Dear all,
Regarding the website of Asian Buddist Union, my idea is to
establish a union acting as a co-ordinator between different
countries and monasteries. This union should be non-profitable, and
its main objective is to provide a mean to the public to reach out
to any monastery, or any monastery to seek help from other parts of
Asia. If help is needed in any parts of Asia to promote Buddhism,
other monasteries can combine their strengths (in terms of finance
and talent) to provide the help. It may also be able to act as a
coordinator to reach out to all the monasteries, so as to put in a
combine effort to raise funds for natural disasters, to build
schools and hospitals in poorer and less developed countries
(irregardless whether it is a Buddhist community) so as to reach
out to the needy. It may also act as a centre of exchange for
information, books, ideas etc. In short, it aims to unite Buddhists
in Asia, to provide humanitarian help to Buddhist and non-Buddhist
alike.
Below is my rough idea of how the website may work, please feel
free to comment on it, so that we can improve on the idea and make
it more feasible.
In the 1st part of this message I will try to describe the feature
I hope to see in this website. At the 2nd part I will discuss the
possibility of carry it out in Singapore first because it is not an
easy task.
(1) On the home page there are:
(1a) the vision of the union and its plans on how to promote
Buddhism in Asia so that it may reach out to promote social
harmony, religious tolerance and social advancement in every
country.
(1b) brief introduction of Buddhism and its different schools of
teaching,
(1c) important messages of whether any disasters is happening in
any country or any situation in need of humanitarian needs. The
message is to draw attention or awareness to those disastrous
areas, anyone who click the link will go to a webpage describing
the disaster and how the visitor may offer help
(1d) a link to donate funds online (for providing humanitarian
help)
(1e) a link to important essays or reports
(1f) information of the representative office of the Union, the
number to contact, mails etc (I am thinking of suggesting this idea
to Fo Guang Shan, so that they may approach the other organisations
and elect a main representative office in Singapore and get the
ball rolling when the plan is more practical)
(1f) buttons representing the countries that have joined the union,
along with brief descriptions of the characteristics of the school
of Buddhism practised in that particular country
(2) If a visitor click the button representing a certain country,
he will be brought to a web page of that particular country. Let us
take China for an example. The visitor will be brought to the
homepage of the Buddhist union in China, on its homepage there
are
(2a) information of the latest development of Buddhism in China,
including the number of Buddhists, whether it is Mahayana or
Theravada, the number of monasteries, schools, future visions
etc
(2b) important events
(2c) main attraction in China. We may add an introductory list of
the famous monasteries and schools (along with a brief description
of it characteristics, eg where we can pay respect to Master
HuiNeng etc) so as to give a few tips or guides for any visitor who
might want to visit the monastery
(2d) important messages of any disasters. Anyone who click the link
will go to a webpage describing the disaster, this could be linked
to the homepage
(2e) a link to donate funds online (too complex, need guidance on
how to do it, maybe still link to the one in the home page)
(2f) information of the local representative office of the Union,
maybe this can be done by electing a local monastery to be the
representative office, may differ depends on situation in
individual country
(2g) a link to a page consisting individual websites not related to
any monasteries or schools, and describing the charateristics
(2h) a link to a page consisting forums of individual
websites
(2i) buttons representing the different provinces in China
(3) If a visitor click the button representing a certain province,
he will be brought to a page web page of that province. For example
FuJian, there will be a homepage representing that province with
similar features of what mentioned in 2, with a slight difference
in the last item
(3i) instead of buttons representing different districts of Fujian,
it might be replaced by a button which link to a web page with
detailed information of all the monasteries registered with the
union. The information might include the exact address, the person
in-charge, how to contact, how a visitor may visit the monastery, a
link to the website of the monastery etc
As there are tens of thousands of monasteries and Buddhist
associations in Asia perhaps even more), this task is not going to
be an easy one. However I don't think it is impossible. We live in
the information age when advancements in technology has made
communication much easier.
For a start, I suggest inviting the person in charge of all the
monasteries in Singapore, and set up the union. This is not
easy.
An alternative is to get a group of volunteers to set up the union
and design the webpage, and then we invite the individual
monasteries and associations to register with the union. If that
particular organisation does not have a webpage, we just conduct an
interview and include the details of that organisation on a shared
webpage with other organisations. If that organisation does have a
website, it will still appear on that shared webpage, but a link
will be added to it. It may be easier this way, and the Singapore
Buddhists Union may be set up within a much shorter time. We can
also write emails to all the individual Buddhist websites in
Singapore, so that the websites are linked. To arouse awareness of
this website, we can print namecard size calenders or car stickers,
distribute to the organisations registered with the union and
encourage them to either print more of it, or to include the
website address of the Union in their brochures and flyers.
As to how we may extend this union to other countries, I suggest 2
approaches: reaching out to other potential union members and
creating awareness so that they approach us to be registered. We
can write emails to websites of other countries that we can find on
the internet and invite them to register with the union. We may
also collect information of monasteries in other countries and
invite them to register with the union. We write emails to the
local government departments in charge of religion and try to get
their assistance by asking for the list of monasteries and schools.
This may make the work more feasible and minimise the cost.
Most probably it is not possible for the union in Singapore to
reach out to all the monasteries in Asia, however if most
monasteris are aware of such a Asian Buddhist Union, smaller
monasteries may approach us to be registered and a stronger union
between the different monasteries can be formed.
I hope this will help to unite all Buddhists, and bring a new age
to Buddhism.
Please comment on my idea so that we can work on it, and make it
come true.
Amitabha,
Jon
