Buddhism In Canada

Canada is a country that has had the concept of multiculturalism deeply rooted within itself for decades now. Canada strives to be a society where all people are equal and can bring their values and beliefs while being welcomed with kindness and an opened mind. One aspect that is widely accepted and intertwines with culture is religion, and I witnessed this when I took an in-depth look at Buddhism. My group members and I went to the Fo Guang Shan Temple of Toronto to see a series of observations. During my time at the temple, I was able to understand that culture plays a significant role in the religion and this is seen in some religious rituals and patterns that can be associated with Buddhism itself. In this essay, I will analyze how

Durkheim states in Malory Nye’s Religion: The Basics. “Religion made people get together, and so was a form of social glue that created social solidarity” (Nye 2008, 45). This idea holds true in the temple as hundreds of Buddhists are a part of this community that brings people together and continues to want to be. Every week they go to rituals, and it a result of attending these temple ceremonies a society and principles that Buddhist believe in maintain culture. Moreover, the theory of social glue means that Buddhist culture and Canadian cultural traditions can coexist together. I noticed that the temple has brought in elements of Canadian culture are within the temple such as having religious texts in English or offer tours of the institution. All this is done to make everyone feel welcome not just Buddhists in doing this the culture will preserve itself as it grows offers itself to a whole new group of people while existing among other religions peacefully. Thus a strong social glue can keep its base happy while building and make Buddhism making accessible to all

One of the biggest issues regarding the assignment was the lack of time and ability to do outside research. I was only at the temple for over an hour I would have benefited from being there longer one time of observations does not give me the full grasp on Buddhism. Perhaps visiting one temple presents some biased viewpoints as each temple could be different be I will never know as I only went to one. Another issue that came up was not being able to do outside research this would have helped me understand the history of Buddhism more in depth. I wanted to write about the origins of the religion, and how it came to be so that I could prove a higher level of understanding, unfortunately, that was not allowed leaving my knowledge rather limited and one sided do to the fact it was only based on one hour with no other research. Lastly, there was a language resulting in my group and I not understanding everything in ceremony and have context luckily there was a book in English that helped