bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Pure Land Practice
Authors: Jones Charles B. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
The phrase “Pure Land practice” encompasses many ideas and methods besides oral repetition of the Buddha Amitābha’s name. Even when we restrict the inquiry to practices that lead to rebirth in his buddha-land Sukhāvatī after death, we find that any means of Buddhist cultivation can become Pure Land practice if one directs its merit toward that goal. In addition, the term nianfo/nembutsu covers a multitude of practices from highly complex visualizations to simple vocalization of the name. Moreover, the explanations by which people understand nianfo to work are as various as the practices. Different authors may mix self-power and other-power in a variety of ways: one may invoke the Mahayana philosophical concept of non-duality to show that the two are not ultimately separate, or use the mechanism of ganying (sympathetic resonance) in order to understand how one’s efforts evoke the Buddha’s response. One can even exclude self-power altogether and rely on Amitābha to provide a moment of true conversion, entrusting that it is beyond one’s ability to bring this about by any practice. Finally, making any distinction between self-power and other-power carries a risk. Including self-power among the factors leading to rebirth creates anxieties about the possibility of failure, while excluding self-power raises the possibility of antinomianism in the community.
Monastic Discipline and Local Practice
Authors: Wallace Vesna A. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
Despite contradicting the Vinaya, traditional Mongolian cultural norms characteristic of pastoral life were integrated into Mongolian Buddhist practice. Consumption of substances that might be interpreted as counter to Vinaya regulations—such as fermented mare’s milk (airag) or vodka as “internal offering” mentally transformed into ambrosia—form an important part of monastic and tantric ritual practices. While monks’ recreational consumption of fermented mare’s milk has been traditionally acceptable, monks’ recreational drinking of vodka, being highly intoxicating, has been always regarded as problematic. Seeing Mongolian Buddhist practice through textual and ethnographic lenses offers a view of the significant cultural current that undergirds Mongolian monastic practice of the Vinaya, highlighting the primacy of the traditional customary law over the Vinaya. Although the prohibition of smoking tobacco is nowhere found in the Vinaya, the Buddhist cultural norms and regional laws in Mongolia dictated the avoidance of tobacco smoking. However, cultural silence on snuffing tobacco has given rise to acceptance and practice of tobacco powder snuffing.
Buddhist Practice in Southeast Asia
Authors: McGovern Nathan 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter explores Buddhist practice in Southeast Asia, with a focus on practice in the Theravada branch of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The first half surveys the religio-historical geography of Southeast Asia and contemporary practices found in Theravada Buddhist cultures. The second half then explores important issues in the study of Theravada Buddhist practice, including the appropriateness of the term “Theravada,” the relationship between Theravada Buddhism and other religious practices, “Tantric Theravada,” and the encounter between Theravada Buddhism and modernity. This inquiry into Southeast Asian Buddhist practice is situated within a theoretical framework that recognizes the distortion that has been wrought for many years by a modernist construction of the Buddhist tradition that conflates “Theravada Buddhism” with “early Buddhism.”
Buddhist Death Practices
Authors: Gouin Margaret 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
The present chapter examines what is done in a Buddhist culture when there is a death, focusing on Tibetan Buddhist practice. The rich complexity of the many ritual structures is explored, with reference where possible to similarities in other traditions of Buddhism. A trajectory is traced from the moment death is assumed to be certain, through preparation for death, concerns immediately after death, disposal of the corpse, and continuing rituals thereafter. The parallel goals of benefiting the deceased by promoting their fortunate birth in the next life, and of protecting the survivors from the negative effects of the death, are located on this trajectory. The chapter concludes with an enumeration of the many aspects of death practices that remain to be explored in Tibetan Buddhism, and by extension in other traditions as well.
Women’s Ordination
Authors: Kawanami Hiroko 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
The discussion about Buddhist women’s ordination in recent decades has focused primarily on its legality and technical procedures by drawing from the stipulations in the Vinaya to assess the validity of restoring the bhikkhunī order in the Theravada and Tibetan traditions. While Buddhist scholars pay more attention to the legal process of ordination in conferring a legitimate status to the female candidate, the monastic practitioners focus on the ritual efficacy of ordination that validates their status change. In an attempt to explore doctrinal as well as socio-anthropological approaches to women’s ordination, this chapter discusses various forms of ordination that grant monastic status to Buddhist nuns, and pays special attention to their real-life experiences both prior to and during ordination that have profound implications on their religious life.
