From Comrades to Bodhisattvas

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas PDF Author: Gareth Fisher
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824847938
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach supported by over a decade of field research, it provides an intimate portrait of lay Buddhist practitioners in Beijing who have recently embraced a religion that they were once socialized to see as harmful superstition. The book focuses on the lively discourses and debates that take place among these new practitioners in an unused courtyard of a Beijing temple. In this non-monastic space, which shrinks each year as the temple authorities expand their commercial activities, laypersons gather to distribute and exchange Buddhist-themed media, listen to the fiery sermons of charismatic preachers, and seek solutions to personal moral crises. Applying recent theories in the anthropology of morality and ethics, Gareth Fisher argues that the practitioners are attracted to the courtyard as a place where they can find ethical resources to re-make both themselves and others in a rapidly changing nation that they believe lacks a coherent moral direction. Spurred on by the lessons of the preachers and the stories in the media they share, these courtyard practitioners inventively combine moral elements from China’s recent Maoist past with Buddhist teachings on the workings of karma and the importance of universal compassion. Their aim is to articulate a moral antidote to what they see as blind obsession with consumption and wealth accumulation among twenty-first century Chinese. Often socially marginalized and sidelined from meaningful roles in China’s new economy, these former communist comrades look to their new moral roles along a bodhisattva path to rebuild their self-worth. Each chapter focuses on a central trope in the courtyard practitioners’ projects to form new moral identities. The Chinese government’s restrictions on the spread of religious teachings in urban areas curtail these practitioners' ability to insert their moral visions into an emerging public sphere. Nevertheless, they succeed, at least partially, Fisher argues, in creating their own discursive space characterized by a morality of concern for fellow humans and animals and a recognition of the organizational abilities and pedagogical talents of its members that are unacknowledged in society at large. Moreover, as the later chapters of the book discuss, by writing, copying, and distributing Buddhist-themed materials, the practitioners participate in creating a religious network of fellow-Buddhists across the country, thereby forming a counter-cultural community within contemporary urban China. Highly readable and full of engaging descriptions of the real lives of practicing lay Buddhists in contemporary China, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas will interest specialists in Chinese Buddhism, anthropologists of contemporary Asia, and all scholars interested in the relationship between religion and cultural change.

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas PDF Author: Gareth Fisher
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824847938
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach supported by over a decade of field research, it provides an intimate portrait of lay Buddhist practitioners in Beijing who have recently embraced a religion that they were once socialized to see as harmful superstition. The book focuses on the lively discourses and debates that take place among these new practitioners in an unused courtyard of a Beijing temple. In this non-monastic space, which shrinks each year as the temple authorities expand their commercial activities, laypersons gather to distribute and exchange Buddhist-themed media, listen to the fiery sermons of charismatic preachers, and seek solutions to personal moral crises. Applying recent theories in the anthropology of morality and ethics, Gareth Fisher argues that the practitioners are attracted to the courtyard as a place where they can find ethical resources to re-make both themselves and others in a rapidly changing nation that they believe lacks a coherent moral direction. Spurred on by the lessons of the preachers and the stories in the media they share, these courtyard practitioners inventively combine moral elements from China’s recent Maoist past with Buddhist teachings on the workings of karma and the importance of universal compassion. Their aim is to articulate a moral antidote to what they see as blind obsession with consumption and wealth accumulation among twenty-first century Chinese. Often socially marginalized and sidelined from meaningful roles in China’s new economy, these former communist comrades look to their new moral roles along a bodhisattva path to rebuild their self-worth. Each chapter focuses on a central trope in the courtyard practitioners’ projects to form new moral identities. The Chinese government’s restrictions on the spread of religious teachings in urban areas curtail these practitioners' ability to insert their moral visions into an emerging public sphere. Nevertheless, they succeed, at least partially, Fisher argues, in creating their own discursive space characterized by a morality of concern for fellow humans and animals and a recognition of the organizational abilities and pedagogical talents of its members that are unacknowledged in society at large. Moreover, as the later chapters of the book discuss, by writing, copying, and distributing Buddhist-themed materials, the practitioners participate in creating a religious network of fellow-Buddhists across the country, thereby forming a counter-cultural community within contemporary urban China. Highly readable and full of engaging descriptions of the real lives of practicing lay Buddhists in contemporary China, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas will interest specialists in Chinese Buddhism, anthropologists of contemporary Asia, and all scholars interested in the relationship between religion and cultural change.

