Talk:Tzu Chi

Advertising Language

This article has a lot of advertising language. I am going to do some modifications to it. Jh1234l (talk) 19:51, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Description

The use of the term cult seems excessive and perhaps unwarranted. 14:40, 30 June 2007 66.90.144.204

A remark on this point (which seems to have been resolved earlier): Like many other organizations, a group may arise from the work of a charismatic leader. However, as discussed in organizational theory, many other groups seek to make the transition beyond the founding generation. In this respect, Tzu Chi has actually focused on institutionalization of its work, not personalization, so I agree with the assessment of the above. 128.12.217.243 (talk) 18:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Mission

I included a segment on Tzu Chi Foundation's missions, briefly outlining their core focuses and areas of contributions. I also named the last paragraph, with a temporary title as "Public Opinion". I was unable to find an official english translation of some of the specific terms, however, so I translated them to the best of my knowledge.Gawdlike (talk) 19:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Public opinion

Saying that criticism ENDED after the 921 Earthquake is propaganda at best. There was still criticism after 921, and there still is, especially in wake of the recent economic situation where an increasing number of Taiwanese were upset that Tzu Chi still spends massive amounts in China when Taiwan is in financial turmoil. Anyone whom reads the Taiwanese papers knows that.--24.193.80.232 (talk) 18:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The word used in the public opinion section is "subsided", not "ENDED". If we can carry out a poll, I am sure you would see a clear shift of attitude [among the Taiwanese populace] towards the charity work carried out by Tzu Chi volunteers in China. Under the current political situation in Taiwan, it is not possible to accomplish anything without arousing skepticism or criticism. Even in Hualien, where the first Tzu Chi hospital is built, there are people thinking that Tzu Chi hospital should treat all patients free because the hospital was built with donated money from a lot of people. Obviously, the hospital would soon have to be closed if that's the case. The focus is helping needed people in addition to providing quality medical services in the remote eastern part of Taiwan. There will always be disagreements from people but it is very safe to say that most Taiwanese people appreciate the good deeds by Tzu Chi Foundation and its massive fleet of volunteers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.160.219.98 (talk) 03:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this sounds like an issue of word choice and "subsided" is now in the article.128.12.217.243 (talk) 18:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I went through the sourced article here and it says absolutely nothing about the public opinion of Tzu Chi. Whoever cited it was hoping no one would go through it but I did. I'm going to change it to citation needed until someone provides actual content that demonstrates attitudes towards Tzu Chi has changed. --114.25.10.148 (talk) 10:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Wade-Giles

Took out Wade–Giles "Tz'u Chi". icetea8 (talk) 23:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Hall of Still Thoughts

Should "Hall of Still Thoughts" be "Still Thoughts Hall"? icetea8 (talk) 00:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

More info needed

Where's the information on their charity work? Where are they operating internationally? What exactly are they doing? How are they doing it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.137.39.216 (talk) 20:09, 9 February 2012 (EST)

Possibly biased?

This needs more secondary sources. "a network of world-class medical facilities in Taiwan and a comprehensive education system" sounds a bit like advertising language to me. 50.98.201.158 (talk) 17:27, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Jaywalking?

I believe this was written improperly as it should be more like "taking the wrong path", as the wording for "right path" they always talk about is 正道, and this should naturally be the opposite of it. Never heard them once say not to jaywalk...they just say to respect "traffic laws", but it's in the context of "don't run red lights or speed"...didn't want to make any changes, so I thought I could bring it up here to help.

Source: My boyfriend's mother is part of this charity and watches their TV channel often. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.194.246.153 (talk) 15:04, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Extended content

