Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement

Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power

Ingrid Jordt

• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780896804579
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology of Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power describes a transformation in Buddhist practice in contemporary Burma. This revitalization movement has had real consequences for how the oppressive military junta, in power since the early 1960s, governs the country.
Drawing on more than ten years of extensive fieldwork in Burma, Ingrid Jordt explains how vipassan? meditation has brought about a change of worldview for millions of individuals, enabling them to think and act independently of the totalitarian regime. She addresses human rights as well as the relationship between politics and religion in a country in which neither the government nor the people clearly separates the two. Jordt explains how the movement has been successful in its challenge to the Burmese military dictatorship where democratically inspired resistance movements have failed.
Jordt's unsurpassed access to the centers of political and religious power in Burma becomes the reader's opportunity to witness the political workings of one of the world's most secretive and tyrannically ruled countries. Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement is a valuable contribution to Buddhist studies as well as anthropology, religious studies, and political science.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• One. Rise of the New Laity and the Restitution of the Ternary Order
• Two. The Phenomenology of Satipatthana Vipassana Meditation
• Three. Sacred Giving and the Politics of Sincerity
• Four. The Double Order of Law - Monks, Gender, and Resistance
• Five. From Relations of Power to Relations of Authority - The Dynamics of Symbolic Legitimacy
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Glossary
• References
• Index