scholarly journals Rhizomatic Religion and Material Destruction in Kham Tibet: The Case of Yachen Gar

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 533
Author(s):  
Daan F. Oostveen
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Field Trip ◽  
Interstitial Space ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
World Religion ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese State

This article looks at the Tibetan Buddhism revitalization in China in particular, in Kham Tibet, and the way how it was both made possible and obstructed by the Chinese state. As a case, we look at the Yachen Gar monastery in the West of Sichuan. The Yachen Gar monastery became the largest Buddhist university in China in the past decades, but recently, reports of the destruction of large parts of the Buddhist encampment have emerged. This article is based on my observations during my field trip in late 2018, just before this destruction took place. I will use my conceptual framework of rhizomatic religion, which I developed in an earlier article, to show how Yachen Gar, rather than the locus of a “world religion”, is rather an expression of rhizomatic religion, which is native to the Tibetan highlands in Kham Tibet. This rhizomatic religion could emerge because Yachen is situated both on the edges of Tibet proper, and on the edges of Han Chinese culture, therefore occupying an interstitial space. As has been observed before, Yachen emerges as a process which is the result of the revival of Nyingmapa Tibetan Buddhist culture, as a negotiation between the Tibetan communities and the Chinese state.

scholarly journals Macho Buddhism: Gender and Sexualities in the Diamond Way

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-103
Author(s):  
Burkhard Scherer
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Gender Stereotyping ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Western Tibetan Buddhist movements have been described as bourgeois and puritanical in previous scholarship. In contrast, Ole Nydahl’s convert lay Karma Kagyu Buddhist movement, the Diamond Way, has drawn attention for its apparently hedonistic style. This article addresses the wider issues of continuity and change during the transition of Tibetan Buddhism from Asia to the West. It analyses views on and performances of gender, sexual ethics and sexualities both diachronically through textual-historical source and discourse analysis and synchronically through qualitative ethnography. In this way the article demonstrates how the approaches of contemporary gender and sexualities studies can serve as a way to question the Diamond Way Buddhism’s location in the ‘tradition vs modernity’ debate. Nydahl’s pre-modern gender stereotyping, the hetero-machismo of the Diamond Way and the mildly homophobic tone and content of Nydahl’s teaching are interpreted in light of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist sexual ethics and traditional Tibetan cultural attitudes on sexualities. By excavating the emic genealogy of Nydahl’s teachings, the article suggests that Nydahl’s and the Diamond Way’s view on and performance of gender and sexualities are consistent with his propagation of convert Buddhist neo-orthodoxy.

scholarly journals TULKU INSTITUTE: TRADITIONS AND MODERNITY

2018 ◽  
pp. 52-58
Author(s):  
Dulma V. Ayusheyeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
The West ◽  
Successful Development ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Near Future

At the present stage of development of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, the tulku institution, which presence in this tradition is its main characteristic, began to take roots. In the past twenty years, Tibetan monks have begun to recognize the reincarnation of representatives of the lineage of succession, not only among Tibetans, but also Westerners. Analyzing this process, the author comes to the conclusion that the difficulty of introducing this model into the practice of Buddhism in the West is that Western adepts should agree that his teacher, the authoritative Tibetan lama, in his next birth can be identified in the person of a Western man and in this regard, there will be problems of relationship of students with the reincarnation of their spiritual teacher. The building of such relations is an increasingly important element in creating and maintaining the integrity required for the survival and further successful development of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. The author claims that, as a rule, children-reincarnates do not visit Western countries for various reasons. Many of them live in Tibetan monasteries in India and Nepal, where they are subject to strict regime and instructions. However, in the near future these children will grow into leaders of their societies located in Western countries.

scholarly journals Internal Сivilizational Content – Civilizational

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 76-87
Author(s):  
W. Yiwei
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Ancient Civilization ◽  
Chinese Dream ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
One Belt One Road ◽  
Traditional Chinese Culture ◽  
Road Project ◽  
The Chinese Dream

