Buddhist Master Wei Chueh (
Buddhist leaders yesterday held a press conference at the Legislative Yuan to condemn Wei Chueh's "inappropriate behavior."
"Buddhist monks and Buddhist nuns never lie. How can he use his alarmist talk to terrify people? It's spreading wild rumors to blind the mind of the people," said Shih, who is also an associate professor at Hsuan Chuang University (玄奘大學).
PHOTO: CHEN TSEH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
"His anti-democratic words and deeds humiliate Buddhist circles," Shih said.
On Tuesday, Wei expressed his support for the pan-blue camp when the alliance's presidential candidate, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), and his running mate, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), visited the Chung Tai Chan Monastery (中台禪寺). Wei Chueh, who is the head of the monastery, also branded the referendum illegal and urged Buddhists to boycott it.
Wei Chueh also said that the proposed Religious Groups Act (宗教團體法), which had been drafted by the Executive Yuan as part of a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) initiative, infringed on religious groups' independence in financial and personnel matters. He said the law would further "destroy religionists."
Shih said yesterday that the Chung Tai Chan Monastery might end up being the most terrible religious monster in Taiwan, because it arbitrarily did illegal things, such as occupying state-owned lands.
She added that the opulent monastery in the center of the country was a galling shame to Buddhists.
"The over-commercialized Chung Tai Chan Monastery's use of political leverage to influence the Religious Groups Act is absolutely inappropriate," Shih added.
Lin Jung-chih (林蓉芝), secretary-general of the Chinese Buddhist Temple Association, said that Wei Chueh's criticism was nonsense, because the current draft of the law was based on common sense and had been endorsed by members of a religious counsel under the Ministry of the Interior, including representatives from the monastery.
Lin Pen-hsuan (林本炫), an assistant professor in both religion and sociology at Nanhua University, said the act was aimed at establishing sound regulations for "religious corporate organizations."
He had drafted the law along with representatives from five major religions about three years ago.
Lin Pen-hsuan said that the only voice against the law had been raised by the Chung Tai Chan Monastery.
"They are reluctant to make their accounts transparent and to deal with illegal construction problems," Lin Pen-hsuan said.
He said the Legislative Yuan's evaluation of the proposed act had been suspended.
Meanwhile, Lin Pen-hsuan said, KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (
Two of Wei Chueh's disciples tore up the certificates proclaiming them Buddhists at a DPP office in Taichung yesterday to express their disappointment.
Chuan Chieh (
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching