Recently, the 2023 South China Sea Buddhist Roundtable Education Forum and Youth Forum were held at the Prime Minister's Office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and achieved fruitful results.
From the 12th to the 13th, at the 2023 South China Sea Buddhism Roundtable Education Forum with the theme of "Zen and Peace - Exchanges and Mutual Learning between North and South Buddhism in the New Era", experts, scholars and senior monks from more than 10 countries and regions gathered at the forum to speak intensively, jointly focus on the theme of the forum, express their views, help Buddhist education to be more inclusive and diverse, discover their respective values with a Buddha-like broad mind, and jointly promote mutual learning among civilizations. The participating scholars believed that this year's Education Forum will not only look back on the tradition but also look forward to the future, which will help shape Buddhist education in the new era and promote Buddhist education to write a new page.
As an important outcome of this education forum, Kelaniya University and Benhuan College jointly established the South China Sea Buddhist Research Center and the Southern Buddhist Research Center, and held an unveiling ceremony at the forum.
On the afternoon of December 13, at the 2023 South China Sea Buddhist Roundtable Youth Sub-forum, youth representatives from Chinese mainland (mainland), Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as Sri Lanka and other countries actively spoke and dialogued.
The participants included the three major language families of Buddhism, Han and Tibetan, as well as different religions such as Taoism and Catholicism, as well as young representatives from business and academia. The theme of this year's Youth Forum is "Youth Dreams, Silk Road Starlight", and the participants exchanged views on actively promoting mutual learning among young civilizations in the Pan-South China Sea region, seeking to practice the spirit of the Silk Road and promoting the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. The forum also initiated the establishment of the Nanhai Youth Visit Liaison Office and the construction of a youth Zen tea cultural and creative workshop.
The reporter learned that the Youth Forum aims to gather the youthful momentum to promote mutual learning among civilizations and better safeguard the peace, prosperity and development of the South China Sea region. Over the past five years, the circle of friends of the Youth Forum has become larger and larger, and the delegates have become more and more active and in-depth in their dialogues and exchanges on topics such as in-depth promotion of the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, people-to-people exchanges, culture and education, social charity, ecological and environmental protection, and youth growth.
The Youth Forum and the Education Forum are sub-forums added by the Nanhai Buddhist Roundtable in 2019 and have been held for 5 sessions so far.
Photo courtesy of the event organizing committee).
Author: Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reporter Zhou Yuanchun).