Download Building and Negotiating Religious Identities in A Zen Buddhist

BUILDING AND NEGOTIATING RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN A ZEN BUDDHIST
TEMPLE: A PERSPECTIVE OF BUDDHIST RHETORIC
Fan Zhang
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green
State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
May 2017
Committee:
Alberto González, Advisor
Marilyn Shrude
Graduate Faculty Representative
Radhika Gajjala
Ellen Gorsevski
© 2017
Fan Zhang
All Rights Reserved
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ABSTRACT
Alberto González, Advisor
This dissertation is an exploratory attempt at understanding the practices of a Zen
Buddhist temple locates in Northwest Ohio against the backdrop of globalization. Drawing on
the previous scholarship on Buddhist modernization and westernization, my primary goal in this
study is to better understand the westernization of Buddhism and its adapted practices and rituals
in the host culture. Utilizing rhetorical criticism as my methodology, I approach this temple as an
embodiment of Buddhist rhetoric with both discursive and non-discursive expressions within the
discourses of modernity. By analyzing rhetorical practices of the temple through abbot’s
teaching videos, the temple website, members’ dharma names, and the materiality of the temple
space and artifacts, I examine how Buddhist rhetoric functioned to constitute and negotiate
religious identities of the community members through its various rituals and activities. At the
same time, I explore how the generative space and settings of the temple facilitated the collective
Buddhist identity formation and preservation. Through a nuanced discussion of Buddhist
rhetoric, this study illuminates a new rhetorical methodology to understand religious identity
construction. Furthermore, this study offers further insight into the future development of
modern Buddhism, which is also applicable to other major world religions.
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To my best friend and my husband Lu,
who has always been my good karma
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every fortunate graduate student has many acknowledgements to make. And I have been
extremely fortunate to have enjoyed tremendous support and friendship in the past four years
from my teachers, friends and family. In no particular order, I would like to express my gratitude
for those who walked me through this wonderful journey.
I am truly appreciative of my family back in China: my parents and my parents-in-law,
who have been supporting me to pursue my goals and dreams in the past six years. This
academic journey would not have been possible without their unconditional love and faith in me.
I am also thankful to my dearest friends in Bowling Green: Erika, Jeanette, Yiju, and Dai.
You are also part of my family that made me who I am today. You taught me the meaning of
being a generous, kind, and faithful friend and I sincerely cherish my friendship with each one of
you. Thank you for being there whenever I needed, for all our conversations, for our weekend
adventures, and for being yourselves—independent and strong in this tough journey with me.
Bowling Green became special to me because of my days with all of you.
I am grateful to my academic family: Emi, Sasha, Nina, and Andy. Your warmth makes
me feel you are just like my siblings. I have benefited so much from our discussions and our
gatherings. Thank you for sharing your precious time with me and being patient with me
throughout our time together.
I would especially like to thank my dissertation committee members. Dr. Gajjala, thank
you for your insights and expertise in helping me maintain my focus throughout the project. You
are the one who always told me to dream bigger and think further. I am grateful to have your
vision in my team and my life. Dr. Gorsevski, thank you for your confidence in me and my
dissertation topic. You are the one who inspired me to explore the concept of “Buddhist rhetoric”
and supported me intellectually and emotionally from my first step. Your pep talks always make
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me feel warm and supported. Dr. Shrude, thank you for bringing your unique perspectives to
broaden my horizon. I really appreciate your encouragements and suggestions along this process.
My deepest appreciation goes to my committee chair and my advisor: Dr. González. In
Chinese Buddhism, we address our teachers as “Shifu,” which means the teacher and father
figure with great wisdom and skills. You played such a significant role in my life: a teacher with
great wisdom to inspire me, and a father with strength and skills to lead our academic family. I
am so proud to be your student in the past few years. I am also extremely lucky to have worked
and published under your guidance. Thank you for bringing me into the field and taught me to be
a qualified scholar. And thank you for being the role model that we always look up to. For me,
this mentorship is more than just four years but will last for a lifetime.
Finally, I would like to thank the one person who accompanied me through every step of
this process. It’s a great luxury to be married to someone so smart, considerate, and someone
who knows me so well—my husband and my best friend Lu. You have been the good karma of
my life.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION, BUDDHISM, RHETORIC, AND
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION...........................................................................
1
Introduction ................................................................................................................
1
Research Questions ........................................................................................
3
Rationale ........................................................................................................
4
Review of Selected Literature ...................................................................................
5
Buddhism in the West ...................................................................................
5
Buddhism and Technology ............................................................................
7
Rhetorical Criticism and Intercultural Rhetoric .............................................
10
Buddhist Rhetoric .........................................................................................
12
Procedures ..................................................................................................................
17
Organization of Study with Chapters ........................................................................
19
CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF MODERN ZEN BUDDHISM IN
THE UNITED STATES ........................................................................................................
23
Brief History of Modern Zen Buddhism in the West ................................................
24
Modernization of Buddhism on A Global Scale ........................................................
29
The Introduction of Buddhism to Ohio and Toledo...................................................
33
Temple Setting and Activities........................................................................
35
Temple Operation and Communication ........................................................
38
Rhetorical Field Methods in Critiquing Buddhist Rhetoric .......................................
40
Viewing the GHBTT as Both Intercultural and Rhetorical ..........................
43
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Conceptualizing Critical Rhetoric in Intercultural Communication ..............
44
Ideological Rhetorical Criticism ....................................................................
48
Incorporating Participation and Observation in Criticism
of Buddhist Rhetoric ......................................................................................
50
CHAPTER III. THE TEMPLE’S PARADOX: MAINTAINING CULTURAL
TRADITIONS IN THE DISCOURSE OF MODERNIZATION AND
DEMOCRATIZATION .........................................................................................................
55
The Uniqueness of the Family Temple ......................................................................
59
<Family> as An Ideograph ...........................................................................
62
The Married Abbot and Spousal Transmission: Pragmatism
of American Buddhism ..............................................................................................
65
The Role of Do’on: More than Just a Temple Wife ..................................................
70
<Marriage> and <Wife> as Ideographs .........................................................
73
Sunday Morning Dharma School: A Buddhist Moral Education ..............................
75
From Dharma Teaching to Moral Education .................................................
78
Sangha: This is Where We Belong ............................................................................
80
Community Building through Membership ...................................................
84
Conclusion .................................................................................................................
87
CHAPTER IV. CONSTRUCTING BUDDHIST IDENTITY AT THE GHBTT ...............
90
Technology at the GHBTT and Identity Construction ..............................................
92
Challenges from the Cyberspace ...................................................................
97
A Buddhist Identity via Technology .............................................................. 103
Dealing with the Secret Buddhist Identity: Being Rational
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and Trusting Yourself ................................................................................................ 107
The Secret Buddhist Identity ......................................................................... 109
Mix-and-Match Buddhism for Individual Needs ........................................... 113
The Power of Naming: Rituals, Members, and Objects ............................................ 117
Experiencing Dharma Names in a Foreign Discourse ................................... 120
When Names Are Transplanted: An Orientalist Approach ........................... 123
Temple as the Sacred Space in Constructing Identity ............................................... 126
Sacred Gaze in the Sacred Space .................................................................. 128
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 130
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 132
Chapter Review & Research Questions ..................................................................... 133
Theoretical Implications ............................................................................................ 141
Looking Forward—A Postmodern Buddhism ........................................................... 144
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………… 147
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION, BUDDHISM, RHETORIC, AND INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
Introduction
In the last few decades, globalization has brought an era of immense and unprecedented
change that is affecting our lives in every domain and every possible way. The phenomenon of
globalization refers to transplanetary processes that involve multi-directional flows of people,
objects, places, technologies, and information (Ritzer, 2011). Its crucial and profound impact is
manifested most strikingly in the fields of economy and information technologies. In other words,
more and more regions of the world are dominated by a capitalistic way of life and involved in
the neoliberal economic system, while they are intimately connected to each other through
instruments of information technologies.
In globalization, religion is not only subject to the various flows and forces but also to an
invasive global market. The academic study of religion is going through some major changes,
particularly in the social sciences such as in history and in the humanities as well (Obadia, 2012).
The once localized religions like Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam are transcending the
geographical, social, and political borders to become the “universal religions” with a
combination of various elements from different streams. Religious beliefs and activities embed
new meanings during adaptation to the new economic, cultural, and political realities. Breyer
(1993) argues that the overwhelming and intensified religious expression, in a nutshell, is a
strategic response to the pervasiveness of market economy and materialism under which new
narratives and meanings of existence are competing for attention. On one hand, with the
expanding transmigration of ideas, people, and practices, some religious communities that were
born from certain cultures have had to adjust themselves in other cultural environments. Their
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ways of communication and practice needed to be interculturally “localized” for an external
audience. On the other hand, pressure of the global market and neoliberal economy pushed
religious communities to compete with each other and operate within the economic system. In
order to survive and sustain, religions needed to be more “globalized” in order to echo ubiquitous
modernity and economic materialism. This is a paradox I wish to explore further in this
dissertation.
Religious practices—rituals, activities, and even doctrines of different religions are
encouraged to modify themselves into an ideal prototype for the convenience of their
modernized audience. Quite often these religions borrow practices from each other because one
strategy that succeeds on the marketplace may “work” for others as well. Nagata (1999)
identifies religious globalization with “convergence and conformity” since their migration
determined a redevelopment of rituals and activities. Among these changes, contemporary
Buddhism is particularly notable when considering its migration from East to West, and when
facing many challenges in a more secular world. For example, Buddhism has gradually
developed the ritual of “churching” on Sundays in many Western countries although this practice
does not exist in the original practices in Eastern countries (Nagata, 1999, p. 232).
Attempting to examine how social forces under globalization impact contemporary
Buddhism, Nelson (2011) briefly sketches the main game-changing patterns: (a) growing
tolerance for pluralism and diversity; (b) a steady flow of information via newly marketed
communication technologies; (c) reconstruction of the decision-making process; and (d) greater
personal agency to interact with all forces mentioned above. Like the author concludes in his
case studies, old traditions, ways of practice, and teachings will not suffice the needs of people in
the new era. Contemporary Buddhism is facing the challenge of institutional change and
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innovation. Or more precisely, it needs to find a way to interpret classical Buddhist teachings in
new practices to cater to the needs of a wider audience who are intellectually, culturally, and
emotionally different from their predecessors.
What are often neglected in this discussion are questions concerning how religious
identities are formed and negotiated under the impact of Buddhist globalization, especially its
Westernized forms of practice and its adoption of technology. Thus, my primary goal in this
study is to better understand the westernization of Buddhism and its adapted practices and rituals
in the host culture. This study presumes that religious identities of the practitioners are
constituted and negotiated through the strategic Buddhist rhetoric employed by the discursive
behaviors and settings of Buddhist temples in the United States. Particularly, this study focuses
on a Buddhist temple in Toledo, Ohio and the local community that is connected to the temple by
practicing Zen Buddhist meditation and attending its various activities. The argument presented
here is that the temple functions to constitute and negotiate religious identities of the community
members through its various rituals and activities. At the same time, the generative space and
settings of the temple also facilitate the religious identity formation and preservation.
Research Questions
The central question this study strives to answer is, “How does a Zen Buddhist temple in
the U.S. Midwest facilitate the formation of religious identities of the local community through
its strategic discursive activities, the adoption of technology, and the temple itself?” This central
question is divided into 3 sub-questions:
1. How does GHBTT utilize social media and various technologies to communicate with its
members and discursively create and negotiate the online religious experience?
2. What activities and rituals are staged by the GHBTT and how do these ritual and
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activities facilitate the cultural maintenance of a Japanese Zen temple? How are
intercultural contexts created by these activities and rituals and how are differing
cultural perspectives mediated by them?
3. How does the setting of the temple as a generative space reflect an adaptation of an
Eastern religion in the West?
Rationale
My project makes contributions in the following ways. First and foremost, as Buddhism
has become the subject of interdisciplinary study and research, my project joins in the
conversation of critiquing its Westernization and elucidating the impacts on local communities
from a rhetorical perspective. In doing so, this research offers further insight into the future
development of modern Buddhism, which is also applicable to other major world religions.
Second, this dissertation also addresses the combination of modern Buddhism and
communication technology in a more systematic and nuanced way. Specifically, challenges and
concerns in the adaptation of technology have been disregarded and overshadowed by the
convenience technology brings. In exploring the advantages as well as the challenges, I hope
more implications will be identified for other temples and religious institutions for their future
development. Finally, this project provides a better understanding of religious identity
construction. In contemporary times when everything is accessible online, the technological
transformation of modern Buddhism could alter how we define a qualified Buddhist and what
counts as a sacred experience of practicing, which had to be ritualized in the past in traditional
Buddhism. Is maintaining traditional monastic settings and religious activities able to
complement the change of culture and language while facilitating the religious instruction?
These are all interesting aspects this dissertation has explored and given an answer to.
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In addressing the issues listed above and answering the questions I proposed, this study
used rhetorical criticism to examine the “Buddhist rhetoric” reflected in the activities, the space
and place of the temple itself, and the content of its main website. Rather than researching
multiple Buddhist temples and generalizing the Buddhist rhetoric, I provided a more nuanced
understanding of Buddhism in the West through the careful study of one case. Although most
temples claim they adopt similar practices and follow the same traditions based on their
respective lineages and schools, the practices of one temple could differ drastically from another
due to their geographic locations and settings, different community involvement, their way of
utilizing technology, and how teachings are performed both offline in the temple and online by
the abbots. Specifically, my dissertation draws from two major theoretical and methodological
traditions: rhetorical criticism and intercultural communication, and the “Buddhist
Rhetoric”—how rhetoric intersects with studies of Buddhist texts, performances, and activities.
Review of Selected Literature
Buddhism in the West
The widely recognized Buddhism and its popular practices came to the West around the
mid-19th century (Lenoir, 1999). It is also well known as Buddhist modernism or secular
Buddhism. In essence, it is considered to be a mixture of ancestral Buddhism and “modern
discursive practices” that contain incongruities whether from the level of practice or from its
doctrines and institutions (Higgins, 2012, p.111). Having been immersed in the social practices
and intellectual atmospheres of the host societies in the West, secular, or modern Buddhism set
out to facilitate full human flourishing without necessary worshiping of superhuman agencies
(Higgins, 2012). During its later development, the practices of modern Buddhism are designed to
give more weight to lay practice and meditation, with canonical texts standardized, readable, and
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available to a larger audience. The once-strict boundaries between clergy and laity in Buddhist
history also became blurred (Nagata, 1999). To secure its status as a “world religion” with its
expansion to every country and region, modern Buddhism also greatly increased its engagement
in social and daily life, while taking positions and actions on popular issues like human rights,
refugees, peace, and environment protection (Nagata, 1999). Much more similar to or identified
with the Christian tradition, Buddhist institutions and practitioners nowadays are gradually
laying more emphasis on charitable activities, especially on helping the disadvantaged groups in
society like orphans, youth, aged, and disabled, and devoting attention to the education of
children and youth from kindergarten to college.
The interpretation of Buddhism in the West has always been done through an academic
disciplinary lens. Its loose connection to spirituality and superhuman agencies frequently made
people wonder whether it is a philosophy or a religion (Lenoir, 1999). Meanwhile, it is more
interesting to note that the perception of Buddhism in the United States, specifically Zen
Buddhism, is increasingly associated with psychology and psychotherapy for its goal of
revealing the full capacities of the human mind (Virtbauer, 2012). Unlike other world religions
that are always trapped in the science/religion dichotomy and debates, modern Buddhism is
embraced by the Western societies as being “scientific.” Virtbauer (2012) notes that the
combination of the “religious” part—rituals, monastic settings, and daily structures—and the
“philosophy” part—mostly meditation practices—fulfill our definition of modern psychology,
which stresses the study of functions and nature of behavior and mental experience. Thus,
Buddhism offers a scientific method to analyze human experience and would inspire the full
potential and capacities of the human mind.
Such a secular re-formation of Buddhism or “Buddhism 2.0” has aroused controversies
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over the issue of authenticity (Batchelor, 2012). Some may argue that the history of Buddhism is
a process of interpretation and reinterpretation of dharma (principles and teachings of Buddha)
and a history of reception in different cultures, while some traditional schools remain critical on
the compatibilities made for modernity and argue for maintaining the “core ideas and values” (p.
90). In other words, traditionalists consider secular worldviews, engagements, and adaptations as
potentially detrimental and hazardous to the very existence of Buddhism (Chandler, 2010). One
adaptation that has caused the most debate is the utilization of communication technology in
modern Buddhism.
Buddhism and Technology
Carneiro (2015) defines technology from two senses in light of the field “philosophy of
technology” (p. 52). In a narrow sense, also in the perspective of mediatisation, technologies are
modern devices and machines for “producing representations to channel or deliver messages,”
which is intimately associated with commodity and mass production. In a broad sense or the
mediation approach, technology includes machines, but also things, artifacts, practices, and
instruments that mediate relationships by extending “human and non-human capacities” (White,
1964; Carneiro, 2015, p.54). Approaching the relationship between religion and technology from
either perspective would bring about different interpretations. While the mediatisation
perspective contends religion has been subjected under the modern marketplace by mass media,
mediation approach rather sees technology as medium that transforms the religious practice and
experience.
The combination of Buddhism and technology has been fairly new, especially the use of
Internet and communication technologies. However, some Buddhist scholars have been
promoting the Internet as a platform to connect to more communities and to become more
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socially engaged. Nevertheless, the application of technology to Buddhist teachings and practice
can be various and can bring unexpected results. In a study of spiritualizing technology, Busch
(2010) examined the process establishing online authority through an electronic forum on a
Buddhism portal E-Sangha. Busch concludes that content producers and moderators of E-sangha
discursively and structurally shaped the religious community narratives to “frame Web
environments as sacred community spaces” (2010, p.13). Despite its novelty, this online forum
raises a question about Buddhist authority. Who are spiritualizing these believer’s experiences
and practices online? And who identified themselves as Buddhists without the formal conversion
in religious institutions? Technology would not be able to solve these questions in this case but
brings more confusion over limits and boundaries of using it.
Even with religious authorities online, technology could also serve as a double-edged
sword when put into controversial use. A study by Cheong, Huang, and Poon (2011) illustrate
ways through which Singapore Buddhist monks expand their communicative capabilities online
and offline. More than half of the priests interviewed had online interactions with practitioners
through emails, while they also had their sermons posted online through podcasts, videos, or
webcasts (p. 1172). It is not unusual for contemporary Buddhist leaders to “increase bargaining
power” by manipulating their web presence. More specifically, as Cheong, Huang, and Poon
(2011) argue, modern religious authority was communicatively constructed and legitimized
through technology use, whereas traditional clerical authority was threatened by technological
religious secularization. Thus tensions are created in between because some Buddhist leaders felt
threatened when faced with epistemic online resources. Technological adoption in Buddhism still
remains in the stage of “controversial,” while its stability still depends on organizational
practices.
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Nevertheless, there are still foreseeable benefits brought by the use of technology. One of
them is the ongoing interaction among Buddhist communities all over the world. Under the
global narrative that Buddhism should be socially engaged and utilize its beliefs and practices to
help with various political, environmental, and economic problems, it is argued that technology
will be able to provide a platform to “create cooperation within diversity” (Brazier, 2001, p. 219).
Despite different traditions within Buddhism and various ways of practice, technology will be
able to initiate the cooperation among communities locally and globally.
Despite this growing need to utilize technology, MacKenzie and Wajcman (1999) contend
that technology applications can hardly be neutral as they advance or constrain human actions
and goals, especially when power or special interests are involved. Additionally, technology can
aid the expansion of certain ideologies (Deetz, 1990). Prior to the advent of technology, power
differences already existed among social groups and structures in society. Through constructing
media messages and conveying meaning, they developed a hierarchy of power relations. The
power to influence in a contemporary mediated society largely relies on the ability to manipulate
the media, and may increase or decrease based on the ways technology is utilized; as such,
communication technology itself becomes a form of discourse or rhetoric. Moreover, technology
never performs in a vacuum but is subject to the contingencies of time and space. Most
frequently, systems of expression, thought, and the media deliver messages that contain
embedded values that come with political implications in media products. In the case of
Buddhism in the era of globalization, embracing technology was not merely about using it, but
about shaping the rhetoric of its usage through the discourse of high-tech Buddhism, which
includes: the repositioning of Buddhism in a multicultural world, the recognition of modern
Buddhism as unlike the traditional Buddhism, as well as promoting the sense of civic
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responsibility and citizenship affiliated with the dissemination of modern Buddhist teachings.
Rhetorical Criticism and Intercultural Rhetoric
A useful place to start defining what is rhetorical criticism is to understand the relationship
between rhetoric and communication. Foss, Foss, and Trapp (2002) define rhetoric as “the
human use of symbols to communicate” (p. 3). Symbols are not necessarily linguistic but can
take various forms such as body gestures and actions. As a matter of fact, humans use all sorts of
“nonrhetorical objects in rhetorical ways,” and turn them into symbols in the communicative
process (p. 3). In turn, human actions can be interpreted as symbolic by those who encounter or
experience them. Thus, all human actions potentially can be interpreted rhetorically. Rhetorical
criticism, as Foss (2009) points out, refers to the “systematic investigation and exploration” of
the symbolic actions and artifacts while purposing to better understand rhetorical processes (p. 6).
A deeper appreciation and understanding of the rhetorical action or artifact will be achieved
when criticism is engaged. Rather than being universal, rhetoric arises from cultural contexts and
reflects them (Johnson, 1999). Since Kenneth Burke (1966) defines humans as “symbol using
animals,” the study of rhetoric has been inseparable from culture.
James Carey (1989) remarks on the interrelation between culture and communication via his
innovative “ritual” view of communication, “that it is not only the transmission of intelligent
information but also the construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful cultural world”
(p. 19). Intercultural rhetoric draws attention to rhetorical actions that aim to create
identifications and shared communities between different cultures. Through negotiation,
adaptation, persuasion, and participation, rhetorical critics tend to peel off the cultural
phenomena to understand values, discover power relations, and mediate tensions and differences.
The Zen Buddhist temple of Toledo is such a site where intercultural convergence or multiple
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understandings occur when local community members practice this ancient Eastern religion.
How the temple abbots situate the teachings, rituals, and activities in their own rhetoric offers
another layer of intercultural communication, specifically in the process of translation,
negotiation, and making adjustments to the community’s needs.
A thorough examination of cultural discourses of both the “guest culture,” where the
Buddhism practices originate from, and the “host culture,” where the temple locates, would
illuminate more implications of Buddhism’s appearance in the West. As Carbaugh and Wolf
(1999) suggest, situating rhetoric in cultural discourse would enable us to discover “distinctive
systems of terms, topics, and forms of expression” and recreate a sense of community with a
shared understanding of being, acting, feeling, and relating (p. 26). The distinctive rhetoric of the
temple and its abbots is more explicit once contextualized in cultural discourse.
Equally important is the examination of the rhetorical heritage of Buddhism—the Buddhist
rhetoric from the East. Mary Garrett (1999) proposes some methodological reflections in
researching intercultural rhetoric. She questioned the appropriateness of the Greco-Roman
rhetorical framework that consists of ethos, pathos, and logos in examining Eastern texts. In her
research, Garrett took examples from ancient Chinese literature and reconstructed the definition
of “rhetoric.” Meanwhile, she also challenged the popular stereotype that there has been a “lack”
or insufficiency within Eastern rhetoric. The problem dwelled in the Orientalist perspective. As
rhetoricians, Garrett maintains that we keep a critical and self-reflexive spirit, which “involves
nothing more than a basic reality check,” for this might be the best way to avoid biases in our
criticism (p. 61). Thus, my methodology in this dissertation is the critical examination of the
Buddhist rhetoric.
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Buddhist Rhetoric
In making sense of Buddhist rhetoric, it is necessary to define what rhetoric is and how it
intersects with the field of religion. To some extent, this connection is obvious because religion is
intimately linked with words and expressions. Whether spoken or written, words play the
fundamental role in both defining and disseminating religion. Burke (1969) defines rhetoric as
the use of words by human agents “to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents.”
He saw rhetoric, whichever form it may take, as deeply rooted in language itself. In connecting
rhetoric and religion, Burke (1970) contends and describes the nature of religion as rhetorical.
The linking of rhetoric to Buddhism is rather new and daring. While interpreting an
ancient Asian religion with the framework that originated from the West, Garrett (1999) cautions
us to avoid the Orientalist logic and be conscious of the cultural discourse that gives rise to the
rhetorical tradition. Indeed, the rhetorical heritage of the East has been overlooked largely due to
the power imbalance of the East and the West. The goal of critical rhetoric, as McKerrow (1989)
proposes, is to demystify domination and power relations, untangle the discourse of power, and
make the voice of the “cultural other” heard. In adding Asian rhetoric to our criticism, it is also a
good opportunity to broaden our horizons, as it is almost a completely different system that
honors non-expression, silence, the nonverbal, the softness and subtlety of ambiguity, and
indirectness (Jensen, 1987). The intersection of rhetorical criticism and religious communication
brings new meanings to this field while reminding us of its ever-changing nature. From
examining texts to visual images, to actual personal performances, from the verbal utterance to
the non-verbal silence and action, Buddhist rhetoric needs more innovative exploration and
interdisciplinary study.
Historically, the rhetoric of traditional Buddhism had already taken various forms other
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than language like texts, speeches, and debates. Ch’an Buddhism, among various branches of
Buddhism in China, exceptionally values non-verbal and silence as ways of expression. Taking
examples mainly from the classic Chinese Ch’an Buddhism collection Transmission of the Lamp,
the study of Wright mainly examines the unique discursive or rhetorical practices of classic
Ch’an (Zen) and how it differs from the Western rhetorical traditions. The Ch’an Buddhist
rhetoric, as Wright (1993) contends, is put into a “unique and transformative” use, in which
“eloquence” is defined and articulated fundamentally differently from the Western rhetorical
models (p. 24). The author concluded by identifying four dimensions of Ch’an rhetoric and
analyzing their fundamental differences: the rhetoric of strangeness, the rhetoric of “direct
pointing,” the rhetoric of silence, and the rhetoric of disruption.
The strangeness of Ch’an Buddhist rhetoric was reflected in its unusualness even in its
own cultural context, which included: comments made were not sought to explain; arguments
were not meant to persuade the reader but functioned as “awakening;” and statements were not
propositional. Fully devoted to awakening the mind of hearers and break them away from the
traditional “normal” discourse, the Ch’an Buddhist rhetoric departed from the norm and
conventions to undermine “norms” and grounds embodied in it. The rhetoric of direct pointing in
Ch’an Buddhism referred to the use of non-verbal signs including rituals and complex
spontaneous signs (Wright, 1993). Depending fully on the recipient’s interpretation, it was a
rhetorical act that “either communicates immediately or directly without reflection, or leaves the
recipient out of place” (p. 29). The author named the rhetoric act “direct pointing” as to stress the
significance of actions, which is as important as spoken words in Ch’an Buddhist rhetoric. Yet
the referent hidden inside the sign was not always readily understandable to ordinary experience,
just like the rhetoric of silence.
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Wright (1993) points out that the act of silence in Ch’an shares a common ground with
other practices in Buddhism. In Buddhist rhetoric, silence manifested more than merely “absence
of discourse,” but rather as a distinct way of “saying” on its own (p. 30). Silence was weaved
into communicated interaction in continuing the dialogue and bringing fruition in awakened
discourse. The critical power of silence lay in its ability to penetrate all “form” and disrupt all
talk from conversational awareness. The last dimension of Ch’an rhetoric, rhetoric of disruption,
took the form of non-traditional linguistic patterns and worked to “evoke an experience of
disorientation and groundlessness,” because Ch’an rhetoric was designed to disorient the
self-world relation (p.32).
The rhetoric of Ch’an Buddhism manifested as distinctly different from the Western
rhetorical tradition. Instead of a means of persuasion and the use of eloquence, Ch’an rhetoric is
a transformative device with “awakening” power to challenge the conventional subjectivity with
non-verbal signs and unique language styles. When Western rhetorical traditions stress
premeditation and memorization, Ch’an rhetoric ridiculed both, and was based on “encounter
dialogue” narratives, which were fully situational. (p. 32) Words were not central to this
rhetorical tradition but functioned to overturn and open the reader’s mind. It was even viewed as
“anti-linguistic,” which entailed a more comprehensive understanding of the role language
played in it. In essence, Ch’an Buddhist rhetoric aims to subvert preset beliefs and knowledge by
an experience of groundlessness, emptiness, or openness to bring about the awakening.
Kosaka’s 2010 study at a Japanese Buddhist Association in Denver CO found that Buddhist
rhetoric is conceptualized not only as language in speeches and teachings, but also in interactions
that involve members and abbots: direct participation and indirect participation. Furthermore, the
study also noted the rhetorical techniques employed by abbots during their speeches. According
15
to Kosaka (2010), these techniques mainly included term definition and use of anecdotes. In
putting complicated Buddhist terms into plain words, abbots hoped to guide the learning process
for beginner members. Meanwhile, the use of humor and personal anecdotes in speech also
facilitated the understanding process of members.
