Huayen Lotus Association’s Digital Transformation and Cultural Innovation Vision

Ven. Hsiendu, Nov. 29, 2024

The Digital and Multidimensional Transformation of Huayen Lotus Association on its 70th Anniversary (2022): Exploring the Practicality of the Five Sciences of Huayen Bodhisattva in Modern Times

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in October 2019, the world has faced a crisis exacerbated by declining birth rates and rising mortality. Amid widespread panic, people found it challenging to focus, let alone engage in spiritual practices like chanting or repentance rituals.

In response, Huayen Lotus Association announced a transformation and innovation in its propagation methods when celebrating its 70th anniversary. The Huayen Sutra (Avatamsaka Sutra) was reinterpreted using modern language, simple words, beautiful melodies, and animations to convey the spirit of the Bodhisattvas: Guanyin’s compassion, Manjusri’s wisdom, Samantabhadra’s great vows, and Ksitigarbha’s aspirations. This gave birth to the “Huayan Musical Altar” project.

The core guiding principle of this transformation is to explore how the “Five Sciences” of Huayen Bodhisattvas can be applied in the modern world. According to the Huayen Sutra, practitioners must begin with the wisdom of “non-obstruction between conventional and ultimate truths” to perceive the ever-changing world through an egalitarian mindset, recognizing the intrinsic Buddha-nature in all. The practitioner aims to serve as a Bodhisattva to all, caring for family and everyone they encounter with steadfast dedication and the compassionate heart of a Bodhisattva.

Practitioners also cultivate the “Five Sciences”: Linguistics, Arts and Crafts, Logic, Internal Dharma, and Medicine. These disciplines help transcend barriers of culture, language, gender, and time, guiding others toward the Bodhisattva’s realm, where all phenomena are interconnected and harmoniously coexistent.

Additionally, the “Four Methods of Attraction”—generosity, kind words, altruistic acts, and empathy—are practiced to integrate compassion into daily life. Through personal embodiment, practitioners can effectively inspire and lead others toward transformation.

The first milestone of the transformation, the first album of Huayan Musical Altar, launched in January 2024, represents a groundbreaking step in creatively interpreting the Huayen Sutra through multimedia.

In the future, the Huayen Lotus Association's cultural and creative work will continue.  With a solid understanding of the classical content, the team combines art, modern technology, and AI tools, integrating Huayen teachings with expertise from literature, history, and philosophy. The creative works will be regularly published, and also showcased in the educational spaces of the Ocean Seal Bodhimanda. The Ocean Seal Bodhimanda will be an innovative space for studying Huayen teachings and demonstrate the various ways the Huayen Bodhisattva’s efforts to benefit sentient beings can be practiced in the world.

Media and Creative Innovation in Buddhism: Taking the Upcoming Album Huayen Music with AI Integration as an Example

In the age of new media, how can Buddhist cultural innovations thrive? Following the successful release of the first Huayan Musical Altar album in January 2024, which received widespread acclaim, Huayen Lotus Association has begun producing a second album. Unlike the first, which featured traditional orchestral arrangements, the new album integrates AI-assisted compositions.

Recent advances in AI technology have significantly altered global dynamics, raising ethical concerns. The Huayan Lotus Society seeks to address this by aiming to steer technological development with high-quality cultural influence, while adopting the perspective of “Threefold Huayen Expert,” specializing in studying, practicing, and promoting Huayen. The goal is to promote technological development through high-quality culture, driving the transformation of Buddhist temples, unifying the community, and chart a path for the next 10 to 20 years.

The upcoming album, tentatively titled Huayen Music with AI Integration, will be officially released in January 2025, accompanied by a grand concert. The theme song, “Huayen Musical Altar,” is part of a collection of 14 projects: nine vocal pieces and five instrumental tracks. Lyrics were personally crafted by the Association’s President, Ven. Hsiendu, who also guided the AI in generating various musical styles. Complemented by animations, the songs illustrate key chapters or themes of the Huayen Sutra, like the “Nineteen Categories of Divine Beings,” “Huayen Syllables,” and “The Bodhisattva’s Heart.”

Preliminary Results Have Gained Widespread Recognition

Initial AI-assisted creations have garnered attention within academic circles and the public. On April 27, 2024, the Association presented an early version of “Huayen Musical Altar” during a memorial event. Scholars from Japan and Korea were deeply moved by the Association’s use of AI to promote Huayen art and humanistic values. They noted the contrast with their own countries, where economic decline and an aging population have led to shrinking research funding. In contrast, Huayen Lotus Association continues to transform and spread Huayen teachings through multimedia innovation, leaving the scholars in awe.

After seeing the Association’s AI projects at the memorial event, Professor Guo Lei from Dongguk University shared them in a May 21 internal meeting with key figures from the university’s Buddhist Academic Institute.

The general consensus highlighted that AI’s integration with Buddhist resources offers personalized, diverse learning opportunities, fostering the tradition’s growth and relevance. Through the music and lyrics, the audience is able to understand the wondrous imagery and profound teachings of the Huayen Sutra, gaining insights into the infinite nature of the universe, the interdependence of all things, and moving beyond surface appearances to experience the realms of wisdom and compassion.

Huayen Lotus Association’s innovations were further recognized at the “Fifth Woodenfish Forum on Buddhism, Science and Future,” held in June 2024 by Woodenfish Foundation, a UN-affiliated NGO. Attended by prominent scholars and scientists from prestigious institutions, the event explored Buddhism’s adaptation to AI advancements.

A six-member team from Huayen Lotus Association attended the event, showcasing Taiwan’s Buddhist temples’ innovative contributions to AI music, animation, and other cultural arts. They also presented the transformation of traditional Huayen Sutra interpretations into modern methods of spreading Buddhist teachings. Additionally, the team offered an insightful and forward-thinking interpretation of how Buddhist temples can lead the way in optimizing and promoting the cultural and technological industries for the new generation. This sparked great interest and admiration among the attendees.

From October 3 to 4, an academic seminar on Huayen was held at American University, hosted by Professor Jin Y. Park. During the event, participants were introduced to the Huayen Lotus Association’s achievements in integrating AI into the creative reinterpretation of the Huayen Sutra, including four music videos: “Huayen Musical Altar,” “The Sacred Bond” (Kalyanamitra), “Infinite Bloom” (Boundless Wisdom of the Huayen Sutra), and “The Legend of Sudhanakumāra.” These works combine Huayen culture with modern technology, providing the attendees with a refreshing audiovisual experience.

Dynamic Media for Conveying the Essence of Huayen

The Huayan Lotus Association is collaborating with the multimedia creative team of “Hytree Studio (Guangdian Jishu Co., Ltd.)” to design animations for each musical piece. For example, “The Legend of Sudhanakumāra” spans multiple time periods and features diverse, ever-changing characters, inspiring audiences to understand the Huayen cosmology. The work encourages reflection on concepts of quantity, limits, and infinity, reshaping perceptions of time and space, and guiding people toward the realization of the “Three Realms of Huayan” (the realm of true awareness, the sentient realm, and the material realm) in a harmonious, unobstructed way.

Through these audio-visual projects, accessible to all ages and backgrounds, the Association aims to make the profound teachings of the Huayen Sutra more relatable. In addition to scheduled performances, these works will be on permanent display in the educational spaces of the Ocean Seal Bodhimanda. Through the tracks of the Huayan Musical Altar series, the Huayen teachings are expected to be spread to the world."