Crafting Women S Religious Experience In A Patrilineal Society

This book examines the transformation of values in China since 1850, first in the “secular” realms of economics, science, medicine, aesthetics, media and gender, and then in each of the major religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity) and in Marxist discourse.

Explores the milieu of Taiwan’s Buddhist nuns, who have the greatest numbers in the Buddhist world and a prominent place in their own country.

With more than 150 temples in thirty countries, Foguangshan has developed over the last thirty-five years into one of the world’s largest and most influential Chinese Buddhist movements. The result of two years of fieldwork in Foguangshan temples in Taiwan, the U.S., Australia, and South Africa, this volume is an unprecedented examination of the inner workings of a dynamic and innovative religious movement. Based on direct observations, private interviews, and careful textual and historical analysis, Stuart Chandler looks at the challenges faced by Foguangshan’s leader, Master Xingyun, and his followers as they try to adhere to traditional practices and values while tapping into the advantages afforded by modern, global society. Foguangshan’s slogans (“Humanistic Buddhism” and “Establishing a Pure Land on Earth”) are placed in historical context to reveal their role in shaping the group’s attitudes toward capitalism, women’s rights, and democracy, as well as toward the traditional Chinese virtue of filial piety and the Chinese Buddhist concept of “links of affinity” (jieyuan). Chandler goes on to analyze Foguangshan’s educational system and its understanding of how precepts relate to contemporary problems such as abortion and capital punishment. The book’s final chapters consider the cultural and political dynamics at play in Foguangshan’s ambitious attempt to spread Humanistic Buddhism around the world and how its followers have reinterpreted the Buddhist ideal of homelessness to take advantage of the spiritual potentialities of people’s lives as global citizens.

This volume explores the role played by monastic discipline in the emergence and evolution of modern Chinese Buddhism. A central feature of the Buddhist tradition, monastic discipline has received growing attention in the contemporary Buddhist world, but little from scholars. Adopting a diachronic perspective and a multidisciplinary approach, contributions by leading scholars investigate relevant Vinaya-related practices in twentieth and twenty-first centuries China and Taiwan, including issues of monastic identity and authenticity, updated ordination procedures, recent variations of Mahāyāna precepts and rules, and original perspectives on body movement and related sport activities. The restoration and renewal of Vinaya practices and standards within Chinese Buddhist practices shed new light on the response of Buddhist leaders and communities to the challenges of modernity. Contributors are: Ester Bianchi, Raoul Birnbaum, Daniela Campo, Tzu-Lung Chiu, Ann Heirman, Zhe Ji, Yu-chen Li, Pei-ying Lin, and Jiang Wu.

The Venerable Cheng-yen is an unassuming Taiwanese Buddhist nun who leads a worldwide social welfare movement with five million devotees in over thirty countries—with its largest branch in the United States. Tzu-Chi (Compassion Relief) began as a tiny, grassroots women's charitable group; today in Taiwan it runs three state-of-the-art hospitals, a television channel, and a university. Cheng-yen, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, is a leader in Buddhist peace activism and has garnered recognition by Business Week as an entrepreneurial star. Based on extensive fieldwork in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States, this book explores the transformation of Tzu-Chi. C. Julia Huang offers a vivid ethnography that examines the movement’s organization, its relationship with NGOs and humanitarian organizations, and the nature of its Buddhist transnationalism, which is global in scope and local in practice. Tzu-Chi's identity is intimately tied to its leader, and Huang illuminates Cheng-yen's successful blending of charisma and compassion and the personal relationship between leader and devotee that defines the movement. This important book sheds new light on religion and cultural identity and contributes to our understanding of the nature of charisma and the role of faith-based organizations.

This book employs a broad analysis of Chinese patriliny to propose a distinctive theoretical conceptualization of the role of desire in culture. It utilizes a unique synthesis of Marxian and psychoanalytic insights in arguing that Chinese patriliny is best understood as, simultaneously, “a mode of production of desire” and as “instituted fantasy.” The argument advances through discussions and analyses of kinship, family, gender, filial piety, ritual, and (especially) mythic narratives. In each of these domains, P. Steven Sangren addresses the complex sentiments and ambivalences associated with filial relations. Unlike most earlier studies which approach Chinese patriliny and filial piety as irreducible markers of cultural difference, Sangren argues that Chinese patriliny is better approached as a topic of critical inquiry in its own right.