Organization and management on Layman Bu

The sixth National Buddhist Congress of 1993 had proposed the historial mission: strengthen the construction of faith, morality, teaching, talents and organization. All of the five constructions have close relationships with the temple construction as well as the Buddhist Organization. In modern China, apart from the Buddhist Association of China and Buddhist Association of Provinces, and some academic and research organizations of Buddhist Temple, and regioanal groups of Buddhist Studies, there are Layman Buddhist Organizations in Buddhist Temple which have become the main bodies of Buddhist organization and have made great contribution to the development of Buddist in modern China. This article focuses on the organization and management of layman Buddhist in HongFa Temple. Specific advice from experts and scholars of Buddhist will receive a worm welcome.

First, the great role of layman Buddhist in the development of HongFa Temple

Since 1983,HongFa Temple of ShenZhen City has been under construction and it was finished the main building in 1992. At the same time, it held the opening ceremony and was open according to the government’s approval. The 44th disciple, whose name is BenHuan, has become the Buddhist abbot of HongFa Temple. Under the lead of BenHuan, with the joint efforts of other monks for 15 years, HongFa Temple has been gradually developed and completed. Now it is a temple with King Hall, Main Hall, Sermon Holl, Lying permitted, Meditation hall and related ancillary buildings, and has a total area of 37,610 square meters which is currently the largest and most modern Buddhist temple in ShenZhen. Because of its location in the reform and opening up city of ShenZhen as well as its close to HongKong and Macao as a unique advantage, HongFa Temple has a closely relationship with the Buddhist Associations from various places of China and Southeast Asia. Morever, as its layman Buddhists continuously increasing, it has become one of the most vibrant Buddhist temples.

Based on ShenZhen City, in face of HongKong, Macao, ang Taiwan, promoted in Southeast Asia and got around all over the world, first , HongFa Temple gets all of these due to the leadership of Chinese community party and Chinese Government. At the beginning of its being building, HongFa Temple has already received the concern of the leader of Chinese Government and former Vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference ,LiRuihuan. Second, ZhaoPuchu, a layman Buddhist of HongFa Temple, had come to help do the coordination work when the whole construction confronted difficulties. After its completion and then on the ceremony, he went to hold the ceremony and wrote poems to celebrate it. The renowned Benhuan is well known around the Buddhist field and is a famous leader in Chinese Buddhist. Many layman Buddhists show admiration of his personality, attracted by his charm, and take the initiative to follow him. Now BenHuan has followers of more than 2.7 million, some of whom had followed for decades. These followers concern about the development of HongFa Temple and pray for its growing stronger, giving immense support from every espects. Because of these well-known or unknown disciples’ help, Buddhist in HongFa Temple has developed rapidly in a short span of decades.

Benhuan specially pointed out that “people can broad the road, not that the road broad people”. This road is a modern Buddhist road that religion and socialist society adapt to each other. It is also a social homony road stressing by the current central government. It is also necessary to build and manage HangFa Temple and makes it a good model for disciples and layman Buddhists at home and abroad, from which people could see the free religious beliefs of policy in China as well as the Buddhist culture. They can also see that Chinese monks are not only high quality-oriented, good images and strictly following the law of the temple, but also having higher policy level, good management ability and higher education, and they are really Chinese model Buddhists.

Second, the management characters of the layman Buddists in HongFa temple

HongFa Temple only has a history of 20 years, with majority of monks in it are young. These monks,especially the vegetarian monks of middle management, have self-cultivation, faith, knowledge, and ability of management and modern vision of Buddhist. Buddhist has well adapted the society of ShenZhencity with the monks’ efforts to broadcast it. And because it has satisfied the followers and layman Buddhists’ demands, it had won the support of the layman Buddhists. the management of HongFa temple to its layman Buddhists are measures and methods as below:

1, HongFa temple has regarded the management of layman Buddhists as its normal work, and has strictly performed their convert procedures. These layman Buddhists must leave their real name and contacts, whose name, sex, famington, address,ID card Number, contact, and occupational specialty(such as can drive a car, cooking, reception ability or likes ect.) are input the computer before presenting the layman Buddhists identification. The purpose of these is easy contact and getting true number of the layman Buddhists. According to the file, there are hundreds of thousands of layman Buddhists have already registered. They are geographical grouped and located in various parts of the world. But the most concentrated layman Buddhists groups are in Shenzhen and Hongkong, which have become the daily law enforcement.

