In discussing the arrival of Buddhism to China, Erik Zürcher describes the meeting of “a jungle of Buddhist metaphysics” with other local philosophies and practices. This period was a transformative encounter with wide-ranging ramifications, including for textual traditions. Non-complete Emptiness (Bu zhenkong lun 不真空論), written by Seng Zhao 僧肇, is one product of this encounter. While explaining the principle of emptiness, Non-complete Emptiness incorporates Daoist and Confucian terminologies and elements. Nevertheless, the text is considered formative for the development of Buddhist writing and practice during the critical period of Buddhism’s assimilation into China in the third to fifth centuries AD. This study of Non-complete Emptiness looks at the philosophical and cultural relevance of the text. It suggests a methodological solution to some of the tensions that have arisen from Seng Zhao’s notion of emptiness. The article begins by looking into the historical and hermeneutical tendencies in the scholarship of Non-complete Emptiness. The following section provides a textual and cultural analysis of the text and its author, viewing the sage as an “open entity”, to understand Seng Zhao’s idea of emptiness. This analysis suggests that a multiple dialectic approach should be followed to improve the understanding of the text’s Buddhist message and Seng Zhao’s position as a scholar-monk in medieval China.

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This article presents various institutional responses of Buddhist groups and leaders to COVID-19, adding a focus on how Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in China have responded to the pandemic. In particular, it examines the predicament of practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. The article focuses on the material characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism and how they were manifested among Han Chinese urbanites during the pandemic through (1) a teleological inquiry, which looks into the concept of merit (sk: puñña, ch: gongde) 功德, and (2) an organizational inquiry, which explores the modalities in which Han Chinese groups practice Tibetan Buddhism in the socio-political sphere of the Chinese state. Within this inquiry, the article deals with a Buddhist community based in Shanghai and an individual account of pilgrimage in Tibet. Based on these two case studies and their contextualization, the article aims to assess how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the practices, modalities and religious technologies of Tibetan Buddhism practiced by Han Chinese. The article argues for a degree of resilience of lay practice in Tibetan Buddhism; it stresses that while some aspects of the practice called for accommodations and change, the particularities of the practice have pre-existing conditions (such as state regulation on religion and the physical distance of their religious authority) which could accommodate the practical, sociological and psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article is a case study of a lay Buddhist community that employs a business model called “living hall” (Shenghuo guan 生活馆) to facilitate the practice of Tibetan Buddhism among its members. The living hall model is explored in the context of the politics of religion in the People’s Republic of China (prc) and the dynamics of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese in the past decades. The author investigates the model’s origin, its implementation in a contemporary Buddhist community, and its interaction with the discourse on Buddhism in the prc. The article joins a recent academic endeavor to illuminate the different modalities in which lay practitioners carry out Buddhist practice outside the sphere of institutionalized Buddhism. The article sheds light on the delicate dynamics between religion and state control in the prc and the role of entrepreneurs and materiality within lay Tibetan Buddhism.