>>UPFRONT: Buddhism's draw is no longer as a folk religion

An Eternal Now SG

THE STRAITS TIMES
Friday, May 20 2005

Images: courtesy of www.humanbliss.com.sg

Buddhism's draw is no longer as a folk religion
By Richard Lim

WHEN Angie Chew left home in Malaysia to study computer science at the University of Iowa in the United States, she took along her most prized possession, a small statue of Buddha.
She was 17 then. Hers was a typical immigrant Chinese family which practised a mix of folk religions, observing rituals and customs whose meanings they did not quite understand. But from the time she was 14, she felt she needed to understand the meaning behind those rituals, and so looked into Buddhist teachings, or the Dharma.
Coming to Singapore to work in the late 1980s, she joined the Buddhist Graduates Fellowship, a group of some 30 like-minded seekers who were all young, English-educated professionals. They met regularly for study sessions and sometimes invited monks and Buddhist teachers to conduct talks.
But she felt the group could do more to introduce the Dharma to a larger community. In 2000, she spearheaded the formation of the Buddhist Fellowship and found a base for it in Loring 29 Geylang.
She proved to be an adept organiser, staging two high-profile events in 2000 and last year which she billed as "global Buddhist conferences" and which drew hundreds of participants.
For $180 each, they got to attend a two-day series of seminars and workshops conducted by Buddhist monks and teachers from all over the world. At the Geylang centre, she launched a Sunday service, children's classes, courses and regular retreats.
All this while holding down a career, getting married and becoming a mother of two. She uses her married name, Angie Monksfield, now.
At the first conference in 2000, she found her spiritual adviser in guest speaker Ajahn Brahmavamso, a British monk who took the cloth at 23, after leaving Cambridge with a degree in physics. He studied under a master in a forest monastery in Thailand for nine years. Now the abbot of a monastery in Perth, Australia, the 53-year-old monk travels to Singapore and the region often to spread the Buddha's teachings.
Through him, Mrs. Monksfield has been able to bring in constant stream of Western Buddhist monks who can explain the teachings in English. This Sunday, Vesak Day, the highlight of the centre's celebrations will be talks by monks from the United States and Norway.
The majority of Singapore's older monks and nuns teach only in Mandarin, although the Venerable Kwang Sheng, 52, president of the Singapore Buddhist Federation, and the Venerable Ming Yi, 43, its past president, represent the new breed of Buddhist teachers at ease with both Mandarin and English.
Early this month, the Buddhist fellowship moved its centre from Geylang to a 4,500 sq ft home in Jalan Afifi, off Paya Lebar Road, to cater to its growing membership which as gone from 600 in 2000 to almost 3,000 now.
The new centre has a large hall which can be partitioned into three rooms, as well as a children's corner. Every Sunday, more than 40 children attend the two one-hour classes. The Sunday service attracts some 200 members, who gather to chant and listen to Dharma talks.
Mrs. Monksfield, now 41, spends most of her time at the centre, after her day's work as a senior airline executive. She has also been busy with a Buddhist Fellowship project in Sri Lanka to build 50 houses for some of the recent tsunami victims.
The success of the fellowship rides on a recent trend in Singapore. As sociologist Kwok Kian Woon observed: "The majority of ethnic Chinese here used to practice Buddhism and Taoism at the level of popular folk religion, which emphasies rituals and customs.
"But there has been a shift from folk religion to more canonical forms of religious life, which cover the scriptures, and the study and interpretations of these scriptures.
The canonical forms certainly tend to attract the more educated. Because Buddhism is not a monotheistic religion, there is also a group of people who see it as a philosophical system, not a religion.
Dr Kwok, head of sociology at Nanyang Technological University, pointed out too that, as Chinese schools were phrased out in the early 1980s, all young Singaporeans are English-educated, although many are bilingual. The trend really is one of the younger, educated Singaporeans being drawn to Buddhism, and to a level more popular Chinese folk religion.
Census figures show that in 2000, 53.6 per cent of ethnic Chinese here identified themselves as Buddhists, up from 39.4 per cent in 1990 and 34.3 per cent in 1980. Correspondingly, Taoism, which is still largely practised as a folk religion here, saw its share of ethnic Chinese followers decline from 38.2 per cent in 1980 to 28.4 in 1990 and 10.8 in 2000.
Both Ven Kwang Sheng, who is the abbot of the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery in Bright Hill Road, and Ven Ming Yi, abbot of the Foo Hai Zen Monastery in Geylang East, confirmed a noticeable rise in the number of younger people attending their prayer sessions, classes and other activities.
Ven Kwang Sheng said an annual seven-day retreat which was launched at his monastery three years ago had attracted some 1,000 people each time, and more than 80 per cent of them had been youths.
In the last 40 years, Buddhism has gained followers in the West. There are about five million Buddhists in the US and four million in Europe, according to author Peter J. Conradi in his book, Going Buddhist.
This may also have contributed to its appeal to younger Singaporeans, since books on Buddhism written in English are now widely available. The Kinokuniya book shop in Ngee Ann Plaza alone stocks 1,000 titles on Buddhism.
Although the canonical aspects of the religion are important, Buddhism also emphasises practice, especially meditation. Mr Wong Shwei Lin, a third-year chemical engineering student at the Nation University of Singapore and president of the universitys 200-strong Buddhist Society, is someone who takes practice as seriously as the study of the sutras.
Last July, during what is popularly known as the Rain Retreat in Buddhism, the 24-year-old spent two months in Myanmar among 700 monks and 300 nuns in a mountain-top monastery, a 12-hour bus ride outside Rangoon. Each day, waking up at 3 a.m, he would meditate for about eight to 10 hours.
