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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.
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