Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Worldly Engagements: Buddhist Monasticism and Masculinity Among the Tai Lue of Southwest China

Worldly Engagements: Buddhist Monasticism and Masculinity Among the Tai Lue of Southwest China

Casas, Roger
Rowe, Mark Michael

Hardcover

Series: Contemporary Buddhism

Religion General BuddhismSoutheast Asian History

ISBN13: 9798880700875
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: Nov 30 2025
Pages: 252
Weight: 0.95
Height: 0.95 Width: 6.07 Depth: 9.14
Language: English
The Tai Lue of Sipsong Panna, located in China's southern Yunnan province, is the largest community of Theravada Buddhists in a country where the Mahayana tradition is dominant. In recent decades, and in light of ever-increasing global connectivity and visibility online, the public participation of Tai Lue novices and monks in practices such as eating in the afternoon, drinking alcohol, having girlfriends, and competing in sports--all considered unfitting, even unacceptable, behavior for Buddhist monastics in China and Southeast Asia--has been evidenced as proof of the backwardness of this minority religious community. Worldly Engagements places such alleged misconduct at the center of its enquiry to demonstrate that, far from characterizing a corrupt form of practice, it represents an essential part of the monasticism traditionally prevalent in the region, an all-encompassing and amphibious technology of self-mastery inextricably embedded in the mundane and the non-religious--that is, a vernacular discipline concerned mainly with making boys into men. It is a rich portrayal of the temple experience as a site for Lue youths to negotiate demands from families, religious superiors, and peers, as well as navigate the challenges presented by national models of masculinity and the powerful influence of Thai Buddhism.

Also in

Buddhism

View All