http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_03/b4067050290718.htmChina's Spiritual Awakening
Why a growing number of successful urban professionals are flocking to Buddhism
by Dexter Roberts
On the first day of every lunar month, Buddhists crowd the Yonghe Temple to burn incense. Mark Leong / ReduxIn early December, Beijing's in-crowd converged on the central business district for the opening of the Kunlun gallery. Sipping Veuve Clicquot and Mumm champagne, the real estate tycoons, stock market warriors, and Prada-clad celebrities gawked at Ming Dynasty Buddhist statuary and 15th century scroll paintings.
Four Tibetan art works eventually fetched $3.4 million and, at a follow-up auction eight days later, 87 pieces of Buddhist art netted $10.4 million. For the gallery's proprietor, a half-Tibetan, half-Chinese entrepreneur named Yi Xi Ping Cuo, 35, the brisk business was another testament to the popularity of Buddhism in China. "Every year there are millions more Buddhists," says Yi. "Of course they want to put a Buddhist statue in their homes to make their hearts peaceful."
Buddhism is booming—quite a paradox given the Communist Party's official atheism and its troubled relationship with the Dalai Lama. The faith's growing popularity reflects a yearning for meaning among China's yuppies, who increasingly are attracted to Buddhism's rejection of materialism and emphasis on the transitory nature of life. "They have a BMW and a house in the countryside," says Lawrence Brahm, an American who runs three boutique hotels, including one in Tibet. "And they're bored. They're realizing there's more to life than collecting toys." Buddhism's trendiness has spawned a surge in faith-related business: Flights to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, are booked solid, monasteries are building guesthouses, and Web sites offering free downloadable mantras are proliferating.
Buddhism arrived in China from India in the first century A.D. and flourished right up to the modern era. After the Communists seized power in 1949, they discouraged religion. But like Christianity, Buddhism never entirely disappeared. Some believers continued quietly to practice at altars set up in their homes. And not long after China embraced market forces in the late 1970s and '80s, the faith reemerged in the countryside, with peasants visiting refurbished temples, where they burned incense and prayed.
<snip>