Alex Grabiner

The Tzu Chi Foundation, one of Asia's largest charities, positions itself on the cutting-edge of medical and environmental practices, yet relies on a lexicon and rhetorical strategies present in Chinese Buddhism for millennia. This project reveals the Buddhist self-understanding that the volunteers and founder, Cheng Yen, draw on to describe, define, and direct their religious participation in seemingly secular, inescapably modern activities. Through both textual and ethnographic investigations, this project shows how the concept of ‘zong’ is used to express a sense of sectarian self-awareness. In doing so, it offers new perspectives on the construction of Buddhist identity, modes of practice, ritual and doctrinal developments, and religious responses to modernization and secularization.