Mr Wong believes Buddhism appeals to young people as it is no longer associated with rites and superstitions. It is, a logical religion.WHEN Angie Chew left home in Malaysia to study computer science at the University of Iowa in the United States, she took along her most prized possession, a small statue of Buddha.
She was 17 then. Hers was a typical immigrant Chinese family which practised a mix of folk religions, observing rituals and customs whose meanings they did not quite understand. But from the time she was 14, she felt she needed to understand the meaning behind those rituals, and so looked into Buddhist teachings, or the Dharma.
Coming to Singapore to work in the late 1980s, she joined the Buddhist Graduates Fellowship, a group of some 30 like-minded seekers who were all young, English-educated professionals. They met regularly for study sessions and sometimes invited monks and Buddhist teachers to conduct talks.
But she felt the group could do more to introduce the Dharma to a larger community. In 2000, she spearheaded the formation of the Buddhist Fellowship and found a base for it in Loring 29 Geylang.
She proved to be an adept organiser, staging two high-profile events in 2000 and last year which she billed as "global Buddhist conferences" and which drew hundreds of participants.
For $180 each, they got to attend a two-day series of seminars and workshops conducted by Buddhist monks and teachers from all over the world. At the Geylang centre, she launched a Sunday service, children's classes, courses and regular retreats.
All this while holding down a career, getting married and becoming a mother of two. She uses her married name, Angie Monksfield, now.
At the first conference in 2000, she found her spiritual adviser in guest speaker Ajahn Brahmavamso, a British monk who took the cloth at 23, after leaving Cambridge with a degree in physics. He studied under a master in a forest monastery in Thailand for nine years. Now the abbot of a monastery in Perth, Australia, the 53-year-old monk travels to Singapore and the region often to spread the Buddha's teachings.
Through him, Mrs. Monksfield has been able to bring in constant stream of Western Buddhist monks who can explain the teachings in English. This Sunday, Vesak Day, the highlight of the centre's celebrations will be talks by monks from the United States and Norway.
The majority of Singapore's older monks and nuns teach only in Mandarin, although the Venerable Kwang Sheng, 52, president of the Singapore Buddhist Federation, and the Venerable Ming Yi, 43, its past president, represent the new breed of Buddhist teachers at ease with both Mandarin and English.
Early this month, the Buddhist fellowship moved its centre from Geylang to a 4,500 sq ft home in Jalan Afifi, off Paya Lebar Road, to cater to its growing membership which as gone from 600 in 2000 to almost 3,000 now.
The new centre has a large hall which can be partitioned into three rooms, as well as a children's corner. Every Sunday, more than 40 children attend the two one-hour classes. The Sunday service attracts some 200 members, who gather to chant and listen to Dharma talks.
Mrs. Monksfield, now 41, spends most of her time at the centre, after her day's work as a senior airline executive. She has also been busy with a Buddhist Fellowship project in Sri Lanka to build 50 houses for some of the recent tsunami victims.
The success of the fellowship rides on a recent trend in Singapore. As sociologist Kwok Kian Woon observed: "The majority of ethnic Chinese here used to practice Buddhism and Taoism at the level of popular folk religion, which emphasies rituals and customs.
"But there has been a shift from folk religion to more canonical forms of religious life, which cover the scriptures, and the study and interpretations of these scriptures.
The canonical forms certainly tend to attract the more educated. Because Buddhism is not a monotheistic religion, there is also a group of people who see it as a philosophical system, not a religion.
Dr Kwok, head of sociology at Nanyang Technological University, pointed out too that, as Chinese schools were phrased out in the early 1980s, all young Singaporeans are English-educated, although many are bilingual. The trend really is one of the younger, educated Singaporeans being drawn to Buddhism, and to a level more popular Chinese folk religion.
Census figures show that in 2000, 53.6 per cent of ethnic Chinese here identified themselves as Buddhists, up from 39.4 per cent in 1990 and 34.3 per cent in 1980. Correspondingly, Taoism, which is still largely practised as a folk religion here, saw its share of ethnic Chinese followers decline from 38.2 per cent in 1980 to 28.4 in 1990 and 10.8 in 2000.
Both Ven Kwang Sheng, who is the abbot of the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery in Bright Hill Road, and Ven Ming Yi, abbot of the Foo Hai Zen Monastery in Geylang East, confirmed a noticeable rise in the number of younger people attending their prayer sessions, classes and other activities.
Ven Kwang Sheng said an annual seven-day retreat which was launched at his monastery three years ago had attracted some 1,000 people each time, and more than 80 per cent of them had been youths.
In the last 40 years, Buddhism has gained followers in the West. There are about five million Buddhists in the US and four million in Europe, according to author Peter J. Conradi in his book, Going Buddhist.
This may also have contributed to its appeal to younger Singaporeans, since books on Buddhism written in English are now widely available. The Kinokuniya book shop in Ngee Ann Plaza alone stocks 1,000 titles on Buddhism.
Although the canonical aspects of the religion are important, Buddhism also emphasises practice, especially meditation. Mr Wong Shwei Lin, a third-year chemical engineering student at the Nation University of Singapore and president of the universitys 200-strong Buddhist Society, is someone who takes practice as seriously as the study of the sutras.
Last July, during what is popularly known as the Rain Retreat in Buddhism, the 24-year-old spent two months in Myanmar among 700 monks and 300 nuns in a mountain-top monastery, a 12-hour bus ride outside Rangoon. Each day, waking up at 3 a.m, he would meditate for about eight to 10 hours.
Mr Wong believes Buddhism appeals to young people as it is no longer associated with rites and superstitions. It is, a logical religion.