Disciplining the Body-Mind
Authors: Pokorny Charles Korin 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
Buddhist traditions entering a new cultural sphere undergo a broad array of developments, some quite profound. This chapter examines how engaging Sōtō Zen monastic discipline in America functions for Western practitioners. Tassajara Zen Mountain Center serves as a case study of this phenomenon. A basic description of monastic training is offered in terms of the dynamics of its transformative practices. Exploration of practices will focus on meditation (zazen), engaging ritual forms, following a rigorous training regimen, and studying the self in a highly relational, communal approach to monastic discipline. The issues of economic support and interfacing with larger communities of lay supporters are discussed. As most Western monastic practitioners return to lay life, the relevance of Zen monastic training to post-monastic life is also addressed.
Home Altars
Authors: Peché Linda Ho 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter grapples with the question: How do Buddhist Vietnamese American home altar practices organize domestic life? In the following analysis, domestic altars materialize as shifting positions in the realms of the diasporic, the political, and the civic. First, the author argues that Vietnamese American home altar practices are organic, material spaces that practitioners manipulate to invoke the intersections between the homeland and a new home. Second, domestic altars enact an individualized moral or spiritual orientation and also express a complex and politically engaged imaginary through the particular positioning of objects and imagery. And third, they can reveal a creative, adaptable, and civically engaged Vietnamese American spirituality and subjectivity. In sum, home altar practices organize and manifest religious embodiment, political and civic proclivities, and an appeal to diasporic and national belonging.
Calendrical, Life-Cycle, and Periodic Rituals
Authors: Walters Jonathan S. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter surveys lay Buddhist practices in traditional Sri Lankan lives and communities, including performing pūjā; chanting Pali praises, refuges, or pirit; adopting moral precepts (numbering five, eight, or ten in an ascending level of commitment); visiting temples; constructing and maintaining shrines in the home and/or in temples; participating in pilgrimages and festivals; and performing funerals. It frames these practices according to a typology that distinguishes regular, scheduled “calendrical” rituals from those practices performed instead according to “life-cycle” timing or on more haphazard “periodic” occasions. The chapter also frames these practices as specific attempts to make the lived world—time and space—Buddhist, enhancing the rarely achieved potential to perform meritorious deeds that lead to nirvana, which is afforded those born human in a Buddhist place during a Buddha Era.
Food Practices
Authors: Grumbach Lisa 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter examines how food is used in Buddhist practice. It begins by reviewing Buddhist attitudes toward food, including the valuation of food within practice, how food is defined, the role of food in creating karmic and dharmic relationships among beings, and the status of food offerings in relationship to the Dharma. Practices from various regions of the Buddhist world (South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, East Asia) are then introduced to demonstrate a range of food-related rituals and observances: food offerings from the laity to the sangha; the feeding of various classes of beings (buddhas, deities, spirits, ancestors, animals); the use of Buddhist rites in festivals of food production; Buddhist vegetarianism and meat eating; and the ritualization of drinking and cooking. In conclusion, food practices, like all practices based in the Buddhist teachings, reflect Buddhist ideals and offer diverse ways for Buddhists to engage in and live the Dharma.
Buddhist Practice in East Asia
Authors: Arai Paula , Cho Eun-su 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
In this chapter, “Buddhist Practice in East Asia,” Paula Arai offers an overview of indigenous impulses in China and Japan that fueled the transformation of Buddhist teachings and practices in these cultures. Tailoring the aesthetics, values, and social dynamics to suit the people are integral and critical features of transformation. Later in the chapter, Eun-su Cho provides a historical overview of Korean Buddhist developments. Discussion extends into the purification movement after the colonial period and into contemporary developments, including introducing popular music, publications, and internet sites aimed at reaching a general public that is increasingly focused on a global context.
Tree Ordinations and Global Sustainability
Authors: Darlington Susan M. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter examines tree ordinations as performed in northern Thailand to address issues of agricultural sustainability. While global environmental problems have similar roots everywhere, their specific manifestations vary from place to place, as do the ways in which people deal with them. Yet common elements emerge: of community resilience, creative interpretation of religious teachings, and modes of agriculture and livelihood that reflect an increasing concern about human impact on the earth. Tree ordinations began in northern Thailand in a small community facing drought, soil degradation, and deforestation that turned to its spiritual values and practices as a response, and quickly spread across the country. This chapter draws from Roy A. Rappaport’s seminal article, “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual,” to unpack the practice of tree ordinations. Key to this process is how the three main elements of Rappaport’s analysis—formality, performance, and public acceptance—help develop understanding of the local effectiveness of a new ritual practice in addressing the social and ecological impacts of environmental degradation and globalization.
