Pope Benedict XVI met with visiting Master Hsing Yun (
During the meeting, Benedict XVI expressed his best regards for the Taiwanese and said he would pray for them. The pope also said that he would visit Taiwan if the chance arose.
Hsing Yun arrived in Rome on Tuesday.
In the company of Taiwanese Ambassador to the Vatican Tu Chou-sheng (杜筑生), the Buddhist master extended his respects to the pope on behalf of Taiwan's Buddhists and invited the leader of the Roman Catholic world to visit Taiwan.
Referring to himself as a "pilgrim," Hsing Yun said he hoped the visit would help to boost mutual understanding and cooperation between Buddhists and Catholics.
In a separate gathering with a group of overseas Chinese, Hsing Yun predicted that some day, when China becomes a rich country, it may "eat up Taiwan."
Taiwan has cringed at the idea of unifying with China because of its perceived poverty, he said.
"Now China is becoming richer and richer, and some day in the future it would not be incredible that it might eat up Taiwan as the ideas of inequality, such as rich and poor and big and small, are involved here," Hsing Yun said.
Sharing his experience in putting one's mind at ease, Hsing Yun said there were several ways of doing so, but that such fundamental principles as love, tolerance, cherishing what one has and making friends with all would always be important, no matter what approach one took to "finding a home for one's mind."
He said that a sense of equality was important because only by treating all living beings and all systems of belief equally would peace and harmony prevail in the world.
For that same reason, he said he would advise Taiwanese not to look down on their poorer neighbors in China, who may in the future grow rich enough to "bring Taiwan into its fold."
Hsing Yun founded the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Monastery in 1967 in southern Taiwan, which has since then evolved to become the largest Buddhist monastery in the country.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS