Situating within a Global Context: The Global Spread of

Jens Reinke Researcher, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199 Leipzig University

ens Reinke is a researcher at the Collaborative Research J Centre (SFB) 1199 at Leipzig University with a background in studies and religious studies. His PhD project with the title “Migrating Buddhas and Global Pure Lands: The Trans- national Trajectory of the Taiwanese Buddhist Order Fo Guang Shan” consists of a multi-sited ethnographic study that examines the global development of Fo Guang Shan. Jens Reinke’s research interests include contemporary Chinese in the PRC, , and overseas; , global Buddhism; multiple modern religiosities; Buddhism and nationalism; global China; global modernity; transnationalism and new Chinese mobilities. 2019 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism 333 - - Transnationalism (Key Ideas) (London: Routledge, 2009), 3. Transnationalism Thus, if we apply the transnational lens to the study of the transnational lens to the study of Thus, if we apply 1 How does one go on to achieve this goal as a social scientist this goal as a social How does one go on to achieve Only in the last decades has modern Buddhism become a Only last in the decades has Buddhism modern a become Steven Vertovec, Steven Vertovec,

who conducts qualitative research? In the past ethnographers have research? who conducts qualitative often confined their research to a small bounded space such as an long periods They have spent village in a remote forest. aboriginal sometimes for many years, of time living amongst the locals, they of what description comprehensive a producing at aiming develop for the was very important this approach While observed. ment of ethnography as a research method, it has its limitations intercon- and globalized, modern, of our study the to applied if to jungle the to off go rarely today Ethnographers world. nected modern Taiwanese Buddhism, it follows that instead of examining instead Buddhism, it follows that Taiwanese modern it within the boundaries of the ROC, by solely placing the religion move- and linkages, border-crossings, many the consider also we and the rest Asia China, Japan, Southeast Taiwan, ments between its current state. of the world that have together shaped 1 serious serious topic of academic investigation. however, the Today, field in studied is forms many its in Buddhism Modern flourishing. is advancement, and disciplines. Despite this recent many languages we are What that clear. always not is investigation of subject the This Buddhism? we are speaking of modern talking about when spread global the considering by question this tackle to aims paper Transnational perspective. from a transnational of Fo Guang Shan and sciences the social within advance recent a describes ism approach that examines to move away from a research humanities the context of one solely by placing it within its object of interest notion of “international,” which nation state. In contrast to the refers to the relationship perspective to the transnational according linkages sustained the to refers “transnational” states, between cross national that actors non-state among exchanges ongoing and borders. - I therefore had to I therefore had to

3 2 (Haci- Monk Simple a of Life The Luminous Cloud: Star, Bright Multi-sited ethnography as a research approach is not con not is approach research a as ethnography Multi-sited George E Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of The Emergence System: World the in/of Marcus, “Ethnography E George 24, no. 1 (1995): Anthropology of Annual Review Ethnography,” Multi-Sited 95–117. Fu Zhiying, enda Heights, CA: Buddha's Light Publishing, 2008), 137. create a selection of to conduct field work at. Based on on conduct field work at. Based create a selection of temples to and importance location, size, geographical such as criteria within the global temple net, I have fieldchosen sites four different my research for a foundation First, in order to build for my study. 2 3 study isolated tribes. Instead they study government institutions, government institutions, they study tribes. Instead study isolated for I did as or, activists, environmental companies, transnational Taiwanese of the development global the project, dissertation my Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan. None of the above subjects takes such as the remoteboundaries of an isolated space, place within the mobile, today’s but instead they enfold in village in the forest, global In order to understand today’s world. global, and connected as the things they have to be as mobile phenomena, researchers this response to a as was developed ethnography Multi-sited study. new situation. ducted ducted at one place, but instead at a selection of field sitesthat is In the case of my own research chosen by the researcher. carefully that Fo Guang Shan’s project it was clear from the beginning conducting by studied appropriately be not could trajectory global field work atYet, only consid- one of the order’s overseas temples. it endeavors, global Shan’s Fo Guang of scope immense the ering would have also been impossible to conduct fieldwork at each and Venerable overseas temples. In fact, every single one of the order’s Fu Zhiyin has calculated that if a biographer Yun’s Master Hsing of each at time, travel days, including would spend ten researcher overseas temples, she or he would need more Fo Guang Shan’s whole trip. than three years to complete the

Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan 334 2019 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism 335 , the period after the Opium War? Or, do we mean the Or, War? , the period after the Opium 近代

