Click here return to the Hualin main page.
Click here return to the Hualin E-Journal Vol 7.1 Table of Contents page.
Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.1 (2024): 144–189; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.07.01.05
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Buddhism and Science, Transmission of Buddhism: Locality and Globality)
Meta-ethical Pluralism in Longlian’s Socially Engaged Buddhism
Jingjing LI 李晶晶
Leiden University
j.li@phil.leidenuniv.nl
Abstract: Among Buddhist reformers, Longlian 隆蓮 (1909–2006) is renowned for revitalizing monastic discipline and Buddhist education in modern China, especially for Buddhist women. Complementing findings in social history and cultural anthropology, I reread Longlian’s work on morality to investigate the philosophical thought that supports her monastic reform. I argue for interpreting her moral theory as a Buddhist expression of meta-ethical pluralism. It is a theory that appreciates a plurality of moralities for sentient beings who are preoccupied with this-worldly life, aspiring to other-worldly liberation, or re-engaging with this-worldly reality to guide others to the Bodhisattvas’ path. Instead of postulating a unitary standard of morality, Longlian encourages each person to explore moral values suitable to their own world as a preparatory step towards universal awakening. In doing so, Longlian makes a case for her monastic reform in a secular world and manages to respond to the (neo-)Confucian critique of Buddhism as a socially disengaged teaching.
Keywords: Longlian 隆蓮, meta-ethical pluralism, socially engaged Buddhism, Buddhist ethics, Buddhist modernism, Buddhist nun
About the Author: Jingjing Li is Assistant Professor (Universitair docent) at Leiden University’s Institute for Philosophy. She received her Ph.D. from McGill University in 2019 and has been working at Leiden University ever since. She is the author of Comparing Husserl’s Phenomenology and Chinese Yogācāra in a Multicultural World: A Journey beyond Orientalism (Bloomsbury 2022). Currently, she is working on the project ‘A Lost Pearl: Feminist Theories in Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness-only’, which has been awarded a Veni Grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
