Jens Reinke - Mapping Modern Mahayana: Chinese Buddhism and Migration in the Age of Global Modernity

Dedicated to the memory of Yeh Wu Su-Zhu

It would be impossible to name all those who have supported me during the process of writing this book, but let me nevertheless list some who have been particularly important in making it happen. First and foremost, I am grateful to Fo Guang Shan for permitting me to conduct in-depth ethnographic research at the orders temples and practice centres in Taiwan, the USA, South Africa, and the PRC. I am indebted to all the orders monastics and lay supporters who so generously offered me their valuable insights into the orders global development. I owe too many of them a debt of gratitude and it would be impossible to name them all. I am particularly grateful to Ven. Huifang , Ven. Huidong , Ven Miaoguang , Ven. Miaoshiang , Ven. Miaoyi , Ven. Miaomin , and Matt Orsborne. I also want to express my gratitude to Jane Iwamura, Victor Gabriel, and Vanessa Karam at the University of the West for their invaluable advice and encouragement.

This book is based on my doctoral thesis written at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199: Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition at Leipzig University. I would especially like to thank the centre for so generously providing the funding for the research for this book, which allowed me to carry out fieldwork on four continents. Most of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Philip Clart, without whose continuous support I would have not been able to complete this book. I am very grateful for his invaluable advice and feedback. His patient guidance has helped me not only through the process of writing up but also during my time in the field. His kind and ever constructive attitude towards all his students is a quality I would like to emulate in the future. Furthermore, I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my second advisor Andr Lalibert. His singular perspective, which examines modern Taiwanese Buddhism within the broader political and societal context of East Asia, had been a source of inspiration long before I met him in person. I benefited immensely from our conversations during his time in Leipzig.

If it were not for the training I received at the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies at National Chengchi University , I would never have been able to properly research Taiwanese religiosities. A special thank you goes to my MA advisor Li Yu-chen , who taught me not only most of what I know about Chinese Buddhism but also even more importantly the subtleties of conducting ethnographic research in the field. A sincere thank you goes to my MA dissertation committee members Chen Chien-huang and Hsieh Shu-wei for their invaluable advice on my thesis, but also for all I have learned from them about the history of Chinese religions. I very much regret that the late Tsai Yan-zen did not live to see this book completed; he was a wonderful teacher. I am also very grateful to Tsai Yuan-lin , who taught one of the first classes I took at National Chengchi University. His class on religion and globalization was inspirational, and I am still in the field. While at Chengchi University, I also had the opportunity to meet Miriam Levering and her late partner Mary E. Donovan. I miss our excursions into the culinary worlds of northern Taiwan. Furthermore, I want to express my deep thanks to Huang Hou-min from the Sociology Department at National Chengchi University , who, through his demanding yet inspirational teaching style, conveyed to me the foundations of sociological theory.