Journal of Global Buddhism 2022, Vol.23 (2)
https://doi.org/10.26034/lu.jgb.2022.1998

Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism in the Pacific region today is the product of, and continues to be transformed by, a dynamic process that balances the wish to preserve core teachings and the need to adapt to external demands. This article examines the dynamics of flows and counterflows in Fo Guang Shan (FGS), a Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist movement, as it negotiates tradition and innovation while adapting to the local contexts of Australia and New Zealand.

Fo Guang Shan (Fóguāng shān 佛光山 FGS) is a global Buddhist movement founded by Venerable Master Hsing Yun (Xīngyún dàshī 星雲大師, 1927-) in 1967. From its headquarters in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, FGS has grown rapidly to become a global network of 179 branch temples scattered over five continent (Fo Guang Shan 2011). The post-1960s global Chinese diaspora prepared the ground for the internationalisation of the FGS network, beginning with the establishment of Hsi Lai Temple (Xī lái sì 西來寺) in California in 1988. The stated objectives of this global network of FGS temples are to promote “Humanistic Buddhism” (explained below) and to foster peace and harmony among all peoples of the world. The monastic order of FGS is complemented by Buddha’s Light International Association (BLIA), an international non-government organisation largely composed of lay people founded in 1992. Headquartered in California, BLIA has 200 chapters in over seventy countries and regions (Institute for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism 2021).

Both FGS and BLIA support the global Chinese Buddhist diaspora by not only providing a home for their faith but also a connection to the “imagined homeland of Chinese culture” (Chandler 2005: 162). Further, they also endeavour to spread the Buddha’s teachings to local communities. Hsing Yun once described the monastics of FGS and the laity of BLIA as the wings of a bird, working together to “spread the seeds of bliss throughout the world” (Hsing Yun 2010a: 1). According to their understanding, FGS and BLIA strive to foster peace and harmony globally with four founding principles: propagating Buddhist teachings through cultural activities, nurturing talents through education, benefitting societies through charitable programs, and purifying human minds through Buddhist practices (Fo Guang Shan 2013).

FGS advocates Humanistic Buddhism or “renjian fojiao” (rénjiān fójiào 人間佛教), which literally translates as “Buddhism for the human realm.” According to Hsing Yun, Humanistic Buddhism is “what the Buddha taught, what is essential to human beings, what purifies, and what is virtuous and beautiful” (Hsing Yun 2016: v). This conception of Buddhism has been characterised as being able to engage with the modern world by practising the Buddha Dharma as a means of self-purification (Pacey 2005: 17). FGS is one of a number of Chinese Mahāyāna movements based in Taiwan that enacts the doctrine of Humanistic Buddhism, traceable back to Master Taixu (Tàixū dàshī 太虛大師, 1890–1947) during the early period of the Republic of China. Taixu started the reformist movement known as Buddhism for Human Life (rénshēng fójiào 人生佛教) in China. This movement refocused Chinese Buddhism away from repentance rituals as an economic activity and rebirth in Pure Land towards worldly concerns. It was also initiated to counter the hegemonic forces of colonial powers and Christian missionary in those times (Pacey 2005: 445; Yao and Gombrich 2017: 206; Reinke 2021: 21). The Humanistic Buddhism of Hsing Yun emphasises the present life and the present society. We suggest that FGS is a Chinese mode of Buddhist modernism (McMahan 2012: 160) in which discourses of modernity, such as rationality, science and democratic principles, are selectively appropriated, transformed and localised to the contexts of contemporary Chinese society.

Although the demography of FGS and BLIA is largely ethnic Chinese (Chandler 2005: 167), the religiosity of FGS challenges dualistic taxonomic typologies along the ethnic-convert (Numrich 1996: 63) or modern-traditional divide (Baumann 2001: 25). Instead, Jens Reinke refers to FGS as a globalised, transnational, modern reformist Chinese Buddhist movement (2021: 3). In his ethnographic study of FGS, Reinke describes the Humanistic Buddhist religiosity of FGS as one that incorporates both traditional Buddhist practices and rituals as well as contemporary social engagement (Reinke 2018: 5) to the extent that, “[this] particular entwinement of social engagement, communality, and religious cultivation … constitutes the modernity of Fo Guang Shan’s renjian Buddhist [Humanistic Buddhist] religiosity” (Reinke 2021: 116).

