Contemporary Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2019. xi, 218 pp. (B&W photos.) US$65.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-6984-7.
Discussions of religious practice in contemporary Tibet often centre on the influence of the Chinese state, situating official policies as the dominant force driving changes in Buddhist practice. Depending on one’s political views, state religious policies may be presented as a negative influence that suppresses religious vitality, or a positive one helping Buddhism to modernize. In either view, however, changes in religious practice are presented as a response to the overwhelming influence of the state. It is precisely this view that Jane E. Caple seeks to question in her excellent Morality and Monastic Revival in Post-Mao Tibet.
To do this, Caple focusses on the changing practices of Geluk monasticism in Amdo, announcing at the outset that “this book questions the extent to which monastic revival and development have been shaped by the shifting public space for religion and the state-society relationship” (3). Based on her extensive fieldwork, Caple argues that while state policy does have a role in shaping the changing patterns of Geluk monasticism in Amdo, other forces are at play as well. In particular, debates and interactions among monastics and lay Tibetans themselves have led to shifting ideas about what it means to be a good monk or a respectable monastery. And while state policy can govern how these shifting ideals can be implemented, it has little force in shaping the development of the ideals themselves. As Caple puts it in her conclusion, “state-imposed ‘walls’ and ‘paths’ have little moral force. The ethical contours of the terrain that monks have been negotiating (in both senses) has shifted less through state-monastery interactions than through local, translocal, and transnational exchanges of ideas and practices within the moral communities with which monks identify and with which they therefore share common values” (158).
In building towards this conclusion, Caple structures her book around a series of specific issues. Her first chapter focusses on the post-Mao revival of monasticism in Amdo. Caple notes that while the state is ever-present in accounts of the destruction of monasticism during the Maoist years, it is largely absent in local narratives of the post-Mao revival. Rather than locating the roots of this revival in the relaxing of state religious policies, her interlocutors claimed (quite rightly) that credit should be given to their own efforts to rebuild monasteries and support monks and lamas (29). Building on this narrative of Tibetan agency, Caple’s second chapter examines monastic reforms, especially those used to achieve financial self-sufficiency. Particularly telling in this regard are the debates surrounding alms rounds. In the early years of the post-Mao revival, many monasteries reinstated the traditional practice of sending representatives to collect alms from villages. By 2009, however, members of the relevant communities (both monastic and lay) came to understand such alms rounds as somewhat coercive—and therefore immoral—and had abandoned them (39). It was this shift in moral understanding, rather than state policy, that these monks understood to be the driving factor behind the cessation of formal alms rounds (54).
Caple’s third chapter focusses on the question of tourism in monastic spaces. At the outset, she notes that one might expect that the state’s interest in the economic benefits of tourism would overlap with monastic interest in spreading Buddhism. In practice, however, Caple identifies two particular concerns with tourism: that the state would assume control and that monastic spaces would become simply an aesthetic space rather than a venue for rigorous study and practice (72). Both of these concerns are exemplified by Kumbum Monastery, which has been successful at attracting tourism and state funding, but which has also, in the perspective of Caple’s interlocutors, failed to create a community of good, scholarly monks (86). Having looked at tourism, chapter 4 addresses the question of monastic development more broadly. In some ways, this chapter builds on chapter 2, but rather than alms rounds, Caple now turns her attention to other forms of monastic fundraising, particularly stores and other monastery-run businesses. As Caple notes, such business projects have been a site of moral debate, with concerns about monastic involvement in business set against institutional needs to be self-sufficient.
Chapters 5 and 6 address demographic questions. Chapter 5 focusses on one of the most pressing questions facing Tibetan monasticism: recruitment and retention. Caple notes that a decline in typical family size means that fewer young men are sent to monasteries by their families (128). This is compounded by an increasing number of monks disrobing, despite the social stigma of being a lapsed monk (135). Those monasteries that are successful in attracting and retaining monks, Caple suggests, share three qualities: a strong local reputation, high standards in discipline and scholarship, and a charismatic head lama (140). These difficulties are further complicated by shifting popular attitudes towards the entire project of mass monasticism, changes which are the subject of chapter 6. By the time of her fieldwork in 2009, some interlocutors felt there were too many monks, and that there should be fewer monks but of higher quality (149).
Caple concludes her work in chapter 7, returning the focus to theoretical questions about the role of the state in shaping the changing landscape of Tibetan monasticism. Drawing on the material presented throughout the book, Caple argues—persuasively, to my mind—that state policy carries little moral force in Tibetan communities. Thus, while the state certainly does have some influence on the direction taken by Tibetan monastic communities, it does not figure strongly in the moral debates that shape changes in the practice of monasticism.
As should be clear by now, I found Morality and Monastic Revival in Post-Mao Tibet to be well-researched, well-written, quite interesting, and fundamentally persuasive. It has certainly influenced my thinking about the Tibetan monastic communities that I am connected to. Further, Caple’s skillful and clear chapter organization means that scholars interested in particular aspects of contemporary Tibet (tourism, for example) can easily dive into the relevant chapters. In fact, I have very few complaints about the book and those that I do have are either too minor to mention (we can all find fault with anything if we look hard enough) or unfair (I would have loved to have seen some discussion of the role of Yachen Gar and Larung Gar, the massive Nyingma-affiliated monastic centres in Kham, though I fully recognize that these institutions are outside Caple’s sectarian and geographical scope). Overall, this book should be virtually required reading for those interested in contemporary Tibetan monasticism, and I strongly recommend it for those interested in contemporary Tibetan religion more broadly.
Geoffrey Barstow
Oregon State University, Corvallis