This panel brings together scholars of Buddhist studies using qualitative, historical, and textual approaches to explore embodiment and affect in the making of Buddhist masculinities. The first panelist examines the karmic connections between guru and disciple and the emotional bonds between men through cycles of death and rebirth. Exploring how “death is a portal for spiritual transformation and deepening intimacy,” the author traces how Buddhist men care for each other across space and time. The next panelist examines varieties of monastic aesthetics and the making of monks’ reputation and authority in contemporary Thailand. As monks’ images circulate on and offline, their appearance, dress, and bodily comportment shape how they come to be recognized as “idols.” The panelist ends with an examination of the place of the “Oriental” man in the racial anxieties of the nineteenth century U.S.. Centering a disability studies perspective, this paper explores how ableist discourses shape religious notions of the ideal body and ideal masculinity.
This paper offers the first-ever translation and close reading of two poignant scenes of joy and grief in the autobiography (rang rnam) of the nineteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist master Do Khyentsé Yeshé Dorjé. These scenes stage the dramatic reunion and inevitable separation between Do Khyentsé and his root guru Dodrupchen. By tending closely to Do Khyentsé’s description of the karmic connection these men share—one that continually draws them into the intense closeness of guru and disciple lifetime after lifetime—this paper offers a larger provocation to the field of Buddhist Studies, suggesting that scholarship on Buddhist men’s lives must account for them as men. By tending to the emotionally charged cycles of (re)union and parting, death and rebirth, this paper argues for broadening our understanding of religious masculinity beyond the Euro-American horizon of Abrahamic traditions by looking to religiously saturated relationships between men that propel emotional encounters across space and time.
Monastic "idols" in Thai Buddhism embody divergent ideals of masculinity and monastic aesthetics. Monks attain the status of idols as followers circulate their images in photographs, portraits, and statues. When these depictions spread beyond the home temple, a monk can gain national recognition. This presentation examines two types of Thai male monastics: those in the forest lineage and monks with the title kruba. These lineages reflect distinct forms of masculinity—the forest lineage emphasizing ascetic autonomy, while the kruba monks incorporate a more androgynous aesthetic. Through diverse methodologies of media analysis, focus group discussions, and participant-observation at distinct Thai Buddhist temples, this paper engages the audience with images and videos from media and fieldwork. These visual representations highlight the varied models for monastic masculinity.
This paper examines how Anagarika Dharmapala navigated the racialized and gendered constructions of masculinity in the late 19th- and early 20th-century U.S., with a particular focus on the overlooked intersection of disability, religion, and race. Western discourse often framed the “Oriental” man as both emasculated and hypersexualized, but this process was also deeply embedded in notions of bodily debility. The racialized construction of Asian masculinity relied on tropes of physical weakness, degeneration, and effeminacy—marking the non-Christian religious body as disabled in opposition to an idealized, able-bodied Western masculinity. This paper brings disability studies into conversation with religious studies and gender history to argue that the religious othering of Buddhism in the U.S. was inseparable from ableist narratives of bodily deficiency. By examining Dharmapala’s self-representation and his engagement with these tropes, the paper offers new insights into the enduring entanglements of race, gender, religion, and disability.