Chinese Religion - Revivification

[muyongshi]

[making blanket statement]

[hoping people only take me half seriously]

That's because the Christians are so much better people than all of the Party Members and so they make the Party look bad. They don't take (or give) bribes, they work hard, they don't get drunk, the support the economy.

[/hoping people only take me half seriously]

[/making blanket statement]

[fireball9261]

I heard from a few mainland Chinese that certain regional government officials tolerated Christians for precisely the reasons muyongshi had said. At first, they discourage Christianity among the villagers in their region. After the regional government officials saw the work results of the Christians, the officials turned the blind eyes on the Chrisitans and their activities.

[muyongshi]

It is true and I was being serious to a degree. There are of course no true generalizations and I was exaggerating with how I put it, but in China, those people have strong convictions and their beliefs really effect their life.

[/second blanket statement]

[zozzen]

I think the temple would be very pleased to have you as a volunteer translator and fund raiser. They'd be more concerned with how much money and tourists you can bring to them, and don't really care if you can "revivify" their religion. Don't be too idealistic about your mission.

[fireball9261]

I do agree with zozzen. There are true believers, but there are not much really in any religions. I certainly don't trust organized religions at all. Most of the modern day temples and churches and priests in Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity were not very true to their religions IMO! I was born in Taiwan and surrounded by lots of Buddhists and monks. However, in my 40+ years of life, I only meet one true Buddhist monk, my friend's grand uncle, and he left the big temples and only do his own things in very small temples and went into deep mountains for his meditation for long periods of time. I have not met or see any one else (especially the famous ones) who are as true as this monk --although he was also very famous in his circle. I was told that his disciples came to see him would kowtow all the way from outside of where he was sitting.

I think you might still find good temples, but be on guard and use your own understanding of Buddhism to assess your Chinese masters in Buddhism. Fame really does not mean anything in the realm of spirituality.

[leather_strap]

Socialism is indeed the official doctrine and a mighty efficient one at that. I understand the general discrepancy between Marxist theory and my own intentions. Zozzen is correct to both encourage and bring reality to bear on my plans because I am still very fresh and uninformed to a great degree.

However, just because Socialism is the norm now doesn't mean anything for how long it might be in place. Last century China underwent 2-3 (depending on how you want to classify it) drastic revolutions that changed governmental systems at breakneck speed. In the beginning under the Maoist regime, China was much more of an idealist state, continuing with great fervor up until Deng Xiaoping's regime brought what most traditional Marxists would call "corruption," into the system by allowing private business and personal property herein. Let us skip ahead a few decades and now we have a liberalized "Socialist" agenda on a cultural scale but economically, China is highly unregulated commercialism. I'm a young man! Who is to say what changes may occur in the future?

In the last decade or so we saw the Falun Gong rise from nothing on an unprecedented pace. All it took was the right social environment, namely the “qigong boom” continuing on from the 50’s. Regardless of your personal views of this controversy, it demonstrates that a highly responsive group, contrary to the social norm, can be organized on a scale rivaling the numbers of the CCP. If someone were to just get the wrong notion, this could be affected in a different way and then you’re looking at civil war, which of course nobody wants.

...in short, the world is full of options and opportunities.

[shibole]

leather_strap: Let me ask you something.

If Hinduism had died out in India along with the caste system, would you be trying to "revivify" it and bring back the caste system simply because it's "traditional" and people just need to keep their traditional beliefs or something?

Forgive me if it sounds to me like you just want to turn the world into some sort of anthropological zoo for yourself regardless of the effect on the real live humans living in it. If this is your goal then I certainly hope you fail.

[lilongyue]

OK people, stop being so god damn sensitive. It's really very simple, leatherstrap has an interest and passion in China and it's religions. He was hoping to see a more vital religious tradition while he was in China, and was upset when he didn't find it. He is hoping to find a way to integrate his studies and research with something that will be helpful to those people who already believe, or people have an inclination or interest. No where does he mention proselytizing or doing anything else that is illegal in the eyes of the Chinese government. In fact, I think he himself isn't sure what he plans to do. It would be much more constructive for people who know something about these topics to offer him some advice, rather than rag on him about a bunch of connotations his post never originally had, but were projected onto it. For example,

Forgive me if it sounds to me like you just want to turn the world into some sort of anthropological zoo for yourself regardless of the effect on the real live humans living in it. If this is your goal then I certainly hope you fail.

Where the hell did that come from?

