Research Article Journal of Global Buddhism 3 (2002): 46 - 78 Globalizing Chinese Culture, Localizing Buddhist Teachings: the Internationalization of Foguangshan* By Stuart Chandler Assistant Professor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania [email protected] Copyright Notes Digitial copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no chargeis made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format with the exception of a single copy for private study requires the written permission of the author. All enquries to: http://www.globalbuddhism.org The Journal of Global Buddhism 46 ISSN 1527-6457 R e s e a r c h A r t i c l e Globalizing Chinese Culture, Localizing Buddhist Teachings: the Internationalization of Foguangshan* By Stuart Chandler Assistant Professor Indiana University of Pennsylvania [email protected] Abstract Foguangshan, one of the most prominent Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, has over the past decade also developed a significant network of temples around the globe. With more than 150 centers dispersed on five continents and serving millions of devotees, the Foguang "empire," as Washington Post journalist Kevin Sullivan has dubbed the phenomenon, is now arguably one of the most extensive and best organized Buddhist groups in the world (Sullivan 1996, A22). There are certainly few monks who can claim to have gathered as large a sangha as has Foguangshan's founder, Master Xingyun, who currently supervises more than thirteen hundred disciples. In this essay, I describe the various factors that have contributed to Foguangshan's remarkable success in transforming itself from a local institution into one of truly international magnitude. After placing Foguangshan's expansion in historical perspective, I analyze its demographics and the methods that the master and his disciples have relied upon to carry out their ambitious objectives. Through this discussion, the challenges and tensions inherent within the group's mission come to light. The essay concludes by disclosing Master Xingyun's positive appraisal of the religious implications of globalization. This Foguang material provides one piece of evidence that in the post-modern 47 Research Article world people's primary referent for communal identity may very well increasingly revert from national to religious symbols and myths. From Master Huishen To Master Xingyun Master Xingyun (b. 1927) first went abroad in 1963, when he joined a contingent of bhikshus sent to India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, and Hong Kong on a government-sponsored initiative to bolster support for the Republic of China (ROC). The beginnings of Foguangshan's globalization are to be traced to a more recent trip: the master's visit to the United States in 1976, at which point he recognized the great potential for serving the rapidly expanding Chinese-American population. Twelve years later, Master Xingyun opened the doors of the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere. He chose to call it "Hsi Lai," which means "Coming to the West." This is a play on words, for Chinese Buddhists have long referred to Buddhism as having come from the West, i.e., from India. One year after the founding of Hsi Lai, the theme of bringing the Dharma to the West gained even greater salience when Tang Degang, an historian then at New York University, gave a lecture at the Foguangshan Buddhist Youth Academic Conference that he billed, "From Master Huishen to Master Xingyun"(Shi Xingyun 1994, vol. 3, entry for January 2, 1990). Tang stated in his paper that during the North-South Dynasties (420-589 CE), Ven. Huishen, a monk of Indian origin but living in China, sailed to America to spread the Dharma. The cleric returned to the Middle Kingdom some forty years later, presenting to the Liang emperor many gifts from the distant land, which he called Fusang. Dr. Tang cited three pieces of evidence to support his thesis. Firstly, he quoted passages from the "Twenty- five Histories" that relate Ven. Huishen's descriptions of his voyage and of the peoples, flora, and fauna that he observed in the land he had made his home for so long. Secondly, the scholar noted that there are many ancient "stone anchors" (Chin. shi mao) in America with craftsmanship so Chinese in style that they must have derived from China and been brought over by the monk. Finally, Tang asserted that there are still people in Acapulco, Mexico, who are Buddhists, having received the tradition from their ancestors who had learned of the Dharma from the Indian-Chinese missionary. Ven. Huishen's early "discovery" (faxian) of America, a full millennium before Columbus arrived, was of such historical importance to Buddhists, Chinese, and all Americans, stated Dr. Tang, that he recommended that Hsi Lai Temple build a "Master Huishen Memorial Hall." The Journal of Global Buddhism 48 Tang Degang was not, in fact, the first scholar to hypothesize about an early Buddhist arrival in America. This theory had been raised and debated within the European academic community during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.