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Running
Tide is the periodical of the Amida Trust, incorporating the former
Amida News, to offer a voice for faith and practice, as well as
critical, existential and socially engaged enquiry within th ebroad
framework of Pureland Buddhism. We publish short articles , poetry,
pictures, interviews comment and Buddhist resource materials. Opinions
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Editorial
from Issue 1
Summer
2003
In the first half of the
twenthieth
century there was an influential journal in China called HAICHAO YIN,
which means “The Sound of the Sea Tide”. That
periodical was edited by the Buddhist reformer monk TAIXU
(T’ai Hsu). It advocated XIN FOJIAO, or “New
Buddhism”, and produced a wealth of material both about how
Chinese Buddhism needed to be reformed and about its potential to
generate a renewal of both Chinese and global civilisation.
In particular, Taixu advocated RENSHENG FOJIAO, which means
“Living Human Buddhism” and RENJIAN JINGTU,
“Pure Land in this world”. He wanted to recruit and
train Dharma teachers and active bodhisattvas who could reach out to
the whole world. You can read about Taixu in the excellent account by
Don Pittman called Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism, published by
University of Hawaii (2001).
I was quite unaware of Taixu when I wrote The New Buddhism. The
parallels between what he was doing and what we at Amida are engaged in
are very striking. What we see here is the vision of a rennaisance born
of a marriage between the timeless spirituality of Buddhism and the
spirit of practicality and reason of the modern age. While having an
open-hearted ecumenical vision, Taixu also asserted that Buddhism is
the only religion that can ever be fully compatible with modern science
or be on the side of “enlightenment” in both its
Western and Eastern meanings.
A progressive Buddhism is one intent upon bringing an enlightened
spirit into this world. It is not enough to simply cultive inner
nature. Both the outer and the inner must be fully transformed.
In the West, now, many Buddhist organisations have grown up over the
past century and especially in the last three decades. Organisation is
essential. Unless we organise we will not be able to work at the great
task together and we shall neither transform this world nor overcome
our separatist egos. Organisation is essential, but organisations have
drawbacks. The main drawback is that organisations quickly become
conservative. They develop egos of their own. The survival of the
organisation can start to take priority over what the organising was
for.
If the organisations that have grown up in Western Buddhism now make
bids for respectability and the sort of power that supresses individual
creativity in the service of orthodox dogma, then a wonderful
opportunity will have been lost. It is, therefore, imperative at this
stage that there is a reaching out by Buddhist groups to one another
and beyond the confines of the sangha to members of other faiths also.
In this context faith does not just mean old religions either. There
are many people working for peace and for social emancipation of the
oppressed who have what Buddhists can recognise as faith even though
they may have no sense of being “religious” at all.
Buddhism is a religion, but a religion should not be an institution, it
should be a vehicle. It should not be a matter of just comforting with
faith, but of disturbing to the point where people find what has
happened to their faith. Nowadays so much faith is wasted on trivia.
We live at an important time in history. The worldly powers give rise
to war after war. They are intent upon preserving or even worsening the
most extreme inequality the world has ever seen. Those who remain
apathetic play into their hands.
There is an alternative. This is together to become the XIN REN, the
“new people” who not only reflect more deeply but,
all importantly, act upon their reflection and act together in
co-operation, reaching out to everyone of goodwill who will assist.
The way to be enlightened is to forget about becoming enlightened and
get on with the work of overcoming self and helping others. The
practical struggle to achieve compassionate society, compassionate
education, compassionate economics and compassionate polity brings us
back to deep reflections together upon the nature of the human heart.
It is in such reflection that Buddhism is being reborn.
Dharmavidya
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