If he was interested in one of China's minority group's special basket weaving techniques, or fabric design, would everyone be jumping up on their soapboxes beating their chests and spewing about his foreign arrogance? His dream of helping religion in China, although still rather vague and uninformed, is a noble one and totally attainable. No one has bothered to ask him how exactly he plans on helping, but just assumed he had some condescending, and saviour-like complex and thought that Chinese are ignorant of their religions.

As someone who probably has the most experience in interacting with Asian religions of anyone on this forum (I spent more than two years travelling to different Asian countries, and visiting and spending time in Buddhist temples), I can say that he can offer some kind of help to China's religions. He just needs to find his focus, and figure out where he will fit in the larger picture.

Some of the earlier posts are correct. There are a lot of bad temples and monks, I've seen my fair share, but all that means is you have to look harder to find the places where people are serious and live up to the ideals that they preach. Those people do exist. I'm in contact with a temple, which I've visited before, and am about to start translating a book containing the teachings of the master who founded the temple, Daoxin, the 4th Chan Patriarch. There is nothing illegal in this, and the monks were very glad, helpful and receptive to the idea. When I stayed there they refused to take any money from me. They picked me up from the train station when I arrived, even though it was 3 AM, and dropped me off at the train station even though it was almost an hours drive from the temple. They refused to let me pay the toll-road fees, and because the train taking me home was in the afternoon, they drove me around to some other historically important Buddhist temples to pass the time. Nearly every temple I've ever spent time in, everywhere in Asia, has been this warm and welcoming. As I've said before in other posts, Asian Buddhists (I can't speak about other Asian religions) are always very happy when foreigners express interest in Buddhism, and will bend over backwards to help you. Chinese are no exception.

For anyone interested, here's an article about the increasing tolerance of the Chinese government towards Buddhism, as well as how it's growing stronger within China: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0309/p01s04-woap.html.

[gato]

am about to start translating a book containing the teachings of the master who founded the temple, Daoxin, the 4th Chan Patriarch. There is nothing illegal in this, and the monks were very glad, helpful and receptive to the idea.

Are you translating it into English? If so, that's really for communicating with Westerners Buddhists rather than local ones. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but to help Buddhists in the mainland than Westerners, I think the Taiwanese Buddhists with their language and cultural familiarity are probably better placed.

[wushijiao]

OK people, stop being so god damn sensitive. It's really very simple, leatherstrap has an interest and passion in China and it's religions. He was hoping to see a more vital religious tradition while he was in China, and was upset when he didn't find it. He is hoping to find a way to integrate his studies and research with something that will be helpful to those people who already believe, or people have an inclination or interest. No where does he mention proselytizing or doing anything else that is illegal in the eyes of the Chinese government. In fact, I think he himself isn't sure what he plans to do. It would be much more constructive for people who know something about these topics to offer him some advice, rather than rag on him about a bunch of connotations his post never originally had, but were projected onto it

100% agreed.

[zozzen]

Although there's an opportunity, I'm still pessimistic about the plan. Not only the gov't discourage the plan, general Chinese would also find it very strange to have a westerner to "revivify" their own culture, because they have a strong belief that most westerners won't be able to understand that. For one obvious reason, to understand (and show others that you understand) these traditional religions, you have to be very good at the Chinese language, possibly better than ordinary Chinese, and it can take you many years to achieve it.

As far as I remember, there's very few westerners who successfully won the hearts from Chinese scholars on this topic. They're Matteo Ricci (400yrs ago), John Fairbank(half century ago), J. Spence (recent decades). Voltaire's interpretation on Chinese culture is also famous among the China scholars on this topic, but that's more about the fame in his own country rather than this interpretations.

Anyway, life is short. Do what you feel right. If that's your dream ,why not?

[zozzen]

There are true believers, but there are not much really in any religions.

I was in Shaolin and strongly felt the same too. Although it's kungfu that makes Shaolin famous, it's still a temple and one of the important temples for Buddhism, but hardly can i see anyone who talked about it.

Many people there shaved their head and wear monk uniform, but they could chew chicken bones. Even in Shaolin Temple, some monks were actually disney figures for photography (RMB10 for each) . Another monks I met was a salesperson who sold "foot-massage flipper" to me. Only one "monk" mentioned buddhism to me. That's about how to make Zen mediation become a part of kungfu programme to attract more tourists.

[shibole]

OK people, stop being so god damn sensitive. It's really very simple, leatherstrap has an interest and passion in China and it's religions.

