Saturday, October 15, 2010, Part I: 10:00am – 11:30am
“Sri Lankan Buddhists’ Transmission Strategies and the Culturally Negotiated Buddhist Tradition in Toronto.”
D. Mitra Bhikkhu (Wilfrid Laurier University). Drawing on two years of field research with Sri Lankan Buddhists in Toronto, this paper examines how and what they transmit to their children. Their transmitting strategies include a reinterpretation of Buddhist concepts and practices, a reconceptualization of the link between Buddhism and culture, and a redefinition of social roles (i.e., monks-laity, parents-children) in Buddhist institutions. These strategies derive from the recent Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka; however, they reflect the multi-cultural, multi-religious, yet secularly oriented Canadian society. The second-generation Buddhists reclaim inherited Buddhist tradition with new emphases and commitments. Within these inter-generational dynamics, a cultural negotiation is noticeable among three nodes of power, namely the agency of thinking Buddhist subjects, the pressure of the Canadian multicultural discourse, and the integrity of Theravada Buddhism. Buddhism derived from this negotiation, I suggest, suppresses the Sinhalese ethno-specificity, stresses multicultural sensitivity, and generalizes Buddhist identity.
“Western Challenge: The Arrival of Buddhist Forest Tradition in Canada.”
Yunchang (Jack) Liu (University of the West). In this paper, I describe how the Buddhist forest tradition, mainly retrieved and presented by modern Thai Sanghas, arrived in Canada. The paper offers a preliminary discussion about its arrival, adjustment, and transformation in western cultural, religious, and social settings. The paper focuses mainly three current monasteries in Canada under this tradition: Birken Forest Monastery (west coast), the Arrow River Forest Hermitage (middle lake area), and Tisarana Buddhist Monastery (east coast). The paper first gives a history of this tradition and an analysis of their religious practice in Canada. The main part of the paper examines how these monasteries adjust, and transform themselves in Canadian cultural and social environment. The paper argues that rigorous practice schedule and mission remains the same as their origin of Thai Ajahn Chah tradition, but the practice of vinaya, ways and methods of conveying the Buddhadharma, and their religious services to the communities has been shaped by the new western environment. In the meantime, western cultural also projects somewhat different image towards the Buddhist forest sangha that might not been seen in its origin country Thailand.
Saturday, October 15, 2010, Part II: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
“Buddhist Monks, Nuns, and Ministers: Buddhist Ordination Across the Pacific.”
Jingjing Zhu, (University of the West). In this paper, I will discuss the origin of Chinese Buddhist ordination (both monks and nuns), and compare this with the contemporary condition of Buddhist ordination in Asia (mainly in China) and as practiced in Chinese ex-patriot communities in the United States and Canada. The author will refer to recently developed Buddhist chaplaincy programs, which have rapidly come about to adapt to the spiritual and emotional needs of American Buddhists. I find there are some striking and intriguing similarities between reception of Buddhism in North American and the dynamic between Chinese people and their culture when Buddhism was first transmitted to China. The innovation of Buddhist Chaplaincy stands to act as a medium of communication between the needs and desires of Western Buddhists and their Chinese Buddhist counterparts, ex-patriot or otherwise. I will examine this issue in four parts. In the first section I outline and highlight the history of Chinese monastics and ordination in early Han dynasty. In second section, I will discuss ordination as it is understood and practiced in North America. The third section is about the developments in Buddhist ordination in response to the advent of Buddhist chaplaincy: in particular, the ministerial “ordination.” This will address the academic, psychological, religious and even theological implications of these innovations. In the final part, the author will talk about the issues includes the questions as follows: What’s the future of North American Buddhism? Should the ordination rule be changed? Or who have the authority to make the rules or change the rules? How will the generations after the first, who are born in West countries, understand their Buddhism in contrast to the form introduced by their forebears from the continent? And how will all theses change affect the development of today’s Chinese Buddhism?
“For the Benefit of Many: SN Goenka and Vipassana Meditation in Canada”
Kory Goldberg (Université du Québec à Montréal and Champlain College). In 1955, S.N. Goenka, an Indian Hindu businessman born and raised in Burma, learned the technique of Vipassanā meditation from Sayagyi U Ba Khin, a high ranking Burmese government official who was also one of the earliest lay Theravāda meditation masters. Following his teacher’s request, Goenka immigrated to India in 1969 to disseminate Vipassanā meditation in the country where it was first discovered by the Buddha. Since then, Goenka has established approximately one-hundred centres in India and has taught Vipassanā to tens of thousands of students. In 1979, Goenka left India for the first time and travelled to Canada where he conducted the first of several 10-day Vipassanā courses. Since the tradition’s initial migration to Canada from Burma and India, regular Vipassanā courses have been conducted all over the country by Goenka personally or by his senior Canadian students. At present, three permanent centres are established in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia to hold 10-day residential courses, which are usually booked months in advance.
In this paper, I briefly trace the development of Goenka’s spiritual, lay-person oriented organization in Canada. In so doing, I suggest that three predominant components found in Goenka’s discourse may help illuminate why Canadian spiritual seekers find Vipassanā meditation appealing, and how the tradition has developed in a secular, multicultural Canadian context. First is the assertion that one does not need to convert to Buddhism to practice Vipassanā meditation. Goenka, himself not a Buddhist, maintains that anyone can do the practice without having to declare oneself a Buddhist. For Goenka, Vipassanā meditation is a non-sectarian, universal and scientific process of understanding the relationship between the mind and the body (Goenka 1995). Next are the manifold therapeutic benefits that a large number of Vipassanā practitioners, including health-care professionals, claim to experience as a result from the practice (Goenka 1995; see also Hetherington 2003; Fleischman 1999; Chokhani 1994). Finally is the non-commercial structure of Goenka’s courses, which are run solely on donations and managed entirely by volunteers who have already completed at least one 10-day, residential Vipassanā seminar (www.dhamma.org). Understanding the ways in which a contemplative tradition changes as it travels across borders and interacts with other religious, social, and cultural forms contributes to the knowledge of Buddhism in Canada.
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