Dear Members:

The UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies is please to co-sponsor two upcoming events.

Please check our website for more information.

http://www.international.ucla.edu/buddhist

Best,

CBS Staff

Virgin Mothers and Hell-bent Sons: Daoist Rituals for Delivering Mothers from Blood Lake Hell

Colloqium talk by Professor Jessey Choo (Rutgers University) A Center for the Study of Religion event cosponsored by the Center for Buddhist Studies

Tuesday, February 02, 2016
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
11348 Young Research Library, Presentation Room
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095

In medieval China there appeared a curious and apparently misogynous belief, namely, that all women were condemned to a special hell after death because their menses and blood from childbirth polluted all entities upon contact. Despite their offense being biological and involuntary, women faced the inescapable punishment of drinking from a pool of their own bloody discharge for all eternity. It was a cruel fate for all those born female. Yet surprisingly, the belief enjoyed widespread popularity among women that transcended religious, socio-economic, and cultural boundaries. This lecture examines a particular group of Daoist rituals that claimed to be efficacious in breaking women out of this bloody hell know as the Blood Lake. Founded on the legends of virgin mothers and their sons, in which these mothers invariably conceived without having sex and died during or immediately after childbirth, these rituals were essential to the sons’ success in rescuing their mothers from this hell. By highlighting the virgin birth and the mother-son bond, this soteriology completely removed the father from the picture, therefore undermining the patrilineal principle that was the linchpin of the “Confucian” social order. Thus assisted by Daoist theologians and ritualists, women were able to claim an unalienable right to their children and carve out a space of their own where they were the sole objects of devotion.

Jessey J.C. Choo, received her Ph.D. (2009) from Princeton University and is now Assistant Professor of Chinese History and Religion at Rutgers University. Specializing in the cultural history of the Chinese middle period (200–1000 CE), she studies four interrelated areas: women and gender, memory and identity, childbirth and death rituals, and entombed epigraphy. She is currently completing two monographs: “Inscribing Death: Burials, Texts, and Remembrance in Late Medieval China, 500–1000 CE,” and “Blood Debts: Childbirth, Filial Piety, and Women’s Salvation in Chinese Religions, 500–1500 CE.” is a cultural historian specializing in medieval China (ca. 200–1000 CE).

Cost : Free but RSVP to csr@humnet.ucla.edu

Conspicuous Dharma: Han Chinese Practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism in the PRC

Lecture by John Osburg, University of Rochester

Wednesday, March 09, 2016
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Bunche Hall 10383

Public Lecture Series: Transformations and Innovations of Chinese Cultural Tradition in the Era of New Media

Partially supported by the Education Section of the Chinese Consulate-General in Los Angeles and Dacheng Law Offices.

In the context of a perceived spiritual and moral crisis in Chinese society, growing numbers of Han Chinese are turning to Tibetan Buddhism for ethical guidance. This talk is based on an ethnographic study of a group of wealthy, urban Han Chinese who have become followers of Tibetan Buddhism and patrons of reincarnated lamas and charismatic Tibetan monks. I will examine the sources of the appeal of Tibetan Buddhism for wealthy Chinese and the range of ways in which they integrate Buddhist principles and ritual practice into their lives. For some, donations to monks serve as a form of “spiritual protection money” that will safeguard their businesses and enhance their careers, while for others Buddhist principles become the basis for dramatic moral and social transformation.

John Osburg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Rochester, USA. His is the author of Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality Among China’s New Rich (Stanford, 2013). His research interests include morality, political corruption, gender and sexuality, and spirituality in contemporary China. His current research examines wealthy Han Chinese who have become followers and patrons of Tibetan Buddhism.