Tracing the Many Lives of Religious Structures

Uthara Suvrathan emphasizes the importance of alternative traces in exploring the complex life-histories of Buddhist and Hindu religious structures in Banavasi, South India. By paying attention to ephemeral as well as more long-lasting religious material culture she offers a way of studying changing patterns of religious practice and cultural memory formation.

MLA citation format:

Suvrathan, Uthara
"Tracing the Many Lives of Religious Structures"
Web blog post. Material Religions. 11 October 2017. Web. [date of access]  
Edited by Courtney O'Dell-Chaib.

Archaeologists and historians studying religious structures frequently tend to classify temples by the initial dynastic period of their construction, and the literature abounds with phrases like the ‘Chola temple’ or ‘Satavahana stupa’ [i] However, in the academic quest for order in data, we underestimate how frequently monuments are in constant flux. Religious structures in particular cannot be fixed in time, although they might be so in space. By pinning these structures within specific temporal and dynastic periods, we often ignore the fact that religious structures are living entities. We forget that these are complex entities that have complex life histories extending long after that of their initial construction—they were constantly added on to and altered, often spanning the rule of multiple dynasties. By tracing the life-histories of religious structures archaeologists and historians can access an ever-changing pattern of cultural memory formation and religious practice. 

At Banavasi (Karnataka, India) where I worked for several years [ii], my team and I studied several Buddhist stupas, hemispherical structures constructed to enclose Buddhist relics. Site 71 is an extremely overgrown and eroded circular brick mound located about a mile north of the village of Banavasi (Figure 1) [iii]. Based on the form and size of the bricks used in the structure, the stupa was constructed around the second-third centuries CE. Ceramics and terracotta roof tiles found on the structure also date it to an early period, at least prior to the 7th century CE [iv]. It thus falls within a period when Buddhism was widespread in southern India and Banavasi itself was likely an important religious and economic center. The limited historical research on these monuments has so far focused on their form and temporal context and once the structures have been neatly categorized by these criteria their later histories have been largely ignored. 

Figure 1: Site 71, eroded stupa. Photo by author.

It is likely that the core period of the stupa’s use and worship as a Buddhist structure was limited to an early period and declined starting from the fourth-fifth centuries as Buddhist worship in south India was largely replaced by a resurgent Hindu tradition. In Karnataka, Shaivite Hinduism, which focused on the primacy of the God Shiva, emerged as predominant. As Buddhism gradually became less popular, stupas across the region were abandoned and fell into ruin. And yet, even as Hindu temples increasingly became the focus of social and religious life, fragments of “material memory” remained. At site 71 (and at other stupa locations in and near Banavasi) the mound has a looter’s hole on the top. From colonial travellers accounts from the 17th and 18th centuries, we know that the ‘topes’ were often mined for reliquaries by the rather straightforward, though archaeologically unsound, method of digging a hole in the top into the relic chamber. While the looter’s holes in the Banavasi stupas cannot be dated, it is an interesting remnant of a memory or belief that there might be ‘treasure’ in the centre of these structures. 

There is also clear evidence of the later use of site 71. In fact, at present the structure is considered a Hindu shrine although there is some memory among the present inhabitants of surrounding villages of its early history as a Buddhist structure. The hemisphere has been flattened on top, and brick fragments mined from the structure have been used to construct a makeshift shrine consisting of a platform surrounded on three sides by low, roughly-built walls (Figure 2). The shrine itself contains an extremely eroded figure of the elephant-headed god, Ganesha, as well as a fragmentary sapta-matrika panel that represents seven mother goddesses who are a part of the Hindu pantheon (Figure 3). These items have clearly been appropriated from one or more Hindu temples and date to a period after the 16th century. This fits with evidence of a second episode of roof construction on the stupa, where the terracotta tiles are of forms that can be dated to between the 16th and 19th centuries CE.

Figure 2: Shrine on top of stupa. Photo by author.

Figure 3: Shrine elements. Photo by author.

Even more recently, within the last couple of years, a set of cement reinforced steps lead up to the shrine. When we talked to people living and worshiping at the shrine there was no recognition that it was originally a site of Buddhist worship, instead the mound itself has been absorbed into a modern mythos that weaves tales of ancient mounds or 'guddas' that were the palaces of ancient (and unnamed) kings). At most of the stupas that survive in the area, there is evidence of later use and worship, including the construction not just of shrines but of simple stone alignments of unclear purpose. 

Sites like these offer an interesting contrast to other stupas that have been completely forgotten and destroyed. For instance, at site 207 we initially noticed a low circular mound, barely more than an undulation on the ground. Since there were no structural fragments (like brick or tiles) visible on the surface it was difficult to identify it as a stupa. On a visit a couple of months later, the farmer who owned that field had decided to level the ground for cultivation and was using a large mechanical backhoe to dig up the mound. With this excavation, the true nature of the structure was revealed and the distinctive bricks and terracotta tiles that emerged clearly identified it as a stupa (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Site 207, destroyed stupa. Photo by author.

Yet another example of the complex life histories of religious structures comes from a consideration of folk religious practices that often occur outside the traditional ritual spaces of the temple. Throughout South India, folk beliefs populate the landscape with a variety of divine and semi-divine beings, as well as spirits (bhutas) and other inimical forces. In many cases, these small sacred sites do not have built shrines. Instead, they could consist of rounded stones or earthen pots worshiped as forms of the mother goddess (Chowdamma); or places identified as residences of spirits or natural symbols (termite mounds, snake holes). In other cases, these shrines can include miscellaneous architectural or sculptural fragments appropriated from larger structures. These ephemeral forms of construction are a crucial part of the wider religious landscape and as important in lived practice as the larger stupas and Hindu temples. Such small village shrines are simply made of easily available materials and require little labor. Due to their very impermanence the materials they are made of require maintenance and they are continuously cleaned, added to, worshiped. These small shrines are a more organic feature of the village landscape- a rounded stone tucked away under a banyan tree, appropriating the hole of the village cobra, or a broken sculpture under a palm leaf shed. I cannot imagine that such places would leave easily identifiable traces for the archaeologist. And yet, they must have been a part of village life for generations. 

