Speech at the Interfaith Summit for Peace and Harmony in Australia and Asia-Pacific Region by Deng Zongliang（2009）

Strengthening Multi-Cultural Exchanges and Building Harmonious World

 Speech by Deng Zongliang, Executive Deputy Secretary-General of CCRP in the Interfaith Summit for Peace and Harmony in Australia and Asia-Pacific Region

Distinguished chairman, ladies and gentlemen：

It is a great pleasure for me to be invited to attend the Interfaith Summit for Peace and Harmony in Australia and Asia-Pacific Region, and share wisdom and experience with all of you.

One Humanity, Many Faiths, the theme of this summit, is of great significance. Multi-faith is related to the diversity of civilization, which is the basic feature of human beings’ society, and also the key momentum for the advancement of human beings’ civilization. Diversity means difference, which implies that all civilizations should learn from each other. All civilizations, no matter long or short in term of history, can not be divided into the good and the bad, and thus should not be regarded as the reason of conflict.

Peace and development are two major themes of today’s world。With frequent regional conflicts, the world is not tranquil. Many hot issues are related to religions. Sometimes, religions are utilized unfortunately as the tool to stir up violence and hatred resulting in clashes among different cultures and sects, which is just contrary to the holy faiths we deeply hold. Under such circumstances, all religions should strengthen dialogue, seek common ground and harmony, confront violence through multi-faith cooperation to push forward building harmonious world. Multi-faith, bringing mutual respect and understanding, could prevent trouble before it happens. I was ever told an old Chinese tale, which said, over a thousand years ago, in Han Dynasty, a rich man built a new house. However, the cooking range was not designed properly. The stove was too close to the firewood, and the chimney was straight. In this way, it was easy for sparks from chimney to light the firewood. An experienced friend warned him of this danger, and suggested him doing some betterment. That was to bend the chimney in proper angle and move the firewood far from the stove. The rich man did not regard this suggestion as right. Soon later, his house caused fire due to the chimney. Thanks to neighbors’ great help, his house was not destroyed entirely. He treated all friends who ever helped with firefighting to show thanks, but forgot the friend giving him advice. This story indicates the importance of precaution and also sharing wisdom and experience.

As a nation worshiping peace and harmony, Chinese nation has profound cultures, which profits from the contributions of religions including Buddhism, Taoism, etc, whereas nurtures various religions in China. Chinese cultures, which value harmony in particular, are tolerant and compatible. Putting forward the idea of Making Efforts to Build a Harmonious World with Long-term Peace and Common Prosperity, Chinese government is engaged in strengthening dialogues and communication among different civilizations, learning from others' strong points to offset its weakness through competition, developing together with others while seeking common ground and shelving differences, and eliminating doubt and estrangement in order to make human being more peaceful and world more colorful. China’s foreign principles of building good-neighborly relationship and partnership with neighboring counties and diplomatic policies of bringing harmony, security and prosperity to neighbors, both emphasize the good neighborship and pragmatic cooperation with surrounding countries so as to create a regional environment of peace and stability, equality and mutual trust, cooperation and win-win.

In China, the government promotes the harmony between religion and society, the religious believers and unbelievers, and among different religions, while all religions are committed to building harmonious society and facilitating economic and social development, which just embodies the concept of “the five major religions making concerted efforts together” advocated by Chinese religious communities, for they all call for forgiveness and tolerance by the spirit of benevolence, and a pious, upright, and frugal life with the idea of publicizing the good and restraining the evil, purifying mind, observing the doctrine of the mean, and pursuing peace. In April, 2006, in light of the proposal of Chinese Buddhist community, the first World Buddhist Forum convened in Hangzhou city and Zhoushan city, Zhejiang Province, which attracted tens of hundreds of monks all over the world. A Harmonious World Begins in the Mind, the theme of this forum, represented essentially the munificence of Buddhism and its great wishes to shoulder historic tasks and social responsibility. This year, the second World Buddhist Forum will be held in Wuxi, China. A Buddhist master in China opened a blog to communicate with people from different circles of the society, and the click rate every day reached more than 2,000. So, we can see Chinese religious community played an important role of building harmonious society.

There are about 100 millions believers and 17,000 representatives from religious community in all levels of National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The religious members in the Subcommittee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs under the National Committee of the CPPCC, which I work for, are all exercising their responsibilities of political consultation, democratic supervision, participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs in a serious way, playing active role in China’s politics.

As an important organization and platform for all religions in China to undertake multi-faith activities and promote multi-cultural coexistence harmoniously, China Committee on Religion and Peace (CCRP) is deepening mutual understanding, and pushing forward the progress of religious peace through exchanges with international inter-religious organizations. The year before last year, CCRP delegation ever, as the guest of RfP/Australia, came for friendly visit and exchanges with religious representatives here. Every year, CCRP calls in and organizes religious believers in the whole country to pray for world peace in accordance with their own religious rituals and express their wishes for world harmony and peace.

 The Multi-Faith Centre in Griffith University and Pure Land Learning College, especially Venerable Master Chin Kung, are devoted to accelerating further understanding among people with different beliefs, religions and spiritual traditions, and carrying out inter-religious dialogues and interaction. May we make joint efforts to promote multi-cultural harmonious coexistence, prosperity and development, and make positive contributions to peace in Asia-Pacific region and in the world.

Thank all of you.