Richard A. O'Connor is Biehl Professor of International Studies and Anthropology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He received his PhD in anthropology at Cornell University PhD in 1978. Address: University of the South, 735 University Avenue Sewanee, TN 37383, USA. E-mail:
關鍵詞
Ethnology; Buddhism; Religion; Preaching; Magical Thinking; Buddhist Sermons
摘要
Our panel's papers show a Buddhism alert to the moment and attuned to local realities. Culture by culture, our panellists capture Buddhism as a living tradition. Invaluable as these ethnographic insights are, seeing Buddhism's larger, enduring culture requires ethnology. In this wider perspective, set alongside Christianity and Islam, sermons distinguish world religions from indigenous religiosities that need no explanation. Over millennia, by preaching, world religions preserve the founder's practice and words, turn clerics to teaching rather than just dispensing sacraments, and protect a highly sophisticated moral understanding of everyday life from dissolving into the spontaneous spirituality and magical thinking that day-to-day living breeds.
目次
The ethnographic answer 142 Hearing voices 143 Ethnography’s limits 144 The historical big picture 144 Conclusion 146 References 146
