On Face Masks as Buddhist Merit: Buddhist Responses to COVID-19. A Case Study of Tibetan Buddhism in Shanghai

Shmushko, Kai

doi:10.5281/zenodo.4727565

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It also took root in Han Chinese societies in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Chen 2008;Jones 2011;Smyer Yü 2012;Terrone 2012;Bianchi 2014;Sodargye and Smyer Yü 2017;Esler 2020;Jagou 2018Jagou , 2021. This paper focuses on one set of actors within this revitalization, namely, lay Han individuals (fojiao jushi 佛教居士) who practice Tibetan Buddhism in a community-based framework.5 Several works engage with the lived experiences of these practitioners and the material and spiritual exchanges between different segments of this broad group (Jones 2011(Jones , 2014Smyer Yü 2012;Esler 2020;Shmushko 2021). Also noteworthy are works of scholarship that discuss the predicament of lay Buddhism in the post-Mao era more generally (Fisher 2014(Fisher , 2020Ji and Zhang 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Commodities or Cultural Elements?

Shmushko

2022

Rev. Relig. Chin. Soc.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract