This panel includes four individual papers that shed new light on the study of contemporary Buddhist monasticism from the perspectives of managing Buddhist financial institutions, monastic attitudes toward the physical body and pain, challenges in the full ordination of Buddhist nuns, and contemporary Buddhist educational institutions as emotional communities.
In 1997, Shasana Rakkhit Bhikkhu, a Bangladeshi Buddhist monk, established a bank named the Buddhist Co-operative Credit Union Limited (BCCUL). A Buddhist monk being the head of a financial organization radically challenged the common perception of Buddhist monks being detached from worldly affairs. Initially, the BCCUL aimed to help 20 poverty-stricken people. Now, it has expanded to over 23,000 members, transcending religious boundaries and promoting trust among Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. Shasana Rakkhit Bhikkhu’s daily routine resembles that of a corporate executive as he manages his many initiatives which include organizing ordination ceremonies, leading meditation retreats, undertaking housing projects, founding a Buddhist art academy, and establishing a beauty salon academy for Buddhist women. While these endeavours challenge traditional notions of monasticism, they also provoke controversy and backlash from proponents of a more orthodox approach. Despite this, his multifaceted activities blend spiritual insight with commercial acumen, empowering Bangladeshi Buddhists and nurturing interreligious harmony.
This study seeks to understand how a Buddhist monk effectively manages a financial organization, how his initiatives contribute to community development across religious traditions, and how these initiatives challenge or expand the traditional role of Buddhist monasticism.
Buddhist monastics across Asia have long been held in esteem by their community of lay adherents, are frequently the recipient of material support as "fields of merit", and are given an elevated social status as advanced spiritual practitioners and clergy who perform important rituals. This paper looks at ways in which Buddhist monastics affirm that difference through their attitude toward the physical body. Are Buddhist monastics made different through their practices of ignoring the body, and how is that manifested in their responses to physical pain? As a lens through which religious transformation can be understood, pain can lead to both suffering and liberation, functioning as both an obstacle and a teacher along the spiritual path. My ethnographic research focuses on the Xiangguang or "Luminary" bhikshunis in southern Taiwan and their strategies of resilience, exploring what it tells us about Buddhist understandings of transcendence and the purpose of monastic life.
Eight Tibetan Buddhist women became fully ordained nuns (Tib. *dge slong ma*) in the 1980s in Hong Kong. The topic of this paper is how differences in ordination procedures create unique challenges for the identity of *gelongmas* living and practicing Tibetan Buddhism in India. Drawing from fieldwork in a nunnery and teaching institution in the northwestern Himalayan region, this paper features two *gelongmas* who have held vows for nearly forty years. They share their distinct experiences and innovative understanding of their identities as *gelongmas*–one who narrates inclusion and the other exclusion. Their experiences of identity and difference provide a lens into the authoritative claims about who counts as a *gelongma*. This presentation explores the possibilities and limitations in their everyday lives and argues that more attention be paid to the plurality of ordination practices in order to better understand how the parameters of *gelongma* ordination remain subject to scrutiny.