Chapter 11. Modern Chinese Buddhism and Humanistic Buddhism¶

The preceding chapters traced China's ancient Buddhist traditions from early sūtra translation through the Song, Ming, and Qing. Schools such as Tiantai, Huayan, Chan, and Pure Land, formed during the Tang and Song, continued for centuries afterward, but did not produce philosophical creativity on a comparable scale. The final chapter examines how Chinese Buddhism responded to the shocks of colonialism, modernization, communism, and globalization. Its most important response centers on the proposal and development of "Humanistic Buddhism," or Renjian Fojiao.

1. The late Qing predicament: decline and challenge¶

Decline since the Song and Ming

After the Song, Chinese Buddhism's philosophical originality weakened considerably. The precise doctrines of Tiantai and Huayan gradually gave way to routine combined practice of Chan and Pure Land. During the Ming and Qing, monastic activities centered on "performing the daily services," with morning and evening recitation and rites for the dead. These became the norm, while high-level doctrinal discussion was relatively rare. Many monasteries' principal social function was to provide ritual services for lay believers' weddings and funerals, especially rites to aid the dead. Critics, including later reformers, described this as "Buddhism devoted to serving the dead."

External shocks

From the Opium War of 1840 onward, the Western impact was cultural and religious as well as military and political. Christian missionaries denounced Buddhism as idolatry and superstition, while the arrival of Western science challenged the epistemic legitimacy of traditional religious beliefs.

More severe criticism came from within China. Reformers such as Kang Youwei proposed confiscating Buddhist monastic property to establish schools. Intellectuals of the New Culture Movement after the May Fourth Movement of 1919 treated Buddhism as part of feudal superstition, to be replaced by "science" and "democracy."

The question of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra's suspected apocryphal character deserves separate attention. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra has exceptionally high standing in Chinese Buddhism, particularly in Chan daily services and monastic education. Yet its origins were questioned as early as the Tang. In the modern period, historical criticism made the questions more explicit. There was no Sanskrit original or Tibetan translation; its textual style differed markedly from Indian Buddhist literature; and the records of its transmission and translation were unclear. The signs suggest that it was probably an apocryphal sūtra composed in Tang China, as mentioned in Chapter 10.4. During the New Culture Movement, intellectuals represented by Hu Shi criticized it as a typical Buddhist "forgery," a cultural deception circulated under the authority of the feudal age. The criticism prompted a sustained defensive response within Buddhism, but also encouraged later Buddhist scholars to confront questions of textual reliability.¹

Early twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism thus faced a double crisis. Within, it suffered doctrinal stagnation and institutional corruption; without, cultural rejection and political pressure. These conditions prompted modern Buddhist reform.

2. Master Taixu: pioneer of Humanistic Buddhism¶

Taixu (1890–1947)

Master Taixu, whose secular surname was Lü and whose ancestral home was Chongde in Zhejiang, was the most important initiator of the modern Chinese Buddhist reform movement. He entered monastic life at fourteen. In his early years, he encountered a wide range of Buddhist scriptures while also reading broadly in Western philosophy and social theory, developing a systematic set of proposals for Buddhist modernization.²

The three great revolutions

Taixu proposed that Buddhism needed "revolution" in three areas.

A revolution in doctrine. Buddhist teachings needed reinterpretation to respond to modern science, socialism, democracy, and other modern currents of thought, while removing elements of feudal superstition.

A revolution in institutions. The monastic system needed to move from dependence on lay believers' support for ritual services toward self-supporting productive labor, education, and social service. Monastics should receive systematic modern Buddhist education, rather than merely knowing how to chant scriptures and perform rites.

A revolution in property. Monastic assets should support schools, hospitals, and social welfare institutions, rather than merely maintaining monasteries' internal daily expenses.

Buddhism for human life and Humanistic Buddhism

Taixu's most important conceptual contribution was to make "Buddhism for human life," later developed into "Humanistic Buddhism," the central orientation of Buddhist modernization.

Buddhism's attention should shift from the afterlife, with rebirth in the Pure Land and rites for departed spirits, to living people and this life in this world. The bodhisattva spirit of benefiting sentient beings should be realized through active social participation, rather than confined to individual practice or rites for the dead.

His concrete proposals included establishing modern Buddhist academies, with the Wuchang Buddhist Academy founded in 1922; publishing Buddhist magazines; promoting contact with other religious traditions and the global Buddhist community; and actively participating in public welfare.

Taixu promoted reform throughout his life, but many of his institutional proposals were never realized on a large scale during his lifetime. China's political upheavals interrupted many specific plans. Yet he set a direction for reform. Buddhism should serve the living, actively participate in society, and embrace modern education. That direction became the most important intellectual framework for subsequent Chinese Buddhist reform.

