Zen Conquests: Buddhist Transformations in Contemporary Vietnam - Hardcover

Inhaltsangabe

"At the tail end of the twentieth century, a monk transformed a small village temple on the outskirts of Hanoi into a monastery and meditation center called Thiãáen Viòãen Sáung Phâuc--a place where monastics and lay Buddhists could learn and practice Zen meditation. In time the original temple was replaced by numerous large buildings to accommodate meditation sessions, youth events, weddings, classes, and a variety of other activities designed to keep practitioners engaged. Thiãáen Viòãen Sáung Phâuc's approach to Buddhism as a life commitment for all ages and genders has been very successful, attracting more than a thousand Buddhists to its weekly services. It joined Thiáãen Phâai Trâuc Lãam, a much larger organization started by Thâich Thanh Tá½ in southern Vietnam that has expanded to northern Vietnam and internationally. In Zen Conquests, Alexander Soucy presents not only the first ethnography of Thiáãen Viòãen Sáung Phâuc and its followers, but also a compelling look at how the discourses of Buddhist Modernism were incorporated at a local level into this new space on the outskirts of Hanoi and how and why new constituencies of followers are drawn to Zen Buddhism in contemporary Vietnam. Thiãáen Viòãen Sáung Phâuc's Zen tradition purports to be a continuation of the only Zen Buddhist sect founded in Vietnam: the fourteenth-century Trâuc Lãam Zen School. However, the movement can also be seen as the product of Buddhism's globalization, born from the D. T. Suzuki-inspired interest in Zen in South Vietnam during the American War. Despite its claims to be authentically Vietnamese Zen, it more closely resembles Modernist versions of Buddhism practiced by Western converts in North America than anything Vietnamese. Soucy maintains that it is only by looking at the processes of globalization that Vietnamese Buddhism (both in the context of Vietnam but also in the Vietnamese diaspora) can be properly understood. He argues convincingly for acknowledging the continued influence of transnational, pan-Asian, andglobal flows of migration and communication on the development of multiple forms of Buddhism worldwide"--

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