However, the boundaries between these local traditions and more institutionalized Hinduism, where worship was sited within stone temples and mediated through priests, are extremely fluid. Traditionally, if flaws or cracks developed in the central lingam (typically a phallus-shaped symbol of the Hindu god Shiva, worshiped as a generative force) within a temple it was no longer considered worthy of worship. And yet, as sacred items they had to be disposed of carefully and were, by being submerged in the nearby river. Periodically throughout the year these items re-emerged during the dry season when the water level falls drastically. Over some time, these discarded items become the focus of smaller folk shrines, with small walls enclosing them (Figure 5). In many cases worship at these shrines are the province of local families and do not require the intercession of the priest who is attached to the larger temple. However, as the shrine becomes more permanent, the priest re-enters the picture and begins to make more formal ritual offerings on behalf of the people.

Figure 5: Linga on dried river bed. Photo by author.

A more careful exploration of the life histories of small and large structures thus adds greatly to our understanding of the complexity of cultural memory in the communities we study. By foregoing some of our desire to classify the material indicators of history we can begin to explore something of the messiness of human action, past and present! 

Acknowledgements 

This blog post derives from research that will be published in an article that is under review: ‘The Multivalence of Landscapes: Archaeology and heritage’. In Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.), Preserving Plurality: Heritage in South and Southeast Asia. Routledge. 

Endnotes 

[i] ‘Chola’ and ‘Satavahana’ refer to pre-modern dynasties known to have ruled in south Asia. The Satavahanas controlled the central section of the Indian subcontinent from the 1st c. BCE to the 2nd century CE. The Cholas ruled large areas of southern India between the 9th and 13th centuries CE. 

[ii] Uthara Suvrathan, “Spoiled for Choice?: The sacred landscapes of ancient and early medieval Banavasi”, South Asian Studies, Vol. 30.2 (2014); “Regional Centres and Local Elite: Studying peripheral cores in peninsular India”, Indian History (The Annual Journal of the Archive India Institute), Vol. 1 (2014). 

[iii] During my research we recorded and studied over 600 sites, large and small, dating from the third century BCE to the present day. Each site was assigned a unique identification number. 

[iv] Evidence from similar structures elsewhere in the subcontinent, as well as inferences drawn from the low quantities of roof-tiles found at 71 indicate that only certain sections of the structure were roofed. 

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A Bourdieusian Take on the Imperial Patronage of Cloisonné in Qing China

Julie Bellemare relates the imperial patronage of cloisonné objects for religious and secular purposes in eighteenth-century China to an increased taste for colorful and dazzling surfaces. She uses the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu and Alfred Gell to unpack the significance of this technical enchantment, and to clarify and complicate questions of taste, class, and ethnic identity in the Chinese production and consumption of cloisonné. Bellemare argues that the non-Chinese origins of the medium made it adaptable to the evolving needs of display and an ideal canvas for imperial decoration.

MLA citation format:

  Julie Bellemare

 "A Bourdieusian Take on the Imperial Patronage of Cloisonné in Qing China"

Web blog post. Material Religions. 30 June 2017. Web. [date of access]

Shrine with an Image of a Bodhisattva, 1736-1795. Shrine: Cloisonné enamel on copper alloy; Image: Copper with semiprecious stones, 25 1/4 x 14 3/8 x 10 5/8 in. (64.1 x 36.5 x 27 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Samuel P. Avery, Jr., 09.520a-b. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum).

Introduction

The following thought experiment is an attempt to explain the Qing taste for colorful cloisonné objects through the patronage practices of Qing rulers, more specifically the Kangxi (1662-1722), Yongzheng (1723-35) and Qianlong (1735-1796) emperors, whose embrace of this medium warrants closer examination. It is worth noting that the Qing was a foreign dynasty with its roots in the north of China, and that its rulers considered themselves ethnically different from Han Chinese, identifying instead as Jurchen or Manchu. They conquered most of China by unifying Manchu and Mongol tribes and allying with Northern Chinese, organized into banners of different ranks. I want to explore how these rulers could have utilized cloisonné to differentiate themselves from traditional Han Chinese elites. I will argue that because it was technically difficult to produce, cloisonné was used to demonstrate superiority, while its patterned surfaces indexed the diversity at the heart of the Qing Empire. I will mainly use Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984) to clarify and complicate some of these questions of taste, class, and ethnic identity in the production and consumption of cloisonné in eighteenth-century China. 

As much as Bourdieu’s detailed examination of class hierarchies and consumptive practices is relevant to these questions, the exercise of applying it to eighteenth-century Chinese society comes with several pitfalls. Importantly, Bourdieu’s project tackled the power dynamics within his own contemporary society, which do not necessarily map onto the social class distinctions of eighteenth-century China. His notion of “habitus” is particularly difficult to address. Bourdieu’s approach takes into account both social and cultural structures as well as individual practices. The former he terms “fields,” networks of relations animated and constrained by systems of power, while the latter he calls “habitus,” unconscious cultural conventions of behavior that reflect individual sensibility and agency. He states that taste is social necessity made second nature, “turned into muscular patterns and bodily automatisms”.[i] These embodied practices can hardly be extrapolated from texts alone. Ming and Qing writings about taste admittedly fall more securely within the category of “fields,” since people’s practices are difficult to reconstruct accurately within a historical framework. It is not clear whether the prescriptive writings of the literatus and arbiter of taste Wen Zhenheng (1585-1645), for instance, reflected actual practices, or if they enshrined idealized forms of consumption. It is therefore more realistic to address the normative structures of class tastes than to infer people’s actual behaviors and actions from limited or biased historical records. To this end, perhaps Michael Baxandall’s “period eye” is also a useful model for reconstructing ways of seeing and experiencing the material world in Qing China. Baxandall defines the period eye as the mental equipment a person uses to order his or her visual experience; this equipment is culturally relative and determined by the society that influences this experience.[ii] It consists of variables such as the “categories with which he classifies his visual stimuli, the knowledge he will use to supplement what his immediate vision gives him, and the attitude he will adopt to the kind of artificial object seen”.[iii] In short, it hinges on the viewer’s “cognitive style” (mental habits parallel to Bourdieu’s embodied ones) and his or her interpretive frameworks, which align (or not) with those of the artist or maker to produce either appreciation or misunderstanding. Looking at cloisonné, it appears that some members of the literati elite did not appreciate its vibrant colors and dense patterns, interpreting them as a form of gaudiness unsuitable for the austere interiors of their studios. Qing emperors, however, could have seen the complexity of these objects as technological innovations that surpassed all that had been produced in the past. This point will be developed in more detail later. 

