Aurhor: Most. Ven. Thich Bao Nghiem
Head of Department of Dhamma Propagation, VBS

We are living in the era of "post-modern", thus, those terms such as "integration", "globalization", have become more and more universal and applicable. Globalization is the indispensable general trend which attracts all nations in the world to join in. However, according to many researchers, globalization has been present in the human history for a long time, but the current term has a different meaning with what we had in the past, because it covers all phases of our social life. Basically, it's the result of the progress of labour forces, or more specifically, it's the revolution of information science and the market economy.

The globalized economy creates more urgent need for nations in the world to expand their markets, to learn about investment opportunities, to consolidate the outer or inner resources to develop national economy. Furthermore, globalization is also realized in other areas between two nations or among numerous nations. Religion, being an essential element in the social super-structure, is influenced by not only the economy but also the diplomatic relations in politics, culture, and society among nations in the world. As for religions, globalization means that there will be many different religions in a nation, in other words, all religions will have a chance to expand their territories and their impacts. We can say that globalization will bring about more opportunities, but also more challenges for religions. Among them are the erosion and the deletion of various religions. It's due to many important reasons such as: once a society begins to open its doors, its people will become more knowledgeable, thus, they not only come into contact with their traditional religion, or receive it passively, but also examine it, and receive it with careful observation and the result is a society with diversified religions.

Buddhism, like many other religions, has to face with challenges, created by globalization. As a result, all Buddhists, in general, and ordained monks and nuns - the Buddha's messengers - in particular, will have more responsibilities to maintain and to develop the 'The Buddha house".

As one of the earliest religions in Viet Nam, Buddhism with its characteristics of being flexible, fusible and active, always emphasizes on the practices of compassion, selflessness and equanimity, to attain its ultimate goal of liberation and enlightenment. Thus, Buddhism has quickly integrated and identified itself with the Vietnamese people and left remarkable traits in many aspects. In the cultural aspect: Buddhism and its culture have played a key role in the Vietnamese culture. And the compassion and equanimity of Buddhism have caused the Vietnameses to be more generous toward their fellow beings - love your fellow beings as you love yourself. Similarly, Buddhism has been walking along with the Viet Nam people, even though the road is not always smooth, but Buddhism does its best to be constantly in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, to protect as well as to develop the country throughout 2000 years.

In the era of "D6i Mai" (Renovation), Viet Nam Buddhist Sarigha has tried to widen its international interactions in peace, friendship and solidarity with Buddhist and other religious organizations in the world. These activities need to be multiplied and developed to create more channels to exchange information among nations, to strengthen mutual understanding, and to reflect our will to cooperate with other Buddhist brothers in a friendly atmosphere for the benefits of the nations as well as Buddhism.

These movements also reflect the foreign affairs, the development strategies as well as the policies of Viet Nam government toward religions; hence they will prove that the malicious propagandas against the Viet Nam government to be falsified. Thanks to the international relations and co¬operations, the Viet Nam Buddhist Sarigha has established its prestige with other Buddhist nations. Thanks to the help of the Viet Nam Buddhist Sarigha, young monks and nuns are trained at the doctorate and master levels; another larger number of them are attending universities abroad.

However, facing with the aggressive development and integration of a modern society, the Viet Nam Buddhist Sarigha needs to planyout proper strategies to catch up with social trends, because any haste decision will only inflict harm to ourselves. It means that we need to integrate into society with new attitudes, among them, are the up-to-date knowledge, advanced knowledge. But the questions are what knowledge do we need to acquire and how can we acquire it? An energetic and developed society cannot accept whatever which proves to be unfit for it, only talented individuals can survive and move onward. The motto is to move along with others. And Buddhism is also forced to move along with the flow. Actually, this thinking is not new to Buddhists, since the Buddha taught us that 'depending but not changing, not changing but depending."

At the present time, many people (including a number of monks and nuns) assumes that Buddhism only means ritual performances, and prayers. The Buddhist communities cannot just concentrate in rituality or humanitarian tasks, but we have to make sure that outsiders can also realize essential values of Buddhism in their daily life. Thus, we have to pay special attention to the education aspect, for education is the way, the means through which people come to appreciate these indispensable values. Hence, we need to re-evaluate both our strategies and our tactics in training talented monks and nuns, who will set good examples in morality and in knowledge, to serve the Sarigha, and the people in a new development period of the country. This is the most important and most meaningful mission, for these very monks and nuns will have to guide laypersons on the right path to liberation, through their Buddhist preaching. In addition, their preaching methods have to change to be more suitable in the modern time: Dharma talks, retreats, should be scheduled at a convenient time for the laypersons, and the public, such as after work hours, or on the weekends; preaching should not take place only in traditional environments such as temples, within the circles of layperson orders, but also for festival events such as Yen Tu, Huang pagoda festivals. Preaching should also happen concurrently with other Buddhist youth events (International Children's Day, Moon festival, Counselling Day for students who will take entrance exams to get into universities) and with local social and cultural events.

Preaching means should be modernized and diversified* specially the multi-purpose communication equipments. Plus, we need to take advantage of the supports from young Buddhists who live in remote areas to take part in preaching activities to propagate Buddhism. We need to encourage Buddhists to learn more about the Buddha's teachings by organizing Dharma competition tests, speech competition, Dharma discussions, workshops; by arranging special retreats for the young or for the business persons, in order to help them to purify their mind, and to let go of business stress, so that they can have a more balanced life. Those are a few things that we need to carry out right away, for once Buddhists can understand well the Buddha's teachings of arising conditions, impermanence, and selflessness, then they can adjust easily to changes and can transform quickly when facing hardships in the market economy. These directions also are proper for the working agenda of the Viet Nam Buddhist Sarigha in their 6th service term (2007-2012).

According to numerous researchers, the 21st century will the century of Religion and Peace. Thanks to its everlasting values, Buddhism will play a key role in bringing peace and happiness to the world, if it can catch up with the world development and social integration, as the most famous scientist, Albert Einstein, had observed: "If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism". Buddhism does not need to re-establish its views to be levelled with the new discoveries of science; neither does it need to give up its views to be suitable with scientific tendencies, for Buddhism embraces and goes beyond science. Buddhism bridges religions and scientific thinking. The Buddhist bridge has encouraged human beings to discovery their greatest capacity which lies deeply inside them and in their environment. Buddhism goes beyond time and is always precious.