Scooters in taipei If you recommend as above perhaps that the single liner on jaywalking is written improperly, quoting them in context they - with the 'they' being the original cause of confusions or even troubles and problems here - may have specifically indicated that because in Taiwan they have a said abundance of vehicles as well as scooters, and thereby their said Venerable Cheng Yen either directly or indirectly requested that Tzu Chi followers obey traffic laws as you have rightly suggested perhaps, INCLUDING non-jaywalking. In doing so, they have once or regularly added this guideline or admonishment as part of their said eight precepts. Customising the precepts is hardly a totalitarian issue, if you note perhaps how Cheng Yen was born of Japan, when the Japanese invaded East Asia they even 'customized' the entire name of the province of Taiwan as Formosa, so when the name of an entire island can be changed, whether the issue is about abstaining from jaywalking or following traffic laws, perhaps, the issue of localization comes into the picture. So putting things in context take as an example how your boyfriend's mother watches their TV channel being a Tzu Chi participant, honestly I myself am okay with it they have got some fantastic drama serials and sophisticated news headlines, still this is where I may bring up a few issues then: A former battery hen, five days after her release. Note the pale comb and missing feathers. When Tzu Chi sets up their Daai TV in Taiwan, the Taiwanese have got somewhat liberalised media services, so by now apart from streaming their Daai channels via TV cables and even IP TV boxes, they even own a major media broadcasting station in Taipei. Now if they use the term Daai in propagating their said dramas and media, couple of tabloid issues already highlighted including how they registered the term Daai as a commercial trademark with regard to beer or even wedding planner. When Gautama Buddha operated the first said sangha in North India and Nepal back then when the world had a population of 25 million - without slighting Tzu Chi unnecessarily - Tzu Chi over-expounded Buddhism in the name of the Buddha or Dharma in a language that was hardly Sanskrit or Pali. In other words, if the original teachings - as un-advanced as they were - were in ancient Indian dialects, when they get translated and transcribed into Chinese then also Japanese, English, Tibetan, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese and a whole bunch of other languages even Spanish, now if Daai wants to run a commercialized broadcasting media with its unique branding by now everybody can own a Youtube channel too, like I said it's perfectly alright, your boyfriend's and his mother can have their own Xiaoai and Laoai channels respectively too! Florida chicken house Taiwan Voluntary Military Service The Shakyamuni Buddha was actually quite a male chauvinist, He forbade women from shaving off their hair initially, preferring them to be lay householders who listened to Him speak. Historically, He spoke of affluent women offering Him milk porridges till girls that worked as hookers that became His disciples. His foster mother and cousin begged Him before He relented and allowed women shaving their hair and being nuns. Frankly, today when Tzu Chi operates a successful female nunnery this is quite worth celebrating from the viewpoint of women rights' activists. The thing is, in order to sustain Tzu Chi in the longer run, the monastic Cheng Yen has brought in her younger lay brother Mr Wang to run the commercial arms of the organization - which again that is perfectly alright since somebody qualified is looking after the accounts; now if you have a boyfriend, and I have a sister then both of us manifest like hookers or beggars that follow traffic laws while your boyfriend and my sister goes on secular romantic getaways and marital honeymoons with somebody else then they come back saying they are poor asking us for donations, again it perhaps is how the moneys are being raised and advertised. The term Buddhist and Taiwanese are being used as part of their organizational name. Like you said, I also believe this was written improperly as it should be more like "Cheng Yen" and "Rui Zheng", So, again if it is okay for you that Ven Cheng Yen doesn't even cross roads as a pedestrian, she takes the train and this lifetime she has never taken an aeroplane yet since she lives only within Hualien, yet in Taipei and worldwide every other Tzu Chi member drives a posh car bigger than your boyfriend's, again like I said I'm quite alright with that too. Again on the context of you and your boyfriend's mother, with sincere apologies perhaps, Tzu Chi has their own informal way of addressing uniformed members via the term "hen". In Chinese specifically their said Taiwanese Buddhist tradition, they relate themselves as mother hens looking after baby chicks, I find that quite alright too as a metaphor. Then when they go around exporting such terminologies worldwide, some love them more. Imagine this, mother and father chickens from Tzu Chi bringing little ones all over the world, saving people from earthquakes in China till tsunamis in Japan, I thought that's quite nice, until the whole Taiwanese island started voting democratic parties whose political leaders are said worshippers of Tzu Chi and Cheng Yen and ousting Kuomintang in a recent bid perhaps to exclude pro-China policies. Their teachings also forbade their members from joining or partaking in politics, now I'm asking you then, do you, your boyfriend and his mother vote during national elections? If you and your boyfriend with his mother are voters, like I am, you just broke the Tzu Chi commandment too. Take a look at the ordinary Taiwanese Tzu Chi volunteer, they proclaim Taiwan as a democratic country instead of a communist state, they want to vote their leaders, they want to own their American and Japanese cars, they want to be represented in the United Nations as a country. It's more than politics, it's geopolitics. Yet at the same time, they speak of themselves being apolitical. If they are apolitical, especially as a Buddhist organization - the Buddha threw away His throne and made His cousins like Ananda and His own son Rahula shave their hair - why does Cheng Yen allow her secular sibling having hair and even kids then? They call themselves hens, they want to touch and perhaps own money and have families. I thought again that is perfectly fine, Tzu Chi people aren't any different from us ordinary folks they have sentient desires and needs too. Yet, what if the Tzu Chi people need to also have a military budget too? Quite alright, isn't it? We have legs, we walk, we have horses, we ride, we have roads, we cross, we have hands, we work, we have money, we buy, we have property, we defend, we have land, we .. we farm .. everybody loves one another, that big machine hiding behind the barn with a pointy turret gun is just an accidental invention because we built broadcasting stations, schools and hospitals, like we perhaps are, again like I said I'm quite alright with that too. So when Tzu Chi wants to go on the right path, and continue on the right path, your mother needs to become a volunteer and recruit members. If you become a member, you get to marry your boyfriend, if your boyfriend become a member, he gets a salariable job, both of you give your money monthly to Venerable Cheng Yen and her brother Wang Rui Zheng, watch TV together in the same living room, when families of participants fall sick or let's say you are pregnant, you get to be in the respective same ward as the nephews and nieces of Cheng Yen - perhaps better - then watching again the same Daai TV shows, like I said I'm quite alright with that too. Because Venerable Cheng Yen is such a heroine of our time, when she eventually passes on you get to mourn her and even have a national holiday, if Tzu Chi build monuments in memory of her or - ahem - him, all of us can bring our kids and worship shrines or Jing Si Halls with her or - ahem - him as our national or religious savior. I may even get to be buried or cremated beside her, WONDERFUL! I don't know, why did they build Wikipedia in the first place then? I won't understand, why would you bother whether is it 'jaywalking', or respecting "traffic laws" or "don't run red lights or speed" when Taiwanese Buddhist laws are primarily in Traditional Chinese, and Venerable Cheng Yen or her major followers who may have came up with this regulation may have hardly received any English education whether Australian, British, American or ahem Singaporean, if they i.e. all Tzu Chi key stakeholders perceive, intend, read, write, type, speak, work, act, mind, strive and concentrate in English then maybe we have a real problem, why are they printing and publishing their teachings in Traditional Chinese? Map of Nepal showing location of Lumbini The historical Buddha spoke only Pali and Sanskrit! Are you going to load yourself, your boyfriend and his mother with a paratrooper group of Taiwanese Buddhist Tzu Chi participants and air-drop them in land-gulfed Nepalese Lumbini and teach them how to speak the Minnan dialect so that Japan-born-Taiwan-resident Cheng Yen can officially become a male while the said ashes or what is left of Avalokitesvara in the Himalaya region can be proved to be female instead of male...... Enlightenment can perhaps only spread as far as stupidity may, 林榮祥 05:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC) Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Ronggy (talk) 05:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC) ^What the heck is this? Wikiman5676 (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Controversies

