Crises today bring a turning point tomorrow. Temples have long operated more conservatively and passively, depending on offerings, donations, and rituals. However, the changes in the economy and demography have directly and indirectly affected the operation and sustainability of temples. If temples do not adjust their operating models, they will inevitably face crises such as loss of worshippers, lack of new members, financial income instability, and succession of traditions and heritage. How would temples adopt enterprise management to use their economic resources under these dilemmas? How would the development of social innovation and enterprises promoted by contemporary government agencies be adopted by temples as policies for sustainable operation? These main points are what this paper, ""The study of contemporary Buddhist temples' sustainability - Buddhist social enterprises as the main core of discussion"", wishes to explore.
This study attempts to reflect on Buddhist temples' economic outlook from the historical context of Buddhism from the perspective of Buddhist communities. Next, the study discusses the discourse, research, and practice of today's religion and academia communities regarding the operation of temples. Various objective aspects, such as law, organization, and implementation, are explored to the opportunities of developing ""Buddhist social enterprises"" for Buddhist temples and the solutions to difficulties encountered during the process. A qualitative research method is adopted to study the contemporary Buddhist temples' sustainability, and various case studies focusing on Buddhist social enterprises are used for data analysis. Interviews with several participants in the industry, government and academia, and practitioners in the domain are incorporated into the study. After compiling and analyzing the results, we summarize the conclusion, prospects, and recommendation and hope that they can become useful references for the sustainability of temples.
This article is divided into seven chapters. The first explains the motivation, purpose, scope, and method of the study, as well as the review and discussion of the relevant literature. The second chapter will conduct an in-depth discussion of the evolution of the Buddhist economic history of original Buddhism, Mahayana, and contemporary Buddhism. In the chapter, we summarize past works on Buddhist economics to be used as a reflection to allow us to again evaluate and understand the belief, solution, action, and proof of Buddhism which has been passed down for more than 2,500 years, and we can have more in-depth thinking about the future management and economic development of temples. The third chapter continues the discussion on the evolution of Buddhism's economic history in the previous chapter to further explore the evolution of contemporary Buddhist temples' operation, and it focuses on the role
