Talking to the Mind
Un-hosted Buddhism forum boosts cultural exchanges among China, the U.S. and Canada
In his past life Heng Sure was an Irish-scottish actor doing Broadway musicals and going through a period of indecision about what to do in life. It was in the 1970s and the Viet Nam War was still raging and he was wondering if he should leave the United States for Canada. Then a visiting friend took him to a converted mattress factory to meet a man from northeastern China and as he described in a later interview, “The doubts and fears just drained out through my toes. And I distinctly heard a quiet voice say, ‘You’re back. Go to work. You’re home’.”
That is how he met Hsuan Hua, the founder of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, a monastery in Talmage, California, and became a Buddhist, leaving his old life behind him. Heng Sure means “constantly real,” which, he believes, is a reminder to him to go back to the truth, to what is genuine and real.
On October 12, 12 days before the 72nd United Nations Day, the 69-year-old, who is now the managing director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery in California, came to the headquarters of the UN in New York to share his thoughts and the lessons he had learned from his teacher Hsuan Hua at the 2019 China-u.s.-canada Buddhist Forum. Over 500 Buddhists, experts and scholars from the three countries came to promote exchanges and mutual learning.
Heng Sure called Buddhism a very contemporary religion because “the issues that Buddhism addresses are the issues of the human mind and in our lives.” He also called it a global religion because “it talks to the mind and the mind doesn’t know east or west, male or female, young or old.”
Tradition and modernity
Shi Dayi, Abbot of the Cham Shan Temple in Toronto, Canada, initiated the forum in 2017. “We can easily find obvious examples in both Buddhism doctrine and practice that illustrate the concepts advocated by modern civilized society, such as equality, fraternity, democracy and others,” he said in a paper.
With a history of over 2,500 years, Buddhism advocates compassion, equality and tolerance. It calls for following a balanced middle way and the path of peace.
Yanjue, Vice President of the Buddhist
in history, form the unique characteristics of the Chan School of Han Chinese Buddhism. The school, founded by the Sixth Patriarch of the Chinese Chan Buddhism Master Huineng (638-713), later spread to Japan, the Korean Peninsula and Viet Nam.
When Japanese and Korean Buddhism masters launched dialogues between Chan and Western philosophies in the last century, Chan came into vogue among Americans. There are currently 3 million Buddhists in the United States, 1 percent of the total population.
Mingyu, President of the American Buddhist Confederation and the Buddhist community of the U.S., said Han Chinese Chan Buddhism is “people-oriented, mind-focused,” and its concepts are in line with the free and egalitarian American culture. This is why Han Chinese Chan Buddhism is spreading so rapidly among Americans, he said.
From Buddhism to culture