China Embraces Enlightenment

Ni hao! A gracious good day to you. Trust you're doing well...? Me? Thanks for asking. About as well as can be expected, I reckon. Y'know, for all China's blustering, there are some interesting things happening there. Here's one of them...

The next World Fellowship of Buddhists conference in Baoji will highlight the growing influence of the faith. Baoji was said to be among the first cities to embrace Buddhism when the religion was introduced to China, before it spread to and flourished in other parts of the giant country and its neighbours.
China probably has the largest number of Buddhists in the world, yet so little is known about the practice of Buddhism in the world’s most populous country. That is about to change as China seizes the opportunity to show the world how vigorous it has been in its bid to promote freedom of religion when it hosts the 27th general conference of the World Fellowship  of Buddhists between Oct 16 and 19.

It is the first time China has hosted a WFB meeting, which will be held at the city of Baoji in western Shaanxi province. The opening and closing ceremonies will be organized at the Famen Temple, also in Shaanxi. Delegates from Thailand, a founding member of the WFB, will be able to broaden their horizons, share their experiences with Buddhists from other countries, and gain knowledge and draw inspiration from China to improve Buddhism back home. China has more than 300 million Buddhism followers, with more than 20,000 Buddhist temples and about 200,000 monks.


With the theme “Buddhism: Public Benefit and Charity”, this year’s WFB conference in China is expected to broaden the appeal of Buddhism to the world. Zhan Lin, deputy secretary-general of the Buddhist Association of China (BAC), said the theme of this year’s meeting had been devised to confirm that Buddhism is a religion of peace and compassion.

Lord Buddha’s teachings are intended to end people’s sufferings, bring them inner peace, and enlighten the world. “Buddhist teachings offer an approach to ending suffering within ourselves and teach people how to show compassion towards others and help those who are in distress and helpless,” Mr Lin said. 


We can sure use some of that, huh!


See ya, eh!

Bob


PS: Nong and I are off to "La Grande Ville de Montreal" later this morning with plans to spend all day tomorrow at Montreal's huge...and I mean huge... Botanical Gardens. Will let you know all about it later in the week. Meanwhile, I expect to keep the press churning out my daily blog as long as I can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere.


See ya, eh!

Bob