Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia (대순사상과 동아시아종교)

DAOS(The Daesoon Academy of Sciences) (대진대학교 대순사상학술원)
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Messianism in Civilizational History: The Transformation of the Buddhist Messiah via Maitreya

  • DINH Hong Hai (National Univesity-Hanoi City)
  • Received : 2024.01.25
  • Accepted : 2024.03.20
  • Published : 2024.03.30
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Abstract

The world we live in is becoming more convenient thanks to the inventions of science and technology. Still, the world is also becoming more and more unpredictable with the current situation of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity). The Covid-19 pandemic brought the biggest global disaster ever with 774,631,444 infected people and 7,031,216 deaths (WHO on February 11, 2024) but it seems that humanity is gradually forgetting this disaster. Meanwhile the economic stimulus packages worth trillions of dollars from governments after the pandemic have further caused the world debt bubble to swell. The bubble burst scenario is something that many economic experts fear. Apparently, in the transitional period of the early decades of the 21st century, the world's economic, cultural, political, social, natural, and environmental aspects have undergone profound transformations: from the real estate and finance crises in the United States since 2008; through the melting of the Arctic ice over the past several decades; to the double disaster of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. Especially, in the context of the world economic crisis after the COVID-19 pandemic, the human achievements of the past thousands of years are in jeopardy of being wiped out in an instant. Many people are predicting a bad scenario for a chain collapse. Facing the signals of an imminent economic catastrophe based on the appearance of "the Gray Rhino, Black Swan and White Elephant," many drawn in by Eschatological thought declare that Doomsday will occur shortly. This is the time for many other people to hope for the incoming Messiah. The Messiah is said to appear when people feel despair or suffer a great disaster because faith in the Savior can help them overcome adversity mentally. This research will find out how adherents of Buddhism view and deal with civilizational crises by examining history via symbols associated with Maitreya as based upon the Buddhist Messiah, Maitreya.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

I want to express my gratitude to Anne-Marie Hilsdon, Curtin University, Australia, for her advice and guidance throughout the article, as well as for English proofreading.

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