I agree that it's simple, but I don't think that's the issue. Here it is:

This person wants to promote religious beliefs that he himself does not believe in.

If he were interested in simply learning about them that would be one thing, but he wants to actually revive them because he didn't have the wonderful ethnic tourist experience that he was hoping for. Not because he actually believes in them, but because he appears to think of people as animals in a zoo that exist for his entertainment.

Now, to make this very easy to understand, lets say that I come to your home town:

"Hi there. I'm here to teach you about head hunting and cannibalism! What? No, I don't actually believe in those things, in fact I think they're totally stupid. But I think that YOU should believe them! Why? Because when I came to visit I was disappointed at how headhunting and cannibalism had declined and just wanted to help revivify them. After all, I think I deserve to have a nice ethnic tourist experience!"

Now, Taoism and Buddhism aren't cannibalism, but the concept here is the same:

1) This person doesn't actually believe in any of these religions.

2) This person hasn't considered whether it's even good for people to believe in them.

There is no way any education person could possibly believe in all of the religions that he mentioned because they conflict in several areas. There is obviously some other belief driving this misguided idea and, while I can speculate, I'll leave it up to leather_strap to elaborate on that.

Now, I happen to be a Theravada Buddhist. Do I want this person teaching Buddhism? No way in hell. How can someone who doesn't believe in something and respect it teach it to people or have any involvement in promoting it? Essentially this is, again, "I don't believe this stuff but I think YOU should!" There's also the fact that someone who doesn't really believe in something probably isn't qualified to teach it or translate any religious texts. See the old Pali Text Society translations of the suttas from the Pali cannon where many things are "translated" very poorly because the translator had no understanding of Buddhism.

So no, I don't think I'm being oversensitive. It sounds like this person is very misguided and is likely to be laughed out of the country without even having to be thrown out. Even the most primitive of people can pick up on insulting attitudes like this, and Chinese people aren't primitive.

[lilongyue]

Are you translating it into English? If so, that's really for communicating with Westerners Buddhists rather than local ones. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but to help Buddhists in the mainland than Westerners, I think the Taiwanese Buddhists with their language and cultural familiarity are probably better placed.

That's true, there are some things that someone from Taiwan can do that a Westerner could never do. Because of the language and culture, Taiwanese, Malaysian or Singapore Chinese, or Buddhists from Hong Kong have an obvious advantage. They're also much better funded. Taiwanese Buddhist scholars are also top notch. I don't think the same extensive research has been done in the West. Japanese and Korean Buddhist scholars are also very good. But as I've said earlier in this thread, and other threads, foreigner's interest in something like Buddhism can go far in its influence.

I guess a connection that I never made clear is that by educating Westerners and Western Buddhists about Chinese Buddhism it can indirectly benefit Buddhism in the Mainland. Most Western Buddhists don't understand much about modern day Chinese Buddhism. Those I know who practice Mahayana forms of Buddhism, including the Japanese Zen folks, see Chinese Buddhism as mostly Pure Land practice. There are several reasons for this, one being that Chinese Chan did integrate with Pure Land Buddhism to a degree that it never did in Japan. So, when later waves of Chinese monks visited Japan, some of the monks saw it as a sullying of true practice. This biased view was passed on to later generations of Japanese Zen Masters, and their Western students. There is also the Cultural Revolution, of course.

Before coming to China I also believed that the legendary meditation halls and retreats of yore had died out. When I was visiting a temple in Hong Kong I met the abbot, who had done one of the 3 month retreats in the Mainland. He said it was incredibly strict, and that one of the temples that held the twice yearly retreat didn't even allow lay people to participate because it was too intense for the average person. A lot of monks also couldn't handle the rigorous daily schedule of sitting, walking, sitting, walking, or the strict discipline. There was a monk who watched over the other monks during the retreat, and would "correct" then with the slap of a stick when they fell out of line, or were sleepy, etc. This is the tradition that Japan inherited and became famous for, but is believed to have died out in China. It still exists.

