Building and Negotiating Religious Identities in a Zen Buddhist Temple

Building and Negotiating Religious Identities in a Zen Buddhist Temple PDF Author: Fan Zhang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811388636
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
This book explores the practices in a Zen Buddhist temple located in Northwest Ohio against the backdrop of globalization. Drawing on the previous studies on Buddhist modernization and westernization, it provides a better understanding of the westernization of Buddhism and its adapted practices and rituals in the host culture. Using rhetorical criticism methodology, the author approaches this temple as an embodiment of Buddhist rhetoric with both discursive and non-discursive expressions within the discourses of modernity. By analyzing the rhetorical practices at the temple through abbots’ teaching videos, the temple website, members’ dharma names, and the materiality of the temple space and artifacts, the author discovers how Buddhist rhetoric functions to constitute and negotiate the religious identities of the community members through its various rituals and activities. At the same time, the author examines how the temple’s space and settings facilitate the collective the formation and preservation of the Buddhist identity. Through a nuanced discussion of Buddhist rhetoric, this book illuminates a new rhetorical methodology to understand religious identity construction. Furthermore, it offers deeper insights into the future development of modern Buddhism, which are also applicable to Buddhist practitioners and other major world religions.

Building and Negotiating Religious Identities in a Zen Buddhist Temple

Building and Negotiating Religious Identities in a Zen Buddhist Temple PDF Author: Fan Zhang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811388636
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 104

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores the practices in a Zen Buddhist temple located in Northwest Ohio against the backdrop of globalization. Drawing on the previous studies on Buddhist modernization and westernization, it provides a better understanding of the westernization of Buddhism and its adapted practices and rituals in the host culture. Using rhetorical criticism methodology, the author approaches this temple as an embodiment of Buddhist rhetoric with both discursive and non-discursive expressions within the discourses of modernity. By analyzing the rhetorical practices at the temple through abbots’ teaching videos, the temple website, members’ dharma names, and the materiality of the temple space and artifacts, the author discovers how Buddhist rhetoric functions to constitute and negotiate the religious identities of the community members through its various rituals and activities. At the same time, the author examines how the temple’s space and settings facilitate the collective the formation and preservation of the Buddhist identity. Through a nuanced discussion of Buddhist rhetoric, this book illuminates a new rhetorical methodology to understand religious identity construction. Furthermore, it offers deeper insights into the future development of modern Buddhism, which are also applicable to Buddhist practitioners and other major world religions.

BUILDING AND NEGOTIATING RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN A ZEN BUDDHIST TEMPLE

BUILDING AND NEGOTIATING RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN A ZEN BUDDHIST TEMPLE PDF Author: Fan Zhang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
This dissertation is an exploratory attempt at understanding the practices of a Zen Buddhist temple locates in Northwest Ohio against the backdrop of globalization. Drawing on the previous scholarship on Buddhist modernization and westernization, my primary goal in this study is to better understand the westernization of Buddhism and its adapted practices and rituals in the host culture. Utilizing rhetorical criticism as my methodology, I approach this temple as an embodiment of Buddhist rhetoric with both discursive and non-discursive expressions within the discourses of modernity. By analyzing rhetorical practices of the temple through abbot's teaching videos, the temple website, members' dharma names, and the materiality of the temple space and artifacts, I examine how Buddhist rhetoric functioned to constitute and negotiate religious identities of the community members through its various rituals and activities. At the same time, I explore how the generative space and settings of the temple facilitated the collective Buddhist identity formation and preservation. Through a nuanced discussion of Buddhist rhetoric, this study illuminates a new rhetorical methodology to understand religious identity construction. Furthermore, this study offers further insight into the future development of modern Buddhism, which is also applicable to other major world religions.

Christians Talk about Buddhist Meditation, Buddhists Talk About Christian Prayer

Christians Talk about Buddhist Meditation, Buddhists Talk About Christian Prayer PDF Author: Rita M. Gross
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826414397
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This book adopts the format of the editorsÆ previous book, Buddhists Talk about Jesus, Christians Talk about the Buddha. In that book eight scholar-practitioners--four of them Buddhist and four Christian--explored their relationship to the great religious figure of the other tradition. Then the remaining contributors, two from each tradition, addressed themselves, rebuttal fashion, to the views expressed. In the new book the subject is the differences and similarities between Buddhist meditation and Christian prayer. What can a Christian, for example, learn from the mental and physical rigor of Buddhist meditative practice? What can a Buddhist learn from traditional Christian prayer? Can one mix distinct religious identity (Christian) with practice techniques associated with another religion (Buddhist) without compromising the religious specificity of either the identities or the techniques? Christian contributors include Frances S. Adeney, Mary Frohlich, Paul O. Ingram, Ursula King, Terry C. Muck, Yagi Seiichi, and Bardwell Smith. Buddhist contributors include Robert Aitken, Grace Burford, Rita Gross, John Makransky, Ken Tanaka, Robert Thurman, and Taitetsu Unno.