The problem arises if we expand our research on Fo Guang The problem arises if we expand our research on Fo Guang By placing the study of Fo Guang Shan within a global a global study of Fo Guang Shan within By placing the Shan to its overseas temples. Fo Guang Shan temples and practice Shan to its overseas temples. Fo Guang Shan temples and practice but the order has Taiwan, in are of course not only located centers expanded over significant parts of the globe. If we take up a book that places Humanistic Buddhism within the context of Chinese Republican era, beginning with 1911? What about the decades decades the about What 1911? with beginning era, Republican and many other Yun Master Hsing Venerable after 1949, when What about Taiwan? to monastics from the mainland translocated a On period? contemporary the called sometimes is what today, context the within time of question the situating by glance, first nation-state, the as such locality bounded certain a or space, of during the is what has emerged the answer seems simple: modern past. of the examination hundred or so years through a critical last is then just the contemporary actualization What happens today, According to this rationale, when we study the of the modern. Shan would Fo Guang Taiwan, in China and of Republican era Humanistic be the contemporary actualization Chinese the to response critical a as emerged has that Buddhism that seems correct. Buddhist tradition. So far, framework, the seemingly simple question posted at the beginning question posted at the simple seemingly framework, the speaking are we when about talking we are (“What paper this of complicated. suddenly becomes more of modern Buddhism?”), The first problem arises, when we consider the question in regard we do Buddhism, Chinese modern about talk we When time. to in the Chinese language is called thereby refer to the period that jindai I have spent five months at Fo Guang Shan temples, practice practice Shan temples, at Fo Guang five months I have spent each on to spend I went Hereafter, Taiwan. in and facilities centers, United States, and the People’s , the nine weeks in South Republic of China, where I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork other and Temple Dajue Temple, , Hua Nan the at Shan. centers, and facilities of Fo Guang temples, practice

- This assessment of who is modern and who is not is less less is not is who and modern is who of assessment This the teleological has criticized E. Barlow Tani China historian history, history, we will most definitely find a lot of information about its if we Yet of . to the modernization contributions modern Buddhism American Buddhism, the term read studies on is almost exclusively used for Buddhism as it is practiced by Buddhists of European descent. In these studies, “modern” “modern” studies, these In descent. European of Buddhists often is then Westerners white by (mostly) as practiced Buddhism juxtaposed with a supposedly “traditional” Buddhism practiced up for the descent. Other terms that come Asian Americans of by are “ethnic Buddhism,” Americans Asian by Buddhism practiced and “baggage Buddhism.” “cultural Buddhism,” of different multitude the of knowledge empirical actual on based of modern dichotomy but on a claimed Asian Buddhist traditions, to exclusive not of course, is, dichotomy This traditional. and has of scholarship tradition whole A Buddhism. on modern studies that was initiated in Europe and thought of modernity as something teleologi this In globe. whole the over spread eventually will that parts of the world the non-Western cal understanding of modernity, Western. to be modern is to be lag behind and need to catch up; is undeniably Fo Guang Shan Humanistic Buddhism However, of Human- is one of the key tenets modern. In fact, modernization istic Buddhism! How changing the geographical come that by just from Shan transforms Fo Guang the US, to Taiwan from setting, Just because of tradition? Buddhist modernism to a representative looks Buddhism how modern from Buddhism differs Humanistic like (or is supposed of scholarship to look like) in the perspective mean that Humanistic BuddhismAmerican Buddhism, does that on enough? modern not just Buddhism Is Humanistic modern? is not a of universality claimed the which dimension, spatial a Or is there notion of modernity overlooks? Western-centric disagrees with the She particularly understanding of modernity. idea that modernity is a thing in itself that is understood as being

Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan 336 2019 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism 337 Barlow Barlow

5 Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): 1-2. To stress her point, she introduces the notion of introduces the notion of stress her point, she To

4 There is thus not just one modern society that serves as that society modern one just is thus not There 6 The idea of multiple modernities is, of course, associated is, of course, associated The idea of multiple modernities Tani E. Barlow, “Introduction” in Formations of Colonial Modernity in East “Introduction” E. Barlow, Tani Duke University Press, N.C., London: (Durham, Barlow E. Tani ed. Asia, 1997), 1. Ibid, 6. “Multiple Modernities,” S. N. Eisenstadt, argues that this new perspective allows us to see what has been what has been perspective allows us to see that this new argues traditional: and modern of dichotomy older obstructed by the our case, to recognize the in Asian modernities, or, contemporary religiosities from the beginning obvious modernness of Buddhist how this modernness to detect of the last century in China on and Thus, today. Buddhism Humanistic shaped Fo Guang Shan’s has as one all-encompassing entity instead of thinking modernity core, it is something that from a European is disseminating that plural. the occurs in and that connectivity global of a out emerges many the then allows us to incorporate of “modernities” Thinking West.” occurred outside of “the diverse modern developments that that argues Eisenstadt S.N. Eisenstadt. sociologist the with ones, as well as non-Western Western although modern societies, a multiplic- differentiation, all tend to develop towards structural from these patterns emerge ity of institutional and ideological processes. prior to colonialism. She argues that “the modernity of non-Euro - “the modernity that She argues colonialism. prior to European colonial core of as the is as indisputable pean colonies modernity.” 4 5 6 “colonial modernity,” a notion that does not approach history not approach history a notion that does “colonial modernity,” states, stages of defined units, such as nation through positively development, or civilizations, etc., but sees it as “a complex field [and] multiply or threads of material that connect of relationships sites.” can be surveyed from specific in space-time and a universal standard for others to be measured with, but there are be measured with, but there are a universal standard for others to Buddhism examining By modern societies. of multiple variations

