Passing the Light: The Incense Light Community and Buddhist Nuns in Contemporary Taiwan

Preface

Preface Xiangguang, or Incense Light, is a community of nuns in Taiwan founded in the 1980s. Neither as large nor as famous as certain longstanding Buddhist organizations , Incense Light is distinguished by two things. First, unlike most Buddhist communities, which include both monks and nuns, this is a single-sex community . Second, every member of the community is required to dedicate several years to teaching Buddhism to adults in evening classes offered at Incense Light centers established in several major cities across the island. Serendipity played a role in my decision to undertake this study. My mother lived in Taipei until she passed away in 2001, and I had been going to Taiwan at least once but more often twice a year to visit her since the 1970s. In the course of those visits, I began studying with the Venerable Shengyan (1930–2009), founder of Dharma Drum Mountain (Fagu Shan), and took refuge (formally declared myself a Buddhist) under his tutelage in 1976. This was the beginning of my relationship with the Taiwanese Buddhist community. Through Master Shengyan’s introduction, I came to know a number of Buddhist teachers and masters, and on my trips back to Taiwan, I made a point of visiting his temple and other monasteries to meet with Buddhist leaders and familiarize myself with the current conditions of Taiwanese Buddhism. In the 1990s, while doing research for a book on Guanyin, I was invited to teach intensive courses on the methodology of studying Chinese Buddhism. I offered these courses first at the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies (Zhong Hua Foxue Yanjiuso), then at the Seminary of Buddha Light Mountain (Foguang Shan), and lastly, in 1995, at the Seminary of the Incense Light Bhikşunī Sangha (Xiangguang Nisengtuan). During the two weeks I lectured there, I had long conversations with the abbess Wuyin (1940–) and several nuns holding key administrative positions. My prior work was focused on premodern Chinese Buddhism, but through this convergence of circumstances, my interest turned to contemporary Taiwanese Buddhism. Research on the cult of Guanyin intensified my interest in Buddhism, gender, and the religious lives of Chinese women, and as a result of sharing this work with the Incense Light nuns, I was granted the opportunity to study their order. At the same time, the courses I teach on Buddhism , Chinese religions, and women made me aware of the acute need for x • Preface sources of information on Chinese women’s religious lives. The questions my students ask—which I cannot always answer—also motivated me to embark on this new project. The course and direction of academic research are sometimes unpredictable, so I count myself fortunate that I was led to the Incense Light nuns and this project. I had for years been fascinated by the large numbers of educated young women who opt to become nuns in modern Taiwan. The Incense Light nuns exemplify this trend. When I suggested that I would like to use her community as a case study, Wuyin gave her ready consent. I must therefore thank her for her cooperation and encouragement, without which this study would not have been possible. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Jianxiang Shi, who served as my assistant , guide, and guardian angel during the eight months in 1998 when I lived with the community. Last but not least, I want to thank the many nuns who agreed to be interviewed. Their life stories helped me understand why the choice of a monastic career was a fulfilling one and how a modern female monastic carried out the work of a religious teacher (zongjiao shi). Since 1998 I have kept up with my contacts in the community through correspondence and yearly trips back to Taiwan. I have followed the order’s growth and was glad to see the opening of its new headquarters, the Great Incense Light Mountain (Daxiangguang Shan), in Daxi in 2009. The present book, however, concentrates on the early history of the community, from its formal founding in 1974 to 1998, the year I did fieldwork at Incense Light Temple (Xiangguang Si), the home temple located in the mountains outside Chiayi. Since I began this research, several women scholars—C.Julia Huang, Yuchen Li, Meei-hwa Chern, Wei-yi Cheng, Hillary Crane, and Elise DeVido, among others—have published studies on Taiwanese nuns (Huang and Weller 1998; Huang 2009; Li 2000; Chern 2001; Cheng 2007; Crane 2001, 2003, 2007; DeVido 2006, 2010). I have benefited from their...