主题：失佛园—民国时代在锡兰的留学僧
主讲：芮哲（Justin R. Ritzinger），美国迈阿密大学宗教研究系助理教授（Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Miami）
主持：张晓林，华东师范大学哲学系教授、宗教学教研室主任
时间：2015年6月16日（星期二）15:00-17:00
地点：华东师范大学闵行校区人文沙龙
主讲简介：
芮哲（Justin R. Ritzinger），现任职于美国佛州迈阿密大学宗教研究系助理教授（Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Miami）。2010年，在哈佛大学（Harvard University）取得博士学位。他的研究范围是现代汉传佛教，写作了有关中国佛教对进化论反应，佛教与基督教末世学比较，以及太虚大师青年无政府主义思想等方面的文章。他目前的研究，是关于民国时代的弥勒信仰，主要部分是有关太虚大师的弥勒思想。相关讯息，可以参考他的网址：http://www.as.miami.edu/religion/people/justin-r-ritzinger/。
内容简介：
失佛园—民国时代在锡兰的留学僧
民国佛教改革派的一个特色就是理想远超过现实，他们的很多计画都是空中楼阁而无法实现。以他们自己的标准来看，这算是失败的。而这失败之中，派遣中国学僧去锡兰留学的挫折也不小。在30、40年代，为了修学原始佛教而成为模范僧，有两团僧青年渡海求法。在佛教期刊的文章里描述了一个佛园，在锡兰原始佛法常住，清净律仪盛行，白衣居士虔诚......等等。但是，在他们写作的信件中反而充满了怨气。最后，这些模范僧都还俗了，这似乎是个满大的失败。不过，从历史的角度来看，这失败也是很有意义的。从这个事件，我们可以更了解民国佛教最重要的一些潮流：乌托邦主义、夸地网络，与对所谓“佛教＂的新概念。
英文简介：
The reform movement of Republican-era Chinese Buddhism was remarkable for the distance between its ambitions and its capacities. It seemed to produce an endless stream of grandiose plans with no apparent means of implementation and ambitious organizations doomed to only ever exist on paper. Little wonder then that Holmes Welch regarded the movement as little more than an over-rated failure of little lasting significance. While recent work has called this evaluation into question, there can be little doubt that many of its initiatives, judged by their own stated goals, failed. Among these failures, the programs to send young monks to study in Ceylon were particularly resounding. Tasked with retrieving the pure original Buddhism of Ceylon, the program’s participants wrote essays for the reading public extolling Ceylon as a Dharmic paradise where the Buddhism past still lived, yet their letters home seethed with resentment and ached with bitter disillusionment. In the end, the young men who were to return as model monks for a new and revitalized Chinese sangha disrobed and returned to lay life. Even by the standards of the day, this would appear a disastrous result. Yet there is much that we can learn from failure. The exchange provides an illuminating window on some of the most important issues and developments of the day, including utopianism, translocal networks, and the construction of new understandings of “Buddhism.”
