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In Guardians of the Buddha's Home, Jessica Starling draws on nearly
three years of ethnographic research to provide a comprehensive
view of Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) temple life with temple wives
(known as bomori, or temple guardians) at its center. Throughout,
she focuses on ""domestic religion,"" a mode of doing religion
centering on more informal religious expression that has received
scant attention in the scholarly literature. The Buddhist temple
wife's movement back and forth between the main hall and the ""back
stage"" of the kitchen and family residence highlights the way
religious meaning cannot be confined to canonical texts or to the
area of the temple prescribed for formal worship. Starling argues
that attaining Buddhist faith (shinjin) is just as likely to occur
in response to a simple act of hospitality, a sense of community
experienced at an informal temple gathering, or an aesthetic
affinity with the temple space that has been carefully maintained
by the bomori as it is from hearing the words of a Pure Land sutra
intoned by a professional priest. For temple wives, the spiritual
practice of button hosha (repayment of the debt owed to the Buddha
for one's salvation) finds expression through the conscientious
stewardship of temple donations, caring for the Buddha's home and
opening it to lay followers, raising the temple's children, and
propagating the teachings in the domestic sphere. Engaging with
what religious scholars have called the ""turn to affect,""
Starling's work investigates in personal detail how religious
dispositions are formed in individual practitioners. The answer,
not surprisingly, has as much to do with intimate relationships and
quotidian practices as with formal liturgies or scripted sermons.
In Guardians of the Buddha's Home, Jessica Starling draws on nearly
three years of ethnographic research to provide a comprehensive
view of Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land) temple life with temple
wives (known as bōmori, or temple guardians) at its center.
Throughout, she focuses on "domestic religion," a mode of doing
religion centering on more informal religious expression that has
received scant attention in the scholarly literature. The Buddhist
temple wife's movement back and forth between the main hall and the
"back stage" of the kitchen and family residence highlights the way
religious meaning cannot be confined to canonical texts or to the
area of the temple prescribed for formal worship. Starling argues
that attaining Buddhist faith (shinjin) is just as likely to occur
in response to a simple act of hospitality, a sense of community
experienced at an informal temple gathering, or an aesthetic
affinity with the temple space that has been carefully maintained
by the bōmori as it is from hearing the words of a Pure Land sutra
intoned by a professional priest. For temple wives, the spiritual
practice of button hōsha (repayment of the debt owed to the Buddha
for one's salvation) finds expression through the conscientious
stewardship of temple donations, caring for the Buddha's home and
opening it to lay followers, raising the temple's children, and
propagating the teachings in the domestic sphere. Engaging with
what religious scholars have called the "turn to affect,"
Starling's work investigates in personal detail how religious
dispositions are formed in individual practitioners. The answer,
not surprisingly, has as much to do with intimate relationships and
quotidian practices as with formal liturgies or scripted sermons.
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