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism PDF Author: Michael Jerryson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190623403
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 752

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Book Description
As an incredibly diverse religious system, Buddhism is constantly changing. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism offers a comprehensive collection of work by leading scholars in the field that tracks these changes up to the present day. Taken together, the book provides a blueprint to understanding Buddhism's past and uses it to explore the ways in which Buddhism has transformed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The volume contains 41 essays, divided into two sections. The essays in the first section examine the historical development of Buddhist traditions throughout the world. These chapters cover familiar settings like India, Japan, and Tibet as well as the less well-known countries of Vietnam, Bhutan, and the regions of Latin America, Africa, and Oceania. Focusing on changes within countries and transnationally, this section also contains chapters that focus explicitly on globalization, such as Buddhist international organizations and diasporic communities. The second section tracks the relationship between Buddhist traditions and particular themes. These chapters review Buddhist interactions with contemporary topics such as violence and peacebuilding, and ecology, as well as Buddhist influences in areas such as medicine and science. Offering coverage that is both expansive and detailed, The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism delves into some of the most debated and contested areas within Buddhist Studies today.

Queer Women and Religious Individualism

Queer Women and Religious Individualism PDF Author: Melissa M. Wilcox
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253221161
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Melissa M. Wilcox explores the complex spiritual lives of queer women in the Los Angeles area. She takes the reader on a tour of a colorful array of religious and secular groups that serve as spiritual resources for these women—from the well-known Metropolitan Community Churches to Wiccan covens, from the Gay and Lesbian Sierrans to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Arguing that these women's stories are exemplary cases of postmodern patterns of religious identity, belief, and practice, Wilcox offers a nuanced analysis of contemporary Western spirituality and selfhood, and a detailed exploration of the history of queer religious organizing in Los Angeles. Queer Women and Religious Individualism is important reading for scholars in religious studies, sociology, women's studies, and LGBT studies.

Gay Religion

Gay Religion PDF Author: Scott Thumma
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759115060
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Conflicts over homosexuality and gay rights threaten to break apart denominations, if not North American society. These heated theological and political debates have, as well, obscured the fact that many gays and lesbians are religiously active individuals. Gay Religion is the first book to give a straightforward presentation of the spiritual lives, practices and expressions of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender. Drawing from a wide range of religious traditions, new and established scholars explore the range of gay religious expression in denominations, sects, and even outside recognized religious institutions. The essays ask what these religious innovations mean to the continually evolving religious environment of North America. With its helpful section introductions and an appendix providing profiles of organizations involved, Gay Religion is a unique and compelling resource for anyone interested in homosexuality and American religion.

Buddhism after Mao

Buddhism after Mao PDF Author: Ji Zhe
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824880242
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
With well over 100 million adherents, Buddhism emerged from near-annihilation during the Cultural Revolution to become the largest religion in China today. Despite this, Buddhism’s rise has received relatively little scholarly attention. The present volume, with contributions by leading scholars in sociology, anthropology, political science, and religious studies, explores the evolution of Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao period with a depth not seen before in a single study. Chapters critically analyze the effects of state policies on the evolution of Buddhist institutions; the challenge of rebuilding temples under the watchful eye of the state; efforts to rebuild monastic lineages and schools left broken in the aftermath of Mao’s rule; and the development of new lay Buddhist spaces, both at temple sites and online. Through its multidisciplinary perspectives, the book provides both an extensive overview of the social and political conditions under which Buddhism has grown as well as discussions of the individual projects of both monastic and lay entrepreneurs who dynamically and creatively carve out spaces for Buddhist growth in contemporary Chinese society. As a wide-ranging study that illuminates many facets of China’s Buddhist revival, Buddhism after Mao will be required reading for scholars of Chinese Buddhism and of Buddhism and modernity more broadly. Its detailed case studies examining the intersections among religion, state, and contemporary Chinese society will be welcomed by sociologists and anthropologists of China, political scientists focusing on the role of religion in state formation in Asian societies, and all those interested in the relationship between religion and social change.

Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism

Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism PDF Author: Jørn Borup
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047433092
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism gives a new perspective on contemporary Japanese Zen Buddhism. Ideas, ritual practices, temples and interactions between the clergy, the laity and the institution are investigated as living representations of a unique and yet common Japanese religion.

Thailand's International Meditation Centers

Thailand's International Meditation Centers PDF Author: Brooke Schedneck
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317449398
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This book explores contemporary practices within the new institution of international meditation centers in Thailand. It discusses the development of the lay vipassana meditation movement in Thailand and relates Thai Buddhism to contemporary processes of commodification and globalisation. Through an examination of how meditation centers are promoted internationally, the author considers how Thai Buddhism is translated for and embodied within international tourists who participate in meditation retreats in Thailand. Shedding new light on the decontextualization of religious practices, and raising new questions concerning tourism and religion, this book focuses on the nature of cultural exchange, spiritual tourism, and religious choice in modernity. With an aim of reframing questions of religious modernity, each chapter offers a new perspective on the phenomenon of spiritual seeking in Thailand. Offering an analysis of why meditation practices appeal to non-Buddhists, this book contends that religions do not travel as whole entities but instead that partial elements resonate with different cultures, and are appropriated over time.

Religious Diversity in Asia

Religious Diversity in Asia PDF Author: Jørn Borup
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004415815
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
This anthology explores religious diversity in Asia seen through the lenses of history, identity, state, ritual and geography. The chapters furthermore address theoretical and methodological reflections using Asia as a laboratory for broader comparative research of 'religious diversity'.