Another important aspect of Buddhist rhetoric is Buddhist visual rhetoric. Julie Gilfford’s
(2011) study chose to examine the Buddhist monument Borobudur in Indonesia and how it was
informed by Mahayana Buddhism. The author provided a thick description based on her field
trips to show how the architects of Borobudur represented Buddha in various forms and various
experiences. In her analysis, monuments are “material instantiations” of the form of rhetoric that
Aristotle called “epideictic” (p. 13). When such rhetorical forms usually do not argue explicitly
for a particular course of action, it implicitly encourages people to adopt “culturally approved
patterns of behavior” (p. 16). Gifford’s approach is obviously non-traditional either in her artifact
or in her method. As visual rhetoric is a fairly new trajectory of rhetorical criticism, she “read
into” the Borobudur architects and compared them to an epideictic speech, convicting the readers
of the communicative nature of these architects and the ritual responses they may provoke. This
approach is also applicable to examination of the setting of Buddha statues, portrayals, and other
religious artifacts in the temple, which are constantly viewed as monuments that contain specific
meaning.
As artifacts in Buddhist rhetoric vary, so too do the discourses. Sometimes, the rhetorical
action is solely dependent on how the discourse shapes it. Following this vein, it is especially
interesting to observe how Buddhist discourse is framed through media and engages the audience.
Situating Buddhist visual rhetoric in the discourse of American print media, Dionisopoulos and
Skow’s (1997) case study of the “burning monk” contend that the rhetorical meaning of a visual
16
artifact is constituted not only by the artifact’s aesthetic form but also by the various discourses
to contextualize the visual artifact. Different from the traditional rhetorical analysis that looks
only at the rhetorical dimensions of the artifact, their study examined the discursive rhetoric for
providing a context and guiding the audience to understand the visual images. Dionisopoulos and
Skow’s analysis delved into the discursive rhetoric in American print media that tries to provide
a “correct interpretation” for this image and spotted the dialectic struggle within it (p. 394). By
examining newspapers, periodicals, and magazines during the 1963 political upheavals of South
Vietnam, the authors proved that contextualizing the image along with discourses becomes an
effective way to interpret the image and its hidden message.
The Buddhist visual rhetoric, with discourses from other sources to contextualize it, may lead
to multiple interpretations and even misunderstanding. In the similar vein that challenges the
traditional textual artifact in rhetorical criticism, Gorsevski’ s (2013) case study utilizes Aung
San Suu Kyi and her Buddhist identity as the artifact. In this study, Suu Kyi’s
self-portrayals—discourse, images, and actions—were studied and situated within a political and
postcolonial context. As the author contends, Suu Kyi’s Buddhist rhetoric expressed through her
postcolonial subjectivity within the complicated political situation becomes an important
rhetorical means in her fight for human rights and democracy for people in Myanmar. In the
author’s analysis, Suu Kyi’s Buddhist rhetoric manifested as: Suu Kyi’s use of Buddhism to align
herself with the Burmese identity; her constant practice of Buddhism (meditation) and validation
from respected monks, which made her a spiritual leader beyond the political status; and her
Buddhist inflected speeches. Also non-traditionally in this study, Suu Kyi was examined as a
rhetorical “text” of postcolonial subjectivity infused by Buddhist humanitarianism. The author
uniquely articulated the Buddhist rhetoric under political discourse through the persona of a
17
female activist.
One study that could probably illuminate the future Buddhist rhetorical criticism is Radwan’s
(2012) “contact rhetoric.” As he conducts a close textual analysis of Pope Benedict XVI’s
inaugural encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Radwan proposed a contact orientation that differs from
discursive rhetorical theory. Rhetoric in this sense is manifested as “physical contact and touch”
between people instead of words and languages that generate meaning in a traditional sense (p.
43). In his analysis, the mode of contact expressed as Christian love—knowing and feeling God
is Love. And this contact could be operationalized into specific practices. Radwan’s contact
theory brought another possibility in interpreting religion and rhetoric and is immediately
applicable to the rhetorical practices of Buddhism.
The fascinating case studies listed above have transcended our understanding of “what is
rhetoric” as well as “how is rhetoric articulated.” The intersection of rhetorical criticism and
religious communication brought us new meanings to this filed while reminding us of its
ever-changing nature. From examining texts to visual images, to actual person and rhetorical
discourses, to the verbal utterance to the non-verbal silence and action, Buddhist rhetoric needs
more innovative exploration and interdisciplinary studies.
Procedures
Illuminated by the studies cited above on Buddhist rhetoric while creating my own
interpretation of Buddhist rhetoric based on my research of the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple
of Toledo (the GHBTT). In terms of adhering to the Western Buddhist traditions, temple settings,
and the type of community engaged in the practices, the GHBTT is considerably very
representative of Western Buddhism in general: it performs Zen practices from a Japanese
Buddhist lineage, which is featured by its popular meditation practice. The temple is located in a
18
predominantly white, middle-class community, and the setting is very similar to other Zen
Buddhist temples in the West.
Most scholars still adhere to traditional methods only, like textual analysis and critical
rhetoric criticism, especially in dealing with ancient canonical texts. Innovatively, this
dissertation utilizes a heuristic approach to participating and understanding Buddhist rituals and
activities in order to investigate how Buddhist teachings are communicated to the members
through verbal and non-verbal ways. I utilized participant observation during rituals and
activities to get familiarized with the temple and abbots’ rhetorical strategies. My identity as a
Buddhist practitioner facilitated participation in the activities of the temple. In the meantime, I
also used textual analysis and rhetorical analysis to examine the abbots’ speeches on weekly
activities and the content of the temple’s website, as well as the discourses that the rhetorical
actions situate in.
Specifically, I mainly participated at the temple’s weekly Sunday morning and Wednesday
evening activities from December 2015 to December 2016. Wednesday evening activity is
composed of different periods of meditation, private interview with a teacher, and a Dharma talk
given by the abbot. Sunday morning activity includes sutra services, Dharma talk by the abbot,
and also kids’ and teens’ Dharma school. Since the sutra service and Dharma talk are similar to
Wednesday evening meditation and talks, my observation focused on the Dharma school—how
teenagers and children learn about Buddhism through various activities designed by the temple.
Observations of how events and activities were organized and performed, how people in the
community who attend these events interacted with each other, and how participants reacted to
the abbot’s speeches were recorded on a weekly basis.
In examining the content of the website, I performed a textual and structural analysis of the
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website of the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo. I mainly focused on the religious
narratives framed by the website’s texts, visual images, videos, and podcasts, as well as how
these narratives facilitate the practitioners’ religious identity construction together with their
practices at the temple. The website contains the videos of abbot’s weekly address and focuses
on upcoming events and responses to questions sent to him. A critical examination was done to
examine the content of these videos, ranging from January 2015 to January 2017. This time
frame was specifically selected to examine all the abbot addresses Rinsen uploaded within two
years of time and as a reflection of the temple growth. The structural analysis interpreted how the
narrative was organized, the use of hyperlinks, and the utilization of technical controls for the
website (like when and how live cameras are set up to simulate the temple experience for online
practitioners). Through these interpretative methods, I elucidated how strategic Buddhist
discourse was framed in this temple and on its website, and how it facilitated the formation of
Buddhist identity among the practitioners. Additionally, I provided a nuanced discussion of the
theoretical and methodological foundations of this study in the next chapter.
Organization of Study with Chapters
Given the goal of this dissertation, each chapter is constructed to accomplish some
important sectors of the goal. Together, they illuminate the Buddhist rhetoric of the Great
Heartland Buddhist temple of Toledo and how religious identities are formed within such
rhetoric.
Chapter One begins by introducing this project as a whole with a statement of research
questions, a rationale, review of relevant literature, and a preview of chapters. It also provides an
overview of modern Buddhism and its recent development in the West. The chapter briefly
describes modern Buddhism and how it differs from the traditional Buddhism. Specifically, this
20
chapter identifies the differences between modern and traditional, while listing the ongoing
rhetorical debates regarding the appropriateness of the Westernization process. Then I address
the Westernization process of modern Buddhism: its secularization and its debatable adoption of
technology.
Chapter Two aims to contextualize the historical, political, and cultural background that
formed Modern Buddhism. I discuss how Buddhism, as an indigenous Asian religion, was
introduced to the United States and remolded into a rational, scientific, and philosophical
religion. After that, I depict how the modern Buddhist thoughts flew back to Asian countries and
promoted the Buddhist secularization in the East. Furthermore, I trace how the global flow of
Buddhism came to Ohio and Toledo and exemplified in the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of
Toledo. The second section of this chapter focuses on elaborating the theoretical and
methodological framework. I elucidate the nature of rhetorical communication and the goals and
procedures of rhetorical criticism. I advance my interpretation of Buddhist rhetoric and the
adoption of critical intercultural communication. Based on abundant literature of previous studies
on intercultural communication and Buddhist rhetoric, I argue the relevance of rhetorical
criticism to studies of Buddhism.
Chapter Three examines the GHBTT’s effort to maintain its Japanese cultural
connections as part of its own tradition and heritage in the discourses of modernization and
democratization. Mainly, I describe and analyze ideographs like <family>, <marriage>,
<education>, <wife>, and <community> that embedded in the temple’s rhetoric about traditions
from the Japanese Zen Buddhism. I argue that, these self-asserted “traditions” that GHBTT has
been practicing are actually hybridity forms that are unique only to American Buddhism under
the democratic ideology. In utilizing these “traditions” and keeping its oriental appeal to the
21
Western audience, the temple finds its authenticity, its cultural tie to the East, and its surviving
mechanism, which are representative of many forms of Buddhist temples in the U.S.
Chapter Four focuses on the identity construction in the GHBTT. I first discuss the
temple’s use of communication technologies. Specifically, I elaborate on the benefits and
challenges of technology from the cyberspace, as well as the online religious experience from a
user’s perspective. Following that, I examine Rinsen’s strategies in dealing with member’s secret
Buddhist identity and the practice based on Western individualism through his abbot addresses.
My third focus is the naming practice of the GHBTT, by probing into the reasons and results of
using Japanese names for members, rituals, and objects in the temple, I tend to explicate how the
adoption of Japanese kanji names help construct the members’ Buddhist identities. Finally, I
examine the temple as a sacred space in constructing the Buddhist experience. Taking the
perspective of material rhetoric of the physical space, I argue that special arrangement, religious
artifacts, and ordinary ritual objects work effectively in building a collective Buddhist identity.
The last chapter is my conclusion. I conclude this dissertation by reviewing previous
chapters and discussions, and reiterating implications for future studies of intercultural rhetoric,
Buddhist rhetoric, and the process of identity construction. I explicate how my critical
understanding of Buddhist rhetoric is developed gradually and how critical intercultural
communication needs to address issues surrounding religion, as religion has become a major
force for unification and division in the 21st Century. Given the recent situation of religious
violence and flow of refugees, it has become an urgent topic to address: the religious identity
building, community building, and conflict negotiation in relation to the surrounding cultural,
ethnic, class, and educational contexts. In the end, I propose potential benefits to critical
intercultural research in areas of religious communication and explain how this study can assist
22
examinations of other religions and other global cities.
23
CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF MODERN ZEN BUDDHISM IN THE UNITED STATES
“Cultural and global flows provide the context through which Asian religions globalize, are
reinterpreted, and translated for new audiences. The idea of flows helps to capture the
movement of discourses across time and space that have generated global religious
practices.”
-Brook Schedneck
Chapter Two contains two different sections. In the first section, I aim to contextualize
the historical, political, and cultural junctures that formed Buddhism as a global religion. I view
the development of modern Buddhism from the perspective of global flows. I discuss how
Buddhism, as an indigenous Asian religion, was introduced to the United States and remolded
into a rational, scientific, and philosophical religion. After that, I depict how the modern
Buddhist thoughts flew back to Asian countries and promoted the Buddhist secularization in the
East. Furthermore, I trace how the global flow of Buddhism came to Ohio and Toledo and
exemplified in the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo. Like religious scholar Schedneck
notes above, the idea of flows allows us to draw a clear picture of Buddhism in different time and
space. It also helps dissect the transformation process of this global religion. The second section
of this chapter discusses the theoretical and methodological foundations of this study. I elucidate
the nature of rhetorical communication and the goals and procedures of rhetorical criticism. I
advance my interpretation of Buddhist rhetoric and the adoption of critical intercultural
communication. Based on abundant literature of previous studies on intercultural communication
and Buddhist rhetoric, I argue the relevance of rhetorical criticism to studies of Buddhism.
Brief History of Modern Zen Buddhism in the West
There are millions of Buddhists in the West today. First brought to Europe and the U.S.
24
by Chinese and Japanese immigrants, Buddhism has become the fastest growing religion since
its entry to the West in the 19th century (Drew, 2012). Credible estimates of the adult population
of Buddhists in the United States are around 1.4 to 4 million (Wuthnow & Cadge, 2004).
However, this number only suggested a stable group who are qualified Buddhist and are
affiliated with temples and Buddhist organizations. There are also considerable individuals and
groups who attend Buddhist activities on a frequent basis and practice Zen on their own while
identify themselves as “Buddhism sympathizers” (Drew, 2012). According to a survey in 2003,
12.5% of Americans think Buddhist teachings and practices have a great influence on their
spirituality. Up till now, the number is still growing, together with the number of Buddhist
institutions, meditation centers, and practitioner groups.
Buddhism itself seems to have a unique appeal in the Western popular culture: from a
number of celebrities who identify themselves as Buddhists to the popularity of Buddha imagery
on the pop culture market; from Buddha bar and restaurants to the pervasive “art of Zen”
references in books and commodities. Millions of Americans who know little about Buddhism
are familiar with the idea of Zen and Zen meditation. Studying Buddhism is always associated
with the “cool factor” that other traditional religions cannot match (Drew, 2012, p. 92). Even
with the critical Western media, Buddhism appears to be favored through rose-tinted spectacles:
often perceived as peace loving, philosophical, rational, and non-violent. As a matter of fact,
what many Americans and Europeans understand and favor by “Buddhism” today is a hybrid of
selected Eastern Buddhist traditions and Western modernity, including science, philosophy,
psychology, and pop culture (McMahan, 2008). The popular image of Buddhism in the West
today can hardly be found in its Eastern roots in Japan, China, or India. Meanwhile, Buddhism is
neither an elite Western adaptation that only reflects the need of the elite population in the West,
25
as many critics claim. It is rather, a new form of Modern Buddhism that emerges from the
process of globalization and modernization in the past few decades.
In exploring Buddhism’s mystic appeal in the West, Drew (2012) illustrates the reasons
from the deep-seated cultural perspective. First and foremost, Buddhism is considered as rational
and scientific in the Western discourse. Within the historical context of technological growth and
industrial revolution during the19th century, early Orientalist scholars, while disillusioned by the
Christian and other monotheistic world-views that require “blind faith,” tried to locate Buddhism
from a more rationalistic and scientific approach. Second, in contrast to other religious practices
and rituals, meditation takes the center stage in modern Buddhism in the West. Many found it
compelling because of the meditation emphasis that could help them practice and develop their
minds. Moreover, Western Buddhism discourages superstition, magic, image worship, and gods
(McMahan, 2008). A Buddhist does not necessarily need to follow authority and dogma but
concentrate on the cultivation of the self in a non-religious context, which perfectly fits into the
discourse of modern science and liberal domestic values. Personal experience is, therefore,
highly valued and emphasized while much of the belief is an exaggeration based on its history
and origin in Asian countries. Today, the most popular idea of Buddhism in the West is that it is
subjective and authoritative, treated more as spirituality than a religion.
If Buddhism is viewed as a Western construct today, the very term “Buddhism” also
originated from the West, which can be traced back to the early stages of systematic religious
studies (Snodgrass, 2003). Following biblical analogy of Christianity’s relation to Christ,
Christian scholars assumed a distorted interpretation of Buddha as the founder of the religion,
thus titled “Buddhism” to imply it is all about the life and teachings of Buddha. However, the
word “Buddha” refers to the “awakened one” in Sanskrit but not specifically one person in
26
history, in which sense, anybody can be the “Buddha” once achieved the awakened status
(Snodgrass, 2003).
Originated from India in the fifth or sixth century B.C.E, spread into Sri Lanka and all
over Southeast Asia, and finally was introduced to China, Japan, and South Korea, Buddhism
was well distributed throughout almost all Asian countries as early as 1500s (Drew, 2012). But it
was only until the19th century that Buddhism entered Europe and the U.S. via early canonical
texts and immigrants of the Asian countries.
Eastern Buddhism was officially introduced to the United States by a delegation of
Japanese Buddhist priests to the World’s Parliament of Religion in Chicago, 1893 (Snodgrass,
2003). To that point, the parliament was “an aggressively Christian event,” which was governed
by a set of rigorous rules and discourses that were permeated by Christian presuppositions of
“the nature and function of a religion” (p. 2). Indeed, these rules symbolize a domination of the
“superior” West over the “uncivilized” East in ideologies during the nineteenth century. To
challenge the Western presuppositions and their cultural superiority, the Japanese delegates
argued that Buddhism, especially the Japanese Buddhism after Meiji revival, was “the most
appropriate religion” for the modern world. The reason was that it combined both “truth and
wisdom” from Western philosophy and Western religion (p. 3).
Prior to the World’s Parliament of Religion in 1893, Buddhism was only heard of as
Southern Buddhism or Northern Buddhism in Asia (Snodgrass, 2003). It could be said that the
Japanese delegates created the “Eastern” category from the results of their own Buddhist reform
during Meiji Japan. This claimed all-encompassing teaching of Buddha is universal and
comprehensive compared to whether Northern or Southern style, since its flexibility allows it to
survive in both Western discourse and among a wide range of audiences over the world.
27
Additionally, upon creating the Eastern Buddhism, delegates also avoided all disadvantages of
the Northern and Southern style, like nihilistic and world denying (p.199). The transformation
process was undoubtedly very successful, which made the new Eastern Buddhism rational and
philosophical, which is compatible with the discourse of modernization. At the same time, it also
became popular among the audience with a variety of cultural and spiritual backgrounds. The
narrative of Zen Buddhism in the U.S. begins from this Eastern Buddhism: a repackaging for the
Western audience that was tailored to their need of a more rationalized, modern, and
philosophical religion.
Nevertheless, Zen Buddhism itself was never a new invention like Eastern Buddhism.
Zen Buddhism in the U.S. developed from its Japanese lineage of the Mahayana Buddhist
Tradition (Laderman & Leon, 2003). Originally from the Chinese Mahayana School, the term
Mahayana means “Great Vehicle” and it predominates in China, Japan, Korea, and other Eastern
Asian countries. Practitioners of Mahayana consider it greater than other Buddhist traditions in
the West because it makes enlightenment possible to lay practitioners with families and regular
jobs, whereas in traditions like Theravada, this process is restricted to monks and nuns who have
renounced worldly lives (p. 48). Zen first emerged as a distinctive school of Buddhism in China
in the 7th century. From China, Zen Buddhism spread to the rest of Asia like Vietnam and Korea
and finally arrived in Japan by the 13th century (Ellwood, 2012). The two main sects of Zen
were introduced by Japanese monks studying in China and were distinguished by two forms of
“Rinzai” and “Soto” (two different interpretations of meditation). However, Zen in the U.S. is a
hybrid of the two while infused by new elements of the Eastern Buddhism.
Suzuki Daisetsu Teitaro (usually known as D.T.Suzuki), the student of Zen Patriarch
Shaku Soen, was believed to be the first to introduce Zen Buddhism to the United States
28
(Virtbauer, 2012). During the first half of the 19th century, D.T. Suzuki and other Japanese
scholars constantly traveled to the U.S. and composed a number of literatures on Zen Buddhism
to promote and develop Buddhist thoughts in the West. Nevertheless, it was after 1950s that Zen
Buddhism found a wider audience outside Japan and created a Zen boom (Prohl & Graf, 2015).
Zen references appeared in popular brands, in books and magazines, and also in various
commercials. It has transcended the religious context but become a popular and exotic way of
life. The transformation of Zen Buddhism from Japan to the West occurred through the
translation and transfer process, in which Zen was recognized as an “epitome” of religious
experience whose main emphasis is meditation (Sharf, 1995; McMahan, 2008). Representing the
Zen experience, this practice of ritual sitting/ meditation soon gained attention of millions across
the world. The idea of sitting in silence has become an all-powerful method for individuals
searching inner peace and enlightenment, releasing from stress, and healing emotional traumas
from past experience. Meditation began to represent the whole of Zen Buddhism and its practices
in the West. While deviating from its religious connotations that are still maintained in Zen
Buddhism of Japan and other Asian countries, Western Zen spread beyond temples and
institutions into hospitals, families, and recovery centers as a therapeutical treatment for mentally
and physically suffered, even recognized by doctors and therapists (Virtbauer, 2012).
When D.T Suzuki brought the idea of Zen Buddhism to the West, one of his emphases was
Buddhist psychology (Virtbauer, 2012). With the effort to reframe Buddhism as a modern
religion that can be allied with positivistic science, he claimed that Zen Buddhism is a genuine
Asian practice that “reveals the full capacities of the human mind”(P. 251). D.T. Suzuki mainly
drew from the East-West distinctions and Asian cultural and religious background to justify the
Buddhist psychology. However, the pairing of Buddhism and Western psychology/psychotherapy
29
was under much criticism in the beginning. Scholars who tried to make the conversation happen
either remained orientalist from the Western perspective or occidentalist under the influence of
Eastern religious background. With more indepth study of the textual sources and Buddhist
teachings while situating them in the Western scientific discourse in recent years, the dialogue
between the two are now expanding and under more scholarly attention.
Buddhism is either believed to be an indigenous psychology as some of its early
literatures suggest, or its teachings can match and be integrated into the Western psychotherapy
system (Virtbauer, 2012). The meditation practice, as the core of Zen Buddhism, is often
described to be the method for accessing deeper and unconscious self of the individual. Once the
undiscovered constrains and negative dispositions are exposed in the process, they might be
easily transformed and released, which allows positive thoughts and compassionate forces to
flow in for a healthier mind (McMahan, 2008). The extraction of explicit religious commitments
provides meditation a wider application. Constructed as a secular practice of self-cultivation or
therapeutic session, meditation can be taught in public schools, health clubs, or even churches. It
is also easier for attracting public research funds. To some extent, meditation practice contributed
to the popularity and acceptance of Zen Buddhism in Western culture although its meaning,
purpose, and social significance has completely changed from its traditional forms in the East.
Modernization of Buddhism on A Global Scale
Characteristics of Zen Buddhism in the West apparently make it more appealing,
attractive, and vibrant compared with their traditional Eastern counterparts. In the long history of
Buddhism development in the West, these characteristics are also considered as the outcomes of
the “Buddhist modernism,” which emerge out of adaptation into the new culture and various
intellectual forces of modernity (McMahan, 2008). With the development of science and
30
technology, rapid growth of mass media, demographic change of local regions, urbanization,
industrialization, and class and power struggles that resulted from these changes, the
modernization process is almost inevitable and unpredictable. Meanwhile, modernity also has
immeasurable influence on how Buddhist develops in the East where it originated. Impact of
globalization and market economy are transformative to the traditional temples. While still trying
to maintain traditional rituals, practices, and the religious roots, they are gradually opening up to
new opportunities and challenges from the West. As the origin of Zen Buddhism (also known as
Ch’an in China), Chinese Buddhism is a great example of the “Buddhist modernism” in the East.
Facing similar challenges of globalization, the leaders of Chinese Buddhism have
attempted to engage the global civic community in order to augment and sustain their religious
status. Their approaches could be identified by the strategies of convergence and divergence.
Convergent in their borrowing from other Western religious practices, while divergent in their
modernized interpretation of classic sutras and Buddhist teachings, and their non-traditional
utilization of technology. Historically, Buddhism as an ancient religion has experienced several
waves of upheaval in China in the last two centuries due to the Chinese Cultural Revolution
(Wang, 2013). Upon restoration in the twentieth century, it is expected to play an active role in
ever-changing society. Contemporary Buddhism in China brought back old and rigorous
religious traditions as well as new forms of practices influenced by Western worldviews (Higgins,
2012). Meanwhile, the relatively “new” Buddhism in China has become more relevant and
adaptable to the modern society, as Buddhist monks began to preach in a more secular way,
introducing new ideas advised by the recent developments in the larger society, and even
appropriating the use of communication technology (Xu, 2015).
The secularization of Buddhism in the East is greatly affected by Western religious
31
practices. Additionally, they survive on the global market successfully with these strategies
borrowed from the West. While maintaining its traditional ways of rigorous practice, the “new”
Buddhism in the East also tries to become more open and approachable to ordinary laypeople
and social communities. One important step of its secularization is practiced through charitable
activities. Borrowed from the Christian tradition, many religions today are “associated with
charitable behaviors” or have their own charitable organizations, like sedekah (charity) in Islam
and zadaqa (voluntary charity) in Judaism (Nagata, 1999, p. 236).
Encouraged by the
government, Buddhist monasteries in Eastern countries began to include more charitable
activities in the past few decades (Ji, 2012). As lay believers kept increasing by the end of 1990s,
monasteries were able to use the donations to help the needed in society, which includes setting
up schools in poor regions, adopting orphans, distributing free medicine, and helping with
victims of natural disaster (Ji, 2012). In a study of Buddhist charity organization research in
China, André Laliberté (2012) finds that Chinese Buddhist philanthropic enterprises are
expanding in a dramatic speed in the last few years. Seventeen out of thirty-one Buddhist
associations in China have established charities or foundations by the end of 2008, which even
surpasses the speed of temple rebuilding. Similarly in Japan, temples are treated like businesses
in the ways that they reorient their services to meet the socio-economic needs of regular
consumers (Nelson, 2011). There is a major shift from serving the homes and communities to
serving individuals due to an expanding sense of individualism and personal choice in Japan.
Meanwhile, in dealing with the current problems and concerns of the society, temples developed
newly configured Buddhist values to engage and enhance people’s quality of life. Instead of
giving guidance on how to think and react to the social situations, temples began to take
pragmatic actions and provide resources. These innovations include suicide prevention,
32
establishing care homes and hospices for the elderly, establishing shelters for victims of domestic
violence, and such.
Another important manifestation of Buddhism’s worldwide secularization is its
increasing involvement with the market economy. Globalization brought a more capitalistic way
of life through abundant commodities and the unprecedented consumer experience. More and
more religious goods are produced and consumed by lay believers through virtual stores and
online platforms. Religious consumption is not a new phenomenon in the West with industrial
production and the “standardization” of culture (Obadia, 2011). Especially for the fast-spreading
Buddhism, its iconography and symbols are becoming extremely fashionable in popular culture
across the world, which can be found in music, fashion, and aesthetics (Obadia, 2011). Generally
speaking, the globalization of Buddhism is intimately ties to market and economy. This
dominating “religious-economy model” has also greatly affected Asian Buddhists and Asian
immigrants overseas as they practice Buddhism. To a large extent, religious institutions whether
in the East or the West, although being resistant at first, are operating within an open market and
rely on the “consumer economy” to sustain and survive.
Nevertheless, the criticism over Buddhism’s detraditionalization and accommodation
process has never ceased. There are also plenty of ongoing controversies on its modernization
process. Despite the modernists like Zen Buddhists in the United States, there are also
considerable traditional Buddhists worldwide who still practice rituals, hold onto the religious
dogma, and maintain authority structures (Drew, 2012). These are the people who still concern
reincarnation, karma, life and death when practicing Buddhism. They consider secular
worldviews and engagements as potentially detrimental and hazardous to the very existence of
the Buddhism (Chandler, 2010). At the mean time, they maintain a monastic way of religious
33
practice: renouncing worldly pursuits while committing to the spiritual work in seclusion. As
Modernists stress that hey have to compete membership with other cultural institutions and offer
various services or artifacts to guarantee their competitiveness on the market, Traditionalists
expressed great concerns over the degree of integration and adaptation of Buddhism in new
cultures. As they claim, privatization and detraditionalization of some practices, like meditation,
would only undermine the authenticity of Buddhism and turn ideas and practices into
“purchasable commodities” (p. 103). The next section examines how globalized Buddhism
saturates local regions like Mid-west Ohio and how a local temple run by Euro-American priests
grew and thrived within the last ten years.
The Introduction of Buddhism to Ohio and Toledo
The development of Buddhism in Ohio has a relatively short history. As in most
European countries, Buddhism was brought to Ohio by groups of Chinese and Japanese labor
workers during mid-nineteenth century (Butalia & Small, 2004). In the early twentieth century
Japanese immigrants established the first Buddhist community and temple in Cleveland. With the
influx of more Asian refugees and immigrants from countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and
China during 1970s and 1980s, Buddhism began to thrive in Ohio. These temples and
communities served as important spaces to maintain cultural ties and traditions for the new
immigrants (p. 321).
However, despite the rapid growth of Buddhist immigrants in the area, for most Ohioans,
their direct contact began with the Buddhist impact on American pop culture (Butalia & Small,
2004). With the Buddhism/ Zen themed books, movies, and commodities spreading nationwide
in the late twentieth century, people got to know more about the religion and its principles. In
Ohio, burgeoning Buddhist presence can also be seen in various art museums and institutions of
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higher learning: Buddhist collection becomes a separate section in multiple museums for
introducing Asian culture; various schools and colleges also began a series of courses in
Buddhist studies and Asian religion (p. 324). Over the past 35 years, about 60 Buddhist centers,
groups and temples appeared across Ohio and attracted a great number of individuals. Affiliated
with different lineages in their ways of practice, temples and centers that focus on Vipassana
tradition, Tibetan tradition, and Zen tradition take the dominant place in Ohio Buddhism. After a
long journey from East to the West, Buddhism is now becoming a popular religion in Ohio.
Other than transmitting and maintaining traditional culture for immigrants, Buddhism is now a
crucial religious belief that keeps enriching Ohioans’ spiritual lives.
