Guanyin can understand Pali: Cross-traditional practices of Indonesian Buddhists who worship Guanyin through Pali Paritta

The regional (for example, South, Southeast, and East Asia) and national (for example, Myanmar [Burma], Thailand) designations in use in the early 21st century are of recent vintage and may obscure our understanding of Buddhist histories in the region. There was and is considerable circulation of persons, objects, texts, and ideas across these boundaries. These crossed marine divides, political borders, and linguistic communities. Southeast Asian Buddhist communities shaped and were shaped by religious and other cultural practices beyond the region. Buddhism in early 21st-century Southeast Asia is often described as Theravada Buddhism, in contrast to Mahayana Buddhism found farther to the north and east. However, historical and early-21st-century Southeast Asian communities reveal the impact of forms of Buddhism from several parts of the Buddhist world. Elements associated with both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism are found in the region. Moreover, Buddhists in Southeast Asia often identified themselves through other terms of association, and it is sometimes anachronistic to use Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism as key analytical categories.

In the academic study of Buddhism the terms and are often set in contradiction to each other, and the two vehicles are described as having different aspirations, teachings, and practices. The distinctions made between the Mahayana and the Hinayana, however, force the schools into neat, isolated, and independent categories that often undermine the complexities that exist concerning their beliefs, ideologies, and practices. While some of the categories used to differentiate the Mahayana and the Hinayana are helpful in the study and interpretation of Buddhism, these distinctions must continually be reviewed. This article attempts to review one such distinction: the commonly held theoretical model that postulates that the goal of Mahayana practitioners is to become buddhas by following the path of the bodhisattva (bodhisattva-yana), whereas the goal of HTnayana practitioners is to become arahants by following the path of the Hearer or the Buddha's disciples (riavaka-yina). In demonstrating the oversimplifications inherent in this model, this article will investigate the presence and scope of the bodhisattva ideal in Theravada Buddhist theory and practice. By raising issues surrounding the Mahdyana-Hinayana opposition, however, I am not suggesting that distinctions cannot be made between the two vehicles, nor am I proposing to do away with the terms and Hinayana. Rather, in exploring the oversimplifications inherent in the Mahayana-HTnayana dichotomy, it is my intention to replace the theoretical model that identifies (1) Mahayana Buddhism with the bodhisattva-yana and (2) HTnayana Buddhism with the sravakayina with a model that is more representative of the two vehicles. In doing so, the implied purpose of this article, as is John Holt's study of the place and relevance of Avalokiteivara in Sri Lanka, is to raise questions among students of Buddhism regarding the very utility of the terms Mahayana ... and Theravada as designating wholly distinctive religiohistorical constructs' (emphasis added). Before turning to the presence and scope of the bodhisattva ideal in Theravada Buddhism (the only extant school of HTnayana Buddhism), it may be beneficial to investigate briefly the sources that identify the bodhisattva-yana with Mahayana Buddhism and the ?ravaka-yana with HTnayana Buddhism. Instead of looking at how this model is appropriated by scholars of Buddhism, I will turn to the writings of three Mahayana Buddhists in which this bifurcation is suggested. Jeffrey Samuels

Between Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Children and the Production of Knowledge in the Era of Chinese Exclusion

From 1915–1916 there was in Kyoto a trans-national group of Buddhists named the Mahayana Association, which published an English Buddhist periodical, Mahayanist. Two members of the Mahayana Association, William Montgomery McGovern and M. T. Kirby, were among the earliest cases of Westerners ordained in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism in Japan. Kirby explored the temples of Jōdo Shinshū and the monastic life of Rinzai Zen and Theravada Buddhism in search of salvation. McGovern, on the other hand, had been searching for an alternative to Christianity, which he found unscientific and dissatisfying. He finally found Jōdo Shinshū, which he held to be the essence of Mahayana Buddhism. His understanding of Buddhism was influenced by D. T. Suzuki's version of Mahayana Buddhism. Utsuki Nishu, who helped McGovern and Kirby run the Association, joined the Theosophical Society (Adyar, India) while he was studying at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles and later helped Beatrice Suzuki run the Mahayana Lodge of the Theosophical Society. Drawing on forgotten documents discovered only recently in a Japanese temple, this paper offers a progress report on research into these documents and explores a significant but hitherto unknown side of the history of modern Japanese Buddhism.

