Charisma and Compassion

Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement

Bibliographic Data

ID2246185
AuthorsRichard Hughes Seager (Hamilton College, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume71
Issue4
Pages490-491
Publication date2010-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology of Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1069-4404 • E-ISSN: 1759-8818
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/socrel/srq061
OpenAlexW2080055359
LanguageEN
Citations received16

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 of Tzu 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 (i.e., 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.

Blessing · Buddhism · Charisma · China · Compassion · Gautama Buddha · Political science · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · History · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Psychology

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