Emergent Spaces

Emergent Spaces PDF Author: Petra Kuppinger
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030843793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
This book explores different emergent spaces where diverse urbanites spontaneously negotiate, make and remake urban spaces, create opportunities, produce social change, challenge urban life, culture, and politics, or simply ask for their right to the city. The focus of this book is on spaces and contexts where change is seeded, regardless of whether it was planned and whether it was or will be successful in the end. Contributors analyze the seeds of change at their very inception in diverse cultural contexts across four continents. How do small groups of ordinary and often also disenfranchised people design, suggest and implement ideas of change? How do they use and remake small urban spaces to better suit their purposes, voice claims to the city, create opportunities, and design better urban lives and futures? The emphasis of this volume is not on the nature of activities and change, but on the minute processes of initiating change.

Religion and the Global City

Religion and the Global City PDF Author: David Garbin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474272436
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
This is the first book to explore how religious movements and actors shape and are shaped by aspects of global city dynamics. Theoretically grounded and empirically informed, Religion and the Global City advances discussions in the field of urban religion, and establishes future research directions. David Garbin and Anna Strhan bring together a wealth of ethnographically rich and vivid case studies in a diversity of urban settings, in both Global North and Global South contexts. These case studies are drawn from both 'classical' global cities such as London and Paris, and also from large cosmopolitan metropolises - such as Bangalore, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos, Singapore and Hong Kong – which all constitute, in their own terms, powerful sites within the informational, cultural and moral networked economies of contemporary globalization. The chapters explore some of the most pressing issues of our times: globalization and the role of global neo-liberal regimes; urban change and in particular the dramatic urbanization of Global South countries; and religious politics and religious revivalism associated, for instance, with transnational Islam or global Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity.

State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches

State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches PDF Author: André Laliberté
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110546965
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The three-volume project 'Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions' presents a history of the study of Chinese religions. It evaluates the current state of scholarship, discusses a variety of analytical approaches and theories about methodology, epistemology, and the ontology of the field. The three books display an interdisciplinary approach and offer debates that transcend national traditions. It engages with a variety of methodologies for the study of East Asian religions and promotes dialogues with Western and Chinese voices. This volume covers successive historical stages in the study of religion in modern China, draws out the genealogy of major figures and intellectual achievements in a variety of research traditions, and highlights as well the challenges and evolutions experienced by the main disciplines in the last 30 years. This volume serves as a reference for graduate students and scholars interested by religions in modern Chinese societies (i.e., mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Chinese communities oversea). Using a wide range of methods, from textual analysis to fieldwork, it presents case studies via the disciplines of religious studies, anthropology, sociology, history, and political science.

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 28

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 28 PDF Author: Andrew Village
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900434893X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
This volume of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion includes a wide range of papers from a social-science perspective. The special section gives a unique insight into the rapidly growing field of psychological studies of religion in China. It draws on experts from China and the USA who met for a conference at Fuller Theological Seminary and have together compiled a collection of original research and reviews that helps to locate the current state of the discipline from a specifically Chinese perspective. Other papers in the volume examine intergenerational religious transmission and religious problem-solving styles in the USA.

