Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell.
摘要
Founded in Taiwan in 1989, the Modern Chan Society was a community of lay Buddhists that challenged monks’ religious privileges and put forward the idea of 7equality between monks and lay believers. It asserted an independent authority from that of the monasteries in managing “salvation goods” and accordingly recruited its own clergy. In tracing the history of the Modern Chan Society, this article assesses some logics at work in the filed of Chinese Buddhism: it concerns the role of the prophet in symbolic power, the conditions governing the emergence of a prophet, the legitimization of religious reforms in modern practice and the paradox of institutionalisation.
目次
Li Yuansong, founder of the Modern Chan Society, an exemplary prophet 57 Li Yuansong's criticism of the traditional Buddhist world 58 The doctrine of Modern Chan 59 The grouping of the Modern Chan Society: the creation of a lay Sangha 60 Sangha of Bodhisattvas: the ideal identity of the Modern Chan Society 60 The structure of the clergy of the Modern Chan Society 61 The development of the organisation 62 The Modern Chan Society sounds the retreat 62 Some logisc in the filed of modern Chinese Buddhism 63 A clergy of lay Buddhists cannot exist without a prophet endowed with the virtue of saintliness 64 In Chinese Buddhism, Chan is a favourable school for the emergence of a prophet 64 Modern secular valurs can legitimise religious innovation 64 The new religious community confronted bu the paradox of institutionalisation 65