The Buddhist community in Toledo, a northwestern Ohio city, is also under the great
impact of this “new” religion. Beginning from several meditation groups, the Toledo area now
has a well-developed Buddhist temple that focuses on Zen traditions. The Great Heartland
Buddhist Temple of Toledo (the GHBTT) is a family-centered temple that offers a series
practices and services related to Zen Buddhism to the local communities, such as meditation,
intense religious retreats, martial arts teaching, Dharma school for children, and recovery groups
for people with addictions. The main abbot, Jay Rinsen Weik, who is also a lecturer of jazz guitar
at the University of Toledo, serves as the senior priest and head teacher in the temple.
The temple was founded in 2001 under the name Toledo Zen Center (Yonke, 2012). Weik,
after finishing his study of music in Boston, moved back to Toledo in 2001 and co-founded the
Zen center with his wife, Karen Do’on Weik (Yonke, 2012). The couple began their study of
Buddhism at Zen Mountain Monastery with John Daido Loori Roshi in the 1980s. Later on, they
respectively continued Zen study with multiple other teachers in the Soto Zen lineage. By the
time the temple was founded, they are both qualified Zen teachers acknowledged by the lineage.
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Since its founding, the Zen center has grown bigger and attracted practitioners with a
variety of backgrounds, including college students fulfilling credit for class, retired senior
citizens in the neighborhood, white collar workers in Toledo area, and people from all walks of
life. Interestingly, their spiritual backgrounds can be very diverse, too. According to the main
abbot Weik, “Buddhism has no religious tenets,” therefore members of the temple still remain
active in Christian and Catholic churches, Jewish synagogues, and Islamic mosques (Yonke,
2012. para 20).
In 2010, The Weiks were ordained as priests in the Zen center by a senior Zen teacher
from Massachusetts (Yonke, 2010). Meanwhile, their 17 students professed Buddhist vows,
declaring their Buddhist faith. The event symbolizes a major shift of Zen Buddhism development
in the Toledo area. In 2012, the center was renamed the Buddhist Temple of Toledo to clarify its
purpose for people flocking to the center to practice (Oblander, 2012). By the end of 2012, the
temple has attracted nearly 100 members, out of which 50 are the active core. Abbot Weik
received his final authorization as an independent Zen teacher through a “mountain seat”
ceremony in 2015 (Barger, 2015). Having been linked to other Zen centers for years, The Great
Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo marked its independence as well, making it a stand-alone
institution for dharma teaching and Zen Buddhist practicing.
Temple Setting and Activities
The Great Heartland Buddhist Temple is located in the Holland/Springfield area of
Toledo, Ohio, where Weik and his wife renovated a family carpet warehouse and turned it into
the main temple area. At the same time they founded the temple in 2001, the Weiks also opened
an Aikido school — a Japanese martial art school for both adults and children. As the fifth degree
black belt in Aikido, Weik serves as the main teacher.
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The temple is mainly composed of three separate rooms: the lounge room near the main
entrance, the main sitting room in the middle, and the Aikido room in the back. The lounge room
is separated into two areas: abbot changing room/office and the public space for depositing shoes
and resting on the couch. In the main sitting room, areas are also divided functionally. The sitting
area takes two thirds of the room and is surrounded by benches and chairs. About 30 meditation
cushions lie in the middle section and on both sides of the abbot’s cushion in the middle. So
when members sit on the cushions, they are in two groups facing each other. Observers and
people who have trouble crossing legs or sitting on their knees will usually choose to sit on the
bench to meditate. The remaining one third of the room is saved for restrooms and changing
rooms with several couches in the middle. The room in the back of the temple is reserved for
Aikido classes. Walls and floors are renovated and specially designed for Aikido training.
Additionally, the abbot also decorated the room with Japanese swords on the rack and Japanese
calligraphies on the wall.
Greatly influenced by Japanese culture where Zen Buddhism was from, the temple
decoration contains many Japanese elements. Calligraphies, paintings and woodcuts on the wall
are all in Japanese characters and related to Zen teaching. Pictures of the teachers in this lineage
also hang on the wall near the entrance, most of which are Japanese. In the main sitting room,
statues of Buddha, bells, wallpapers, and even cushions are all in Japanese style and arranged by
the standard of Zendo (the meditation hall) from Japan.
Like the decorations, services provided by the GHBTT are also in Japanese Zen tradition
but mainly focus on two days of a week. Regular temple attenders are mainly divided into two
groups, the Wednesday evening group and the Sunday morning group. Wednesday evening
service contains multiple periods of Zazen (sitting meditation), walking meditation, occasional
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private interview with a teacher, and a dharma talk by the abbot. Attenders are usually temple
members and are very familiar with the procedure. Upon arriving at the temple on Wednesday
night, attenders usually chat with each other or change to their own Buddhist robes. A simple
liturgy will be held at the beginning: people stand on their meditation cushions and chant the
heart sutra together. By the time the abbot is dressed up in his robes, he will be invited and led by
one of his students from the office and walk to the altar with his teaching stick or a horsetail
whisk. The meditation then proceeds with students sitting on their cushions and abbot sitting
against the altar. Most sitting meditations last twenty minutes. When the bell rings three times,
everyone stands up and begins the walking meditation: pacing slowly and quietly in circles
around the sitting area. After about 5 minutes walking, the sitting meditation resumes. The
evening service ends with the abbot talk/teaching, which usually lasts fifteen minutes and about a
famous story from a Zen master in history. The topic of Wednesday teaching varies each week
and abbot Rinsen usually decides what is to teach each time.
While Sunday morning service shares the same meditation routine, it also features a
dharma school for children. Families with children usually attend the Sunday morning service
hoping their children will learn stories and teachings of Buddha in the dharma school, which is
usually taught by qualified volunteers and members of the temple. After the morning liturgy,
children and teenagers are taken to the lounge while their parents practice sitting meditation in
the main room. The member or volunteer who teaches dharma school that day usually tells a
story of Buddha and arrange activities with children. And when the main meditation and abbot
talk are over in the main room, children will be led back by their teacher. Then together the
children and teacher tell everybody what they have learned and discussed in dharma school of
that day. Beside the Wednesday evening and Sunday morning services, there are many other
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activities staged occasionally in the temple, like annual religious retreats at the abbot’s farm,
yoga classes, musical events and family support council. However, regular attenders of the
temple communicate and connect with each other mainly through these two activities mentioned
above.
Temple Operation and Communication
The temple maintenance and operation are mainly conducted by the volunteer work of its
members who regularly connect with each other through email, Facebook messages and the
temple website (www.buddhisttempleoftoledo.org). Like many other Buddhist temples in United
States, the temple survives on donations and membership fees. Donations can be made both on
the temple website and in the temple, which is open to everybody. Donors can remain
anonymous both online and offline. While the donation page is directly built into the temple
website, people who choose to donate online can decide the amount and their preferred payment
methods without leaving personal information. In the temple, a donation basket is placed near the
entrance table with white envelopes and pens. Visitors or members can choose to leave cash or
check in the envelope while marking down purpose of the donation: whether it counts towards
monthly membership or a regular donation. While there is no specific regulation on how much
the membership costs, upon registration, a new member is supposed to provide an annual
household pledge amount and a payment schedule. Besides, the membership webpage lists a
monthly and annual pledging guideline for members in proportion to the household income. For
example, if the annual household income is around 10,000 dollars, the member could choose to
donate 5% to 2% of the income, which are 42 to 17 dollars per month or 500 to 200 dollars per
year.
A core member group, also known as the leadership council, meets on a regular basis and
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makes major decisions about the temple. Meanwhile, they are also in charge of running budgets,
sending weekly newsletters and notifications through emails, organizing activities online and
offline, and reaching out to potential members on Facebook. In year 2015 and 2016, the
leadership council consists of 6 regular members.
Besides meeting physically in the temple during weekly activities, Facebook group is
another significant site for the GHBTT members to meet and communicate. The Facebook group
named “Buddhist Temple of Toledo” was created in December 2014 by one of the leadership
council members. By December 2016, it has already included 250 group members. According to
the group description, any member may invite other members to join and everyone is encouraged
to share news and ideas. Importance notifications, announcements about activities, and weekly
abbot addresses will be posted to the group on a regular basis. Active members will also share
thoughts and feelings about their practices in the group almost everyday. From Summer 2016,
Abbot Rinsen began sharing live streaming videos of important activities in the group and invite
thoughts and comments about these activities. Many group members who cannot travel to the
temple for these activities thus took the opportunity to watch them from home and joined the
discussion online. Apart from building connections among members, the Facebook group is also
used to collaborate events and volunteers for the temple. Temple activity planners will usually
reach out to potential volunteers and schedule date and location before the event. Once the
volunteer’s role and work is decided, it is his/her own responsibility to finish the scheduled
work.
The next section discusses the theoretical and methodological foundations of this study. I
elucidate the nature of rhetorical communication and advance my interpretation of Buddhist
rhetoric and the adoption of critical intercultural communication.
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Rhetorical Field Methods in Critiquing Buddhist Rhetoric
Before fully articulating my understanding of the Buddhist rhetoric generated in this
temple and the critical perspectives I adopted in the process of participant observation, it is
necessary to reflect on my own standpoint in this research. Sikes (2004) cautions us that a
researcher’s worldview that they bring to their work can impact all aspects and stages of the
research process. The fundamental assumptions they hold, whether ontological or
epistemological, are often colored by their own values, beliefs, gender, sexuality, social status,
and so on. Hence it is the researcher’s responsibility to be reflexive on their stance and the
influence it might bring to the critical thinking process. Researchers themselves are also the part
of the social world they are studying.
Bear in mind that I conducted my research on the subjectivity of a Chinese woman born
and raised in a traditional Buddhist family of China, therefore I view my position in this research
as both privileged and unprivileged. Although never an official convert, I have identified myself
as a Buddhist from early ages in life due to my family’s Buddhist belief and the cultural
environment I grew up in. I have practiced Mahayana Buddhism in the past few years by reading
sutras, going to temples, and disciplining myself with the Buddhist vows. Meanwhile, like a lot
of Buddhists in China, my identity is also culturally ascribed in everyday life, since Chinese
culture is heavily infused with Buddhist philosophies. Upon beginning this project, I consider my
knowledge and experience in Buddhism as prerequisites. Additionally, the “not converted” status
granted me some space between a follower and a scholar to critically examine the research
process while being reflexive on my own.
Topics of Buddha always fascinate me since I was a child. For me, it was a given in my
life that I had never questioned before: life is intertwined with good karmas and bad karmas;
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everyone will inevitably fall into the circle of reincarnation; and practice always involves
face-to-face teachings at the temple and bowing to the Buddha. However, my religious
worldview kept changing with the fast-changing world around me. The first transformative
moment was the massive use of technology among Buddhists and the temples they practice.
Instead of books and tangible sutras, using online platforms and mobile applications to practice
became a challenge for me both physically and mentally. At the same time, it also changed my
view of the traditions kept in this religion. The second transformative moment was witnessing
the varieties of Buddhism being practiced. It was until I came to the United States that I
discovered the multiple interpretations and practices of the same religion. Buddhists in the
United States are obviously more powerful than Buddhists in China, since they can choose the
kind of practice that fit them the best. To me, the change is definitely overwhelming. Thus, the
starting point of this study was the countless questions and confusions I have accumulated in
between these moments. My study in communication is like my magnifying glass in the
exploration for answers because meanings are infused and reinforced in the communication
process. Specifically, it is intercultural, rhetorical, and a critical process for me. The answer
dwells in-between Eastern and Western ideologies, in words and symbols, and also in my critical
ability to discover and negotiate the meanings.
Guest, Namey and Mitchell (2013) note that many aspects of some social milieus are
“only visible to insiders” (p. 79). Not every researcher could obtain the insider’s perspective as
confined by age, gender, ethnicity, and language. Simultaneously, I do realize that my identity as
a Chinese woman may put me in a disadvantaged position in researching a temple from the
predominantly white, middle-class community in the United States. Interestingly, as the only
“cultural other” from the country where Zen Buddhism originated hundreds of years ago, I
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gained more insider’s perspective by joining the community with ease. Within the community,
people identify with me since I am a Buddhist across language and culture. They also respect me
because I represent the Buddhist with somewhat perceived “originality,” where their lineage was
from in the first place.
Embedding myself into the temple and its Buddhist community inevitably means the
information I collect is unique to my audience and me. For the past three years, my research has
been focused on Buddhism, technology, and intercultural rhetoric. I have come to the
understanding that Buddhism has formed it own unique Asian rhetoric in shaping identities and
providing guidance to followers that is distinct from any other religions. Placed in the Western
discourse, this Asian rhetoric and its host culture create a unique intercultural setting that hasn’t
been explored. As a Buddhist in both China and United States, I have practiced in both cultural
contexts, both online and offline. Based on my experience, language, cultural traditions,
community, personal values, and geographic locations may all have fundamental influences on
what counts as a Buddhist and how to become a Buddhist. The exploration of Buddhist identity
formation in this temple is also a quest of my own Buddhist identity formation affected by my
intercultural experience and modern communication technology.
This study is also part of my continual research agenda on rhetoric, culture, and religion.
As religion had become a major force for unification and division throughout centuries, it came
in frequent contact with members of other cultures with the global flows (Nakayama & Halualani,
2010). With the globalization of religion and the increasing convergence and divergence between
religious practices, rhetorical criticism could provide the key to interpret religious identity
building, community building, and conflict negotiation in relation to the surrounding cultural,
ethnic, class, and educational contexts. It also provides a powerful tool to examine the power
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dynamics in this process. Just like Ono and Sloop’s (2002) innovative project Shifting Border:
Rhetoric, Immigration, and California’s Proposition 187 suggests, rhetoric functions as a way of
structuring meaning and value in regard to groups on either side of the border. As a critical
rhetorician, I envision myself to shift boarders, to seek out logic, hidden discourses, and the
excluded voices that have the potential to initiate change through my own research.
Viewing the GHBTT as Both Intercultural and Rhetorical
The GHBTT formed an extremely interesting intercultural hub with multiple dimensions.
It is where the ancient Eastern religion meets the modern Western technology; the Eastern
doctrines that generated from collectivism meet Western individualistic practitioners; it is also
where people of different region and ethnicity meet and talk about their common belief.
To
critically examine the unique rhetorical performance of the temple, I categorized it under the
“Buddhist rhetoric,” since it is different from the traditional discursive rhetoric but shares many
common aspects with the traditional forms. As previously articulated, it is almost a different
system that honors non-expression, silence, the nonverbal, the softness and subtlety of ambiguity,
and indirectness (Jensen, 1987). In treating this new aspects of rhetoric, we not only need to take
into consideration of the intercultural context of where it originated and where it is practiced, but
also the rhetoric traditions of Buddhism and its practitioners.
In terms of the GHBTT, these forms can be texts and images from its main website,
reports about the temple activities from the local newspaper, and also teachings of the abbot both
online and offline. The non-traditional rhetorical forms are the rhetoric of temple space where the
rituals and meditation are practiced, and the rhetoric of technology, which contains virtual
platforms for members to practice and socialize from a distance. A critical lens to examine the
Buddhist rhetoric reveals the Buddhist identities that are produced and reinforced in such an
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intercultural setting. A critique of the temple’s Buddhist rhetoric can also reveal the cultural and
ideological conflicts between the East and the West. These ideologies are imbedded in regular
abbot talks, online addresses, the temple’s website, their regular activities, and even their
tangible spaces. In treating the GHBTT as a rhetorical unity, these are all “texts” waiting to be
examined.
More importantly, considering Buddhism as a marginalized religion in United States,
such a critical lens also enables us to see how the dominant culture discourse strategically
normalize and strengthen the dominant power structures that marginalize other voices. As Ono
and Sloop (1995) note, the need to study communities that have been systematically ignored
under the historical power relations, critical focus on the marginalized discourse challenges the
mainstream discourse, while making visible the power dynamics among social groups. A useful
place to begin the critique is to conceptualize critical rhetoric in the context of intercultural
communication.
Conceptualizing Critical Rhetoric in Intercultural Communication
Critical rhetoric is never a new concept. When we mention being critical in rhetorical
studies, it is far more than just theory and method. This is also true within the intercultural
context. Mckerrow (1989) introduces and elaborates the function of critical rhetoric as “a critique
of domination and freedom,” which demystifies the silent and non-deliberate relationship of
power and knowledge (p. 92). The critique of dominance, as he explicated, focused on the
discourse of power, which creates and sustains the social practices that control the dominated. In
other words, it is the critique of ideologies. Dominance usually occurred through the
“construction and maintenance of a particular order of discourse,” which in turn were reflected in
the institutionalized rules to control the discursive actions of the dominated. (p. 94) Under this
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dominance and the pervasiveness of power, seeking for “truth” and recreating the “normal”
without predetermined ideologies and discourse became the tasks of critique of freedom. Within
an intercultural setting, this problem is largely reflected in the power dynamics between different
cultures and the dichotomy of self and the “cultural other.”
When examining the intersections of critical rhetoric and intercultural communication, a
useful place is to begin is to tease out the interconnected relationship between culture,
communication and rhetoric. Culture and communication has been reciprocally and constantly
influencing each other. The culture forms individuals dwell in influence the way they
communicate. In turn, it is through communication that we maintain, reconstruct, repair, and
transform culture. As a unique aspect of communication, rhetorical actions should never be
examined without cultural contexts. Rather than being universal, rhetoric arises from cultural
contexts and reflects it (Johnson, 1999). Intercultural rhetoric emerges as rhetorical actions that
aim to create identifications and shared communities between different cultures. It is through
negotiation, adaptation, persuasion, and participation that rhetorical critics unveil the cultural
phenomena to understand values, discover power relations, and mediate tensions and differences.
As a matter of fact, the conceptualization of culture has been constantly changing over
time. Philipsen (1992) once defines culture as the socially constructed and historically
transmitted patterns of symbols, meanings, premises, and rules. The original significance lies in
nationstate. Over time, the meaning of culture has been broadened to include other realms like
gender, ethnicity, social class, and “other identifications affected by interaction” (Moon, 2010,
P.38). Critical intercultural communication maintains that culture should never be treated
singular and stable but constituted and frequently changing through communication. Echoing this
view and situating his work within the ongoing debate about the role of culture studies in society,
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Rosaldo (1989) argues for the need to pluralize culture and identity as well as to redefine
“cultural literacy.” In his view, the task of social analysis should never rest upon privileging
certain modes of knowing at the expenses of others. Through his ethnographic study on grief and
Ilongot headhunting, Rosaldo (1989) redefines culture as “busy intersections…where a number
of distinct social processes intersect” (p. 17). This notion of culture as crossroads also challenged
the traditional methodologies in studying phenomena in critical intercultural communication: that
critics should always approach culture from multiple perspectives other than the dominant and
inherent one. Meanwhile, the study of culture should also remain open-ended for new
possibilities.
Rhetoric and culture communication was first coined together through “ethnography of
communication” during 1970s (González & Cheng, 2004). Ethnographers of communication, in
their direct contact with speech patterns within various natural culture settings, are the first group
of scholars who turned to rhetoric. By producing a rich description of these speech patterns,
ethnographers are able to interpret them and distinguish the cultural communities where they
originated (p. 473). For example, using ethnographic interpretation in communication research,
Carbaugh and Wolf (1999) examine “how single occasions can create culturally distinctive
exigencies” (p. 20). The rhetoric contest outlined by the authors revolved around the issue of
Mount Graham, a sacred and spiritual site for Apache Indians, but also an ideal astrophysical
observatory for local white people. Competing rhetorics center on how we should view Mount
Graham and what kind of activities are appropriate. However, multiple exigencies emerged when
different rhetorical discourses were evoked on the meaning of “silence.” Reflection needs to be
made upon definition of rhetoric and limitations of our current models in intercultural
communication. Carbaugh and Wolf (1999) contend that the problem arise because of the lack of
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mutual intelligibility and community, which means the lack of shared meaning as basis for
rhetorical action and the sense of community that organize diverse beliefs and shared identities.
The authors suggested the application of a new concept to evaluate rhetorical occasions: cultural
discourse. Situating rhetoric in cultural discourse enables us to discover “distinctive systems of
terms, topics, and forms of expression” and recreate sense of community with shared
understanding of being, acting, feeling, and relating (p. 26).
Echoing with the cultural discourse of rhetorical action and calling upon the position of
“rhetorical pluralism” among rhetorical critics, Xiao (1995) further gives us an example to
manifest how intercultural communication is actually initiated by the “host culture” and the
“taker” rather than the “giver” (p. 94). Xiao examines Yan Fu’s Heavenly Evolution (1894) as a
translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (1894) and discusses the role of translators
within intercultural communication. In his analysis, the translation from English to Chinese
version resulted in Yan’s invention and recreation of the content. Yan strategically eliminated the
terms in conflict with Chinese traditional values and adapted his rhetorical style to the needs of
Chinese audience. Through Yan’s translation, the once culturally conflicting ideas became
meaningful and persuasive to its audience. As Xiao suggests that rhetoric is culture-bound,
regarding Yan’s translation, it is fundamentally a moral choice (p. 94). This reflection added
another layer to the considerations of intercultural rhetoric, especially when the mediator speaks
for the original author. Moral issues should be examined together with the faithfulness of the
translation, transaction, or the interaction itself. Taking culture discourse and tradition into
consideration, intercultural rhetoric can sometimes be intercultural reinterpretation with proper
rhetorical strategies for the indigenous audience.
Equally important are also rhetorical heritages from other cultural traditions. For example,
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Hammerback and Jensen (1994) examine the persuasive qualities of the Plan of Delano and
demonstrate the crucial role of culture heritage in rhetorical criticism (p. 54). By contextualizing
three representative plans in Mexican history and examining their evolution, the authors
compared them with the Plan of Delano and analyzed its rhetorical dynamics that reflected the
cultural context of Mexican Americans. Rhetorical tradition once again proved its effectiveness
in understanding and critiquing different rhetorical actions. Their persuasive power only become
clear in light of their own cultural traditions. Through this case study, Hammerback and Jensen
also complemented Starosta and Coleman’s (1986) framework regarding the discourse of ethnic
communities: examining the significance of the specific rhetorical medium in speaker’s culture,
and examining the speaker’s style of discourse broadly to include structures, images, content,
strategies and appeals. Intercultural rhetorical criticism arises from the uniqueness of each ethnic
community and their cultural experiences.
In viewing the temple as an intercultural space or a hybrid culture form, approaches and
studies listed above should all be taken into consideration in the examination process. For
example, the Western culture as the “host” and “taker” in treating Eastern traditions and
disciplines; the discordant cultural discourse of the adopted Eastern rhetorical practices; and the
rhetorical heritage of Japanese Zen Buddhism as well as how their respective role to construct
the member’s Buddhist identities.
Ideological Rhetorical Criticism
Besides intercultural rhetoric, another crucial method applied in this study is ideological
rhetorical criticism. Ideological criticism provides a means to analyze the power structure
embedded in the Buddhist rhetoric of the GHBTT. Specifically, when the temple is viewed as an
intercultural space that competing ideologies appear and represent different patterns of belief and
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systems of thought, it is beneficial to untangle the complex relationship, as to better understand
their influences on practitioners.
When an ideology becomes hegemonic, as Foss (2009) indicates, it decides the way we
understand the world and controls what is normal or obvious by establishing the norm.
In order
to maintain its position of dominance, “a hegemonic ideology must be renewed, reinforced, and
defended continually through the use of rhetorical strategies and practices” (p. 210). One
important strategy to identify the dominant ideologies is through the use of ideographs. As
McGee (1980) contends, ideographs “are the basic structural elements, the building blocks of
ideology” (p. 7). They are terms and phrases used in our everyday language but function to
evoke a collective commitment to a certain ideology. Terms like liberty, law, equality, and peace
could all be used as ideographs because of their rich social significance. McGee (1980) outlines
four main characteristics of ideographs, which are: 1) “it is an ordinary language terms in
political discourse;” 2) It is “high-order abstractions representing collective commitment;” 3) “it
warrants the use of power, and guides behavior and belief into channels easily recognized by a
community as acceptable;” 4) “it is culture-bound” (p. 15).
A number of scholars have utilized the concept of ideograph in their examination of
culture and rhetoric. For example, in Crafting Equality, Condit and Lucaites (1993) examine the
shifting meaning of <equality> through speeches, newspapers, magazines, and other public
discourses. They contend that the meaning of the word equality has been redefined and
reconstructed throughout American history. Similarly, the study of Stassen and Bates (2010)
explore <marriage> as an ideograph. Through an analysis of qualitative survey, they claim that
marriage function as ideograph by the “structure, abstraction, and ability to both unite and divide”
among ideologically opposed groups (p. 5). Specifically, they concur McGee that ideographs
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should be understood diachronically in different times and cultural discourses. Additionally,
ideographs also interact with other ideographs in various ways. They can be viewed as a cluster
to represent one ideology or contradict each other and create tensions. Connelly’s (2012) case
study exemplifies the interplay between ideographs by examining the tensions between <privacy>
and <national security> in the redactions of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review
opinion. The author concludes that “national security” was privileged over “privacy” via the
strategic use of silence.
A thorough analysis of ideographs in the temple’s rhetoric not only provides an indepth
understanding of the modernized Buddhist practices, but also the ideological force that forges
these changes. Furthermore, critiquing the dominant ideology behind the mundane everyday
language reveals the hierarchies of power and interest behind normal practices in the temple.
Incorporating Participation and Observation in Criticism of Buddhist Rhetoric
In current intercultural rhetoric scholarship, research on Buddhist temple as an
intercultural space hasn't been given much attention. Assuming a critical perspective in
intercultural rhetorical analysis serves as the mediator that bridge cultures together by making
the marginalized visible. Meanwhile, linking intercultural rhetoric to Buddhist rhetoric broadens
its horizon and illuminates insights into religious communication. It is much more than
mediating differences and conflicts, building mutual understandings, and creating identifications
between cultures and religions. It is more about cultivating tolerance among diversity, showing
respect to differences, and challenges the inequity and dominant ideologies that favor elite
cultural groups in the global and regional context. Specifically in the United States, Buddhist
temples were originally built by early Asian immigrants and function to reestablish their
community and preserve their cultural and religious traditions (Butalia & Small, 2004). The
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presence of these temples provides an important venue for increasing cultural and religious
diversity. They also bring issues of religious identity building, community building, and conflict
negotiation in relation to the surrounding cultural, ethnic, class, and educational contexts.
In his study of a Hindu Temple in Midwest United States, Rodrigues (1996) analyzes the
discursive activities staged in the temple. Through intensive observation and participation of the
public events over a period of two years, Rodrigues’s analysis proves that activities at the temple
serve as “devises of identity preservation” (p. ii). The temple thus functions to maintain cultural
identity of its members. The study also reveals the power dynamic underneath the interactions of
Asian Indians and the host environment. According to Rodrigues, members of the temple —
Asian Indians have employed a “rhetoric of rearticulation” to negotiate and cope with the
external environment while maintaining their own ethnic identity.
Similarly, in Kosaka’s 2010 study in a Japanese Buddhist temple in Denver, CO, trying to
investigate how Buddhist teachings are communicated to the members of ceremonies, the author
took a non-traditional ethnographic approach to examine both verbal and non-verbal aspect of
the Buddhist rhetoric of the temple. The critiquing process, which is distinctively different from
the traditional “reading and analyzing,” takes the form of participation and observation, which
gives the scholar a better opportunity to identify the rhetorical acts and situations. Although
conducted in a Western location, both the artifact and the method are heavily influenced by the
Eastern rhetorical traditions. In this study, Kosaka’s (2010) approach began with detailed
description of the Sunday service procedures and reverends’ speeches he attended. He noticed
that indigenous languages like NEMBUTSU and AMIDA Buddha were frequently used in the
Buddhist reverends’ speeches in order to promote “direct participation through listening to the
Buddha’s own words” (p. 97). Through reciting these original words from the sutra in their own
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voices, followers find the simplest way to communicate with Buddha themselves. Apart from
direct participation, indirect participation was also an important experience during the ceremony
for both members and the reverends. Members’ indirect participation included sitting quietly and
listening to speeches through both mind and body, while reverends’ referred to the delivery of
speech itself, because they were considered to be “guided by Buddha” throughout the whole
process (p. 98).
Through participation and observation, Kosaka’s study indicated another important
dimension in current methodology of rhetorical criticism: the incorporation of useful elements
from qualitative research. As McKerrow and St. John (2005) suggest, “critical rhetoric operates
as an orientation that allows the flexibility to respond to a diverse range of rhetorical experiences”
(P. 347). Rhetoricians have begun utilizing a variety of qualitative research methods to critique
different rhetorical artifacts, as they “sharpen the ability for critical rhetoric” to effectively
engage the voices of marginalized rhetorical communities and mundane discourses that often
“evade critical attention” (Middleton, Senda-Cook & Endres, 2011, p. 387). The use of situ
methods in analyzing critical rhetorical places and performances expands the range of rhetoric in
our current scholarship.
To suggest a new method for situ analysis of everyday rhetorical experience, Middleton,
Senda-Cook & Endres (2011) propose the name rhetorical field methods, which both include
critical intervention of the rhetorical artifacts in traditional forms (like texts), and actions that are
engaged to interpret certain space and processual forms of rhetoric that are only accessible
through participation (like rituals and ceremonies). Specifically, ethnographic approaches like
participant observation enable rhetorical critics to have a more productive articulation and
assessment of the rhetorical space and actions. What’s more, participant observation allows
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critics to “experience the rhetorical action” as it unfolds, which offers opportunity to gain
insights on “how rhetoric is experienced by rhetors, audiences, and critics” (Pezzullo, 2007).
