Heresy and Monastic Malpractice in the Buddhist Court Cases (Vinicchaya) of Modern Burma (Myanmar)

Over the past four decades, Buddhists in Burma, mainly monks, have been brought before Sangha courts charged with heresy, adhamma, and malpractice, avinaya, under the jurisdiction of the State Sanghamahanayaka Committee. This body, established under General Ne Win in 1980, oversees the regulation and conduct of the Sangha. The religious courts that try these cases have the backing of state law enforcement agencies: failure to comply with their judgements is punishable by imprisonment. A guilty verdict has been passed in all seventeen cases to date. There is no opportunity of appeal. The system not only protects Burmese Buddhism against corruption, but also stifles innovation and dissent. These cases, not previously discussed in scholarship outside of Burma, are significant for understanding the power of the State over the Sangha as well as the conservatism and antisecularism of Burmese Buddhism, which have set it at odds with the relativist approaches of modern, global Buddhism.     

Grooming and cultural socialization: A mixed method study of caregiving practices in Burma (Myanmar) and the United States

Grooming behaviours are thought to be a crucial aspect of parenting and integral to the sociality of non‐human mammals, but there have been few empirical studies on how grooming might be relevant to parenting and socialization processes in humans. Study 1 is a quantitative cross‐cultural comparison of grooming practices in two cultural settings: an urban centre in Burma (Myanmar) and an urban centre in the United States. The study uses naturalistic video data of 57 families to analyse grooming behaviours directed at children. A broad range of ages was sampled in each culture to examine the developmental trajectory of grooming behaviours. Results indicate that significant cultural differences exist between Burma and the United States, with Burmese children being groomed by their caregivers more often than U.S. children. Results also indicate that cultural differences in grooming practices begin early and remain constant across age. An unexpected finding was that Burmese families were more variable in their behaviour than U.S. families. Study 2 attempts to explain this variability by using ethnography to describe how sociodemographic changes in Burma are leading to changes in parental values and socialization practices in the schools, but how embodied primary care in the homes appear resistant to change.     

The Buddha was a devoted nationalist: Buddhist nationalism,ressentiment, and defending Buddhism in Myanmar

Since 2012, Buddhist nationalist movements – especially the 969 movement and Ma Ba Tha – have emerged in Burma/Myanmar seeking to defend Buddhism against mainly the Muslim minority, with monks delivering nationalist anti-Muslim sermons to huge audiences. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a discriminatory nationalist agenda can – by appealing to the common trope of Buddhism-in-danger – appear to be justified to Buddhists. Based mainly on nationalist sermons, as well as on fieldwork and nationalist publications, this article examines discourse on the Buddha as a nationalist. First, it argues that Burmese Buddhist nationalism, analytically, should be understood as a ressentiment ideological discourse that also informs a Buddhist-nationalist discipline claimed to bring karmic merit. Second, it traces the roots of this ideology to the colonial period. Third, the article outlines and seeks to define how ‘Buddhist nationalism’ should be understood in an emic sense.     

Possessed for Success: Prosperity Buddhism and the Cult of the Guardians of the Treasure Trove in Upper Burma

Following the global spread of capitalism from the early 1990s, individualistic, non-institutionalised prosperity religion and ‘occult economies’ have emerged throughout the world, including South-East Asia, but have seemingly not yet been investigated with respect to Burma/Myanmar. This article focuses on the cult of the guardians of the treasure trove – a form of ‘prosperity Buddhism’ – in Upper Burma, wherein predominantly business women of lower middle classes perform possession dances to become successful in business. It has partly evolved from the lower status ‘traditional’ possession cult of the 37 Lords. The aim of this article is threefold. Firstly, it examines novel kinds of ‘Buddhicised’ possession rituals of higher status that discard religious specialists. These practices represent a democratisation of public spirit-mediumship and provide a route for success in business, agency and empowerment. Secondly, it is demonstrated that these cults seek to preserve Buddhism in the face of the current rapid changes in Burma. Thirdly, this article shows how these novel cults emerged in dynamic interplay with recent economic, social and political changes in Burma, as well as an increasing impact of globalisation.     

The Self-Effacing Buddhist: No(t)-Self in Early Buddhism and Contemplative Neuroscience

One of the core teachings of Buddhism is the doctrine of anattā. I argue that there is good evidence that anattā as understood in early Buddhism should be viewed less as a doctrine and a metaphysical pronouncement (‘no-Self’) than as a soteriological claim (‘not-self’) – an appeal and a method to achieve, or move progressively closer to, liberation. This view opens up anattā to empirical scrutiny – does un-selfing, as an act, lead to liberation? Neuroimaging data collected on Buddhist or Buddhism-inspired meditators show interesting correspondences with this view of not-self as a possibly soteriological strategy. First, meditation leads to a quieting of the narrative self. Second, this quieting of the narrative self seems to lead to at least momentary increases in well-being. Third, this process can be learned, and seems to be already underway after a mere 40 hours of experience. Finally, very highly accomplished meditators seem to be able to tune down even the core self and truly experience anattā, including an apparent subduing of reflexive awareness.     

Jerusalem: The problems and responsibilities of sacred space

Focusing on the central role the city of Jerusalem plays in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, this paper addresses the question of what makes particular cities 'holy' and sacred to people, the meaning and responsibilities that this 'sacredness' entails and whether this 'sacredness' in fact affects the conduct of politicians when determining the fate of a sacred city such as Jerusalem. Answers to these questions are found deep in the human psyche, in what historians of religion have called a 'sacred geography' and in the sense of exile from a holy place that makes it that much more precious to the people attached to it.     

