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What is the situation with Buddhism, Taoism and

local religious traditions in China today?

First of all let's speak about Buddhism, so Buddhism in China.

Development under the official umbrella of China Buddhist Association.

This is once again the pro-governmental body with headquarter in Beijing.

At the same time, In every province, in every county, and sometimes in

some big cities we can find sub-branches of the Chinese Buddhist Association.

And almost all temples, all shrines, belong to these local branches

of China Buddhist Association.

The majority of believers in Buddhism belong to this called the Mahayana

tradition, but at the same time we have no exact statistics,

of believers because not only monks but

also lay people belong to the Hinayana Buddhism.

Some people recognize the different kind of sects and group.

For example, some believers fall traditional Buddhism,

some people say that we are following the exact school of Chinese Buddhism for

example [FOREIGN] or [FOREIGN].

But in general, the majority of Chinese

are just following the general idea of Buddhist tradition.

They knew just some ideas about Buddha about the reincarnation,

about the Buddhist rituals, but not too much.

So if we speak about the monks,

monks are not outnumbered in China.

The majority of people belong to the Mahayana tradition or Dacho in Chinese.

At the same time we can find some followers of the Hinayana or Theravada,

the tradition is called the small vehicle mostly in the south part of China.

The followers of this tradition is close to be 1.5 million

of people which is a great number.

At the same there, there are a lot of followers of the Vadjrayana tradition,

the official name of the Tibetan Buddhism or Ramaism.

Mostly we can find such believers in autonomous Tibetan region in China.

But at the same time, a lot of believers followers of the Vadjarayana tradition in

Beijing, in in Shanghai, and in today's some Chinese elites for example

from the art of underground, the follow Tibetan idea Mirror of the eternal mercy.

But officially it's prohibited to support Dali Lama.

So Tibetan tradition officially supported, but not Dali Lama himself.

So officially there are more than 6.5 million

of the followers of the Vadjrayana Buddhism in China.

Chinese government supports some universities, for example,

Tibetan University with a strong influence Strong emphasis in Tibetan Buddhism.

There are other special institutions, research institutions on the history,

and practice, and logic, and different kind of scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism.

So Chinese garment plays a very tricky

role from one hands to put the research in Tibetan Buddhism.

But at the same time tries not to touch the very painful

topic about the Tibetan Buddhism and Dalai Lama.

Officially there are more than 200 monks and nuns in China,

just the majority of them are Tibetans monks, or

it means the monks that follow the Vadjrayana tradition.

And just 10,000 of Hinayana tradition, once again in the South part of China.

There are officially 13 temples And 300 of monasteries.

There are several Buddhist academies.

And it means that if some monks want to take

some official position in the official hierarchy of Buddhism,

he or she should go through such an education in such academy.

And after the exams, he or she could take

some official position in the monastery, or even the China Buddhist Association.

There are a lot of issues about Tibetan Buddhism,

first of all about the selecting of living Buddha.

In fact, the most painful topic, very sensitive for

Chinese government, and for Tibetan followers.

Official the present day reincarnation of the Panchen Lama is disputed.

It means that the Chinese government from one hand and the Dalai Lama from another

hand put forward different person as a Panchen Lama.

Why the person of Panchen Lama so important?

Because Panchen Lama in the future should approve the future

Dalai Lama that's why this topic is still under discussion in China.

So Buddhism is full of contradictions in present day China.

What about the small Buddhist groups?

Beside these monasteries and big temples we can find almost everywhere

small Buddhist groups leaded by present or former monks.

And these monks play very, very big role,

and they have a very high authority, especially in the local community.

For example, they could be kind of local judges

during some local discussions for example in the village level.

They establish usually the so-called research society.

For example, the research society of the Buddhist mercy, or

the research society of Buddhist traditions.

Officially these associations are not religious one,

just research like an academic societies.

But usually, people could take part in this activities not

just a Buddhist followers but also leaders of the local

Buddhist non-institutional activities and religions.

So there is a local Buddhist leadership,

especially in the central parts of China for example.

In Hannan province, and you can find a lot of contradictions between so called

the official Buddhism in the monasteries and the local Buddhist communities and

the majority of people who support this local teachers and local masters and

note for example the habit of the local Buddhist temple.

At the same time, Buddhism as well as Taoism turned to be a new kind

of commerce and tourist attraction.

Maybe the most famous one, it's a tourist attraction in the Shaolin Temple,

with the so-called monks, which are not monks but just a very

good athletes demonstrate very high level of ability of so called kung fu.

But they are not in general a Buddhist followers but

for tourists, for foreigners, as well as Chinese.

All these activities, all these demonstrations and

presentation are taken as a real demonstration of Buddhism, which are not.

What about Taoism?

We can find actually the same trends in modern day Taoism.

First of all there is a state controlled Chinese Taoist Association

with a headquarter in Beijing in the Baiyun Guan.

The Monastery of the white cloud.

But Taoism is not very actively supported by the state.

Because Taoism is not, according to the state opinion,

is not very highly socialized religion.

And there are a lot of issues about this so called the superstitions cults like for

example Fengshui or different kind of divination cults and

a lot of problems with the construction of the new Taoist temples and statutes.

So the number of Taoist monks is not very great and at the same time a lot of people

just using some kind of derivation from Taoist tradition.

For example, Chinese medicine, which is not completely Taoism, but

which came from Taoist tradition.

As wall, for example, as meditation or breathing exercises.

Officially, there are two main branches in China.

It's the Quanzhendao and Zhengyidao, which came usually from the 17th century.

Zhengyidao History office was reclaimed by Taoist Association in 1995.

So there are once again,

a lot of contradictions about what is the official and unofficial Taoism in China.

And once again, as well as about Buddhism, there are a lot of connections

between Modern day so-called Taoist Monks, and tourists.

Officially there are more than 25,000 of priests,

and 1,700 or maybe more temples in China.

Some temples are open for all tourists, for the visitors,

but at the same time, there are a lot of small shrines and

temples in the high mountains of China which is not well reached by the visitors.

And in these monasteries for example, the Ema shrine or

Udang shrine we can find a very traditional calls,

practice and so called indigenous tradition of Chinese Taoism.

And in these places, outside of big cities, there are a lot of

unofficial priests and temples, which highly praised by the local population.

We can see completely different picture of Taoism in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

First of all, we can find much greater numbers of schools and

streams of Taoism in Hong Kong,

besides so-called the official Quanzhendao and Zhengyi dao.

We can find the Xiantian dao, which is cross-connected to the Yiguandao,

the group which is banned in the mainland China.

The religion is called the Chongyang, Chongyang zhao or Chongyang

dao one of the group concentrated on meditation and the internal alchemy.

There're a lot of independent branches,

which are not belonging to any kind of institutional groups, but

at the same time they have some connection with the original, or traditional groups.

For example,

the groups of Maoshan which came from the Maoshan mountains near Nanjing.

It was very close connected to the idea of the immortal,

the practice of the immortality and the longevity.

In other group, it's.

And other group, it's the The green dragon.

All these groups, they have their own way of practice.

And some of these group tried to open their branches in mainland China.

But it was prohibited.

And all these groups stayed alive mainly in Hong Kong,

in Taiwan and some of them in Macao.

However, besides this great tradition like Buddhism and Taoism, there're a lot of

local religions, which are close connected to the natural religious religions.

And we'll speak about it right now.

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Buddhism and Taoism in Modern China

Religions and Society in China

Meet the Instructors