Resilience in Exile: Tibetan Buddhist Adaptations in the Post-Pandemic World

Journal of Global Buddhism, 2024

This article examines how Tibetan Buddhist teachers’ and communities’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have facilitated the contemporary global transmission of this tradition. Based upon fifteen months of ethnographic research in Taiwan, I examine how one community, the Bhumang Nyiöling Buddhist Society, was introduced to and adopted practices to the deity Parṇaśavarī, a protectress against pandemic illnesses, in response to COVID-19. Drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari, I introduce the concepts of spiritual deterritorialization and reterritorialization to describe the processes whereby divinities in the Buddhist cosmos are unbound from specific geographies and expand their intercessory powers across new contexts. I argue that the introduction of Parṇaśavarī practices to the Bhumang Nyiöling community during the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a vibrant example of how processes of spiritual deterritorialization and reterritorialization can play a powerful role in the broader transmission of Tibetan Buddhism globally, particularly when catalyzed by critical moments of crisis.

Religious Fundamentalism in the Age of Pandemic; Nina Käsehage (ed.)., 2021

This paper aims at analyzing how the Covid-19 (2020) crisis has been treated by leading Tibetan teachers in the global media. First, an introduction to Buddhist notions related to sickness both at the individual and collective levels is provided, followed by a detailed account of the public pronouncements up to early August 2020 of the leading teachers of the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The paper tries to show how Tibetan Buddhists’ response is characterized by an appeal to an external compliance with the authorities, and an internal plural interpretation that reflects a common tension between a symbolic and a transcendental construal of religious categories. It also attempts to provide interpretative keys for the lack of a successful fundamentalist or millennialist reaction while pointing to the particular suitability of Buddhism to accommodate to the crisis.

2020

A forthcoming chapter (2020) examining the impact of Covid-19 on religious life in Asia, with a special focus on Buddhism in Sri Lanka. This is a draft. Final version will be linked when available. See: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/covid-19-in-asia-9780197553831?cc=nz&lang=en&#

Gerke, Barbara. 2020. "Thinking through complex webs of potency. Early Tibetan medical responses to the emerging coronavirus epidemic: Notes from a field visit to Dharamsala, India." Medicine Anthropology Theory 7 (1):188-209. doi: https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.7.1.789.

The epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been in the headlines since December 2019. This Think Piece presents ethnographic vignettes from a recent (February 2020) field visit to Dharamsala, where the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and a Tibetan exile community reside in the northwestern Indian Himalayas. At that time there were no COVID-19 cases in India except in Kerala, South India, which had three confirmed cases. There were no cases in Tibetan communities in India, but they were considered vulnerable because of the influx of Buddhist pilgrims from China. My ethnographic focus is on traditional Tibetan medical responses of prevention and conceptions of contagion prior to any outbreak. I explore what counts as prevention, protection, and contagion in a Tibetan medical public outreach context during pre-epidemic days, and how politics and fear of ‘the other’ merge with the preventive aspects of traditional medicinal products and public health announcements in Dharamsala. Taken together, these ethnographic vignettes illustrate how local epidemic imaginaries draw on complex webs of potency. These combine, for example, substances and their smells with mantras, protective oils, and facemasks in varied ways, all in an effort to reduce anxiety and prevent contagion.

Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 2009

Sanskrit Sandhana, 2018

The Buddhist societies across the world have been closely connected with India as India is also known as the 'Land of Buddha' with all the sacred Buddhist places. The Tibetan people, mostly the followers of Lord Buddha, have been enjoying deep socio-cultural and religious relationships with Indian people since centuries as the entire North and North-Indian region has been geographically as well culturally very much proximate to them. The religious teachings of Lord Buddha and Hinduism both share more or less similar human values. At the same time, many of their rituals share almost practiced in the same way. The concepts like 'Ahimsa (non-violence)', 'Daya (kindness)', 'Karuna (compassion)', 'Punarjanma (re-birth)', 'Karma', 'Asteya', 'Aparigraha', 'Duhkha', 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', 'Kalchakra' etc. have been based on the similar believes and values. The Sanskrit and Pali literature with Indian origins have been the main source of Buddhist literature. Such commonalities have been successful in creation of the mutual feelings of 'togetherness' between the Tibetan people and India. Forced to live in exile in India the Tibetan Buddhist community along with the Government of India has shown a unique example to the rest of the world that how, a country like India, that is not a signatory of the '1951 Refugee Convention' of UNO, can help thousands of those people who are 'refugees' in real terms, even if they do not meet the technical conditions to be categories and treated under 'refugee' category. It is not easy for an individual or a community to live with peace, creativity and hope in exile for decades. However, Tibetan community in India, has not only been successful in restoring its culture but also in adapting the land of India and modern ways of life and values. It is in this context, the present paper tries to throw light on the present situation of the Tibetan community in India and subsequently to identify religious and cultural traits of India along with the Government support which have been helping them to live and prosper in India like a 'second home'.