As an alternative hermeneutic practice, rhetorical field methods focus on examining “live”
rhetoric, which emerges from embodied, material, and everyday experience (Middleton,
Senda-Cook & Endres, 2011). By combining texts and live experiences, rhetors and critics will
be able to obtain a more indepth and reflexive perspective of the rhetorical experience and the
critical process. In articulating the Buddhist rhetoric, which stresses subtlety, non-expression,
and silence other than the expression of explicit language, participation and observation
complement the traditional analytical process and enable the critics to experience the embodied
rhetoric. Instead of “seeing and reading,” the rhetor will have the opportunity to “listen to and
being touched by” the rhetorical actions (Conquergood, 2002, p. 149). Middleton et al. (2011)
offer three steps in participatory critical rhetoric: (a) Critics should account for and bring their
commitments to the field, (b) critics should gather artifacts for criticism using a variety of
rhetorical and qualitative data- gathering techniques, and (c) critics should engage in rhetorical
critique of the artifacts they collected from the field to gain “insights from the interstices of lived
experience” (p. 400).
Therefore, for this study I utilized rhetorical field methods to articulate the unique
Buddhist rhetoric of the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo. I critically examined texts
and structures of the website of the GHBTT. I mainly focused on the religious narratives framed
by the website’s texts, visual images, videos, and podcasts, as well as the structure of the temple
in appealing to its members and potential practitioners. Specifically, I examined the weekly
“Abbot address” from Abbot Rinsen from May 2015 to December 2016. Besides the main
website, another important online site of this study is their Facebook group. I participated in
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some discussions and mainly observed how members interact with each other while articulating
their identities within the community. Meanwhile, I engaged in situ rhetorical analysis:
participation and observation in their weekly activities from 2015 to 2016—mainly Wednesday
night and Sunday morning activities to unearth and experience the “live” Buddhist rhetoric of the
temple. Furthermore, I volunteered in temple events to get to know the community better, like
teaching the Sunday morning Dharma school for children and helping with the setup of regular
liturgy.
In forming my critical analysis, I treated the temple and its community as a unity: as a
rhetorical text. I focused on how this unity performed Buddhism and generated its unique
Buddhist rhetoric to facilitate their identity construction. I aimed to elucidate how the temple
abbot and members strategically construct the Buddhist rhetoric and how it is manifested in
shaping who they are, what they believe, and how they communicate within and outside the
community. In treating the temple as an intercultural space and place, I also probed into what
rhetorical traditions and cultural heritages contextualized the identity formation process. These
understandings provided insights into a further nuanced comprehension of Buddhist rhetoric in
the Western discourse. Most importantly, the rhetorical field methods granted me another tool
and perspective in examining power structures between different cultural forms and ideologies of
the temple. As McKerrow (2016) notes, rhetorical criticism should be oriented toward an
“emancipatory potential” that creates “possibilities for altering relations of power that currently
constrain action” by examining “how discourse operates in a fragmented and destabilized social
world” (p. 254). In recognizing the forms of domination and unpacking them, I intend to
illuminate the potentials of and responsibilities of Buddhist rhetoric as well as the practitioners
who perform it and are affected by it.
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CHAPTER III. THE TEMPLE’S PARADOX: MAINTAINING CULTURAL TRADITIONS IN
THE DISCOURSE OF MODERNIZATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION
“People who visit Buddhist centers often expect to see a Zen master with a strong Asian
accent teaching or leading the services and are surprised that a new generation of Buddhist
sensei, or teachers, are as American as the Protestant clergy person next door”
-Abbot Rinsen, The Blade
Chapter Three examines the GHBTT’s effort to maintain its Japanese cultural
connections as part of its own tradition and heritage in the discourses of modernization and
democratization. This chapter answers the questions previously raised in Chapter One: what
activities and rituals are staged by the GHBTT and how do these ritual and activities facilitate the
cultural maintenance of a Japanese Zen temple? How are intercultural contexts created by these
activities and rituals and how are differing cultural perspectives mediated by them?
Maintaining cultural traditions has always been an issue for many Buddhist temples in
the United States. Like the comment cited above from abbot Rinsen, a common assumption
about a Buddhist temple is that it is always run by an Asian or at least by Asian Americans, since
they represent the authenticity, the exotic, and the unknown myth from the other side of the earth.
This assumption might be true within the first few decades after Buddhism was introduced to the
U.S. by the Chinese and Japanese immigrants. However, with the dissemination of this ancient
Eastern religion to the Western world, Buddhist demographics are also gradually changing to
become more and more diverse. Therefore, we are witnessing the emergence of a new type of
temple like the GHBTT with predominantly Euro-American practitioners. How these temples
view traditions from a different culture and strive to maintain traditions to justify the authenticity
of their temple in the discourse of Western modernity remains a crucial issue to be resolved.
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To illuminate Zen Buddhism’s encounter with Western modernity in the United States
and specifically its democratization process, in this chapter, I intend to examine the ideographs
reflected in the temple’s rhetoric. Ideographs like <family>, <marriage>, <education>, <wife>,
and <community> are used to defend the temple’s Buddhist traditions in the East. Yet, What
they reflect in American Buddhism are actually liberal democratic ideologies in the Western
discourse. By tracing back to the cultural and Zen Buddhist traditions in Japan, their variations
after being brought to the U.S. by Japanese Americans in the early 20th century, and analyzing
their adaptation in the GHBTT in Ohio, I examine how Western modernity has shaped and
reshaped the Buddhist traditions over time and location. Also, by probing into different facets of
democratization process in the GHBTT, specifically the laicization of the rituals, feminization of
the temple members, and pragmatism of their dharma transmission, I argue that these
self-asserted traditions that GHBTT has been practicing are actually hybrid forms of Eastern
traditions and Western ideologies, which are unique only to American Buddhism. In utilizing
these “traditions” and keeping its oriental appeal to the Western audience, the temple finds its
authenticity, its cultural tie to the East, and its surviving mechanism, a strategy applied by many
Buddhist temples in the U.S.
McGee (1980) defines ideographs as “the basic structural elements, the building blocks
of ideology (p. 7). They are often found in political discourse as an ordinary-language term but
representing collective commitment to a “particular but equivocal and ill-defended goal” (p. 15).
Terms like property, religion, right of privacy, and freedom of speech are examples of ideograph
that contain the social significance (p. 7). Furthermore, ideographs are also “one-term sums of an
orientation” that appear in our everyday language but are quite vague at the surface (p. 7). They
can be equivocal but flexible that allows a variety of interpretations. Members of a community
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may have different understandings in the nuances and subtleties of an ideograph within their own
community. For example, when used as an ideograph, equality is not the same word in its
meaning or its usage when situated in the context of United States and China. Connelly (2012)
concurs that ideograph distinguishes itself from other rhetorical tropes “through its persuasive
power” (p. 240). They are powerful in ways to awake culturally embedded ideologies through
socialization. An examination of the ideographs of the temple’s rhetoric helps reveal the power
structure and power relations in the discourse of Buddhist modernity. In other words, through the
case of the GHBTT, we might develop a better sense of the “traditions” being maintained during
the process of culture transplantation.
Once named Toledo Zen Center, the GHBTT was renamed Buddhist Temple of Toledo in
2012. Abbot Rinsen explained that the name change was needed “to better reflect the center’s
growth as a spiritual home for Buddhism as well as to clarify its purpose” (Yonke, 2012).
Through this effort, as he had hoped, people’s perception of “Zen” may be officially linked to a
religious belief but not a catchphrase for “selling digital devices” or “a relaxed, slightly
Asian-esque lifestyle” (Yonke, 2012). Later on, the lineage name “Great Heartland” was
formally added to the temple name after Rinsen’s mountain seat ceremony in 2015, which
signifies an independence of the temple for dharma transmission as well as a succession of its
Japanese Soto Zen lineage. In Buddhism, lineage signifies the line of teacher-student dharma
transmission, which could be theoretically traced back to Buddha himself. Undeniably, the name
GHBTT has more significant religious connotations than a simple “Zen center.” In an explicit
way, this name will better inform its potential visitors about its religious affiliation and its
linkage to traditional Zen Buddhism. Furthermore, it is also the kind of change abbot Rinsen and
priest Do’on make regarding the authenticity of the temple.
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As a Zen Buddhist temple in U.S. Mid-west solely run by Euro-Americans with few
Asian participants, one important strategy of the GHBTT in branding itself and appealing to the
local community is demonstrating its cultural tradition and lineage heritage from Japanese Zen.
Besides indicating it in the temple name, their approaches also include: running family-themed
temple activities and rituals, adopting Japanese kanji names and Buddha robes for practitioners,
and developing the traditional Aikido (martial art) school and Sunday morning dharma school
for local community. However, when situated in the backdrop of modernization and
democratization of American Buddhism at large and compared to their Eastern counterparts,
these seemingly “traditional” approaches have aroused some concerns over their authenticity and
encountered unexpected difficulties in terms of reinterpreting the meaning of tradition and
utilizing the Asian rhetoric in the Western cultural discourse. Meanwhile, in face of a more
democracy-inclined audience, practices in the GHBTT have also been modified to suit the
Western liberal ideologies like gender equity, individualism, and community building. When
identifying itself as a Buddhist temple, the GHBTT is caught up in such an interesting paradox:
is it still Buddhism that they are practicing when traditions are being altered and new ideologies
are being served? If so, whose tradition are they inheriting from? How do we define this new
“Buddha ideal” created by modernization and democratization in the United States?
In the following section, I first focus on the harmonious status of the “family temple”
ideal when transplanted from the Japanese context to the American Mid-west surroundings,
pointing out the commonalities among different culture forms. Following that, I then examine
abbot Rinsen’s rhetoric in defending and appropriating the tradition of “married abbot” and
spousal transmission, which are the kind of Buddhist traditions being reinvented and
reinterpreted several times in different cultural settings during last century. By analyzing the
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Do’on’s role in the temple both as the wife of abbot Rinsen and a female priest, and the role of
female members in the temple, I intend to shed light on how feminization has been infused into
American Buddhism, which is drastically different from the traditional “temple wife” in Japan.
Then, through examination of the practice of the dharma school in the GHBTT, I demystify the
de-emphasis of belief and the emphasis of moral education in their Buddhist teachings. Finally, I
explicate the importance of Sangha—the Buddhist community to the GHBTT. By identifying
ideographs used in the temple’s rhetoric, I aim to explain how they function to represent Eastern
traditions on the surface but Western liberal ideologies at the core.
The Uniqueness of the Family Temple
The first ideograph that frequently appeared in Rinsen’s talks, and the temple’s theme of
activities is <family>. The Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo has always presented
itself as a Zen Buddhist temple from the Japanese lineage. Indeed, Japanese culture and
traditions predominately shaped the rituals and activities staged in the temple and greatly
influenced the way members practice, communicate and even act in their community.
One Japanese Buddhist tradition, which is distinctly different from many Asian Buddhist
traditions, is the abandonment of “Home-leaving” (Starling, 2015). In becoming a Buddhist
monk, nun, or priest, one does not need to renounce the worldly relationships, like marriage and
family. In contemporary Japan, family plays an important role and is “more visible” in and
around Buddhist temples than any other countries (p. 144). Clerical marriage in Japan has been
completely permitted and normalized by their government at the turn of twentieth century. As a
result, the vast majority of Buddhist clerics in Japan are married and majority of the laity would
prefer a married cleric to serve as abbot of their temple (Jaffe, 2001). Furthermore, a Buddhist
temple in Japan is more and more practiced as a family trade and can be inherited and passed on
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to the younger successor of the family. An important criterion of priestly authenticity in Japanese
Buddhism is whether the abbot himself presents as “a family man and ritual specialist” (Starling,
2015, p.146). Mainly run by families, the temple functions to serve the community and families
in the neighborhood by hosting funerals, weddings and offering prayers to those in need.
Abbot Rinsen and his wife Do’on founded the temple in a very family-centered way like
many Japanese family temples. During an interview with The Blade news of Toledo, Ohio, He
commented on their relationship in co-founding the temple:
In Japan, there’s a lot of family temples, and we’re kind of like that, she and I discuss
everything together; we think about it way too much. … This is where we really meet, is
in the dharma and in the practice, and she brings a lot of qualities that I lack. (Barger,
2015)
The emphasis of the family and the close bond between Rinsen and his wife Do’on can easily be
found on the temple website, throughout his speeches, and in all kinds of temple activities.
Unlike traditional temple websites that highlights the images of Buddha, on the homepage of the
GHBTT, a picture of Rinsen and his wife Karen Do’on Weik leaning their heads together and
smiling takes the most prominent position. Below the picture, a brief introduction follows the
headline “A Message from the Temple Priests Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik & Rev. Karen Do’on Weik”
(www.buddhisttempleoftoledo.org). Upon entering the website, one easily gets the impression
that they are being welcomed by a happy family rather than by two Buddhist priests. Beside the
main page, there are also plenty of family pictures on display under the sublink “teachers.” With
detailed introductions of how both priests studied Buddhism and became dharma teachers in the
past few decades, the page is also filled with plenty of family photos of the Weiks with their pet
pugs, at different holiday trips, and with their daughter.
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Besides the model family image of the priests on the temple website, family also remains
the central theme of most activities staged in the GHBTT. Specifically on Sundays, family
themes dominate the morning rituals because of the scheduled “Dharma school for kids and
teens.” As discussed in the previous chapter, Sunday morning service shares the same meditation
routine with Wednesday night but has way more participants. The difference is that children and
teenagers will also be participating the liturgy on Sunday services, like bowing to Buddha and
chanting sutras. Hence, sutra chanting on Sunday morning is designed to be more “vibrant” with
lots of clapping and cheering with children. What’s more, the regular service on Sunday will also
reserve fifteen to thirty minutes after the abbot talk for the dharma school teacher and children to
discuss their class of the day. During this special presentation, children will be led to the altar
and share with their parents and the community what they have learned about Buddha’s
teachings on that day.
These family-centered activities staged in the GHBTT also include the “Family Support
Council,” and the “Dharma camp” for children. According to the introduction on the temple
website, Family Support Council provides “a mutual family support network” for parents, classes
on parenting with Buddhist contexts, and game nights. Similarly, Dharma Camp is for parents
and Children “to bond with each other and other sangha families.” Both activities were newly
created and promoted during 2016 to cater the needs of the community families. In summer 2016,
the temple started its first dharma camp for parents and children at Rinsen’s family farm. Over
ten families from the temple community participated and spent the weekend camping, practicing
liturgy, and listening to dharma talks together. In most of these activities, Rinsen and his wife
Do’on chaired the events together. This model family image, like other family-centered activities
promoted by the temple, had been very effective in engaging the local community and bringing
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household members to the temple.
<Family> as An Ideograph
Other than activities, family was also used as a main theme in Rinsen’s abbot addresses.
During important holidays in 2016 like the New Year’s Day, Christmas, and Thanks Giving Day,
the weekly abbot addresses were specifically made to guide members to spend the holidays with
Family harmoniously. In particular, Rinsen talked about how to treat Christian-based holidays
from a Buddhist perspective and how to get along with judgmental relatives. In his abbot address
of December 16, 2016, Rinsen (2016) offered his suggestions in dealing with judgments from
people who were close to practitioners. As he emphasized having nice connections with family
and creating the good family experience, Rinsen prioritized the importance of family and the
basic principles of being kind, loving, and patience in Buddhism. However, he also pointed out
the necessity to remain “true to oneself” in these situations:
I would usually not falsify anything, like I won’t say, “ oh, no, I don’t practice Zen’ to
make somebody feel comfortable. I mean, that feels like going too far. I won’t bend the
actual truth of my situation. … But I don’t have to go and making a big issue about it. If
they have a big issue about it, guess what, they have a big issue about it. That’s on them,
not on you, not on me. That’s not my job. My job basically is to discern what is my
honest, authentic, true, deep response to being alive. …Ultimately, it comes down to
really having to trust oneself, really honor your experience and your truth. (Rinsen, 2016)
In Rinsen’s suggestions, it was obviously crucial to keep the harmonious family
relationship. But one premise was to be open as “who they are” and being honest of what they
are doing as Buddhists. Instead of disguising oneself to seek recognition from family members,
the practitioner may as well keep the differences and still be nice and generous.
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The guidance offered by Rinsen was built upon the Western family values that highly
honor individuality and mutual respect. When Eastern family practice collective decisions and
expect consensus over difference views, Western family is more inclined to elevate the role of
“self” over the whole family. Thus in face of judgments, one would be better to trust
himself/herself rather than “making others feel comfortable.” Comparatively, Western family is
also less hierarchical and more equal among members. Therefore, “family” in Rinsen’s discourse
indicated the equal relationship and the expectation to be understood for their individual
differences.
Similarly in his address titled “Surviving Thanksgiving in a Contentious Environment”
on November 22, 2016, Rinsen also stressed the importance of tolerating differences among
family members. Within the backdrop of 2016 presidential election, he specifically mentioned
dealing with relatives with different political views. The suggestion Rinsen gave to members—
from the Buddhist tradition—was to “set an intention for the family gathering” as to create “nice
and connective experience” (Weik, 2016). To do so, he suggested members to be generous and
patient to others as a way of their own practice. Besides, they should also “let them (the family
members) be who they are” to avoid conflicts, because it does not necessarily mean agreeing
with their point of view. Throughout the address, the theme is similarly centered on “self” and
handling the situation from the perspective of remaining one’s individuality. Family is apparently
important. However, whenever there is a disparity between an individual and his/her family, one
should always “be true to themselves” while respect other people’s right in insisting their own
opinions. It was based on the individual-centered family value that ideals like mutual respect and
equality were developed, and thus reflected in Rinsen’s family discourse.
The temple is represented by the Wink family of its priests and has been serving the
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families in the community. Family is why they started the temple and is also the goal of their
services. Undoubtedly, family also symbolizes the temple’s Japanese lineage passed along from
generations ago. Interestingly, the temple’s emphasis on family, a Japanese Buddhist tradition
that contradicts monasticism, never contradicts with its midwestern surroundings. In a sense, the
transplantation of the family tradition from one cultural context to another was very successful in
the case of the GHBTT because of the commonalities in the family ideologies. The theme
<family> as an ideograph can be found in both Eastern and Western cultures. Ideologically, they
connect to “happiness,” “children,” “marriage,” and “contribution,” which can be found in both
cultural discourses. Because of these commonalities, the use of <family> evokes a similar family
ideology in the temple. When members thought it was a Japanese tradition that was preserved, it
was actually the resemblance of Western family values.
As Rinsen himself has commented in an interview, their family temple from the Japanese
tradition has “a very unique kind of a quality,” since “ its (the temple) people being midwestern
and almost all of them converts who were raised Christian” (Barger, 2015). Rinsen’s comment
may have indicated the answer of such a harmonious existence, since modernization does not
only entail changes but also assimilations. In the process of Buddhist modernization in the west,
it is not just about incorporating elements of a new culture and weeding out irreconcilable ones,
as McMahan (2008) stresses, “It involves a reconfiguration of both tradition and context through
contestation and negotiation as much as enthusiastic embrace” (p. 19). In other words, the full
acceptance of the Japanese family tradition in the Mid-west is based on its compatibility with the
local Christian family views. The temple’s Buddhist community, though most of them converts,
were born and raised with biblical principles. Traditional family views like the harmonious
spouse relationship, emphasis on home and children are cultivated under these guiding principles.
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Therefore, despite the uniqueness of the family tradition in Japanese Buddhism among all
Buddhist traditions worldwide, it is still easier for the GHBTT to promote their family-centered
temple to the local audience.
The priests’ non-monastic style and Rinsen’s model image of the family man who cares
about his wife and daughter not only justifies their Japanese traditions of the temple, but also
caters the need of the local community who are looking for a family-friendly religion as an
alternative to Christianity or Catholicism. Family serves as the medium and connection between
the ancient Eastern religion and the midwestern cultural surroundings of GHBTT. Coincidently,
the family theme of Zen Buddhism first originated during Meiji times in Japan at the beginning
of 20th century, spread with Japanese American temples in the United States in the last fifty years
and finally settled in an American Zen temple in the midwest with peace.
Like the ideograph <family>, the words that cluster around <family> may also reveal the
Western interpretation of the family values. As culture-specific linkages between rhetoric and
ideology, analyzing the word clusters also helps contextualize the functions of these ideographs
in shaping and reinforcing the ideology. Two prominent ones that cluster around <family> in the
temple’s rhetoric are <marriage> and <wife>.
The next two sections examine the ideographs <marriage> and <wife> in abbot Rinsen’s
rhetoric and his effort to defend the legitimacy of “married abbot” and “spousal transmission” as
Zen traditions. By doing so, I tend to illuminate the Western liberal ideologies of marriage and
women as reflected through these ideographs and the pragmatism of American Buddhism.
The Married Abbot and Spousal Transmission: Pragmatism of American Buddhism
Although taken as a tradition, for people who are not familiar with Japanese Buddhism,
marriage is still an incompatible term with both priesthood and monasticism. A preconceived
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notion of a Buddhist priest is usually someone who shaves his head, never eats meat, and is
never involved in marriage or any romantic relationships throughout his life. For most first-time
visitors, Rinsen apparently does not fit into the “right” priest type. To explain these inquiries,
Rinsen made a special weekly address video titled “Scandalously Married Abbot” in May 2015.
In the video, he explained the different understandings of “abbot” in various Buddhist traditions.
In the Zen tradition of Japan, the word “abbot” refers to the head of a temple rather than
“exclusively head of a monastery” (Weik, 2015). Rinsen also mentioned his full transmission of
the Soto Zen from his teacher in the lineage and his fully ordained status as abbot of the temple.
In further clarifying the questionable status of being a priest and being married, he said:
I am a priest, and an abbot. But I would never self-identify as a monastic. I don’t go
around saying I am a monk. I am not a monk. I’ve got a wife, who is also ordained; I’ve
got a daughter and a day job where I am a professor of music. ... Even the fact of might
being able to be married and to be ordained has something to do with the historical
lineage I am in, which is Japanese and its heritage, before (it was in) China and India.
(Weik, 2015)
Rinsen did not further explicate the tradition of clerical marriage in Japan. But two points
are clearly stated in this clarification: first, he distanced himself from being a monk or monastic
but an abbot and priest; second, clerical marriage has been part of the Japanese Buddhist history
and heritage. Therefore, despite its rarity in the West and in other Buddhist lineages, it is still
culturally reasonable and acceptable. By stressing the professionalism of his practice and his
officially recognized ordination while referring back to the Japanese tradition, Rinsen
successfully appropriated the concept of “married abbot” to his Western audience.
However, as much as the Zen Buddhism in Japan could be traced back to China and India,
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never was the clerical marriage tradition. More problematically, the novel Japanese clerical
marriage has always been controversial in the Buddhist world within the last century and still
today (Jaffe, 2001). In traditional Buddhist nations like India, China, and Myanmar, receiving the
ten precepts and going through ordination means recognizing the monastic life style: refraining
from “sexual relations, marriage and family,” which is, becoming a monk (p. 2). The emergence
of family temple and clerical marriage is a relatively new phenomenon during late 19th century as
a turnout of a radical regime change and reformation in Japan from Tokugawa to Meiji (Jaffe,
2001). The initiation of this policy by the Meiji government was to diminish Buddhism and
prioritize Shinto. Even today, clerical marriage is still considered as unethical and a violation of
clerical conducts by many Buddhist leaders inside and outside Japan (Jaffe, 2001). Rinsen might
be right referring it as a tradition from his Japanese lineage based on its normalization
contemporarily. However, situating in a larger Buddhist discourse and the historical context, this
is a controversial tradition to begin with and still needs reexamination in the dissemination
process.
The second time Rinsen referred to the Japanese tradition of family temple in his weekly
address was before the Denkai transmission of his wife Do’on in 2015. In Zen Buddhism,
Denkai transmission means the formal training when a teacher passes on precepts of the linage to
the student (Loori, Treace & Marchaj, 1996). Traditionally referred to as the “transmission” of
the teacher's mind to the student, this technique has been termed “the crucial pivot of the Zen
teaching method” (Bodiford, 1991, p. 423). The goal of the transmission is to lead the student to
recreate what the teacher has experienced in his own enlightenment so that their minds become
one. After the transmission, the student will receive a linage chart with all names of the ancestors
and will be guided to become a priest. In the GHBTT, Rinsen was the teacher who offered
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transmission to his wife Do’on. In announcing this news in the weekly address, he mentioned the
rationality of receiving transmission from a family member. Not having “some history,” as
Rinsen (2015) explains, but transmission in family lines is “very common” because there is a
longer history of father-to-son transmission to maintain the family temple in Japan. Rinsen went
on to talk about the spousal transmission in the West as a variation and how his teachers had
been transmitted from their life partners:
Is it a blurring of lines? Well, not really, it depends. Here’s the thing: if we are talking
about therapy, if one person in the couple is the marriage counselor to the other, that’s
gonna be funny and that’s not gonna work out. (Weik, 2015).
In justifying their particular case in GHBTT, he then stressed that the “ideal way for them”
is to work as a couple and family to serve and guide the community forward (Weik, 2015).
Although not part of the heritage of traditional Japanese Buddhism, Rinsen still considered this
couple priests mode as an acceptable and reasonable Western variation in the United States. This
time, Rinsen justified this unique spousal transmission by its practicality in the West and
examples of multiple Zen teachers who have already done so successfully in the U.S. In his
defense, spousal transmission is clearly not blurring the line of professionalism like the couple of
marriage counselor and patient would. On the contrary, it is an adaptation in their situation to
better serve and guide the community.
Whether the married abbot tradition from Japan, or the spousal transmission practice that
Rinsen claimed as a reasonable adaptation in the West, it is not difficult to spot some pragmatism
in their practice. Not adhering to the traditional doctrines, Buddhism in the GHBTT became
more flexible and approachable to the lay community whether in formats or in beliefs when
infusing to the Western discourse. Jack Kornfield (1988), the Theravada-trained meditation
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teacher and scholar, once summarizes the characteristics of American Buddhism as
democratization, feminization, and integration. In his view, Western Buddhists are practicing
more from an individualistic perspective: “to think and understand for themselves and are less
suited to the hierarchical models of Asia” (p. 173). Later on, Lama Surya Das (1997) concurs and
complements two more characteristics: pragmatism and engagement. Pragmatism is reflected on
the emphasis on “ritual practice or observance and its benefit to the practitioner,” while
engagement is focusing on broadening the spiritual practice to benefit not only the self but also
the “family and community.”
Generally speaking, Buddhism was remolded to appeal to a more democratic audience
and its liberal social values in the United States: non-dogmatic teachings are introduced;
lay-based organization and leadership are utilized; simplified beliefs and rituals are reinforced;
and social engagements are added. The long-held traditions are negotiated and adjusted to suit its
practitioners while rituals and ceremonies are domesticated. Instead of people practicing
Buddhism and following the dogmas and rules, American Buddhism was reinvented to serve
people — its followers. Hence, we are witnessing a transformed modern Buddhism today in the
United States with a diversity of practitioners and a hybridity of practices extracted from
multiple religious forms (Queen & Williams, 2013). This transformation process has begun ever
since Buddhism was introduced to the United States in the early 20th century. The interesting
case of the GHBTT is a demonstration and a result of the new Buddha ideal within the discourse
of modernity and democracy. Under pluralist ideologies, controversial traditions like clerical
marriage or spousal transmission could all be tolerated and understood for the benefit of personal
practice and community. Although may have deviated from its original form, the new American
Buddha ideal keeps attracting more practitioners because of its pragmatism in our society. In the
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next section, I analyze the female priest in GHBTT — Do’on and the role of female members in
the temple, I intend to shed light on how feminization has been infused into American Buddhism,
which is distinctly different from the traditional “temple wife” in Japan.
The Role of Do’on: More than Just a Temple Wife
Do’on’s presence as a female priest in the GHBTT might be the most non-traditional
practice from their Japanese lineage but a great demonstration of the democratic American
Buddhism. Unlike most Buddhist family temples in Japan when the husband dominates the priest
role with wife assisting temple management and educating children, the Weiks in the GHBTT
present themselves as a unity of family but equally independent in their roles of teaching and
serving the community. As the wife of Rinsen, Do’on distinguishes from the traditional temple
wives’ assisting role. When it comes to major ceremonies and activities in the GHBTT, it is
always the Weiks couple chairing and teaching together. During these events, Rinsen and priest
Do’on sit next to each other against the altar. While both formally dressed as priests in traditional
Buddha robes, they take turns to give speeches but work together to complete the liturgy rituals.
Traditionally, with strict gender roles in the Japanese family temples, “temple wives”
(wives of the male Buddhist priests) are only expected to bear and educate the successor of the
priest while serving as an assistant in the temple maintenance (Jaffe, 2001). As wives, they are
also banned from teaching and hosting rituals and sermons because these are the male abbot’s
responsibilities. Apparently, Do’on’s role in the GHBTT has transcended the “temple wife” and
become equal to Rinsen. She hosted weekly rituals by herself and teach Buddhist lessons by
herself regularly. Even when two priests work together to complete liturgy and rituals, they have
their own separate roles. For example, during the Eye-opening ceremony in November 2016
when people brought their own Buddha statues to the temple to be blessed by teachers, Rinsen
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and Do’on worked together all through the ceremony. Members lined up and brought their
Buddha to Rinsen first, which he blessed with a brush in hand circling around the statue’s
forehead. Then the Buddha was transferred to Do’on who sat in the opposite direction. She
completed the blessing process by holding the statue above the incense burner for a few seconds.
It is unimaginable to see this cooperation in a family temple of Japan, or temple run by Japanese
Americans in the U.S. To some extent, this specific ceremony symbolizes the roles of Rinsen and
Do’on play in the GHBTT. While Rinsen is in the leading position as the abbot and the husband,
Do’on also have her own role not only as the wife but also an individual religious partner and
teacher.
During my participation at the temple, Do’on hosted Sunday morning and Wednesday
night services independently from time to time. She also takes charge of most family-related
events, like children’s dharma camp and family game night. In receiving her full ordination to
become s Buddhist priest in 2015, Rinsen commented on their partnership in the GHBTT:
In terms of spiritual guidance and so on, we’re completely equal in terms of the
community,” Rinsen said. “And the way we actually are as a couple is that ... I’m public
and I’m out there. The abbot is kind of like that, and actually, she’s the power. She’s the
quiet power that draws everything in, and that’s the real power, but it takes awhile to tell
because it’s not the big in-your-face type of thing; it’s more a drawing power, so I’m
more yang and she’s more yin. (Barger, 2015).
Rinsen’s metaphor of Yang and Yin further serves to frame their relationship as partners
in the temple or in life is more complementary and equal rather than dominative and submissive.
Given the assumption that being a temple wife would best fit into the tradition of Japanese
family temple, Do’on’s choice of being an independent female priest and teacher is a perfect
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demonstration of the democratization of Zen Buddhism in the United States. Similarly, within
the GHBTT community, there are also more female members than male members participating in
the temple management both online and offline. With diverse backgrounds and age differences,
these female members prepare for liturgy, set up the meditation hall for attenders, organize
children’s camp, teach Sunday morning dharma classes, and send out notification emails. To a
large extent, the temple operation is relying on these female members. With the rise of women in
membership and leadership, the GHBTT rejected the traditional gender roles in Japanese
Buddhism and took the new Buddha ideal to incorporate egalitarian and democratic social
values.
Historically, it has never been an easy task to bring in gender equality into traditional
Asian Buddhism. Even today, Buddhism in Asian countries is still seriously affected by criticism
over sexism of male dominance (Gross, 2014). Most leaders are men and male monastics are
well supported while female leaders and monastics are barely visible. The situation is even worse
in Japanese Buddhism due to the appropriation of the family temples since Meiji Era. Culturally,
based on the Confucius ideal in Japanese society that women should be obedient to husband
when married, temple wives or rather women in general have been submissive to their male
partners (Ogoshi, 1993). Additionally, the unique priest marriage in Japan did not gain official
recognition from other schools of Buddhism in the first few decades after its appropriation. As a
consequence, temple wives have been marginalized and remain invisible both doctrinally and
institutionally. Their presence at the temple is restricted and their positions in the temple are
always ambiguous (Noriko, 2003). However, the fact is temple wives have been and still are
responsible for majority temple work and administration despite their absence in the public view.
The actual feminization process of Buddhism started when Zen was introduced to the
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West and had to infuse into the preexisting Western modern discourses. In the United States, it
was also part of the democratization process in the late 20th century. Women are more and more
recognized as equal citizens as men and are involved into public arenas under the democratic
influence. Gender equality is brought into the negotiation process when reconsidering and
reinterpreting this old religion in the new cultural context. As a result, the new American
Buddhism with socially engaged modes begun to incorporate women within modernist Buddhist
settings (McMahan, 2008).
This reform on women’s roles means a radical departure from the traditional gender roles
in Asian Buddhism but also more opportunities for women in the American Buddhism. Since
then, women have been increasinly visible in Buddhist temples. Not only doing voluntary work
for their own Buddhist belief, they are also taking on leadership roles and instructing male
students as teachers. Like Do’on and other female member’s role in the GHBTT, the
naturalization of female priests, teachers, and practitioners in the American temple is not only a
hybridity under the democratic discourse, but more of a liberation from the traditional inequality
and unequal relations of power. Presently, this positive change in Western Buddhism is also
pressuring its Eastern counterpart, leading us to reconsider the definition of tradition and
necessary reforms. Generally speaking, Do’on’s presence in the GHBTT may have created a
dissonance with the traditional “temple wife” image, but it represents a hallmark of American
Buddhism that gender equity is part of the contemporary dharma transmission.
<Marriage> and <Wife> as Ideographs
One defining characteristic of ideograph, as McGee (1980) contends, is that they are
culture-bound, which means that they are conditioned in certain cultural contexts of a particular
society. Therefore, with the changing cultural context and state of society, ideographs should also
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be understood diachronically. McGee (1980) further complemented this view: ‘‘[i]n isolation,
each ideograph has a history, an etymology, such that current meanings of the term are linked to
past usages of it diachronically. The diachronic structure of an ideograph establishes the
parameters, the category of its meaning’’ (p. 16). The diachronic structure of ideograph is
exemplified by the use of <marriage> and <wife> in two different cultural discourse in history.
When the concept of “married abbot” and “temple wife” were first created in the Japanese
context decades ago, these ideographs did not evoke sentiments like love, contract, commitment,
and partnership. Rather, they represented the ideology of a male-dominated society and the
submissive role of women as appendages. In the Japanese Buddhist context, “marriage” and
“family” meant the trustworthiness of the temple and its abbot, since knowledge of priesthood
was usually passed down within the family to male heirs. In contrast, when these traditions were
transplanted to the United States, the same term that functioned as ideograph began to represent a
whole new set of modern ideologies. Thus, Do’on’s role is completely different from the
traditional temple wives in Japan, but an independent female priest and partner of Rinsen. The
modern adaptation of “spousal transmission” was also rationalized on the presumption that
husband and wife are equal to each other as individual beings. It is based on equity that they can
develop a professional relationship in the temple. In short, when the three ideographs <family>,
<marriage>, and <wife> were used in conjunction, they collectively invoke and reinforce a set of
democratized and modernized family values in the West. Instead of representing the “traditions”
from Japanese Zen Buddhism, they reinterpreted these traditions in the new context.
In the next section, I examine the ideograph <education> by looking into the
unconventional practice of the dharma school in the GHBTT. I tend to demystify the
de-emphasis of belief and the emphasis of moral education in their Buddhist teachings.
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Sunday Morning Dharma School: A Buddhist Moral Education
Unlike the traditions mentioned previously that could still be found in Buddhist temples
in Japan, dharma school is definitely “new” tradition—a Western practice when Zen was
introduced to the United States from Japan. Dharma schools were originally modeled on
Christian Sunday schools for Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) children to have
some religious experience, which is similar to their non-Japanese friends attending Christian or
Catholic churches on Sundays (Asakawa, 2015). They are usually affiliated with Buddhist
temples run by Japanese-Americans and serve to preserve Japanese culture and to foster
association of Japanese Americans community in the United States (Queen & Williams, 2013).
Together with the dharma schools, cultural activities and Japanese language classes are also
offered at these temples to serve the need of the American born Japanese immigrants and to
maintain their cultural identity (Asakawa, 2015). Over the years, the focus of most Japanese
American temples has shifted from language teaching to broader cultural activities due to a
decline of interest in language among younger Japanese Americans and an increasing
membership of Euro-Americans. These cultural activities include tea ceremony, calligraphy,
flower arrangement, Judo, Aikido (martial art) classes and such (Queen & Williams, 2013).
While serving as a representation of traditional Japanese culture, they also significantly increased
the revenue of most temples.
Nevertheless, as Zen Buddhism flourishes and grows in the United States in the past few
decades, there are a great number of Buddhist temples and Zen centers built for and run by
primarily Euro-Americans after the “Zen boom” in the 1950s. These “new” Zen temples/centers
solely focus on Zen meditation as a major activity (Asai & Williams, 1999). Compared to the
traditional temples run by Japanese Americans, their emphasis is less religious and less
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culture-related but more on personal development. For example, these Zen centers would offer
regular daily and weekly schedules of practice and intensive retreats but seldom provide cultural
activities like celebration of the Cherry Blossom Festival or Buddhism teaching classes.
Technically, GHBTT fit into neither category described above. From temple formation, with the
Weiks couple and major attenders of the temple being Euro-Americans, the GHBTT is
considered as one of the “new” temples. However, the temple still puts a great emphasis on its
Japanese lineage, its religious affiliation, and has its own cultural focus. Two important ones are
the Aikido (martial art) school and the dharma school for teens and kids on Sunday morning.
The Aikido school started around the same time when the temple started in Toledo and it
co-locates in the GHBTT. The Weiks founded the Aikido school and named it Shobu Aikido of
Ohio. “Shobu Aikido” indicates their lineage in Japanese martial art. Meanwhile, both Rinsen and
his wife Do’on are senior black-belt martial art teachers at this school. While the Aikido school is
open to both adults and children, dharma school is specifically designed for children under 10
and teenagers. In the Toledo area, dharma school of GHBTT was the first and only one since it
was opened. It is also why the temple has been popular with local families in the past decade. On
the temple website, the page of “ Kids & Teens Dharma School” clearly lists its function:
“Dharma School programs offer a place for children to engage in Buddhist studies,” where they
will have access to basic Buddhist practice and “mindfulness activities” (www.
buddhisttempleoftoledo.org). However, based on the nature of the GHBTT community, their
dharma school has lost the function of preserving Japanese culture or promoting association
among the Japanese American community. In the mean time, it also shares very few similarities
with the Christian or Catholic Sunday schools in terms of the religious education. Despite the
claim of Buddhist teachings, dharma school in GHBTT is more transformed into a place for
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moral education for children and teenagers.
I volunteered to teach at the Sunday morning dharma school twice while observed and
assisted teaching for other members several times during my participation. For several years, the
GHBTT dharma school was managed by two female members of the temple. They are
responsible for making lesson plans, organizing class activities, scheduling teaching dates and
contents, and leading practices just for children. Formatted just like the Christian Sunday school,
basic Buddhist principles and practices are taught here instead of the Bible. Children are also
encouraged to meditate with their teachers for a short period each time. Depending on the
attendance of each Sunday, every class may have different numbers of students aging from two
to ten. The class content may also vary based on the attendance.
The first class I taught was the story of “Kwan Yin and the Red Boy,” which Kwan Yin is
the Bodhisattva (Buddha) of compassion and the Red Boy is her student. The teaching objective,
as I was informed earlier, was to integrate Buddhist wisdom into the class content, which also
fits into the Buddhist teaching principle of compassion and mindfulness. Two weeks before my
class, I was added to a Facebook Group named “Dharma School Teachers Connect.” The group
shares teaching ideas, class activities, and blank lesson plans. However, except for the discussion
on teaching schedule and suggested readings from abbot Rinsen, there are very limited resources
that could be applied to class. Following the blank lesson plan, I had to design a fifty-minute
class for children by myself from scratch, including designing games and activities. Therefore,
on the day I taught, students learned about how Kwan Yin has always been nice and patient with
her mischievous student the Red Boy and how student should behave in school and with their
teachers. By the end of the class, I led the students to the altar and all of them told the story
together to their parents and other attenders. Everyone was satisfied with the motto of the story:
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“to be a good student,” while it was intended to show the compassionate behavior of Kwan Yin.
After the second class I taught, I realized that the teaching of dharma school is not
text-based like the use of the Bible in Christian Sunday schools. Themes of classes are randomly
based on the teacher’s preferences and his/her personal understanding of “mindfulness and
compassion.” Given the fact that Buddhism has countless sutras translated into English and could
be used as guiding texts, like what many Asian Buddhist temples would, none was used in the
GHBTT during my participation. It was much more like an introduction of some “Buddhist
experience” rather than Buddhist teachings. Consequently, children who attend dharma school
regularly are quite familiar with the process of sitting, lighting up incense, and ringing the bell
while knowing little about the Buddha they are bowing to. Some are even not taught how to
behave properly in a Buddhist temple. There was the time that an eight-year-old took the Buddha
statue from the altar near the entrance and left it on the floor with other toys. Such behavior
would be unimaginable in a Buddhist temple in any Asian countries.
From Dharma Teaching to Moral Education
With the de-emphasis of belief in Buddhist teaching, what was left was the focus on
moral education. Every Sunday morning class will be taught under themes that connect to both
Buddha and morality. Some common themes of teaching are: appreciation, being nice, listening
to parents, caring and respecting each other, behaving in school, and being patient. Although
Buddha and Buddhist teachings remain the main content, each class will be directed to these
common themes in the end. For example, at one class I observed, the teacher taught students
about the three treasures of Buddhism: “Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.” Essentially, these are
the most basic yet difficult concepts in Buddhism with multiple interpretations in different
traditions. Buddha refers to Shakyamuni or another enlightened being; Dharma means basic
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practices and principles; and Sangha represents the group of converted practitioners (Seager,
1999). However, through a drawing activity, these concepts were simplified as “being nice,”
“listening to rules at school,” and “ taking care of friends and family.” while easy enough for
children to comprehend, they are deviant from the religious connotation to fit into the curriculum
of moral education and Western liberal values. Similarly in the teen’s dharma school, besides
basic knowledge of Buddhism, teacher will also organize discussions themed like “healthy
boundaries” and “how to maintain personal identity within the Buddhist context” to reinforce the
moral education. For an Asian religion based on collectivism, it is interesting how these
individualistic ideologies being integrated into the classes and creates new meaning in the
Buddhist context.
To some extent, the ideograph <education> was highlighted by the prominent themes of
the dharma school like “morality,” “proper behavior,” “participation,” and “creativity.” The
“traditional” dharma school is used to reinforce popular educational ideologies in the West.
While schools connect to “discipline,” “conformity,” “effort,” and “hardworking” in a
collectivism based Asian culture, none of these seem to match the schooling experience of the
GHBTT. Here, children are taught to be themselves as moral beings, but not to be recipients of
religious information.
As a relatively new “tradition” that originates from Japanese American temples in the
United States, the promotion of dharma school only has a short history of less than a hundred
years. For most Asian Buddhist practitioners, the practice and setup of most dharma schools are
unconventional. Nevertheless, it is a true reflection of the American Buddhist belief system:
based on personal experience, rational, morality, scientific, and “free from dogma and superficial
beliefs” (Drew, 2012, p. 97). This was yet another crucial step Buddhism took when being
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introduced to the discourse of modernity. In order to be more compatible with modern scientific
rationalism, and to resonate with the rhetoric of scientific naturalism, which “leaves no space for
spiritual realities,” Buddhist was brought to the West as a scientific religion without any
“supreme creator” (McMahan, 2008, p. 63). Much emphasis, rather than given to the study of
sutras and devotional practice, was instead given to meditation and elevating personal experience.
Sets of doctrine and principles no long apply while the authority of practicing is exclusively
about personal enlightenment and awakening. Buddhism has evolved into, as Drew (2012)
claims, “a spirituality suitable for autonomous individuals” (p. 97). Buddha is thus turned into a
“pragmatic empiricist who dismisses all doctrines and faiths” (p. 99). It is up to the practitioner
to test the truthfulness of teaching through his/her own experience rather than relying on external
authorities like sutras. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the de-emphasis of belief in
most dharma schools in the U.S. Similarly, the moral education of Dharma school in the
GHBTT, is not a coincident or single case but a contour of American Buddhism as a belief and
spirituality within the discourse of modernity. In the next section, I examine the last ideograph
<community> by discussing the sangha building and sangha activities in the GHBTT. I argue
that the ideograph community functions to motivate members to be involved in more
social-engaged activities and liberal social movements.
Sangha: This is Where We Belong
Like the importance of family and dharma education, serving the sangha (community)
has also been a predominant mission of the GHBTT members. Besides Buddha and Dharma,
Sangha is the third jewel and refuge of the Buddhist path. It is an important commitment one has
to make upon becoming a Buddhist. Originated from the early Sanskrit Buddhist texts, sangha
was first used to denominate the monastic community of ordained practitioners. This included
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the monks and nuns who gave up their secular lives to follow the Buddhist path (Jerryson, 2012).
Teacher and lineage played significant roles in the forming of sangha since Buddha as teacher
was an important role and image perpetuated in Buddhist traditions. Later on, the unique
teacher-student relationship became institutionalized as lineage (Seager, 1999). With the
Buddhist dissemination within the West, the meaning of sangha was also broadened to imply the
wider Buddhist community, both regionally and globally, both monastics and laity. In the United
States, sangha became a broadly inclusive term, which refers to the group of people practicing
meditation together, sharing the same traditions and the same teacher (Seager, 1999). In terms of
American Buddhism, sangha or community has become an inseparable part for any Buddhist
groups or organizations.
The sangha of the GHBTT is one of the local lay communities composed by temple
members who practice together and support each other in various ways. A sangha covenant on
the main page of the GHBTT website demonstrates this close bond. Under the “About” column
of the temple introduction, the sangha covenant has its own separate page. With multiple pictures
showing members gathering at temple service, weddings, and retreats, the covenant is listed
above and reads:
We the Daishin Koku-Ji Sangha, with respect for the worth and dignity of each person,
with wonder at the wisdom and compassion we seek to cultivate by practice, and with
deep gratitude for the teachers of this lineage and our connection to one another, covenant
to support each other by upholding the precepts of doing no harm, practicing good, and
actualizing good for others. (buddhisttempleoftoledo.org)
This covenant is chanted together as a Sunday ritual, in which “Daishin KoKu-Ji” is
translated to Japanese as “Great Heartland”—name of the temple’s lineage. As the content
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indicates, sangha building means more than mutual respect, but also includes the respect for
one’s teachers and their lineage, while recognizing the practice of each member. Most
importantly, it means an interdependent community. In practice, the ideal of serving the sangha
saturates all activities and events. Every presentation, talk, and formal introduction begins with
the greeting “hello sangha” and ends with “thank you, sangha.” From time to time, temple
members also organized activities like a “Temple Pizza Party” or “Bowling with the
Bodhisattvas” to promote the sangha relationship. Within the Facebook group, sangha members
share stories, seek suggestions, and leave encouraging responses to support each other. A support
group was even created during 2016 entitled “sangha circles.” All member of the community are
encouraged to join and meet on a monthly basis to discuss topics such as “how to deal with
difficult emotions,” or “how to work towards achieve the goals of equanimity and authenticity,”
and “how to approach challenging parts of our practice – such as being a Buddhist ‘in public’”
(buddhisttempleoftoledo.org). Ultimately, the goal of having sangha is to build a community in
which everyone is recognized and supported for their Buddhist practice.
For individual practice, community is also considered crucial. In his abbot address in
December 2015, Rinsen purposely addressed the importance of sangha on the Bodhi Day—the
holiday to celebrate the awakening of Buddha under the bodhi tree. He said:
The awakening is not a personal thing; it is also a community thing, something happens
in the circle of sangha. It’s so important to be connected; I feel more and more…much of
the bitterness happened today because people are getting isolated… so let’s awaken to
our true nature; let’s awaken to the nature of community, to the nature of sangha. (Weik,
2015)
As Rinsen indicated, even the individualized practice and its ultimate goal—awakening—can be
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interpreted in a collective manner. Rinsen’s emphasis on sangha actually reflects another Western
adaptation of the Buddhist traditions, specifically in American Buddhism: social engagement as
an important form of practice.
One popular interpretation of Zen practice in the West is to consider Dharma (Basic
Buddhist principles) as a “practice of relationship to the body, the community, and the earth”
(Queen & William, 2013, p. xix). One’s spiritual practice is broadened to benefit not only the
practitioner, but also the community and family members. To achieve this goal, it is not enough
to just meditate on oneself, but to participate in a series of social activities that are beneficial to
the community. On a smaller scale, it could be helping out the neighbors and organizing
get-togethers for the sangha; On a larger scale, it could also be participating in demonstrations
for environmental issues, peace rallies, and volunteering at charitable events. What lies in the
heart of the socially engaged Buddhism is compassion for all living beings and a deep sense of
social justice. Practitioners are convinced that dharma can be used to resolve social issues and
for a collective transformation of the society. One important step of the social engagement was
community/sangha building.
Ideographically, sangha or <community> functions to recall compassionate feelings
practitioners have for the world, the environment, and their fellow practitioners. In mentioning
the sense of community, the emphasis is laid on participation, sharing, equality, social justice,
and making the world a better place. To a large degree, it is demonstrated as a series of politically
leftist social concerns in the discourse of American Buddhism. The utilization of Sangha
transcended meditation as a group and referred to gatherings for any important social issues
locally or globally. With the expansion of Buddhist ideals in the West, the tradition of serving the
sangha is infused with new meanings. According Coleman’s (2013) study on “new Buddhism” in
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the United States, sixty three percent respondents (who identified themselves as Buddhists)
support “increase involvement of their sangha in social activities,” and thirty three percent
believed that their community should be more “politically active” (p. 96). Similarly, a growing
number of American Buddhists begin to use meditation to complement political work (Seager,
1999). Different forms of activism also become part of the Buddhist practice, as important as
sitting, chanting, and sutra reading, because the world is the largest community where
compassionate and lovingkindness need to be applied. In essence, community means
commitment as a Buddhist practitioner to the self, to others, and to the world. Instead of
retreating from the world, one should be prepared to the deep engagement with the world.
Community Building through Membership
Apart from the voluntary work at the temple and random dana (donation), the community
of the GHBTT also built through membership. Quite different from many Buddhist temples in
China or Japan that receive national funds from the government, almost all temples in the Unites
States are self-reliant. Membership fees and irregular donations throughout the year were their
only sources of income. As a result, “expanding the community” became a yearlong
responsibility for existing members of the GHBTT. Newcomers are always reminded to join and
become a sangha member on the Facebook group, during visits to the temple, even when
browsing their website
As discussed previously, an annual financial contribution was the prerequisite of joining
the sangha. Although there was no specific amount required, the temple website did list
suggested amounts based on the household annual income. Additionally, while Wednesday night
and Sunday morning were open to public, some of the important services were still exclusive to
members, like Jukai and Sesshin (monthly intensive retreat), which were necessary practices in
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becoming a Buddhist. Therefore, “community” possessed an added layer of meaning: paid
membership.
It was especially so when community/sangha building was constantly associated with
membership and financial contributions. In December 2016, leading members of the GHBTT
initiated an activity on the temple Facebook group named “Mindful Monday Membership
Challenge.” While everyone was encouraged to take the challenge and talk about the importance
of sangha and becoming a member, people who took the challenge should videotape themselves
and post to the group. About ten members posted videos to the Facebook group in the following
two weeks. The contents of these videos were very similar: they showed appreciation for sangha
and talked about why membership would help build the sangha. Later on, another recruiting
video was posted in the group. This time, it was from a leading member talking about the
GHBTT’s “membership goal” and “budget goal” at the beginning of 2017. In the video,
everyone was encouraged to renew or join membership to help sangha reach the $100,000
financial goal and the 100-member goal before the second month of 2017. These members even
made pie charts and bar charts to categorize the types of membership donations based on the
amount. The point was, no matter which category your may fall into, the paid membership was
an important means to build sangha and help the temple.
Given the financial instability of the GHBTT, fundraising activities like the Membership
Challenge may bring positive change to the institution. Nevertheless, it also created the
impression that community building can only be achieved through monetary means, whereas
volunteer work that relied on time and labor, like organizing, teaching, and cleaning were
unrecognized. It also set up a limit to who could be a sangha member: only those who are
financially eligible. Although the temple never claimed the necessity of donation to participate,
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certain exclusive practices and ubiquitous reminders, talks, and emails about membership to
some extent reinforced the “unspoken policy.” In essence, consumerism was connected to the
practice of sangha and community as they are commodified in the free market. When temples
have to compete with other religious institutions in the neoliberal economy, marketing strategies
became especially important. Sangha building—the practice that used to symbolize a collective
Buddhist experience and peer-support were utilized for fundraising. In a sense, services provided
in the GHBTT had already become commodities for customers to purchase. And a qualified
customer had to become the community member. Only through the paid membership, they can
enjoy services as practices, but not only “samples” in random participation.
As Jeremy Carrette and Richard King (2005) suggest, “neoliberal ideology is creating a
globalizing context in which a single model of the world—one dominated by economics and the
values of the marketplace—is taking root” (p. 128). To this end, global religions were also
refashioned accordingly. The business mode of religion has taken shape and impacted Buddhist
temples and its traditions. Except for commodified services, a plethora of religious institutions
are collaborating with commercial enterprises as branding strategies. Buddhist temples in Japan
“drew amply from popular culture formats,” especially comics and animation (Porcu, 2014).
Some temples even used Hello Kitty in Buddha robes to attract the attention of the younger
generation. Essentially, when neoliberalism expanded its influence from the West to the East, the
religious economy became a global phenomenon. Over the last few years, the market framework
was even applied by most temples in Eastern countries where Buddhism was originated. The
forms and modalities of Buddhist practice are changing under the intensified relationship
between market and religion. So are the traditions. And this trend, as Kitiarsa (2010) notes, will
expand further rather than diminish with neoliberal economy.
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Conclusion
As McMahan (2008) argues, the phenomenon of Buddhist Modernism or many scholars
have often meant by “Western Buddhism,” “American Buddhism,” or “new Buddhism” is
actually “a hybrid of a number of Buddhist traditions that have cross-fertilized with the dominant
discourses of western modernity, especially those rooted in Enlightenment rationalism,
Romanticism, and Protestant Christianity” (p. 2). Following his claims, this chapter explores the
specific case of the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo and its effort to maintain
traditions in the discourse of modernization and democratization. By explicating ideographs like
<family>, <marriage>, <education>, <wife>, and <community> that embedded in the temple’s
rhetoric about “traditions” from the Japanese Zen Buddhism, I argued that, these self-asserted
“traditions” that GHBTT has been practicing are actually hybridity forms that are unique only to
American Buddhism under the democratic ideology. In utilizing these “traditions” and keeping
its oriental appeal to the Western audience, the temple finds its authenticity, its cultural tie to the
East, and its surviving mechanism, which are representative of many forms of Buddhist temples
in the U.S.
Change is undoubtedly inevitable when a tradition is transplanted from one culture to
another. Buddhism makes no exception in its diffusion from the East to the West. As McMahan
(2008) observes, any forms from a tradition are deeply embedded in local and national cultures
as well as “a sea of social practices and unstated assumptions” (p. 62). When Buddhism arrives
in the U.S., its traditions have been brought to the conversations that do not share the premises
and presuppositions from the Asian culture. In order to connect with the “cultural norms and tacit
assumptions” from an entirely different ideological system, tradition has to make adjustments
(p.63). In this process, certain features of a tradition are extracted, highlighted, while some others
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abandoned or reinterpreted to resonate with the new cultural context. However, with the ongoing
discourse of Western modernity, this ancient Eastern religion is facing more challenges in
keeping its cultural heritages. Additionally, modernization of Buddhism has never been an
exclusively Western project or the simplified orientalist experience to “other” the Eastern
religion. It has become a phenomenon and subject of research. For example, scholarship of
Buddhist modernity in Asian countries has been focusing on the strong affinities of
modernization, Westernization, and colonization on traditional Buddhism. These multi-facet and
intricate influences often dwell in struggle against Western economic and political domination,
adaptation to modern technology and ideologies like equity and human rights, and the new
rational/liberal ideals (Gokhale, 1999). Sharing some similarities with the East, in the United
States, democratization is one of the crucial and necessary changes Buddhism has to go through
within the discourse of modernization (Queen & Williams, 2013).
To conclude, by tracing back to the Japanese culture and Zen traditions in history, as well
as the evolution of certain Eastern Buddhist practices on their journey to the West, I sketched a
contour of the modernization process to contextualize the changes and transformations.
Specifically drawing on my own experience of participation and the Buddhist rhetoric of the
GHBTT, I first focused on the harmonious status of “family temple” ideal when transplanted
from the Japanese context to the American Mid-west surroundings, pointing out the
commonalities among different culture forms and the necessary process of assimilation as part of
modernization. I then examined abbot Rinsen’s rhetoric in defending and appropriating the
tradition of “married abbot” and spousal transmission, which are the kind of Buddhist traditions
being reinvented and reinterpreted several times in different cultural settings during last century.
By analyzing the female priest Do’on and the role of female members in the temple, I intend to
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shed light on how feminization has been infused into American Buddhism, which is drastically
different from the traditional “temple wife” in Japan. Then, I probed into of the practice of the
dharma school in the GHBTT from my own teaching experience, in order to demystify the
de-emphasis of belief and the emphasis of moral education in their Buddhist teachings. Finally, I
explicated the meaning of sangha/community in the GHBTT and American Buddhism at large.
By performing its own unique Buddhist rhetoric through the mixture of the Westernized
practices and some variations of Eastern traditions, the GHBTT could be viewed as an extremely
condensed form of Buddhist Modernity. Meanwhile, its location in the Mid-west also situated it
in another layer of complexity: the discourse of democracy and traditional American social
values. Efforts and struggles of the temple to maintain traditions while keeping up with times are
also representative of most Buddhist temples in the United States. Like what abbot Rinsen
commented at the beginning of this chapter, Buddhism has been transforming and growing into a
global religion without having to justify itself by Asian teachers. But we wonder if this is still
Buddhism that we are practicing. The modernization adaptation and the hybrid forms of
American Buddhism invite not only concerns over authenticity, but also a reconsideration of our
attitudes viewing tradition and making necessary changes without jeopardizing the core spirit.