3. Ouyang Jingwu and the Chinese Inner Studies Academy: another route to scholarly revival¶

Taixu represented the practical path of "reform in progress." Ouyang Jingwu (1871–1943) represented another direction, rebuilding the scholarly foundations of Buddhist thought through rigorous philological research.

The Chinese Inner Studies Academy (1922)

Ouyang Jingwu founded the "Chinese Inner Studies Academy" in Nanjing to specialize in Yogācāra treatises, including the Yogācārabhūmi and Cheng weishi lun. It attracted some of China's most important intellectuals of the time: Zhang Taiyan, linguist and revolutionary; Liang Shuming, later a representative of modern New Confucianism; and Xiong Shili, who later developed his "New Consciousness-Only Theory."

The academy emphasized rigorous textual analysis, treating Buddhist texts as philosophical documents requiring precise understanding and avoiding a starting point in assumptions of faith. Ouyang himself held judgments that differed from tradition. For example, he judged the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna to be a falsely attributed Chinese composition, denying that it was a translation of an Indian treatise. It was a radical scholarly position at the time.

Xiong Shili (1885–1968)

From his beginnings at the Chinese Inner Studies Academy, Xiong developed his own "New Consciousness-Only Theory." Starting from Yogācāra's basic conceptual framework, he reconstructed a Chinese philosophical system synthesizing Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. His central conception was that fundamental reality (the substance of benevolence, or inherent nature) is a continuously unfolding creative force. Phenomena, or functions, manifest this reality but cannot be reduced to it. The framework absorbed Yogācāra's analysis of the essence of consciousness while incorporating the Confucian cosmology of "unceasing generation."

Xiong's "New Consciousness-Only Theory" is one of the most original systems in twentieth-century Chinese philosophy and an important source of "Contemporary Neo-Confucianism."³

4. The Japanese controversy over "Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha": the historical context of the period¶

Before examining Yinshun's intellectual position, it is necessary to describe a major scholarly event that occurred in Japan around the same period. It resonated with discussions in the Chinese-speaking world, yet is not well known in Chinese Buddhist circles.

Background to the controversy

After the Meiji Restoration, Japan introduced Western scholarly methods on a large scale, including comparative religion and Indology. Through systematic comparison of Pāli and Sanskrit texts, Western scholars, chiefly European Sanskritists, found that Mahāyāna scriptures were later than the Pāli canon in both language and content. They concluded that these scriptures were difficult to regard as the historical Buddha's own words and were more likely composed by later religious communities. The judgment gradually became mainstream in Western scholarship. It must first be explained, however, that the conclusion was not entirely new in Japan. The Tokugawa scholar Tominaga Nakamoto (1715–1746) had already proposed a theory of "addition" in his Words after Emerging from Meditation. Doctrines accumulate in layers, and later additions cannot pass themselves off as original. The argumentative structure of "Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha" came from this. Western comparative religion and Indology introduced in the Meiji period supplied methods, corpora, and scholarly authority; the conclusion itself had already appeared in the Tokugawa period.⁴

After Japan adopted these Western scholarly methods, Japanese scholars began to reexamine Mahāyāna from the same perspective. In 1901, Murakami Senshō (1851–1929), a scholar-monk of Jōdo Shinshū's Ōtani branch, the Higashi Honganji lineage, published the opening part of On the Unity of Buddhism. He explicitly argued that Mahāyāna was a later historical development and that extant Mahāyāna scriptures could hardly be treated directly as the historical Buddha's own utterances. For Murakami, it was a historical and philological question the Buddhist world had to face. His argument became one of the defining events of Japan's modern controversy over "Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha."⁵

The unfolding controversy

Murakami's position immediately provoked strong reactions and put him under pressure within the Ōtani branch. In the same year, he published A Declaration of My Withdrawal from the Clerical Register of the Shinshū Ōtani Branch (予が真宗大谷派の僧籍を脱するの告白書), explaining his withdrawal from that branch's clergy. It should therefore not be described here as a disciplinary action by Nishi Honganji. As research accumulated, historical and philological scholarship generally ceased to regard extant Mahāyāna scriptures as contemporary records traceable word for word to the historical Buddha. This does not, however, mean that all Mahāyāna thought lacks historical continuity with early Buddhism.

Over the following decades, every Japanese school had to face the question. How could it acknowledge historical facts while preserving the religious authority of Mahāyāna scriptures? Different answers emerged. Some said that the "spirit" of Mahāyāna belonged to the Buddha even if the words were later; others called Mahāyāna a "legitimate development" of his teaching; still others emphasized that doctrinal value did not depend on historical origins.

