical belief after the Buddha's death, which was typically manifested in the belief in sacrifices, incantations, and ascetic methods. Since then, although it has not completely deviated from the Buddha's teachings, Buddhism has gradually spread in the history of Buddhism with elements of deification and witchcraft.

After its introduction to China, China's feudal rulers adopted Buddhism as part of Shintoism, in order to fool the people, strengthen the rule of the government, and make deification and birth of Buddhism become the will of the rulers and gain legitimacy. In addition, due to the limitations of science and technology, many basic natural and social phenomena cannot be rationally explained, thus making Buddhism a reality and making Buddhist confession an important part of Buddhism's political activities.

Based on this, the development of Buddhism should follow the teachings of Master Taixu, strive to get rid of the stigma of the religion of ghosts and gods and the religion of the dead, advocate the life Buddhism with the basic purpose of improving real life, and continue to promote the "three major principles" of teaching, teaching system and teaching property in the Buddhist community, so as to promote Chinese Buddhism out of the trough and realize the transformation that adapts to the progress of the times.

(2) The one-sided development of human Buddhism

In his speech "How to Build Human Buddhism", Master Xingyun summarized the ideological outline of human Buddhism into six points: first, to build human Buddhism with the joy of life; the second is to build a rich human Buddhism; the third is to build humanistic Buddhism with compassion and morality; The fourth is to build human Buddhism for dependents and respect: the fifth is to build human Buddhism for Mahayana Puji; Sixth, human Buddhism in the Pure Land of Buddhism. It can be seen that the construction of Buddhism should be comprehensive and broad, and it can include wealth, family, morality, career, and other aspects, and ultimately obtain complete benefits. However, the development of Humanistic Buddhism today tends to be politicized and the function of charity strengthened.

Since its founding, Buddhism has been marked by avoidance of the hustle and bustle and aversion to life. This principle of the Buddha's detachment from politics and the world has since been inherited by his disciples and has become a major tradition of Indian Buddhism. After Buddhism was introduced to China, the social and historical conditions in China were very different from those in ancient India, so the tradition of detachment and tranquility of Indian Buddhism gradually changed. The social system with royal politics as the core is an important factor in the secularization and politicization of Chinese Buddhism.

In modern times, although Chinese Buddhist organizations have begun to take on the characteristics of "social organizations", they still have a strong administrative character, emphasizing the state's "guidance" function of religion. The administrative nature of religious organizations is precisely the embodiment of the state's control, and Buddhist associations and monasteries at all levels carry out "localized management" and are actually subject to the leadership of religious administrative departments at the same level. The Buddhist Association also has some kind of subordinate administrative relationship with the temple, which is actually presided over by the monastery appointed by the local Buddhist Association. Under such a system, it is inevitable that there will be some over-politicized tendencies in the development of Humanistic Buddhism, which will be manifested in the administrative system of the organization, the bureaucracy of the work style, and so on.

The same is true of the charitable function of Buddhism. The Buddhist tradition of philanthropy has a long history, and it is supported by relatively complete forms and mature systems, such as the early monk Su, the temple library, the Interpretation of the Classics Library, the Endless Tibetan Temple, and the later Beitian Temple, the Sanatorium, the Medicine Hospital, etc., all of which have played an important role in the history of Chinese philanthropy. In the process of people asking Buddhism to cope with modernization, we should attach importance to turning Buddhism into a business, implement the purpose of joining the WTO to help the world in specific undertakings, and penetrate into the masses in the cause of helping the world, so as to further enable Buddhism to flow into society and humanize Buddhism. The commonly used "I Buddha is compassionate" and "good and good" all have obvious philanthropic orientation, and it is easy for people to misunderstand Buddhism as a religion engaged in philanthropy. Enthusiasm for social philanthropy is not only a fine tradition of Chinese Buddhism, but also an important part of Humanistic Buddhism, but we should also make it clear that Humanistic Buddhism should do more than that. In other words, the concern of human Buddhism for society is not only about material and monetary charity, but also about the innovation of Buddhist theories and how to integrate Buddhism with scientific knowledge.

(3) Vulgarization, money worship and other bad tendencies in the development of human Buddhism itself

With the development of the Western trend of individualism and the tide of market economy, human Buddhism is inevitably deformed and degenerated by the influence of marketization and commercialization in the process of its modernization-oriented development, and the sublime, solemn, and pure Buddhism will inevitably be polluted, and bad tendencies such as vulgarization and money worship will appear in its own development.

Many scholars have elaborated on the status quo of the vulgarization of human Buddhism. For example, Hongyin gave a more thorough exposition of the phenomenon of the vulgar development of Buddhism in Taiwan, and he pointed out that the different sects that have evolved into each other have a strict door, the color of the mountains, each owning territory, not interacting with each other, the descendants of the dojo are privatized, the spirit of the Buddhist ten-party dojo has been lost, and the utilitarian commercial atmosphere of the dojo and monasteries has become stronger and stronger. If the monastery and dojo do not have the atmosphere and sentiment of monasticism, the religious spirit is lost, it enters the commercial atmosphere, and it is completely "secularized", the future of Buddhism is really worrying! As a person in Buddhism, Hongyin sighed like this, and the problems in the development of Buddhism in the world can be seen.

Of course, one of the limitations in the development of Buddhism itself is the low level of cultural quality of the monks, except for the occasional eminent monks, many monks and nuns have low cultural quality, and they have taken refuge in Buddhism for food and clothing, and have no ability to study Buddhist classics, so that Buddhist classics have become offerings and decorations in monasteries to a large extent. Since the 20th century, monks have poor knowledge of Buddhism, lax precepts, and the overall level of moral quality of monks and nuns is worrying. In today's society, materialism is rampant, and monks are the main body of practicing Buddhist teachings, and their overall quality level is not high, and their cultivation is insufficient, which also makes them more susceptible to the influence of secular orientations such as "money is omnipotent" and "money is the only thing", and then embark on the road of money worship that is completely contrary to the fundamental purpose of the Pure Land of Buddhism.

2024-02-05 18:06
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