The sacred second: religious moments in a Colombo marketplace

How does the marketplace of a busy city shape the religious practices of its shopkeepers? Combining historical and ethnographic research, this article examines the cosmopolitan past and present of Colombo’s Pettah neighbourhood. Its role as an Indian Ocean port resulted in a continual influx of new religious players, leaving its present pluralistic pantheon, from which shopkeepers (many of whom have made their own transoceanic journeys to work in other port cities like Dubai) can choose the saint or god best suited for their needs. Meanwhile, the pace of the marketplace has structured religious time accordingly; sacred moments are improvised sporadically among the bustle of the business day. Religious ritual is now part of the general pattern of marketplace routine, along with a number of other habits for passing time – unscheduled but expected activity, both personally meaningful and socially symbolic. In turn, religious performance can enhance market performance, instrumentalised in spur-of-the-moment sales techniques, lines between sacred and profane continually blurred.     

The medieval mappaemundi: Toward an archaeology of sacred cartography

Scholars have long been fascinated by the curious world portrayed in the circular world maps (mappaemundi) that were drawn by medieval monks and other learned individuals during the European Middle Ages. For students of the history of cartography, however, the mappaemundi represent the nadir of the science of map‐making, bearing witness to the thousand‐year period which saw the abandonment of carefully‐calculated spatial representation and the emergence in its place of religious cosmography. To cartographers, these maps, bearing no resemblance to objective reality, are of little or no scientific value, but merely a reminder of a truly Dark Age.

Yet, though the medieval mappaemundi possess no scientific value for modern geographers, they do provide scholars of religion and culture a glimpse into a world—a sacred world—far removed from our own. In these maps we see not a testament to an age of scientific ignorance but, more importantly, an artifact of its common thought‐world—its sacred discourse. The world these maps portray is a world ordered by sacred events and imbued with sacred meaning, a world that saw itself participating in sacred time, located by divine redemption in sacred space.

This paper considers the organization, abstraction and representation by medieval cartographers of the world as sacred space. By outlining the development of the mappaemundi, this paper also seeks to explain the evolution of the dominant sacred worldview of the European Middle Ages that took shape and helped maintain social and religious order through its common symbol system as portrayed in its sacred cartography.     

Contesting sacred urban space:The case of the Eruv

Accommodating religious differences has proven to be a significant challenge for immigrant-receiving societies. This article examines conflicts that have arisen over attempts by Orthodox Jews to demarcate urban space for religious purposes through the establishment of an eruv. At once an intriguing blend of precisely bordered and creatively reimagined space, an eruv demarcates the urban space in which Orthodox Jews may carry on certain religious and communal practices on the Sabbath and Holy Days. Through case studies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, this article explores the contested nature of minority religion in the public realm.     

庐山慧远的佛教发展策略

在魏晋南北朝这样混乱的时代背景下,佛教如何发展是一个具有挑战性的问题。庐山慧远制定了极为睿智的佛教发展策略,即佛教在各大势力之间保持独立的策略。慧远用《沙门不敬王者论》从理论上论证了佛教独立的地位,并且采取实际措施确保了这一策略的实施,使得佛教发扬光大,真正融入中国社会。     

The sociology of the sacred: A conversation with Jeffrey Alexander

Over the past 20 years, Jeffrey C. Alexander has been a leading social theorist and a pioneer of the ‘strong program’ in cultural sociology, which emphasises the significance of cultural structures of meaning for social life. Following an introductory overview of his work, this article records a public conversation with Alexander about the role and significance of the concept of the sacred in his sociological work. Issues addressed in this conversation include situating Alexander's interest in the sacred in his intellectual biography (including his significant intellectual influences), the mistrust of the concept of the sacred within the wider sociological community, the universality of cultural structures of sacred meaning, the limitations of sociological analysis focused on sacred meaning and methodological approaches to the study of the sacred.     

Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self

In the contemporary debate on the nature of autonomy, it is generally taken for granted that autonomy is to be understood as rule by the self, with the debate centring on how that self is to be identified. Garnett [2013b Garnett, Michael 2013b. The Autonomous Life: A Pure Social View, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91/4. [Google Scholar]] has recently proposed a theory that rejects the dominant understanding of autonomy as rule by the self and views it instead as resistance to rule by others. According to that theory, an autonomous agent is one whose various ‘autonomy traits’ render her sufficiently resistant to subjection to foreign wills. I argue that Garnett has not given us good reason to abandon the understanding of autonomy as rule by the self. His account is plausible only if it is understood to require for autonomy the possession of at least one trait with which the agent can be identified. And the best explanation of the necessity of some such trait(s) is offered, not by Garnett's, but by the dominant understanding of autonomy he rejects.     

“宗”“教”之别与扬净抑禅:印光净土思想的两块基石

印光认为不宜"宗"与"教"混淆,"宗"是佛教的根本旨趣,"教"则是适应不同的教化对象而说的教法,上根者宜"宗",中下根者宜"教"。"宗"分律、教、禅、密、净五宗。禅净是最易令众生了生脱死的两大要门,禅净有别,净为律、教、禅、密之归宿。印光通过重释禅净四料简,扬净抑禅,强调专修净土法门是末法时代佛教信众的最优选择。