Tan, P.

Piya Tan(b. 1949/08/20 - ) 

Born in:

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Malacca, Malaysia

陈明信

Piya Tan, who works on the Sutta Discovery Project . . . was a former Theravada monk for 20 years. Today he is a full time lay Dharma teacher specializing in early Buddhism. He was consultant and regu­lar lec­tur­er to the Buddh­ist Studies Team (BUDS) that success­fully introduced Buddhist Studies in Singa­pore Sec­ondary Schools in the 1980s. After that, he was invited as a visiting scholar to the University of California at Berkeley, USA. He has written many ground-breaking and educational books on Buddhism (such as Total Bud­dhist Work) and social surveys (such as Buddhist Currents and Charisma in Buddhism).

As a full-time Dharma teacher, he runs Buddhist, Sutta and Pali class­es like the basic Pali course series, the Sutta Study Group (NUSBS), Dharma courses (the Singapore Buddhist Federa­tion), Sutta Discovery classes (Buddhist Fellow­ship and else­where), and Sutta-based (including meditation) courses (Brahm Educa­tion Cen­tre), besides his own full-time Pali trans­lation and research project, the Pali House, and doing a compara­tive study of the Pali Nikayas and the Chinese Agamas. As a Theravada monk, he learned insight meditation from Mahasi Sayadaw himself in the 1980s. As a lay teacher, he learned forest meditation from the Ajahn Brahma­vamso. He has run numerous medi­ta­tion courses and retreats for students and adults (including non-Buddh­ists) since 1980s. In 1992, he taught meditation at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and also to BP, JPMorgan, the Defence Science Organization, GMO, HP and SIA. He is doing all this for the love of Dharma and of Ratna and their two children. (Source Accessed Nov 10 2020)

Library Items

Article

The Soul of Chinese Buddhism: Buddha-Nature and Universal Awakening; The Rise of Chinese Buddhist Humanism

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4.1 Buddhicizing the Chinese “soul”

      4.1.1 The Nirvāṇa Sūtras. Like many other ancient cultures, the Chinese, too, have a concept of a soul or abiding entity that survives the person‘s death. The Chinese word for such an abiding entity is línghún 靈魂. One of ancient China‘s largest and wealthiest temple, built in 328 (Eastern Jin dynasty) by the Indian monk, Huìlǐ 慧理,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000F96-QINU`"' is called Língyǐn Sì 靈隐寺, the "Temple of the Soul‘s Retreat," belonging to the Chán school, located north-west of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. In its heyday, during the kingdom of Wúyuè guó 吳越國 (907-978) [5.1.2.1], the temple boasted of 9 multi-storey buildings, 18 pavilions, 72 halls, more than 1300 dormitory rooms, inhabited by more than 3000 monks. Many of the rich Buddhist carvings in the Fēilái fēng 飛來峰 grottos and surrounding mountains also date from this era.
      The Chinese word for anattā (P) or anātman (Skt) (non-self) is wúwǒ 無我, literally meaning "not-I." There is no Chinese word for not-linghun. As such, although a Chinese Buddhist would intellectually or verbally accept the notion that there is no I (that is, an agent in an action), he would probably unconsciously hold on to the idea of some sort of independent abiding entity or eternal identity, that is, the linghun, which is in effect the equivalent of the brahmanical ātman. The situation becomes more complicated with Mahāyāna discourses, such as the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, that speak of a transcendent Buddhanature as the true self.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000F97-QINU`"'

Read more here

Tan, Piya. "The Soul of Chinese Buddhism: Buddha-Nature and Universal Awakening; The Rise of Chinese Buddhist Humanism." 3rd ed. Chapt. 4 in How Buddhism Became Chinese. Vol. 40B of Sutta Discovery. Living Word of the Buddha. Singapore, 2009. http://www.themindingcentre.org/dharmafarer/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/40b.4-The-soul-of-Chinese-Buddhism.pdf.

Tan, Piya. "The Soul of Chinese Buddhism: Buddha-Nature and Universal Awakening;The Rise of Chinese Buddhist Humanism." 3rd ed. Chapt. 4 in How Buddhism Became Chinese. Vol. 40B of Sutta Discovery. Living Word of the Buddha. Singapore, 2009. http://www.themindingcentre.org/dharmafarer/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/40b.4-The-soul-of-Chinese-Buddhism.pdf.;The Soul of Chinese Buddhism: Buddha-Nature and Universal Awakening;The Rise of Chinese Buddhist Humanism;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism;tathāgatagarbha;Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra;icchantika;ātman;anātman;Piya Tan;&nbsp

Affiliations & relations

• The Minding Centre (TMC) · workplace affiliation
• Theravāda · religious affiliation
• themindingcentre.org · websites