The Production of Cloisonné 

The public furnishings [altar set] currently at the Temple of Benevolence are not good. Basing yourself on the cloisonné of the Hall of Long Life, make one set, and ensure its size matches that of the supporting table. Respect this imperial order.[iv] 

This order for a new set of cloisonné ritual vessels is a typical example of a commission to the Imperial Workshops given under the Yongzheng emperor in the early years of his reign. As opposed to his immediate predecessor and successor, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, Yongzheng was not particularly fond of cloisonné, yet there is evidence of his continued patronage of this medium for ritual and religious purposes. In the Qing period, cloisonné objects were used for secular purposes as wine containers or desk decorations, but they were also commissioned in sets for religious altars and sacrificial halls. Although they were mainly used in Buddhist contexts, they were also appropriate for Daoist temples.[v] Known for its colorful and variegated surfaces, cloisonné is a complex technique that requires the collaboration of several specialized craftsmen. The body of a cloisonné piece is first cast in bronze, and metal wire is then welded onto its surface, creating small enclosures (cloisons in French), that are then filled with colored enamels. The piece is fired in a muffle kiln, polished, and gilded. This process requires advanced technical knowledge, division of labor, and access to resources, all of which can only be realized in a highly organized production line. 

The technique originated in the Mediterranean basin as early as 1500 BCE, but flourished in the Byzantine Empire between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. It attained a high degree of sophistication in the Islamic world before slowly reaching China during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). The earliest source testifying to the presence of cloisonné enamels in China is the Gegu yaolun (The Essential Criteria of Antiquities), written by Cao Zhao in 1388. Of cloisonné, he writes: “The body is made of copper; for the decoration in five colors, molten substances are used, similar to inlay work from the Frankish Lands [Folang]. I have seen incense burners, flower vases, boxes, small bowls, and the like, appropriate for a lady’s chamber but not for the study of a scholar of cool, reticent taste” (Fig. 1).[vi] This bias against the aesthetics of cloisonné continued through the rest of the Ming period (1368-1644). Gao Lian (1573-1620) referred to it as “Muslim ware,” (dashi yao) and ranked it the worst of all kiln wares, while Wen Zhenheng saw it as too ostentatious and vulgar to put next to a painting.[vii] It is interesting that these authors saw cloisonné as feminine, foreign, or just too colorful. Generally speaking, Chinese literati tended to prefer a more subdued aesthetic, epitomized by monochrome ink painting. Color was not rendered literally, but implicit in the gradations of black ink, as Tang-dynasty scholar Zhang Yanyuan noted: “One may be said to have fulfilled one’s aim when the five colors are all present in the management of ink [alone]”.[viii] 

Figure 1. Bowl with the Eight Buddhist Treasures, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 16th century, China, cloisonné enamel, H. 5 5/8 in. (14.3 cm); Diam. 11 1/2 in. (29.2 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Edward G. Kennedy, 1929, 29.110.88.

While in the Ming dynasty, cloisonné was patronized on a small scale by the imperial court and collected by private individuals,[ix] the Qing period (1644-1911) saw an expansion of the imperial workshops and a tremendous increase in the production of cloisonné wares, which were created in workshops located in Guangdong province, and near Beijing at the Summer Palace (Yuanming yuan), where six more locations for the Enameling Workshop were added in 1741 in order to meet the demands of the imperial court.[x] Cloisonné was held in particularly high esteem by Qing emperors, who ordered large quantities of objects to furnish newly built courts, palaces, and temples. This growth is surprising, considering the aforementioned assessments of cloisonné by literati and tastemakers belonging to the Chinese educated elite. 

Taste, Enchantment, and the Imperial Use of Cloisonné 

I had started this essay by invoking Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”—one that he applied in a specific analysis of the tastes of the “bourgeois,” “middle-brow,” and “popular” classes of 1960s and 1970s France, with correlations to relative levels of education, income, upbringing, and occupation. This class division applies remarkably well to late Ming society, which consisted of a powerful educated elite increasingly threatened by a rising merchant class. Both French bourgeois and Ming Chinese literati derived their position from their high level of education and economic power. Bourdieu defines modern, European bourgeois taste as favoring a combination of ease and asceticism, austerity and restraint, all of these seen as manifestations of excellence.[xi] This attitude is clearly present in Wen Zhenheng’s admonitions, as articulated for instance about furniture design: “[For natural tables], use pieces of thick, wide timber…hollow them out and carve them lightly with designs such as cloud scrolls and ruyi heads. They must not be carved with such vulgar patterns as dragons, phoenixes, flowers, and grasses”.[xii] This literati taste for elegance, antiquity and refinement arose simultaneously or in partial reaction to an upwardly mobile merchant class that benefitted tremendously from the increased maritime trade and economic activity during the latter half of the sixteenth century. In response to this class of nouveaux riches who could afford to purchase expensive luxuries, the educated elite began to differentiate themselves by advocating restraint in ornamentation. The lavishly carved tables derided by Wen Zhenheng were, of course, those preferred by rich merchants who favored conspicuous consumption. Just as Bourdieu’s “middle-brow” class, these tastes were often seen by members of the educated elite as an illegitimate acquisition of cultural forms.[xiii] Middle-brow and popular forms of cultural consumption, according to Bourdieu, involve the viewer and offer more direct and immediate sensory satisfaction.[xiv] In Ming China, this taste translated into a preference for lavish materials, saturated colors, richly carved and lustrous surfaces, whereas in 1960s France, it favored agreeable images such as a sunset over the sea. 

