Vinaya and Volunteers: Updating Tradition and Initiating Change at Pushou Temple

Résumé En

Pushou Temple (普寿寺), located on Mount Wutai (五台山) in Shanxi province (山西省), is known as the largest Buddhist temple for women in China. It also hosts a Buddhist Institute for nuns (Zhongguo Wutaishan nizhong foxueyuan 中 国 五 台 山 尼 众 佛 学 院 ). Rebuilt in 1991, it expanded and later built another temple in 2005, Dacheng Temple (大乘寺), while also opening a charity, the Bodhi Love Association (Puti aixin xiehui 菩提爱心协会) that same year. These last two institutions are both located in Jinzhong (晋中), Shanxi. Together with a home for the elderly (Qingtai anyang yuan 清泰安养园), these institutions constitute the “Three-Plus-One” project (San jia yi jiaoyu gongcheng 三加一教育工程), born in 2006. Looking into this threefold project, one can identify several recurring themes of contemporary Chinese Buddhism, that are monastic discipline, modern education, and Buddhist philanthropy. Belonging to these themes are two movements, one that involves reviving Vinaya practices and rituals in contemporary times, as part of a revival initiated in the 1930s, and the second being the development of the religious volunteer or yigong 义工 figure after the 1980s. Although seemingly without connection, they can both be observed within Pushou Temple. Therefore, drawing from interviews and fieldwork observations, this paper argues that these two crucial movements both participate in their own way in the reconfiguration operated by contemporary Buddhism. Focusing specifically on tradition and its innovation potential, while also looking at the impact of new actors on religious practices and experiences, will lead to identifying the processes according to which this reconfiguration takes place in mainland China.