This chapter explores Buddhist practice in Southeast Asia, with a focus on practice in the Theravada branch of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The first half surveys the religio-historical geography of Southeast Asia and contemporary practices found in Theravada Buddhist cultures. The second half then explores important issues in the study of Theravada Buddhist practice, including the appropriateness of the term “Theravada,” the relationship between Theravada Buddhism and other religious practices, “Tantric Theravada,” and the encounter between Theravada Buddhism and modernity. This inquiry into Southeast Asian Buddhist practice is situated within a theoretical framework that recognizes the distortion that has been wrought for many years by a modernist construction of the Buddhist tradition that conflates “Theravada Buddhism” with “early Buddhism.”

This article discusses Chinese ethnic culture in Lilin Ong business in Tanah Gocap, Tangerang. The author uses qualitative research methods, namely collecting data from the library, as well as observations and interviews with the owner of Lilin "Ong", namely Mr Antonius. Chinese New Year candles are a work of Chinese ethnicity which is considered a characteristic of cultural traditions and shows Chinese identity in Indonesia. Apart from that, the author also explains the Chinese business culture that Lilin Ong maintains. When carrying out ceremonies in Chinese cultural traditions, food is always offered, and candles are needed to perform the prayer.

The 2006 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesWashington, DC, November 17–18, 2006 Frances S. Adeney, Secretary The theme of this year's meeting was "Religious Self-Fashioning and the Role of Community in Contemporary Buddhist and Christian Practice." The first session presented participants with three papers. The first compared Christian and Buddhist groups that fostered community and long-term commitment. A second paper developed the theme of community affiliation with a description of the Buddhist practice of Hoza. And a third paper demonstrated how a dual practitioner could minister pastorally to both Buddhists and Christians. In the second session practical and philosophical foci met in the discussion of papers on individualized vs. Sangha Buddhism in the United States and co-origination and universal intersubjectivity in Buddhist and Christian philosophies. It was a rich feast indeed. Dr. Sandra Costen Kunz presented her paper "Christian and Buddhist Confession, Affiliation, and Countercultural Action" to start off the first session. In a study of Christian and Buddhist groups, she found interesting methodological parallels in the process that groups undertook to build commitment and community among followers of each tradition. Focused on specific congregations, her paper served to illustrate a trend toward community building that has broad implications for both Buddhist and Christian institutions in their work of fostering commitment and nurturing faith in participants. Dr. Gene Reeves continued along the same theme with a description of the Buddhist practice of Hoza in his particular Buddhist community in Japan. A weekly practice of meeting together to help one another demonstrates a deeper philosophical belief that all can become bodhisattvas for others. Within the hierarchical Buddhist institutional structure, the meetings around Hoza display an egalitarianism that empowers ordinary people to see the Buddha nature in others and to realize it in themselves. In addition to empowering individuals, that process of mutual aid also solidifies the group. According to both papers, individual practice of religion, be it Buddhist or [End Page 133] Christian, and a group process of social solidification work together to deepen faith and community. The third paper in this first session showed the results of that individual/ social dialectic in the life of Dr. Duane Bidwell, who presented his paper "Practicing the Religious Self: Buddhist-Christian Identity as Social Artifact." The main emphasis of this paper was that religion, as a socially constructed reality, depends on community even in its most individualistic forms. As Buddhism and Christianity develop their traditions, those socially constructed worlds can be penetrated by one who traverses between the two worlds. Two stories of pastoral care demonstrated his point. First, in a Buddhist setting, Bidwell, although perceived as a Christian, drew on his Buddhist practices to comfort the dying. In the second example, the situation was reversed. In a setting in which Christianity was the expected form, Bidwell drew on those resources to worship around the deathbed of a young man. In her response to those three papers, Dr. Sallie King brought a critical dimension into the discourse as she asked questions concerning authority and decision making in each context. "How is consensus decision making balanced with hierarchical power in the groups studied?" she asked Dr. Kunz. "Given the equalizing power of Hoza, why is Reeves's organization so hierarchical?" was her question to Dr. Reeves. "And how," she asked, "did choice enter into Bidwell's religious identity?" Responses to those queries led to an interesting discussion that provided food for thought for participants in this meeting. The second session opened with Dr. Kenneth Tanaka's study "The Individual in Relation to the Sangha in American Buddhism: An Examination of 'Individualized Religion.' " Dr. Tanaka spoke to both communal and individualized dimensions of American Buddhism by analyzing a sangha in Alameda County, California, and contrasted it with the Buddhist practices of converts who did not participate in a sangha. He showed that identity for sangha members in Alameda was primarily related to selective joining of group activities by members. In the case of converts, his research showed that their Buddhist identity was most strongly related to meditative practices. A high level of commitment to those practices, with a goal of spiritual development, marked the converts who were...

