Buddhism amongst people and Buddhism for living

Buddhism amongst people and Buddhism for living

A big monk tried to distinguish between “人 間 佛 教 ren jian fo jiao”, Buddhism amongst people, and “人 生 佛 教 ren sheng fo jiao”, Buddhism for living.

Buddhism amongst people is what is practiced by Buddhist organizations on Taiwan, including the Tzu Chi organiation and others that have established hospitals, schools, charity agencies, emergency rescue teams and disaster counseling groups, such as the Tzu Chi counselors who consoled the grieving family members in Kuala Lumpur following the MH370 disappearence.

What is despicable about this “big” monk, I prefer to call him “a big bad monk”, is that he tried to label “Buddhism amongst people” as “bad” and “Buddhism for life” as “good”.

This is the despicable phony Buddhism of the Chinese mainland people.

Buddhism amongst people practices reaching out to those who need help. Buddhism for living practices self improvement. One is a practice of outreach, and the other is a practice of inward personal self discipline.

The three steps in Buddhism are self discipline “戒 侓 jie lu” “, charity “佈 施 bu shi”, and self improvement “精 進 jing jin”.

One practices self discipline by adhering to Buddhist prohibitions, do not kill, do not hate, do not be greedy, and do not be ignorant. One practices charity by giving charity. One practices self improvement by studying the Buddhist sutras and practicing meditation.

None of these are practiced by the people on the Chinese mainland. As another monk said, Chinese mainland “Buddhism” has a lot to learn from Buddhism on Taiwan.

Charity is practicing redemption.

This big bad monk is practicing hostility and animosity instead of charity.

Child abuse in China

A survey of some 3500 college students in six provinces and cities in China showed that 64.2% of boys and 45.1% of girls before the age of 16 had experienced physical abuse, 65.7% of boys and 55.4% of girls before the age of 16 had experienced psychological abuse, 54.6% of boys had experienced being beaten by classmates, parents or teachers and 35.9% had experiences of being disgraced, 28.5% of girls had experienced some type of sexual abuse before the age of 16.

Of those college students who had experienced abuse before age 16, 38.5% of male students and 17.2% of female students had engaged in some type of brawl or physical fights within the past year.

The Chinese mainland is a society in which over half of the youths had experienced child abuse before the age of 16. This also shows the incivility of this society.