Comparison with Chinese Buddhist scholarship

Japan's controversy over "Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha" and the criticism of Buddhism during China's New Culture Movement shared the same methodological source in the introduction of Western historical and philological scholarship. Their difference was that the Japanese controversy took place chiefly among Buddhist scholars, focusing on how faith could coexist with historical criticism. New Culture criticism in China came more often from intellectuals outside Buddhism and directly linked criticism to the political position of "opposing superstition."

Yinshun's work unfolded against this dual background.

5. Master Yinshun: the doctrinal foundations of Humanistic Buddhism¶

If Taixu proposed the ideal of Humanistic Buddhism, Master Yinshun (1906–2005) gave it its strongest doctrinal foundation.

Life

Yinshun's secular name was Zhang Luqin. A native of Zhejiang and a former disciple of Taixu, he left the mainland in 1949, spent three years in Hong Kong, and settled in Taiwan in 1952, where he passed the long and productive latter half of his life. His extensive writings cover almost every area of Buddhist thought, including early Buddhism, the philosophy of the early schools, Madhyamaka, and tathāgatagarbha. He was one of the most influential Chinese Buddhist scholarly thinkers of the twentieth century.²

The doctrinal basis of Humanistic Buddhism

Philosophically, Yinshun gave Humanistic Buddhism a stricter historical basis than Taixu's.

Taixu's "Buddhism for human life" began chiefly from practical needs, emphasizing what Buddhism should do in modern society. Yinshun's "Humanistic Buddhism" began chiefly from historical grounds, arguing that early Buddhism's spirit was originally like this, and that "true Buddhism" was to be found there.

The early Buddha was an awakened person active in the human world. He addressed human beings, not gods, and dealt with actual suffering, not questions of the afterlife. For Yinshun, Humanistic Buddhism chiefly meant returning to Buddhism's original spirit; modernizing reform was only the surface.

He criticized an exclusively Pure Land orientation concerned only with rebirth after death, exclusively Esoteric Buddhism emphasizing mysterious rituals, and a heavenly orientation focused on gods and spirits. He regarded these as historical departures from Buddhism that moved ever further from its original spirit.

Principal works

Yinshun's important works include A History of Indian Buddhist Thought, a historical account from early Buddhism to Mahāyāna; The Compilation of Early Buddhist Scriptures, a critical historical study of the Āgamas; A Contemporary Discussion of Madhyamaka, a modern interpretation of Nāgārjuna's thought; and An Outline of the Buddhadharma, a systematic introduction to early Buddhist doctrine.

A structural analysis of Yinshun's position

This book offers an overall assessment of Yinshun's position here, because its internal structure deserves close examination.

On one side, Yinshun showed a clear tendency to return to historical origins. He systematically studied the Āgamas, corresponding to the Pāli Nikāyas, and held that early Buddhism, centered on human suffering, dependent origination, and not-self, was closer to the Buddha's intention than Mahāyāna's various developments. He accepted the textual-historical conclusion that the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna was neither composed by Aśvaghoṣa nor translated by Paramārtha. He assigned it to the current of mind-only thought affirming the true and permanent, calling it "idealism through and through, absolute idealism," yet refused to follow Yogācāra scholars in denouncing it as spurious on their own sectarian grounds. He had reservations about tathāgatagarbha and was explicitly critical of Esoteric Buddhism. The position verged on heresy in Chinese Buddhist circles at the time.

On the other side, Yinshun was unwilling to reject the Mahāyāna tradition outright. His solution was a particular theory of "spiritual transmission." Although Mahāyāna scriptures were not spoken by the Buddha himself, their principles accord with his intention. The three Dharma seals are one example: "all formations are impermanent, all dharmas are not-self, nirvāṇa is peaceful." The scriptures can therefore be "regarded as spoken by the Buddha." Viewed in light of his intent, this is what he would have said. The position emphasizes doctrinal consistency, rather than the authenticity of historical provenance.⁶

The position is almost structurally identical to the solutions offered by some scholars in Japan's controversy over "Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha." It acknowledges historical facts while preserving Mahāyāna's religious legitimacy through continuity of "spirit" or "doctrine." Both seek a balance between historical criticism and the preservation of faith, with no lying in scholarship and no destruction of religious foundations.

Greater hostility from within

Yet the fiercest attacks on Yinshun came from within the Mahāyāna tradition; secular critics outside Buddhism played a secondary role. His critics included masters committed to tathāgatagarbha, representatives of Pure Land, supporters of Esoteric Buddhism, and conservatives who regarded his historical-critical method itself as harmful to Buddhism.

The phenomenon deserves particular attention in this book. Hostility toward heretics often exceeds hostility toward "outsiders." It is a general pattern in religion, and indeed all ideologies. External criticism can easily be dismissed with the label "they do not understand," but dissent from within, spoken in the tradition's own language, truly threatens authoritative narratives. Yinshun accepted historical criticism and the historical judgment that Mahāyāna emerged later, and criticized tathāgatagarbha and Esoteric Buddhism. His positions provoked a fiercer reaction within Mahāyāna than among New Culture intellectuals, showing precisely how much was at stake in his work.

