Kai Shmushko, "Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics" (Leiden UP, 2024)

May 19, 2025

Kai Shmushko, a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, explores the evolution of lay Buddhism in contemporary China. She discusses how modern practitioners navigate faith amidst rapid socio-political changes, particularly the interplay of Buddhism with commerce and community. Highlights include the significant impact of technology and state regulations on religious practices, the rise of 'living halls' as community spaces, and the fascinating fusion of tea culture with Buddhist rituals. Shmushko's insights illuminate the diverse and adaptive nature of Buddhism today.

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INSIGHT

Concept of Multiple Liminalities

Liminality explains the in-between social and religious spaces lay Buddhists occupy.
This framework reveals how Buddhism adapts amid China's complex social, political, and digital shifts.

ANECDOTE

Living Halls as Hybrid Spaces

Urban Tibetan Buddhist spaces blend commerce and piety through living halls selling high-end Buddhist goods.
These halls balance religious practice with business activity under a tolerant yet regulated environment.

ANECDOTE

Digital Resilience During COVID-19

Tibetan Buddhist groups showed resilience during COVID by leveraging digital communities and lay leadership.
They quickly shifted to producing pandemic necessities alongside traditional religious goods.

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In the past decades, various forms of Buddhism have emerged in-between, above, and beyond conventional conceptions of religious and spiritual life in China. Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics (Leiden UP, 2024) is a qualitative study exploring manifestations of the massive revival of Buddhism among non-monastic people and communities. The book wishes to answer the central question: How do Chinese groups and individuals practice Buddhism under the socio-political and cultural circumstances of contemporary China?

This inquiry is based on a sample of case studies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan, ROC), exploring Buddhist communities, individual practitioners, materials, spaces, practice modalities and relationships. Each chapter examines a significant paradigm that plays a role in the revival of Buddhism in China, highlighting how lay practitioners negotiate their spaces, resources, moral and ethical beliefs, and values, in the face of rapid societal changes. The research reveals how state policies, economic shifts, local trends, and global developments, such as environmental concerns and technological advances impact and transform older Buddhist traditions. Overall, the author argues for the concept of multiple liminalities as a framework to describe the contemporary predicament of lay Buddhism in Chinese societies. Accordingly, lay Buddhist actors occupy liminal positions or operate across ambiguous boundaries where realms of in-betweenness, serve as avenues for religious responses to the complex challenges Buddhism in China faces.

Dr. Tiatemsu Longkumer is a faculty in the Dept. of Anthropology at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan. His academic pursuits center on the fields of Anthropology and the Philosophy of Religion.

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