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Etai Yamada
The Most Venerable was the 253rd head priest of the Japanese Tendai school of Mahayana Buddhism. In 1986, Yamada was invited by Pope John Paul II to be one of the few non-Christian religious leaders to attend the World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy. In 1987, he held a religious summit meeting on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. This event has been held annually to the present day, inviting religious leaders to gather to pray for worldwide peace and reconciliation. Yamada conducted ecumenical dialogues with religious leaders around the world based on his interpretation of the Lotus Sutra which culminated in a 1987 summit. He also used the Lotus Sutra to move his sect from a "temple Buddhism" perspective to one based on social engagement. Yamada received the Niwano Peace Prize The Niwano Peace Prize is given to honor and encourage those devoting themselves to interreligious co-operation in the cause of peace and to make their achievements known. Its foundation hopes that the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shiga Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the northeast, Mie Prefecture to the southeast, and Kyoto Prefecture to the west. Ōtsu is the capital and largest city of Shiga Prefecture, with other major cities including Kusatsu, Nagahama, and Higashiōmi. Shiga Prefecture encircles Lake Biwa, the largest freshwater lake in Japan, and 37% of the total land area is designated as Natural Parks, the highest of any prefecture. Shiga Prefecture's southern half is located adjacent to the former capital city of Kyoto and forms part of Greater Kyoto, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Japan. Shiga Prefecture is home to Ōmi beef, the Eight Views of Ōmi, and Hikone Castle, one of four national treasure castles in Japan. History Shiga was known as Ōmi Province or Gōshū before the pref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tendai
, also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese monk Saichō ( posthumously known as Dengyō Daishi). The Tendai school, which has been based on Mount Hiei since its inception, rose to prominence during the Heian period (794-1185). It gradually eclipsed the powerful ''Hossō'' school and competed with the rival Shingon school to become the most influential sect at the Imperial court. By the Kamakura period (1185-1333), Tendai had become one of the dominant forms of Japanese Buddhism, with numerous temples and vast landholdings. During the Kamakura period, various monks left Tendai (seeing it as corrupt) to establish their own "new" or "Kamakura" Buddhist schools such as Jōdo-shū, Nichiren-shū and Sōtō Zen. The destruction of the head temple of Enryaku-ji by Oda Nobunaga in 1571, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mahayana Buddhism
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing branches of Buddhism (the other being ''Theravāda'' and Vajrayana).Harvey (2013), p. 189. Mahāyāna accepts the main scriptures and teachings of early Buddhism but also recognizes various doctrines and texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism as original. These include the Mahāyāna Sūtras and their emphasis on the ''bodhisattva'' path and ''Prajñāpāramitā''. ''Vajrayāna'' or Mantra traditions are a subset of Mahāyāna, which make use of numerous tantric methods considered to be faster and more powerful at achieving Buddhahood by Vajrayānists. "Mahāyāna" also refers to the path of the bodhisattva striving to become a fully awakened Buddha (''samyaksaṃbuddha'') for the benefit of all sentient beings, and is thus als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in April 2005, and was later canonised as Pope Saint John Paul II. He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the third day of the conclave and adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century and the second-longest-serving pope after Pius IX in modern history. John Paul II attempted to improve the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He maintained the church's previous positions on such matters as abortion, artificia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Day Of Prayer For Peace
A Day of Prayer is a day allocated to prayer, either by leaders of religions or the general public, for a specific purpose. Such days are usually ecumenical in nature. They usually are treated as commemorative in nature, rather than as actual liturgical feast days or memorials. Day of Prayer for Prisoners Day of Prayers for Prisoners is a Polish Catholic holiday celebrated since 2009 every year on 26 March, established on the memorial day of Penitent Thief (known also as Good Thief, a patron of prisoners). The initiative came from the Association of Evangelical Help for Prisoners "Prison Brotherhood" in Warsaw. On this day for many years, the Prison Brotherhood organized a pilgrimage of prisoners' representatives to the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, the major Polish Marian sanctuary. The idea behind establishing the Day of Prayers for Prisoners is a need to promote prayers especially among the prisoners who disassociate themselves entirely from God, who do not see an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assisi
Assisi (, also , ; from la, Asisium) is a town and ''comune'' of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio. It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, born around 50–45 BC. It is the birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order in the town in 1208, and St. Clare (''Chiara d'Offreducci''), who with St. Francis founded the Poor Sisters, which later became the Order of Poor Clares after her death. The 19th-century Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was also born in Assisi. History Around 1000 BC a wave of immigrants settled in the upper Tiber valley as far as the Adriatic Sea, and also in the neighbourhood of Assisi. These were the Umbrians, living in small fortified settlements on high ground. From 450 BC these settlements were gradually taken over by the Etruscans. The Romans took control of central Italy after the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC. They built the flour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Hiei
is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, Japan. The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai (Chin. Tiantai) sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei by Saichō in 788 and rapidly grew into a sprawling complex of temples and buildings that were roughly divided into three areas: # The area near the summit, and technically in Kyoto Prefecture. # The area, also near the summit, where Enryaku-ji Temple was first founded, and located just within Shiga Prefecture. # The area near the northernmost end of Mount Hiei. Due to its remoteness, as a temple complex it experienced periods of revival and decline, starting with Ennin, later revived by Ryōgen and made famous by the scholar-monk Genshin. Due to its position north-east of the ancient capital of Kyoto, it was thought in ancient geomancy practices to be a protective bulwark against negative influences on the capital, which along with the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the city had a population of 1.46 million. The city is the cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Kyoto, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 3.8 million people. Kyoto is one of the oldest municipalities in Japan, having been chosen in 794 as the new seat of Japan's imperial court by Emperor Kanmu. The original city, named Heian-kyō, was arranged in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an/Luoyang. The emperors of Japan ruled from Kyoto in the following eleven centuries until 1869. It was the scene of several key events of the Muromachi period, Sengoku period, and the Boshin War, such as the Ōnin War, the Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lotus Sutra
The ''Lotus Sūtra'' ( zh, 妙法蓮華經; sa, सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्रम्, translit=Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram, lit=Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma, italic=) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. It is the main scripture on which the Tiantai, Tendai, Cheontae, and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established. It is also influential for other East Asian Buddhist schools, such as Zen. According to the British Buddhologist Paul Williams, "For many Buddhists in East Asia since early times, the ''Lotus Sūtra'' contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha—complete and sufficient for salvation." The American Buddhologist Donald S. Lopez Jr. writes that the ''Lotus Sūtra'' "is arguably the most famous of all Buddhist texts," presenting "a radical re-vision of both the Buddhist path and of the person of the Buddha." Two central teachings of the ''Lotus Sūtra'' have been very i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niwano Peace Prize
The Niwano Peace Prize is given to honor and encourage those devoting themselves to interreligious co-operation in the cause of peace and to make their achievements known. Its foundation hopes that the prize will further promote interreligious co-operation for peace and lead to the emergence of more people devoting themselves to this cause. The award is given annually and consists of a certificate, a gold medal, and 20 million yen (roughly US$180,000). The screening committee, which decides the recipients, is made up of religious leaders of international stature. They select the recipient from candidates who are nominated by religious leaders and others of intellectual stature around the world. The Tokyo-based Niwano Peace Foundation was initiated by the Japanese citizen Nikkyō Niwano, founder of the Buddhist lay organization Risshō Kōsei Kai; he was one of the few non-Christian observers of the Second Vatican Council. His son, Nichiko Niwano, is his successor as chairman of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
