This course provides an introduction to the study of the history, major teachings, and practices of the major Chinese religions and spiritual practices and is deigned to give conceptual tools to appreciate diverse religious practice in East. It covers the development of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and wide range of popular and local religions. From historical perspective we will also explore the development of key theological, religious and philosophical doctrines as well as associated practices. An effort will be made to spend time on each tradition according to its importance to Asia as a whole. We will explore the role of religions in politics and social relations in East and South, South East Asia and China in particular, and will analyze the origins, central teachings, divisions and branches, rituals and practices, influences on culture, and responses to modern challenges for each tradition. The emphasis throughout the course is on the hermeneutic difficulties attendant upon the study of religion in general, and Asian religions in particular. We will explore new Asian religions as dynamic, ongoing forces in the lives of individuals and in the collective experience of modern societies.
Buddhism in Modern Culture
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Do curso por National Research University Higher School of Economics
Religions and Society in China
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Sinified Buddhism as an almost independent tradition
This module's content outlines the main texts and doctrines of Chan Buddhism, enumerates the main schools and branches, explains the influence that Buddhism had and has on Chinese life and art.
Conheça os instrutores
Aleksey A. MaslovHead
School of Asian Studies
[MUSIC]
How Buddhism looks like today.
Some people say that Buddhism, in the true sense, already doesn't exist in China.
Just remains of several monastic communities and
all other Buddhism is just an imitation of old Buddhism.
And other people say no, Buddhism still exists.
We can see just different dimensions of this Buddhism, sacral and desacralized.
So we'll try to understand what the Buddhism today.
First of all, today China is the most populated country by Buddhists.
According to different estimations, there are more than 185 or
120 million of Buddhists in modern day China.
That's very hard to calculate an exact number of Buddhist followers in China.
Because at the same time, these are called Buddhist followers,
could follow different traditions.
Taoism, Buddhism and different schools of Buddhism, and Confucianism and
even Christianity.
So, for example, they could put their name in the list of Buddhists, but
at the same time, they could visit different kind of Taoist monasteries.
So anyway, we should understand that the Buddhist
tradition in China is very large, very large notion.
But anyway, today a lot of young people visit monasteries, and
for some rituals, and for first of all for some regulations.
The rules of mercy, of contemplation, of helping other people.
So Buddhism today play a very important educative role.
Officially, Chinese state still support Buddhism and
there is no any real repressions of the Chinese group of Buddhists in China.
So Buddhism's still a very large and very official tradition in present-day China.
China became a home of one of the other Buddhist traditions,
which is the or lama-ism.
One of the biggest temple outside of Tibet, the Lamaist temple,
Yonghegong today is situated in the central part of Beijing.
It's Yonghegong which is open today for visitors, but
they also play the role of the classical Lamaist temple.
It was built not especially for Buddhist ceremonies.
It was a building for
the priest Yong, thus came the name Yonghegong, palace of peace and harmony.
And in 18th century this building, actually it's a series of building,
were converted to the lamasery.
So today, for example, Beijing combined different schools and
different monasteries of different traditions, and
without any real discussions, or real opposition to each other.
So it means that even monastery Buddhism today,
is very flexible, and very peaceful by its nature.
At the same time, we can see that a lot of pieces of Buddhism,
maybe most represent pieces of Buddhism, were taken by the popular culture.
It became a part of the popular culture.
And in this case, it was just an imitation of the traditional Buddhism.
Imitation of some ceremonies or imitations of some rules, for example,
meditation, and for example, very famous Chinese martial arts.
And very famous Chinese monastery,
Shaolin monastery, which became a symbol of martial arts, of Buddhism.
Because according to one of the story,
Shaolin monastery was a birthplace of China Buddhism.
And started its prophecy, especially in the Shaolin temple.
That's just a legend.
But anyway, this monastery really, it was established just at
the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century, and
became very famous by the different schools of Buddhism and
martial arts, as well as the Shaolin medicine.
Today, you can find a lot of monks,
anyway people in the yellow robes, in the robes of monks,
that are trained in martial arts, in Shaolin kung fu.
This monastery was completely burned in the 1928 due
to some military conflict in the Henan province, and
it was rebuilt after the culture revolution in the 1980s.
So just several months came back for the old generation,
came back to the Shaolin monastery.
And today that old generation already doesn't exist.
But anyway, we can see that this monastery and
all area, all lands were just around this monastery,
became just mushroomed by the people, by the visitors from China, from outside.
They pay a lot of money.
They spend a lot of money just to visit this legendary place.
So today, Shaolin monastery, which still officially a monastery,
became a tourist attraction and
could gain a lot of money for the local authorities.
Everywhere around Shaolin monastery, we can see different kind of commercial,
different kind of Shaolin tourist entrances, Shaolin restaurants or
Shaolin presentations, Shaolin performances,
that are made especially for the visitors.
That's not bad, and that's not good,
it's just one of the dimension of the transformation of the Buddhism.
And I think that Shaolin Temple is one of the best example of the desacralization of
the old Buddhism.
There are a lot of discussions whether Shaolin tradition still
keeps some secrets, secrets of medicine of the human body, of the martial arts.
That's not the question for us today.
For us, it's very important that tradition became opened, open minded and
open for everyone.
We can buy a ticket, we can buy a door ticket and to visit this place
which was completely closed, for people, for example even 100 years ago.
We cannot find right here in this place or in other place, old generation of monks,
who could transmit you so-called the sacred knowledge, or sacred ideas,
sacred tactics of meditation, of contemplation, of martial arts.
But anyway, to these people, some people,
maybe the majority of people need not the meditation, but they need more attraction.
That's why Buddhism, because of this flexibility,
became much more desacralizing, much more socializing.
After the production of several movies with movie
stars like Jet Li and other very famous actors.
Shaolin monastery became very famous outside of China,
with movies like Shaolin Monastery, Shaolin or Shaolin Shaolin.
Became very famous in western Europe, in the United States,
in Russia, so everywhere.
And with the popularity of these movies, Buddhism also became very popular.
Not Buddhism as a meditational tactics, but as an active drink.
So once again,
Buddhism propagate itself by different means and by different stories.
In China, Buddhism also became a part of the popular culture.
Right here you can see a very famous hero so called the Sun Wakung, the monkey king.
Which was, according to one of the legend, was one of the friend of the.
One of the first Buddhist Monk who arrived from China to India,
to find Buddhist scriptures, and to bring the scriptures from India to China.
So there are a lot of movies, so called the Journey to the West.
And movie Sun Wakung, a lot of series and a lot of sequels
that also try to retranslate some Buddhist ideas and some Buddhist stories.
So it's not about Buddhism, it's about a popular heroes
that were connected in some Buddhist ideas.
For example, according to one of the story, Sun Wukong,
the monkey king was a Buddhist saint.
So it means the enlightened person, but it's a monkey, it's not a real monk.
But in today's China,
this monkey king is much more popular than the real Chinese monk.
So, in this case, Buddhism became much more desacralized.
But in this case, much more official, much more stable,
and much more predictable for the official authorities.
That's why authorities still support Buddhist monasteries and
Buddhist communities in China.
[SOUND]
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