this is a very good series, 20 episodes in all, i got the dvds from the singapore amitabha society . It was said that after the southern Song Dynasty, there no longer is any real buddhist monks and nuns in China as buddhism lost its soul and valour in china due to presecution and many other reasons.
Venerable Xu Yun has however changed this, along with a few other great monks in the late Qing dynasty, buddhism saw a revival in the early part of the last century. The chinese, however has lagged behind the japanese in terms of buddhism research, due to years of turmoil, and ignorance.
That is slowly changing but with the onslaught of communism china, it came as a further blow to chinese buddhism. Tibetan buddhism gain grounds all over the world much faster than the chinese mahayana tradition and is ironically due to Dalai Lama's exile from tibet, resulting in the establishment of tibetan buddhism in the western world through asylum seekers from tibet.
It is interesting that Buddhism flourished in India, before the downfall later with the invasion of the muslims and the revival of hinduism, then flourished in china, before the downfall in the last 800 years, I believe the next bloom for buddhism would be in the west, buddhism is a religion of reason, of peace and of the truth of reality.
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