So, I know that there are foreigners who would be interested in learning about this, and even having a chance to come to China for meditation retreats. Two of my friends, who have already translated Chinese Buddhists texts into English, have already started bring groups of Western Buddhists over to China, visiting the temples and holding meditation sessions inside of them. They don't participate in the retreats I mentioned above, but more interest will bring more scholarship, more research, more money for the temples (the real ones, not the tourist temples), instil more faith and confidence in the local people who already believe, and perhaps pique the interest of locals who don't believe, but would benefit from Buddhist practice. As I've already said a few times, a foreigner's interest in Buddhism can cause a lot of people, for example some locals who don't believe, to become curious and check it out. When they find out that Buddhism is not simply waving around sticks of incense in front of a statue, but actually contains teaching very useful and applicable to daily life, they start to change their attitude. This has already been happening in other Asian countries. There are meditation centres throughout Thailand that cater to foreigners, and this has a positive effect on Buddhism as a whole in Thailand.

My own interest in helping Chinese Buddhism is not restricted to "converting" Mainland Chinese. My real interest is in helping Buddhism. I would be doing the same thing if I lived in Korea or Thailand. Because I'm Buddhist I simply want to help Buddhism. Given China's recent history, Buddhism happens to be in a position to need all the help it can get. Chinese Buddhism has a rich, 2,000 year old history. It's influence spread across the globe. It was nearly wiped out, and now is slowly coming back to life. The degree to which a foreigner will be able to aid its re-growth is uncertain, but it can help. It goes without saying that most of the work will be done by native believers.

So, that's my thoughts on the subject. This thread has already been pulled off into a negative direction by the usual nit-picking and bickering posters. This thread is pretty much dead now.

[muyongshi]

This thread has already been pulled off into a negative direction by the usual nit-picking and bickering posters. This thread is pretty much dead now.

How so? The title is "Revivification" and people are simply discussing that exact topic. It's not about nit-picking. People are discussing a revival of religion, where it should come from, does it need to be revived, etc. Just because people have opinions that others will not like does not make it nit-picking or bickering. It's just a hot topic.

[wushijiao]

Now, Taoism and Buddhism aren't cannibalism, but the concept here is the same:

1) This person doesn't actually believe in any of these religions.

Can you be sure of that? He said he was interested in finding a teacher about one of these religions?

2) This person hasn't considered whether it's even good for people to believe in them.

I really don't understand what you mean here. How can you assume that he hasn't considered whether or not it is good for people to practice religion or meditation? Or to be more blunt, to even have the choice to do so!, which is often not the case How did he say he was going to force people to believe? Unless you live inside a cult compound, a theocratic state, or a state that is openly hostile towards religion, you make a free choice to believe in what you want to believe in.

Although I would agree that any person wishing to help traditional religions would be in a much better position to do so with solid Chinese skills and a deep knowledge of the religion.

[fireball9261]

Not because he actually believes in them, but because he appears to think of people as animals in a zoo that exist for his entertainment.

Sorry, I am not sure how this particular impression came about. I didn't quite get that impression from his words. I think he is searching for a religion to believe and probably leaning towards Chinese Buddhism or Taoism, and he wants to learn more, but was disappointed with what he found in China. That was all the impression I got about him. He is young and searching, please cut him some slack!

[leather_strap]

Last year I spent a year in Qingdao studying language but was rather dismayed by how decrepit the non-Christian religious traditions in the mainland are. I'm also very interested in the cause of helping native traditions in the mainland revivify but am not sure where to start. Could you give me a few names of the temples (Daoism, Buddhism, Manichianism, Confucianism, etc.) that you have found to be more than tourist traps?

In the Spring I finish up my B.A. and will spend next year studying language and religion in Taiwan. I'm working on a grant proposal right now to assist my expenses to spend extended periods of time at both Fa3gu1shan1 (Dharma Drum Mountain) in the north and Fo2guang1shan1 (Buddha's Light Mountain) in the south. This is my first step to being able to attain the language necessary to do ethnobiographical studies in the mainland.

Indeed you have all effectively read and discovered that I am a novice. If I've already admitted the short-coming of my own understanding and thus am reaching for correction, what is the purpose in berating me further about it?

As for my own religious notions, I never discussed such a thing. If I'm not mistaken, defining a "religious" person in China has always been a difficult task due to the average person's lack of desire to use such definite titles as Daoist or Buddhist. If this cross-cultural codification is a foreign Western concept, is placing them on me artificially, really in keeping with my larger goals, most of which involves a culture that mostly ignores them?

