《金剛經》在香港的傳授=Teaching the Diamond Sutra in Hong Kong; 介入都會人口=Engaging Urban Community; 普及文化與佛學=Popular Culture and Buddhist Teaching; 佛教日常生活行為=Buddhist Daily Life Practices; 佛教知識與實踐=Buddhist Knowledge and Practice
The Diamond Sutra enjoys a very high status in the Chinese Buddhist community, regarded as the sutra that was responsible for the enlightenment of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch in Chinese Zen Buddhism. Its title, “the diamond that cuts through illusion” also suggests that the sutra is specifically aiming at the erasure of illusion to facilitate enlightenment, thus respected by the Buddhist community to be a central text in Buddhist teaching. It has also been noted that the most popular Chinese translation of the sutra, by Venerable Kumārajīva in 402, has presented the teaching in a specific language pattern that is not easy to understand. The teaching of the Diamond Sutra in the popular Chinese Buddhist community is thus both essential and challenging. This presentation is reviewing two examples of such teachings of the Diamond Sutra to the Cantonese-speaking community in Hong Kong in the 21st century, to examine what strategies have been adapted by the monastics to present this core Buddhist teaching to the lay community. The lecture series of Venerable Fa Ren and Venerable Guan Cheng have been chosen because of the