This paper highlights the dilemma of Chinese diaspora in Indonesian nation-building with stressing on the impact of globalization on their search of national identity and citizenship. Since colonial period during which ethnic Chinese migrated from China to Indonesia, Chinese diasporas have been facing problems of identity in Indonesia. During Suharto's New Order government (1966-1998), assimilation policies were imposed to ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. However, it was difficult for Chinese Indonesians to assimilate with other ethnics in Indonesia, because either they felt as non-indigenous or others accused them of having too much power in economic sector. Although the Indonesian government has dismissed all regulations that differentiate Chinese Indonesians after the fall of Suharto, but new problem appears when ethnic Chinese participate in political arena. For instance, there was resistance from certain groups when a Chinese figure, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, run for Jakarta's gubernatorial election in 2017. The Chinese Indonesians' initiatives to get more involved in Indonesian nation-building are challenged by the public perception that they prefer to put loyalty to China than to Indonesia. This perception affects dilemma for Chinese Indonesians to embrace between Chinese national identity and Indonesian citizenship. This paper, therefore, raises a question of what approach that Chinese Indonesians apply to deal with the dilemma. Regarding that globalization has facilitated migration of Chinese diasporas from China to Indonesia and maintaining their strong ties with their homeland, we employ conceptual framework of the relationship between globalization and identity and its impacts on nationhood and citizenship. Their relationship could be explained through three perspectives: (1) differentialism, (2) convergence, and (3) hybridization. We argue that Chinese Indonesians meet a dilemma between national identity and citizenship in the process of Indonesian nation-building, and they respond the dilemma by mixing Chinese cultures and Indonesian cultures to shape hybrid identities. They apply the cultural hybridization approach to be recognized as Indonesian citizen while remaining embrace Chinese cultures.

Buddhism is based on the concept of Ahimsa. The founder of Buddhism was Lord Buddha who came during 563-483 BCE. Before him Lord Mahavira and Hinduism also practiced Ahimsa non-violence. The non-violence leads to the rights of living and non-living thing. It is dividing as Jiva and Ajiva in Buddhism. The concept of non-violence leads to the no harm towards animals and it leads to the vegetarianism. But there are two traditions of Buddhism. They are Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. One is very strict towards the vegetarianism, and other one is quite relax because of the circumstances. The both traditions are present in modern days China, Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Burma and other South Asian countries which are Buddhist. Theravada Buddhist monks promote the concept of Pure Meat and give some conditions about it if they fulfill those conditions then they can consume that meat. The main condition is if the weather condition of that area can-not helps them like in mountainous areas etc. But Mahayana Buddhists are very strict to their concept of Vegetarianism. They never consume meat at any cost. They won’t accept any kind of meat even if it is given to them in form of charity or any other ways. Keywords: Ahimsa, Buddhism, Animal Rights, Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Vegetarianism

Buddhism is based on the concept of Ahimsa. The founder of Buddhism was Lord Buddha who came during 563-483 BCE. Before him Lord Mahavira and Hinduism also practiced Ahimsa non-violence. The non-violence leads to the rights of living and non-living thing. It is dividing as Jiva and Ajiva in Buddhism. The concept of non-violence leads to the no harm towards animals and it leads to the vegetarianism. But there are two traditions of Buddhism. They are Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. One is very strict towards the vegetarianism, and other one is quite relax because of the circumstances. The both traditions are present in modern days China, Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Burma and other South Asian countries which are Buddhist. Theravada Buddhist monks promote the concept of Pure Meat and give some conditions about it if they fulfill those conditions then they can consume that meat. The main condition is if the weather condition of that area can-not helps them like in mountainous areas etc. But Mahayana Buddhists are very strict to their concept of Vegetarianism. They never consume meat at any cost. They won’t accept any kind of meat even if it is given to them in form of charity or any other ways. Keywords: Ahimsa, Buddhism, Animal Rights, Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Vegetarianism

