Here's MINGCHAO WANG 1101107677
I'm gonna introduce Buddhism in Malaysia.
Buddhism
Background information of Buddhism
Buddhism (Pali/Sanskrit: बौद्ध धर्म Buddha Dharma) is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha (Pāli/Sanskrit "the awakened one"). The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.[1] He is recognized by Buddhists as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end suffering (or dukkha), achieve nirvana, and escape what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirt
Two major branches of Buddhism are recognized: Theravada ("The School of the Elders") and Mahayana ("The Great Vehicle"). Theravada—the oldest surviving branch—has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana is found throughout East Asia and includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism ,Shingon, Tiantai (Tendai) and shinney-en. In some classifications Vajirayana—a subcategory of Mahayana practiced in Tibet and Mongolia—is recognized as a third branch. While Buddhism remains most popular within Asia, both branches are now found throughout the world. Estimates of Buddhists worldwide vary significantly depending on the way Buddhistadherence is defined. Lower estimates are between 350–500 million
About Buddha---founder of the Buddhism
Buddha Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism in this world, was born as a prince in 624 BC in a place called Lumbini, which was originally in northern India but is now part of Nepal.'Shakya' is the name of the royal family into which he was born, and 'Muni' means 'AbleOne'. His parents gave him the name Siddhartha and there were many auspicious predictions about his future.In his early years he lived as a prince in the royal palace but when he was 29 years old he retired to the forest where he followed a life of meditation. After six years he
attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, India.
Theravada Buddhism----south & southeast
asiaSri Lanka
At present Buddhism is flourishing in some countries and facing difficulties in others. Theravada, for example, is the strongest in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma (Myanmar), but seriously weakened in Laos, Cambodia (Kampuchea) and Vietnam. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries Buddhism had declined in Sri Lanka due to persecution by first the Inquisition and then the missionaries of its Christian colonial rulers. It was revived in the late nineteenth century with the help of British scholars and theosophists. As a result, Sri Lankan Buddhism is sometimes characterized as "Protestant" Buddhism, with the emphasis on scholarly study, pastoral activities by monks for the lay community and direct meditation practice for laypeople, not just for those with robes. The lay householder community has great faith, but sometimes complain of the scarcity of monks with a balance of study and practice.
Sri Lankan monks have been helping revive Theravada Buddhism in Bali, other parts of Indonesia, and Malaysia, where it had slowly died out by the end of the fifteenth century. This is on an extremely limited scale. Those showing interest in Bali are the followers of the traditional Balinese mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism and the local spirit religion, while in other parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, the audience is the overseas ChineseMahayana Buddhist community. There are also some very small new Indonesian Buddhist sects that are hybrids of Theravada, Chinese and Tibetan aspects.According to the Indonesian government's "panchashila" policy, all religions must assert belief in God. Although Buddhism does not assert God as an individual being and is therefore sometimes characterized as atheistic, it is officially recognized because of its assertion of Adibuddha. This is, literally, the "First Buddha," and is discussed in The Kalachakra Tantra, which had flourished in Indonesia a millennium ago. Adibuddha is the omniscient creator of all appearances, beyond time, words and other limitations. Although represented by a symbolic figure, he is not actually a being himself. Adibuddha is more abstract and is found in all beings as the clear light nature of the mind. On this basis Buddhism is accepted, along with Islam, Hinduism and the Catholic and Protestant forms of Christianity, as the five state religions of Indonesia.
India
Buddhism slowly faded in the sub-Himalayan regions of India by about the seventeenth century. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, the Sri Lankans with the help of British scholars founded the Maha Bodhi Society for the purpose of restoring the holy Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India. They have been very successful and now have temples with monks at each of these sites, as do several other Buddhist traditions.
