佛教引领中国走向盛世？
Can religion guide China to a flourishing world?
（2008-04-10）
● 黄 林 Huang Lin
宗教不能引领当今中国
Religion could not have induced real-time China
((This author, a local educator, spends two-thirds of his article on a detailed discussion of why the historical height of Buddhism in China cannot be considered the Han and Tang dynasties. Fair enough, Lin Mingya (who is a gentleman according to this author) should have written “Tang and Song.” IMO, this is a detail that was gnarled to death to no point at all. I have deleted it. Then there follows this criticism of Lin Mingya’s idea about the importance of Buddhism in Chinese history, which I think is interesting because it enlightens us about the current state of secular thought in China: -xp))
在中国历史上，曾有不少帝王和大臣笃信宗教，但中国从来没有成为一个政教合一的国家，除了个别地方政府或非常态的政权有这样的特征或倾向，前者如旧时的西藏，后者如太平天国。
In Chinese history, there have been many emperors and great nobles who sincerely believed in religion, but China was never a state where religion and government were combined, with the exception of certain places where exceptional governmental authority had these kinds of characteristics and tendencies, such as the Tibet of old, and later such as the Taiping government.
因此，也从来没有哪个宗教“引领”过中国。也许有人会提起儒教，但儒教严格意义上并不算宗教，更恰当的用语还应该是儒学或儒家思想。
Because of this, there was never such a religious “guiding” of China. Some might propose the Confucianists, but the strict ideas of the Confucianists could not even be considered a religion, even though this terminology could be considered Confucianist.
当今中国走的是务实的世俗化道路，在物质生产和建设方面，依靠的是科学的理论和方法。在精神人文领域，应该像盛唐那样，有着开阔的胸襟，立足民族传统的同时，广泛吸收不同的、新鲜的思想与文化观念，以益世道人心。
Real time China is following a path of pragmatic popularism, amd in the areas of production and construction, it is scientific reasoning and methods that are relied on. In the domain of psychology and the humanities, of course it resembles the flourishing Tang Dynasty, with expanded mental horizons. At the same time that the ethnic traditions were established sufficiently, the wide-range assimilation was uneven, and fresh notions of ideas and culture led the minds of the people towards benefitting the world. ((I believe this is a vast euphemism of why the Tibetans are not happy. -xp))
在全球化的潮流之中，我们更应该提倡千帆竞秀、百舸争流，任何“独尊”、“引领”都是不合时宜的。
Within the tide of global transformation, we have to further promote a thousand sails competing in elegance and a hundred big boats contending for the channel, and any “lonely glory” or “guiding” is not in accordance with the times.
中国政府长期以来推行宗教信仰自由政策。近年，中国的宗教人口有不断增加的趋势，但这不影响宗教在中国当代政治、经济、文化结构中的非主流地位。
The Chinese government has long since promoted the policy of religious freedom. This year, the membership in Chinese religions has had a steadily increasing tendency, but this has not influenced its non-mainstream status in China’s government, economy, and cultural structures.
佛教引领中国走向盛世？
Can religion guide China to a flourishing world?
中国宗教现状有一个宝贵的特点：信教者与不信者互相尊重、互不影响；各教温和自守，和平相处。这是一种难得的理念上的平衡。如果有一天，这个平衡被人为地打破，那将是一个灾难的开始。到时候，中国政府不挡是不行的。
Chinese religion has one especially valuable point: believers and non-believers respect each other, and do not influence each other; each sect is mild and conservative, and peaceful towards the others. This is an ideological equilibrium which is difficult to attain. If there comes a day when this equilibrium is destroyed for territory, that would be the beginning of a disaster. If it comes to that, it would be inappropriate for the Chinese government not to stop it.
·作者是本地教育工作者
The author is a local education worker.
((Although I do not like the propagandistic tone, I think the reading of Chinese history, and of the present values of the Chinese mainstream, is accurate. Clearly, much of this has veiled reference to the situation in Tibet, and I don’t think you have to read much into it to see why the current unrest in Tibet has close to zero support among the Chinese people. This is a profoundly pragmatic people. Although religion is again permitted as it generally has been throughout the entire sweep of Chinese history, fanaticism and extremism are going nowhere in present-day Chinese mainstream culture. -xp)).
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
