Religious Heritage of Nan Tien Temple featured at the 50th Annual Conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion

News by Humanistic Buddhism Centre, Nan Tien Institute

Written by: Sioh Yang Tan

The 50th Annual Conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (AASR), themed “Rural Religion and Religious Heritage,” was held on 4–5 December 2025 at Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Victoria. The conference marked the golden anniversary of AASR and was fittingly hosted in Ballarat, a historic gold-mining town rich in religious and cultural heritage.

Dr Sioh Yang Tan from the Humanistic Buddhism Centre at Nan Tien Institute participated in the conference and presented a paper highlighting Humanistic Buddhism in regional Australia. During the event, Sioh Yang also met with Prof Anna Halafoff and Prof Cristina Rocha, collaborators from the Buddhism in Australia research team.

The keynote address on the opening day was delivered by Prof Lori Beaman from the University of Ottawa, who leads the international and multidisciplinary research initiative Nonreligion in a Complex Future. Lori Beaman presented the “Community Gardens” project, which draws on comparative data from eight countries with historically Christian-majority societies. This project aims to develop new tools for measuring and understanding nonreligion in socially and culturally embedded contexts.

In the “Rural Buddhism” session chaired by Cristina Rocha, Dr Elizabeth McDougal, a lecturer from Nan Tien Institute, presented a study of a high-altitude Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in Qinghai Province, China, highlighting the challenges it faces amid rapid modernisation.

On Day 2, Prof Clara Saraiva from the University of Lisbon, who is currently a visiting professor at Western Sydney University delivered the Penny Magee Memorial Lecture. In her evocative presentation, “On the Sacred Mountain of the Moon: Monastic Cloisters, Druid Circles and Holistic Spiritualities in Portugal,” she transported the audience to the historic landscape of Sintra. She described how natural environments and historical monuments intersect to create overlapping and porous symbolic spaces of belief, shaped in part by Portugal’s recent religious resurgence.

In the afternoon, a panel session on the Australian Research Council funded project “Mainstreaming Spirituality in Australia: Wellness, Wellbeing and Risks” further explored contemporary spiritual landscapes. Anna Halafoff opened the panel with an overview of the project, which examines spirituality across three streams—Indigenous spirituality, religious spirituality, and holistic spirituality—while also addressing both its positive dimensions and potential risks.

Sioh Yang Tan’s presentation, “Heritage-Making as Spiritual Practice: Nan Tien Temple in Regional New South Wales,” was delivered in the final session of the conference under the theme “Asian Religions in Rural Australia.” The session was hosted by Assoc Prof Keir Reeves of Federation University, who also presented on regional religious heritage.

Using the recent recognition of Nan Tien Temple as the first Buddhist site listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register as a starting point and drawing on interviews from the Nan Tien Temple 30th Anniversary Oral History Project, the paper foregrounded the voices and agency of monastic and lay leaders as heritage-makers. Their reflections revealed how building and sustaining the temple is understood as an integral part of spiritual cultivation within Humanistic Buddhism.

Keir Reeves commented on the remarkable achievement of establishing a deeply rooted heritage within just three decades. Anna Halafoff shared that the interviews revealed profound trust and the depth of the teacher–disciple relationship between Venerable Master Hsing Yun and successive abbesses of the temple.

Reflecting on the conference, Sioh Yang described it as a valuable learning experience, offering insights into diverse theoretical frameworks in religious studies and the practical application of research methodologies in the field. Discussions with colleagues also looked ahead to future collaboration, including plans to present the Buddhism in Australia project at the 2026 conference.

This conference trip was made possible with the support of the Hsing Yun Education Foundation through the Buddhism in the Sea of Islands project grant.