Four prominent large-scale organizations, and perhaps tens of thousands of smaller ones, are a major source of social services of all kinds.

BY MARK CALTONHILL
PHOTO BY CNA

Feeling suicidal? Don’t have enough money to pay for your child’s textbook? Worried that the pain in your abdomen might be more than indigestion? Or just lonely? When Taiwanese people encounter such problems and reach out for help, more than likely the hand extended to meet theirs belongs to a monastic or lay Buddhist.

At first sight this might seem odd. For one thing, in a country where social needs were traditionally provided by the family (rather than the state), why should Buddhists, who have cut their family ties by “leaving home” (出家, as the process of becoming a monk or nun is called), take care of the sick, impoverished, needy, and elderly?

Second, many Westerners’ main impression of Buddhism is of mediating monks, sitting in isolation for hours on end in the pursuit of enlightenment and passage to the “other shore” of Nirvana, perhaps emerging briefly beneath their bodhi tree or from their temples to collect gifts of food.

Indeed, even here in Taiwan it is possible to persist in such thinking as many of the larger and more international religious organizations offer English-language meditation classes as a first point of contact with visitors. In addition, television channel surfing brings up numerous robed monastics delivering lectures on dharma teachings.

But this would be to misunderstand a key aspect of what it means to be Buddhist in Taiwan, where religious organizations often put more energy into helping others than into “cultivating the Way” (修道).

The Big Four

The most prominent of these organizations are the so-called Big Four.

By far the biggest Buddhist organization in Taiwan is the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (佛教慈濟慈善事業基金會; www.tzuchi.org.tw ). Unlike other groups that came to social welfare from a more theoretical standpoint, the very existence of Tzu Chi – spelled Ci Ji in Hanyu Pinyin – is attributed to its founder’s instinctive compassion. According to Tzu Chi lore, as a young nun in 1966 Dharma Master Cheng Yen (證嚴法師) witnessed an Aboriginal woman who was bleeding and about to give birth being turned away from a Hualien hospital because she lacked the registration fee. Cheng Yen established a group of about 30 housewives to donate a small regular sum of money to help such people.

Now, almost half a century later, the organization she founded boasts around 10 million members worldwide, and in Taiwan alone runs hospitals, schools, universities, and a medical school, plus a media arm that not only promotes dharma teaching but also makes news programs and award-winning television dramas. It also operates a plastic-bottle recycling system with more than 4,000 recovery centers islandwide, which recycles around 5 million PET bottles each year. From these are made the “Blue Angel” volunteers’ clothing, as well as disaster-relief blankets. After a serious earthquake or typhoon, Tzu Chi rapidly mobilizes people and resources to come to the aid of the afflicted.

The second largest is Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; “Buddha Light Mountain”; www.fgs.org.tw ), based in Kaohsiung County but now with branches and monasteries throughout Taiwan and around the world. Founded in 1967 by Venerable Master Hsing Yun (星雲大師), who as a refugee fled China with Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated troops in 1949, the monastery now has a large community of monks and nuns, in contrast to Tzu Chi which focuses more on lay disciples.

Fo Guang Shan’s social welfare work is largely in the area of eduction, with univerities, seminaries, libraries, art galleries, translation services, publishing houses, and a television station. It also operates kindergartens, retirement homes, and cemeteries, has mobile medical clinics serving remote communities, and promotes vegetarianism through its restaurants and teahouses.

Both Tzu Chi and Fo Guang Shan espouse the doctrine of Humanistic Buddhism (人間佛教), a modern development within Mahayana Buddhism (the Buddhism of China, Japan, Vietnam, etc., as distinct from the Theravada Buddhism of Sri Lanka, Thailand etc. Humanistic Buddhism is based on the concept of the Bodhisattva (菩薩) vow to help all sentient beings (眾生) to enlightenment before attaining buddhahood oneself.

