“Buddhism in Canada: Global Causes, Local Conditions”
*New Graduate Student Funding* *Extended Deadline for proposals: June 30, 2010*
15-17 October 2010University of British Columbia
Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program
funded by the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation
We are pleased to announce travel grants for 5 graduate student presenters, up to $500 each. As a result of this new funding, we have extended the proposal deadline by two weeks to June 30, 2010.
How to submit paper proposals:
Please submit titles and abstracts (approx. 250 words) by 30 June 2010 to Jessica Main, Tung Lin Kok Yuen Chair, Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program, UBC.
The Buddhist concept of dependent origination teaches that things have no reified essence. Even Buddhism itself arises through causes and conditions. Buddhism has grown dramatically in Canada, especially during the last forty years, but we need to understand better the global causes and the local conditions behind this change in the religious landscape of Canada.
The change in Canada’s immigration laws forty years ago, which triggered the dramatic increase of Asian immigration into Canada, also opened the door to a substantial increase in Buddhists. At the same time, in the wake of the social liberalization of the sixties and seventies, native-born Canadians started turning to Buddhism as a serious religious option. Today there are two Buddhist meditation groups in St. John on the far eastern tip of Newfoundland and two dozen Buddhist temples and meditation centres on Vancouver Island on Canada’s west coast. In between can be found all the different forms of world Buddhism. These temples and meditation centres cater not only to specific ethnic communities but a quite large proportion have been created by Westerners for Westerners. Increasingly, Buddhist images, ideas and practices—monks in robes, non-violence, meditation—are being accepted into mainstream culture.
Studies of Buddhism in the West usually accept some form of the distinction between “two Buddhisms”, between Asian/ethnic Buddhism and Western convert Buddhism. While authors have challenged this distinction on several grounds, actual studies nevertheless usually end up being either field research reports of an ethnic Buddhist community, on the one hand, or an analysis of the “new Buddhism” being made in the West, on the other hand. This conference will seek to get past this unhelpful dichotomy by seeing the development of local forms of Canadian Buddhism in their global context. Both Asian/ethnic Buddhism and Western/convert Buddhism in Canada are the latest forms of a global modernization movement that started more than two centuries ago when the Western colonial powers confronted the many forms of Buddhism on their home ground in Asia. Some Asian Buddhist leaders at the time recommended the wholesale adoption of Western science, education and missionary outreach; others argued for the return of Buddhism to its traditional roots. In all cases the result was change. In Sri Lanka, in Japan, in China, and in the rest of Buddhist Asia, a new form of Buddhism started to emerge—call it Buddhist modernism, post-colonial Buddhism, globalized Buddhism, or new Buddhism. While they were different from each other, they also had shared features. All saw Buddhism as compatible with science and different from the irrationality of superstitious belief. All saw Buddhism as primarily focused on life in this world rather than on improving one’s life in the next rebirth. All saw a significant role for laypeople and increasingly for women. None saw Buddhism as reclusive and withdrawn from public life. When ethnic groups today bring their local forms of Buddhism into their immigrant communities in North America, quite frequently they are bringing their version of modern Buddhism. In many cases, these ethnic Buddhist temples are part of sophisticated global networks that consciously strive to tailor Buddhist teaching and practice to the needs of modern people today who struggle to balance work, family life, personal career and religious practice. Every form of Buddhism practiced today participates in this encounter with modernity.
Scholarship on Buddhism in the West now deals with a familiar list of issues: the authority of the Buddhist teacher, gender roles, the blurring of lay and ordained, engaged Buddhism, etc. This conference encourages papers that see these local issues against their global and historical context, including the following topics:
- What are the features of a modernized Buddhism? Is modern Buddhism different from Westernized Buddhism?
- What is “traditional” Buddhism? What is involved in invoking the tradition?
- Some Buddhist groups now elect their teacher. What are the sources of authority and authenticity in a modernized Buddhism?
- How are Buddhist ritual, social organization, teachings evolving in the modern context and what shapes those changes?
- Many Buddhist movements in Asia have gone through reform movements. How have they influenced Buddhism in Canada?
- A Buddhist environmental movement is taking shape. What defines it? Does it have real world application?
- Gender equality is often mentioned as a defining feature of a westernized Buddhism. Yet in many Korean and Chinese organizations, nuns far outnumber monks. Is there a cultural shape to gender equality? Is the movement to re-start the nun’s lineage succeeding?
- How is the institution of ordination evolving today? What does “lay ordination” mean? How has temporary ordination changed? What does it mean to be a monk/nun for a day?
If you have any questions or would like to discuss proposals, please contact one of the following:
- Jessica Main, University of British Columbia
- Victor Hori, McGill University
- Alec Soucy, Saint Mary’s University
- John Harding, University of Lethbridge
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