The Altruism of Buddhism
Lecture given at Shandong University
November 11 afternoon, 2011
Introduction by Professor Chen Jian:
Today we have invited Khenpo Sodargye Rinpoche from the Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy to talk about teachings in Buddhism.
Khenpo Sodargye is from Ganzi of Sichuan. He attended Ganzi Normal School when he was young. After taking the monastic life, he specializes in Tibetan Buddhism. Khenpo Sodargye is also very versed in traditional Chinese culture such as Confucianism and Taoism. In recent years, he has traveled to prominent universities such as Beijing University, People”s University, Fudan University and Nanjing university. There he delivered many lectures which were very well received by the students
One of the academic work Khenpo Sodargye has been engaged in is to translate the large amount of treatises in Tibetan Buddhism into Chinese. From the perspective of Han Buddhism, we translated Buddhist Sutras in the Western Regions (西域) at the beginning, then from India. The next trend is possibly the translation of sutras and sastras from Tibet. This is an important way for us to understand Tibetan culture, and a major work of which Khenpo has been doing. His other endeavor is to propogate Confucianism. He has taught “Di Zi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child)”, which has contributed significantly in the Tibetan-Han exchange.
Today”s topic is “The Altruism of Buddhism”. Altruism is one of the fundamental characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism. Let us listen to Khenpo”s interpretation. Now, I will hand this over to Khenpo —-
Professor Chen has supervised many graduate and doctoral students in Buddhism over the years. He also has studied Ph.D. In Buddhism . I admire him very much. I visited Thailand in 1999. Many universities there have Ph.D. programs in Buddhism, and also many professors advising doctoral students in Buddhism. I was particularly envious with the thought that “how wonderful it would be if there is also this kind of advanced study of Buddhism in the Han academia”. There was such aspiration at that time.
And now, many universities have set up departments in religious studies; there are all kinds of study and research in Buddhism. I was told that in addition to Buddhism, Shandong university has also extended to the study of other religions such as Christianity and Taoism. This is excellent. We should respect any religion as long as it benefits sentient beings.
As for me, I am just an ordinary Buddhist monk. I am pretty interested in many philosophies such as Confucianism, but have not done further in-depth research. Shandong, the home of Confucius and Mencius, and the nation of rite and morality. This is the birthplace of Confucianism. The Five Wise Men[1] of this School such as Confucius, Yan Yuan and Mencius all came from here. There are quite a few commonalities between the “benevolence” advocated by Confucianism and the “altruism” in Mahayana Buddhism. As such, you should not be too unfamiliar with the “Altruism in Buddhism” which we will be discussing today.
I. The Buddha is different from Great Historic Figures
The graduate and doctoral students here should be pretty well versed in Buddhism. As for me, I have been studying Buddhism for years. What conclusions have I reached
The Buddha is not a legendary or mystical figure. He had actually existed in human history. This is not only believed by we Buddhists, but also recognized in the present academia.
As we all know, There was a grand ceremonial welcome when the tooth relic of the Buddha was recently enshrined and worshiped in Myanmar. More than two thousand people led by the vice president lined up at the airport, followed by six thousand governmental officials led by the president of My…
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