Modern Buddhist religiosities that in the first half of the that in the first Modern Buddhist religiosities 7 Multiple modern Buddhist religiosities have developed in in developed have religiosities Buddhist modern Multiple Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism, The Arif Dirlik, Global Modernity: Modernity in the 2007), Publications, Colorado: Paradigm (Boulder, series radical imagination and a Asian Traditions 62; Prasenjit Duara, The Crisis of Global Modernity: (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 91-118. Sustainable Future

7 - acknowl that one perspective, spatial a from period modern the in of one the idea we can abandon and difference, edges multiplicity for all and modernism that serves as a standard mode of Buddhist religiosities. the diversity of modern Buddhist instead recognize field of world as a result of that “complex parts of the different of. During threads of material” Barlow speaks relationships or modern Buddhist colonialism, these multiple the era of European religiosities, relation- informed by global linkages and although as often sites, specific at developed primarily have still ships, processes to linked are that traditions national emerging newly Chinese modern include building. Examples of nation-state modern , Thai Buddhism, but also modern building of nation-state processes The so on. and Buddhism, colonialism, and with them the end of formal West, outside of the modernity, capitalist our to alternative socialist of a the end also but market and capitalism were era our current formed have together new whole globe. Under this have expanded over the economies “global called have researchers condition—a condition some are increasingly and exchange connectivity, modernity”—mobility, enhanced. last century have mostly been confined to the spatial configuration on a global scale. at, are today developing where they emerged process. for this example perfect the is Buddhism Humanistic primarily active and others were Taixu Master 1949, Before other on the Fo Guang Shan temples borders of China. the within a The order maintains the globe. hand can today be found all over In our current age Antarctica. besides presence on every continent

Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan 338 2019 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism 339

- The modern Buddhist religiosity of Humanistic Buddhism, a of Humanistic Buddhism, a The modern Buddhist religiosity The modern Buddhist religiosities that have developed in in developed have that religiosities Buddhist modern The Asia and all over the globe and that are often linked to a particular to a linked often are and that globe the over all Asia and Through to this new situation. are slowly adjusting culture national Buddhists, such as other modern Humanistic their global mobility, not are Asia, Southeast US or the example for from, Buddhists represent all but Buddhism modern of representatives exclusive modernness Their amongst others. religiosity one modern Buddhist Buddhist religiosity a modern of example represents one particular The term “globalization” is often global condition. under today’s mobility, of degree enhanced today’s to refer to order in used this context, globalization is Within and exchange. connectivity, multina faceless of attempt neoliberal a as understood sometimes image. Western a after world the to standardize companies tional everyone and everything that mean not does global being Yet the globality of the current acknowledge To becomes identical. multiple by characterized is that globality a modernity, of state seriously the high level allows us to take and diverse modernities, the of condition global plurality that characterizes today’s of is not one monolithic world. From this perspective, globalization complex and multifaceted enterprise, but instead is a highly and Western multitude of actors, process that is generated by a this Within projects. globalization and their multiple non-Western, Buddhism constitutes one context, Fo Guang Shan Humanistic modern Buddhist religiosity. example of a globalized non-Western religiosity that is characterized by social engagement in the fields and religious cultivation, has devel- of culture, education, charity, - Taiwan of modern Chinese and context oped within the particular conditions the under occurs religiosity this today Yet history. ese Fo Guang Shan modernity. pluralistic and multifaceted of a global, of global modernity these multiple modern Buddhist religiosities religiosities Buddhist modern multiple these modernity global of co-exist, they meet, they of each other; become aware increasingly at a multitude of spaces. and they interact Humanistic Buddhists contribute to the societies of many nation nation societies of many to the Buddhists contribute Humanistic are Buddhists Shan Guang Fo of majority the Although states. overseas temples The order’s they are also global. Chinese, ethnic consists that community diaspora layered and complex a serve Chinese Taiwanese, from all origins, including of ethnic Chinese Chinese, Asian Southeast of China, Republic People’s the from Chinese migrants of ethnic and later generations and the second at the we also encounter non-Chinese worldwide. In addition, the architecture Some just visit to enjoy overseas temples. order’s institu- educational are students of the order’s or the food, others again many charities, others of the order’s tions or are recipients meditate to come who traditions other from Buddhists fellow are or pay homage to the Buddha, and somefinally, even come to join order In (BLIA). Association International Light Buddha’s the diversify within and beyond for Humanistic Buddhism to further there is no need to neglect its the global diaspora communities by Humanistic promoted Chineseness. If the notion of Chineseness and cosmopolitan one, one that Buddhists is an open, inclusive, under religiosities of modern Buddhist is aware of the diversity will future the in Buddhists Humanistic condition, global today’s global . not only be modern but also be truly

Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan 340 2019 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism 341 Humble Table, Wise Fare —Humble Table, The law of causality is the central truth. Compatibility is the of getting essence along.