It's just such a cultural mixing of the aforementioned components (along with Confucianism and others) that can be seen convening throughout nearly all of Chinese history. How would one even go about classifying their study? Right now the modern emanation of Li Zhaoen's "Sanyijiao" has been gaining popularity in Southeastern rural China over the past couple of decades, even though it's been their for centuries. Even though they are met with military resistance every couple of years and the government continues to refuse them "offical religion" status, their numbers continue to expand. Would you call them Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, folk religion? Are using any of them individually even an appropriate effort? Given that one can not classify them under this system, should everyone simply discredit and ignore them?

I've simply chosen none to describe myself concretely and in turn seek out a greater knowledge. It seems to me that a lot of people are using me as a scapegoat to take out whatever personal hang-up they have religion/spirituality/cultivation/etc.

[outcast]

Yes, that's a topic for the Chinese themselves to debate. It would also be foolhardy for a foreigner to try to revivify (revive?) traditional religions in China. That's also something that the Chinese can only decide for themselves.

Think if South Korean Christian missionaries were to try to revive Christianity in Europe.

Some of them probably do. I find it really interesting that people constantly go on and on about "western arrogance" when in reality they are doing the same thing as some "eastern" (or whatever non-white ethnic group) people are doing, and yet nothing is said about those people.

I think everyone in the world can benifit from an outside perspective. If are living in a box, how do you know you are if all you can see is cardboard?

[shibole]

Can you be sure of that? He said he was interested in finding a teacher about one of these religions?

Well, he did state that he wants to "revive religions" (just in general) rather than some specific one or ones. It essentially sounds like he doesn't even know what the religions he wants to revive are. Also, there are conflicting views among these religions so I'm not sure how one would reconcile this. One day you promote all Buddhist assertions, then the next day you promote Taoist assertions, even the ones that conflict with the ones you promoted the day before? These religions have coexisted but it's not like people just believe in all aspects of all of them, and I'm pretty sure you don't have monks going around who are both full Buddhist and Taoist monks.

2) This person hasn't considered whether it's even good for people to believe in them.

I really don't understand what you mean here. How can you assume that he hasn't considered whether or not it is good for people to practice religion or meditation? Or to be more blunt, to even have the choice to do so!, which is often not the case/

Again due to the vague "revive religions" concept. No specific religions... no deep understanding of what all of them believe or what the effects of the specific beliefs are on people.

How did he say he was going to force people to believe? Unless you live inside a cult compound, a theocratic state, or a state that is openly hostile towards religion, you make a free choice to believe in what you want to believe in.

I don't think anyone said anyone was forcing anyone, or even trying to convert people, but even encouraging beliefs that you yourself believe are false is hypocritical in my opinion. I just don't see how you can possibly believe in "reviving all religions" without ending up encouraging a lot of stuff that you don't yourself believe in.

On the other hand even though I personally don't believe in Christianity I think it's better for people to believe in at least the more moderate forms of Christianity than many other things they could believe in, like amoralistic anihiliationism or something. Christians end up doing lots of good things lots of the time too, as people have stated. If some were building a community well somewhere I might give them money to help, but I don't think I'd help them make copies of religious texts or something.

I've simply chosen none to describe myself concretely and in turn seek out a greater knowledge. It seems to me that a lot of people are using me as a scapegoat to take out whatever personal hang-up they have religion/spirituality/cultivation/etc.

I'm sorry I've sounded so nasty. I do wish you'd try to explain your goals/motivation a little more. It sort of sounds like you're interested in some sort of general "cultural restoration" or something, but that's kind of tricky because it's not like you're dealing with old buildings or artifacts. I'm not really sure how to resolve the moral issue of a sort of general encouraging of people to "get back into your culture" or something if that, for example, involves worshiping gods or spirits that you yourself don't believe in. Also, if you show up somewhere as a foreigner and start saying "yo, get back to your culture" then that might seem a bit odd to people.

I'd encourage you to spend lots of time learning before trying to "promote" anything in particular, and always ask yourself if you're encouraging others to believe in things you don't believe and whether that's morally correct. It's sort of hard to say because I can imagine myself saying "Well no I don't believe in that, I believe in Theravada Buddhism and I'll tell you about it if you want, but I think what you believe is much better than many other things you could believe." I guess in that sense I could be encouraging belief in things that I don't believe and it wouldn't seem wrong. But anyway, to me it seems like a complicated moral issue and a situation where you may have to be concerned about people being suspicious of your motives.

And like lilongyue said:

As I've already said a few times, a foreigner's interest in Buddhism can cause a lot of people, for example some locals who don't believe, to become curious and check it out.

Just showing up and asking questions might be sufficient for the general idea of your goal.