Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the role of local networks in Malaysia in facilitating the expansion of a Taiwanese Buddhist movement in Southeast Asia. The development of in Malaysia parallels the history of the United States division. The parallel shows the dynamics of “para-temple” networks across space.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the role of local networks in Malaysia in facilitating the expansion of a Taiwanese Buddhist movement in Southeast Asia. The development in Malaysia parallels the history of the United States division through local Buddhist networks.

Originating in Taiwan in the 1960s, the Buddhist Tzu Chi (Ciji) Foundation is a lay Buddhist humanitarian movement under the monastic leadership of the Venerable Cheng Yen (Zhengyan), a three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. The movement claims ten million members in over 100 countries. The Malacca branch is one of 126 establishments of TC among twenty-eight countries worldwide. The branch operates on a nearly 100% local constituency, and engages community residents at various levels of welfare-delivery activities.

How did a Taiwanese Buddhist movement find and forge networks for volunteer mobilization in Malaysia? The development of TC in Malacca illustrates the possibility of turning transnational capital flow into religious missionaries, by tapping into local Buddhist networks, and finally forming a transnational pilgrimage route to the charismatic center in Taiwan.

This paper will analyze how a Taiwanese Buddhist faith-based organization made and transformed inter-Asian networks. The analysis will draw upon fieldwork in Malacca and provide a comparative ethnography of TC's early development in New York and Boston. I will argue that the combination of transnational and local Buddhist networks suggests the dynamics of differentiation and merger among "para-temple" networks over time and across space.