Buddhism as Bridge to Cross-cultural relationships: A Case Study
Since ancient times, through
Buddhism, many countries from Asia to Europe, became mutual friends and worked
as brothers. Today, in the twenty first century, the earth is becoming one
village through the achievements of modern science and technology, especially due
to information technology. Even though, there are multi-approaches to build
relationships with the other countries and cultures, due to certain diplomatic
factors it has been still difficult to reach some part of the world without
barricades. In the present paper, I will attempt to investigate how Buddhism is
functioning as a bridge to build relations among nations going beyond
constrains imposed by diplomatic or other factors. For this I will select three
agents, one Buddhist organization, the Theravada Buddhist Association in
Taiwan, two countries, Taiwan and Myanmar. In the late 1980’s, due to
diplomatic reasons, the state level relations between Sri Lanka and Taiwan were
severed. In 1999, Venerable Bodagama Chandima, a Theravada Buddhist monk from
Sri Lanka, with the help of group of Taiwanese Buddhists established a Buddhist
association under the title ‘Theravada Samadhi Education Association’ in
Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Ever since
the establishment of Theravada Samadhi education, irrespective of the severed
diplomatic relations, the two countries were in an active exchange.
Particularly, the relation took the form of cultural and has been continuing
till today. The interaction between the two nations covers several aspects,
health, education and disaster relief to mention a few. The next part of
relation building by the Samadhi association is connected with Myanmar, a
Theravada Buddhist country. In 2008, the cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar victimizing
hundred thousand of people in three townships. Due to the state constraints,
reaching Myanmar was difficult. However, the Theravada Samadhi education with
the help of Sri Lanka government could reach the people with relief aids in the
first stage. And in the second, a village with thousands of houses and other facilities
like school renovated with new buildings and donated to the villagers. Through the analysis of the information
relevance to the two lines of building cross-cultural relations, I will reach
the conclusion that Buddhism is of potential in extending the relations among
people where conventional practices of building and keeping relations fail.
Keywords: Buddhism, Cross-cultural relationship, Samadhi Education Association,
Taiwan,
Sri Lanka, Myanmar