Its practitioners seek to integrate spiritual practice into every aspect of daily life, and it is a key to understanding the social activism of many of today’s Buddhist groups, focusing more on issues of the world, rather than how to leave the world through self-cultivation. It also expands on the traditional Buddhist concept of charity, which for many previously meant “donating Buddhist theory,” that is evangelism, rather than offering practical help. Humanistic Buddhism is therefore also known as Engaged Buddhism.

In contrast to these two organizations, which particularly appeal to ordinary men and, even more so, women, the other two “Big Mountains” have strong followings in urban white-collar and intellectual populations.

Fa Gu Shan (法鼓山; “Dharma Drum Mountain” www.ddm.org.tw), now based in Taipei County’s Jinshan Township, can trace its origins back to pre-Civil War mainland China, but really became popular through the meditation practice and teachings given to residents of nearby Taipei City by its leader from 1978 onward, Dharma Master Sheng Yen (聖嚴法師).

Probably the most orthodox transmitter of traditional Chan (禪, the Chinese word better known in the West by the Japanese pronunciation Zen) Buddhism as well as the most academic abbot of the Big Four, before his death in 2009 Sheng Yen had steered his following toward a strong commitment to environmentalism. This included simple things like picking up trash off the local beach, to the much harder challenge of changing people’s religious practices, such as burning incense in temples and joss paper during rituals.

Dharma Drum Mountain (DDM) also coordinates with local governments to promote “green funerals.” Naturally, Sheng Yen was himself cremated and his ashes interred beneath a tree in accordance with these principles. 

In 2007 DDM initiated a suicide prevention program, with Sheng Yen’s photo appearing on advertisements alongside an appeal to suicidal people to think again.

The relative newcomer of the four is Chung Tai Shan Monastery (中台禪寺; www.ctworld.org ) at Puli in Nantou County, founded in 1987 by another Chinese exile, Venerable Master Wei Chueh (惟覺法師). This organization, with the second-largest number of monastics in Taiwan after Fo Guang Shan, focuses on a more traditional approach to Buddhism, treating education – and dharma transmission in particular – as the most valuable gift it has to give.

The small ten thousand

The above mentioned Big Four are estimated to share around 60% of all Buddhist-related income and expenditure in Taiwan (figures for charitable donations are not known exactly). Thousands or tens of thousands of other organizations share the remainder.

Many of the smaller groups are clearly well-intentioned but lack focus, with their social endeavors often described vaguely as “helping orphans and widows.” But perhaps these are the kind of issues that appeal to the general public, and so are helpful to have on an organization’s list of activities when it comes to fundraising.

Other small groups set their sights on emulating their bigger cousins; hence many aspire to open hospitals or establish universities.

Nevertheless, a good number of these organizations have arisen organically in response to particular social problems. Besides making them a lot more focused, that orientation also tends to make them more efficient in their use of money, with a lower percentage of donations being spent supporting monastic orders or organizing high-profile events.

There is almost no subject such groups do not tackle, covering virtually all the charitable causes dealt with by religious or secular groups elsewhere in the world. Taiwan has Buddhist groups dedicated to looking after people’s interests from before birth, through infancy and childhood, adolescence and student life, and marriage and childbirth, to old age, illness, and death. Naturally, being Buddhist, some groups even focus on the needs of one’s spirit after death (and before rebirth).

Given that the Buddhist precept “do not kill” (不殺生) is interpreted by Taiwan’s dharma teachers as not to kill any “sentient being” – that is, anything from the smallest bug on up, since all are capable of eventual enlightenment – there are animal welfare organizations and innumerable vegetarian restaurants and retail outlets. Actually a surprisingly large number of vegetarian restaurants, perhaps the majority, are run by adherents of the related I-kuan-tao (一貫道) religion.

Most compassion is still reserved for fellow humans, however. Meals are provided to the poor and unemployed, children whose parents lack the time or money are taken on trips, blood and bone-marrow donations are encouraged, prayers are recited for the dying, and clothing and blankets are supplied to people in the mountains during cold weather.

