Gareth Fisher. From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China. Topics in Contemporary Buddhism Series. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014. x + 263 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8248-3966-6.

Reviewed by Chun-fang Yu (Columbia University, emerita)
Published on H-Buddhism (October, 2015)
Commissioned by Gregory A. Scott (University of Edinburgh)

In recent years, a number of books about Buddhism in contemporary China and Taiwan have been published. This book is a welcome addition. It is an ethnographic study of Buddhist practitioners who gather in the outer courtyard of a famous Buddhist temple in Beijing, the Temple of Universal Rescue (Guangji si 廣濟寺), to learn about Buddhism. The author, Gareth Fisher, carried out his research from 2001 to 2012. Although his research site is a Buddhist temple, unlike other books on Chinese Buddhism, the focus is uniquely his own. For it is not about a Buddhist institution or organization, like Stuart Chandler’s book on the Buddha Light organization (Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Perspective on Modernization and Globalization [2002]) or Julia Huang’s book on the Compassion Relief organization (Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement [2009]). It is not about Buddhism and political change, like the book by Andre Laliberté (The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan, 1989-2003 [2004]) or that by Richard Madsen (Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan [2007]). Nor is it about the Communist state and Buddhism, like the studies by Ji Zhe (“Buddhism in the Reform Era: A Secular Revival?” [2011]) and Alison Denton Jones (“A Modern Religion? The State, the People, and the Remaking of Buddhism in Urban China Today” [2010]).[1]

The book focuses instead on men and women who come to the temple primarily on Dharma Assembly days but also some Sundays to find meaning in their life through Buddhism in a post-Maoist society. But they do not enter the temple proper to attend Buddhist services and listen to the sermons by monks like faithful Buddhist devotees. Rather they choose to remain in the outer courtyard, an area separated from the temple proper, to listen to lay preachers and to participate in discussion groups with other lay practitioners like themselves. Most among them, including some of the lay preachers, are laid-off workers and feel themselves strangers in the new society brought about by rapid economic and social changes. Old values of hard work and public service are being replaced by materialism glorifying wealth and prosperity. They suffer from a loss of self-identity and, in the words of the author, a “moral breakdown.” How to reconstitute a new personhood and recover a moral vision becomes an urgent matter. According to Fisher, “the resolution of moral breakdown can occur only through the wholesale rejection of the social persons and institutions that brought about the breakdown in the first place. This rejection is viable if the person is able to inhabit wholly new forms of personhood in a community that self-consciously positions itself in opposition to the society that brought about the breakdown in the first place” (p. 4). The community that provides this self-transformation is formed by the fellow practitioners who frequent the outer yard of the temple. Buddhism is attractive both because of its intrinsic teachings as well as its similarity to Maoist ideals with which they are already familiar. They are attracted to “Buddhist teachings on the importance of egalitarianism, the interdependent relationships between self and others, and the importance of one’s mission to rescue other beings from suffering [which] often seem like repackaged versions of Maoist-era moral ideals” (p. 17). One of the most interesting findings of this study is that in the post-Maoist era these lay practitioners “juxtaposed Maoist and Buddhist themes” in their effort to reimagine a new self who can reform a morally corrupt society (p. 21).

In addition to the introduction and conclusion, there are six chapters. Chapter 1 is titled “Chaos,” corresponding to the Chinese expression zaluan( 雜亂), which is a term that many lay practitioners who go to the outer courtyard often use to describe the space. It is indeed a noisy and often chaotic place filled with many people and many voices. There are lay preachers who speak with varying degrees of authority and persuasion. Who can attract the most listeners? “Ability of the preachers to speak to the moral questions that really concern each listener is the most effective legitimizing strategy.” The ones who succeed in doing this will attract the most listeners. Surrounded by followers, the preachers are no longer laid-off workers forgotten by society but religious leaders who believe that their work is vital to bring about a moral revival of the world. The reason why the lay practitioners do not find the preaching of monks relevant is because “the version of Buddhist teachings that the monks articulate is remote from their life experiences, either because those teachings are too abstract or because they present a narrative that attempts to reconcile Buddhist teachings within the post-Mao state’s vision of progress through market reform rather than challenging it” (p. 41).