If Bourdieu’s class distinctions map relatively well onto those of Ming China, they fail to explicate the tastes of a new social class that takes power and ultimately forms the Qing dynasty. This stratum of the population is less educated than the literati elite, but nonetheless assumes political and economic power. Bourdieu acknowledges that other states of power relations can exist, resulting in a different configuration of consumptive patterns.[xv] He directs the reader to the work of Norbert Elias on eighteenth and nineteenth-century Germany, which deals with the opposition between the attitudes of the court and those of the intelligentsia. This provides an intriguing parallel for the study of the relations between the Manchu rulers and the literati during the Qing period. Elias observes the sharp social divisions and lack of mobility between the two classes, arguing that this division fostered a rift in values between the courtly “civilization,” characterized by courtesy, ceremony, and formal conversation, and the educated “culture,” defined as “inwardness, depth of feeling, immersion in books, development of individual personality”.[xvi] He quotes Goethe as an exemplar of the intelligentsia: “The people around me had no idea of scholarship. They were German courtiers, and this class had not the slightest Kultur”.[xvii] Manchus and other northerners were at a similar type of disadvantage, not having the same level of access to—or benefitting from a strong cultural emphasis on—education, as opposed to Han Chinese from the south. In the early years of the Qing dynasty, quotas were implemented to increase representation of Manchus in the palace examinations, the meritocratic system that attributed government positions according to one’s knowledge of the classics, history, and government policy. The system, operating intermittently since the Tang dynasty, favored those who could afford the right education and tutoring, and during the Ming, tended to favor Han elites from the cultural powerhouse of the Jiangnan region in south China. In order to give his bannermen a chance to compete, the first Qing emperor put forth a 40:60 Manchu to Han ratio for the palace examination, which was later replaced by completely separate sets of examinations for Han Chinese and all northern bannermen.[xviii] Even with these advantages in place, after 1655, no Manchu ever finished among the prestigious top three places in the palace examinations until 1883. Manchus possessed political and economic power, but not the same level of cultural and academic capital as the literati elite groups traditionally hailing from the south. They were regarded as culturally inferior to the Han Chinese although overt criticism of this status quo was rare and dangerous. Searching for other forms of legitimacy, Manchu rulers explored appropriating symbolic forms of literati culture such as calligraphy and classical learning to finding new sources on which to model their artistic taste. 

Even if alternative models might be more closely related to the social structure of Qing China, some of Bourdieu’s key insights are still useful for understanding imperial taste. For Bourdieu, taste is defined relationally. Consumers choose certain cultural goods over others in order to either identify with or defy the dominant aesthetic. He argues that “Goods are converted into distinctive signs, which may be signs of distinction but also of vulgarity, as soon as they are perceived relationally… a class is defined as much by its ‘being-perceived’ as by its ‘being’, by its consumption—which need not be conspicuous in order to be symbolic—as much as by its position in the relations of production”.[ixx] The Manchu rulers, as a new social class superimposing themselves on top of the existing Chinese social structure, had to find a way to simultaneously inscribe themselves within the larger continuity of Chinese aesthetics in order to gain legitimacy as rulers of China, but also distinguish themselves from these same elites in order to assert their dominance and superiority. They achieved this in part by choosing to consume cultural goods endowed with more flamboyant visual qualities, and reorganized workshop production to suit the demands of their tastes. In doing so, they reframed the perception of cloisonné and other colorful forms of material culture from a vulgar to an acceptable, or even desirable, form of display. It is also important to take into consideration the fact that the Manchu rulers were the representatives of a diverse group of northerners that also included Mongols and northern Chinese. Through diplomatic exchange and conquest, Qing emperors also incorporated Tibetan kingdoms as well as western Turkic and Muslim territories. This diversity was visually translated into several decorative endeavors, such as the construction of palaces at Rehe, and at the Summer Palace in Beijing (where enameling workshops were conveniently located). These architectural projects recreated on a smaller scale the lands conquered by the Qing emperors within large imperial parks, as microcosms of the empire.[xx] The act of naming palaces according to famous sites from China or Tibet, for instance, laid claim to the far reaches of the empire and promoted an incorporation of diversity into a single realm. What ensued in the decorative schemes of these new palaces was not a single coherent style, but an amalgam that suited the purposes of a diverse dynasty.[xxi] 

The impetus to create integrated interiors came with the Yongzheng emperor, and was brought to an extravagant level by the Qianlong emperor, who was more attracted to exotic themes from the outside world. Eclectic, ambitious, and “baroque”, the Qianlong style of cloisonné was a stark departure from most pieces produced during the Ming period. Cloisonné was an important part of the decorative schemes of the newly built palaces. As a hybrid technique that was understood simultaneously as Western, Muslim, and Chinese, it encapsulated the unifying aspirations of the Qing dynasty. This is also seen in the patterns and forms of Qing cloisonné objects, which drew inspiration from a wide array of cultural and geographical sources. Some shapes directly reference ancient Chinese metalwork, while others borrow patterns and iconographies from Himalayan Buddhism and even Italian architecture. This is represented quite strikingly in a large shrine with an image of a bodhisattva (in Tibetan Buddhism, practitioners or deities who delay their own enlightenment in order to help others achieve it), now in the Brooklyn Museum (Fig. 2). While the dragons coiling around the posts and the stylized floral decoration are Chinese, the central figure is modeled in a revival of the Pala style, often seen as a classic mode of Indian Buddhist sculpture, and the shrine’s four posts and canopy are clearly based on the baldachin of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, a sculpted bronze canopy covering the high altar and marking the location of the tomb of St Peter, created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini a century earlier (Fig. 3). This piece evinces the potential of the medium of cloisonné to take on any shape or form. Because of its non-Chinese origins, it is not constricted by centuries of normative practices, and remains adaptable to the evolving needs of display. Cloisonné is from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, which makes it an ideal canvas for imperial decoration. 

Figure 2 (above) Shrine with an Image of a Bodhisattva, Qianlong period (1736-1795). Shrine: Cloisonné enamel on copper alloy; Image: Copper with semiprecious stones, 25 1/4 x 14 3/8 x 10 5/8 in. (64.1 x 36.5 x 27 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Samuel P. Avery, Jr., 09.520a-b. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum). 

Figure 3 (below) Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Baldachin of St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, 1623-34.

In addition to this semiotic malleability, Qing cloisonné exhibits technical mastery. As mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, the production process requires advanced technical expertise and access to specific materials of a high quality. The result is meant to dazzle the eye with intricate motifs, strong color contrasts, and golden highlights. In this sense, it operates on a psychological and perceptual level, achieving its effect, in the words of Alfred Gell, “via the enchantment cast by its technical means, the manner of its coming into being”.[xxii] No one looks at cloisonné and thinks, “I could make this.” The technical power to make this kind of object is beyond any viewer’s individual capacity, and becomes symbolic of the power of the emperor, enhancing his authority.[xxiii] But beyond visual enchantment, what do the dazzling displays of cloisonné achieve in the minds of their viewers? Perhaps, in addition to indexing the ruler's general prestige and wealth, they might have specific social implications as well. 

