In Ulan-Ude, the multi-ethnic, multi-religious capital of Buryatia, most laypeople make use of “Buddhist counseling” (Rus. priyom u lamy ), or various ritual, medical and other services that ameliorate illness and misfortune. Laypeople consult lamas about a range of issues from economic to familial matters, from imp attacks to joblessness. Such Buddhist counseling is one of the most common kind of interactions with Buddhist institutions and practices in Buryatia. At the same time, it is a deeply contested practice, as local critiques refer to the rise of “consumerist”, “commercialized”, “utilitarian” or “bad” Buddhism. This article explores Buddhist counseling as a site of value-laden negotiation of post-Soviet Buddhism. It looks at normative emic notions of good Buddhist practice and their translocal sources as well as social and historical context.
{"title":"Beyond “Bad Buddhism”: Conceptualizing Buddhist Counseling in Ulan-Ude, Buryatia","authors":"Kristina Jonutytė","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4147509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4147509","url":null,"abstract":"In Ulan-Ude, the multi-ethnic, multi-religious capital of Buryatia, most laypeople make use of “Buddhist counseling” (Rus. priyom u lamy ), or various ritual, medical and other services that ameliorate illness and misfortune. Laypeople consult lamas about a range of issues from economic to familial matters, from imp attacks to joblessness. Such Buddhist counseling is one of the most common kind of interactions with Buddhist institutions and practices in Buryatia. At the same time, it is a deeply contested practice, as local critiques refer to the rise of “consumerist”, “commercialized”, “utilitarian” or “bad” Buddhism. This article explores Buddhist counseling as a site of value-laden negotiation of post-Soviet Buddhism. It looks at normative emic notions of good Buddhist practice and their translocal sources as well as social and historical context.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"261-276"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46927187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, I present Hong Kong Buddhism as a construct of modernity, particularly in its emphasis on tradition. 'Modern Buddhism' shapes how Buddhists in the city reflect on their religion and their being in the world. The latter is seen in how Hong Kong Buddhists responded to the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Although the Umbrella Movement was in essence a political movement seeking universal suffrage, it indirectly highlighted the importance of religion in the everyday lives of Hong Kong middle-class residents. While some Buddhists went to the protest sites, others stayed at home to meditate, and many decided to disengage from the protests altogether. While differing in terms of civic engagement, there is significant similarity in these narratives regarding the perception of how to act as 'good' Buddhists. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-fareast-language:JA;} table.MsoTableGrid {mso-style-name:"Table Grid"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-priority:39; mso-style-unhide:no; border:solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt:solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid windowtext; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-fareast-language:JA;}
{"title":"Doing good: Local and global understandings of Buddhism in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement","authors":"M. Westendorp","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4147504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4147504","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I present Hong Kong Buddhism as a construct of modernity, particularly in its emphasis on tradition. 'Modern Buddhism' shapes how Buddhists in the city reflect on their religion and their being in the world. The latter is seen in how Hong Kong Buddhists responded to the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Although the Umbrella Movement was in essence a political movement seeking universal suffrage, it indirectly highlighted the importance of religion in the everyday lives of Hong Kong middle-class residents. While some Buddhists went to the protest sites, others stayed at home to meditate, and many decided to disengage from the protests altogether. While differing in terms of civic engagement, there is significant similarity in these narratives regarding the perception of how to act as 'good' Buddhists. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ \u0000 table.MsoNormalTable \u0000 {mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\"; \u0000 mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; \u0000 mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; \u0000 mso-style-noshow:yes; \u0000 mso-style-priority:99; \u0000 mso-style-parent:\"\"; \u0000 mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; \u0000 mso-para-margin:0cm; \u0000 mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; \u0000 mso-pagination:widow-orphan; \u0000 font-size:12.0pt; \u0000 font-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif; \u0000 mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; \u0000 mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; \u0000 mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; \u0000 mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; \u0000 mso-bidi-font-family:\"Times New Roman\"; \u0000 mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; \u0000 mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; \u0000 mso-fareast-language:JA;} \u0000table.MsoTableGrid \u0000 {mso-style-name:\"Table Grid\"; \u0000 mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; \u0000 mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; \u0000 mso-style-priority:39; \u0000 mso-style-unhide:no; \u0000 border:solid windowtext 1.0pt; \u0000 mso-border-alt:solid windowtext .5pt; \u0000 mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; \u0000 mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid windowtext; \u0000 mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid windowtext; \u0000 mso-para-margin:0cm; \u0000 mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; \u0000 mso-pagination:widow-orphan; \u0000 font-size:12.0pt; \u0000 font-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif; \u0000 mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; \u0000 mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; \u0000 mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; \u0000 mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; \u0000 mso-bidi-font-family:\"Times New Roman\"; \u0000 mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; \u0000 mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; \u0000 mso-fareast-language:JA;}","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"223-239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45837190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The contemporary Theravāda form of Buddhism in Bangladesh was in fact introduced in 1856, following a reformation movement led by Sāramedha Mahāthera from the Arakan region of Burma. Following this reformation Bangladeshi Buddhists have connected with other Buddhist majority countries for models of Budddhist texts, religious practice, and education. Since the reformation, it has come to be mistakenly assumed that Bangladeshi Buddhists uniformly follow Theravāda Buddhism. In this paper, I clarify this misconception by pointing out that other forms of Buddhism are also practiced in Bangladesh. More specifically, the introduction of Mahāyana Buddhism through philanthropic organizations like Japan’s Rissho-Kōshei Kai also expand the transnational influences that shape Bangladeshi Buddhism. This requires us to reconsider scholarly assumptions on Bangladeshi Buddhism. As I sketch the outcomes of their transnational connections to survive in a Muslim majority country, I also examine how Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim refugee crisis has put Bangladeshi Buddhists into a difficult situation, requiring them to distance from violent expressions of Buddhism.