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CHAPTER IV. CONSTRUCTING BUDDHIST IDENTITY AT THE GHBTT
“Buddhism is not a religion in the same way that the theistic, monotheistic traditions are a
religion. But it is a religion, I am a priest, there’s a temple. We do ceremonies, precepts,
funerals, weddings, seasonal celebrations and holidays. To me, it’s not simply a philosophy.”
- Abbot Rinsen
Chapter Four focuses on the identity construction at the GHBTT. The process, which
determines what a Buddhist is like and how the Buddhist identity is performed online and offline,
is also representative of many other Zen Buddhist temples in the United States. This chapter
answers the questions previously raised in Chapter One: How does the GHBTT utilize social
media and various technologies to communicate with its members and discursively create and
negotiate the online religious experience? How does the setting of the temple as a generative
space reflect an adaptation of an Eastern religion in the West?
In a broad sense, “identity” refers to the process of how an individual grasp the meaning
of situations in everyday life and his or her own position in relation to these situations (Hewitt,
2000.). The personal identity formed in this process, stands for the individual’s meaning-making
experience as a separate and unique person. Identity construction has never been an easy process
in any religion. According to Karma Lekshe Tsomo (2009), establishing religious identity is an
“elusive and multifaceted process, both for those who claim these identities and for those who
attempt to categorize them” (p. 78). The complex process differs among adherents of different
religions and even believers possess various perceptions of what it means to be a follower and
practitioner of that faith. For most Asian American Buddhists, their religious identity is
composed of ethnic and cultural components, with “religion predominating on the cultural side”
(Queen & Williams, 2013, p. xx). This means that the religious identities of most Asian
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American Buddhists are constructed through their own unique cultural activates. Most Buddhist
temples also serve as a cultural center for immigrant communities. In recognizing themselves as
Buddhists, adherents also recognize the cultural heritage that helps build this unique identity. Fro
example, most Japanese American Zen temples would organize activity like “calligraphy, flower
arrangement, Japanese folk song and dance” together with meditation and rituals on a regular
basis (p. 26). Yet, for most European American practitioners who were not born in a Buddhist
family, nor share the Asian cultural heritage, identity is inscribed through other means. For them,
the religious life in the temple becomes especially important and usually has an enormous
influence on defining the way they identify themselves as Buddhists.
Abbot Rinsen’s comment above suggests that Buddhism is still considered as a religion
even without beliefs in the monotheistic traditions, because the religious life of Buddhists is still
rich and abundant. To illuminate the dynamics of Buddhist identity in the GHBTT within the
context of Western modernity, it is crucial to understand what everyday practice and religious
routine mean to practitioners. In this chapter, I tend to contextualize the online and offline
Buddhist experience in the GHBTT. In examining the temple’s use of communication technology
and social media, the highly individualized practice, the naming strategies, and the temple’s
sacred material space, I argue that the construction of Buddhist identity has taken on a new
meaning in everyday practice within the discourse of modernity. Rather than granted or received
externally through cultural and ethnic means as with Asian Buddhists, practitioners at the
GHBTT actively choose and decide their own Buddhist experience. In a highly individualized
manner, their experience might take various forms based on the personal choice. Additionally,
with the loss of basic doctrines in Buddhism because of their incompatibility with the Western
scientific discourse, the Buddhist experience has to be complemented by traditional rituals,
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ceremonies, and the use of religious artifacts.
In the following section, I first focus on the temple’s use of communication technology,
elaborating on the benefits and challenges from the cyberspace and I also interpret the online
religious experience from a user’s perspective. Following that, I then examine Rinsen’s strategies
in dealing with member’s secret Buddhist identity and the practice based on Western
individualism. My third area of analysis is the naming practice of the GHBTT. I probe into the
reasons and results of using Japanese names for members, rituals, and objects in the temple to to
explicate how the adoption of Japanese kanji names helped construct the members’ Buddhist
identities. Finally, I explicate the temple as a sacred space in constructing the Buddhist
experience. Taking the perspective of material rhetoric of the physical space, I argue that spatial
arrangement, religious artifacts, and ordinary ritual objects work effectively in building a
collective Buddhist identity.
Technology at the GHBTT and Identity Construction
Like many other Buddhist temples in the United States, the GHBTT has a set of
well-designed and well-maintained online platforms for practitioners to receive and share
information about the temple on a regular basis. Through these platforms, members
communicate with each other, listen to temple-sponsored talks and speeches, schedule meetings
and donations online, and even meditate and practice rituals via web cameras. It is also through
these virtual spaces that the temple advertises itself to potential practitioners near and far. Most
importantly, they constitute a significant portion of the members’ Buddhist identity formation.
For most regular attendees, meeting the sangha (the Buddhist practitioner community) online is
almost as important as meeting it in person while visiting the temple.
Basically, the temple’s online communication system consists of three main platforms:
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the main website, abbot Rinsen’s YouTube channel, and the temple’s Facebook group. The
GHBTT main website (www.buddhisttempleoftoledo.org) functions as a synthesis and a
directory of various kinds of information one needs to know about the temple, including an
introduction to teachers and activities, information about Zen books, a digital event calendar, and
the online application system and donation system. In becoming a member and making donations,
one could easily complete the process online instead of traveling to the temple. In addition, the
main website also provides links to The Drinking Gourd Podcast (abbot Rinsen’s own teaching
podcast) and the simulcast. Here, abbot Rinsen updates important talks through audio files and a
live web camera that faces the altar so that people can observe temple activities online at
anytime.
Compared to the main website, abbot Rinsen’s YouTube channel serves fewer purposes.
It is mainly used for the abbot’s weekly address. Beginning January 2015, Rinsen started to
address various issues and questions raised by practitioners on a weekly basis online. Most of the
abbot addresses are video recorded by Rinsen himself from his office or home. In his talks, he
answers questions that were posted during the previous week. These weekly addresses are linked
to the main website and Facebook group. They have even gained popularity within the
community. Once posted, each video usually gets an average of 150 views.
The final online platform, the GHBTT Facebook group, is the most active and interactive
among the three. As discussed in Chapter Two, the group already had 250 members by the end of
2016 and the number continues to grow. Although the active members (those who post every day)
are less than twenty, there are still more than ten new posts each day. Therefore, most members
simply read the posts instead of actively contribute to creating posts. Themes of these posts are
often about announcements regarding new events and activities at the temple, questions and
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reflections about practice, and random articles on Zen and Buddhism. Occasionally, members
also forward events and campaigns about environmental and social justice issues in the Toledo
area.
One important function of the temple’s online platforms is to help members stay
connected and included even when they are far away, just like a virtual sangha. During my
participation, I subscribed to abbot Rinsen’s YouTube channel, joined the temple’s mailing list
through the main website, and was added to the Facebook group. Despite my physical absence
during the summer for several weeks, daily and weekly online subscriptions to updates and
teachings always kept me connected to new events at the temple. Whenever a new ceremony, a
special ritual or even a casual gathering was held, pictures were immediately updated in the
Facebook group to share with members. During summer 2016, Rinsen began to use the live
stream function on Facebook, which means group members could watch every event at the
temple live from home or work. At the same time, small-group meditation was organized online
via Google chat during the Fall Ango, a short period of intensive training in Zen tradition. While
the organizer posted a suggested time to mediate in the Facebook group, those members who
responded received e-mail invitations. Afterwards, participants sat in front of their web cameras
at home during the specific time period.
To some extent, communication technology indeed brought more convenience to the
temple and its practitioners. Zen practice is neither confined by time nor location anymore. If
needed, members could practice anywhere and anytime, yet still claim they are participating in
the activities virtually. In addition, social networking websites keep everyone connected and
closer. Members can still enjoy the feeling of inclusion and friendliness because of the
advantages of modern technology even if they are not actively posting in the group or leaving
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comments to others. Reminders of activities appear on Facebook users’ notifications, emails with
updates of the abbot address are sent to personal inboxes, and greeting messages of smiling faces
are posted to the group on a daily basis.
Comparatively, the virtual sangha of the GHBTT is much more powerful and influential
than the physical sangha, who meet face-to-face in the temple every week. Although the two
types of sangha overlap to a large extent, there are still members who solely rely on these online
platforms to practice. For them, technology is the key and the necessary channel to feel included
within the Buddhist group. In January 2017, a member of the GHBTT from San Diego,
California expressed her gratitude to the temple and its online platforms through a video shared
with the Facebook group. She commented:
I’ve listened to Jay’s podcasts about five years now…Bless him to have so many of them,
230 of them. I’ve never encountered a spirituality that’s so practical, so applicable to my
day-to-day life… It’s amazing to me that I can in fact be part of this community. Now
there’s the abbot’s addresses, temple simulcast… it’s incredible to be something that’s so
much part of my life…I couldn't be more grateful…it’s funny, it’s alive, it’s real.
(buddhisttempleoftoledo.org)
Like many other online members who never physically visited the temple due to various reasons,
this member identifies herself as part of the sangha through technology. This is quite
representative of a whole new religious experience, which emerged in the past few decades with
technological innovation, where religious identity in the cyberspace is becoming “real and alive,”
as is the case for the member described above.
Religious spaces are not limited to certain physical places in the neighborhood, but now
extend to the “virtual geography” that can be reached by many (Brasher, 2001, p. 70). Moreover,
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the increasing popularity of online meditation has begun to challenge our traditional definition of
community, membership, and religious authorities. However, it might be hard for the GHBTT to
know how many people are actually involved in its own virtual sangha. Nevertheless, this does
not diminish the inclusivity its online platforms have created, and the ease of access for
connection to the Buddhist community now.
Another important function of these platforms is to brand the temple and recruit new
members who are interested in joining. For most first-time visitors, their encounters with the
temple and abbot Rinsen actually occurred online through the weekly abbot addresses and the
Facebook group. Therefore, Internet has become a necessary and vital venue to recruit members
and disseminate the temple’s religious influence. For example, a videotaped Sunday morning
service was posted to the homepage of the temple website in order for potential members to
understand expectations in the temple. In the one-hour-and-thirty-minute video, talks and
activities were both recorded and included the audience/participant responses in order to
demonstrate the liveliness of a regular Sunday morning in the GHBTT.
Similarly, on the main website under the “Location” sublink, a small section from Google
maps with the temple’s location is embedded on the page. By clicking the star button, people will
be able to transfer the address to their own cell phones for directions. Similar widgets also
include a digital calendar to indicate daily activities for the entire month and icon links to
Rinsen’s YouTube and iTunes channels, with the option to subscribe by clicking a button next to
the icons. Handy use of technology makes it easier for potential practitioners to get information
about the temple online and directions for their trip to the actual temple offline.
In presenting the temple and its community with visuals and audio, Internet is used as the
medium for branding. This distinguishes the GHBTT from any other religious organizations in
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the area. Strategies like these can also be found in the Facebook group, where the group
managers, or abbot Rinsen, immediately greet new members once they join. Typically, a group
manager posts a message tagging the new member’s username and encourages others to say
hello. A couple hours after the initial post, replies expressing warm greetings fill up the page. In
addition, when becoming a new group member, newsfeeds about the temple and notifications are
automatically turned on about all on-going and future events. On average, a member gets over
ten notifications about the GHBTT group per day. Occasionally, abbot Rinsen and the group
managers also send out invitations for special events as personal messages to members. While
keeping the current members updated, the strategy here is to create a relationship with new
members and involve them in the temple activities as much as possible.
Challenges from the Cyberspace
Out of the need to accommodate a contemporary information society, religious
organizations have begun to extend their geographic presence in the last few decades. By posting
religious information and “relocate practices” online, they hope to utilize both real and virtual
spaces to build the networked community (Cukier & Middleton, 2003). A study by Cheong, et al.
(2009) notes that interactivity is a crucial feature of the mew media, through which members
build ties to the organization and participate online. In their case study of the Protestant Christian
churches in Singapore, members were encouraged to submit “blessing stories” to build the
virtual community. Meanwhile, with the real and the virtual intersections in religious practice,
more “horizontal relations” emerged than hierarchical ones, because the new media created a
platform that enabled people to speak with equal opportunities among themselves and also
between the church and its members (p. 296). Instead of listening to preaches passively, they can
create their own religious narratives and connect to each other through these stories. In another
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sense, religious online platforms like websites could also be conceived as “imaged space to
reflect the codified representations” of the religious leaders (Cheong et al, 2009, p. 294).
Religious leaders may manipulate elements of the cyberspace to “control, engage, and build the
religious community” (p. 294). In structuring the website and interacting with members, leaders
may utilize elements like images, texts, and hyperlinks to exercise their own knowledge of
politics and power (Elwood, 2006).
Compared to other religions in the West, the pairing of Buddhism and communicative
technology has been fairly new since Buddhist practice has been traditionally based on
monasticism. Group retreats and physical practices like chanting, sitting, and sutra reading are as
important as attending rituals. With the secularization and modernization of Buddhism in both
East and West, Buddhist temples also developed their strategic response to the information
society and market economy with technological adaptation (Breyer, 1993). For example, Zhang’s
(2015) study of Longquan Monastery in China examines how a thousand-year-old Buddhist
monastery uses communication technology to expand its social influence as a soft power of the
state. Through social networking platforms and its own website, the abbot strategically weaves
ideologies of nationalism and patriotism into its Buddhist rhetoric. Similarly, Cheong, Huang,
and Poon (2011) illustrate how Singapore Buddhist monks manipulate their web presence to
expand their communicative capabilities online and offline. As they argue, compared to
traditional clerical authority, modern religious authority is “communicatively constructed and
relegitimized” (p. 1162). The globalization of religion and the saturation of free market
economies have posed a serious threat to the existence of many Buddhist temples and their
traditional practices everywhere. Unlike the monasteries in China or Singapore mentioned above,
most Buddhist temples in the United States like the GHBTT are self-supported without any
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funding from the government. Their problem is multi-layered regarding effective strategies to
maintain traditions, attract new sangha members, and promote and brand themselves as an
acceptable “new religion” in Western discourses. Most importantly, they have to satisfy the
member’s need to help construct the unique Buddhist identity and build clerical authority
through the online platforms. In branding itself and attracting members online, the GHBTT’s
approaches with communication technology seemed to be rhetorically persuasive. Many
first-time visitors admitted that they heard about or knew of the temple through its Facebook
group. It was also quite common for some members to join and observe the group discussions for
a while before deciding to make their physical visits. However, these approaches did not work in
bringing real donations and benefits to support the temple.
With the benefits of new communication technology, there are also worries and concerns.
As for the case of the GHBTT, one of the biggest challenges these platforms brought was a
decline of the actual membership. Compared to the 250 people who joined the Facebook group
online, the actual members who made annual donations and physical visits numbered less than
80 in 2016. According to a financial update newsletter from Leadership Council in June 2016,
the temple only managed to pay its bills from January to May. With “razor-thin” margins, the
temple was anticipated to be short about $1000 in the June. Current members were asked to
make a one-time donation in addition to their regular contribution. Although it is clearly listed on
the temple website that in becoming a member, one needs to “agree to the Sangha Covenant and
pledge to make an annual financial contribution to the temple,” access to all kinds of online
resources of the GHBTT is free and open to public. In other words, for most “Buddhist
sympathizers”—people who are merely interested in Zen but not intended in becoming a serious
Buddhist, podcasts, Rinsen’s teaching videos, and the live stream activities and speeches are
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sufficient. In addition, one can also read some suggested Zen books on the website, and interact
with members in the Facebook group without paying for anything.
On the other hand, for adherents who are interested in becoming a Buddhist, it is
necessary to participate in retreats like Jukai and Sessin in person to be officially recognized as a
Buddhist. For a family temple relying on community donations to operate, losing membership
definitely has a significant impact on its survival in the neighborhood. In this sense, the temple
was caught in a dilemma by using modern technology. On one hand, information sharing and
convenient platforms online effectively connect current members while attracting potential
adherents. On the other hand, the access and convenience of virtual outreach make traveling to
the temple and making physical visits unnecessary. In the face of these difficulties, on November
18, 2016, Rinsen addressed the importance of attending temple services and his attitudes towards
technology in the weekly abbot address titled “Harmonious Communication and the Importance
of Showing up:”
One of the things I wanna be clear about is that it’s very very easy to fall into unintended
back and forth stuff when we sort of create these pistols and fire them into the internet,
you know. And it’s very difficult in email or Facebook communication to have any kind
real substantive communication of ideas… What we really need is true communication
and true conversation…. We face the limits of this technology. The main thing is, within
our own community, within our sangha, to maintain the integrity of the harmony within
our sangha, and the way we do that is to show up. (Weik, 2016)
In denying the quality of communication technology, Rinsen’s outreach rhetoric seems to
contradict the temple’s extensive use of the online platforms. Or perhaps he underestimated how
much the community is relying on these platforms to function and connect. To some extent, “real”
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communication would not have happened without the technological assistance. What should be
questioned is not only technology itself but also the way it is being utilized by various users.
What Rinsen referred to as “pistols,” the disharmony of communication online, might
never happen in the face-to-face setting of the temple. Whenever practicing or visiting, people
constrain their talks and behaviors while showing respect to others in the religious space,
whether genuine of fake. However, the Internet gives people more freedom of expression when
real names, identities are being concealed. When the online platforms were put into use, the
communication mode has already shifted. Rinsen might be the one to dominant conversations in
the temple as sensei (teacher), but in the computer-mediated communication, users take control
in their own preferred ways and embed new meanings and contexts into the conversation (Kling,
2000). Other than the loss of financial support from “real” members, Rinsen’s concern over the
harmony of sangha is also representative of a plethora of religious institutions as they strive to
explore virtual space for religious influence.
The disharmony, as Rinsen (2016) later noted in the same address, also referred to the
misunderstandings and misinterpretations that caused by “not having a real-time, face-to-face,
and heart-to-heart conversation.” In his opinion, communication should be mediated through
body and its presence in the physical space. The “true communication” that Rinsen emphasized
repeatedly actually represented a cultural creation in the American discourse—the
“communication” ritual that requires self-disclosure in the process and aims at problem solving
in its goal. It is the kind of communication that people “sit down and talk” to work out problems.
As Philipsen (1992) argues, the notion of “communication” was articulated through a
particular view of the relationship between self and others. It differs from “mere talk” but refers
to the “close, supportive, and open” conversation between two or more interlocutors (p.74).
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Furthermore, “communication” is also considered as an artful “work” in constructing self and
building relationship, which is distinctive in an American cultural setting. The purpose of
“communication” or “true communication”, as Philipsen (1992) further contents, is to fuse the
personal with the communal, and affirm oneself “through a process of social interaction” (p. 83).
While “communication” is deeply rooted and valued in American culture, it does not
necessarily apply to Zen practice that values “silence” and individual enlightenment experience.
In many stories of Zen in Chinese and Japanese history, the “encounter dialogue” describes how
a Zen master gives an answer of wisdom by sitting in silence. Yet, the response is often quickly
understood and considered as a guidance of enlightenment. Similarly, silence is also interwoven
into narratives, dialogues, and used in rituals and ceremonies purposefully. As the
complementary “other” to speech, its message is “taken to complete the direction and intent” of
other rhetorical practices (Wright, 1993, p. 30). Another cultural specific expression used in Zen
is Koan—brief stories, fables, questions, or description of situation that the master gave a
metaphorical or symbolic sign to the disciples for reflection. Contrary to the American
communication mode that everything is explicitly expressed and articulated, understanding Koan
relies on the student’s own interpretation, which is based on his or her own practices. Hence it is
often blurry and abstract.
The awakening experience or enlightenment is achieved through these non-traditional
discourses, because any attempt at a verbal understanding will “lead to a division of Oneness and
pushes the disciple further away from the goal” (Suprun, Yanova & Nosov, 2013). Thus, “true
communication” may be counteractive in one’s “awakening.” But instead, “true communication”
in sangha will work effectively to motivate American practitioners who values it and who need
the social and communal experience of Zen practice. In the GHBTT, the juxtaposition of
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multiple communication patterns is an interesting yet representative phenomenon of modern
Buddhism in the United States. It is a mixture of silence in meditation, obscurity in Zen
teachings, and “meaningful” verbal communication in other temple activities; it is also a mixture
of online chatting and offline face-to-face talks. This hybridity of communication is both high
context and low context based on situations, and extremely flexible and adaptable whether online
or offline to different recipients. In rituals and meditations in the physical space, words are not
even necessary in conveying meaning. But in online videos and text-based Facebook chatting,
words become vital in expressing every meaning. Like modern Buddhism in the American
setting, its communication mode also evolved from single to plural and became diversified to
meet the need of the people in a pluralistic society. In essence, digital communication and online
Buddhist practices extended the geography of Buddhist studies and brought more choices and
opportunities for both religious organizations and practitioners. However, the new mode of
communication also threatened the traditional face-to-face communication ritual in American
discourse. Furthermore, it may even affect how religious identities are formed.
A Buddhist Identity via Technology
Technology never performs in a vacuum as most people have assumed. It is subject to the
contingencies of time and space (Deetz, 1990). Moreover, technologies are also embedded in a
“complex social process” due to their design, use, and individual user preference (Cheong et al,
2009, p. 299). While exploring the temple website and making use of other online platforms, the
members are actually establishing a negotiation process with system designers, content manager,
and religious leaders. Additionally, “cultural norms and values” may also be added to these
platforms to convey symbolic information (p. 299). Technology is thus never a simple tool to be
utilized; it is better to consider it a medium that reflects and conveys certain interests and values
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(Deetz, 1990). In the communicative process, technology itself becomes a form of discourse or
rhetoric that performs systems of thought, messages, and embedded values. For example, in
Laura Busch’s (2010) study of the Buddhist message forum E-sangha, the author demonstrates
how web producers and forum moderators employ “discursive and structural Web strategies” to
decide boundaries of Buddhist identity and maintain these boundaries as part of the “community
schema” (p. 59). By manipulating the content and structural design of the website, authorities of
E-sangha strive to facilitate the inter-Buddhist communication within guidelines and principles
of a Buddhist orthodoxy from their own understandings and ideologies (Busch, 2010). In this
case study, the website and its producers worked to manufacture politics and consent among the
users.
In a similar vein, the online platforms of the GHBTT perform the same way. From the
choice of platforms to website design, and to the content provided by the temple, the experience
is more affected by cultural norms and the designer’s choice. Through the communication
technology, it is the religious leader who crafts the adherents’ religious identities in various ways.
First of all, in choosing a Facebook group as its main platform to attract and interact with
members, the politics of technology has already leaned towards the group manager. The group is
maintained by several volunteers who have the right to manage settings and add members.
Although regular members create the content by using group discussions and posts, and every
participant is guaranteed the equal right to talk and discuss matters, it is the group manager who
has the right to delete or arrange the display of contents. If anything inappropriate appears, it will
be deleted immediately. If necessary, the manager can also “pin” discussion threads or important
information on top of the group interface to remind people about events or activities. Such
arrangement, like agenda setting, has the potential power to influence everyone as recipients of
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information. Besides managing, active members of temple also have the power to lead discussion
topics to attract attention. Normally, the post that is “liked” most in the group is always from
Rinsen or other leading members of the temple. Users will naturally pay more attention to these
types of posts and discussion threads.
As a manager of the group, one can also create events, add a file, and even add live
stream videos. The power to manipulate technology falls into the religious leader’s hands. By
manipulating the group experience, he or she can adjust the information members receive.
During this process, the group member’s identity is formatted and reinforced with the embedded
politic of technology.
Following the goal of enhancing user experience and attracting potential members, the
GHBTT website is also designed to contain certain social norms: a buyer’s market. The home
page interface is very clear and easy to navigate while the themes and sublinks are also explicit
in explaining their purposes. Once logged into the website, users can easily get an overview of
the temple services and find what they are looking for. For instance, users can choose from a
series of themes underneath the temple name, which are “Home, About, Activities, Contact,
Donate, Join, Location, Podcasts, Schedule, Simulcast,” and “Bookstore.” Under each theme
there are also sublinks that direct the user to a specific topic. For instance, under the theme
“Schedule,” one can choose to view “Sunday morning service,” “Wednesday evening service,”
or “Visiting the temple.” Within the sublink, descriptive texts and images are provided if the user
is interested in knowing more. However, the user-centered web design and content on the
GHBTT website serve less religious or educational purposes and are more structured like a
commercial site for online shopping. Religious activities and yoga classes in the temple are
labeled with prices and functionalities and ready to be picked by potential shoppers. Membership
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information is also repeated in several sublinks with detailed instructions on how to submit the
application form and what benefits members can enjoy. Even under each of Rinsen’s podcast
lectures, a suggested donation amount is listed. For a regular “shopper,” the website is a great
platform to display the religious commodities produced by the temple. For others who are merely
browsing and enjoying the free access to resources, this is still a shopper’s experience to
pick-and-mix their religious identity.
Given that the website only facilitates operation of the temple while major activates still
happen in the real space, it is still insufficient and misleading in attracting new members since
there is a lack of substantial content about Buddhism. As the main website of a Buddhist temple,
the most basic yet important concepts of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are not mentioned at all.
For most newcomers, the website has also been vague in articulating what it means and what it
takes to be a Buddhist but focuses on what benefit one can gain from the activities provided. The
closest introduction about Buddhism one can find is perhaps a small paragraph under the sublink
“About Zen.” With detailed explanation on how an individual can “know who we are” from the
Zen practice, only a few sentences mention that the tradition is actually from the teaching of
Buddha.
As Bruns (2008) notes, the development of social software and interactive technology
meant new opportunities for Internet users to become content producers rather than just
recipients of information. Internet is increasingly used for self-representation in the social
sharing process. However, the new possibilities and opportunities brought by digital
communication challenge the way religious identities are traditionally formed (Lovheim, 2013).
Contrary to the unified teaching and communal learning style one might experience in a
face-to-face setting, religious narratives, symbols, and forms of interactions online provide a
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“spiritual marketplace” for users. Even for regular attendees of the temple who also use the
online platforms, religious identities formed online are also integrated into their everyday life
and affect how their identities are performed offline. Apart from practicing and learning in the
physical space, a Buddhist sense of belonging may also come from communication within
sangha in the virtual space. This change is necessary and inevitable with the technological
globalization. Prior to the application of communication technology in the religious space, the
politics of it should have been taken into consideration. While the GHBTT is not the first temple
to experience this change, it will neither be the last. Religious identity needs to be reconsidered
from this perspective, as what role technology plays and who are contributing to the construction
process. The next section examines Rinsen’s strategies in dealing with members’ secret Buddhist
identity and the practice based on Western individualism. I examine in detail two specific
addresses by the abbot to illuminate the individualistic ideal of American Buddhist practitioners
and how it contradicts with the “no-self” principle in Buddhism.
Dealing with the Secret Buddhist Identity: Being Rational and Trusting Yourself
With the utilization of technology, a main virtual venue for abbot Rinsen to “talk to”
community members was through his weekly abbot addresses on YouTube. This has also become
an important means to help construct members’ Buddhist identities and a complement to his
actual face-to-face teachings at the temple. Beginning from January 2015, Rinsen first made the
video for updating important events and activities in the temple. With more subscriptions later on,
he began to add the “Q&A” section in these addresses to answer questions raised by community
members. Most questions were about basic Buddhist principles and practices, like “what do Zen
people believe in?” or “What does it mean to have the dharma transmission?” Whenever
important or controversial incidents happened in society, Rinsen also made addresses to offer his
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perspectives and guidance for members to deal with the situation. For example, the abbot address
of June 16, 2016 discussed the Orlando nightclub shooting event while Rinsen offered his grief.
On November 11, 2016, the address “what now?” was specifically about the Trump victory of
the presidential election and what he felt Buddhist practitioners should do regarding the situation.
However, the content of all these addresses were leaning towards guidance of proper Buddhists
behaviors rather than political opinions on the events.
From September 2016, the length of each abbot address was extended from 5 to 15
minutes or so. Meanwhile, Rinsen shifted his focus from updates to the challenges of member’s
personal practice. He successively elaborated on the Buddhist concepts of “grief,” “setting
intentions,” “dealing with sexualities,” “the meaning of death,” and such. Rather than lecturing
from historical texts and sutras, Rinsen’s teaching style was more inspirational and experiential.
Departing from the individual practitioner’s perspective, he did not give answers to questions
directly but suggested practitioners to seek for the “path to enlightenment” themselves. For
instance, in addressing the question of “what would happen if we die,” Rinsen used a Koan—a
traditional Zen short story—to indicate his point of view on death. Briefly, the koan was about
how a Zen master encountered death twice and asked his teachers if the man in the coffin “live or
dead” (Rinsen, 2016). However, he received the same answer of “I cannot say” each time. As
time went by, the master finally transcended the meaning of “cannot say” and reached his own
enlightenment. In the same way, Rinsen did not explicitly answer the question. Instead, he
commented:
The real answer to this question, no one can tell you or explain to you. And honestly,
people that have absolute certainty that (say) this is the answer, … and if it’s all figured
out by them, they got it mapped out, they didn't get it. That’s not the awakening of true
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awakening. There is something here about ‘not knowing,’ about not reducing everything
to these categories. … There is nothing I can say, or would say to explain to you what
that personal insight into the matter of life and death is. … You deserve to actually see for
yourself in your own experience. (Rinsen, 2016)
Just like Rinsen’s comment above, in most of his teachings in the abbot address, “personal
insight” and personal experience were prioritized in one’s practice. In order to achieve this
insight of enlightenment, the only way is to practice—through meditations. Thus in his teaching,
having the trust in oneself and one’s own practice became a necessity of being a Buddhist. His
role as a teacher is only to guide the way, while it is totally the practitioner’s own responsibility
to find out the “truth.” Similarly, throughout the abbot addresses in 2016, the suggestion of
“trusting yourself” became a recurrent theme of all his teaching addresses.