Chapter 2 is titled “Balance,” corresponding to the Chinese expression pingheng (平衡), which refers to a condition of one’s xin 心 (mind, heart). These lay Buddhists come to the outer courtyard in part because they hope to achieve mental balance. Differences in age, class, and life experiences lead practitioners to particular approaches to finding balance. Fisher lists three categories of the approaches they use to achieve balance: anticipation, synthesis, and contradiction. Under the category of anticipation, the practitioner recites the name of Amitābha Buddha and hopes to be reborn in the Pure Land. With concentration and sincerity, they imagine a future when their suffering will no longer exist while still living in the present life of suffering. This approach appeals to those whose suffering is greatest. “They annihilate rather than ... reconcile the contradictions that caused their breakdown” (p. 68). The second approach, synthesis, refers to Chan 禪 which is taught by monks. This approach is most popular with temple-goers who are under the age of thirty, who have received more formal education, and who are more affluent than most of the practitioners. Fisher contrasts the two approaches: “Both anticipation and synthesis approaches rely on mental constructs to overcome the conditions that lead to imbalance. In the case of the anticipation practitioners, this is the ability to visualize the future that is better than their present one; for the synthesis practitioners, it is the resolution of external contradictions through internal psychological adjustment” (p. 73). The third approach, contradiction, aims at reviving the past and privileging it over the present. For these practitioners, the way to achieve balance is to follow traditional practices to transform society collectively. “Contradiction practitioners had many different ways of trying to bring about this moral reform, from educating others about Buddhist values to trying to generate collective merits by praying for the support of powerful buddhas and bodhisattvas. They mined a variety of sutras and moralistic texts to establish their moral visions and followed many different pathways to practice” (p. 79). Fisher suggests that social class accounts for the different orientations and attitudes toward moral activism between synthesis and contradiction practitioners. Contradiction practitioners distrust social institutions, including sometimes the authorities of their own adopted religion based on their experience of marginalization. That is why they prefer the outer courtyard, which is removed from the institutional control of the Temple of Universal Rescue.

Chapter 3 is titled “Buddhist Bonds,” corresponding to the Chinese expression Foyuan (佛緣), which is the term practitioners use to explain why and how they become interested in Buddhism. By saying that they have a “pre-fated bond” with Buddhism, they highlight their special place in society (p. 85). The lay practitioners constitute a tiny minority of the general population. Fisher reports that “a large scale 2005 survey conducted in medium and large Chinese cities found that only 2.6 percent of respondents claimed to be Buddhists and only 5.3 percent claimed any religious affiliation” (p. 92). The belief that they have a special relationship with Buddhism enables them to reimagine their identity and mission. “The concept of Foyuan provides a framework to transform their social status from marginalized to chosen” (p. 93).

Chapter 4 is titled “Cause and Consequence,” corresponding to the Chinese expression yin’guo (因果). Fisher suggests that practitioners use this Buddhist concept to explain why certain events have occurred in their lives. Many of the courtyard practitioners not only suffer from economic deprivation and social marginalization but also have troubled relations with their immediate family members. Yin’guo explains that their present fate is neither random nor unjust, but is the direct result of their own past behavior. Because of this reason, they can shape their own future by following the same law of cause and consequence. Fisher offers an insightful analysis of guanxi 關係　(personal relationship) in contrast to yin’guo. “Unfavorable encounters with guanxi often lead these practitioners to moral breakdowns” (p. 105). They then turn to yin’guo as an alternative means of acting as correct persons in order to resolve the breakdown. Disagreeing with the theory that guanxi is “the weapon of the weak” as proposed by Mayfair Yang, Fisher argues instead that “guanxi-based exchange can only function when parties in the exchange either possess existing relationships (e.g., kin-based) with those who have needed resources or opportunities, or possess some resources themselves to exchange for those that they need. Those who have neither are left unprotected under a guanxi-based system of resource allocation” (p. 111). The emphasis on yin’guo instead of guanxi is “soteriology of reciprocity instead of sociology of reciprocity” (p. 122).