{"title":"Connecting with and Distancing from: Transnational Influences in the Formation of Buddhist Identity and Practices in Bangladesh","authors":"Upali Sraman","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4031015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4031015","url":null,"abstract":"The contemporary Theravāda form of Buddhism in Bangladesh was in fact introduced in 1856, following a reformation movement led by Sāramedha Mahāthera from the Arakan region of Burma. Following this reformation Bangladeshi Buddhists have connected with other Buddhist majority countries for models of Budddhist texts, religious practice, and education. Since the reformation, it has come to be mistakenly assumed that Bangladeshi Buddhists uniformly follow Theravāda Buddhism. In this paper, I clarify this misconception by pointing out that other forms of Buddhism are also practiced in Bangladesh. More specifically, the introduction of Mahāyana Buddhism through philanthropic organizations like Japan’s Rissho-Kōshei Kai also expand the transnational influences that shape Bangladeshi Buddhism. This requires us to reconsider scholarly assumptions on Bangladeshi Buddhism. As I sketch the outcomes of their transnational connections to survive in a Muslim majority country, I also examine how Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim refugee crisis has put Bangladeshi Buddhists into a difficult situation, requiring them to distance from violent expressions of Buddhism.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"205-222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43337747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Following the partition between India and Pakistan in 1947, the residents of Leh, Ladakh became citizens of the Indian nation-state and residents of Jammu and Kashmir. Partition introduced Buddhists in the region to what Dipesh Chakrabarty refers to a political modernity: “rule by modern institutions of the state, bureaucracy, and capitalist enterprise…”(Chakrabarty 2000, 4). In response to the new prospects, promises, and possibilities of Ladakh’s political modernity, political leaders and religious reform group have attempted to mobilized local Buddhists around a common core sense of Ladakhi Buddhist identity. These dynamic have engendered a variety of debates and dialogues in the public sphere over what it means to be a good Buddhist and what local practices and traditions constitute bad Buddhism.
{"title":"Authenticating Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Moral Dialogues in Ladakh","authors":"Rohit Singh","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4031013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4031013","url":null,"abstract":"Following the partition between India and Pakistan in 1947, the residents of Leh, Ladakh became citizens of the Indian nation-state and residents of Jammu and Kashmir. Partition introduced Buddhists in the region to what Dipesh Chakrabarty refers to a political modernity: “rule by modern institutions of the state, bureaucracy, and capitalist enterprise…”(Chakrabarty 2000, 4). In response to the new prospects, promises, and possibilities of Ladakh’s political modernity, political leaders and religious reform group have attempted to mobilized local Buddhists around a common core sense of Ladakhi Buddhist identity. These dynamic have engendered a variety of debates and dialogues in the public sphere over what it means to be a good Buddhist and what local practices and traditions constitute bad Buddhism.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"171-186"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48183593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Introduction to Bad Buddhism","authors":"Hannah Gould, M. McKay","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4147493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4147493","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"141-151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48216760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When Buddhism fails to live up to the projected promise of its doctrine or past forms, it is often the human nature of its adherents (“Bad Buddhists”), rather than the content of its teachings (“Bad Buddhism”), that is blamed. But what if such human failings—greed, corruption, violence, even mortality—could be transcended? In the quest for a “good Buddhism,” high-tech designs that utilise robotics, artificial intelligence, algorithmic agency, and other advancements are increasingly pursued as solutions by innovators inside and outside Buddhist communities. In this paper, we interrogate two recent cases of what we call “Buddhist techno-salvationism.” Firstly, Pepper, the semi-humanoid robot who performs funeral sutras to a rapidly secularising and aging population of parishioners in Japan. Secondly, the Lotos Network, a US start-up proposing to use blockchain technology to combat financial corruption within global sangha . We argue that such robotic and digital experiments are the logical outcome of techno-salvationist discourses that identify human failings as the principal barrier to perfect Buddhist praxis. If not always practical solutions, these interventions are powerful nonetheless as contested projections of Buddhist futures.
