Longquan Monastery

The Longquan Monastery was founded in AD 957 during the Liao dynasty. ==Longquan Monastery's History of Propagating Buddhism==

Feb 2006: Ven. Master Xuecheng opened his Sina Weibo microblog. Oct 2006: The Beijing Ren Ai Charity Foundation was established. Aug 2008: The Chinese and English "Voice of Longquan" websites were opened. Feb 2011: Ven. Master Xuecheng opened microblogs in eight languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Dec 2012: Monk & Blog, a compilation of 100 sets of microblog posts, was published. Sep 2015: A Series of Teachings by Ven. Master Xuecheng was released on CD ROM and flash drive. The 18-series set includes 297 lectures. Oct 2015: Robot Monk Xian'er was born. Oct 2015: Collated and Explained Nanshan Vinaya was published with 8 sets and 32 books. Dec 2015: Longquan Monastery's first overseas monastery, the Longquan Great Compassion Monastery, was opened. July 2016: Longquan Monastery's first African monastery, the Longquan Bohua Monastery in Botswana, was opened, and the Great Buddha Hall was consecrated. Jan 2017: The “Journey of a Mentally Challenged Child to Offer Congee”, initiated by Beijing Ren Ai Charity Foundation Tsinghua Congee Offering Stack, was selected as the "Most Internationally Influential Chinese Story of Charity." ==Urban "modernity" at Longquan Monastery==

Longquan Monastery, a sacred Buddhist temple with history spanning over 1,000 years, is now upgraded and given a “makeover” with high technology. From iPads to webcams, the monastery has been completely filled with the sense of urban “modernity”. However, tourists and Chinese citizens do not only come to visit this once lonesome temple on a hilltop in northwest Beijing to admire the monastery’s technological makeover, but also to examine the way Longquan Monastery has become a haven for the spiritually adrift. When discussing urban “modernity” in China, we often think of moving away from traditional practices to become more scientific, which categories religious practices as backward, outdated and superstitious, and it has become apparent that the same shift has happened to Longquan Monastery. The scientific modifications in Longquan Monastery can be described in the sense that there is a shift from deep philosophy to more practical teachings, such as resolving family conflict. Longquan Monastery has become a haven for a distinct brand of Buddhism, one that preaches connectivity instead of seclusion and emphasizes practical advice over deep philosophy. When the monastery reopened in 2005, it was equipped with fingerprint scanners, webcams and iPads for studying sutras, or Buddhist texts. Moreover, the leader of the monastery, the Venerable Xuecheng, stated that Buddhism can stay relevant only by embracing modern tools and that it is no longer realistic to expect people to attend daily lectures. Modern tools that were once deemed as a form of distraction have now been “naturally” incorporated into Longquan Monastery. ==See also==