Survey results of this study have showed that: The Chinese new immigrants in Bangkok have a consistency on ethnic identity; they all agree that they are Chinese. However, on the national identity and cultural identity, the identity of them has multi-tendency. There are 45.29% respondents identify China, 30.63% respondents identify Thailand, and 24.08% respondents identify both China and Thailand. The degree of identifying China of them has declined with the increase of their settlement years in Bangkok; however, their degree of identifying Thailand has increased with the increase of settlement years in Bangkok. The cultural identity is very complicated, they are increasingly accepting and identifying Thai culture with the increase of their settlement years in Bangkok; however, they did not deny or abandon Chinese culture, lots of people still identify Chinese culture. Especially in the identity of traditional culture, in general, the degree of identifying Chinese traditional culture of them has declined with the increase of their settlement years in Bangkok; however, the proportion of people who identify Chinese traditional culture is still much higher than people who identify Thai traditional culture.

From at least the third century b.c. , Buddhist ritual focused on stupas , stylized replicas of the mounds of earth in which early Buddhists interred relics of the Buddha. Beginning in the first century b.c. , Buddhist monks in western India began manipulating the physical shape of monastic stupas to make them appear taller and more massive than they actually were. Buddhist monks used these manipulations to help assert authority over the Buddhist laity. Employing theories of practice, materiality, and semiotics, I argue that physical manipulations of the shape of stupas by Buddhist monks led to the progressive detachment of the primary signs of Buddhism from their original referents. Where earlier stupas were icons and indexes of the Buddha encased within indexes of his presence, later stupas were symbols of the Buddha and Buddhist theology. This change in the material practice of Buddhism reduced stupas ’ emotional immediacy in favor of greater intellectual detachment. In the end, this shift in the meaning ascribed to stupas created the preconditions from which the Buddhist image cult and Mahayana Buddhism emerged in the first through fifth centuries a.d . The development of Mahayana Buddhism and Buddha images signified a return to iconic worship of the Buddha.