Controversies

Yinshun's historical-critical position produced sustained tension in Taiwanese Buddhist circles. Some traditional Buddhists regarded his criticism of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, with its Mahāyāna buddha-nature doctrine, the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, and Esoteric Buddhism as disparagement of Mahāyāna. His critics held that his standard of "early Buddhism" was too narrow and that Mahāyāna's development had its own internal legitimacy. In a sense, this controversy is a modern version of the debate between Madhyamaka and tathāgatagarbha in Indian Buddhist history, now reenacted publicly in the context of Taiwan's modern democratic society.

6. Taiwan's four major Buddhist centers¶

In 1949, the Kuomintang government moved to Taiwan, followed by large numbers of mainland monastics. Together with the doctrinal work of Yinshun and others, this made Taiwan the most dynamic region of Chinese Buddhism in the twentieth century. Four organizations represent the main forms of Taiwanese Humanistic Buddhism.

Fo Guang Shan and Master Hsing Yun (1927–2023)

Master Hsing Yun founded Fo Guang Shan in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1967. It is one of Taiwan's largest Buddhist centers and one of the most widely influential Chinese Buddhist organizations worldwide.

Hsing Yun's Humanistic Buddhism emphasizes active participation in society, culture, and education. Its work includes founding schools, universities, art museums, hospitals, and publishing houses. It established the Buddha's Light International Association (BLIA) with chapters around the world, and brings Buddhist art, culture, and community service to Chinese and non-Chinese communities globally.

Compared with Yinshun, Hsing Yun's theological position accepts the Mahāyāna tradition, including Pure Land and tathāgatagarbha, more optimistically, without strong historical criticism. His Humanistic Buddhism places greater emphasis on bringing the Buddhadharma to contemporary people with warmth, inclusiveness, and pluralism.⁷

Dharma Drum Mountain and Master Sheng Yen (1930–2009)

Master Sheng Yen founded Dharma Drum Mountain in northern Taiwan in 1989, with the Chan meditation tradition at its center.

Sheng Yen inherited both the Linji and Caodong Chan lineages. His central concept was "protecting the spiritual environment." True environmental protection, in his account, must begin with the mind. Only by first purifying one's own mind can one purify society and the natural environment. He established a systematic program of Chan training that made traditional teachings effectively accessible to modern people. His Humanistic Buddhism emphasizes meditative practice more than Hsing Yun's and is also closer to Yinshun's historical-critical position.

Tzu Chi Foundation and Master Cheng Yen (1937–)

Master Cheng Yen founded Tzu Chi in Hualien, Taiwan, in 1966. It is one of the most influential organizations putting Humanistic Buddhism into practice in Taiwan and worldwide.

Cheng Yen's Tzu Chi is distinguished by an exceptionally thorough commitment to "doing," focusing on direct action in disaster relief, medicine, environmental protection, education, bone marrow donation, and more. It has millions of volunteers worldwide and has conducted major relief operations during global disasters, including Taiwan's September 21 earthquake in 1999, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, and the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

Cheng Yen's theology centers on the "action" of the bodhisattva path. Doing is practice, and aiding sentient beings is bodhisattva conduct. Her movement is centered on laypeople rather than monastics, emphasizing that everyone can become a "bodhisattva."⁸

Chung Tai Chan Monastery and Elder Master Wei Chueh (1928–2016)

Elder Master Wei Chueh founded Chung Tai Chan Monastery in Nantou, Taiwan, in 1986. It follows a relatively traditional Chan path of strict seated meditation and systematic education in the precepts, combined with large monastic buildings and educational institutions. Wei Chueh's Humanistic Buddhism emphasizes beginning with one's own practice: "Start the mind of awakening at this very moment; purify from within outward." This contrasts to some degree with Hsing Yun's and Cheng Yen's strongly outward orientation.

7. Taiwan: a return to the Āgamas and the arrival of Theravāda¶

Outside the mainstream Humanistic Buddhism of Taiwan's four major centers, another current quietly took shape from the 1980s and 1990s. Smaller in scale but influential among intellectuals, it comprised a movement to return to early Buddhism and the Āgamas, and the limited introduction of Theravāda Buddhism into Taiwan. It deserves separate treatment. It was the most direct institutional consequence of Yinshun's historical-critical method, and offers an uncommon opportunity for observation. What happens when one Buddhist tradition enters a place already fully occupied by another?

Renewed attention to the Āgamas

Yinshun's writings were an important catalyst for this shift. His systematic study of the Āgamas, including The Compilation of Early Buddhist Scriptures, led some Taiwanese intellectuals to recognize that the four Āgamas, corresponding to the Pāli Nikāyas, are comparatively the most reliable early Buddhist documents. The historical development of Mahāyāna scriptures requires differentiated treatment; they cannot indiscriminately be read as "the Buddha's original words." The recognition prompted some scholars and practitioners to return directly to the Āgamas for a basis of practice. Taiwanese academia also began studying them through modern philology, connecting with international Pāli Studies. Yang Yuwen taught the Āgamas for many years, earning the nickname "Yang Āgama" among students. From the 1990s, the lay scholar Zhuang Chunjiang selected and taught Āgama texts, including Twenty Selections from the Saṃyukta Āgama. In 2008, he began comparing the Pāli Nikāyas and Chinese Āgamas discourse by discourse (see Section 6.1 of 9.5).⁹

Yinshun's place in this development needs clarification. Almost all Taiwanese practitioners who later entered Theravāda regard him as their starting point. One Taiwanese Theravāda bhikkhu calls him "a major external religious condition," saying that the climate of early Buddhist scholarship he helped initiate loosened Chinese Buddhism's traditional hold. The same author notes that Yinshun himself did not go on to study Theravāda doctrine deeply, rarely explaining its thought and practice. Yinshun opened the door without entering it himself. The next generation entered, and his writings had not prepared answers to the questions they then encountered.¹⁰

Six independent strands

Accounts of "the arrival of Theravāda in Taiwan" often compress it into a single event. Six independent developments actually took place, each with its own social base and its own ceiling.

The first was immigrant religious centers. In the late 1980s, Chinese immigrants from Myanmar built a temple in Zhonghe, New Taipei, the earliest Theravāda center in Taiwan with a permanent site. Thai migrant workers and expatriate communities later also established centers. Their scale was constrained by community structure. Most Chinese immigrants from Myanmar held Taiwanese identity cards and lived in concentrated communities, whereas Thai migrant workers were mobile and dispersed. The former's centers were therefore stable, while the latter's struggled to continue. The population of Chinese immigrants from Myanmar in New Taipei and Taoyuan numbered in the hundreds of thousands, with at least ten related centers and associations, but a temple's usual resident monastic community generally comprised only six to eight people.

The second was the Sri Lankan strand. The Sri Lankan monk Walpola Rāhula lectured in Taiwan in 1965. The Chinese translation of What the Buddha Taught, published in 1968, was the first translated work by a Theravāda master published in Taiwan. From 1995 onward, Sri Lankan Buddhist representatives and related associations were present in Taiwan. This strand followed a path of scholarly monastics and charity, without establishing meditation monasteries.

The third was Goenka's insight meditation. On his first visit to Taiwan in 1995, Goenka held a ten-day course at Yuanguang Monastery in Zhongli for 220 students, an unprecedented scale. A center was established in Xinshe, Taichung, in 1998, the first permanent site of its own for an international meditation method in Taiwan. Measured by the number of attendances, this may be the most widely encountered international meditation tradition in Taiwan.

The fourth was the Mahāsi lineage. After 2000, teachers including Chanmyay, Jatila, and Paṇḍita visited Taiwan year after year; Paṇḍita came for ten consecutive years from 2006. Its most successful institutional establishment was the Center for the Buddha's Original True Dharma, founded by Master Dayue in 2008. It subsequently opened branches in Kaohsiung, Nantou, Luodong, and Taitung, with a following composed chiefly of nuns from the Chinese tradition.

The fifth was the Pa-Auk lineage, discussed below.

The sixth was local early Buddhist groups. In 1988, Zhang Citian returned to Taiwan from the United States and founded the New Rain Society in Tainan, teaching, publishing, and translating and introducing Mahāsi meditation. He went to Thailand for Theravāda ordination in 1997, becoming Bhikkhu Mingfa, and founded the Dharma Rain Center in Zhongpu, Chiayi, in 2002. The same period also saw Suifo's Middle Way Saṅgha and several early Buddhist academies. Their shared characteristic was reliance on the Chinese Āgamas rather than Pāli texts, with an emphasis on doctrine and a weakness in meditation.

The six strands had almost no dealings with one another. Their sole common ground was premises. During the twenty-year period of returning to the sources, the vast majority borrowed Chinese Buddhist monasteries for their activities. Yuanguang, Yitong, Miaoxin, and Yuanheng monasteries were all among the borrowed sites.

Pa-Auk meditation beyond Theravāda's traditional territory

Pa-Auk Sayadaw (1934–) entered monastic life at nine and became the third abbot of Pa-Auk Forest Monastery in Mawlamyine, Myanmar, in 1981. He began teaching serenity and insight in the late 1980s and spent eight years writing The Way to Nibbāna, five large volumes totaling about four thousand pages. In 1996 he was invited to teach meditation in Sri Lanka; in 1998 he was invited to Taiwan, his first journey beyond Theravāda's traditional territory.