A lot of cloisonné objects were displayed in palace halls, where they would be viewed not only by courtiers but also by visiting dignitaries from different parts of the empire as well as from Europe. As part of larger decorative schemes with visually stunning patterns and surfaces, perhaps they also functioned as reminders of the complexity and diversity of the realm, and the power of the emperor to unify it, both territorially and on the surface of his objects. Upon seeing these hybrid objects, perhaps dignitaries felt both a sense of familiarity with the shapes and designs they identified with, while still being dazzled and intimidated by the foreign ones. If this were the case, the Qing style of cloisonné functioned as a simultaneously inclusive and distancing mechanism, one that could invite close relations with dignitaries of any origin, while upholding the superiority of the emperor. 

Although the imperial taste of Qing-dynasty emperors bears similarities to Bourdieu’s middle-brow aesthetic by virtue of appealing to the viewer and providing sensory stimulation, it is far more than an aesthetic of agreeableness. The Qing mixture of technological, cultural, and political power departs from Bourdieu’s framework entirely, and functions to promote the Qing ruler as a universal emperor. By fully embracing and adapting this ‘foreign’ medium to their needs, the Manchu elites found a way to differentiate themselves from the Chinese literati class. The use of different motifs and shapes of cloisonné made it familiar to a wide range of viewers, while its level of intricacy showed the Qing dynasty’s unsurpassed technical superiority, impressing on viewers the desire of the emperor to foster harmonious relations across a highly diverse empire. 

Endnotes 

[i] Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), 474.

[ii] Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 40. 

[iii] Idem.

[iv] Qinggong neiwufu zaobanchu dang’an zonghui [Archives of the Workshops of the Imperial Household Department], Vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2005), 752. My translation. 

[v] Pengliang Lu, “Beyond the Women’s Quarters: Meaning and Function of Cloisonné in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,” in Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, (New York, New Haven, London: Bard Graduate Center and Yale University Press, 2011), 70. 

[vi] Cao Zhao, translated by Sir Percival David and Béatrice Quette, from Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties (New York, New Haven: Bard Graduate Center, Yale University Press, 2011), 7. The use of the term “five colors” (wucai) requires some explanation. In a strict sense, it refers to a porcelain decoration technique in which colored enamels are applied over a plain background, but it also has cosmological ramifications, whereby each color is associated to a cardinal direction. The term may therefore refer not just to a set of colors, but to every possible color, just as in English the ‘four corners of the earth’ is used to mean ‘the whole world.’ “Five colors” (wucai) could therefore also be translated as ‘all colors,’ ‘multicolored,’ or ‘polychrome.’ 

[vii] Gao Lian, Zunsheng bajian, (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1988), yuan 14; Wen Zhenheng, Zhangwu zhi, (Hong Kong: Dizhi wenhua chuban youxian gongsi, 2002), yuan 5. 

[viii] Zhang Yanyuan. “Li dai ming hua zhi (ca. 847),” in Early Chinese Texts on Painting, edited by Susan Bush, Hsio-yen Shih, and Hsüeh-yen Shih, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985), 62. 

[ix] Sun Chengze (1592-1676), a Beijing-based statesman and art collector, notes in a memoir that cloisonné pieces from the Jingtai reign (1449-57), seen as the zenith of quality, fetched the highest prices at the local antique market, indicating that antique cloisonné was valued in certain contexts outside the court. Pengliang Lu, “Beyond the Women’s Quarters,” 64. For Ming court patronage of cloisonné, see Zhang Rong, “Cloisonné for the Imperial Courts,” in Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, (New York, New Haven, London: Bard Graduate Center and Yale University Press, 2011), 151–70. 

[x] Zhang Rong, “Cloisonné for the Imperial Courts,” 159. 

[xi] Pierre Bourdieu, Ibid., 176. 

[xii] Wen Zhenheng, from Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things, (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 43. 

[xiii] Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, 91. 

[xiv] Pierre Bourdieu, Ibid., 34. 

[xv] Pierre Bourdieu, Ibid., 73. 

[xvi] Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, (New York: Urizen Books, 1978), 16. 

[xvii] Norbert Elias, Ibid., 21. 

[xviii] Benjamin A. Elman, “The Social Roles of Literati in Early to Mid-Ch’ing,” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 9, Part 1: The Ch’ing Empire to 1800, edited by Willard J. Peterson, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 381-82. 

[xix] Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, 483. 

[xx] Cary Y. Liu, “Archive of Power: The Qing Dynasty Imperial Garden-Palace at Rehe,” Guoli Taiwan daxue meishushi yanjiu jikan [Taida Journal of Art History] 28 (2010): 43–66. 

[xxi] Jonathan Hay, Sensuous Surfaces, (Honolulu, HI; London: University of Hawaiʻi Press : Reaktion Books, 2010), 37. 

[xxii] Alfred Gell, “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology,” in Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics, edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton, (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1992), 47. 

[xxiii] Alfred Gell, Ibid., 52. 

 

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Virtual Buddhist Monk Robes: Cyborgs, Gender, and the Self-Fashioning of a Mindful Second Life Resident

Gregory Grieve studies virtual clothing in Hoben, a Second Life Zen community. He argues that Second Life residents emerge from their virtual practices where the ability to choose one’s gender, clothing and appearance increases mindfulness and offers a creative alternative to conventional heteronormative roles on both a political and spiritual level.

MLA citation format: 

Grieve, Gregory Price "Virtual Buddhist Monk Robes:

Cyborgs, Gender, and the Self-Fashioning of a Mindful Second Life Resident" 

Web blog post. Material Religions. 

24 February 2016. Web. [date of access]

On February 23, 2010, I logged onto the virtual world of Second Life and discovered that free virtual monk robes were being distributed at the Hoben Mountain Zen Retreat. As I describe in my book, Cyber Zen [i], Hoben is a Convert Zen Buddhist community that practices in Second Life, a three-dimensional, immersive, and interactive virtual world housed in cyberspace and accessed via the Internet [ii]. Often labeled Western, Nightstand, or Convert Buddhists, residents of Hoben typically engage from North America, Europe, or other parts of the developed world, but can also be found in many cosmopolitan centers of developing nations. Convert Buddhism is a diverse and flexible religion, but it tends to focus on several facets of the tradition: the therapeutic, the non-hierarchical, the non-violent, the ecological, and, most importantly, the meditative.  

