Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Religions of Indic & Oriental origin > Buddhism
|
Buy Now
From Comrades to Bodhisattvas - Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,497
Discovery Miles 14 970
You Save: R151
(9%)
|
|
From Comrades to Bodhisattvas - Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China (Hardcover)
Series: Topics in Contemporary Buddhism
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
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 side-lined 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.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.