Understanding suffering and doing compassion: the reach of humanistic Buddhism in China

Abstract

This paper will explore how the Chinese individuals, both the monastic and lay people in Hong Kong, through their understanding of Buddhist suffering and compassion, have consciously seek to better themselves through participation in socially engaged activities and philanthropic activities in China. Through such acts, they hope to transform their spiritualism and elevate it to a higher level in this-worldly pursuit. In this process, the individuals have seek to interpret the notion of gan-en and yebao(karma) and the meanings embedded in these two notions and how through the understanding of the values within the Buddhist teaching, the individuals discharge their religious duties that they performed collectively for the moral good of and to arrest the moral decline of the greater community. In short, gan-en and yebao have become two important agencies for the emergence of a Buddhist philanthropic culture in Hong Kong and China.