Female Avatar Wearing Virtual Monk Robes (Second Life Snapshot by Gregory Grieve).

On the day in question, free virtual Buddhist monk robes (kāṣāya) had just been made available, and a group of male avatars were helping a female avatar, Algama GossipGirl, edit the robes so they would fit. As a default, the robes had been made to fit male avatars; however, I found that they tended to be mostly modified and worn by female avatars. 

Transcript of conversation at Hoben Mountain Zen Retreat (February 23, 2010).

Beyond the general question of “Why bother with virtual monk robes?”, this blog post asks, “Why do female avatars tend to don them?” One might argue that because virtual robes lack physicality, they are unreal – a judgment that may be especially true for objects of fashion, which are often dismissed as frivolous. I argue, however, that for many female avatars, the Buddhist robes play an important part in fashioning online selves that are both politically and spiritually liberating. As this post illustrates, the robes are significant for material religion because they help one understand the relationship between gender, spirituality, and self-fashioning. 


Virtual Monk Robes 

Oftentimes, clothing is reduced to need, and, as naked apes, human beings undoubtedly seek cover from the elements. Fashion emerges, however, not from the function clothes perform but from what those clothes mean to the wearer and to society as a whole. Particularly in contemporary consumer society, fashion has more to do with provoking desire and marking distinction than with physical necessity. One might assume that fashion is just added adornment and is therefore not worthy of serious analysis; however, because desire often outstrips need in contemporary culture, fashion is not considered superfluous at all. In fact, for many consumers, fashion is indispensable if one wants to be viewed as an accepted member of society. 

Although merely pixels on a screen, fashion in Second Life reflects a crucial aspect of everyday life in the virtual world. My research revealed that Second Life lacked the fixed ranks and status of traditional societies, and therefore fashion emerged as the central focus of many residents. For residents, shopping was not an added, but rather an essential, part of their virtual world experience. When I asked whether she shopped in Second Life, resident Algama GossipGirl ironically responded, “I buy there for my avatar is.”  

Free Buddhist monk Robes from Hoben Mountain Zen Retreat. (Second Life snapshot by Gregory Grieve).

From Jesus baseball caps and yarmulkes, to Yoga pants and angel wings, the centrality of self-fabrication was also true for many Second Life religious groups. Interestingly, however, even more than other traditions in Second Life, dress played a key role in Convert Zen Buddhism. This may come as no surprise, for monk robes have always played a crucial role in Buddhist practice. In his classic article, “Quand l'habit fait le moine” (or “When the Clothes Make the Man”), the Buddhologist Bernard Faure writes, “The monastic garment became the symbol par excellence of the Dharma, outperforming other symbols and relics, and occupying a prominent place in the Buddhist imaginary.” [iii] 

The free robes handed out in February 2010 were created by the talented builder Ryusho Ort, and were based on his popular “Soto So-Fuku” robes, which he described as “Japanese Soto monk kesa (robes). Also applicable for Chinese and Korean Traditions.” Following some twenty-five centuries of custom, which had traveled from India and been adapted as Buddhism spread throughout Asia, Ryusho’s robes consisted of the “triple robe” style: a lower covering (antarvāsa) made of a skirt and pants, an upper covering (uttarāsaṇga) made of a shirt, and an outer robe (saṃghāti) made of a jacket and flexi attachments. In Second Life, skirts, pants, shirts, and jackets describe different layer-based textured clothing that can be applied directly to a user’s avatar. Flexi attachments are prims (primitives) that are set to “flex” so that they mimic the physical movement of cloth; for example, shirttails blowing in the wind. 


Self-Fashioning 

Lila Abu-Lughod, professor of anthropology and women's and gender studies, writes, "The self is always a construction, never a natural or found entity." [iv] Selves are fashioned, and virtual worlds make self-fashioning more conspicuous because there is no physical world referent and ultimately selves are mere media practices. In Second Life, selves do not stem from a fixed body, but are rather constructed through repeated media practices that are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time. Selves are never created of whole cloth, nor do they exist under complete conscious or rational control. Similar to a half-improvised script, virtual world selves are templates, erected through repeated interactions, which sanction acceptable behaviors on behalf of Second Life societal norms. 


Residents 

In the early stages of my research, I had completed one of my first meditation sessions and sat impatiently waiting for the customary follow-up discussion. I watched as the other practitioners began to rouse themselves from their digital slumber, their avatars suddenly beginning to stir as each user returned his or her fingers to keyboards. Much to my surprise, one of the first questions the leader directed towards the group was the rather ambiguous, “Who are you?” In real life, this seems a simple enough question to answer; in Second Life, it proved much more difficult. Was I the user, the avatar, or some fusion of the two? I also began to wonder out of which materials selves are fashioned. Am I my thoughts? My words and actions? What about possessions and relationships? Do virtual objects and fashion count? As the American philosopher and psychologist William James writes in The Principles of Psychology, “Between what a man calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is difficult to draw.” [v] 

Second Life residents do not exist before users log on, but rather emerge from Second Life media practices. Employed throughout the platform and within the surrounding SLogosphere, instead of the term “player,” resident is “meant to give users a feeling of ‘belonging’ and ownership of the virtual world.” [vi] The word “resident” was used almost from the inception of Second Life. The expression can be observed as far back as 2003 in the beta testing website, which states, “Residents of Second Life will face a host of choices daily . . . [in this] multi-layered boundless universe that is constantly changed by - and constantly changes - its inhabitants.” [vii] 

As the website “Create Your Avatar” shows, when residents initially log on to Second Life, the first thing they do is use the virtual world’s media practices to fashion themselves. [viii] All new residents choose a default avatar when they first sign up for Second Life, but may modify the avatar depending on their imagination, editing skills, and Linden dollars. Residents can choose to be either male or female with the click of a few buttons, and can also change their appearance by wearing different shapes and skins. 

Our research found that residents could purchase or find many shapes and skins, as well as customize avatars through the “Appearance” menu. Skins wrap around the avatar’s wire mesh, and, like shapes, could be purchased, found, or created. Avatars’ hair and eyes could also be customized. In later iterations of the Second Life viewer, users could also change their avatar’s physics, customizing the way their avatar's breasts, belly, and butt bounced and swayed. Residents could also change their appearance by finding, purchasing, or designing clothing. In Second Life, seemingly infinite styles of clothing could be obtained and worn with just a few clicks of a mouse. 