Introduction In the elite space of Haute Couture, fashion is presented through a theatrical array of dynamics—the engagement of specific bodies performing for select audiences in highly curated spaces. Each element is both very precise in its objectives and carefully selected for impact. In this way, the production of Haute Couture makes itself accessible to only a few select members of society. Globally, there are only an estimated 4,000 direct consumers of Haute Couture (Hendrik). Given this limited market, the work of elite couturiers relies on other forms of artistic media, namely film, photography, and increasingly, museum spaces, to reach broader audiences who are then enabled to participate in the fashion ‘space’ via a process of visual consumption. For these audiences, Haute Couture is less about material consumption than it is about the aspirational consumption and contestation of notions of identity. This article uses qualitative textual analysis and draws on semiotic theory to explore symbolism and values in Haute Couture. Semiotics, an approach popularised by the work of Roland Barthes, examines signifiers as elements of the construction of metalanguage and myth. Barthes recognised a broad understanding of language that extended beyond oral and written forms. He acknowledged that a photograph or artefact may also constitute “a kind of speech” (111). Similarly, fashion can be seen as both an important signifier and mode of communication. The model of fashion as communication is one extensively explored within culture studies (e.g. Hall; Lurie). Much of the discussion of semiotics in this literature is predicated on sender/receiver models. These models conceive of fashion as the mechanism through which individual senders communicate to another individual or to collective (and largely passive) audiences (Barnard). Yet, fashion is not a unidirectional form of communication. It can be seen as a dialogical and discursive space of encounter and contestation. To understand the role of Haute Couture as a contested space of identity and socio-political discourse, this article examines the work of Chinese couturier Guo Pei. An artisan such as Guo Pei places the results of needle and thread into spaces of the theatrical, the spectacular, and, significantly, the powerfully socio-political. Guo Pei’s contributions to Haute Couture are extravagant, fantastical productions that also serve as spaces of socio-cultural information exchange and debate. Guo Pei’s creations bring together political history, memory, and fantasy. Here we explore the socio-cultural and political semiotics that emerge when the humble stitch is dramatically amplified onto the Haute Couture runway. We argue that Guo Pei’s work speaks not only to a cultural imaginary but also to the contested nature of gender and socio-political authority in contemporary China. The Politicisation of Fashion in China The majority of literature regarding Chinese fashion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has focussed on the use of fashion to communicate socio-political messages (Finnane). This is most clearly seen in analyses of the connections between dress and egalitarian ideals during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. As Zhang (952-952) notes, revolutionary fashion emphasised simplicity, frugality, and homogenisation. It rejected style choices that reflected both traditional Chinese and Western fashions. In Mao’s China, fashion was utilised by the state and adopted by the populace as a means of reinforcing the regime’s ideological orientations. For example, the ubiquitous Mao suit, worn by both men and women during the Cultural Revolution “was intended not merely as a unisex garment but a means to deemphasise gender altogether” (Feng 79). The Maoist regime’s intention to create a type of social equality through sartorial homogenisation was clear. Reflecting on the ways in which fashion both responded to and shaped women’s positionality, Mao stated, “women are regarded as criminals to begin with, and tall buns and long skirts are the instruments of torture applied to them by men. There is also their facial makeup, which is the brand of the criminal, the jewellery on their hands, which constitutes shackles and their pierced ears and bound feet which represent corporal punishment” (Mao cited in Finnane 23). Mao’s suit—the homogenising militaristic uniform adopted by many citizens—may have been intended as a mechanism for promoting equality, freeing women from the bonds of gendered oppression and all citizens from visual markers of class. Nonetheless, in practice Maoist fashion and policing of appearance during the Cultural Revolution enforced a politics of amnesia and perversely may have “entailed feminizing the undesirable, by conflating woman, bourgeoisie, and colour while also insisting on a type of gender equality that the belted Mao jacket belied” (Chen 161). In work on cultural transformations in the post-Maoist period, Braester argues that since the late 1980s Chinese cultural products—here taken to include artefacts such as Haute Couture—have similarly been defined by the politics of memory and identity. Evocation of historically important symbols and motifs may serve to impose a form of narrative continuity, connecting the present to the past. Yet, as Braester notes, such strategies may belie stability: “to contemplate memory and forgetting is tantamount to acknowledging the temporal and spatial instability of the post-industrial, globalizing world” (435). In this way, cultural products are not only sites of cultural continuity, but also of contestation. Imperial Dreams of Feminine Power The work of Chinese couturier Guo Pei showcases traditional Chinese embroidery techniques alongside more typically Western fashion design practices as a means of demonstrating not only Haute Couturier craftsmanship but also celebrating Chinese imperial culture through nostalgic fantasies in her contemporary designs. Born in Beijing, in 1967, at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Guo Pei studied fashion at the Beijing Second Light Industry School before working in private and state-owned fashion houses. She eventually moved to establish her own fashion design studio and was recognised as “the designer of choice for high society and the political elite” in China (Yoong 19). Her work was catapulted into Western consciousness when her cape, titled ‘Yellow Empress’ was donned by Rihanna for the 2015 Met Gala. The design was a response to an era in which the colour yellow was forbidden to all but the emperor. In the same year, Guo Pei was named an invited member of La Federation de la Haute Couture, becoming the first and only Chinese-born and trained couturier to receive the honour. Recognition of her work at political and socio-economic levels earned her an award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Economy and Cultural Diplomacy’ by the Asian Couture Federation in 2019. While Maoist fashion influences pursued a vision of gender equality through the ‘unsexing’ of fashion, Guo Pei’s work presents a very different reading of female adornment. One example is her exquisite Snow Queen dress, which draws on imperial motifs in its design. An ensemble of silk, gold embroidery, and Swarovski crystals weighing 50 kilograms, the Snow Queen “characterises Guo Pei’s ideal woman who is noble, resilient and can bear the weight of responsibility” (Yoong 140). In its initial appearance on the Haute Couture runway, the dress was worn by 78-year-old American model, Carmen Dell’Orefice, signalling the equation of age with strength and beauty. Rather than being a site of torture or corporal punishment, as suggested by Mao, the Snow Queen dress positions imagined traditional imperial fashion as a space for celebration and empowerment of the feminine form. The choice of model reinforces this message, while simultaneously contesting global narratives that conflate women’s beauty and physical ability with youthfulness. In this way, fashion can be understood as an intersectional space. On the one hand, Guo Pei's work reinvigorates a particular nostalgic vision of Chinese imperial culture and in doing so pushes back against the socio-political ‘non-fashion’ and uniformity of Maoist dress codes. Yet, on the other hand, positioning her work in the very elite space of Haute Couture serves to reinstate social stratification and class boundaries through the creation of economically inaccessible artefacts: a process that in turn involves the reification and museumification of fashion as material culture. Ideals of femininity, identity, individuality, and the expressions of either creating or dismantling power, are anchored within cultural, social, and temporal landscapes. Benedict Anderson argues that the museumising imagination is “profoundly political” (123). Like