The 1998 retreat was held at Yitong Monastery under Masters Rulin and Xingguang, with full support from Hongshi Buddhist College in Taoyuan. Intensive meditation lasted a month and a half, with about 150 participants; the abbess of Xiangguang Monastery also brought more than twenty nuns. When the Sayadaw returned to Myanmar, at least fifty Taiwanese monastics and lay believers independently took the same flight to study there. Most remained for a long time. Pa-Auk subsequently visited Taiwan in four consecutive years, from 1998 to 2001.

Participants divide these thirty years into two periods. Returning to the sources lasted from the lifting of martial law in 1987 to 2007, and taking root began in 2008. The basis for this division is institutional. At the beginning of 2008, the Taiwanese bhikkhu Venerable Guanjing established the Taiwan Theravāda Buddhist Academy at Fazang Lecture Hall in Guiren, Tainan. That April, on his fifth visit to Taiwan, Pa-Auk first led the monastic community on an alms round in Guiren. The Mahāsi lineage also established a new center that year. In the participants' own account, from that year more local people took Theravāda ordination and established their own centers. During the preceding twenty years, however many teachers arrived from Myanmar, Thailand, or Sri Lanka, their teachings generally depended on other people's premises and arrangements. The academy operates on a three-term system, with the middle term, from May to November, spent living and studying as monastics at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery in Myanmar. The arrangement honestly reveals its actual position. The Taiwan end is preparatory, while the main course is in Myanmar. In March 2011, the academy moved to Jingle Meditation Grove in Guoxing, Nantou. That month, Pa-Auk established a monastic boundary and conferred bhikkhu ordination there. According to the record, this may be Taiwan's first Theravāda ordination boundary still in operation today. For the following ten years, at least one senior Burmese elder spent the rains retreat in Taiwan each year without interruption. Yet this meditation grove's resident community for the uposatha observance usually numbered around ten.

The academic connection was National Cheng Kung University. A series of "Pa-Auk Sayadaw Study Visits to NCKU" began in November 2011 and ran for seven sessions, the last on "Theravāda Buddhism and Contemporary Chinese Humanistic Thought." December 2012 was Pa-Auk's final visit to Taiwan. He fell ill in 2013 and did not return thereafter.

Points of contact: borrowed premises, conversion, and translation

Beyond borrowed premises, there were cases of voluntary donation of a lecture hall. Elder Qingding, founder of Fazang Lecture Hall and a former chairman of a Buddhist association, gave the hall to the Theravāda Buddhist Academy and personally traveled to Myanmar to extend an invitation. His reasons were direct. He donated Fazang Lecture Hall to the academy so that the true Dharma would endure. Taiwan had originally been the territory of Northern Mahāyāna Buddhism, and he found in Taiwanese Mahāyāna a certain tendency resembling Indian Brahmanism. The final statement was a Chinese Buddhist elder's judgment of his own tradition, carrying more weight than any external criticism.

At the more thoroughgoing end was conversion. Monks who had received full ordination in the Chinese tradition took Theravāda ordination from middle age onward and changed their robes. Bhikkhu Mingfa, Master Dayue, and Guanjing himself belong to this group; others returned to the Chinese tradition after years as Theravāda monastics. Conversion deserves recording because it realizes historical criticism in an individual life. Once someone accepts that Mahāyāna scriptures emerged later and believes textual reliability should determine the form of practice, few options remain.

Friction centered on discipline and language. Chinese Buddhism treats vegetarianism as a minimum requirement of monastic life; the Theravāda side argues that the Buddha permitted meat pure in three respects. Whether money could be accepted on alms rounds attracted comment in Taiwan in the 1990s. Linguistic disagreement surfaced by 2014 at the latest. At that year's NCKU meeting, Venerable Mahinda argued that translations of Pāli literature should establish a new vocabulary rather than adopt existing terms from Chinese Buddhist translations. The disagreement goes beyond terminology. Chinese terms rendered as "mind," "consciousness," "perception," and "feeling" have fifteen hundred years of accumulated usage in Chinese Buddhism. Retain the old translations, and readers automatically import Chinese Buddhist understandings; coin new words, and one cuts off that accumulated meaning, but no one recognizes the terms. This book encountered the same dilemma in compiling its terminology concordance.

Why it remains small

Thirty years, six strands, and dozens of centers represent no small investment, yet the result remains a minority presence. Taiwan's Buddhist mainstream is still Mahāyāna Humanistic Buddhism with Chan and Pure Land as its axis. The participants' own answers can be grouped into three structural limitations.