2021

This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the "epicenter of the epicenter" of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog's diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.

Between the Tibetan Plateau and Eastern China-Religious Tourism, Lay Practice and Ritual Economy during the Pandemic, 2023

This article presents various institutional responses of Buddhist groups and leaders to COVID-19, adding a focus on how Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in China have responded to the pandemic. In particular, it examines the predicament of practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. The article focuses on the material characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism and how they were manifested among Han Chinese urbanites during the pandemic through (1) a teleological inquiry, which looks into the concept of merit (sk: puñña, ch: gongde) 功德, and (2) an organizational inquiry, which explores the modalities in which Han Chinese groups practice Tibetan Buddhism in the socio-political sphere of the Chinese state. Within this inquiry, the article deals with a Buddhist community based in Shanghai and an individual account of pilgrimage in Tibet. Based on these two case studies and their contextualization, the article aims to assess how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the practices, modalities and religious technologies of Tibetan Buddhism practiced by Han Chinese. The article argues for a degree of resilience of lay practice in Tibetan Buddhism; it stresses that while some aspects of the practice called for accommodations and change, the particularities of the practice have pre-existing conditions (such as state regulation on religion and the physical distance of their religious authority) which could accommodate the practical, sociological and psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 2022

This study explores the experiences of 70 Tibetan refugees in India (28 male, 42 female; mean age = 30.90 years; SD = 8.11) during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of their stress, financial anxiety, perceived discrimination, dark future expectations, and resilience. Older, married, and working refugees experienced more problems but higher resilience. Female refugees reported more nervousness and stress than male refugees. Financial anxiety and dark future expectations predicted higher stress. Overall, the findings show low to moderate levels of mental health issues and high resilience among Tibetan refugees during the pandemic and highlight the importance of cultural beliefs and practices in maintaining good mental health and resilience. KEYWORDS refugee; perceived stress; resilience; COVID-19; Tibetan RESUMÉ Cette étude explore les expériences de 70 réfugié.es tibétain.es en Inde (28 hommes, 42 femmes; âge moyen = 30.90 ans; écart-type = 8.11) pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 en ce qui concerne leur stress, leur anxiété financière, leur discrimination perçue, leurs attentes sombres par rapport à l'avenir et leur résilience. Les réfugié.es plus âgé.es, marié.es et occupant un emploi ont rencontré davantage de problèmes mais une plus grande résilience. Les femmes réfugiées ont signalé plus de nervosité et de stress que les hommes réfugiés. L'anxiété financière et les attentes sombres par rapport à l'avenir prédisaient un niveau de stress plus élevé. Dans l'ensemble, les résultats montrent des niveaux faibles à modérés de problèmes de santé mentale et une grande résilience chez les réfugié.es tibétain.es pendant la pandémie et soulignent l'importance des croyances et pratiques culturelles dans le maintien d'une bonne santé mentale et de la résilience.

On Face Masks as Buddhist Merit: Buddhist Responses to COVID-19. A Case Study of Tibetan Buddhism in Shanghai, 2021

The global media has reported various institutional responses of Buddhism to COVID-19. This paper offers a look at the grassroots of Buddhist religious activity in response to the pandemic, examining its impact on lay Buddhist followers of the Nyingmapa Buddhist tradition in Shanghai. The paper relates the activity of this group of lay adepts vis-à-vis COVID-19 to the material characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism, and how they manifest in the Han Chinese urban environment. Exploring the concept of merit, the paper argues how religious responses to the pandemic act as components in contemporary Chinas' Ritual Economy.