sacred texts and maps, fashion as material ephemera evokes and reinforces a sense of continuity and connection to history. Yet, the belonging engendered through engagement with material and imagined pasts is imprecise in its orientation. As much as it is about maintaining threads to an historical past, it is simultaneously an appeal to present possibilities. In his broader analysis, Anderson explores the notion of parallelity, the potentiality not to recreate some geographically or temporally removed place, but to open a space of “living lives parallel …] along the same trajectory” (131). Guo Pei’s creations appeal to a similar museumising imagination. At once, her work evokes both a particular imagined past of imperial grandeur, against instability of the politically shifting present, and appeals to new possibilities of gendered emancipation within that imagined space. Contesting and Complicating East-West Dualism The design process frequently involves borrowing, reinterpretation, and renewal of ideas. The erasure of certain cultural and political aspects of social continuity through the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the socio-political changes thereafter, have created fertile ground for an artist like Guo Pei. Her palimpsest reaches back through time, picks up those cultural threads of extravagance, and projects them wholesale into the spaces of fashion in the present moment. Cognisance of design intentionality and historical and contemporary fashion discourses influence the various interpretations of fashion semiotics. However, there are also audience-created meanings within the various modes of performance and consumption. Where Kaiser and Green assert that “the process of fashion is inevitably linked to making and sustaining as well as resisting and dismantling power” (1), we can also observe that sartorial semiotics can have different meanings at different times. In the documentary, Yellow Is Forbidden, Guo Pei reflects on shifting semiotics in fashion. Speaking with a client, she remarks that “dragons and phoenixes used to represent the Chinese emperor—now they represent the spirit of the Chinese” (Brettkelly). Once a symbol of sacred, individual power, these iconic signifiers now communicate collective national identity. Both playing with and reimagining not only the grandeur of China’s imperial past, but also the particular role of the feminine form and female power therein, Guo Pei’s corpus evokes and complicates such contestations of power. On the one hand, her work serves to contest homogenising narratives of identity and femininity within China. Equally important, however, are the ways in which this work, which is possible both through and in spite of a Euro-American centric system of patronage within the fashion industry, complicates notions of East-West dualism. For Guo Pei, drawing on broadly accessible visual signifiers of Chinese heritage and culture has been critical in bringing attention to her endeavours. Her work draws significantly from her cultural heritage in terms of colour selections and traditional Chinese embroidery techniques. Symbols and motifs peculiar to Chinese culture are abundant: lotus flowers, dragons, phoenixes, auspicious numbers, and favourable Chinese language characters such as buttons in the shape of ‘double happiness’ (囍) are often present in her designs. Likewise, her techniques pay homage to traditional craft work, including Peranakan beading. The parallelity conjured by these choices is deliberate. In staging Guo Pei’s work for museum exhibitions at museums such as the Asian Civilizations Museum, her designs are often showcased beside the historical artefacts that inspired them (Fu). On her Chinese website, Guo Pei, highlights the historical connections between her designs and traditional Chinese embroidery craft through a sub-section of the “Spirit” header, entitled simply, “Inheritance”. These influences and expressions of Chinese culture are, in Guo Pei's own words her “design language” (Brettkelly). However, Guo Pei has also expressed an ambivalence about her positioning as a Chinese designer. She has maintained that she does not want “to be labelled as a Chinese storyteller ... and thinks about a global audience” (Yoong). In her expression of this desire to both derive power through design choices and historically situated practices and symbols, and simultaneously move beyond nationally bounded identity frameworks, Guo Pei positions herself in a space ‘betwixt and between.’ This is not only a space of encounter between East and West, but also a space that calls into question the limits and possibilities of semiotic expression. Authenticity and Legitimacy Global audiences of fashion rely on social devices of diffusion other than the runway: photography, film, museums, and galleries. Unique to Haute Couture, however, is the way in which such processes are often abstracted, decontextualised and pushed to the extremities of theatrical opulence. De Perthuis argues that to remove context “greatly reduce[s] the social, political, psychological and semiotic meanings” of fashion (151). When iconic motifs are utilised, the western gaze risks falling back on essentialising reification of identity. To this extent, for non-Chinese audiences Guo Pei’s works may serve not so much to problemitise historical and contemporary feminine identities and inheritances, so much as project an essentialisation of Chinese femininity. The double-bind created through Guo Pei’s simultaneous appeal to and resistance of archetypical notions of Chinese identity and femininity complicates the semiotic currency of her work. Moreover, Guo Pei’s work highlights tensions concerning understandings of Chinese culture between those in China and the diaspora. In her process of accessing reference material, Guo Pei has necessarily been driven to travel internationally, due to her concerns about a lack of access to material artefacts within China. She has sought out remnants of her ancestral culture in both the Chinese diaspora as well as material culture designed for export (Yoong; Brettkelly). This borrowing of Chinese design as depicted outside of China proper, alongside the use of western influences and patronage in Guo’s work has resulted in her work being dismissed by critics as “superficial … export ware, reimported” (Thurman). The insinuation that her work is derivative is tinged with denigration. Such critiques question not only the authenticity of the motifs and techniques utilised in Guo Pei’s designs, but also the legitimacy of the narratives of both feminine and Chinese identity communicated therein. Questions of cultural ‘authenticity’ serve to deny how culture, both tangible and intangible, is mutable over time and space. In his work on tourism, Taylor suggests that wherever “the production of authenticity is dependent on some act of (re)production, it is conventionally the past which is seen to hold the model of the original” (9). In this way, legitimacy of semiotic communication in works that evoke a temporally distant past is often seen to be adjudicated through notions of fidelity to the past. This authenticity of the ‘traditional’ associates ‘tradition’ with ‘truth’ and ‘authenticity.’ It is itself a form of mythmaking. As Guo Pei’s work is at once quintessentially Chinese and, through its audiences and capitalist modes of circulation, fundamentally Western, it challenges notions of authenticity and legitimacy both within the fashion world and in broader social discourses. Speaking about similar processes in literary fiction, Colavincenzo notes that works that attempt to “take on the myth of historical discourse and practice … expose the ways in which this discourse is constructed and how it fails to meet the various claims it makes for itself” (143). Rather than reinforcing imagined ‘truths’, appeals to an historical imagination such as that deployed by Guo Pei reveal its contingency. Conclusion In Fashion in Altermodern China, Feng suggests that we can “understand the sartorial as situating a set of visible codes and structures of meaning” (1). More than a reductionistic process of sender/receiver communication, fashion is profoundly embedded with intersectional dialogues. It is not the precision of signifiers, but their instability, fluidity, and mutability that is revealing. Guo Pei’s work offers narratives at the junction of Chinese and foreign, original and derivative, mythical and historical that have an unsettled nature. This ineffable tension between construction and deconstruction draws in both fashion creators and audiences. Whether encountering fashion on the runway, in museum cabinets, or on magazine pages, all renditions rely on its audience to engage with processes of imagination, fantasy, and memory as the first step of comprehending the semiotic languages of cloth.