2, Try to make good efforts on the work of the layman Buddhists group. In june,2006, “layman Buddhist volunteer group of law enforcement in HongFa Temple of ShenZhen” had been set up, marking a new step of the layman Buddhists career. In the layman Buddhist volunteer group, young volunteers account for about half. So it is a young group with relatively high-education. When the group has established, layman Buddhists keep on studying Buddhist and the notes of volunteer every Sunday. Through the management of the layman Buddhists, the image of the temple has been greatly upgraded, which has formed a good relationship circle. Whenever a large Buddhist event is held, the layman Buddhists are gathered in a good orgnization. In recent years, HongFa Temple has held events attended by up to tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands people. All of the events have been completed successfully with the volunteers’ great help. Now management has played an important role in the temple, not only preceding the activities smoothly, but also mobilizing the volunteers’ enthusiasm, enhancing their collective sense and belonging and the interaction between the monasteries and layman Buddhists. In addition, the temple has also organized the “ HongFa Temple Preaching Council”, inviting those who have higher status in the society or have made great contribution to the temple. It asks them to serve as directors and jointly make the plan for the temple. According to their participation in the great things and future development, the temple has got its democratic security and economic support from them.

In order to organize the layman Buddhists, from the horizontal viewpoint, the temple has divided them into groups according to their location. Then in each group, they select the group leaders with the help of the local basic organizations (community or neighborhood). These kinds of leaders get in touch with the layman Buddhists day-to-day and link them. Among each area, layman volunteers have been divided into little groups. A little group is a Buddhist-study group of nearly 20 people in the same area. The little group leader is a zealous person who are selected in charge of the daily 熏修. So there are a number of little groups which can also make up of the medium-sized groups. Then the medium-sized groups form a Buddhist organization of each area. From the vertical viewpoint, the Buddhist organizations formed the pyramid network structure.

3, The layman Buddhist (volunteers) group has tried to accept the leadership of the government which will become a strong support for this basic group. The group shares information with the related department of the government and makes information pamphlets which are provided to the Volunteer Organization of Communist Youth League. HongFa Yenmple encourages the layman Buddhists to join the cause of public welfare in their communities which can provide them with a show platform. The Volunteer Organization of Communist Youth League can freely charge the Volunteer Group and turns them to community volunteers without being in the name of the Hong Fa Temple. In that case, there is a good communication between the society and the laymen Buddhists of the temple. On the one hand, the layman Buddhist (volunteers) group have provided good services to the Communist Youth League Organization, on the other hand, the layman Buddhist (volunteers) group has gained social experiences which has built up a solid foundation for the Buddhist rituals. In fact, the volunteer training from HongFa Temple has become a conveyor base of youth volunteer in the Community of ShenZhen City and plays an important role in serving the community, taking part in cause of public welfare such as responding to natural disasters, helping with the community charity and culture. By participating in these activities,the layman Buddhists (volunteers) gain knowledge, contact the society, grow to useful people and become the backbone of the youth of the community. At the same time, the work from the layman Buddhists (volunteers) has broaden the thinking and way to the management and culture for the temple. It has also mobilized the enthusiasm of the layman Buddhists as well as guaranteed the dynamic of the team.

4, HongFa Temple has put emphasizes on the training on the layman Buddhists. Buddhist trainings are carried out regularly or without fixed time which helps improve their knowledge and self-cultivation. According to one of the features in ShenZhen that there are many young people of high education, some enterprising young people that knowing Buddhist theory and willing to contribute to the Buddhist are selected to be trained during the holidays and public holidays. Through it, they can improve their knowledge level of Buddhist and enthusiasm towards public welfares. In the beginning of each year, the temple will fix the activities throughout the year into the magazine "Preaching" through which the layman Buddhist will know what is going to do in the whole year. In order to let the layman Buddhists know the latest news of the temple, the temple has set up a network by modern technology, in which all the layman Buddhists' information are integrated. By using the Internet, the temple introduces its information and knowledge of Buddhist to the layman Buddhist and sends short messages to them when some events occur. And the layman Buddhists will be able to quickly lay in accordance with the needs of the temple. This means of communication plays a positive role on the big events held by the temple. For example, with such means of communication as well as the support of the layman Buddhists, the elder Ben's birthday and benefit performance for the people in stricken areas on "5.12' Earthquake were held successfully.

