China’s prosperity inspires rising spirituality – R. Scott Macintosh

From the Christian Science Monitor (link):

As China becomes more wealthy and worldly, it’s also experiencing a growing interest in spirituality. Chinese are emerging with “more time and freedom to think,” says Yuan Ci, a monk who works with the Buddhist Association of China in Beijing. In doing so, they are helping to revive China’s venerable religions, like Buddhism.

In urban areas, China’s new Buddhists are young, college-educated, and upwardly mobile. They are looking not only for purpose in their lives, analysts say, but for a way to cope with the pressures of modernization and high expectations.