Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement
Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement
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魅力与慈悲：证严与佛教慈济运动
DOI：
10.1093/socrel/srq061
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发表时间：
2010
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
R. Seager
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Seager
《魅力与慈悲》是一本内容丰富、引人入胜的民族志，它对现代主义佛教运动及其在全球化世界中蓬勃发展的方式的研究做出了宝贵的贡献。慈济是佛教的一种社会参与形式，由台湾尼姑程严法师于1966年创立，目的是为穷人提供医疗保健。朱莉亚·黄做了一件令人钦佩的工作，为慈济建立了一个多层次的形象。她从历史的角度来看待慈济运动，描绘了慈济运动的起源，以及它逐渐发展成为一个强大的非政府组织的过程，特别关注了慈济运动与国家和台湾民主化之间亲密而不断变化的关系。她描述了慈济成员与其他佛教徒分享的诵经和叩头等仪式，但她认为这些活动赋予了慈济独特的特征（即哭泣和手语歌曲）。在黄看来，成员们在听郑颜布道时、在举行仪式时，以及在其他场合，都有泪流满面的倾向，这是一种狂喜的表达，一种个人宗教情感深处的私人声音。相比之下，她认为手语歌曲——在仪式上、公共汽车上或社交活动中通过共同签名来演唱慈济歌曲——是成员们体现有序集体的一种方式。黄进一步认为，慈济的哭泣和手语歌曲代表了自发性和形式主义，这是一个情感光谱的两端，从非结构化的魅力表达到常规化。
A rich, engaging ethnography, Charisma and Compassion, makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on modernist Buddhist movements and the means by which they flourish in a globalizing world. The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Merit Society is a lay organization, which claims five million members in more than 30 countries, the vast majority living in Taiwan. A form of socially engaged Buddhism, Tzu Chi, was founded by Venerable Cheng Yen, a Taiwanese nun, in 1966 to provide health care for the poor. Among other successful ventures, it currently operates four state-of-the-art hospitals and a medical school in Taiwan, runs the largest bone marrow registry in Asia, and conducts international relief work in a wide range of countries, most substantially in the People’s Republic of China. C. Julia Huang does an admirable job of developing a multilayered portrait ofTzu Chi. She sets the movement in historical perspective, charting its origins, which are now the stuff of Tzu Chi legend, and its gradual development into a powerful NGO, paying particular attention to the movement’s intimate, changing relations to the state and Taiwan’s democratization. She describes rituals such as sutra recital and prostrations, which Tzu Chi members share with other Buddhists, but relates these to practices she argues give Tzu Chi its distinct character (ie, crying and sign language song). Huang sees members’ propensity to burst into tears in Cheng Yen’s presence, while listening to her sermons, when performing rituals, and in other settings as an expression of ecstasy, a private sounding of the depth of individual religious feelings. In contrast, she sees sign language song—the performance of Tzu Chi songs in rituals, during bus rides or at social events by signing lyrics together—as a way members embody well-ordered collectivity. Huang further argues that Tzu Chi crying and sign language song represent spontaneity and formalism, two ends of an emotional spectrum that runs from the unstructured expression of charisma to its routinization.