| Discussed at great length for more than ten years, the concept of “Metropolis Buddhism” has made a significant impact on the Buddhist community and the academic circle in the mainland of China and is gradually becoming the important content in the field of research on Humanistic Buddhism both inside and outside the Buddhist community. Humanistic Buddhism is itself generated by Chinese Buddhist community to meet the needs of a modern society. In contemporary era, in order to better pursue the Humanistic Buddhism and to explore the role of metropolitan temples, the Buddhist community is actively seeking intrinsic theoretical foundation from Buddhist doctrines such as reasons and opportunities, in an endeavor to find a new breakthrough from this world. During the process of modernization, the role of central hub that a city, especially a metropolis plays turns out more prominent than ever before. Such features of the new era also endow Metropolis Buddhism with new meanings. In light of this, to explore and study the contemporary Metropolis Buddhism has important implications for value orientation,ideological characteristics and social values of the belief of Chinese Humanistic Buddhism in the 21 st century. Concentrated on Xilin Temple in Songjiang District of Shanghai as an example, the thesis studies a series of activities full of particularity of the epoch and well accomplishing social functions that contemporary Metropolis Buddhism has carried out to respond the needs of the society and the belief of people. From the perspectives of “cultural character”, “social charity” and “moral education”, based on seven aspects such as "technique", "logos", "fulfillment", "law", "behavior", "study" and "power", the present article describes and analyses the activities related to Buddhist laymen that Xilin Temple has developed, in order to summarize the characteristics of Metropolis Buddhism, its impact on the community culture and the trend of development of contemporary Humanistic Buddhism. |
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