In the 1950s, Ambedkar started a neo-Buddhist movement among untouchables in western India. Hundreds of thousands have joined, mostly to avoid the stigma of belonging to the lowest caste. The emphasis is on gaining political and social rights for themselves. Ambedkar died shortly after founding this revival. Since then it has been headed by Sangharakshita, an Englishman who founded the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order as a new form of Buddhism especially designed for Western practitioners.
Thailand
In Thailand, influenced by the model of the Thai monarchy, the Buddhist monastic community has a Supreme Patriarch and a Council of Elders with responsibility for keeping the purity of the tradition. There are two types of monastic communities, those who dwell in the forests and those who live in the villages. Both are objects of great veneration and support by the lay community. The strong forest tradition of mendicant monks lives in isolated jungles and engages in intense meditation. It follows strict adherence to the monastic rules of discipline, which forms the focus of its study program. Village monks perform numerous ceremonies for the welfare of the local people. Their study, however, consists primarily of memorizing texts. In keeping with the Thai cultural belief in spirits, these monks also provide amulets to the laypeople for protection. There is a Buddhist university for monks, primarily for training monastics to translate the Buddhist scriptures from classical Pali into modern Thai.
Myanmar (Burma)
In Myanmar (Burma), the military regime has taken strict control of Buddhism under its Ministry of Religion. It has brutally destroyed the monasteries where dissidents had been living, particularly in the north of the country. Now the government is giving great sums of money to the rest of the monks in an effort to win their support and silence any criticism. Burma has a long tradition of a balanced, equal emphasis on meditation and study, particularly of the "abhidharma" system of Buddhist psychology, metaphysics and ethics. Many monasteries having this approach are still open, and the lay population maintains great faith. Since the late nineteenth century, perhaps influenced by the British colonial occupation, there are many meditation centers where monk and lay teachers instruct Burmese laymen and laywomen in basic meditational practices to develop mindfulness.
Bangladesh
In southern Bangladesh, in the hills along the Burmese border, there are many isolated villages traditionally following the Burmese Buddhist tradition. Cut off from Burma, however, their level of understanding and practice is quite low.
LaosIn Laos, Buddhism is still taught and practiced in a rural setting in the traditional manner, but the monasteries are in poorcondition due to the American-Vietnam War. The lay Laotians still offer food to the monks on their alms rounds and go to the temples on full moon days. The meditation tradition, however, is extremely weak. Previously, the monks had to learn and teach Marxism, but now do not. People today need only pay lip service to communism and it is easier to become a monk.
Kampuchea (Cambodia)In Kampuchea (Cambodia), Buddhism is being revived after Pol Pot's destruction and persecution, and especially with Prince Sihanouk as king, the restrictions are being slowly relaxed. Still, however, one must be over 30 or 40 to ordain, since the country needs the manpower. The head Khmer monk, Maha Ghosananda, studied meditation in Thailand, since it was mostly lost in Cambodia, and is trying to revive its practice there. Whatever forest tradition was left in the country was more concerned with gaining special powers rather than meditation.
VietnamAlthough there never was an equivalent of the Cultural Revolution in Vietnam, Buddhism is still considered the enemy of the state there, with monks continuing to challenge state authority and control. It is very difficult to ordain and many monks are still put in jail. Only token monasteries are open, mostly for propaganda purposes. The regime is more relaxed with the monks in the north, where the monastic institutions had coexisted with the communists during the Vietnam War. The regime is much more suspicious and hard on the monks in the south
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Overseas Chinese AreasThe East Asian Mahayana Buddhist traditions deriving from China are the strongest in Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Taiwan has a strong monastic community of monks and nuns very generously supported by the lay community. There are Buddhist universities and Buddhist programs for social welfare. Hong Kong also has a flourishing monastic community. The emphasis among the overseas Chinese Buddhist communities in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines is on ceremonies for the welfare of ancestors, and for prosperity and wealth for the living. There are many mediums through whom Buddhist oracles speak in trance and whom the lay community consults for health and psychological problems. Chinese businessmen who are the main driving force behind these "Asian tiger" economies frequently make generous donations to the monks to perform rituals for their financial success.