FGS established Nan Tien Temple (Nán tiān sì 南天寺), its Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) regional centre, in Wollongong in 1995 (Waitt 2003: 224). Hsing Yun was invited to build a temple in Australia, first by a Vietnamese Chinese expatriate Shi-Jiao Chun (Cùn Shíjiāo寸時嬌) in 1989, and again by the mayor of Wollongong, a regional town in New South Wales (NSW) in the following year (Nan Tien Temple Editorial Team 2017: 55). The time coincided with the internationalisation campaign at FGS that had started in 1988. Meanwhile, in Australia the Labor government was pursuing a deliberate multicultural Australia policy from 1982 to 1996 (Spuler 1999: 1). In this period the number of Buddhists in Australia increased almost six-fold, from 35,000 to 200,000, mainly due to large-scale migration from Vietnam after the war finished (Baumann 2001: 18). Despite the surge in the number of Buddhists, few Buddhist temples were established during this period.

To gain an insight into FGS Australia’s and New Zealand’s participation in the global flows of Buddhism, we used the translocative approach of Thomas Tweed to trace the movement of ideas, people and objects across the Fo Guang Shan network of temples (Tweed 2011: 24). Tweed coined the term “translocative” to describe religions as flows across space, always changing to establish their place in the world (Tweed 2008: 25). He argued for the need of a theoretical or methodological framework to make sense of the dynamics of religious dissemination in the era of global flows, as religious people, ideas and objects travel back and forth between their homeland and new sites. To interrogate the flows of religious practices and artefacts, he proposed five axioms which define areas to consider when studying contemporary Buddhism. These five areas are: following the flows, noticing those present and absent, attending to the objects of the senses, considering varying temporal and spatial scales, and noticing the structures that propel or impede the flows.

This multi-sited translocative approach was selected because it highlights movement and social relations, as well as contact and exchange, that culminate in different expressions of Buddhism. While Tweed’s study focuses on flows across Asia, America and Europe, we find the approach suitable for our examination of the flow of innovations in relation to Buddha’s Birthday Festival (BBF)¹ across Asia, America and the Australia-New Zealand regions. The aquatic metaphor of flows and Tweed’s attention to border crossings fit well with our description and categorisation of how BBF innovations travelled across various BBF sites. In addition, Tweed’s five axioms for translocative analysis of religion helped us to reflect on how the innovations were re-contextualised and adopted as they travelled across regions.

This article focuses on a study of BBF because it has been one of the largest and longest running regular events held across FGS temples in the region. Between 1993 and 2019, FGS Australia and New Zealand invested heavily in the weekend-long festivals in public spaces across both countries. This involved months of planning and the participation of thousands of volunteers to welcome tens of thousands of visitors (Figure 1). As such, BBF is a major event for FGS to make Humanistic Buddhism visible to Buddhist and non-Buddhist members of the public.² The continuous, significant investment of human and material resources into BBF by FGS Australia and New Zealand has produced innovations that intended to spread the “three jewels” of Buddhism – the Buddha, his teachings (dharma), and community (saṅgha) – to local interests.

