Global Buddhist Summit in Zemithang
Context:
Zemithang, the first stop of the 14th Dalai Lama during his flight from China-occupied Tibet in 1959, hosted a major Buddhist conference on April 17.
Points to Ponder:
- On April 17, Zemithang served as the venue for a significant Buddhist conference put on by the Indian Himalayan Council of Nalanda Buddhist Tradition (IHCNBT).
- Zemithang is a settlement and the final circle’s administrative centre that borders Tibet and Bhutan. It is situated in the Pangchen Valley, 96 km away from Tawang, the district’s administrative centre.
- The 14th Dalai Lama made the town his first stop during his 1959 departure from Tibet, which was under Chinese occupation. Beijing disputes it as Tibet’s boundary as well.
- Around 600 people from all around India, including Tibetan spiritual leaders, attended the summit.
- Pema Khandu, the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, emphasised the significance of convening the summit in Zemithang because of its association with the 14th Dalai Lama.
- At the same time as he acknowledged Buddhism’s global spread and resurgence in some historic places, Khandu emphasised the need to make it more lively and related to Nalanda Buddhism.
- The locals are known as Pangchenpa, which is Tibetan for “people who gave up sin.”
Global Buddhist Summit
- The Global Buddhist Summit (GBS) will take place in New Delhi, India, on April 20-21, 2023.
- The International Buddhist Confederation (IBC), the Ministry of Culture’s grantee organisation, is helping to organise the summit.
- The two-day summit will focus on “Responses to Contemporary Challenges: Philosophy to Praxis.”
- The summit’s objective is to bring together eminent Buddhist professors and monks from various nations to talk about how Buddhist theory and ideas may be used to address modern problems.
- Buddha Dhamma and Peace, Buddha Dhamma: Environmental Crisis, Health and Sustainability, Preservation of Nalanda Buddhist Tradition, and Buddha Dhamma Pilgrimage, Living Heritage, and Buddha Relics will be the summit’s four key discussion topics.
- There will be 151 Indian delegates, including 46 Sangha members, 40 nuns, and 65 laity from outside of Delhi, among the 173 participants from other countries, including 84 Sangha members.
- More than 30 ambassadors from foreign embassies will be among the almost 200 participants from the NCR region at the meeting.
- His Holiness Thich Tri Quang, the Supreme Patriarch of the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha, and Prof. Robert Thurman will each give a keynote address for the academic and sangha sessions, respectively.
- The summit’s goal is to investigate how the core principles of the Buddha’s Dhamma might offer inspiration and direction in modern contexts that struggle with problems like technological breakthroughs, consumerism, depleted earth, and the quick disenchantment of society.
- The summit intends to create a venue for Dharma Masters and lay Buddhist scholars to explore the Buddha’s teachings on compassion, peace, and harmony to advance world peace and harmony.
- To re-establish cross-cultural ties and look for similarities between Buddhist art and antiquity in various museum collections of the SCO countries, the Ministry of Culture and IBC recently hosted an international meeting of experts from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) nations on Shared Buddhist Heritage.
- The GBS-2023 is a similar attempt to involve the leaders and scholars of the worldwide Buddhist Dhamma in discussions about Buddhist and universal challenges and to develop ideas for policy solutions to solve them jointly.