The Secret Buddhist Identity
Another unique aspect of the identity construction process in the GHBTT is dealing with
the common secret identity of being a Buddhist. Although attending practices, rituals, and
dressing up in Buddha robes in the temple, members are still faced with pressure from family,
friends, and even the society at large to misunderstand Buddhism as a cult practice. The concern
had been such an ongoing issue in the temple that abbot Rinsen addressed it repeatedly in his
weekly updates. The family of a sangha member asked if he had “joined the cult” by getting
involved with temple services (Weik, 2017). Other members were criticized by Christians who
believed that their meditation actually “opened a gateway for Satan and demons to come in and
possess them” (Weik, 2016). Most commonly, there are members who are being judged by
people surrounding them in various ways. Confronted by these judgments, most members
remained silent about their religious belief and the temple practices.
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From the standpoint of U.S. culture, Buddhism or Zen indeed fits into some of the
definitions of “cults” as a form of “deviant religious movements,” which do not originate from a
parent church in the host culture and only emphasize participation (Finney, 1991, p. 381). It is
even more so that the transformed Zen Buddhism in the U.S. presents itself as a nontheistic
religion that contradicts with the Abrahamic traditions in the West. Additionally, the communal
life-style of retreats, the “charismatic” leader/ abbot, and the use of a foreign language and
costume in a way perpetuate people’s confusion and stereotype of this “new” religious form. In
explaining the “weird feeling” of being a Buddhist in the Midwest and going public about it,
Rinsen offers his perspective in the weekly address titled “Outted!” on September 16, 2016. In
this address, Rinsen offered his suggestions in dealing with the “public” Buddhist identity: what
to do when people know I am a Buddhist. He described the awkward feeling that one might have
and explained the reasons as follow:
A lot of the reason why it feels weird was…perhaps for many of us, it’s the first time that
we are identifiably and noticeably part of a minority, and that’s not always a case. For
example, me… I am an educated white guy who grew up in the Midwest in the middle
class setting. Tons of privilege there, right? … So being a Buddhist publicly is actually
the first time I experience myself as a minority in a kind of way. And it’s a lot out there,
to suddenly be a part of a group that a lot of people would look at and say: oh, that’s
other… Maybe they would incorrectly prejudge you with all kinds of goofy assumptions.
(Weik, 2016)
As Rinsen indicated, the uncomfortable feeling came from being deprived of privilege in the
minority spiritual status and experiencing dissonance with the mainstream belief system. To
some extent, this sums up the awkward situation of Buddhism in the United States presently,
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which is detached from its historical and cultural roots in the transplanting process and the
resulting incompatibility with the monotheistic rubrics.
As early as the 19th century when Zen Buddhism was formally introduced to the United
States by the Japanese, the focus was shifted from monastic to lay-based practice with a
de-emphasis of spiritual beliefs (McMahan, 2008). One distinctive feature of the new Buddhism
from its Asian origin was the denial of a “supreme creator” and abandoning the doctrine of
rebirth, which has “few common denominators among various Asian traditions” (Queen&
William, 2013, p. xviii). In order to blend Buddhism into the discourse of modern science, the
early contributors also strategically highlighted meditation, chanting, social engagement, and
other ethical activities and made connections to modern philosophy and psychology. Instead of
searching externally for the savior figure, modern Zen Buddhism stresses the cultivation of
consciousness internally through meditation practices. During this process, personal growth and
enlightenment were prioritized within the context of Western rational worldviews (Queen&
William, 2013).
The ultimate goal in practicing Zen today is about “awakening”—knowing the truth
about self and its harmonious existence with the surrounding world. Therefore, the most
practiced Buddhism in the U.S. is frequently tangled in the debate of whether it is a philosophy
or a religion. For people who may have some knowledge of what it is and where it came from,
Buddhism serves as a great alternative religious system or life philosophy. But for those who do
not, it is the incomprehensible “other,” which cannot be explained with ease and clarity. Rinsen,
too, mentioned the how irreconcilable Buddhism might be with the monotheistic religious
structure. In the second part of “Outted”, he offered some suggestions for dealing with friends
with “truth claims” and who might “swap Jesus or Mohammed for Buddha” (Weik, 2016).
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However, Given the history Buddhism had in Asian counties, Rinsen did not suggest explaining
the differences and giving facts. Instead, he suggested another coping mechanism:
We could shout out: ‘you know, I never expected to be Buddhists, It’s kind of a surprise
to me too. I found my experience up to that point had been unsatisfactory and been open
to experience. I encountered the tradition (Buddhism) and found it incredibly nourishing.’
In fact, it seems really obvious to me. … It’s really fulfilling to me. (Weik, 2016)
In this persuasion or clarification process, “I” was centered and “my own experience” was put
first. In other words, “I” was not pushed or coerced into the practice but “found it incredibly
nourishing myself.” In defending the authenticity of a religion, personal experience becomes the
only justification rather than factual evidence. Indeed, personal experience does play a crucial
part in Modern Buddhism. Specifically in American Buddhism, it has been grounded into the
basic practice and became a necessary component of one’s Buddhist identity. In his abbot
address of January 12, 2017, Rinsen repeated “the trust in self” in admitting the Buddhist identity
to family members:
The first thing to realize is that, you really honor your internal wisdom and truth, you
know, trust yourself. … And really, taking Jukai is about yourself taking refuge, in
Buddha, Dharma, and sangha, as it is shaped and expressed in the Great Heartland sangha
community. (Weik, 2017)
Similarly in the statement above, “self” is positioned before any other condition in
recognizing and becoming a Buddhist. In convincing the family, it is especially important to
convince oneself and trust oneself, or in Rinsen’s phrase, the “internal wisdom and truth.”
Traditionally, the criterion for assuming Buddhist identity is to go through the refuge (the
Buddhist ceremony for official conversion) in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha (Tsomo, 2009).
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While self-recognition (Buddha) is a significant process, so are the teaching from masters
(Dharma) and the learning from peers (sangha). In Asian Buddhist traditions, becoming a
Buddhist usually means the communal monastic experience: tedious study of sutras with the
teacher and long-term practice with peers. Obtaining the “truth” is a matter of time and
accumulation of knowledge. Guidance to the right path is usually composed of multiple efforts
and is not intended to be an easy process that can be accomplished by oneself.
The urge to prioritize self and emphasize personal experience are actually the compromises
Buddhism had to make when transplanting from the collectivism based cultural discourse to the
“individualized model of spiritual fulfillment and liberation” in the West, which is generated
from the discourse of liberal individualism (McMahan, 2008, p. 196). In other words, “I”
becomes the testimony of one’s own spiritual experience. As a distinct entity, the individual has
the right to choose their self-directed ends free from any oppressive powers in social, communal,
or institutional forms. In Zen practice, individual needs and inner freedom in a way have
transcended any external conditions and prerequisites in reaching the state of “awakening.”
Rituals, ceremonies, community support and even teachings are becoming experience-based
from the individual perspective. The spiritual individualism and subjectivism have deeply rooted
in the Western religious systems that it becomes the only means of negotiation for defending the
legitimacy of Zen Buddhism. As Rinsen suggests in his address, it truly is the only way to
explain this foreign religion to the family and friends.
Mix-and-Match Buddhism for Individual Needs
My experience from participating in activities, teachings, and rituals in the temple are
about constructing and reconciling the individual-based Buddhist experience with my experience
with Buddhism as collective and cultural-based. Interestingly, the actual word “Buddhist” was
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seldom used or publicly discussed in the temple, nor was the word “belief.” During his talks and
teachings, Rinsen always encourages practitioners to seek for inner truth and compassion but he
rarely ascribes these actions to the behavior of a Buddhist. Instead, the most frequently used
word is “practice” and it is highly individualized. Even when participating in community-based
activities or sitting with the sangha, it is about seeking support and encouragement for individual
practice on the path of awakening. In Rinsen’s rhetoric of spirituality, Zen practice equals to the
belief system in other religions. In answering the question “What do Zen people believe in,”
Rinsen explicates the importance of practice in his abbot address of February 16, 2016:
Zen is not so much a matter of believing in things in the sense of intellectual concepts.
What’s very really relevant is your practice. So practice is the main thing, more than
believing. … It’s not really a belief set. In that way it’s very rational…. Even though to be
sure Zen has its own kind of rationality. (Weik, 2016)
According to Rinsen, the emphasis on individual practice and the fact that it is not a
belief set made Zen a rational religion. In other words, a Zen practitioner should believe in
himself/herself instead of the external force or being.
Therefore, among practitioners in the temple, there is a mix of purposes and goals due to
individual needs. In bowing to the Buddha statue, one can choose to kneel down or stand still; in
meditation, one can close eyes or open eyes. It is also perfectly normal to only participate in
meditation and ignore other activities. It is a community without unification because every
individual needs to be respected and valued because of their differences. Being a Buddhist is
rather a matter of personal choice through constant practice without any involvement of external
factors. At the same time, the practice can be really flexible based on personal schedules and
preferences. If necessary, keeping the Buddhist identity as secret is also a choice and should be
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respected.
In this regard, the GHBTT is not the only case. A loss of a “unified form” in American
Buddhism has become a consensus among scholars and practitioners (Queen & Williams, 2013).
Immersed in the cultural discourse that celebrates pluralism, diversity and values individualism,
Buddhism had to make adaptations in its communal style and hierarchical model to fit into the
Western value system. These changes and adaptations constantly challenge its Asian origin and
the essential beliefs and practices have aroused issues concerning authenticity. Over the years,
the new form of Buddhism — American Buddhism — has undergone several waves of criticism
for its radical change and its hybridity. One might wonder what is left to define Buddhism as a
religion without basic beliefs like doctrines of reincarnation and karma?
During the “massive subjective turn” in the 17th and 18th centuries, Western modernity
shifted from the materialistic and extraverted emphases toward “an increased attention to
subjectivity, selfhood, and the mind” (McMahan, 2008). The modern notion of selfhood
constantly stresses personal choice and self-reflexivity, which creates the role for the new
Buddhism to fill, since it has been transformed into a highly individualized and non-institutional
form of spirituality in the West. As Schedneck (2013) observes, “perfecting the individual self,
through mental and physical activities, is part of modern trends of which Asian global religious
practices have taken advantage of ” (p. 39). The discourse of modernity compels individuals to
decide their own lifestyles: what to believe, how to believe, and “how to practice those beliefs”
(p.40). On one hand, the personalized spirituality form greatly increased the popularity of
Buddhism since it is a religious format that everyone finds applicable. On the other hand, it is
contradictory to the core teaching of Buddhism—the “no-self.”
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Buddhism posits that life is characterized by impermanence, loss of self, and dissatisfaction
(Mitchell, 2008). Our mundane existence and the fleeting pleasure it produces are all marked by
the characteristic of “no-self,” which means, “within human nature, there is no permanent self or
soul” (p. 36). The Buddha teaches us that the selfhood constituted by a body and a mind is false
and impermanent and is always subject to change and always filled with duhkha — the suffering
from dissatisfactory feelings. A belief or fixation on the permanent self will only lead to radical
ends, like selfishness and egoism as the sources of duhkha. Additionally, this dissatisfaction also
projects to the world around us. For example, clinging to a fixed sense of being young and
attractive can cause great frustration and misery with aging of the body.
The great awakening experience in Buddhism is a break from the illusive permanent self
and a realization of the selfless love and compassion for others (Mitchell, 2008). Compared to
the decentralized selfhood in Buddhism, individualism stresses the wants and needs of an
individual prior to the collective and social forms. As Tipton (1982) contends, “the efficiency of
agents in maximizing the satisfaction of their wants is the cardinal virtue of this ethic, not their
obedience or rationality” (p. 7). For practitioners, the overwhelming self-reliance,
self-satisfaction, and independence may be inherently problematic because they create the false
worldview that they are autonomous beings and not part of a greater unity. What is more
contradictory is the practice of attaining “no-self” through the close attention to needs of self.
Hatred, anger, sadness, and greed generated from the dissatisfaction would only bring duhkha,
more sufferings and a permanent sense of lack in our lives. In the reflexive sense of Zen
Buddhism, maybe it is time to reflect on the true meaning of practice. With the loss of doctrines
and basic principles, the individual mix-and-match practice is only pushing American Buddhists
further away from the ultimate awakening.
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The next section examines the rhetorical action of introducing Japanese Kanji names in
regular temple communication and practices. Taking into account the idea of mutual
intelligibility and cultural discourse, I shed light on the necessary adjustments a tradition has to
make when introduced into the new cultural discourse and its influence on identity formation.
The Power of Naming: Rituals, Members, and Objects
One interesting phenomenon at the temple is the use of foreign (i.e., Japanese) names for
objects, activities, and even members in the community. Newcomers might have to adapt to this
“coded language” when communicating to regular attendees. However, they will soon realize
that these frequently used words and phrases are actually Japanese in origin. Besides constituting
an “exotic” environment for a Japanese Zen temple, the naming practices significantly influence
practitioners’ religious experience and guide them to recognize themselves as Buddhists.
First of all, members tend to communicate with each other with their Dharma names both
offline and online. Following the Mahayana Buddhism tradition in Japan where their lineage
came from, members going through ordination will receive a dharma name to indicate they have
made the commitments to the Buddhist precepts. As the precepts vary in different traditions, in
Zen Buddhism, there are sixteen precepts to receive (Seager, 1999). Taking the precepts from a
teacher means the lineage of ancestors formally acknowledges the person as a Zen Buddhist
practitioner. In the temple, the ordination is achieved by going through the Jukai initiates retreat,
which is also known as Bodhisattva Initiation or Lay Ordination. Jukai is directly taken from
Japanese, while Ju means “to give” or “to receive,” and kai refers to the precepts (Prebish, 2001).
Specifically at the GHBTT, the annual Jukai initiates retreats consist of four different periods of
retreats, which last from one day to six days in length. Throughout the retreats, Jukai members
live in the temple or the abbot’s family farm as a group to practice meditation, chanting and
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writing vows, and sewing their own Buddha’s robe, known as the Zen Rakusu — a simplified
version of the actual Buddha robe which is worn around the neck and falls over the chest. On
behalf of the temple, abbot Rinsen and priest Do’on give each member a dharma name that will
be sewed or written on the back of the Rakusu by each member as a form of practice, together
with both abbots’ seals and the temple seal.
A common dharma name usually contains two to three characters from Japanese kanji,
which are the adopted Chinese characters in the Japanese language. For example, the dharma
name Kaishin, which means ocean heart or ocean of faith, represents the Japanese kanji 海心.
However, dharma names are given based on the meaning, and will mostly be used and shown in
the Romaji forms (the Roman letters used to indicate the pronunciation of Kanji, like Kaishin for
海心). Therefore, when ordained members receive their own Rakusu, both kanji and its Roman
representation Romaji will be sewed to the back together with the English meanings. These
specific Romanized dharma names are used by the GHBTT members in their daily conversation
to address themselves and each other in the temple and online. When meeting each other
face-to-face in the temple, instead of waving or shaking hands, members put palms together and
bow while addressing each other by their dharma names. Although awkward to most new visitors,
these names and greetings have been ritualized into everyday activity and become a norm of
member communication and temple operation.
In the virtual space, ordained members are also more inclined to identify themselves and
others with their dharma names. Most members in the temple’s Facebook group added their
dharma names to their own as a special middle name. For example, both priests added their
dharma names (“Rinsen” and “Do’on”) as middle names. Hence their full names always show up
as Jay Rinsen Weik and Karen Do’on Weik whether online or offline. Additionally, it was the
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dharma names that they would like to be used by members in conversation. At the GHBTT, by
not necessarily knowing what someone else’s name means or even what their original name is,
members recognize their fellow practitioners through these Japanese kanji, and represents a
closer bond within the community.
Like Jukai, Rakusu, and the dharma names of ordained members, there are also other
rituals and artifacts named directly with Japanese in the temple. Sesshin, which means touching
the heart/mind in Japanese, is frequently used to name an intensive meditation session. The
Sesshin practice is believed to stem from the Buddha himself (Shakyamuni) who reached
enlightenment after intensive sitting meditation beneath the Bodhi tree (Morgan, 2004). It is also
closely associated with the Japanese Zen master Dogen who also reached enlightenment through
steady meditation. In the temple, members organize occasional short period retreats like
“October Sesshin” or “December Sesshin” over the weekend to practice silence and meditation.
During Sesshin, Oryoki meals will be served as a way of practice. Also originated from Japan,
Oryoki means “just enough” and indicates a meditative form of eating in monastic living. What’s
more, in the GHBTT temple, meditation is usually referred to as zazen, the Japanese for seated
meditation and the meditation hall is known as Zendo — the Japanese “Buddha hall.” The list
can go on and on.
For practitioners at the GHBTT, the act of naming, whether used to address peers or
themselves, is part of the Buddhist identity performance. As Bidwell (2008) contends, “the
primary social process remains central to creating and maintaining religious identity in
contemporary Buddhism” (p. 3). It is through the social process that an individual develops the
“meaning of situations in everyday life” and their own positions in relation to them (Lovheim,
2013, p.42). The use of Japanese names infuses the social process with a new dimension of
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meaning and creates for members a unique discourse that is different from other social occasions
in daily life. In other words, the powerful Japanese names enable a Buddhist discourse in the
temple where identities are negotiated and rediscovered with meaning. A bell becomes sacred
when it becomes a Densho; and “Mike” may not be quotidian Mike, but Kaishin the Buddhist.
Experiencing Dharma Names in a Foreign Discourse
My first impression of the GHBTT was the unexpected encounter of these Japanese
names. With some knowledge of Buddhist studies from my previous research and my own
practice, I was prepared to hear terminologies like “Dharma,” “Sangha” or “Bodhisattva” at my
first visit to the temple, as these are direct translations from Chinese to English, or original
Sanskrit from India that has been kept universal in different traditions and lineages of Buddhism.
Distinctly different from my temple experience in China where monasticism is always
represented by young Asian males, I was greeted by two Caucasian female members bowing in
grey Buddha robes and introducing themselves in their dharma names. As they flipped their
Rakusus over and showed me the kanji characters, I then realized that these were Chinese
characters in Japanese. After a brief self-introduction, I was led to the main hall together with
others and started to prepare for Zazen after the Densho (bell) was rung. This time, it didn’t take
me long to figure out Zazen referred to sitting meditation. By the end of the night, Rinsen gave a
talk about koan (short stories for enlightenment) in the Zen tradition and master Ananda (a
well-respected Zen master in history). Upon leaving the temple, I was reminded to help “restore
the Zendo,” which means putting cushions and pillows back to their original positions.
Throughout the night, there was no explanation about these Japanese terms as regular attendees
were very familiar with them and new comers just followed along.
During my participation in the following two months, I learned about these meanings
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through random conversations with regular attendees while observing their behavior when these
special terms were used. Surprisingly, these Japanese words and phrases blend perfectly into the
members’ English communication such that no one even questioned why they were used or if
they represented the corresponding meaning correctly from Japanese. For regular attendees,
using these Japanese terms means the “norm,” since this is how they were taught and how they
recognize their practice. These foreign words and phrases have become part of the temple routine
and everyday vocabulary regardless of a full comprehension of their meanings. The lack of
understanding is especially evident when members identify themselves and their fellow
practitioners through dharma names.
By using the same type of names, they obtain the sense of community that is distinct
from other communities. Nevertheless, most members know nothing about other members’
dharma names other than the pronunciation. Misspelling and mispronouncing happen frequently
at occasions when names are required. There are times when some members do not even
remember the meaning of their own dharma name after possessing it for a few years. For
first-time attendees or newcomers with only a couple visits, it is more difficult to understand the
situation, as “decoding” the language and associating words with certain objects and actions
takes more effort than expected. Without further explanations, these Japanese terms also appear
frequently on the temple website, on the Facebook group, and in weekly abbot addresses. At each
monthly orientation session, Rinsen takes the opportunity to introduce some of these terms to
newcomers. However, getting used to them and fully incorporating them to the one’s own
language system are never easy. The most effective strategy for new members is always to watch
and learn along their practices with others in the temple.
Not only in the GHBTT, the practice of getting another name for oneself may sound odd
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to most Western religions. Actually, having a dharma name is very common in Buddhism around
the world. In Japanese Buddhism, Buddhist teachers bestow names on their heirs to acknowledge
them in the lineage (Foulk, 2008). Historically, the teachers bestow the family name “Shaku” and
a personal dharma name, while “Shaku” indicates the family name of the Buddha Sakyamuni (P.
266). In Modern Japan, dharma name selections are regulated and restricted to a certain scope of
characters and family name “Shaku” is no longer retained. However, teachers still select names
that reflect their own lineage for their students, hoping to pass on the legacy. This specific name
selection and name giving process was well preserved as a tradition when Zen Buddhism
transmitted to the West. Interestingly, with the change of language and cultural settings, the
tradition of giving dharma names in Japanese kanjis never changed in most Zen temples in the
United States. One possible reason was the use of Japanese as the main language in most Zen
Buddhist temples run by Japanese Americans at first, who considered the language itself as a
cultural heritage to be retained (Foulk, 2008). Later on, as the number of Zen practitioners
expanded among Euro-Americans, this special naming practice was kept together with other
rituals and viewed as a respect for the tradition.
For the GHBTT, this tradition was well maintained and explains how Japanese permeates
the local English communication among members in the community. However, the seemingly
exotic use of foreign language has also caused confusion and misunderstandings due to a drastic
change of its cultural discourse. From an intercultural perspective, this rhetorical action of
adopting and using foreign names without shared understanding is fundamentally problematic. In
order for a rhetorical action to be understood, as Carbaugh and Wolf (1999) suggest, it is
necessary for members to build the mutual intelligibility among different cultures: “the shared,
common, and publicly active meanings that can be presumed to be the basis for practical
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rhetorical action” (p. 21). The key to building such a basis is situating the rhetorical action in its
own cultural discourse, which refers to a distinctive expressive system of terms, forms, and
topics in every culture. In the case of GHBTT, the Japanese kanji names could only be
interpreted within the Zen Buddhist rhetoric and Japanese cultural discourse. Once mingled with
English without the premises of mutual understanding, it would cause more confusion in
self-identification and communication at large.
When Names Are Transplanted: An Orientalist Approach
Generally speaking, a name gives information and creates a unique label for an individual.
Names reveal who we are, where we are from, what cultural background we grew up with, and
sometimes even our age and personal preferences. Through this unique label we remember,
recognize, and acknowledge one another in our daily communication. Thus people care about
how they are addressed and how they conventionally present their names to others as an
important strategy for identity management (Cheang, 2008). At the same time, the meaning of a
name is usually culturally ascribed and carries certain connotations in one culture and loses them
in another. A name like Kaishin would immediately evoke connections to martial arts in Japanese
cultural discourse since shin, which means “the core” or “the spirit”, has been used in lineage
names of martial art in Japanese historically. Similarly, names like Mary or Lily would lose their
symbolic meaning of “purity” once placed outside Christian cultural discourse. As an important
component of the traditional Buddhist rhetoric, dharma names are given with much more
symbolic meaning than the lexical meaning. It is an evaluation of the practitioner from his/her
teacher based on the yearlong practice. It also symbolizes the kind of unique quality the teacher
wants the student to be associated with and remembered by himself and others. In enunciating
the dharma name, a cultural schema is activated which includes a set of different references,
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ideas, emotions, and behaviors. Thus, a dharma name may be interpreted with multiple layers of
meaning in its own cultural discourse but just the superficial lexical meaning in other cultural
discourses.
Another example is the Dharma name suixi (随喜) in Chinese Buddhism. When
introduced to the Western discourse, it was translated as “delightfully follow” in English based
on the meaning of its characters. However, the concept was taken from several Buddhist sutras in
Chinese, and means “to share the happiness of good karma.” Meanwhile, Sui is also a widely
used term in Chinese culture, meaning “following the destiny or the law of karma.” However,
when translated as “delightfully follow,” which is perfectly justifiable, it inevitably brings up the
cultural resonance this word has in Modern English. Instead of being associated with an
unconditional joy from the action of sharing the good karma and the destiny of karma in
traditional Chinese discourse, it is easier to be understood as an action of personal satisfaction in
English. For any Western practitioner who was bestowed name suixi but knowing nothing about
Chinese culture, the name has lost its symbolic function in the first place, let alone
communicating with the name among the members in the community. Similarly, the practice of
borrowing Japanese dharma names in English communication may have kept the tradition on one
hand but deprived its cultural connotation on the other. Kanji names, when being given, used,
and communicated among members of the temple, have lost the mutual intelligibility within the
Japanese discourse.
Ultimately, the effort to keep the tradition of kanji names but decontextualizing them
from the appropriate cultural discourse is a reflection of an orientalist complex in the Buddhist
modernization process. Representations of the Orient, in Edward Said’s (1979) words, or oriental
fantasies from the Western perspective are tied to the subjugated East. West became the one to
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speak for the East and dominates them. American Buddhism has largely fantasized the fusion of
Buddhism with modern science and technology, as well as the modernization of all their
practices. For example, the sect of Tibetan Buddhism in the United States has been following
Dalai Lama’s lead to promote the communication between science and Buddhism (Knight, 2004).
The interest in this connection is mostly manifested as exploring the full capacity of human brain
through meditation. Richard Davison, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, has claimed
to find out that “certain neural processes in the brain are more coordinated” in people with
extensive meditation training (para.11).
Some practitioners of American Buddhism are also driven by the nostalgic feelings of
keeping certain traditions in the new cultural context. The mix-and-match practices and hybrid
forms of modern Buddhism are a demonstration of the nostalgic orientalist complex from the
West (Schedneck, 2013). The discourse of modernity appropriated the reconfiguration process.
On one hand, when introducing Buddhism from the East to the West, Asian religious leaders
aligned themselves with the rhetoric of rationalism and scientific naturalism, mostly because the
modernized always means the better and the more civilized aspects of human development. On
the other hand, Western religious leaders reconstructed Buddhist practices with “Romantic
Orientalist ideals” by tracing back to the traditional elements (p. 41). In a sense, the Western
“gaze” gave birth to the new Buddhism, which keeps the Oriental aura in its format, but has done
away with the spiritual sectors and became more rational in all forms of practices. Therefore, we
have the mysterious and exotic but intricate Kanji names to represent Zen and its authenticity in
an American Zen temple. It is never about how they should be understood and utilized, rather it
is about what this ancient and Asian practice symbolizes. It is about the romantic nostalgic
complex the Western spiritual leaders behold in the name of the far Orient.
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Temple as the Sacred Space in Constructing Identity
The last but crucial element of constructing Buddhist identity in the GHBTT is the temple
space. In examining the rhetoric of spaces and places, we tend to pay close attention to the
symbolic meaning and cultural connotations they embody (Dickinson, 2002). Mundane spaces
like museums, national parks, and public memorials are frequently visited and valued because of
their symbolic importance. Similarly in a religious site like a temple or a church, the physical
space is arranged to specific uses of their symbolic meaning. However, it is through the
materiality of the symbols and their influence on people that the meaning of a space is
constructed. As Carole Blair (2000) suggests, it is crucial to consider a “particular artifact or
text’s material existence” and how it acts on persons (p. 16). In other words, the material rhetoric
of a shared space or landscape takes into consideration people’s encountering experience, which
plays an important part in their public identity construction (Zagacki & Gallagher, 2009).
Similarly, visual and material artifacts used in a religious space are also constructing the
symbolic sacredness in ways that are largely taken for granted. For practitioners, religious
identity has never been a given but needs to be cultivated and reinforced constantly in the sacred
space through interacting with the material objects. This is especially in the case of modern
Buddhism that emphasizes routine practices and rituals. To view Buddhist identity not as
“abstract or disembodied,” I need to place it in the material spaces where everyday routine takes
place (Dickinson, 2002, p. 6).
As previously mentioned in Chapter Two, the temple building of the GHBTT is actually
renovated from of an old carpet warehouse. One advantage of the warehouse structure is the
spacious room and the tall roof, which is perfect for holding up to one hundred people during
important occasions. Resembling an authentic Japanese zendo (meditation hall) with interior
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decorations in Zen tradition, the temple’s structure was purposefully divided into three different
rooms. The first room near the main entrance is used for socializing and depositing shoes. The
second room, which is also the biggest one, serves as the main sitting area and room for rituals
and events. The third room in the back is where Aikido training takes place. Compared to the
first and the third one, the main sitting room constructs a distinctive sacred space with the
presence of three Buddha statues, the altar table, burning incense, sound instruments, and
cushions for sitting. The sense of sacredness manifests itself in the ways practitioners talk, walk,
sit, and even bow. Without being a specific requirement, practitioners tend to lower their voices
in front of the statue and around others in the room to show respect. Similarly, most people bow
to the Buddha statue upon entering the room and leaving the room. The sacredness of the space
is especially reflected in the ritual practices. Everyone becomes solemn at the bell strike and
starts putting palms together. Through chanting, sutra reading, meditating, and listening to abbot
Rinsen’s talks in the room, practitioners are able locate themselves in a “Buddha space” to
explore the awakening experience.