Resident as Cyborg  

Resident as cyborg, hybrid feedback loops of machine and biologic organisms, composed of user and avatar (Drawing by Greg Grieve).

Studies of online subjectivity frequently frame analyses around dystopic lamentations over the loss of an essential coherent modern self or, conversely, present a utopic hagiography praising the liberating potential of constructed postmodern fluid identities. Compare, for instance, scholar of science and technology Sherry Turkle’s latest work, Alone Together, to her earlier work, Life on the Screen. [viii] Neither of these publications adequately described the everyday reality that we came across in Second Life. To provide a more accurate account, I used Second Life’s search engine filter of “people” to locate residents, a term which describes cybersocial beings that are activated in the virtual world via feedback between user and avatar. Users are the flesh-and-blood individuals behind the screens, while avatars are the virtual rendering of that user within the virtual world. Rather than emphasize the real world or virtual world, I recognize residents as “cyborgs,” hybrid systems of machine and biologic organisms. 


Virtual Gender 

The cyborg model of online self illustrates how Second Life media practices are used to fashion alternative residents through a careful cultivation of shapes, skins, and virtual dress. To analyze such alternative self-fashioning, I employ the category of gender, which is regarded on Second Life not as a natural phenomenon, but as the materialized interaction between a user’s desire, agency, and social norms. My goal is to not simply add to the ample literature on gender and online identity, but to use the category of gender to explore how residents fashion selves that are products of, and alternatives to, the norms of contemporary society. 

My analysis was complicated, however, when it became evident that the aforementioned resident, Algama, was “gender-swapping.” A scholar of online community and identity, Amy Bruckman refers to gender-swapping as “the ability to pretend to be the opposite gender,” and notes that “in these virtual worlds, the way gender structures basic human interaction is often noticed and reflected upon.” [ix] Gender-swapping is an ethical issue, often falling into a dichotomy between those who see it as immoral, and those who praise it as an emancipating media practice. 

I personally maintain that material religion cannot adjudge universal moral judgments about gender-swapping, and should instead focus on the subtle, ingrained tactics of its everyday use. Using Algama’s donning of Buddhist robes as a touchstone, I conclude that Second Life Convert Zen residents follow mindful media practices that entangle users and avatars. In a mindful approach, authenticity lies neither solely with the avatar nor with the user, but rather in the awareness of the interplay between Second Life and real life. As Buddhist resident Yidam Roads said on May 22, 2009, “If you change avatars especially, I think it can help you explore different facets of personal identity and perhaps hold your identification with ‘self’ more lightly.” 


Heteronormative Identities and Culture Jamming 

When I first logged on to Second Life, I naively assumed that I would face no gender complications since I had been freed from my physical body. When a user is able to fashion any body of their choosing, Second Life might seem to confirm a voluntarist, even rational, theory of gender invention. One does not have a gender in Second Life; rather, one constructs gender through media practices, creating fantasies that bridge what is desired with what is possible. It might seem that the embodied “I” somehow precedes the avatar; however, avatars, like real bodies, are actually constrained and controlled by cultural norms, conventions, and laws. For instance, during our research, sitting residents were usually given a choice of clicking on a blue poseball for male characters or a pink one for female characters. Poseballs are common scripted objects that usually appear as round, colored spheres and affix an animation to the avatar that clicks on them. If an avatar clicked on a blue poseball, it would sit “like a male.” If one clicked on the pink ball, it would sit “like a female.”  

Second Life Pose Balls (Second Life snapshot by Gregory Grieve).

Cyberspace has often been regarded as a place where gender and sexual identities can be performed in liberating ways. Most residents engage in a cisgender relationship, where the user identity matches that of the avatar. Second Life residents can, however, “jam” these enforced heteronormative identities, and during the time of our research we ran across some very transgressive examples. “Culture jamming” is a communications tactic that disrupts dominant messages through alternatives, which often parody the mainstream. For example, Algama GossipGirl described herself as a “sissy girl,” going on to say, “It fits me better than any other term. A ‘girl’ is feminine, soft, beautiful, young, like, wow, and free. A ‘sissy’ isn’t male or masculine, mostly, but it implies that I am not female in real life.”


Mindfulness 

Convert Zen Buddhists jam the norms of network consumer society through mindfulness, a practice that cultivates a calm awareness of one's body functions, feelings, content of consciousness, and consciousness itself. The mindful tactic sees ultimate reality as empty, an important aspect of which is the impermanent nature of the self (anātman). The mindful spiritual path lay neither in the real life user nor in the virtual avatar, but rather in an awareness of the interplay between the two. 

After a Dharma talk, I asked Skeptical Starshine, “Would you say you see your avatar as a mask, a reflection of a Real Life self, or as a projection of an inner self?” She answered, “At different times it is any of those things. Just like the self I project into the world via flesh.” In response to the same question, gender-swapping resident Algama said, “I am both in real life, and Second Life, meat and pixels its all me, its all me,” while Ashley Lee replied, “Mostly I just take classes, make things, garden, and make friends.” After a long pause, she added: “Not a mask, for sure. Both my real life and Second Life mes are me.” Encouraging further reflection, I added, “I guess the question is ‘What is that *real* self?’” Ashley smiled, rejoining, “A moving point of balance. Water crashing against rocks. That's what makes trying to be real so tricky - need to be awfully mindful! Authentic. Integrity...that kind of thing.” 


Drag 

Still the original question persists: Why did female avatars tend to wear the robes? And why in particular did a gender swapping resident find the robes spiritually significant. We contend that female avatars wearing the robes operated similarly to the concept of “drag” proposed by American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, in which a person of one gender dons the clothing associated with a person of another gender. Butler argues that drag is subversive because, as she writes in Bodies that Matter, it “disputes heterosexuality’s claim on naturalness and originality.” [x] Butler contends that because drag exposes gender binaries, it makes the constructed aspect of gender more obvious. [xi] 

My claim is not that the female use of robes is an expression of drag, but that virtual robes operate in a similar way to drag, making avatars mindful of how gender functions, and offering a creative alternative to conventional heteronormative roles on both a political and spiritual level. Being mindful of gender does not deny that it is a real-world concern, and Algama did not stop being a male in real life simply because her avatar was female. Rather, as a cyborg, s/he was nondual, and revealed that gender is ultimately a socially constructed category which has inescapable implications in the conventional everyday lived world. Residents need gender norms in order to live, yet they are simultaneously constrained by these very roles. 

