Buddhism in the Global Eye: Beyond East and West

Description

Buddhism in the Global Eye focuses on the importance of a global context and transnational connections for understanding Buddhist modernizing movements. It also explores how Asian agency has been central to the development of modern Buddhism, and provides theoretical reflections that seek to overcome misleading East-West binaries. Using case studies from China, Japan, Vietnam, India, Tibet, Canada, and the USA, the book introduces new research that reveals the permeable nature of certain categories, such as "modern", "global", and "contemporary" Buddhism. In the book, contributors recognize the multiple nodes of intra-Asian and global influence. For example, monks travelled among Asian countries creating networks of information and influence, mutually stimulating each other's modernization movements. The studies demonstrate that in modernization movements, Asian reformers mobilized all available cultural resources both to adapt local forms of Buddhism to a new global context and to shape new foreign concepts to local Asian forms. Title Page Copyright Contents Contributors Acknowledgments Spelling Conventions Introduction Part One: World Religions Chapter 1: Buddhism and the Secular Conception of Religion “Religion,” “World Religion,” Secularity The Jesuits in China The Tide Turns Japan Reconstructs “Religion” Original Buddhism Buddhism, the World Religion Conclusion Chapter 2: Mapping Buddhism beyond East and West Terms: Metageography and Malleable Maps Buddhism Moves East, Pilgrims Journey West Global Flows: Submerging East and West Conclusion Chapter 3: Buddhism and Global Secularisms The Religious-Secular Binary Secularism and Early Buddhist Modernism S. N. Goenka and the De-Religioning of Meditation The Secularization of Meditation Secularism and the Reconfiguration of Buddhism in China and Tibet Buddhism, Binaries, and Ironies Chapter 4: Women and Vietnamese Buddhist Practice in the Shadow of Secularism Buddhism as a Religion The Buddhist Reform Movement in Vietnam The State and Buddhist Reform Women’s Practice in the Face of Power Conclusion Part Two: Global Flows Chapter 5: Socialism, Russia, and India’s Marx and Buddha: The Early Indian Manifestations Dharmanand Kosambi and the “Remarkable Revolution” Rahul Sankrityayan and the Marxist Reform of Buddhism Conclusion: Reconsidering the Buddha and the Left Chapter 6: D.T. Suzuki and the Chinese Search for Buddhist Modernism Nation-Building and Buddhist Modernism in Japan and China in the 1930s Ambivalent Impressions of One Another: Interactions between Suzuki and Chinese Buddhists (1934) The Reception of Suzuki Inside and Outside of Mao’s China (1949–76) Suzuki’s Inspiration within Contemporary Chinese Buddhism (1976–Present) Conclusion Chapter 7: Recent Emergence of Theravāda Meditation Communities in Contemporary China Theravāda as Inferior to Traditional Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism Orientalism and Theravāda Buddhism in the Nineteenth Century Crisis and Buddhist Reform in Late Qing Building New Buddhism with “Buddhism for Human Life” in the Republican Era The Attempt to Translate the Pāli Canon from Japanese Establishing Modern Buddhist Institutions and Teaching Theravāda Buddhism Sending Chinese Monks to Learn Theravāda Buddhism in Southeast Asia Establishing Transnational Networks in Ceylon, Myanmar, and Thailand Promoting “Buddhism for This World” and “Original Buddhism” Recent Flourishing of Theravāda Buddhism and the Āgamas Buddhist Revival in Contemporary China with Transnational Support Chan “Fever,” Mind-Body Practices and Theravāda Meditation in Contemporary China Conclusion Part Three: Asian Agencies Chapter 8: Shin Buddhism in Chōshū and Early Meiji Notions of Religion-State Relations Chōshū and Shin Buddhism Three Important Chōshū Figures Nishi Honganji and the Transition from Tokugawa to Meiji The First Japanese Buddhist Mission to Europe Chapter 9: Nanjō Bunyū’s Sanskritization of Buddhist Studies in Modern Japan Lost in Translation: Nanjō Bunyū’s Mission at Oxford The Role of Language in Max Müller and Nanjō Bunyū Competing Universalizations: Religion, Christianity, and Buddhism Conclusion Chapter 10: An Alternative to the “Westernization” Paradigm and Buddhist Global Imaginaires Post Post-Orientalism Imaginaires of East and West Prophecy and Ambivalence Not an American Dream Taming the Wild, Wild West(erners) Strategic Occidentalism or Complementary Imaginaires Imaginaires in Exile Conclusion Chapter 11: Glocalization in Buddhist Food Ventures on a Small Canadian Island Taiwanese Buddhist NGOs Establishing Roots on P.E.I. Poverty Relief, Gratitude, Protecting Sentient Life, and Agricultural Food Projects The “Come from Away” Conclusion Notes Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Bibliography Index