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A major Buddhist conference in Hong Kong with very few Hong Kong scholars…
Another major academic event coincided with the start of the school year in August. An international conference titled “Buddhism, Science and Technology: Challenges to Religions from a Digitalized World” took place as part of the Inaugural Forum “Beyond Civilizational Clash: The Coalescence of Human Civilizations”, held in the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, August 10–11, 2023. It was sponsored by the Glorisun Global Network, whose founder, Hong Kong philanthropist, Dr. Charles Yeung, was also present. Nearly two hundred scholars from China and around the world were invited. I was invited to deliver a talk in the “Buddhism and technology” panel and I read a paper titled “Flat Earth and Mount Sumeru: Can East Asian Buddhist cosmology be accommodated in modern science?” Unlike others who took the opportunity to praise the scientific insight of the Buddha, I challenged this idea and questioned how we should handle scientifically outdated concepts without undermining the value of the religion. As usual, some eminent scholars, usually with science background, but with no academic training in Buddhism, would make some fantastic claims about Buddhism, to the embarrassment of many. A curious observation I may make —— there were hardly any Hong Kong scholars — I was invited because of the international and mainland networks I belong to. This appears to be a wider phenomenon that applies to academics in Hong Kong in general. Some years ago, I tried to bring together the local Buddhist scholars, to create some platform for communication and collaboration. We reckoned that there are no less than 50 local scholars working as full-time researchers or university professors in fields connected to Buddhism. Somehow Buddhist scholars in Hong Kong are not so active internationally and many of them are not so well connected with their Mainland Chinese counterparts either. I suppose Hong Kong universities tend to hire international scholars who often have transient presence here in Hong Kong and the local Hong Kong scholars may risk being marginalised.
My presentation — not the most popular one!