Feeling Apart: Relations of Belonging in Tibetan Buddhist Lay-Monastic Communities

Numen ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 463-487
Author(s):  
Jane Caple
Keyword(s):  
Community Formation ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Northeastern Tibet ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Emotional Style

Abstract Studies of belonging and community formation often emphasize commonality of values, emotions, and feelings. This article highlights the importance of practices that create relations of distance between members as well as closeness. Drawing on fieldwork in institutionalized Tibetan Buddhist communities in northeastern Tibet (Amdo/Qinghai), I focus on everyday practices of respect and faith that materialize community by putting monks, reincarnate lamas, and laity “in their place.” This can include the most quotidian of acts, such as standing when someone enters a room. I argue that such practices of “feeling apart” and their refusal are central to individual negotiations of religious belonging and to the dynamic, ongoing process of community formation. The importance of these practices becomes particularly apparent when, as is the case in northeastern Tibet, seemingly taken-for-granted relations of belonging and the emotional style that enacts and creates these relations are felt to be precarious.

scholarly journals Fostering Respectful and Productive Conversations: Lessons Learned From Debating Courtyards in Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lodoe Sangpo ◽  
Manan Dhuldhoya ◽  
Niyati Dhuldhoya ◽  
Brian G Dias
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Buddhist Monk ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Media ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Modes Of Interaction

A suspicion for perspectives that differ from one’s own is not new to human interactions. What is new, however, is the disregard and the resultant disrespect that colours mainstream discourse across the globe today, whether in the media or in person. This creates barriers to healthy interaction and hence to learning from collaboration. Our team comprises a Tibetan Buddhist monk, a writer, an editor, and a neuroscientist, and we hope this paper, guided and crafted by a regard for the diversity of our experiences across two continents, can demonstrate how respectful and productive conversations can be achieved. We begin by stating the need for forms of communication that are very different from prevailing modes of interaction. We then examine the mechanics of debate that form the foundations of communication and learning in Buddhist monastic communities and discuss how this form of debate can help us arrive at harmonious interactions. Finally, we propose a format for respectfully initiating, maintaining, and ending conversations that take place anywhere from the classroom to the boardroom and newsroom.

The Anglican Tradition

2020 ◽  
pp. 620-633
Author(s):  
Adam D. McCoy
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
North America ◽  
Community Formation ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Women's Communities ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Daughters Of Charity

Anglican monasticism began in the 1840s and was associated with the Anglo-Catholic movement. Women’s communities, which were focused on nursing, teaching, and social work, grew quickly, while men’s communities developed later and more slowly. Fears of Roman Catholicism initially caused new communities to avoid traditional forms of monasticism in favour of the more recent models of the Visitation, Daughters of Charity, and Mercy Sisters. Anglican monasticism quickly spread to North America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Melanesia. The years since have seen the emergence of characteristically Anglican notions of community formation, rules, governance, and spirituality. The Second Vatican Council had a profound effect on the Anglo-Catholic movement, leading to significant changes in Anglican monastic communities—among them a greater willingness to experiment with different kinds of community life. Many areas of research are open.

Rethinking Tibetan Buddhism in Post-Mao China, 1980–2015

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-91
Author(s):  
Jane Caple
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Affective Dimension ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Northeastern Tibet ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethnographic Data

The literature on Tibetan Buddhism in post-Mao China presents a bifurcated history: ethnic nationalism and (traditional) identity are foregrounded in scholarship on the revitalization of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet; consumption and/or (global) modernism are emphasized in studies of its spread in Sinophone China. Although there are considerable historical and social differences between these different constituencies, these characterizations do not fully capture the social differences, as well as convergences, that have shaped everyday engagements with Tibetan Buddhism among Tibetans and Chinese. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in northeastern Tibet and other recent ethnographic studies, I attempt to complicate this picture, arguing that we need to pay greater attention to the affective dimension of Chinese engagements, the social embeddedness of Tibetan Buddhist institutions in the Tibetan context, and the transformations that have taken place in Tibetan areas, as elsewhere in China.

On the Nature of Gender Categorization

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Tomelleri ◽  
Luigi Castelli
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Processing Stage ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Gender Categorization

In the present paper, relying on event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we investigated the automatic nature of gender categorization focusing on different stages of the ongoing process. In particular, we explored the degree to which gender categorization occurs automatically by manipulating the semantic vs. nonsemantic processing goals requested by the task (Study 1) and the complexity of the task itself (Study 2). Results of Study 1 highlighted the automatic nature of categorization at an early (N170) and on a later processing stage (P300). Findings of Study 2 showed that at an early stage categorization was automatically driven by the ease of extraction of category-based knowledge from faces while, at a later stage, categorization was more influenced by situational constrains.

Contemplative Principles of a Non-dual Praxis: the Unmediated Practices of the Tibetan ‘Heart Essence’ (sNying thig) Tradition

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-240
Author(s):  
Eran Laish
Keyword(s):  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Common

This article focuses on the main contemplative principles of the ‘Heart Essence’ (sNying thig), a Tibetan Buddhist tradition that is characterized by a vision of non-duality and primordial wholeness. Due to this vision, which asserts an original reality that is not divided into perceiving subject and perceived object, the ‘Heart Essence’ advocates a contemplative practice that undermines the usual intuitions of temporality and enclosed selfhood. Hence, unlike the common principles of intentional praxis, such as deliberate concentration and gradual purification, the ‘Heart Essence’ affirms four contemplative principles of non-objectiveness, openness, spontaneity and singleness. As these principles transcend intentionality, temporality, and multiplicity, they are seen to directly disclose the nature of primordial awareness, in which the meanings of knowing and being are radically transformed. Therefore, the article will also consider the role of these non-dual contemplative principles in deeply changing our understanding of being and knowing alike.

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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