Buddhism and Chinese modernity

The Chinese Buddhist canon is a systematic collection of all translated Buddhist scriptures and related literatures created in East Asia and has been regarded as one of the “three treasures” in Buddhist communities. Despite its undisputed importance in the history of Buddhism, research on this huge collection has remained largely the province of Buddhologists focusing on textual and bibliographical studies. We thus aim to initiate methodological innovations to study the transformation of the canon by situating it in its modern context, characterized by intricate interactions between East and West as well as among countries in East Asia.
During the modern period the Chinese Buddhist canon has been translated, edited, digitized, and condensed as well as internationalized, contested, and ritualized. The well-known accomplishment of this modern transformation is the compilation of the Taisho Canon during the 1920s. It has become a source of both doctrinal orthodoxy as well as creativity and its significance has greatly increased as Buddhist scholarship and devotionalism has utilized the canon for various ends. However, it is still unclear what led to the creation of the modern editions of the Buddhist canon in East Asia. This volume explores the most significant and interesting developments regarding the Chinese Buddhist canon in modern East Asia including canon formation, textual studies, historical analyses, religious studies, ritual invention, and digital research tools and methods.

This article describes the important but overlooked influence of Avataṃsaka thought within East Asian Buddhism from the nineteenth century to the 1930s. It shows that Avataṃsaka was transnational in two significant ways: First, its popularity is illustrative of the connections that existed between Buddhists in China, Japan, and Korea during that time. Second, Avataṃsaka thought served as the basis for discourses of transnationalism.

Linji Yixuan 臨濟義玄 (d. 866) and Fo Guang Hsing Yun 佛光星雲 1) (1927–), although separated by more than a millennium, innovatively applied Chan teachings to the societies in which they lived to help their devotees discover their humanity and transcend their existential conditions. Both religious leaders not only survived persecution, but brought their faiths to greater heights. This paper studies how these masters adapted Chan Buddhist teachings to the woes and conditions of their times. In particular, I shall review how Yixuan and Hsing Yun adapted the teachings of their predecessors, added value to the socio-political milieu of their times, and used familiar language to reconcile reality and their beliefs.

This paper studies the ways that "Walker," a short film by the Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-Liang, visualizes the relationship between Buddhism and modernity. Via detailed film analysis as well as attention to sources in premodern Buddhist traditions, this paper argues that its filmic performance of Zen walking meditation serves two functions: To present slowness and simplicity as prophetic counterpoints against the dizzying excesses of the contemporary metropolis; and to offer contemplative attentiveness as a therapeutic resource for life in the modern world. By instantiating and cultivating critical shifts in viewerly perspective in the manner of Buddhist ritual practice, "Walker" invites us to envision how a place of frenetic distraction or pedestrian mundaneness might be transfigured into a site of beauty, wonder, and liberation.

Keywords: Buddhism and modernity; contemplative studies; kinhin; slow cinema; transnational Chinese cinema; Tsai Ming-Liang; walking meditation; Zen ritual

“Humanistic Buddhism” is generally acknowledged as a purely modern phenomenon in the history of Chinese Buddhism which came into being only after the advent of reformist activities in both monastic and lay circles since the late nineteenth century. In my paper I will show that several central aspects of “Buddhism in the human realm” can be found in the Zhaijiao (“Vegetarian Sects”) tradition in late imperial China and Taiwan.
Zhaijiao is a common collective designation given to the three religious traditions: Longhuapai 龍華派 or “Dragon Flower Sect,” Jintongpai 金幢派 or “Gold Pennant Sect,” and Xiantianpai 先天派 or “Former Heaven Sect.” Founded during the late Ming through mid-Qing period in southern China, they were introduced to Taiwan by the middle of the eighteenth century. Today, Zhaijiao is regarded as a form of lay or popular Buddhism both by the general public as well as by most (Western) scholarship. These sects, however, share many traits with the rich tradition of “popular religious sects” which fl ourished in late imperial Southern China.
I will show that this strand of “non-monastic” popular Buddhism already highlighted many aspects of renjian Fojiao which may alert us to rethink the conventional genealogy of “Humanistic Buddhism” in modern China.

Citation:
Jones, Charles B. “Where is the Human Realm? An Examination of Ven. Taixu’s 太虛 大師 Concept of Renjian 人間 in his Pure Land Writings,” in 無礙法界．正教弘傳人間佛教在東亞與東南亞的傳佈 The Realm of Non-obstruction, Preaching of Buddha-dharma: The Spread of Humanistic Buddhism in East and Southeast Asia.  Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism 中文大學人間佛教研究中心, 2020, p. 632-645.

Abstract:
Ven. Taixu ( 太虛大師, 1890~ 1947) is justly credited with initiating the idea of the modernBuddhist  ovement called renjian fojiao 人間佛教, variously known in English as “HumanisticBuddhism,” “Engaged Buddhism,” “Earthly Buddhism,” and “Buddhism for the Human  Realm.”Scholars and followers of this movement generally understand this as a movement which emphasizesthe present life. It seeks to motivate Buddhists to take actions that will promote social welfareand human flourishing while discouraging an excessive “other-worldliness” (chushi 出世). In otherwords, Buddhists should strive to improve life here and now and not focus their attention on theafterlife or on other worlds.
While Taixu’s writings do indeed contain such calls to action, a closer examination of hisworks dealing with the creation of the “Pure Land in the Human Realm” (renjian jingtu 人間淨土)reveals his concept of the “human realm” to be far more complex than this. In addition to callingfor concrete actions to educate and uplift people in society, he acknowledges the ongoing reality ofdeath and advises practices aimed at a better afterlife. In addition, in defining the “human realm”he relies on traditional Buddhist cosmology more than is generally acknowledged. For example,the Buddhist scriptures say that human beings, as one of the six paths of rebirth, are found not onlyon planet Earth but also in the northern continent of Uttarakuru and in the Pure Land of Amitābha.Thus, translations such as “Earthly Pure Land” fail to capture his full meaning, and modern interpretationsof his ideas on Humanistic Buddhism imagine him as more of a modernizer than heactually is.
This paper will look to Taixu’s major statement on the Pure Land in the Human Realm, the essay “On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm” (“Jiànshè rénjiān jìngtǔ lùn ”建設人間淨土論 ) as well as other writings on Pure Land to present the full complexity of Taixu’sthought. It will argue that he is more of a transitional figure and less a fully-committed modernizerthan has been recognized.
Keywords: Taixu, Humanistic Buddhism, Pure Land, Human Realm

In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'. In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that, besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed, discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete. Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm into a more coherent and modernized ideal.

This paper focuses on the labor group that served monks and donors in temples, such as servants, cooks, cleaners, etc. There was a distinct transformation of the monastic economy in the last century that urban Buddhist temples tended to regard the service industry as their main source of income. Accordingly, the role of temple laborers who provided services had become increasingly important, and they would not defer to monks as before. According to the National Labor Act of the Republican government, temple laborers began to organize unions to fight against the exploitation of monks. Based on newspapers, archives, survey reports, and memoirs, this paper analyses the new form of monastic life in early modern Shanghai, attempting to reveal more details about the relationship between the temple labor and monks. Furthermore, this paper also indicates the tension between monks and temple laborers, including religious identity crises and labor disputes. Through the fate of temple laborers and their employers, we can gain a deeper understanding of the operation of modern Buddhism and explore the economic characteristics of urban Buddhism monasteries from a new perspective.
本文關注近代中國佛寺中的工役，通過這一特殊群體探討百年來都市佛教寺院經濟的發展和變遷。寺工群體歷來數量龐大，是叢林生活中的必要組成部分。近代以來，都市佛寺興起，提供服務的寺工在寺院經濟中的作用愈發重要。然而，在這種佛教服務業的僱傭關係下，寺工們的宗教身份也變得模糊起來。在二十世紀40、 50年代，圍繞著勞資糾紛與僧俗矛盾的雙重衝突，寺工們開始組建工會以求抗爭佛 教會。隨著時代的迅速變化，雙方的境遇也幾度逆轉。本文依據報刊、檔案、調查報告和回憶錄等資料，著重考察上世紀40、50年代上海地區的寺僧與工役的糾紛事件，還原雙方的博弈過程及其背後的觀念。透過寺院工役群體近百年來的命運變 遷，可以更深入地了解近代寺院的運作方式，並從新的角度發掘「都市佛教」寺院經濟的特性。

Many scholars of Confucianism have long discredited the idea that human rights are incompatible with Asian values because of their supposed emphasis on the social, communal or relational self. Yet, many of them also acknowledge that significant philosophical reformulations are needed to incorporate the individualistic concept of human rights into Asian thoughts and practices.
    My paper examines the philosophies of two prominent May-Fourth thinkers, Lü Cheng (1896-1989) and Xiong Shili (1885-1968) and shows how their thinking on personhood and individuality may be useful for and relevant to our understanding of human rights. Through an in-depth reading of their 1943 debate, my paper critically engages with both thinkers’ metaphysical ideas and arguments on human agency and human value, which provide the philosophical foundation for their socio-political quest of transforming the people into spiritually aware and politically active citizens of a new nation.  Lü formulates human moral agency by harking back to the “authentic Buddha’s teaching” — xingji (primal purity) which is a restatement of dependent-origination. Xiong invents a holographic human value based on Tathagatagarbha doctrine —xingjue (original enlightenment) — and the Neo-Confucian idea of tiyong bu’er (non-duality of substance and function). Their ideas of human agency and human value are based on a conception of personhood that reciprocally integrates sociality and autonomy, potentially, if not directly, addressing the tension between Chinese collectivism and Western individualism.
In the process of their philosophical pondering on the nature of being human, they offer clear hints of how such metaphysically driven conceptions of humanity may serve as the philosophical anchor of an alternative and viable human rights discourse. From our contemporary vantage point, my paper looks at their ideas as intellectual resources that may complement and critique the dominant Western assumptions about human rights discourse, and contemplates how this discourse may become a global ethics.