At this year's forum, we would like to discuss the issue of the Middle Path and religion under the title of "the Middle Path and Religion - Revisit of Religion"

On the occasion of the 30th commemoration of its establishment in 2017, the Calm Voice Society organized the Forum on The middle way, and ruminated on the meaning of the Middle Path, namely the Noble Eightfold Right Path. And at this year's forum, we would like to discuss the issue of the Middle Path and religion under the title of "the Middle Path and Religion - Revisit of religion". As to the question of whether Buddhism is religion, its answers could vary depending on how 'religion' is understood. In the East the term referring to religious things originally employed the word of teaching敎. But this had been transformed by adoption and wide use of the western word of religion in interpretation in modern times, thus bringing about change in the meaning of teaching敎.

In Korea, christianity from the West and Buddhism which came to Korea through China two thousand years ago have now occupied commanding status as two major religions. While Christianity is the faith religion based on belief in the God, Buddhism differentiates itself as the practice religion to realize right understanding of oneself. It is true that Buddhism itself attaches much importance to faith as the initial step for starting practice, forming a preliminary phase in understanding the Dhamma. But this faith phase naturally gives away as soon as belief in the Dhamma takes a firm root. Even though the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dhamma and Sanga are related to faith, understanding and practice, Buddhism cautions against blind belief lacking perfect understanding. These days Buddhists who lack proper understanding of a deep meaning of the Buddha's teachings have remained satisfied with keeping immature faith for blessing. But one may hope that such immaturity shall gradually fade away in the face of a higher level of inquiring mind brought by modern science education. In this sense, it is noteworthy that Christians have engaged in rumination on a true meaning of the God, namely the Truth, which could contribute to broadening possible dialogues between Buddhism and Christianity. This development does not necessarily deny a possibility that economic and military conflicts as well as religious faith-based conflicts in worldly lives still pose the most dangerous threat to humanity. Religious faith tends to lead to extremism willing to endure death.

Religions, which came into being to address innate fear and discontent, have embraced dogmatic and exclusive faiths, thus going through change in various appearances in terms of time and space. These days cultural barriers all over the world are crumbling down, but religious confrontation and conflict alone has become more acute. The Buddha's teachings, based on the Non-Self doctrine, does not allow any room for confrontation or conflict. That is due to the fact that there can not exist Buddhist truth and non-Buddhist truths separately. The Buddhist Dhamma, which is oriented toward the Middle Path and based on an open mind toward truth, requires us to review our thinking before trying to judge right or wrong of other's arguments. Such spirit of the Dhamma of the Middle Path in which one withdraws and reflects on oneself, will help uproot tendency toward self-righteousness, which is one of easy traps for religion, and provide to us a unfailing fortress which guarantees openness toward truth and liberty. I hope that we could take the opportunity of this year's forum to build such fortress and consolidate it in the future.