The first is land. During the twenty-year period of returning to the sources, Theravāda in Taiwan had almost no premises of its own. Retreats borrowed Chinese Buddhist monasteries, and Chinese Buddhist centers also handled much of the printing of scriptures. Borrowed premises can host activities, but cannot establish a transmission. A monastic community needs to establish a boundary, conduct uposatha, and observe the rains retreat, all of which require land it can occupy over the long term. The first Theravāda boundary had to wait until 2011.

The second is approach. Local early Buddhist groups relied on the Chinese Āgamas, emphasizing doctrine while remaining weak in meditation. The orientation, inherited from Yinshun's scholarly style, also limited their potential growth. A scripture-reading community needs neither ordination nor a religious center, and therefore does not generate a monastic community. The meditation transmissions came from Burmese systems, whose teaching language, disciplinary details, and way of life all posed substantial thresholds for Taiwanese laypeople.

The third is community structure. Immigrant centers depend on immigrant communities, serving the continuity of their home culture, with limited impetus to expand outward. The author of the account summarizes it in one sentence, saying that this also shows that Theravāda Buddhism in Taiwan is a Buddhist transmission from outside the region.

The participant's own conclusion is less sparing than these three points. He writes that, viewed only from Taiwan's established Chinese culture or Chinese Buddhism, Theravāda's influence on Taiwanese Buddhism or society can be called very small, even nearly zero. Of his own center, he says only that ten years have merely laid foundations, and sustained continuation will count as success. The assessment is the participant's own, printed in a self-published book for circulation within the religion. This book follows its general thrust, without taking it as a quantitative measure. His sharpest diagnosis concerns the mismatch between resources and people. While taking Taiwanese believers to Pa-Auk's newly established Meimiao Meditation Grove in Myanmar, he said that with Taiwanese donors' funds, building five hundred individual meditation huts would not be difficult, but finding one meditator willing to stay year after year would be very hard. The statement reaches beyond Taiwanese Theravāda. Modern Buddhist revival movements generally lack neither money, land, nor believers' enthusiasm. What they lack is people willing to spend ten or twenty years in the same place practicing the same thing.

Placed within this book's overall framework, this case supplies a counterexample. Buddhism's spread in the West is often told as a success story. A ready-made technique arrives in a land without Buddhism, and within a few decades a complete community develops. Taiwan shows that entering a place already fully occupied by a Buddhist tradition is harder than entering an empty field. What it faces is a mature, fully institutionalized existing system, with fifteen hundred years of translation history and an entire theory of liberation of its own, rather than ignorance. Everything the newcomer brings already has a counterpart there, often one better adapted to local conditions. This is the reverse of China's situation in absorbing Indian Buddhism before the ninth century. China then lacked texts; Taiwan today does not.

8. Humanistic Buddhism's central ideals and internal controversies¶

The common core of Humanistic Buddhism

Despite their different emphases, Taiwanese forms of Humanistic Buddhism share several central ideals.

First, orientation toward this world. Buddhism should attend to living people and this life in this world, rather than remain confined to the afterlife and supernatural realms.

Second, social participation. The bodhisattva spirit should be realized through concrete actions in charity, education, medicine, and environmental protection, rather than through individual practice or ritual alone.

Third, adaptation to modernity. Buddhist forms, including monastic management, educational methods, and media of communication, should adapt to modern social conditions rather than cling to traditional forms.

Internal controversies

Yet Humanistic Buddhism also contains real tensions.

Depth versus breadth. If Buddhism focuses on social service and mass dissemination, might meditation and doctrinal research, which require concentration and time, become marginalized?

The risk of secularization. Critics argue that in drawing closer to modern society, Humanistic Buddhism may have lost Buddhism's transcendent dimension. This comprises the theory of liberation and nirvāṇa, thorough realization of not-self, and deep understanding of saṃsāra. "Serving others" cannot readily replace these dimensions. If Buddhism becomes an elevated humanitarianism, what essentially distinguishes it from Christian social service?

Traditional authority versus historical criticism. Yinshun's historical-critical method is academically serious, but its relation to Mahāyāna traditions (tathāgatagarbha, Pure Land, and Esoteric Buddhism) remains an unresolved tension. If these traditions are "historical departures," what does that mean for the hundreds of millions of believers who depend on them for practice? The debate remains unfinished in contemporary Chinese Buddhist circles.

9. Buddhism in mainland China: suppression and revival¶

Suppression during the Cultural Revolution

After 1949, religion was regarded as "feudal dregs" in the People's Republic of China. The Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976 struck Buddhism most thoroughly. Large numbers of temples were destroyed or repurposed, and Buddhist images were smashed. Monastics were forcibly returned to lay life or imprisoned, and religious activities were completely prohibited.

The scale of the Cultural Revolution's institutional destruction of Chinese Buddhism was no less than that of the Huichang persecution in 845. Many historical artifacts, texts, and transmissions were permanently lost.

