Two IEAS students Miss Zhang Xuyi and Miss Xiong Cheng, together with students from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Columbia University, Fudan University, London University, University of Chicago and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, attended a 10-day international summer seminars on Buddhism and East Asian culture held at Da Sheng Zhu Lin Si (大聖竹林寺) in Mountain Wutai (五台山)from 15 to 25 July 2016, through which two IEAS students’ religious knowledge met practice. As a religion of wisdom, Buddhism taught IEAS students to appreciate the wisdom and unfixed basics of the self in the changing world. IEAS students took this unique opportunity to pursue academic study of Buddhism within a religious environment for practice. The seminars invited a famous group of Buddhist scholars to present their own perspectives of Buddhism in English in addition to provision of guidance to international students in Buddhist practice by Chinese monks.

This international Buddhist seminar is usually held annually and serves as the premier international forum for international students and scholars of Buddhism to present their latest research findings. Inaugurating the international Buddhist seminar, Dr James Robson (羅柏松), Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Director of Graduate Studies for the Regional Studies East Asia M.A. Program of Harvard University, explored the commonalities of religions in the perspective of Western philosophy. He enlightened all international students on the interface between Buddhism and other humanistic and scientific disciplines in both the East and the West as an intellectual, as well as religious, current in all civilizations.

In Dr Jinhua Chen’s(陳金華), Wall Scholar and Professor of East Asian Buddhism of the University of British Columbia, seminar of “International Characteristics of Buddhism: East Asian Perspectives”，he shed light on the principle of nonviolence as the core of Buddhist tradition internationally. In contradistinction to some purportedly more “violent” international religions, Professor Chen asserted that Buddhism has had no institutional involvement in conflicts in different East Asia perspectives.

Dr Barend J. ter Haar (田海), Shaw Professor of Chinese of the University of Oxford, presented a seminar on “Enlisting the Divine Realm: Witches, Mediums, Shamans and Buddhist Critique”. He concisely discussed the gist of his extensive study of a religious movement commonly known as the Non-Action Teachings (wuweijiao 無為教) and argued that the movement was a special and innovative form of lay Buddhist practice which was different from the traditional historiographical depictions of the movement as rebellious or deviant, and should not be studied with a messianic orientation. A special feature of this international seminar is international students paying homage to the Buddha at the temple. They chatted with monks, prayed, mediated and had vegetarian meals. With experience in a variety of existing Buddhist rituals and devotional practices in addition to the seminars of world class scholars, two IEAS students had a valuable journey of academic and religious enlightenment.