Koreatown; Los Angeles; California; Gender; Subjectivity
摘要
This study explores the relationship between Buddhist doctrines, practices and the development of subjectivity and self-esteem. Taking an ethnographic person-centered approach, I examine how Buddhist teachings of self-awakening and self-understanding, defined as “finding one's mind” and “knowing one's mind,” lead to the development of a positive sense of self in response to experiences of personal dislocation. Through a detailed study of a contemporary Korean American Buddhist temple in Los Angeles, I show how Buddhism serves as a source of empowerment and agency for immigrants in a new cultural context. Rather than treating lay Buddhist worship as motivated solely by future-oriented goals of a better rebirth, and/or enlightenment, the ethnographic religious biographies presented in this study indicate that much of lay worship centers on effecting change in the present by offering practical and spiritual relief from a myriad of everyday troubles.
Based on data collected over two years of research consisting of participant-observation, on-site participation, survey data, field notes and in-depth interviews with twenty-five men and twenty-five women, I present the first detailed examination of the lives and experiences of Korean American lay Buddhists. This study offers a detailed account of how Buddhist worship and doctrines enable women and men to cope with relationship discord, gender hierarchies, changes in economic and social status, loneliness and discrimination, experiences often heightened by the process of immigration. Central to this study is an examination of the gendered interpretations of religion which result in highly distinct male and female forms of Buddhist worship and equally gendered constructions of self-esteem. In this work, I illustrate how men and women develop subjectivity through religion in the contexts of psychological healing, marital relationships, adjustments to immigrant life, and racial and religious minority status. In an attempt to reconcile troubling life events and increase self-esteem, Korean American Buddhist men and women turn to religion in order to “find” and “know” themselves, a process of self-transformation based on the discovery of individual agency to enact change in the present.