Revival after 1978

After reform and opening, religious policy gradually relaxed. Monasteries began to recover, monastics could again receive ordination, and religious activities were once more permitted within certain limits. The Chinese Buddhist Association was allowed to operate as a state-approved organization for religious administration.

The revival took place under state control. Religion had to operate within state-approved frameworks, with ordination, monastic management, and religious education all subject to state supervision and control.

The contemporary mainland Buddhist landscape

Contemporary mainland Buddhism presents a complex picture. On one side, the number of Buddhist monasteries has increased substantially, Buddhist cultural tourism is flourishing, and many monasteries attract large numbers of believers and pilgrims. On the other, the commercialization of monasteries through admission fees and business activities, and the transformation of Buddhist culture into an object of consumerism, are also real.

Some younger people on the mainland are seeking deeper Buddhist practice, including meditation, doctrinal study, and lay practice. This resembles certain tendencies in Taiwanese Humanistic Buddhism, but the background and conditions are entirely different.

Theravāda on the mainland: Yunnan's traditions and new arrivals

Theravāda Buddhism in mainland China extends beyond recent Han Chinese encounters with it. Communities including the Dai, Blang, and De'ang of Yunnan have long maintained monastic education, Pāli rituals, and local written traditions connected with Buddhism in Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. Dates of introduction and institutional histories vary among regions and cannot be compressed into a single uninterrupted thousand-year lineage. Yet these are historical traditions of China's southwestern borderlands themselves, not branches of Chinese Mahāyāna or recent foreign imports.¹¹

After 1978, Buddhist influences from Taiwan and Southeast Asia also began entering the mainland. Insight meditation courses and books by Theravāda teachers circulated in some cities, and some Han Chinese readers and practitioners began encountering Pāli literature and Theravāda practice. Public materials suffice to establish that these encounters exist, but not to estimate reliably the numbers of people or the scale of organizations involved.¹²

Small groups independently conducting collective religious activities are subject to general systems governing registration of religious organizations, religious venues, and clergy. The constraints apply to religious activity as a whole, rather than specifically to Theravāda. On the available public evidence, the more cautious conclusion is only that Han Chinese encounters with Theravāda remain dispersed and difficult to quantify. They cannot be described as a sectarian activity excluded or encouraged by a specific policy.¹¹

10. Globalization and Chinese Buddhism¶

Chinese Buddhism has spread with Chinese migration around the world. Chinese Buddhist communities and centers of varying sizes exist in Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia), North America (the United States and Canada), Australia, and Europe.

Taiwan's four major Buddhist centers, especially Fo Guang Shan and Tzu Chi, have established dense networks in Chinese communities worldwide, becoming the most important vehicles of Chinese Buddhism's globalization.

Chinese Buddhism's arrival in the West differs from that of Japanese Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. Western understanding of East Asian Buddhism has long centered on Japanese Zen, through D. T. Suzuki's writings, and Tibetan Buddhism, through Tibetan exiles. Chinese Buddhism's image in the West remains comparatively indistinct. Yet the growth of ethnic Chinese immigrant communities and Taiwanese Buddhist organizations' active internationalization are increasing its visibility.

11. This book's assessment¶

Humanistic Buddhism is a real philosophical and religious response

Facing the shock of modernity, Humanistic Buddhism chose active participation. It presents Buddhism as a living tradition capable of responding to contemporary needs, rather than an ancient artifact in a museum. The undertaking has had real social effects in Taiwan and deserves serious consideration.

Humanistic Buddhism's internal tensions remain incompletely resolved

The writings of its founders have not finally resolved Humanistic Buddhism's central philosophical questions.

One question concerns the relation between social service and liberation. The Buddhist theory of liberation (nirvāṇa and the thorough realization of not-self) can theoretically be integrated with the bodhisattva path's social participation. In practice, however, ensuring that social participation does not become mere secular humanitarianism remains an enduring tension.

Another concerns historical criticism and traditional authority. Yinshun's historical-critical method is academically serious, but its relation to Mahāyāna traditions (tathāgatagarbha, Pure Land, and Esoteric Buddhism) remains an unresolved tension. If these traditions are "historical departures," what does that mean for the hundreds of millions of believers who depend on them for practice?

The future of Chinese Buddhism

Whether in Taiwan's Humanistic Buddhism, the mainland's Buddhist revival, or the varied forms found in Chinese communities worldwide, Chinese Buddhism stands at a decisive historical juncture. The tension between tradition and modernity remains unresolved; the balance between institutions and spirit has not been found; and relations with other Buddhist traditions and the global religious landscape are being redefined. The unfinished questions are more than a source of regret. They may also supply resources for the tradition's continued adjustment.

References¶