Fisher raises two further interesting points in this chapter. The first is that because women are less likely than men to form close relationships with people of influence and because women make up both a majority of Buddhist practitioners and the majority of those who frequent the outer courtyard of the Temple of Universal Rescue, they are most vocal in criticizing guanxi–based morality. But the doctrine of yin’guo that women support also justifies their belief that women have a lower status. For instance, some women practitioners claim that, as they progress spiritually, their behavior and even their physical attributes become more manlike. They also explain that the reason why female lay practitioners vastly outnumber their male counterparts is because of the greater need of women to work hard to generate good karma to make up for their natural deficiencies.

The second point Fisher raises is why these people choose Buddhism and not Christianity, even though the latter also provides an alternative moral system not based on guanxi. His analysis is detailed and enlightening. Their preference for Buddhism is puzzling for two reasons. First, churchgoers, on the one hand, provide material as well as spiritual support to their followers. Lay Buddhist practitioners, on the other hand, almost never provide material aid to one another. If they give any material gifts, it is either to individual monks or to the “merit boxes” in the temple. Second, unlike Christians who address each other as “brother” or “sister,” Buddhist practitioners do not form strong emotional bonds with fellow practitioners and they rarely address their fellow practitioners with their Dharma names. Since Christianity is more attractive on these accounts, then why do the practitioners choose Buddhism which offers less material and affective benefits? Fisher explains, “The Buddhists represent a more radical break with a guanxi-based morality than the Christians do. Christianity appeals more to those who seek social relationships different from those structured through guanxi-based system of morality, while Buddhism appeals more to those who wish to estrange themselves from the emotional bonds of any social relationship and put greater trust in ideal relationships between themselves and beings with whom they cannot directly socialize, such as nonhuman animals, deities, and sentient beings in the abstract” (p. 135). Therefore, “it is a community that exists mostly in the abstract, more imagined than real” (p. 134). While I find the contrast between Christians and Buddhists very helpful, I feel that it is important to note two things. The first is that only those who have formally taken refuge in the Dharma are given a Dharma name and are formally identified as a layman or laywoman. As Fisher himself makes clear, among those who go to the outer courtyard and those he interviewed, not all, or even many, are lay Buddhists properly termed. That is why he prefers to call them “lay Buddhist practitioners” instead of “Buddhist laymen and laywomen.” Since many of them do not have Dharma names, they naturally cannot address each other in this religiously significant way. The second point is he contradicts himself by claiming, on the one hand, that they can have only “ideal relationships” with those with whom they cannot directly socialize, and yet, on the other hand, he provides several case studies of followers who are personally devoted to lay preachers, such as Teacher Li or Teacher Zhang.

Chapter 5 is “Creating Bonds,” corresponding to the Chinese expression Jieyuan (結緣), focused on forming a karmic connection by the practitioners with people who do not know about Buddhism. This is done “almost exclusively ... through the donation of Buddhist-themed media” (p. 138). The circulation of printed material is likened to a spiritual chain letter. “Many practitioners believe that they cannot simply be passive consumers of the religious materials that are distributed in the courtyard. They must also contribute to the reproduction, distribution, and even the writing of these materials just as they are helped to advance in their own practice from the reading of materials that other practitioners have helped to write, reproduce, and distribute.... Practitioners create multiple copies of the same texts and reproduce them as often as possible. This in turn leads to the availability of a large amount of religious literature at temples” (p. 149). Fisher provides a useful chart of the types and percentages of the distributed literature, which includes handouts, canonical and noncanonical scriptures, contemporary commentaries, and exegeses of Buddhist teachings. To generate merit, they try to find new materials to reproduce, new places in which to distribute them, and new people to distribute them to. Thus an ever-broadening network of new practitioners connected by a print culture is formed. Fisher suggests that such work is carried out by “node distributors” (p. 152). But this is an “rhizomatic network,” because it is an “acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system guided by no central authority” (p. 167). As a result, its influence on the society at large is very slight. The practitioners’ moral breakdown is resolved only as long as they remain within their religious community.