{"title":"Bad Buddhists, Good Robots: Techno-Salvationist Designs for Nirvana","authors":"Hannah Gould, Holly Walters","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4147487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4147487","url":null,"abstract":"When Buddhism fails to live up to the projected promise of its doctrine or past forms, it is often the human nature of its adherents (“Bad Buddhists”), rather than the content of its teachings (“Bad Buddhism”), that is blamed. But what if such human failings—greed, corruption, violence, even mortality—could be transcended? In the quest for a “good Buddhism,” high-tech designs that utilise robotics, artificial intelligence, algorithmic agency, and other advancements are increasingly pursued as solutions by innovators inside and outside Buddhist communities. In this paper, we interrogate two recent cases of what we call “Buddhist techno-salvationism.” Firstly, Pepper, the semi-humanoid robot who performs funeral sutras to a rapidly secularising and aging population of parishioners in Japan. Secondly, the Lotos Network, a US start-up proposing to use blockchain technology to combat financial corruption within global sangha . We argue that such robotic and digital experiments are the logical outcome of techno-salvationist discourses that identify human failings as the principal barrier to perfect Buddhist praxis. If not always practical solutions, these interventions are powerful nonetheless as contested projections of Buddhist futures.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"277-294"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46689741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For a telling example of allegedly “Bad Buddhisms” in the contemporary world, one need look no further than urban Japan and its numerous “Priests’ Bars” ( Bōzu bāzu ) that allow a heady interaction of Buddhism and alcohol. While listening, lecturing, and sometimes even mixing drinks, priests of various denominations are proprietors for a new type of upāya practice (or “skillful means”) for disseminating the dharma . They have the opportunity to encourage their clientele towards solving personal problems and perhaps even awakening as they violate the fifth Buddhist precept which warns monks of the dangers of intoxication. The priests in charge of these bars are well aware of the prohibition against alcohol, and yet, given a variety of social problems facing Japanese workers and citizens, feel compelled to experiment in delivering the teachings of their traditions. Though “bad” from the perspective of Buddhist practitioners outside Japan (as well as that of traditional Buddhist studies), these bars remain a constructive means for moving Japanese Buddhisms into the twenty-first century.
{"title":"Japan’s “Priests’ Bars”: “Bad Buddhism” or Hope for the Future?","authors":"John Nelson","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4147497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4147497","url":null,"abstract":"For a telling example of allegedly “Bad Buddhisms” in the contemporary world, one need look no further than urban Japan and its numerous “Priests’ Bars” ( Bōzu bāzu ) that allow a heady interaction of Buddhism and alcohol. While listening, lecturing, and sometimes even mixing drinks, priests of various denominations are proprietors for a new type of upāya practice (or “skillful means”) for disseminating the dharma . They have the opportunity to encourage their clientele towards solving personal problems and perhaps even awakening as they violate the fifth Buddhist precept which warns monks of the dangers of intoxication. The priests in charge of these bars are well aware of the prohibition against alcohol, and yet, given a variety of social problems facing Japanese workers and citizens, feel compelled to experiment in delivering the teachings of their traditions. Though “bad” from the perspective of Buddhist practitioners outside Japan (as well as that of traditional Buddhist studies), these bars remain a constructive means for moving Japanese Buddhisms into the twenty-first century.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"241-260"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41347117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Tai Lue of Sipsong Panna (Chinese: Xishuangbanna), in southern Yunnan Province, are usually identified as the largest community of Theravada Buddhists in China. Following the end of the repression of the Maoist period, Sipsong Panna monastics have gradually incorporated into regional and global Buddhist networks. Within this context of increasing connectivity and visibility, the public participation of Tai Lue monks and novices in practices usually considered inappropriate and even unacceptable for monastics in China and Southeast Asia has become problematized and identified as proof of ‘ignorance’ or ‘defectiveness’ on the part of this minority religious community. Building on long-term fieldwork among monastics in Sipsong Panna, this paper questions popular and academic portrayals of such unorthodox monasticism as a symptom of backwardness and degeneration, using the notion of ‘cultural intimacy’ (Herzfeld 1996) to offer innovative insights onto the articulation of contemporary forms of Buddhist monasticism, and onto anthropological debates concerning their conceptualization.
