Wang, Song See all items with this value

2026

Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies

Kuo, Shoujen

Reinke, Jens

Gabriel, Victor

This dissertation explores how Chinese American lay Buddhists established independent authority and lay subjectivity within the transnational context after 1950. While existing scholarship focuses more on monastic-led institutions or frames Buddhist modernism within a narrative of “monk-lay confrontation,” American Buddhism has further emphasized a lay orientation as a whole. Adopting the theoretical framework of transnationalism and McMahan’s Buddhist Modernism, this dissertation differentiates between the individual identity of “layperson” and the sociological concept of “lay Buddhism,” focusing more on the level of the lay Buddhist elites and their lay organizations, rather than the broader group of lay Buddhists. This brings the clarification of “independence” as the lay community’s shift from “identity dependence” to possessing autonomous organizational and interpretative authority. However, historical Chinese lay Buddhism shows that excessive independence risks being branded “heretical” by orthodox authorities. This quest for legitimacy amid independence serves as a subtext for analyzing my cases.

Employing ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and archival research, this dissertation conducts research on the Buddhist Association of the United States and the Amida Society of Los Angeles. In the transnational context, Shen Jiazhen and President Chen played as a “Functional Sangha” and gained growing independent lay authority in both administrative and spiritual aspects, while still maintaining respect for traditional monastic authority. This results in a mechanism of “Mutual Empowerment” fraught with both collaboration and tension: laypeople provide the “stage” (secular resources) to support the Sangha, and in exchange, they obtain the endorsement of “orthodoxy.” By summarizing, Chinese American lay Buddhism demonstrated non-sectarianism that supports monastics from various backgrounds. During this monastic vacuum era, these organizations evolved into inclusive “Pan-Buddhist hubs” or “landing platforms” for immigrant monastics, thereby accelerating the transplantation of Chinese Buddhism to America. So, the conceptualization of “Attuning within Inertia” is used to depict how Chinese American lay Buddhism navigated the dual forces of adherence to tradition (inertia) and adaptation to modernism (attuning). Through this dynamic, these groups have forged a resilient, highly adaptive model of modern Buddhism.

Religion See all items with this value

Asian American studies See all items with this value

Ethnic studies See all items with this value

Authority See all items with this value

Independence See all items with this value

Lay Buddhism See all items with this value

Non-sectarianism See all items with this value

University of the West

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