Chapter 6 is titled “Heart/Action” (xinxing 心行). This is a term favored by one lay preacher, Teacher Zhang. In his writings and talks, he defines xinxing as acting from the heart, creating mutually beneficial relationships with others from the most compassionate part of themselves, creating new moral selves, and using those moral selves to form new relationships with others. This chapter focuses on Teacher Zhang and the Lotus Group under his guidance. Zhang combines selected elements from both Buddhist scriptures and Maoist thought in his speeches and writings that appeal to many of the courtyard practitioners. Most members of the Lotus Group are women. Two dozen core members are women between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-five, with most in their thirties and forties. A significant number of them expressed dissatisfaction with their family lives. Women in the group stressed women’s potential for religious and social agency more than any of the other Buddhist practitioners Fisher interviewed. Zhang used the concept of pingdeng 平等 (equality) to connect the universal potential of all beings found in the Lotus sūtra with the Communist ideal that all people have equal value in society and therefore should receive equal pay and treatment even if their skills and abilities may differ. While Teacher Zhang preaches the need to keep a vegetarian diet, the main themes of his essays and sermons also address contemporary issues. They stress the need for a return to Maoist values and teachings, concern for environmental degradation, and the need for world peace. The chapter ends on a rather anticlimactic note. Teacher Zhang, who had vehemently decried the evil of wealth and corruption in the past, is reported to be living in luxury in 2010. He was teaching that it was no longer wrong to earn wealth. Zhang now taught his followers, “The key moral question was how that wealth was earned and what one did with it” (p. 200).

In the concluding chapter of the book, Fisher introduces the term “islands of religiosity” to describe the communities of lay Buddhist practitioners, like those who gather in the outer courtyard of the Temple of Universal Rescue. This is because “the temple does not provide a temporary place to resolve their moral breakdowns and reintegrate into society,... but rather [offers] a permanent social space where they can resolve moral breakdowns only if they remain in intensive social contact with other Buddhists like themselves” (p. 203). The state restricts religious activities to temples in order to control Buddhism. Ironically, it is the isolation of Buddhist temple sites that creates a space allowing marginalized people to resolve their moral breakdowns, and form new identities and new forms of personhood, something they cannot do in the larger society. On the other hand, it is precisely because of this isolation that they cannot influence or make a significant impact on society at large beyond their own community. The conclusion Fisher reaches is therefore an ambivalent one.

This book makes an important contribution to the study of contemporary Buddhism in China. Although lay Buddhist groups have existed in history, several features stand out about the one that is the focus of this book. First, unlike the so-called White Lotus Movement, which was also led by lay preachers, the practitioners are not motivated by millennial expectations or inspired by the promise of a new world order. They are instead reacting against the rank materialism and corrupt guanxi-based personal relationships they see in society at large. Second, unlike the sectarian movements that drew elements from Buddhism as well as Confucianism, many of them look back to Maoist ideals to bolster their faith in Buddhism. One does not expect that Buddhists would use Maoism to preach Buddhism when, not that long ago, Buddhism was denounced under Mao. This is perhaps another example of the ability of Buddhism to incorporate new elements and new trends as it has done throughout its history. Finally, the way people communicate in China is increasingly not limited to face-to-face meetings or reading of printed materials. Will these “islands of religiosity” become “links” that connect lay Buddhist practitioners online one day? If and when it happens, what effect will this have on the various traditional Buddhist practices? What will happen to monastic Buddhism? These are only a few questions that will interest students and scholars of not only Chinese Buddhism but also history, anthropology, politics, and sociology.

Note

[1]. Ji Zhe, “Buddhism in the Reform Era: A Secular Revival?” in Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation, ed. Adam Yuet Chau (New York: Routledge, 2011), 32-52; and Alison Denton Jones, “A Modern Religion? The State, the People, and the Remaking of Buddhism in Urban China Today” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2010).

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Citation: Chun-fang Yu. Review of Fisher, Gareth, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China. H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews. October, 2015.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45218

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