From the point of the human civilization history the main purpose of “One Belt, One Road’ Project is to revise the provisions of west-oriented ideology according to which the continental civilizations are subordinate to the maritime ones and the East is subordinate to the West. At the same time, “One Belt, One Road’ Project helps to restore through the return of Eurasia as the center of world civilization and is aimed at the creation of a foundation for a new civilization based on the principles of “unity of man and heaven” and “unity of man and the sea”. From the point of Chinese civilization history, the above-mentioned Project contributes to its triune transformation: the transition from a continental type of civilization to the maritime one, from an agrarian civilization to an industrial one, from a regional civilization to a global one. «One Belt, One Road» Project shows the increased consciousness of Chinese civilization, reflects its self-confidence and is an expression of the theoretical, practical and philosophical aspects of Chinese wisdom, creating the “effect of three fives”: changes unseen over the five-thousand-year history by which a transformation of the traditional Chinese culture is meant; changes unseen over the last five hundred years by which the renewal of modern civilization is meant; changes unseen over the past fifty years by which a realization of the Chinese dream is meant. Together they lead to a simultaneous revival and transformation of an ancient civilization, and also allow us to talk about the conjugation of the Chinese and world dreams.

China and “Modernity”: the Uses of the Study of Chinese History in the Past and the Present

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Zurndorfer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Data ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
The Past

AbstractThe central focus of this paper is the lack of impact Euro-centric theories of development have made on twentieth century historical writing by leading Chinese and Japanese scholars. The author reviews publications by three important historians, Naitō Konan, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, and Yü Ying-shih, all of whom attempt to locate China's first experience with “modernity” prior to nineteenth or twentieth century encounters with the West. Although all three historians differ in their interpretation of the concept “modernity,” they find Chinese culture a central feature in the identification of this concept. Furthermore, all three writers rely upon historical evidence, in particular economic and social data, to counter claims of China's history as a process of linear development.

Change vs. Order: Shijie Meets Tianxia in China's Interactions with the World

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Barabantseva
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
The West ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Initiatives ◽  
The World ◽  
Promotional Video ◽  
Chinese Popular Culture

This article examines how China, understood as a construct made up of multiple identities, constantly negotiates its relationships with the world. The oppositions—between tradition and modernity, the past and the present, China and the West— that are often presumed or reproduced in our thinking about China's place in the world are called into question. China's relationship with the world must be understood through the interplay between history and present, and thus through the particular uses of history in practice. The article especially explores how the world and China's place in it are seen in Chinese popular culture and visual expressions of state initiatives to promote Chinese culture. It focuses on the way images of the ever-changing world are depicted in two visual narratives: a promotional video of the Confucius Institute and the film The World (Shijie).

“Speaking Bitterness”: Autobiography, History, and Mnemonic Politics on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier

2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlene Makley
Keyword(s):  
Local History ◽  
Gansu Province ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
The Past ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Personal Histories ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
Old Men ◽  
Buddhist Monasticism

In the Tibetan Buddhist monastery town of Labrang, located in southwest Gansu Province, China, the past is a heavy, and very often hidden, burden for residents and visitors alike (figure 1). This is not readily apparent amidst the bustling ‘nowness’ of commercial activities in this tourist site and model town for the profitable coexistence of Tibetan Buddhist monasticism and Chinese state-sponsored development goals. But as I discovered over the course of my fieldwork there in the mid-1990s, and again in the summer of 2002, for a population living with unsanctioned memories of the traumatic ruptures of the Chinese Communist-led revolution beginning in 1949, the ‘unsaid’ of history spoke loudly in implication—in implied dialogue with multimedia official histories, in the gaps in written and oral chronologies of events, in the revived performance of the lay and monastic ritual calendars, and in the dodges and silences of my Tibetan interlocutors during our many conversations about their pasts: “I don't know anything! I'm too young, you know!” (Tibetan [Tib.] ngas shes ni ma red, nga lo chung gi mo). Ama Drolma, a village matriarch in her late fifties, repeated this adamantly to me after I and my Tibetan woman assistant had asked her for a taped interview about local “history” (Tib. lo rgyus). She would hear none of our explanations about my interest in people's personal histories and insisted that I seek out old men, they would know about “early, early, early times” (Tib. sngan na sngan na sngan na).