Seeing through Mindfulness Practices
Authors: Braun Erik 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
Mindfulness is now seen by many as a “basic human quality,” a natural ability to see things just as they are, that is liberative and healing. This chapter explores how the practice of mindfulness has come to be viewed in this way. By examining the translation of the Buddhist concept of sati as mindfulness, shifts in the uses of the English term under the influence, especially, of the concept of “bare attention,” the reformulations of understandings of mindfulness under the influence of therapeutic modalities such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and the recent turn to neurological study, the chapter shows that mindfulness’s variability contravenes any stable characterization of it. Seeing through mindfulness means seeing it for the unfinished series of projects, including secularization, that make up its formations.
Contemplative Science and Buddhist Science
Authors: Dunne John D. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
The scientific study of Buddhist and Buddhism-derived practices such as mindfulness meditation has accelerated dramatically since the start of the twenty-first century, and this dramatic increase in research emerges from a vibrant community of inquiry that often adopts the moniker of “contemplative science.” This chapter begins with a brief history of contemplative science, focusing on the pivotal role of the Mind and Life Institute, and then examines a related and even more contentious term: “Buddhist science.” Rooted in the notion that Buddhism is exceptional in its compatibility with science, Buddhist science has been the target of critiques that, in at least one context, turn out to be inaccurate and exaggerated. The chapter concludes by examining how the thematization of experience, which emerges from common assumptions in both contemplative science and Buddhist science, leads to significant challenges in conducting research on contemplative practices.
Internet-Based Practices
Authors: Connelly Louise 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
With the advent of cheaper, accessible internet access and the development of new technologies, including smartphones, social media, and virtual worlds, there has been a significant change in how people communicate with one another, share information, and even practice religion. This chapter focuses on Buddhist internet-based practice, including virtual meditation in the online world of Second Life, mobile phones apps, and Buddhist monks and nuns using social media. In order to deepen our understanding of what Buddhist internet-based practice looks like, who is practicing online and why, the efficacy of the practice, and what implications there might be (if any) for traditional Buddhism, this chapter explores the themes of authority, community, identity, and ritual while referring to a variety of examples of internet-based practice.
Buddhist Chaplaincy
Authors: Gauthier Jitsujo T. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
Contemporary chaplains train in clinical pastoral education (CPE) to minister without proselytizing the person(s) they serve. Theirs is a pluralistic approach of meeting in mutuality. A person who is sick, incarcerated, dying, or in emotional/psychological distress is vulnerable. Buddhist chaplains undergo training to identify maladies and guide recipients of their care to utilize inner resources to uncover suffering. There is complexity in their role. As a religious minority, Buddhists have opportunities to bring open-ended notions to diversity, shared experience, deep listening, and genuinely noncompetitive dialogue. This chapter is divided into three sections: a conceptual overview of Buddhist chaplaincy; training; and vow, vocation, and right livelihood in ministry.
Buddhist and Non-Buddhist Practitioner Relations
Authors: Harris Elizabeth J. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
From the birth of Buddhism, followers of the Buddha have engaged with non-Buddhist practitioners, from members of other parivrājaka (“wanderer”) groups to Brahmins and, as Buddhism spread, with Muslims and Christians. At the birth of modernity, relations between Buddhist and non-Buddhist practitioners in Asia were conditioned by the power relations of Western imperialism and the Christian mission that accompanied it. Strategies developed in former centuries were adapted and transformed to address the threats that this brought. In later modernity, Buddhist missions helped to establish Buddhist communities in the West, and the emerging practice of inter-religious dialogue drew Buddhists into new forms of encounter with non-Buddhist practitioners. This chapter surveys the changing landscapes within which Buddhists have and are relating to non-Buddhist practitioners in modernity, in Asia and the West, from Buddhist practice under colonialism and Buddhist missionary movements to inter-monastic exchange, dialogues in spirituality and art, cooperative social engagement, and formal, intellectual dialogue.
Heavenly Rebirth and Buddhist Soteriology
Authors: Jenkins Stephen 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
Both Buddhist monastics and laity strove for heavenly rebirth from early times. The “dharmalogical heavens” and the related beliefs and practices provided precedents and competition for pure lands. Devatā are the blessed dead who ascend, never to fall, to pure realms of bliss, radiance, and super-longevity ideal for receiving Dharma. Devatā actively participate in the Buddha’s mission, descending and engaging in myriad merit-making activities supporting the sangha. Buddhists pursue heaven through merit-making, the power of relics, mindfulness of the Buddha, mindfulness of deities, compassion-pervasion practices, deathbed rituals, and as standardized outcomes of meditative attainment.
