Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses responses of Hong Kong Buddhist practitioners to the 2014 Umbrella Movement and argues that Buddhist notions of suffering and salvation elevate the Movement to higher goals that transcend temporality and thus attribute to the Movement a prefigurative character.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will explore religious notions of past, present and future in Buddhist perspectives on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (late-September to mid-December 2014). This exploration will allow me to relate temporal ideas of 'democracy' and 'universal suffrage' to spiritual notions of engaged-Buddhism that transcend this temporality. I will first present a short overview of the emergence and development of the engaged-Buddhism movement in Asia since the mid-20th century. Next I will indicate how engaged-Buddhist notions of reducing suffering (both individual and societal) in the here and now relate to notions of Buddhist salvation. Finally I will relate these notions to the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement to argue that for some Hong Kong Buddhist practitioners, by using the discourse of engaged-Buddhism, the Umbrella Movement has become a transformative social movement using 'prefiguration' as moral strategy to connect the goals of the Umbrella Movement to goals with broader spiritual horizons. Thus, I will show that for my Hong Kong Buddhist informants, the Movement was not merely about attaining universal suffrage and fighting to keep the unique Hong Kong identity alive, but more significantly a possibility to prepare oneself and society for possible salvation.