John Seed’s visit to Taiwan

I have just spent ten days accompanying John Seed on a trip around Taiwan. John is an environmentalist from Australia well known for his efforts protecting rainforests around the world and also as a philosopher of Deep Ecology. I met John at the Taoyuan Airport on the morning of 28 March. We then took the high speed train to Kaohsiung where we met Dr Lin Yih-ren who arranged John’s visit to Taiwan.

Translation of Buddhist book

After the INEB study tour Venerable Hong-Chih (釋鴻持) from Ling-Jiou Mountain Monastery (靈鷲山無生道場) asked me to assist her with translating a book of Buddhist verses by Master Hsin Tao (心道大師). The book, titled Mountain, Ocean, Space, People (山海天人 心遊法界) is a collection of the Master’s teachings in short verses.

Venerable Hong-Chih and I worked together translate the book in quick time. The Master’s teachings are very concise and the translation required precision and economy of language. The book also includes many beautiful photos of Ling-Jiou Mountain which is located on a mountain top overlooking Taiwan’s spectacular northeast coastline.

Religion and Gender Ethics Conference

The 2007 International Conference on Religious Culture and Gender Ethics (宗教文化與性別倫理國際學術會議) was held over the weekend at Hsuan Chuang University (玄裝大學) in Xinzhu.

I was one of the MCs at the conference. I made all the announcements in English, while Doris made the announcements in Mandarin.

On the first day of the conference the keynote speech was given by Dr Mettanando. The topic was “The First Council and Suppression of the Nuns”. Ven. Sujato also gave a talk about the status of nuns in early Buddhist history based on study of the Pali texts. Some more of his research on early Buddhism can be found at the Sects and Sectarianism website. It was very interesting to hear these two experts give their analysis of Buddhist history. Kate Crosby also spoke about early Buddhism looking at representations of the female in Theravada Buddhism. She noted that many Western scholars looking for Buddhist feminist writings draw on Mahayana and Vajrayana texts, yet the Theravada canon also contains feminist writings.

The first day was also notable for various feminist perspectives of Buddhism. The papers of David Schak and Elise A. DeVido showed that even though women have played a prominent and important role in Buddhism in Taiwan, there hasn’t really been a transformation in attitudes about gender roles.

The second day of the conference focused on other religious traditions, mainly Christianity and Islam. There were more excellent talks and lots of issues to think about. Overall there was an excellent line up of speakers from overseas and Taiwan.

Many thanks to Ven. Chao Hwei for giving me the opportunity to be involved in this conference.

INEB study tour

After the INEB conference many of the participants joined a study tour. The bus departed from Hongshi College early in the morning of 3 September. The first destination was Dharma Drum Mountain (法鼓山) in Jinshan. During the visit to Dharma Drum Mountain we had a tour of the facilities and short symposium followed by lunch.

Soon after he arrived in Taiwan Ajarn Sulak asked me to contact his old friend Professor Cheng Chen-huang (鄭振煌教授). They met each other during the visit to Dharma Drum Mountain. Professor Cheng told Ajarn that he was working on a project about Ajarn Buddhadasa Bhikkhu.

INEB Conference in Taiwan

Back in May when I visited Bangkok I met Ajarn Sulak and he informed me that the INEB* Conference would be held in Taiwan in September. I offered to help and soon I found myself busily involved in the planning and organisation of the conference.

The conference took place from 31 August to 2 September 2007 at Buddhist Hongshi College (佛教弘誓學院), near Zhongli. A four day study tour visiting Buddhist organisations around Taiwan took place after the conference.

The first formal event of the conference was a press conference. This was held at the Keng Tu Yuan (耕讀園) in Taipei on 29 September. The media contingent was small but included BLTV (人間電視） and the Apple Daily (蘋果日報). The panel of speakers at the press conference was made up of Ven. Chao Hwei (釋昭慧法師) and Ven. Shing Guang (釋性廣法師) of Hongshi College, Dr Yo Hsiang Chou (游祥洲), chief coordinator of the conference, Mr Zhang, the owner of Keng Tu Yuan, and myself. I am not sure if any reports appeared in the Chinese media, but the China Post and Taipei Times both carried articles.