The Agency of Images
Authors: Huntington Susan L. 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter explores the relationships between Buddhist devotees and figurative images, particularly regarding images of Shakyamuni, which Buddhists conceive as enlivened beings possessed with agency. Building on recent studies of miraculous images and consecration practices, this chapter describes some of the ways in which devotees venerate images, the agency attributed to images, and the methods by which images are invested with their powers. Finally, the history of image veneration and enlivenment is addressed; the author asks whether these practices can be considered core features of Buddhism from its earliest days, or if they were later additions to the spectrum of reverent activities.
Globalized Forms of Buddhist Practice
Authors: Prohl Inken 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
The observation that Buddhist semantics, aesthetics, and designs are an integral part of the articulation of promises of contentment, happiness, success, health, and luck, as well as personal advancement in the twenty-first century, raises several questions: Why are practices and narratives of Buddhism so popular when it comes to optimization and healing of the modern self? What are the reasons Buddhist signifiers are connected so closely to the practice of consumption? This chapter discusses the reciprocal interaction between Buddhist practice and the global modernity characterized by consumer capitalism, mediatization, and the pull of economics on social, cultural, political, and religious life. These interactions are illustrated using the examples of “prosperity Buddhism,” the transformation of practices of introversion—commonly called meditation—as well as the spread of Buddhist semantics, practices, and materialities in the field of marketing, branding, and consumption.
Texts and Rituals
Authors: Gummer Natalie 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
In important ways, texts that are designated buddhavacana, “buddha-speech,” are rituals: at once power substance, ritual manual, and the Buddha’s textual body/relic, their ritual enactment preserves his life essence and enables him to continue to speak and act in the world. These notions, rooted in the ritual cosmology of ancient South Asia, find expression in “biographies” that bear witness to the texts’ transformative powers, as well as a dizzying array of ritual and textual technologies that make the power of the Buddha’s speech-body present and accessible. Seen through the lens of the sutras, seemingly mundane or rote textual practices become potent ritual processes through which the Buddha’s verbal essence is progressively incorporated, reproduced, and disseminated. Sutras thus offer a powerful challenge to common contemporary assumptions both about the nature of language and about the kinds of practices deemed to be “ritual.”
Interactions with Built Environments
Authors: Amar Abhishek Singh 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
Bodhgaya, the site of the historical Buddha’s enlightenment, has been considered the paradigmatic center of the Buddhist world. It emerged as a pilgrimage site in the third century bce and grew into a sacred center that attracted pilgrims and visitors from diverse Buddhist communities. Besides the Mahābodhi temple, the site also has innumerable material-remains, including miniature stupas, images, inscriptions, and architectural pieces. This chapter studies examples of each of these remains to examine the built environment of Bodhgaya. In doing so, it investigates the historiography and methodology employed in the study of Bodhgaya and demonstrates how the built environment of Bodhgaya developed and grew at multiple moments as a result of interactions between the site, monastic communities, and lay practitioners.
Phenomenology and Habitus in Music Listening
Authors: McGuiness Andrew 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
In a context of endemic racism in the United States in the 1960s, the funk music of James Brown became a driving force of Black nationalist consciousness. While Brown’s lyrics and delivery were forthright and explicitly encouraged Black agency, contemporary accounts indicate that rhythm and the response of the body to James Brown’s funk were especially potent sources of positive subjectivity. The chapter examines Black authors’ accounts of the difficulty of developing a personal subjectivity in response to ontologies of the self given by endemic racism and internalized in the body. Since no given ontology is adequate, an awareness of the Self as unformed, an exploration of the transcendental field of the individual, is demanded. I argue that part of the capacity of James Brown’s funk to transform subjectivity flows from a musicological attribute (“counter-rhythm”) that prompts a specific mechanism (“perceptual revision”) identified in Husserl’s phenomenology, so bringing consciousness to unconscious elements of the body schema.
“Singing with the Heart”
Authors: Teixido Sandrine 
Published: May 2022

Abstract
This chapter examines the notion of “sincerity,” as well as the expressions “singing and speaking from the heart” as they are used by artists or cultural actors in the French context of world music where artists circulate between public institutions, communities, and music industries. The author confronts this notion with that of authenticity often used in the context of the diffusion of world music. The author moves away from an analysis in terms of instrumentalization of musical traditions by the music market to develop a more refined analysis of capitalism in terms of layers and an articulation between capitalist and pericapitalist zones. The chapter then explores the notions of disinterestedness and agape in economic anthropology and the possibility of rethinking a theory of action that accounts for a diversity of subjectivities and economic skills mobilized by musicians to resolve the difficulty of having to interact with different networks and different regimes of justifications.