Participation in the rituals becomes the embodied experience for members to negotiate
their Buddhist identity. As LaWare and Gallagher (2007) contend in their analysis of public art in
the urban space, “spaces of attention” is created by the encounter of visitors in the landscape,
which engages seeing, hearing, and touching as “mixed modalities” (p. 162). The enactment of
the material rhetoric functions to “evoke a collective sense of understanding” among visitors
(Zagacki & Gallagher, 2009, p. 172). Similarly in the ritual practice, by ringing bells, holding
sutra books, offering incense, and playing musical instruments, members’ Buddhist identity gets
evoked and reinforced. In a typical Zen monastery in Asia, rituals are usually completed by
monks who reside at the temple as part of their practice. However, in a family temple like
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GHBTT, most members have the opportunity to become the “ritual staff” due to its non-monastic
nature. They are thus in charge of playing these traditional Japanese instruments and distributing
the sacred texts. Throughout the ritual, no oral orders are given but a certain instrument is played
and becomes the guidance to proceed. For example, Densho (bell) ringing means time for
gathering in the hall while Inkin (a hand-held bell) ringing means beginning of a meditation. In
the process, participants collaborate with each other to create the unique collective ritual
experience and a sense of belonging. Meanwhile, sound of bell, group chanting, smell of incense,
printed sutra book in hand, and the performance of abbot in front of the Buddha statue comprise
the mixed modalities to define and reinforce what it is like to be a Buddhist. The group bonds via
this sense of shared identity. It is the materiality and spatial arrangement of the room that evokes
this sense, thus making it a sacred space.
Sacred Gaze in the Sacred Space
The arrangement of the religious artifacts in the temple similarly contributes to the
material rhetoric in a more visual way. In the GHBTT, Buddhist statues become the centerpiece
of the first two rooms. Upon entering the temple into the first room, a statue of Kwan-Yin
(Buddha of compassion) is placed on the middle of the welcoming table with sign-up sheets and
the donation box, marking the space as religious. Walking across the first room to the main
sitting room, one would immediately notice a second Buddha statue in the most prominent place
of the room: statue of Shakyamuni on the altar table near the windows. Above the entrance to the
main sitting room, several black and white portraits of Zen masters in this lineage hang on the
wall. For members and visitors, the placement of these artifacts incorporates the body into a
vision of solemnity and sacredness. Whether Buddha statues or portraits of masters, the images
exemplify the wisdom, the compassionate, the mindfulness, and the awakened self that
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practitioners should admire and learn from. By being purposely positioned in places that
dominate the room space, they form a powerful “sacred gaze” on the practitioners and a constant
reminder of precepts they have taken as Buddhists. As Morgan (2005) argues, “religious imagery
is a particular type of world making that provides a visual mediation of a particular group of
humans and the forces that help to organize their world” (p. 55). Indeed, the statues and portraits
embody an intimate relationship one has built with the “awakened” through the sacred gaze. In a
Zen Buddhist sense, it is the teacher-student relationship rather than the Supreme Being that
motivates the practitioner to go further on this path. At the same time, gaze of the teachers
prompts practitioners to be self-reflexive on their words and behaviors in the temple and also in
their lives, which urges the performance of a Buddhist identity.
The temple’s sacred experience has been significantly mediated through a material
rhetoric. Even for the regular Zazen (Zen meditation), what we take for granted in daily lives is
also infused with special meaning in the temple. Meditating in front of Buddha and in a
communal style has been a tradition in Asian Buddhism. Before introduction to the United States,
meditation was exclusively monastic and not applicable to lay practitioners. With ubiquitous
meditation in the Western society today, in schools, psychologist’s office, and homes, sitting at
the temple does offer some original and authentic monastic experience. It is especially so when
the GHBTT elevates the role of Zazen over chanting, ritual, merit making (accumulation of good
deeds) as the most important weekly practice. For most members, sitting routinely with others in
their own Buddhist robe offers a great escape from distractions and trivialities of everyday life.
Whether from burning incense, a Buddha image, guidance of Rinsen, or any other Zen-related
artifacts, the space offers security, familiarity, and the unique Buddhist “aura.” As a material
space, the temple not only provides cultural resources and religious artifacts. It is where all these
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materiality become ritualized and embodied with the sacred meaning. The rhetoric of the temple
space urges an action that reinforces this sacredness. The Buddhist identity is directly woven into
bows, meditations, contemplation of the artifacts and images, and even casual encounter between
members. This rhetoric is powerful because it is immersed in the banal religious life. Taken
together with other rhetorical forms in the temple, they create and maintain what it means to be a
Buddhist and make the GHBTT a generative space of the collective identity.
Conclusion
What does it mean to assume a religious identity? What does it mean to be a Buddhist?
These questions will surely be answered depending on different religious traditions and different
individual perspectives. A Buddhist identity has always been fluid, especially when we
contextualize the definition of Buddhism within the time and location continuum. Traditionally,
when we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, we become a Buddhist. Today, the refuge
ceremony is still the most important criteria. Yet, what makes a practitioner a Buddhist is
becoming complex and inexplicable. Modernization brought about technology, and it directly
leads to a revolution of our access to knowledge and a change of our worldviews. Juxtaposition
of the old and the new, the novel and the traditional create a series of questions to the global
religions. In American Buddhism, it is particularly an exigent one.
This chapter explored the new dimensions and meanings of Buddhist identity. In delving
into the effort the GHBTT has made to create the Buddhist experience for practitioners online
and offline, I evaluated the effectiveness of these approaches. Through the rhetoric of technology,
abbot Rinsen’s rhetoric of spirituality, and the rhetoric of materiality of the temple space, I shed
light on how identities were constructed by different facets of Buddhist rhetoric. After all, the
temple bears another paradox in utilizing these approaches. Western rationality urges the
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application of technology, individualism, and free choice. However, the barely connected Eastern
roots of American Buddhism appeals for a reserve and respect of the traditional communal rituals
and practices. Consequently, members’ Buddhist identity is formed as inherently hybrid and split,
which is hazardous and misleading in their path to be enlightened and awakening. Going back to
the question raised earlier in this chapter: when basic doctrines like reincarnation and karma and
are at stake, it can hardly be identified as Buddhism or even a religion, but some hybrid
collection of practices to make individuals feel good about themselves. The situation became
more complicated when Buddhism was being commodified and pushed to the market under the
neoliberal economy. Just like the format of the GHBTT website, in facing consumerism and free
market, the religion had to change to satisfy “customer’s needs.” In their “cherry-picking”
process, some traditions and doctrines that are not compatible with our time will be eventually
done with. Like what Charles Taylor (2007) comments in his book Secular Age, Western
societies have changed from “belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in
which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace”
(p. 516). With the overwhelming individualistic thoughts and a deep belief in free choice, human
became their own spiritual leaders as identifying who they are and what to believe, which would
only cause more confusion when referring back to traditions. Interesting, the transformation
process of Buddhism was initiated under the “Western gaze” and the Romantic fantasies of the
East. When the Japanese introduced Zen Buddhism to represent the superiority of their culture to
the Western world. They still had to articulate the religion through the modernity discourse and
the orientalist framework. Assuming a Buddhist identity is not just bowing to Buddha, sitting in
Zazen, and dressing up in Rakusu, but to have the critical and explorative spirit to see behind the
statues and portrays, and to know truly what the religion is about and who is speaking for it.
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CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION
In this dissertation, I explored the rhetorical contours of the Great Heartland Buddhist
Temple of Toledo, Ohio. By examining its opportunities for involvement, challenges to
sustainability, and its ethical dilemmas in an era of globalization, I illuminated a new form of
Buddhism within the context of modernization. Previous studies have detailed Buddhism’s
transformation from East to West, from Asian Buddhists to Euro-American Buddhists, and from
traditional to the multiple variations of Buddhism within this critical historical juncture.
Grounded in these studies, this project approached the GHBTT as an embodiment of Buddhist
rhetoric (with both discursive and non-discursive expressions) within the discourses of modernity.
The primary goal of this study was to better understand the Westernization of Buddhism and its
adapted practices and rituals in a host culture. The argument presented here was that the
Buddhist rhetoric of the temple functioned to constitute and negotiate religious identities of the
community members through its various rituals and activities. At the same time, the generative
space and settings of the temple also facilitated the religious identity formation and preservation.
By analyzing core ideographs in the temple’s rhetoric that aimed to maintain its Japanese Zen
traditions, I discovered that they actually represented and reinforced Western ideologies related
to individualism, gender equity, education, and community building. Additionally, by discussing
the temple’s use of communication technology, the naming practice, the members’ secrecy of
being a Buddhist, and the temple itself as a sacred space, I illuminated how identities were
strategically constructed in the temple through these rhetorical practices. In the following
sections, I first answer my research questions raised in Chapter I. Then, I summarize the
theoretical implications of the Buddhist rhetoric developed in this study. Finally, I suggest what
this study can contribute to future research on religious communication, intercultural rhetoric,
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and critical rhetoric.
Chapter Review & Research Questions
Using GHBTT as a case study, the central question I posed was, “How does a Zen
Buddhist temple in the U.S. Midwest facilitate the formation of religious identities of the local
community through its strategic discursive activities, the adoption of technology, and the temple
space?” This question was broken into four detailed sub-questions: First, how does GHBTT
utilize social media and various technologies to communicate with its members and discursively
create and negotiate the online religious experience? Second, what activities and rituals are
staged by the GHBTT and how do these ritual and activities facilitate the cultural maintenance of
a Japanese Zen temple? Additionally, how are intercultural contexts created by these activities
and rituals and how are differing cultural perspectives mediated by them? Finally, how does the
setting of the temple as a generative space reflect an adaptation of an Eastern religion in the West?
These questions will be answered respectively in the following section.
Chapter Two focused on the historical background of Zen Buddhism in the United States.
In order to contextualize the historical, political, and cultural junctures that formed Buddhism as
a global religion, I provided a brief history of how Zen Buddhism was introduced to the United
States by Japanese delegates at the World’s Parliament of Religion. I discussed what necessary
changes the ancient religion had to make to integrate into modernist discourse within Western
societies. Under the influence of globalization, these changes expanded across geographic
locations. In some Asian countries, Buddhism also became secularized. By this I mean that
temples were shifting their focuses from traditional monastic training of monks and nuns to the
spiritual needs of ordinary people.
By broadening temple services to local communities and lay practitioners, these temples
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faced challenges within the capitalist market economy. Next, I narrowed my focus to the
adoption of Buddhism within the Ohio and Toledo locales, most specifically, the temple this case
study examined—The Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo. By briefly describing the
temple setting and main services it offered, I aimed to showcase the rationale behind member
communication and temple management, as well as its physical layout. The last section of
Chapter Two discussed my theoretical and methodological foundation for this study. By referring
to case studies in intercultural rhetoric and ideological criticism, I introduced my primary
framework to critique GHBTT’s rhetoric. Incorporating my own participation into the critical
process made the study slightly different from the traditional methods of rhetorical criticism.
With my participation, I read the temple as an entity of “live” rhetoric, which is manifested
through activities, talks, spaces, and the material objects.
Chapter Three focused on the temple’s effort to maintain the Japanese traditions. In this
chapter, I answered my second and third sub-question: “What activities and rituals are staged by
the GHBTT and how do these ritual and activities facilitate the cultural maintenance of a
Japanese Zen temple?” And “How are intercultural contexts created by these activities and rituals
and how are differing cultural perspectives mediated by them?” In examining the temple’s
rhetoric through the lens of ideological criticism, this chapter provided a close reading of the
Western ideologies embedded in the temple’s Eastern traditions. Specifically, by examining the
ideographs <family>, <marriage>, <education>, <wife>, and <community>, I argued that the
discourse of Western modernity has totally changed these traditions from their original forms
and meanings in Asia. In keeping them, the temple presented a seemingly “authentic” image of
Japanese Zen Buddhism to attract potential adherents. For example, the temple purposely
designed a series of activities that fell under the specific theme “family,” “education,” and
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“community.” As I have provided in detailed descriptions earlier, “Sunday morning sutra
service,” “Family support council,” and “Dharma camp” were all held to strengthen the intimate
relationship between parents and children in a Buddhist setting. At the same time, activities like
the “Temple Pizza Party” or “Bowling with the Bodhisattvas” functioned to maintain the close
bond within the community—sangha. Additionally, the setup of “Dharma school” was to achieve
the goal of educating about Buddhist morality. When put together, these activities aimed to shape
the temple as family-friendly and community-centered, just like the Japanese temples.
Second, rituals staged in the GHBTT were directly copied from the Japanese Zen
traditions. Derived from abbot Rinsen’s own religious education and his effort to keep dharma
transmission in the Soto Zen lineage, the rituals—like sutra chanting, abbot talks, and sitting and
walking meditations—were all presented as an imitation of an original Japanese temple. There
was, as I found out, definitely an intercultural context created by them. In a broad sense, the
Buddhist practice, as a religion and philosophy, was foreign to local Midwest practitioners. From
teaching to meditation, from the Buddha image to the Japanese decorations in the temple, the
temple symbolized a whole new religious system from the East, one distinctly different from
Abrahamic religions in the West. An intercultural context was created once a visitor walked into
the temple, saw the burning incense, sitting meditations, and talked with its members in Buddhist
robes while wondering about the meanings behind these decorations and behaviors. For the
temple members, an intercultural context was created whenever they needed to internalize the
teachings and doctrines from these activities and rituals, or when they understood and articulated
their own Buddhist identities. There were, indeed, a variety of cultural perspectives expressed
through the rituals and activities in the GHBTT.
However, the way these rituals were practiced reflected a distinctly American adaptation.
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Do’on’s presence to guide and teach Zen students was quite unconventional, considering the
absence of female priests in Zen Buddhist temples in Japan. Similarly, the father-son
transmission in a Japanese family temple was also altered to a husband-wife transmission in the
GHBTT to conveniently guide and serve the community. Some of the traditions maintained by
the temple, and American Zen practices continue to be controversial within the Buddhist
tradition. For instance, the “married abbot” as a leader is an issue that is still under debate today.
What is more, some practices did not have Eastern Buddhist origins. For instance, Dharma
school was borrowed from Christian Sunday schools and promoted among temples ran by
Japanese Americans. In essence, the traditions and practices were selected and became
hybridization for the temple’s benefits.
The fact that the temple appeared “Japanese” did not mean it was “traditionally Japanese.”
Underneath the Eastern nostalgia, it was democratic liberal ideologies that dominated the
practices and behaviors of the temple’s members. To a large extent, this was the consequence of
the reinterpretation and adaptation of cultural forms during Buddhism’s globalized
transplantation from the East to the West. In this case study, the mediated shift between different
cultural expressions paralleled the harmonization and assimilation of Eastern cultures within the
United States. When “family,” “marriage,” “wife,” “education,” and “community” were claimed
as Eastern traditions, the ideologies behind actually represented Western perspectives. In their
new context, they symbolized a democratic, liberal, and individualistic worldview within this
religion. On one hand, these changes were actually made towards a “better Buddhism,” in which
women’s equal rights were recognized and family meant mutual respect and shared
responsibilities. By integrating the liberal social values, Buddhism had the chance to be
acknowledged and practiced by more people in the West. On the other hand, Buddhism practiced
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in the American setting became very questionable because of its seemingly deviant traditions and
hybridity. It was more problematic that the cultural connotations of the religion were stripped
away and can only be found in temple decorations, exotic dressing styles, and the use of
non-English terms. The representation of Buddhism inevitably fell into the Westerner’s romantic
fantasy of the East.
Chapter Four discussed the identity construction process at the GHBTT. This chapter
answered the question “How does the GHBTT utilize social media and various technologies to
communicate with its members and discursively create and negotiate the online religious
experience?” and “How does the setting of the temple as a generative space reflect an adaptation
of an Eastern religion in the West?” First, I analyzed the temple’s online platforms to elucidate
the politics imbedded in communication technology and its potential influence on the users. Then,
I focused on abbot Rinsen’s address—in order to articulate the reasons behind members’ “secret
Buddhist identity.” Furthermore, I explored the material rhetoric of the temple space, with its
religious rituals and artifacts, to exemplify the sacredness generated from their symbolic
meanings. Finally, I examined the naming practice at the GHBTT to explicate how the adoption
of Japanese kanji names helped construct the members’ Buddhist identities.
To a large extent, the GHBTT relied on communication technology to operate on a daily
basis: recruiting members, sending out notifications, managing activities, and organizing
volunteers. These online technologies included three platforms: the temple website, the Facebook
group, and abbot Rinsen’s YouTube Channel. A virtual sangha emerged from these online
platforms, where people discussed their practices and other Buddhism-related topics. For the
GHBTT, technology provided an opportunity for members to communicate regardless of time
and geographic location. It worked effectively to help members stay connected and informed
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without physically visiting the temple. At the same time, these online platforms also greatly
enriched the religious experience of members. Besides attending temple services on a regular
basis, technology provided an alternative for them to watch rituals at home through live stream
on Facebook, and to meditate with other members via web cameras. Like rituals and meditation,
technology has saturated the religious communication of the GHBTT and has become an
inseparable part of members’ religious lives. However, these conveniences were also potential
threats to the survival of the GHBTT. Free access to certain resources online directly resulted in a
loss of membership. Consequently, the temple was caught in the dilemma of using technology:
on one hand, it was crucial means to advertise and attract potential adherents; on the other hand,
the “virtual Buddhism” was gradually replacing real face-to-face practices in the temple.
When the temple constructed religious experience online, it was also an exercise of
power and value through the rhetoric of technology. In the case of the GHBTT, religious leaders
exercised the power to harness the Internet to manipulate user/practitioners’ online experience.
Specifically, they adjusted contents and settings of the discussion group and the temple website
to fulfill their organizational functions and the community missions. Meanwhile, by teaching and
addressing specific questions raised by members, abbot Rinsen’s YouTube videos also
discursively created the online religious experience of the members.
In Chapter Four, Rinsen’s role of discursively constructing the online religious
experience was discussed further though an examination of his abbot addresses on the “secret
identity” of members. The suggestions Rinsen offered to temple members who have concerns
about being a Buddhist in public, is to be rational and to trust themselves. What is reflected in his
discourse was the deep-rooted belief in individualism. In essence, this was the consequence of
Buddhism adapting to the discourse of modernity that emphasizes science and rationality. With
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the de-emphasis on belief and elimination of mystical doctrines like reincarnation and karma,
self and personal experience became the only criteria for testing truth. Such a change in
American Buddhism, however, pushes it further from the “awakening” goal of their practices,
since the most important doctrine in Buddhism is to achieve enlightenment by a disengagement
of the “self,” and a minimization of personal satisfactions. On the other hand, the fact that
Rinsen’s questionable teaching on the “secrets Buddhist identity” was accessible online further
indicated that he may have potentially influenced more people and their perceptions of
Buddhism other than just temple members. To this end, the GHBTT’s use of Internet and social
media websites prioritized and reinforced certain ideologies. When technology created the
illusion that the users had full control of what they see and what information they receive, it were
actually the content producers, website managers, and social norms imbedded in the designs and
interfaces that manipulated the online experience of users.
The second section of Chapter Four focused on how the temple was viewed as a
generative space to reflect the adaptation of Eastern religion. On the surface level, the GHBTT
was the perfect example of how Japanese Zen Buddhism was adopted by Euro-American
practitioners. This adoption was reflected in members’ dressing styles, the temple’s decorations,
the display of religious artifacts, and the use of dharma names. To outsiders, the temple created
an Eastern aura that contrasted with its Midwest surroundings and appealed to people who were
interested in Asian culture. To some extent, this was the reason why many people visited the
temple for the first time. Furthermore, the space arrangement and use of religious artifacts
transformed the temple into a sacred space for members. Through bowing to Buddha statues,
contemplating masters’ portraits, playing with the sound instruments at rituals and such, the
materiality and spatial arrangement of the sacred space evoked and reinforced members’
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Buddhist experience and constructed their Buddhist identities. Therefore, on the surface level,
the GHBTT was a successful adaptation of an Eastern religion in the West.
However, what might cause our concern were the cultural connotations embedded in
these efforts to make the temple “Asian” or “Japanese.” For example, I discussed the naming
practice in this chapter. When officially converted into Buddhism, members had the chance to
get their exclusive dharma names, which were taken from Japanese kanji. Instead of letters from
the Latin-based English alphabet, the name used characters. Most of these names did not connect
to their recipient because of the cultural difference and the lack of understanding in Asian
cultural discourse and Buddhist name structures. Consequently, the name just became a fancy
decoration and a privileged symbol to indicate the Buddhist convert status. From the case of the
GHBTT, what cautioned me were the orientalist fantasies the Westerners implied underneath the
direct transplantation of Asian rhetorical actions. The GHBTT was the perfect example just
because it satisfied these fantasies of what Japanese culture and what Asian Buddhist practice
should look like under the Western gaze. Similarly in American Buddhism, such a disrespect and
orientalist attitude were also reflected in their “mix-and-match” practices extracted from all
Asian Buddhist schools. As a result, one could go to a Japanese Zen temple, dress like a Chinese
Buddhist, but chant Tibetan Buddhist sutras, because there was no distinction in the
practitioner’s eyes as long as they were all “Asian.” To answer my last question, the temple was
a generative space in producing their Buddhist rhetoric through space, materiality, and multiple
discursive means. It was also generative in constructing the practitioners’ Buddhist identities. In
terms of adaptation, it was a true reflection of most Eastern religions in the West: the borrowing
and direct transplantation regardless of their respective cultural discourses.
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Theoretical Implications
The examination of the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo intended to provide
theoretical implications regarding the concept of Buddhist rhetoric, which is manifested in
multiple rhetorical forms. In this study, I examined the traditional discursive rhetoric as found in
texts and talks. I also explored the non-discursive forms: rhetoric of technology, rhetoric of
materiality and its symbolic function in the sacred space. Most importantly, through my
participation in temple activities and my interaction with people and the actual space, I acquired
the “live” rhetoric of the GHBTT—my own experience to witness rhetorical actions as they
unfolded. The process of conceptualizing and articulating Buddhist rhetoric in this case study
intersected Buddhism in three different fields of studies: religious communication, intercultural
communication, and rhetorical criticism.
First of all, the concept of Buddhist rhetoric provided a useful analytical tool in
examining studies of religious communication. In this analysis, I extended the definition of
Buddhist rhetoric from traditional examination of sutras, religious texts, and images to the
communicative processes between the temple leaders and its members. Taking into consideration
the multifaceted modes of interaction, I treated the GHBTT as an embodiment of multiple
rhetorical forms that reflect ideologies, urge actions, and construct identities. In viewing the
temple as a complex rhetorical entity, this study aims to demonstrate the possibilities for future
critics who scrutinize the communicative patterns of religious organization. Furthermore, I argue
that a religious organization should always be treated holistically in the examination process, as
these rhetorical forms complement each other to construct meaningful communication. In the
case of the GHBTT, it was the teachings, rituals, practices, temple space, virtual platforms, and
the abbot and members’ everyday language that constructed the unique Buddhist rhetoric and
142
Buddhist identity.
Second, in viewing the temple as an intercultural space, Buddhist rhetoric encourages
future research of intercultural rhetoric by pointing out new sites of study. Unlike indigenous
religions, the introduction of Buddhism to the United States also brought about issues of cultural
heritage, cultural discourse, and competing ideologies embedded in different cultural expressions.
Further, they are specifically articulated through different rhetorical forms. However, given the
locality of different Buddhist temples, it is necessary to recognize that each temple may have its
distinctive Buddhist rhetoric. This difference may also be found between temples run by Asian
immigrants and Euro-Americans. Unlike the case of the GHBTT, the Buddhist rhetoric of a
Japanese-American temple would contain less democratic and individualistic ideologies, because
of the abbot and practitioners’ particular cultural heritage from Japan. Another significant
intercultural aspect that needs further exploration is the direct transplantation of cultural forms,
like languages, artifacts, and rituals. In this case study, they refer to the adoption of Japanese
Kanji names, Buddha robes, religious artifacts, and gestures like bowing and kneeling. Because
of their culture-specific characteristics, a direct transplantation to the new cultural setting may
cause misunderstandings. What is needed is a proper “translation” process that guarantees the
accuracy of their specific meanings and cultural connotations when being borrowed. It is also the
critic’s responsibility to point out the stereotypical attitude from a dominant and privileged
perspective.
Therefore, it is useful for American Buddhist practitioners to be constantly reflexive on
their rituals, practices, teachings, and delve into the meanings behind these actions. Just like
Buddhist scholar Charles Prebish mentioned in his interview, Buddhist tradition always
emphasized the importance of both study and practice as they interpenetrated (Heuman, 2012).
143
Cultivating the Buddhist literacy will be an effective complement to practices that only
emphasize meditation, because the more one studies, the more one will understand the “intricacy
and nuances” of Buddhist doctrines, and the more sophisticated his/her practice will be (p. 70).
For example, together with Buddhist koan studies in most American Zen temples, the organizers
may also consider opening culture study classes and sutra teaching classes to contextualize the
stories in koan. It is also extremely beneficial for temples to collaborate and make use of the
online learning platforms to share digital resources of Buddhist studies. More importantly,
Buddhism needs to be treated as a comprehensive religious system in the West with unified
translation systems like when it was introduced from India to China and translated from Sanskrit
to Mandarin centuries ago. Indeed, it is important to embrace change. But it is crucial to remain
the core values when change occurs.
The last theoretical implication this study suggested is the examination of ideologies
embedded in the religious discourse. One manifestation of the Buddhist rhetoric in the GHBTT
is the Western democratic and liberal ideologies. As I have discussed in this study, they became
prominent through frequent use of certain terms and phrases—ideographs. Like McGee (1980)
contends, they are in everyday language, but can be problematic “because of their specificity” in
invoking certain ideologies within the community (p. 7). It is even more problematic and
confusing when their surface meanings contradict the ideologies they represent. For example, I
demonstrated such a contradiction in Chapter Three, when ideographs like <family>,
<community>, and <marriage> were used to represent Japanese traditions but actually expressed
democratic social values in the United States through certain temple practices. More importantly,
examination of ideologies calls out the power structure of a religious organization. In critiquing
the discourse of power, it further discovers the driving forces behind the dominance as well as
144
the “construction and maintenance of a particular order of discourse” (McKerrow, 1989, p. 94).
For religious organizations, this is especially important, because their rhetoric is more powerful
and influential in disseminating ideologies to adherents. In untangling the power structures
embedded in their rhetorical actions through a thorough examination of their ordinary language,
critics will be able to demystify the ideological construction process and unveil the interests that
lie beneath this process.
In sum, the concept of Buddhist rhetoric provided the critics with more opportunities to
further advance studies of intercultural communication, rhetorical criticism, and religious
communication. In a way, the complex dynamics of this concept presented new perspectives in
viewing these areas of study. However, this concept should also be treated with caution because
it lies on the intersection of these different fields. When engaging Buddhist rhetoric into specific
cases, it is the critic’s responsibility to adjust and negotiate with each case to achieve the goal of
critique.
Looking Forward—A Postmodern Buddhism
In critiquing the Buddhist rhetoric of the GHBTT, this study aims to portray the current
status of American Buddhism within the discourse of modernization. Given that American
Buddhism is a broadly inclusive term that contains different schools, lineages, and traditions,
there might be some nuances and variations in their respective situations. However, they are all
inevitably subjected to the transformative influences modernity has brought. In other words, they
are all facing the trends of radical detraditionalization, democratization, and secularization. The
analysis in this study showed how the Western democratic ideologies dominated the temple
discourse and practices over its Eastern traditions. Through the critical examination of different
rhetorical forms generated by the GHBTT, this study also demonstrated how Buddhist became
145
marketable, individualized, socially engaged, and pragmatic, which is nothing like their origins
from the East.
To some extent, the development of American Buddhism refreshes our foundational
knowledge about this ancient religion. Some of the current trends even reflect a postmodernist
fashion in its future development. As Lyotard (1986) argues, postmodernist thought is
fundamentally build on a framework that challenges what we call the “master narrative.” Some
practices of modern Buddhism have been constantly challenging the “master narrative” of our
society. For example, the roles of women are being widely recognized as practitioners and priests
in most American temples. This crucial change symbolizes a challenge to power narratives that
position men as religious leaders. Similarly, socially engaged Buddhism and their liberal-left
activities are also speaking up for the marginalized groups like LGBTQ groups and minority
groups. What is more, the reinterpretation of ancient Buddhist texts and the abandoning of
traditional beliefs are also gestures that challenge the master religious narrative that centralizes
these sacred texts and beliefs. As McMahan (2008) contends, the transition of Buddhist
modernism to a postmodern Buddhism is unavoidable, because it is conditioned by fractures
within our society. We have been familiarized with multiple interpretations of tradition,
deconstruction of “original” ideals, and the ubiquitous narrative of “celebrating diversity and
pluralism.” The American Buddhism is destined to walk on the path of postmodernism.
Furthermore, an increasing number of critics and scholarship have begun to challenge the
practice of modern Buddhism that is free of dogma, doctrines, rituals, and beliefs. Critics have
gone back to the traditional monastic trainings, sutras, and disciplined practices to justify the
“real Buddhism” (McMahan, 2008, p.254). A juxtaposition of the “non-traditional” practices and
the reverse back to traditions created the heterogeneity in Buddhism today, which is also
146
reflected as postmodern approaches.
Finally, with the development of a postmodern Buddhism, we may be able to witness
more and more variations of the religion today in different geographic locations. With globalized
flows of cultural, religion, people, and ideas, there might be more combinations and hybridities
in its future development. In a sense, Buddhism is still a global religion in terms of its influence.
However, it is unknown if global Buddhism will even remain the same religion with emerging
trajectories, variations, and modalities of interpretation through Internet, books, and other
mediums. For researchers and critics, the answer lies in their continuous explorations of the
future Buddhism.
147
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