Attention to lived religion has significantly shaped religious studies and has only recently impacted the field of Buddhism. Rather than asserting a separation between ""real"" religion happening within sacred scriptures and official organizations on the one hand, and ""folk"" traditions practiced by everyday adherents on the other, the lived religion model understands the religious experience as far more complex, implying an ongoing negotiation of practice and belief, which occurs within and outside of official, congregational settings. Given the religion's openness to incorporating and adapting various religious traditions, understanding belief systems, doctrinal interpretations, and ethical commitments on the ground are particularly salient within Buddhist traditions.
Approaching Buddhism as a lived tradition has transformed the discipline over the past few decades, shifting attention to the relationship between doctrines, beliefs, and practices among ordinary adherents. The Oxford Handbook of Lived Buddhism fills a major gap in Buddhist studies scholarship. Topical emphasis for each chapter derives from the reading Buddhist texts, and utilizing ethnographic methods, but all center Buddhist individuals and communities, along with scholarly analysis. Authors' observations reflect on how these dynamics intermingle with modernity, education, media, and sacred spaces. The lived religion approach offers insight into Buddhism's variety of cultural practices that inform traditions, relationships between the laity and monastics, significances of sacred spaces and experiences, changing demographics of the religion, and Buddhism's influence on material culture, artistic expression, and social interaction. Analyzing Buddhism from the ground up, rather than the top down, complicates our conception of the religion and how it intersects with other areas of culture, including race, class, and gender. As such, the Handbook will be a timely contribution, opening new possibilities for study alongside texts and institutions.
Introduction: Courtney Bruntz and Brooke Schedneck 1. Teaching Buddhism as a Lived Religion Beverley Foulks McGuire 2. Stories of Lived Buddhism in Sanskrit Literature Karen Muldoon-Hules 3. Pathways to Monastic Life: The Case of Eison (1201–1290) Lori Meeks 4. Eison, Preaching, and Performance in Medieval Japan David Quinter 5. Lived Buddhism and Mount Wutai, China in the Northern Dynasties (439–589) and Tang (618–907) Periods Susan Andrews 6. Representation Matters: Women in Tibetan Life Writing Alison Melnick Dyer 7. Historical Legends of the Buddha in the Region of Bongabhumi Sanjoy Barua Chowdhury 8. Material Culture in Pure Land Buddhist Practice Kendall Marchman 9. Living Sacred Landscape: Space, Cosmology, and Community in the Buddhist Temples in Northern Thailand Piyawit Moonkham and Michael Chladek 10. Between Science and Supernatural Power: Tea and Buddhist Communities in Taiwan Kai Shmushko 11. Buddhist Pilgrimage and Living Religious Heritage in North India David Geary 12. Material Buddhist Culture in Healing: Taiwanese Approaches to Healing Illnesses After Death Emily S. Wu 13. Prayers for Academic Success in South Korea Florence Galmiche 14. Being Young and Buddhist in Precarious Times: Exploring the Relational, Contextual, and Digital in Lived Buddhism Kim Lam 15. Raising Temple Family Members: Intergenerational Temple Dynamics in Japan Jessica Starling 16. Passing the Light of Buddhism in Malaysia through Dharma Class Tan Lee Ooi 17. Disseminating Buddhism in Transnational Organizations Wei-yi Cheng 18. Burmese American Youth Experiences with Theravada Buddhism in the San Francisco Bay Area Rachelle Saruya 19. On Ecological Degradation and the Practice of Purification in Urban Mongolia Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko 20. Charity in a Working-Class Taiwanese Buddhist Community: Forming Affinities with Food to Build the Pure Land on Earth Justin R. Ritzinger 21. Reconfiguring Buddhism for Youth in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Dat Manh Nguyen 22. Buddhist ""Magic"" and Buddhist Modernism: Karma, Relatedness, and Hungry Ghosts in Cross-Cultural Perspective Neena Mahadev 23. Hindu-Buddhist Conversion in Nepal Cameron David Warner 24. Lived Traditions and the Pursuit of Happiness in Thailand Rachelle M. Scott 25. Meeting the Buddha: Introductory Buddhist Retreats and Spiritual Tourism in Britain Caroline Starkey 26. How to Make an Ancestor: Death and Funeral Rituals in Laos Vanina Bouté 27. Preserving the Forests and Walks for Peace in Cambodia Napakadol Kittisenee 28. Critique, Reform, and Ethical Innovation: Buddhist Philosophies in Contemporary Tibetan Hip Hop Kati Fitzgerald 29. Healing Through Days of Mindfulness and Retreats in the Southern United States: The Magnolia Grove Meditation Practice Center in the Plum Village Tradition Brooke Schedneck
Courtney Bruntz, PhD, holds the position of Professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. She received her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union in Buddhist Studies, and since then, has been interested in the intersections of Buddhism and economics. She has researched Buddhist tourism in China, intersections of Buddhism and technology, and more recently, Buddhist communities in the Great Plains. Recent publications include co-editing Buddhist Tourism in Asia and authoring ""Buddhism and Economics"" in The Essential Guide to Buddhism and ""Buddhist Technoscapes: Interrogating 'Skillful Means' In East Asian Monasteries"" in Buddhism Under Capitalism. Brooke Schedneck, PhD, is an associate professor in the department of religious studies at Rhodes College. Her work focuses on contemporary Buddhism in Thailand, and she spent years teaching and conducting research in Chiang Mai. Her work has been featured in academic journals and publications such as Tricycle, Aeon, and The Conversation. In 2020, Dr. Schedneck published a co-edited volume titled Buddhist Tourism in Asia and her second monograph, Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand, was short-listed for the EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize 2022. Her introduction to contemporary, lived Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia, was published with Shambhala Publications in 2023.