Tibetan Buddhist Power Objects

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Duncan Gentry
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Transmit Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Buddhist Doctrine ◽  
Sensory Interactions

As Tibetans began to import Buddhist scriptures and translate them into the Tibetan language in the 8th and 9th centuries, they also imported items like relics, reliquaries, statues, paintings, amulets, and other material objects believed to embody and transmit power through their physical connections with buddhas, bodhisattvas, and saints of the past. Guided by scriptural pronouncements, as these resonated with indigenous sensibilities Tibetans came to hold that sensory interactions with Buddhist power objects would enable unmediated access to the powerful sources of the Buddhist tradition for a range of pragmatic and transcendent goals. Such encounters were held to be so efficacious that they were sometimes promoted as viable complements or substitutes for the study and cultivation of Buddhist doctrine. As Tibetans integrated Buddhism into Tibetan culture they began crafting their own Buddhist power objects. These became so ubiquitous and diverse in Tibetan Buddhist societies that there is no single Tibetan term that directly corresponds with the category of “power objects” to encapsulate their full range. Patterned after Indian prototypes, Tibetans developed their own terms and rubrics for these kinds of objects. They also adapted them to include a wider spectrum of items and advanced theories of their power and efficacy that extend beyond their Indian Buddhist counterparts. On this account, controversies sometimes erupted among Tibetan ecclesiastical scholars over the purported nature and potency of such things. The prominent role given to Buddhist power objects in Tibet entailed they would serve as touchstones for the formation of Tibetan Buddhist communities, institutions, and states. Yet, sustained discussion of these kinds of objects has only been sporadic among traditional Tibetan exegetes and modern academic scholars of Tibetan Buddhism.

scholarly journals The past and present of the Christianity in China

Chronos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 197-220
Author(s):  
Linhai Liu
Keyword(s):  
Modern China ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
World Religion ◽  
The West ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Christianity In China ◽  
The Past ◽  
Western Democracy ◽  
Chinese Christianity ◽  
Per Se

Christianity is on the list of the legitimate religions in modern China. Thepast several decades have witnessed a wide spread and rapid developmentof the Christianity across the country. As an important world religion whichhad first emerged in the West Asia and which has to a certain extent beenidealized as the symbol of the Western culture, or the democracy in specific,Chinese Christianity has been attracting attentions both from within andwithout, especially the scholars. Unlike other religions such as Buddhismand Taoism, the existence and development of Christianity in China areoften attached to special dimensions such as politics and ideology whichgo beyond the religion per se. In the expectation of many Westerners andChinese, the Chinese Christianity, especially the Protestantism is the hope forthe Western democracy. What does it mean for China in particular and for theworld in general for the upsurge of Christianity? Although there are variousresearches, an agreement is far from being reached. This short article tries totrace in concise the past and present of Christianity in China, the challengesit is facing, and to provide some thought on its history. A short caveat isnecessary before we proceed further.

Tartan Buddhists

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
John McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Potential Utility ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
The West ◽  
Dependent Relationship ◽  
Different Types

The purpose of this article is to provide a sociological typology for understanding the different types of practitioners within the Tibetan Buddhist organization, Rokpa International, in Scotland. It will be argued that the empirically derived criteria and Weber’s (1978) sociological concepts of authority, power and status allow us to understand the tensions and mutually dependent relationship between the different types. In conclusion, it will be argued that, while this typology is not presented as a challenge to existing typologies, this article demonstrates the potential utility of these sociological concepts for understanding the practice and development of Buddhism in the West.

Seeing, Touching, Holding, and Swallowing Tibetan Buddhist Texts

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 137-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Cantwell
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Rich Material ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Book Culture

The iconic dimension of holy books has drawn increasing scholarly attention in recent years (e.g. Iconic Books and Texts, James Watts, ed., London, Equinox, 2013). Asian Buddhism provides rich material for considering the ritualization of engagement with sacred texts. In Tibetan Buddhism, this aspect of book culture is perhaps especially pronounced (see, for instance, Schaeffer 2009, especially Chapter 6; Elliott, Diemberger and Clemente 2014). This paper explores the topic in relation to the engagement of the senses in Tibetan context, through seeing, touching, holding and tasting texts. It would seem that it is not the sensory experience in itself, but rather the physical experience of a transmission and incorporation of the sacred qualities from the books into the person which is emphasized in these practices. Parallels and contrasts with examples from elsewhere are mentioned, and there is some consideration of the breadth of the category of sacred books in the Tibetan context in which Dharma teachings may take many forms.

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