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Ruan Dacheng’s Yanzi jian
Abstract
It is with Vinaya that Buddhist monastics define their identity and regulate their collective life in the monasteries. This chapter deals with two Vinaya reforms in post-war Taiwan. After the 1949 relocation of the government of the Nationalist Party to Taiwan, the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC) established the “Triple Platform Ordination” to make Taiwan the stronghold of “authentic” Chinese Buddhism. After the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, the Vinaya masters leading the second wave of the Vinaya movement were comprised mostly of Chinese monks who arrived in Taiwan after 1970 and began holding their own ordination ceremonies after 1993. These male Vinaya masters criticized the ordination system established by BAROC as illegitimate due to its failure to implement Dual Ordination. In order to legitimate their new ordination system, only Dual Ordination ceremonies that foreground the practice of the Eight Revered Conditions as contained in the Mahāprajāpati-bhikṣuṇī-sūtra are considered legitimate by the “Vinaya monasteries and nunneries” that grew out of Second Wave Vinaya. This emphasis on the Eight Revered Conditions gives male Vinaya masters the authority to (re-)define the identity of bhikṣuṇīs, as well as of changing the relationship between monasteries and nunneries. By introducing this second wave of Vinaya reform, I explore the gender tension caused by the overwhelming manpower of nuns over monks in Taiwan as well as the tension toward the secularization of Humanistic Buddhism (renjian fojiao 人間佛教) and demonstrate how both tensions have led these groups of monks and nuns to devote themselves to the revival of “Correct Chinese Buddhism” under the Vinaya reform.
Abstract
Early Buddhist disciplinary masters in India were determined to preserve the good reputation of the monastic community by establishing codes of conduct for every aspect of daily life, including physical activities. Hence, their normative texts (Vinaya) encourage monastics to exercise strict control over their bodily movements and to remain decent at all times. This chapter investigates the regulations relating to physical activities that the Vinaya masters included in their texts and considers what this framework of discipline and rectitude implied for Buddhist monastics in China. How were the Indian normative texts interpreted, and which aspects were emphasized in the new context of Chinese Buddhism? In conjunction with the next chapter in this volume, the present study also discusses the implications of this process for some contemporary Chinese masters, particularly Hsing Yun 星雲 (born 1927), founder of the Foguangshan monastery in Taiwan. As we will see, in Medieval China, where the burgeoning popularity of Mahāyāna Buddhism coincided with the widespread adoption of the Vinaya rules, the link between the body and the outside world became even more apparent. Virtue takes bodily forms, and bodily forms express virtue—at least in the ideal normative context. In addition, social control and, to a lesser extent, attention to health issues increase the pressure on the body and bodily gestures. In martial arts, especially in modern times, this combination of virtue and (health) control has inspired masters to encourage monastics to make full, beneficial use of their bodies by guiding both themselves and other sentient beings toward the Buddhist Dharma.
Abstract
Starting from the fourth century, Chinese clergy have composed regulations specifically suited to indigenous monastic life and intended to supplement Vinaya prātimokṣa rules and Bodhisattva precepts. Thanks to their relative flexibility, Chinese monastic codes represent a fundamental resource for understanding the evolution of Chinese Buddhism, as they conveniently reflect modifications in monasteries’ internal functioning and relationship with the outside world. Based on both textual evidence and fieldwork, this chapter provides an overview of Buddhist monastic regulations (guiyue 規約 or zhidu 制度) that are presently in use in public monasteries in the People’s Republic of China and considers them against the backdrop of a long Buddhist regulatory tradition. I first consider the place of monastic regulations within the Chinese Vinaya tradition and introduce the conventional contexts in which they were and are composed and learned. I then highlight major new typologies, new features, and new contents of Buddhist monastic regulations that have been composed since the post-Mao religious reconstruction as compared to late imperial Rules of Purity and Republican codes. Finally, rules related to the selection of abbots in public monasteries provides an example of the ways in which monastic regulations can be circumvented in order to allow for important institutional changes. This analysis especially shows how a plurality of old and new actors interact and elaborate a range of strategies in order to meet both new socio-political demands and internal needs—a process that actively participates in a redefinition of Buddhism that serves to promote its continual institutionalization and embedment in society. It will also appear that, while representing the device by which Chinese Vinaya quickly responds to social, political, and economic changes, monastic codes also remain strongly anchored in the received tradition. A full translation of the Communal rules (gongzhu guiyue 共住規約) of Bailin Chansi, a large Chan public monastery in Hebei province, is provided in the appendix.
Abstract
Over decades of active social engagement among Taiwanese Buddhists, the precept-conferral ceremony for both laymen and monastics has become one of the most important events at many temples in Taiwan. Given that the Bodhisattva precepts are intended for both monastics and the laity, precept conferral is important for both the institutional management of Buddhism and individual practitioners. The two major streams of the Bodhisattva precepts are the Brahmā’s Net Precepts and the Yogācāra Precepts. Despite the longstanding predominance of the Brahmā’s Net Precepts, the Yogācāra Precepts began to gain importance during the early twentieth century, first in Mainland China and later in Taiwan. In order to understand how the attitudes toward the Bodhisattva precepts changed in the twentieth century, I have examined the debates on the Brahmā’s Net Precepts and the Yogācāra Precepts starting from the earliest proclamation in Mainland China and continuing through the end of the century in Taiwan. This chapter will begin with a brief survey of Taixu’s advocacy of the Yogācāra Precepts and his influence on those of his contemporaries who immigrated to Taiwan after 1945. The second half of this chapter will then move to Taiwan, focusing on the initial precept reforms that took place during the 1950s and the subsequent development of monastic education on the precepts and the Vinaya through Buddhist institutes, including several active female communities. The conclusions will shed light on the change and continuity of Bodhisattva precepts from China to Taiwan.