Edited this section to better reflect the quoted sources, plus added some missing sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by T94jal (talk • contribs) 14:58, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

article needs updating tag

Who put the "article needs to be updated" tag? And what info are you referring too that needs updating? Wikiman5676 (talk) 23:23, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

since nobody has said anything i have removed the "needs to be updated" tag. I updated numerous points of information in my previous edits and since nobody can indicate what needs updating I have removed the tag.Wikiman5676 (talk) 03:10, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

name translation

Do we really need the title of the org to be translated into that many languages? Wikiman5676 (talk) 02:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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General assessment

Having read the article, Wikiman5676, I think it is almost at B. One thing that is noticeable—and you are not going to like it—is that there is no criticism mentioned in the article. Considering the large scope and impact of the organization, I find it unlikely that the organization has no critics. If you want to upgrade the article to GA or FA, you might also want to find information on how the organization responds to certain issues in national debate, and positions itself politically. Having seen a documentary about Tuzu Chi from a a Buddhist television station in Holland, I noticed the doctors working in their hospitals are very much aware of beliefs and practices among the Taiwanese, and oppose some of those. Apart from these issues, the article is well-organized and well-written, and with some adjustments for neutrality could make it to GA or FA.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 12:22, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

yes I do remember there being a section on criticism before. But it was removed by some random editor like a year ago. That section was certainly a violation of WP:UNDUE and WP:CRITICISM anyways however, as it took up close to half the article and just listed complaints. But yes you are right. Tzu Chi, like other major Buddhists orgs like Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Fo Guang Shan, is the source of significant criticism, especially in its home country of Taiwan. I will see if i can find that old section on criticism and incorporate some of the information in a way that fits with wikipedia policy. Wikiman5676 (talk) 18:47, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Okay so i found the old controversy section in an archived edit and put it in my sandbox. however many of the links are now dead making verification difficult. I will still try to mention some of the controversies this is going to take longer than i previously thought. Wikiman5676 (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Wikiman5676, having read your sandbox, I can understand what the problem is. Try integrating the criticism within the article, and preferably, using scholarly sources rather than only news sources. Unsourced and speculative information cannot be used, nor can blogs and forums. It is also important to try and get multiple opinions on every point of criticism. Try checking the Internet archive for dead links, or search on Google whether there is a cached version of the page from before it got deleted. I hope this helps. Never forget that adding criticism to a page should help improve understanding of the subject, rather than take more distance from the subject through vague generalizations or tabloid weasel. See also WP:WTW.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 10:31, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

You know Farang Rak Tham, i finally got to doing this. The amount of blantant media speculation and tabloid mania present in these sources is just ridiculous. And I thought Thailand had poor media quality. Even though Taiwan is a developed country its not much better. Anyways, ive started incorporating some of the critical stuff, using strictly the facts presented in the sources. Ill try to look for more, but i think the article needs some restructure to incorporate it all. Wikiman5676 (talk) 07:02, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Good, Wikiman5676. Sometimes English-language sources are of lower quality than the local-language sources. Don't forget to indicate how the temple responded to criticism, as people sometimes express the best who they are once they are under attack.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 13:17, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Here's the Dutch documentary about the temple i mentioned before. For what it's worth. Most of the interviews are in English.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 13:33, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Founding Dates

It has come to my attention that there are conflicting dates for the organization's founding. [1] [2]. Therefore I have changed the founding date to year only. Wikiman5676 (talk) 06:12, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The official Chinese name of the organization

Most sources I've read indicated that the organization is called 慈濟基金會, but it is still unclear if this is an abbreviated name. Other names have been mentioned, such as 佛教慈濟慈善事業基金會 and 財團法人中華民國佛敎慈濟慈善事業基金會. Can we reach a consensus on what the official Chinese name is? 66.215.184.32 (talk) 08:41, 13 July 2024 (UTC)