(1) More recently, a Professor Wei Zhuxian of Taiwan National University devoted virtually his entire career to cataloguing archeological, anthropological, and historical evidence for pre-Columbian contacts between Chinese and American peoples. In his opinion, Huishen represents a relatively late interaction because a thousand years earlier Confucius had already made references to the North American hummingbird. Whether or not Fusang was a Chinese name for the continent of America will probably never be known definitively. Most of the evidence that Tang and his predecessors cited to substantiate their claims is tentative at best. To scrutinize the soundness of the data offered, however, is to miss the point. For the Foguangshan community, the theory's importance lies not so much in historical validity, but rather in its potential for creating a new mythology, viz. an expressive history that helps to establish the group's sense of purpose. The power of the Huishen legend arises from three elements: the portrayal of him as carrier of Chinese culture; the conviction that he successfully planted the seed of the Dharma on American shores; and the transnational profile he is given. We shall return to each of these components as we discuss Foguangshan's missionary work not only in America, but around the world. Before doing so, let us contextualize the Foguang efforts by briefly describing the history of Chinese Buddhism as it has spread into the United States, Australia, Africa, and Europe. Even if the land of Fusang mentioned by Ven. Huishen was not America, immigrants from China were nonetheless the first Asians to import Buddhist statuary and devotional practices to the United States. Those who did so were not monastics, but laymen drawn to California by the lure of gold. The first ship of Chinese arrived in 1849, one year after the precious metal had been discovered at John Sutter's sawmill. By the 1880s, the early Chinese population had peaked at slightly over 100,000. Not surprisingly, as the community grew, it set aside places of worship. The first Chinese religious establishments to be constructed in the continental United States were the Tin Hou Temple and Kong Chow Temple, built in San Francisco around 1853.(2) By 1875 the number of temples in that city had grown to at least eight, and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of "joss houses," as Chinese shrines were called, throughout the Western United States. One cannot characterize such structures as strictly Buddhist, however, since in most cases a variety of Chinese Daoist, 49 Research Article folk, and Buddhist figures received shelter and homage together. The vast majority of these dwellings were abandoned shortly after they were completed. With the passage of anti- Chinese legislation, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the number of Chinese in the United States steadily declined, the various temples in the Chinatowns received ever fewer devotees, and, one by one, they were abandoned. The history of Chinese Buddhism in Australia is remarkably similar to that of the United States.(3) At the same time that Chinese men from the Canton region were embarking for California, some of their relatives and neighbors were on their way to the gold mines of Victoria and South Australia. Here too, joss houses proliferated. Buddha images do not appear to have been included in these shrines, but alongside statues of such deities as Guangong (god of war and commerce) and Caishen (god of wealth), one could find likenesses of Guanyin (Avalokiteshvara) and Mile Fo (Maitreya). As in the United States, these structures soon disappeared, and subsequent nativist backlash resulted in legislation that virtually halted all immigration from China until the early 1970s (Croucher 1989, 1-3). The lure of gold also played an important, but fleeting, role in the history of Chinese immigration to Africa. Nearly 64,000 Chinese men were imported into present-day South Africa from 1904 to 1907 to work in the fifty-five mines that had sprouted up along the gold reef just south of Johannesburg. Unlike in the United States and Australia, where significant numbers of the men ended up staying on to form Chinatowns, those who journeyed to South Africa were virtually all immediately repatriated upon the expiration of their three-year contracts.(4) Once the mine laborers had left, a mere 1,905 Chinese remained in the country, nearly all of whom had arrived during the second half of the nineteenth century.(5) Elsewhere in Africa, only such places as Lourenco Marques and Beira along the coast of Portuguese East Africa (present-day Mozambique), and Bulawayo, Umtali, and Salisbury of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) became home to small groups of Chinese traders, shopkeepers, and farmers.