KoreaBuddhism in South Korea is still strong, although facing a growing challenge from Evangelic Christian movements. There are many monastic communities of monks and nuns with much popular support. The meditational tradition is particularly flourishing, especially of Son, the Korean form of Zen. In North Korea, on the other hand, except for a token monastery open for propaganda purposes, Buddhism is severely repressed.
JapanJapan has many temples beautifully kept for tourists and visitors, but many are commercialized. Although there are some serious practitioners, for the most part the traditions are extremely formalized and weak. From the thirteenth century, the Japanese have had a tradition of married temple priests with no prohibition against drinking alcohol. Such priests gradually replaced the tradition of celibate monks. Most Japanese follow a combination of Buddhism and the traditional Japanese Shinto spirit religion. They have priests perform Shinto customs and ceremonies for births and marriages, and Buddhist ones for funerals, with little understanding of either. There are some moves to adopt Buddhist methods for relieving work pressure in large companies, and one large Japanese Buddhist sect has an extensive program building Peace Pagodas around the world. There are also a number of fanatic doomsday cults that call themselves Buddhist, but in fact have little to do with Buddha Shakyamuni's teachings. Historically, some of the Japanese Buddhist traditions have been extremely nationalistic, based on belief in Japan as a Buddhist paradise. This derives from the Shinto cult of the emperor and the importance of belonging to the Japanese nation. Such traditions have given rise to Buddhist political parties that are extremely nationalistic and fundamentalist in flavor.
People's Republic of ChinaIn Inner China, namely the Han Chinese areas of the People's Republic, the majority of Buddhist monasteries were destroyed and most of the well-trained monks, nuns and teachers were executed or imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. This was not to the same huge extent, however, as in the non-Han regions, namely Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. Today, a large number of Han Chinese of all ages in Inner China are interested in Buddhism, but the main problem is the lack of teachers. Many young people are receiving monastic ordination, but their quality is low. Most college-educated youth prefer to work and make money, while those who join monasteries are mostly from poor and/or uneducated families, primarily from the countryside. There are only a few qualified elderly monks and nuns left who survived the communist persecution and can teach, and no one of middle age with any training. There are government Buddhist colleges with two to four-year programs in many major Inner Chinese cities and pilgrimage sites, with political education as part of their curriculum. Relatively few of the newly-ordained Han Chinese attend them.
In general, the level of Buddhist education is extremely low in the Han Chinese monasteries. People are focusing primarily on the physical reconstruction of Buddhism at the moment - temples, pagodas, statues and so forth - and this requires putting time and effort into raising money and building. In some cases, the Chinese government is helping to finance the reconstruction. As a result, many Buddhist temples are now open as museums or tourist attractions, with the monastics being the ticket collectors and temple attendants. This allows for a veneer of "religious freedom," an image much sought by the Beijing government. Most reconstruction, however, is being financed by the local people, sometimes with foreign benefactors, and often by the monastics themselves. Some traditional ancestor-worship practices done in temples before the communist persecution are now being revived. There are, however, a few Chinese monasteries in various parts of Inner China that are active and have some level of study and practice.
Buddhism in Malaysia
Buddhism is the second largest religion in Malaysia, after Islam, with 19.2% of Malaysia's population being Buddhist although some estimates put that figure up to 21.6% when combined with Chinese religions.[1] Buddhism in Malaysia is mainly practised by the ethnic Malaysian Chinese.Buddhism was introduced to the Malays and also to the people of the Malay Archipelago as early as 200 BCE. Chinese written sources indicated that some 30 small Indianised states rose and fell in theMalay Peninsula. Malay-Buddhism began when Indian traders and priests traveling the maritime routes and brought with them Indian concepts of religion, government, and the arts. For many centuries the peoples of the region, especially the royal courts, synthesised Indian and indigenous ideas including Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism and that shaped their political and cultural patterns.