{"title":"Monastic Intimacies: An Anthropology of Good and Bad Buddhism among the Tai Lue of Sipsong Panna (P.R. China)","authors":"R. Casas","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4031019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4031019","url":null,"abstract":"The Tai Lue of Sipsong Panna (Chinese: Xishuangbanna), in southern Yunnan Province, are usually identified as the largest community of Theravada Buddhists in China. Following the end of the repression of the Maoist period, Sipsong Panna monastics have gradually incorporated into regional and global Buddhist networks. Within this context of increasing connectivity and visibility, the public participation of Tai Lue monks and novices in practices usually considered inappropriate and even unacceptable for monastics in China and Southeast Asia has become problematized and identified as proof of ‘ignorance’ or ‘defectiveness’ on the part of this minority religious community. Building on long-term fieldwork among monastics in Sipsong Panna, this paper questions popular and academic portrayals of such unorthodox monasticism as a symptom of backwardness and degeneration, using the notion of ‘cultural intimacy’ (Herzfeld 1996) to offer innovative insights onto the articulation of contemporary forms of Buddhist monasticism, and onto anthropological debates concerning their conceptualization.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"153-169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42895118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Discussions about the gendered experience of Buddhism, especially in the modern period, have often centered on the status of Buddhist women and the changing role of women’s authority and legitimacy vis-a-vis their male counterparts. Based on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka between 2009-2010, this essay explores some of the conceptual challenges that lay Buddhist women's participation within Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka pose to standard liberal conceptions of women's agency and power. Women’s religious giving and charity has played a pivotal role in efforts to sustain a postcolonial Sinhala Buddhist imaginary in Sri Lanka. They derive their power and agency in these nation-building efforts not feminist consciousness within the oppressive patriarchal nationalist project. Instead Sinhala middle-class lay Buddhist women enacted their own privileged place in Sri Lankan society by shoring up culturally prescribed notions of motherhood for the purpose of the elite nationalist aspirations to realize a “righteous society.”
{"title":"The Mothers of the Righteous Society: Lay Buddhist Women as Agents of the Sinhala Nationalist Imaginary","authors":"Nalika Gajaweera","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4147502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4147502","url":null,"abstract":"Discussions about the gendered experience of Buddhism, especially in the modern period, have often centered on the status of Buddhist women and the changing role of women’s authority and legitimacy vis-a-vis their male counterparts. Based on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka between 2009-2010, this essay explores some of the conceptual challenges that lay Buddhist women's participation within Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka pose to standard liberal conceptions of women's agency and power. Women’s religious giving and charity has played a pivotal role in efforts to sustain a postcolonial Sinhala Buddhist imaginary in Sri Lanka. They derive their power and agency in these nation-building efforts not feminist consciousness within the oppressive patriarchal nationalist project. Instead Sinhala middle-class lay Buddhist women enacted their own privileged place in Sri Lankan society by shoring up culturally prescribed notions of motherhood for the purpose of the elite nationalist aspirations to realize a “righteous society.”","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"187-204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42660689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2018, popular North American Buddhist teacher, Noah Levine, was accused of sexual assault and misconduct. Several Buddhist teachers responded in Levine’s defense through a seemingly neutral posture of “waiting to find out” the truth. This paper examines these teachers’ responses, asking the question: “Which Buddhist concepts are mobilized in responding to alleged sexual violence?” I find that these teachers respond to allegations with the language of not-knowing, equanimity, and right speech. They ask their communities to “wait and see” whether these allegations are true, with the unspoken assumption that they are not. I assert these responses use Buddhist teachings to uphold cis-masculine innocence by using hegemonic logics and commitments to downplay and delegitimize the phenomenon of sexual violence. I argue that these responses uphold hegemonic control within Buddhist communities, and conclude that a feminist response to allegations of misconduct requires centering survivors of sexual assault.
{"title":"Buddhist Teachers’ Responses to Sexual Violence: Epistemological Violence in American Buddhism","authors":"Ray Buckner","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.4031009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4031009","url":null,"abstract":"In 2018, popular North American Buddhist teacher, Noah Levine, was accused of sexual assault and misconduct. Several Buddhist teachers responded in Levine’s defense through a seemingly neutral posture of “waiting to find out” the truth. This paper examines these teachers’ responses, asking the question: “Which Buddhist concepts are mobilized in responding to alleged sexual violence?” I find that these teachers respond to allegations with the language of not-knowing, equanimity, and right speech. They ask their communities to “wait and see” whether these allegations are true, with the unspoken assumption that they are not. I assert these responses use Buddhist teachings to uphold cis-masculine innocence by using hegemonic logics and commitments to downplay and delegitimize the phenomenon of sexual violence. I argue that these responses uphold hegemonic control within Buddhist communities, and conclude that a feminist response to allegations of misconduct requires centering survivors of sexual assault.","PeriodicalId":37110,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"123-139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45848147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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