During the era of Buddhism in Indian, sermons were preached by the Buddha. After he died, his followers collected his sermons and preached Buddhism to the rest of the world. The spread of Buddhism was initially through word-of-mouth, and as the communication technology evolved, Buddhism had been delivered by means of handwriting, woodblock printing, to modern printing. After Buddhism was imported to Taiwan, the ways of delivering a sermon have moved from paper prints to newspaper, magazines, and television. Furthermore, while the way people expose themselves to information has been changing from television to smartphone, Internet, and social media, the new era of Buddhism preaching has come.
The present study adopted “literature review” and “in-depth interviews” to analyze how Fo Guang Shan delivered a sermon through social media platforms. The interactions between monastic and lay assemblies within the Facebook group and Fan Page actually play a crucial role in their communications. Devotees’ daily practice and volunteers’ continuous learning also largely rely on social media nowadays. We interviewed both monastic and lay assemblies. The former interviewees were the admins of “ Fo Guang Shan Ji Le Temple’s Facebook Fan Page” and “Buddha's Light International Association Young Adult Division’s Fan Page”, and the latter were the Fan Page admins of “Fo Guang Shan – Fo Guang members” and “We are always standing by Fo Guang Shan”.
The study results show that social media serves as a better measure to overcome the restrictions of event time, space, and location. For example, while the whole world was suffering from the pandemic in 2020, Fo Guang Shan used social media to calm sentient beings. Moreover, Fo Guang Shan decided to change the form of their annual assembly into online live stream event through social media. In addition, our study indicates the spread of Buddhism actually follows the development of civil society, instead of taking control of sentient beings. By means of the convenient and efficient Internet, a sermon can be preached to five continents in a timely manner. Our study provides supporting evidence on social media beneficial to Buddhism preaching, which helps monastic and lay assemblies to look for alternatives of preaching and to make Buddhism sustainable.