Examples of Drag in Second Life. (Second Life Snapshot by Gregory Grieve).

The robes worked in a similar way to drag, and made the socially constructed nature of femininity more apparent. Algama noticed, “When you are a male, man, you are just you for yourself. But when you are a girl, oh boy, you seem to be everyone’s concern.” In our conversation, Algama explained that she had always fantasized about being a girl, but that once she actually played one through her avatar, it had not been what she had expected. Speaking about her avatar in the third person she admitted, “It was a lot of work! I still cannot believe how concerned everyone seems about her looks. Or more realistically, I am concerned about how others think she looks. I’m not sure if this is just my problem, or if maybe people feel freer to comment on a woman’s looks.” She wondered if the appearance of a female avatar was always a public concern: “I just want to have fun, or do my job, and every one is sticking their nose into my business.” 


Political and Spiritual Liberation 

On a political level, the robes’ austere and simple form allowed the fashioning of female avatars that were distinct from the hyper-heteronormativity that dominated Second Life, and, by extension, network consumer society. The robes illustrated that inworld gender is constructed through residents’ execution of a stylized repetition of acts, an imitation or miming of the dominant conventions of gender. 

On a spiritual level, the robes inspired awareness of the constructed but necessary role of fashioning selves. As a form of mindfulness practice, the virtual robes enabled Algama GossipGirl to acknowledge her desires, indicating that she did not escape gender altogether, but rather navigated the fantasy that gave gender power. For Convert Buddhists, the authentic spiritual resident was nondualitstic, implying that things appear distinct but not separate, and affirming the conception that while distinctions exist, dichotomies are illusory phenomena. This does not mean that gender roles are masks in a game of public presentation, because for Convert Buddhists there is no self behind the mask; instead, the self is the practice. The robes allow those who use a female avatar to explore the fluid and empty nature of identity. As Algama said, “I am a combination of my experiences, perceptions and understandings, both in Second Life and real life.”  

The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.

— Nāgārjuna 

(Jay L. Garfield. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. [New York NY: Oxford University Press, 1995], 296, 298)

In “Quand l'habit fait le moine,” Faure writes that monastic robes embody the “Buddhist Two Truths,” a Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine which maintains that while there is a distinction between conventional reality and ultimate reality, in the end they are nondual and part of the same lived world. Conventional reality (saṃvṛti-satya) refers to the experience of everyday existence, while ultimate reality (paramārtha-satya) suggests emptiness (śunyatā) and enforces the perception that phenomena are impermanent collections of causes and conditions, designated by mere conceptual labels. 

In a similar fashion, just as drag demonstrates the constructed but necessary nature of gender, monastic robes, whether virtual or actual, engender an experience of these two truths and show the necessary but conventional nature of lived worlds. As Faure writes, “Through the ideological manipulation of the symbols adhering to [monk robes], the Zen adept gradually learned how to read through the superimposed symbolic systems, using the logic of the Two Truths, and to move from one symbolic system to another.” [xiii] 


Conclusion 

In order to understand why female avatars tend to wear virtual robes, one must recognize the role that gender-swapping residents like Algama GossipGirl play in exposing the interaction between media practices and gender. The mindful donning of robes plays an important part in resident self-fashioning at Hoben, and, as this blog shows, contributes to the liberation of residents both politically and spiritually. On a political level, the robes allow female avatars to fashion online identities that transcend Second Life’s intense heteronormativity; on a spiritual level, they offer a glimpse into the constructed nature of gender, and of the world in general. 

In terms of material religions, Hoben’s robes reveal that community standards and codes shape residents’ spiritual identities, while at times allowing for modification and agency. In the virtual world, one is not born a resident, but rather becomes one. Similarly, although Second Life acknowledges virtual gender, natural differences in gender do not exist, but are rather created through media practices. The fact that gender is detached from the perceived biological sex of an individual’s body makes it more visible and accessible for analysis. 

In Hoben, robes illustrate the interplay between gender, fashion, and spirituality on one hand, and the feed back between user and avatar on the other. While they do not facilitate the experience of another being’s reality, self-fashioning and media practices in Second Life allow residents to become something novel in the virtual world, underlining the complications associated with social roles. As Algama said near the end of our conversation, “I don’t think playing a girl, ever allowed me to really know what it is like to…be a girl,...but I did see how being a guy was…different.” Mindfulness regarding the constructed nature of lived reality enables residents to imagine alternate existences, and to do so in a secure and responsive environment. 




End Notes 

i. Cyber Zen: Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity, Community and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life, Routledge. 

ii. Unless stated otherwise the names of Second Life residents and regions are pseudonyms. This choice was difficult because I wished to give credit to the individuals who became not just subjects, but friends, and without whom the study would have been impossible. However, to err on the side of protecting individuals, when information was collected through participant observation, interviews, or surveys, or if there was the possibility that public sources could be tied to a conversant, I use pseudonyms. Additionally, in an effort to obscure a resident’s identity and protect sensitive information, I take the liberty of changing or combining details from more than one resident. 

iii. Bernard Faure. “Quand l'habit fait le moine: The Symbolism of the Kāsāya in Sōtō Zen.” Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 8, no. 3 (1995), 335. 

iv. Lila Abu-Lughod “Writing Against Culture,” in Feminist Anthropology: A Reader, ed. Ellen Lewin (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing), 155. 

v. William James. The Principles of Psychology. (New York NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1890), 291. 

vi. “Resident,” http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Resident [Accessed August 23, 2013] 

vii. “Press Room,” Linden Lab, http://www.lindenlab.com/press [Accessed February 3, 2010] 

viii. “Create Your Avatar Like You,” Second Life, http://go.secondlife.com/landing/avatar/ [Accessed January 7, 2016]. 

ix. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and The Human Spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books, 2011. 

x. Amy Bruckman, “Gender Swapping on the Internet,” Presented at the Internet Society, San Francisco CA, August 1993, http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/papers/gender-swapping.txt [accessed November 9 2015]. 

xi. Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” (New York NY: Routledge, 1993), 125. 

xii. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. (New York NY: Routledge, 1990), 179. 

xiii. Bernard Faure. “Quand l'habit fait le moine: The Symbolism of the Kāsāya in Sōtō Zen.” Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 8, no. 3 (1995), 365).   








 

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