[ { "id": 205138, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n89\n\nbeen told by one eminent abbot that those Christians who are militantly anti-Buddhist and call the dharma \"nothing but lies\" will be reborn in hell and punished by Yen-lo Wang. Even persons sympathetic towards Buddhism do not escape censure. Dr. K. L. Reichelt, the Norwegian missionary, found much to admire, particularly in Pure Land devotion, and he incorporated Buddhist motifs - even the burning of incense in the altar arrangements of his Christian Mission to the Buddhists, first in Nanking and later in Hong Kong. The architect for its buildings in Hong Kong was no less a person than J. Prip-Møller, who designed it in the pattern of the Buddhist monasteries he had spent four years studying. There was a refectory, library, and a wandering monks hall, where pilgrims could stay in the usual manner. Gradually they were introduced to Christian doctrines and diverted with swimming, games, and language instruction. Many of them became converts, some even Christian pastors. The ingenuity of all this has seemed Machiavellian to some Chinese Buddhists. One abbot bitterly called it \"that place that specializes in destroying Buddhism.\"44\n\nChristian Converts to Buddhism\n\nThe humiliation that Chinese Buddhists had suffered vis-à-vis Christianity, when added to the humiliation they felt as Chinese vis-à-vis the West, made it very sweet for them to find that a few Western Christians had been converted to Buddhism. They gave a handsome welcome to B. L. Broughton, the vice president of the Maha Bodhi Society of London, who spent six weeks touring Chinese Buddhist institutions in 1933 and was the first Englishman to receive the bodhisattva ordination.45 They also welcomed Dwight Goddard from Santa Barbara, who came soon afterwards to get help with translations; M.W. Anthony, the first American to receive the bodhisattva ordination (on May 26, 1936); John Blofeld, who stayed at many monasteries in the late 1930's; and Miss Ananda Jennings, who went to study meditation at the Nan-hua Szu in 1949. Probably the most famous Christian convert was Trebitch-Lincoln, born Ignatz Trebitsch in 1879. The son of a rich Jewish grain dealer near Budapest, he received an orthodox education, but thereafter his curriculum vitae probably has no parallel in modern times:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210362, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 333, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "312\n\nHONG KONG HILLTOP RETREAT FOR CROSS AND LOTUS\n\nHUGH WITT*\n\nThe town of Shatin in Hong Kong's rural New Territories is a mushrooming area of rapid growth. High rise apartment blocks, factories, shops and offices are rapidly transforming this valley community into a major urban district. Shatin is one of six new town developments designed to reduce the heavy concentration of Hong Kong's population in densely congested Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It is a typical example of Hong Kong's ability to keep pace with the need for progress and expansion in a highly competitive world trading economy.\n\nBut there is more to Shatin than a reflection of Hong Kong's material needs. It is also a monument to more lasting values. For Shatin holds a unique place in east-west religious thought; it is the place where Christianity and Buddhism blossomed side by side in the teachings of a far-sighted Norwegian missionary. High on a hill, overlooking the changing landscape below, is the Christian mission of Tao Fong Shan the Mountain of the Wind of the Way. Hidden by trees from view below, the site of the mission is marked by a 40 feet (12 metre) cross which can be clearly seen from afar.\n\nToday Tao Fong Shan is a study centre dedicated to ecumenical work and the role of the Christian church among the Chinese. But it continues to carry the influence of its founder, Dr. Karl Ludvig Reichelt, who perhaps more than any other missionary to China, sought and found common ground between the ideals of Christianity and Buddhism.\n\nThe church, its dormitories and the other buildings erected by Reichelt, are set in peaceful tree-lined gardens. And although the\n\n* This article, originally published in a number of Scandinavian theological publications, and in some newspapers in Norway, is printed here as background to the visit to Tao Fong Shan by the Society in the Spring of 1984.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210363, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 334, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "313\n\nteachings of the mission are Christian, the appearance of the eight-sided church and its surroundings are uncompromisingly Chinese, a gesture to the Buddhist pilgrim monks who found shelter there.\n\nKarl Ludvig Reichelt was born in 1877 at Bardu, near Arendal, Norway. The son of a sea captain, who died when Karl Ludvig was a child, he trained as a teacher at Notodden. He taught for a short period in Telemark and became a lay preacher in his spare time before entering the Norwegian Missionary Society training college at Stavanger.\n\nShortly after his ordination, Reichelt sailed for China, where, after language study, he was appointed to Ninghsiang, Hunan, where the Norwegian Missionary Society was active. It was his experience at Ninghsiang that influenced the rest of his missionary career. The impressions gained while on a visit to the famous Weishan monastery remained with him for the rest of his life.\n\n“I got a glimpse,” he wrote, “of a peculiar and exclusive world, a world charged with deep religious mysticism, a world full of tragedy and heart-rending but also marvellously rich in points of contact with sacred religious material.”\n\nIn response to what he felt to be a call from God, Reichelt decided to prepare for “special work among these people by the cultivation of friendly intercourse with the monks and enlightened lay people.”\n\nFrom that time Reichelt devoted himself to the study of Far Eastern religions and became in time one of the greatest contemporary authorities on the subject.\n\nReichelt's influence grew and he was later appointed to the staff of a Lutheran Theological Seminary at Shekow, near Hankow. His ideas on a Christian-Buddhist relationship matured sufficiently for him to submit to his home board a proposal for special work among Buddhists in China. He received support from his own missionary society, from the Church of Sweden and the Danish Missionary Society. He also toured Germany, Finland and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210364, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 335, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "314\n\nHUGH WITT\n\nUnited States to arouse interest in his new venture.\n\nReichelt later established himself in rented quarters in Nanking and did not have to wait long before the first wandering Buddhist monks found their way to his new Christian monastery.\n\nBut differences arose between Reichelt and the Norwegian Missionary Society and there were misunderstandings and criticisms of his methods. Facing a choice of closer co-operation with the society and going it alone, Reichelt decided on the lone path.\n\nReichelt continued to work in Nanking until 1927, when the \"Nanking Incident\" took place. His premises wrecked during this period of political unrest, Reichelt was lucky to escape alive and he based himself in Shanghai for two years before moving on to Hong Kong \"fully determined to locate the mountain which we know Providence had prepared for our future work in south China.\"\n\nThat place he found on a hill overlooking Shatin. Reichelt stayed there until his death in 1952 and his grave is to be found there still, in the grounds of the mission he built in 1931.\n\nThe design for the monastery was produced as a result of a meeting in America between Reichelt and the Danish architect Johannes Prip-Moller, who had long been interested in Chinese building and was an authority on Buddhist architecture. Prip-Moller's book \"Chinese Buddhist Monasteries\" published by Hong Kong University in 1937, is a standard work on the subject. The design of the church itself is seen as an outstandingly successful blend of Christian and Buddhist influences and the architect's work is commemorated by a plaque mounted on the church wall.\n\nToday the Tao Fong Shan Christian Mission to Buddhists continues its work yet has adapted to changes in religious needs. Church groups attend seminars and lectures and accommodation is available for those who seek it, just as there was originally for pilgrim monks. The mission has also changed its name to the Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Centre, in order to integrate earlier...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 } ]