A Summary of Findings and Recommendations:

Vision and Leadership

1. Consensus among Buddhists

l Buddhists of all traditions to work together with a common purpose in accepting the basic teachings of the Buddha, and to develop a universal peace message for the new millennium.

l Buddhists should also relate to other religionists by developing more inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogues.

2. Understanding the importance of preserving Buddhist heritage sites around the world.

l Buddhist civilizations provide the link between the past and the present so that youths of today can prepare for the future.

l WFBY to include lessons and teachings on heritage for enrichment/education of youth.

3. Communicating with the Young

l Generation Gap can be addressed through greater understanding and communication between the young and the old.

l Use of modern technology e.g. multi-media when communicating the Buddha’s message to young people, e.g. thro web-based and internet technology, TV and radio broadcasting.

4. Issues in Dharma Propagation to Modern Youths which needs to be avoided:

l Secularization, i.e. diluting the Buddha Dharma in the process of bringing the teachings to the young.

l Dogmatism, i.e. meeting modern youth’s fascination with materialism and consumerism with a balanced approach without being reactionary.

5. Training of Buddhist Youths

l Developing systematic and comprehensive curriculum for training programs that are targeted at youths based on their different age levels.

l Utilizing modern concepts of human capital development such as the competency model and various psycho-metric tools as part of the process of developing Dharma-inspired Buddhist leaders.

l Initiating an exchange program whereby best practices of Buddhist leadership programs from various Buddhist groups can be benchmarked for further improvement by others.

6. Developing Socially-Engaged Buddhist Youths

l Health-related Issues: AIDs and prostitution

l Juvenile Delinquency: Runaway teenagers

l Social-related Issues: unwed mothers

l Environmental Awareness: Understanding means of protection

7. Establishment of an International Buddhist Fund

l To allow Buddhist groups to prepare training programs without the constraints of financial resources.

l To ensure that Buddhist self-sustenance in funding.

8. Gender Issues in Buddhism

l Appreciation of the disadvantage position of women in all sections of the Buddhist community.

l Approaches to provide solutions to address the problem.

9. Conclusion

l Some of the proposals can be initiated almost immediately while others require time for proper and detailed study.

l The success of programs from youths will depend on the support and commitment of all Buddhist groups.

1^st July 2001

10.40 p.m.