In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Preface Any time a study relies heavily on material gathered ethnographically, there is the problem of how to document the sources of one’s data. Public meetings, conferences , and ceremonies as well as formal interviews do not pose much of a problem since they can be listed as part of the References section, as I have done in this book. The dilemma arises in determining whether to indicate one’s source when the information was given as part of an informal conversation. Over the two years of my stay at Foguangshan I had hundreds of such interactions, some no more than a few minutes in duration, others lasting several hours. Often, my conversation partners would very likely lack a clear recognition that what they revealed could become part of a public document. Despite the fact that I took every opportunity to indicate the nature of my project, even during the closing weeks of my stay in the community, it was quite evident that many of the monks, nuns, and laypeople had little understanding of the purpose of my stay and simply assumed that I was a Foguang devotee. Those who came to know me well also seemed with time to forget my status as academic researcher. Such friends were likely to reveal attitudes or information that did not necessarily accord with Foguangshan’s public stance. For this book, I have, therefore, not given the names of people who provided information during informal conversations if, in my opinion, there is any chance that such disclosure could cause difficulties for them. Another problem that occurs when writing a book about Buddhism is that of deciding on the language in which to give certain terms. Since the present study is about a Chinese Buddhist organization, one could argue that it makes most sense to utilize transliterations of Chinese pronunciations for names and concepts. Conversely, because Sanskrit and Pali are generally recognized as pan-Buddhist textual languages, the vast majority of Buddhist words that have entered English (as evidenced by their inclusion in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary) derive from these languages , especially Sanskrit. One could, therefore, argue that employing such standardized terminology is the better approach since it facilitates the further development of a common discourse for English-language Buddhist studies. I have chosen to follow the latter path. Hence, in this book, rather than finding reference to ‘‘Shijiamouni Fo,’’ ‘‘Jile Jingtu’’ and ‘‘kong,’’ one will find mention of ‘‘Shakyamuni Buddha,’’ ‘‘Sukhavati Pure Land,’’ and ‘‘sunyata’’ (although the xii • Preface Chinese pronunciation appears parenthetically after a term appears for the first time). Because the words are being treated as part of English vocabulary, diacritics associated with the original Sanskrit do not appear. Very few Chinese pronunciations of the Buddhist lexicon have gained currency in English; the word ‘‘Chan’’ is increasingly being used instead of ‘‘Zen’’ when referring to that tradition in its Chinese context. Also, along with ‘‘Avalokiteshvara’’ the Random House Unabridged Dictionary lists ‘‘Guanyin’’ as the Chinese name for the Bodhisattva of Compassion. I therefore refer to ‘‘Chan’’ and ‘‘Guanyin’’ in this book. Buddhist words that function as proper nouns and that have not yet found their way into common English discourse are referred to in an Anglicized Sanskrit : Maitreya Buddha, Tushita Heaven, etc. For other terms that have not yet become current in English, I have either followed an English-language translation that is commonly found in scholarly works (e.g., ‘‘pure land,’’ ‘‘patience’’) or utilized a transliteration of the Chinese or Sanskrit pronunciation, depending on the context (when employing an English translation, I show Chinese, then Sanskrit, in parentheses). The terms ‘‘monastic,’’ ‘‘cleric,’’ and ‘‘venerable’’ are my translations for the terms ‘‘chujiazhong’’ and ‘‘fashi.’’ ‘‘Chujiazhong’’ literally means ‘‘those who have left home.’’ ‘‘Fashi’’ signifies a teacher (shi) of the Dharma (fa). Both refer to those who have taken monastic vows, that is, bhikshus (biqiu), bhikshunis (biqiuni), shramaneras (shami), and shramanerikas (shamini). The term ‘‘disciple’’ is equivalent to ‘‘tudi’’ and, as such, includes not only ordained monastics but also ‘‘lay monastics,’’ my awkward term for shigu and jiaoshi, those laywomen and -men who have vowed to remain celibate and serve Foguangshan for life. ‘‘Master’’ is a translation of ‘‘dashi ,’’ ‘‘great teacher.’’ The English term ‘‘laity’’ means essentially the same thing as the Chinese ‘‘xintu’’ or ‘‘zaijiazhong’’ (lit., ‘‘those who remain at home’’). The term ‘‘devotee’’ corresponds to ‘‘dizi’’ and, hence, designates all the master’s followers, both monastic and lay. In...

Share