Theravada Buddhism, also known as Southern Buddhism or Hinayana Buddhism, significantly influences the Dai ethnic group in China, primarily in the border regions of Xishuangbanna, Dehong, Pu'er, Lincang, and Baoshan. Although the precise timing of Theravada Buddhism's introduction to Dai society is debated, it is generally accepted that by the 5th century AD, it had reached Xishuangbanna. The 6th century marked its difficult establishment period, while the 7th and 8th centuries saw its consolidation and development among the Dai. Over its historical evolution, Theravada Buddhism has shown remarkable adaptability, integrating deeply with Dai traditional culture and becoming central to their social and cultural life. Theravada Buddhism permeates various aspects of the Dai people's daily lives, profoundly shaping their values and behaviors. For the Dai in border regions, it serves as a moral foundation and reinforces societal cohesion, contributing to the stability of Dai society. This religion affects not only the Dai but also other ethnic groups in the region, such as the Blang, De'ang, Achang, Wa, and Yi, who share similar religious and cultural practices. Understanding the relationship between Theravada Buddhism and the cultivation of Chinese national community consciousness is crucial for maintaining social stability and promoting ethnic unity in these border areas.

The primary aim of this article is to outline the Buddhist idea of a pure, luminous mind. First, the conception of a “luminous mind” (pabhassara citta) from the Pāḷi Nikāyas is considered. Two functions ascribed to this idea are examined: its soteriological role, i.e. pure mind as a enlightenment-enabling factor, and its role as a “link” between consecutive saṃsāric existences. Next comes the examination of the Theravāda idea of bhavaṅga, which is seen as being related to the pure mind in its diachronic function. Main part of the article deals with combining the notion of a pure mind with mahāyāna Buddhism by showing the role of the “innate mind” (cittaprakṛti) in tathāgatagarbha tradition.