Prominent Nuns: Influential Taiwanese Voices

Abstract

Prominent Nuns: Influential Taiwanese Voices Jennifer Eichman In recent times, scholars have certainly taken note of the burgeoning ranks of well‐educated Taiwanese nuns. From the 1960s onward, the Taiwanese nuns community slowly shed its image as a vocation of the undereducated, disaffected, and lovelorn. In the last thirty years, college‐educated women have swelled the ranks of well‐established Buddhist monasteries and also instituted their own female enclaves. These nuns have garnered the respect of the larger society and made numerous contributions to Taiwanese social welfare, environmental protection, Buddhist education, and many other areas of social and spiritual life. The more prominent voices in this very fertile landscape have created transnational networks, increasing their global reach. As Elise DeVido has rightly pointed out, the phenomenal success of these nuns is unprecedented in the Mahayana diaspora including Korea, Japan, and Mainland China. Theravada and Tibetan communities too have yet to nurture female talent in the same sustained way.1 In this article, I will make passing reference to the contributions of numerous talented Taiwanese nuns, while largely focusing on the work of four extraordinary individuals. They range from conservative to radically other and from studiously reflective to kinetically active. The most internationally prominent Taiwanese nun, Cheng Yen (1937‐), focuses almost exclusively on “doing religion” through charitable activities, while the nuns Kuan Ch’ien (1956‐), Wu Yin (1940‐), and others have made it their mission to improve the doctrinal sophistication of the sangha through education. Cheng Yen, Kuan Ch’ien, and the more politically active nun Chao Hwei (1965‐), all represent a new movement in the propagation of Taiwanese/Chinese Buddhist doctrine and practice.2 At times their approaches and organizations have been criticized, yet all three remain well within the range of contemporary normative practices. Not so for the fourth individual. Ching Hai (1950‐) was tonsured in Taiwan and for a brief time she shaved her head and wore traditional monastic robes. However, she soon struck out on her own, developing what to some is Buddhist heresy and to others a new age religious organization. Without the strong financial backing and spiritual commitment of her large and loyal Taiwanese base, Ching Hai could not have severed all ties to Taiwanese Buddhist organizations and proceeded to transmit her own unique vision, let alone create an extensive global network. For this reason, I have chosen to include her here. New religious offshoots, even when they are roundly condemned by their incubating organizations, provide some comparative perspective on both what constitutes the norm and what kinds of spiritual experimentation we might expect to see from other intrepid religious innovators. These four voices represent a range of approaches to Buddhist modernization that capitalized on Taiwan’s economic advancement, female education, and democratization. The out migration of highly educated Taiwanese has been an equally indispensable factor in the ability of Taiwanese‐based Buddhist organizations to create transnational networks, build temples overseas, and increase their presence in a global spiritual marketplace. Recent immigrants lend their manpower and knowledge of local laws while major Taiwanese Buddhist institutions send financial support and monastic expertise. Many institutions have also sent nuns to run these centers, thereby increasing their international visibility and educational opportunities. Refocusing the tradition: Buddhism for the here‐and‐now The twentieth century brought with it political, economic, and religious turmoil greatly hindering the ability of Mainland China Buddhist organizations to survive let alone forge creative responses to modernity.3 This was especially so after the Communist takeover in 1949. Since the beginning of the 1982 Reform Era, Mainland Chinese have begun to revive their Buddhist institutions, yet despite the presence in Mainland China of historically famous Buddhist monasteries, these institutions have yet to achieve the global reach of such Taiwanese organizations as Compassion Relief, Dharma Drum, or Buddha’s Light whose transnational networks are continually expanding operations and centers in the West and around the world.4 In past centuries, Taiwan was a peripheral outpost that hardly warranted a dot on the map of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims and spiritual seekers. At the present moment, Taiwanese Buddhist organizations are enjoying an unprecedented newfound prominence. Compassion Relief has turned Hualian, Taiwan, into a desirable pilgrimage destination; for those...