Chinese Buddhism

Chinese Buddhism PDF Author: Chün-fang Yü
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824883489
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
What are the foundational scriptures and major schools for Chinese Buddhists? What divinities do they worship? What festivals do they celebrate? These are some of the basic questions addressed in this book, the first introduction to Chinese Buddhism written expressly for students and those interested in an accessible yet authoritative overview of the subject based on current scholarship. After presenting the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings and the Chinese religious traditions, the book focuses on topics essential for understanding Chinese Buddhism: major scriptures, worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas, rituals and festivals, the monastic order, Buddhist schools such as Tiantai and Chan, Buddhism and gender, and current trends—notably humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan and the resurgence of Buddhism in post-Mao China. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. A convenient glossary of common terms, titles, and names is included.

The Science of Satyug

The Science of Satyug PDF Author: Daniel Heifetz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438481721
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The All World Gayatri Pariwar is a modern religious movement that enjoys wide popularity in North India, particularly among the many STEM workers who joined after becoming disillusioned with their lucrative but unfulfilling private-sector careers. Founded in the mid-twentieth century, the Gayatri Pariwar works to popularize practices inspired by ancient religious texts and breaks with convention by framing these practices as the foundation of a universal spirituality. The movement appeals to science in its advocacy of these practices, claiming that they have medical benefits that constitute proof that rational people around the world should find persuasive. Should these practices become sufficiently widespread, the belief is that humanity will enter a new satyug, or "golden age." In The Science of Satyug, Daniel Heifetz focuses on how religion and science are objects of intense emotion that help to constitute identities. Weaving engaging ethnographic anecdotes together with readings of Gayatri Pariwar literature, Heifetz interprets this material in light of classic and contemporary theory. The result is a significant contribution to current conversations about the globalized middle classes and the entanglement of religion and science that will appeal to anyone interested in understanding these aspects of life in modern India.

Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia

Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia PDF Author: Jeffrey Samuels
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824858581
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This book introduces contemporary Buddhists from across Asia and from various walks of life. Eschewing traditional hagiographies, the editors have collected sixty-six profiles of individuals who would be excluded from most Buddhist histories and ethnographies. In addition to monks and nuns, readers will encounter artists, psychologists, social workers, part-time priests, healers, and librarians as well as charlatans, hucksters, profiteers, and rabble-rousers—all whose lives reflect changes in modern Buddhism even as they themselves shape the course of these changes. The editors and contributors are fundamentally concerned with how individual Buddhists make meaning and display this understanding to others. Some practitioners profiled look to the past, lamenting the transformations Buddhism has undergone in recent times, while others embrace these. Some have adopted a “new asceticism,” while others are eager to explore different religious traditions as they think about their own ways of being Buddhist. Arranging the profiles according to these themes—looking backward, forward, inward, and outward—reveals the value of studying individual Buddhists and their idiosyncratic religious backgrounds and attitudes, thus highlighting the diversity of approaches to the practice and study of Buddhism in Asia today. Students and teachers will welcome sections on further readings and additional tables of contents that organize the profiles thematically, as well as by tradition (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), region, and country.

Contemporary Religions in China

Contemporary Religions in China PDF Author: Shawn Arthur
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042981254X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Folk and popular religion is a very significant part of Chinese religious life, especially in rural areas. Contemporary Religions in China focuses on the religious activities of the lay people of contemporary China and their ideas of what it means to be "religious" and to practice "religion". Throughout, the discussion is illustrated with case studies, textboxes, images, thought questions, and further reading, which help to capture what religion is like, how and why it is practiced, and what ‘religion’ means for everyday people across China in the twenty-first century. Contemporary Religions in China is an ideal introduction to religion in China for undergraduate students of religion, Chinese studies, and anthropology.

Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese

Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese PDF Author: Joshua Esler
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498584659
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
This study analyzes the growing appeal of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese in contemporary China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It examines the Tibetan tradition’s historical context and its social, cultural, and political adaptation to Chinese society, as well as the effects on Han practitioners. The author's analysis is based on fieldwork in all three locations and includes a broad range of interlocutors, such as Tibetan religious teachers, Han practitioners, and lay Tibetans.