Methodology

We collected and analysed data from archival documents such as commemorative books, program booklets, speeches, photographs, and videos. We have also analysed publicly available resources, such as dedicated event websites and news articles on the festivals. In addition, we conducted a three-hour online group interview on 9 January 2021 involving nineteen key personnel from FGS temples and BLIA chapters in Australia and New Zealand.³ Interviewees included the Chief Abbess of FGS Australia and New Zealand, Venerable Manko (Mǎnkě fǎshī 滿可法師), based in Nan Tien Temple, abbesses of Chung Tian Temple Queensland and FGS New Zealand, superintendents of FGS branch temples in Melbourne, Perth, Christchurch, and FGS monastics who have played key roles in essential segments of the festivals for five years or more. The Chief Abbess was among the pioneers who built Nan Tien Temple about three decades ago and retained the institutional memory of ideas, events, people and flows. At least two other monastics had been in Australia and/or New Zealand for over two decades. All BLIA chapters of Australia and New Zealand were represented in the interview. These BLIA representatives have been intimately involved in the planning and execution of BBFs from the level of managerial positions and upwards. Such roles include campaign managers, overall project managers, and advisors to senior advisors. All have been involved in the running of major FGS or BLIA activities, especially BBFs, for upward of five years (with a mean of 17.4 years and a median of 20 years). The three-hour group interview, conducted by the authors, comprised semi-structured, open-ended questions to allow interviewees to tell their stories and narrate their experiences. Interviewees were also asked to validate information that the authors collected.

The first author has been a member of the FGS monastic order since 2002 and spearheaded the Buddha’s Birthday Education Project in the United States and Australia. The second author has been a member of BLIA Sydney chapter since 2008 and has volunteered in BBF Sydney in various operational and administrative roles. Apart from the archives and the interview, we also included participant observation⁴ data in this article.

Flows of Innovation: Observations

An innovation is a change that actors perceive as being new and significant (Yerxa 2015: 6). For the purpose of this article, we have scoped our study to innovations in relation to BBF in FGS Australia and New Zealand. BBF is a multi-site project that offers opportunities for the examination of the extent to which innovations respect the tradition and still align to the culture of contemporary time and place. The participants have given the authors access to a well-documented data repository of archival records of BBF across FGS Australia and New Zealand, from where we were able to identify innovations over the years.

We mapped the flows of these innovations across the Pacific among the headquarters in Taiwan, the regional headquarters and branch temples in Australia and New Zealand, and the North American regional headquarters. We identified four broad patterns of flow: (1) innovations originating from FGS headquarters that flow on to the regional centre and then the branch temples; (2) innovations within the network of temples in the region that lack any evidence of an origin from headquarters; (3) innovations from Australia and New Zealand that flow to headquarters and on to the global network of FGS temples; and (4) innovations that flow between regional centres and that are independent of headquarters (Figure 2).⁵

In this section, we first present the flows of innovation based on archival data according to the four broad patterns of flows identified. We will then analyse these flows according to Tweed’s five translocative axioms.

(1) Flows from FGS headquarters to the regional centre and branch temples in Australia and New Zealand

Two innovative practices that flowed from headquarters to the regional centre and branch temples in Australia and New Zealand are the celebration of the Buddha’s birthday in public spaces and the Three Acts of Goodness campaign (explained below).

Celebrating the Buddha’s Birthday in public spaces

The FGS monastic order started its mission in Dharma promotion in Australia at the Parramatta Vihara, a temple located in a suburb in Western Sydney (Nan Tien Temple Editorial Team 2017: 473). The first BBF celebration in 1991 was held inside the temple, before “The Food Fair of Celebration for Buddha’s Birthday” was moved to a neighbouring park in 1993. Two years later, FGS Australia hosted its first public BBF celebration in Darling Harbour, a tourist spot and traffic hub in the heart of Sydney with a high volume of visitors, and has continued to do so annually until 2019 (Wong et al. 2016: 36). The decision to bring the festival out into open ground departed from the tradition of celebrating Buddha’s birthday inside the temple. According to Chief Abbess Manko, the primary motivation for the move was to accommodate the growing number of visitors, mostly immigrant Buddhists.

Although a novel move for a Buddhist group in Australia, it was not the first time FGS brought the BBF out into a public space. In 1958, in the small town of Yilan in northeast Taiwan, Hsing Yun mobilised 30,000 people (in a city with a population of 50,000) to host a city-wide parade to celebrate Buddha’s birthday despite nationwide martial law (Juewei 2015: 1150). The parade was significant not only in its relatively large scale but also as a demonstration of the centrality of the historic Buddha as the founder of the religion in the doctrine of Humanistic Buddhism. Hence the move to bring BBFs to a prominent public space has precedence in FGS.