Politics & Society

Monastic education is one of the most important projects in the modernization of Chinese Buddhism. This talk begins by exploring several paradigm shifts associated with Buddhist educational modernization that began in the 1920s, a period of fervent growth and significant changes. I argue that the reimagining of a national Buddhist community and reinterpretation of orthodoxy produced a distinctly Buddhist citizenship discourse, which became the basis for Buddhist engagement with the nation-state in terms of property rights, political participation, and wartime activism. These changes proved to be essential in inspiring and shaping the discourse and conceptualization of education within the tradition. The second part of the talk offers some observations and reflections on the current state of Buddhist education in mainland China and Taiwan.