Typically, many of these organizations have the character慈 (ci) in their names, not out of imitation of Tzu Chi, but because it means “compassion,” a key Buddhist concept. It commonly appears in combinations such as 慈悲 (ci-bei; “compassion and pity”) or 慈善 (ci-shan; “charity”). 悲 (bei; pity) is one of two characteristics – the other is 智 (zhi; “wisdom”) – that a bodhisattva requires to attain perfect enlightenment and the salvation of all beings.

A sample small four

For two decades before Taiwan’s government drew up a certification procedure and regulations for organic food in 2008, the Tse-Xin Organic Agriculture Foundation (慈心有機農業發展基金會) was sending its members into the countryside to persuade farmers to abandon agrochemicals. Whereas proponents of the organic movement elsewhere in the world tout the benefits of personal or planetary health, followers of Tse-Xin’s founder Master Ri-chang (日常老和尚) arrived at their belief from a curiously Buddhist perspective: that pesticides kill bugs and birds, and these are “sentient beings” capable of buddhahood. An organic lifestyle was therefore just part of “living right,” along with not cheating or hurting others, and not doing anything that will create anger or greed.

To ensure a market for the produce grown by farmers persuaded to go organic, the foundation set up a commercial arm, Leezen (里仁; www.leezen.com.tw) in 1988. In addition to cooperation agreements with private farmers, it now owns five farms of its own – two in Hsinchu, two in Tainan, and the largest (110 hectares) in Yunlin.

Another thoroughly modern organization is the Taipei Kuanyin Hot Line Counseling Association (台北市佛教觀音線協會; www.kuanyin-line.org;), founded by two monastics, Dharma Master Jing-yao (淨耀法師) and Dharma Master Guo-zhen (果真法師). It is based on their interpretation of the bodhisattva spirit (Guanyin is the most popular bodhisattva in Taiwan) of “willingly giving with compassion, listening for sighs and [then] relieving suffering” (慈悲喜捨, 尋聲救苦).

Starting out more in the spirit of propagating Buddhism by answering queries about dharma teaching, they found themselves drawn into the realm of everyday life and now offer advice on a range of social and personal problems, especially concerning family, marriage, and relationship issues.

Not all Buddhist organizations are run by ordained nuns or monks; some are headed by lay practitioners. One such is the World Peace League (世界和平會), founded by Master Dari (大日上師), which seeks to combine the compassion of religion with the wisdom of science to help improve people’s lives.

Working in poor or remote areas and targeting single parents, foreign spouses, and Aborigines, its personnel distribute breakfasts to children, lunchboxes to the elderly, and help children who cannot afford after-school classes with their homework. The full-time staff members live ascetic lives rather like monks and nuns, but receive a small salary, partly paid for by the government for their roles as social workers.

The group also offers free classes in its own form of qigong exercises, Dari Gong, which it says benefits the body, mind, and spirit.

Finally, the Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society (靈鷲山佛教教團; www.093ljm.org ), was founded by Dharma Master Hsin Tao (心道法師), a refugee who had been recruited as a child-soldier in Burma in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War.

After coming to Taiwan and spending three years living in a cave pursuing truth and personal enlightenment, Hsin Tao found his calling in world peace, and returned to the world focused on promoting interfaith dialogue. The organization’s most tangible contribution to this goal is the Museum of World Religions (www.mwr.org.tw ) in Taipei’s Yonghe suburb.

On a cautionary note, while the intentions and social contributions of most of these groups are highly positive, there are also exceptions, and reports on the worst excesses are often grist for Taiwan’s media. Flagrant transgressions of the law are few, though cases come to light of amateurism, inefficiency, and unaccountability, the misuse of charity to carry out religious propaganda, and attempts to convert recipients of aid.

In short, therefore, Taiwan’s religious social and welfare landscape is largely similar to what is found elsewhere in the world