At the same time, the temple supplies free accommodation to people who have passed the examination of cultivation of morality, knowledge of Buddhist and self-cultivation in the meditation hall. All the places for self-cultivation. in the temple are open to all the layman Buddhists,especially during the "ChanQi(禅七inChinese）"period, layman Buddhist can study with the master in the meditation hall and ask questions to them through which they have improved their self-cultivation. Every weekend, the temple will hold Buddhist rituals such as preach Buddhist classics to layman Buddhists by monks in the temple or master invited from external. And every month, the temple has invited the national well-known Buddhist scholars to introduce GuoXue(国学in Chinese)in the auditorium, which has enhanced the layman Buddhists' knowledge of traditional culture as well as strengthen their self-belief.

5, HongFa Temple has set up a dedicated system for layman Buddhists of different levels and needs. In fact, the layman Buddhists who engage in the Buddhist activities for long time are mainly middle-aged and elder. The youth, due to their busy work, come to the temple in relatively less time. They only come to worship Buddhist and show respect to Elder Ben not staying for a long time, in addition to big events. But to the middle-aged, they have beared more responsibilities and contradictions, and are more willing to receive comfort and guidance in the spirit from the temple. As a result, the temple holds question-solving activities without fixed time and organizes monks who know buddhism and psychology to help the middle-aged solve mental problem and put down their burden. Many older people are more concerned about how to solve the problem behind in the future. To help these people, the temple holds a specific lecture on reading Buddhist satras, and invite Elder Ben to give the lecture, encouraging and supporting them to more self-cultivation and more reading Buddhist satras. For the questions raised, the senior monks will reply in their spare time, ensuring giving them satisfied answers.

6, HongFa temple has shown full respects for the rights of the layman Buddhists, making them feel worm of Buddhist and receiving concern from the monks. It is required that all the layman Buddhists should be treated courteous by the monks, no putting on airs in front of whom, no rude, no ignoring to every questions,as well as answering them with patient, making them feel at home, having a sense of belonging and fully respecting their personality.

7, HongFa temple has drawn on the management thought from other religious to manage its own layman Buddhist. In order to change the situation that layman Buddhist often move from place to place which will make it difficult to manage layman Buddhists, the temple adopts other religions' parishes in the awareness of thinking, to gather the layman Buddhists in the range of the temple, and establishes the "Buddhist temple conciousness" among the layman Buddhists, stressing the temple as a central for conducting activities which enables layman Buddhists to feel proud when participating in Buddhist rituals. This has solved the long-term problem bothering the government that layman Buddhists move at a large range which are not easy to manage.

Third, theory on management of temporary layman Buddhists are discussed.

The monks and layman Buddhists have always been holding an interaction relationship. The two sides can not be separated from each other, just like water and fish, both helping overall develop the Buddhist. There is a saying goes that Buddhist has three treasures, namely Buddha, Buddhist teaching and monk, among which monk is the crucial factor for Buddhist development. The layman Buddhists should protect the three treasures, in which monk is the most important. In history, the statue of monk has never been degraded, and monk is always protected by the layman Buddhists. But after the dynasties of Ming(明in Chinese) and Qing(清in Chinese），especially from the Qing dynasty, there were few excellent monks of Buddhist that the Buddhist's statue has been challenged by the layman Buddhists and from then the layman Buddhists began to become prosperous.

The current layman Buddhist has developed fast which is a good thing to the Buddhist. It indicates that future Buddhist is hopeful because so many layman Buddhists concern about Buddhist and like it. As a monk in the temple, he should feel gratified. Meanwhile, layman Buddhist have some influence on monk while it's developing. Some layman Buddhists' comments on the behaviour of the monks have particularly influenced the image of Buddhism. But it is not the main reason for the development of Buddhist. It is undoubtedly that the development of the layman Buddhist has promoted the monk, but it can be pressure and competition to the monk. Every development should be under the control of the government and in a good order. A disorder development will disrupt the Buddhist that has already been developed. So adding the management of layman Buddhists to the work range of government and Buddhist is imperative in order to maintain the healthy development of the Buddhist.

According to the structure of the layman Buddhists, most people have high education. But less people has mastered the theory and meaning of the Buddhist. Most people don't have specific purposes on studying Buddhist, among whom people seeking for supernatural power are more than that are not. In that case, many of the layman Buddhists are failed to get real benefits from Buddhist as they are off their way. And they need the proper guidance from the monks. Taking part in the layman Buddhsit activities can satisfy the demands of people who need to talk to and communicate with others , create a faith community and believe in Buddhist in this society of transition. So it is an inevitable development of times as well as an extension of the contribution from Buddhist to the communist social economy by organizing the layman Buddhists as a united organization.