Volume five of Studies on Humanistic Buddhism contains eight articles translated from Chinese, one article that was written in English, and four student papers. The theme of the articles is Humanistic Chan Buddhism, particularly Fo Guang Chan as developed by Venerable Master Hsing Yun. The articles in this volume give us a taste of the flavor of Chan. We see that Chan is both prosaic and profound. Chan emphasizes the cultivation of wisdom through practice in everyday life.
The Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order and Buddha’s Light International Association founded by Venerable Master Hsing Yun, two of the world’s largest Buddhist organizations, are dedicated to the spread of Humanistic Buddhism, a 21st century form of Buddhism aimed at bettering this world and human life by following the Buddha’s teachings. Throughout the past 50 years, tremendous progress has been made in the circles of Chinese-speaking communities, while steady efforts are made in rendering this vast amount of Buddhist corpus into English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and some twenty other languages.As said, “To learn a new language is take on a new culture, a new world.” Further difficulties arise when it comes to learning Buddhism in a new language, still a world that awaits the light of wisdom and experience to be shed. Any aspiring translator daring to take on this daunting task of translating Buddhist texts into their own language would no doubt appreciate as much help as they can obtain