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siblings have financial problems themselves, and are unable to take that
responsibility. Therefore, the monk or nun would have to help their parents out.
Although a monk or a nun can take a leave from their jobs in the monastery, they will not be given any allowance or bursary on public medical insurance during the time on leave. They have to count on their own savings or their family’s support. However, in some monasteries, the monk or nun can bring their parents to reside in the
monasteries if they need help.160
According to one of my informants, Liang went back home to take care of her sick mother until she died. After the death of her mother, she also helped to arrange the funeral matters. Liang took the leave for about one year, but before that, she had gone back and forth from the monastery and home several times already when her mother needed care. Her situation is not unfamiliar to other members in C.F.S. Many monks and nuns in C.F.S. had ever taken a leave to take care of their sick relatives before. However, nuns are more likely to be asked by their families for helps in taking care of another sick family member than monks. I have nine female cases and six male cases in my research. None of my monk informant has ever asked by their family for such a help. On the other hand, seven out of my ten nun informants have taken a leave to help taking care of another sick family member before.
4.8 Types of Monastery
There are several differences between a large public monastery (shi-fang con-lin 十方叢林) and hereditary temple (ci-cuen miao 子孫廟). These English terms on the types of monastery were borrowed from Welch.161 According to Fo Guang Dictionary,
160 For instance, Pu-yi Monastery in Northern Taiwan allows their nuns to bring their mothers to live in the monastery if they need. However, because it is a nunnery, they only allow female parent residing in the monastery.
161 Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900-1950, 1967.
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a hereditary temple is one type of the temples in Taiwan, and it is usually much smaller in the number of the monastic members residing in the temple than large public monastery.162 Usually, the properties of the hereditary temple are controlled and owned by one monk or nun or a group of monks and nuns who are close
related163 to each other. On the other hand, the properties of a large public monastery are owned by the whole monastic community. These definitions in Fo Guang Dictionary can be supported by Welch’s definition on different types of monastery, but Welch provided more detailed information on the differences between these types from his observation.164 A key characteristic of hereditary temple, to Welch, was private ownership in which it is owned by a monk or a group of monks. Hereditary temple could be run with the owner’s own will. Unlike
hereditary temple, larger public monastery had to be operated according to a common monastic rule. In addition, monastic members of hereditary temple were heirs (zi-sun 子孫) of the master, and their relationship based on tonsure relationship but not necessarily on blood relationship. In hereditary temple, the secular patrilinial family structure could be easily observed. Moreover, the ownership of hereditary temple was passed down from generation to generation within the same tonsure family.165 Sometimes hereditary temple was called small temples (xiao-miao 小廟) despite they could have a large number of residents.
Hereditary Public Monastery
Another type of monastery is hereditary public monastery. According to Welch,
162 Shih, Ci Yi (Ed.). Buddha’s Light Dictionary, 1989 : pp.919.
163 These monks and nuns can be related by blood or by direct dharma lineage; that means there is one master and the others are his or her own disciples.
164 Welch, 1967, pp.3-4; pp.129-141.
165 It was used by Welch to indicate the whole monastic community had the same tonsure master, so they all belonged to the same dharma lineage.
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many temples had characteristics of a large public monastery but also characteristics of hereditary temple. The essential characteristic of hereditary public monastery was that this type of monastery allowed visiting monks and nuns to stay as long as they wanted. However, the ownership of the monastery would never be passed down to these visiting monks and nuns because they were from different tonsure family. C.F.S.
accepts visiting monks and nuns, so all its temples belong to this type.
Monasteries in Taiwan
If we use Welch’s definitions to classify monasteries in Taiwan, then I believe that most of the monasteries fall into the type of hereditary temple, but the situation is more complex today than before. Although Welch’s observations can be applied to some of the situations in Taiwanese monasteries today, but there are still some differences. From one of Welch’s informants, he described his temple, hereditary temple, to have less visitors and little administrative work than large public
monastery. In addition to that, Buddhist devotions were not seemed as important in hereditary temple that in large public monastery, and there were no code of
conducts in hereditary temple to govern their activities. These situations can be observed in many hereditary temples in Taiwan but not all of them. Some very organized hereditary temples are large in size of its institutions and number of permanent residences, and these temples operated pretty much like large public monastery. If such a hereditary temple accepted visiting sangha members, then it would become a large hereditary public monastery.
In a statistics done in 1930, there were about a hundred thousand hereditary temples in Taiwan, and the average number of people living in the temple was about
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five.166 We are not sure if this statistics is accurate because we do not know how researchers differentiated different types of monastery. Another statistics mentioned by Welch indicated that the average number of monks in residence of monasteries and temples were five. The reason for that small number of monk residing within one monastery or temple was because there was not enough food to feed too many monks. This is, however, not the reason of hereditary temple having small number of sangha members in Taiwan. Many hereditary temples have their ownership passed down to people who are not only from the same tonsure family as the owner but also having blood relationship with the owner because these temples were usually built and owned by the owner’s family. The owner of the temple can be a layperson, and if the layperson inherits the ownership, he or she might choose to be ordained as a monk or nun in order to be the abbot or abbess of the temple. However, if one chooses not to shave their hairs, then he or she would hire other monks or nuns to run the temple for them.
There is a possibility that a large public monastery becomes a hereditary temple or a hereditary public monastery, and vice versa. Hereditary temples have many problems in management. If no new member (members with blood relation or not) joins the hereditary temple, then the number of people who can help running the temple will not be enough. For example, most small hereditary temples heavily rely on the income from doing private Buddhist ritual services. Thus, there must be at least five people participating in each ritual service. Another concern of these hereditary temples is that there are too many competitions between temples in Taiwan. More and more lay supporters are willing to donate money to larger
monasteries (in size of institution) than to small hereditary temples. Due to different considerations, the owners of a hereditary temple might consider giving up the
166 Shih, Ci Yi (Ed.). Buddha’s Light Dictionary, 1980: pp.919.
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ownership to other larger monasteries. In this case, these smaller hereditary temples become branch temples of larger monasteries. Some abbots or abbesses of large public monastery or hereditary public monastery appoint their relatives to important management positions. These temples become the ownership of members from one single family who are related to each other by lineage, blood or both. It is an example of a large public monastery turning into a hereditary temple or a hereditary public monastery. As for now, I cannot really name a monastery which falls into the category of large public monastery, and without any further research, we do not know whether those large public monasteries that Welch visited have changed or not.
Family Relationship
The relationship between monks or nuns and their natal families of hereditary temples can be very complex. For one reason, the members residing in hereditary temples in Taiwan are more likely to have blood relationship with each other. For instance, the abbot of a hereditary temple is usually the father or the mother of other monastic members in the temple. In this case, the members would not have financial problem like the informants of my field research because they are in control of the temple’s property and finance. In addition, they also have all the access to the temple’s resources. Many hereditary temples of Taiwan, strictly speaking, are more like households than monasteries. Sometimes, relatives can join the Order at the same monastery. Therefore, it is not hard to see parents and children or members who have blood relation with each other living in the same monastery. A best example would be Buddha Gautama and his son, Rahula. However, in a good monastic community, everyone should follow the same guidance and rules without any privilege.
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Particularly in Chinese tradition, many filial sons would build a small Buddhist temple for his widowed mother as a place for retirement. These widowed women choose to become nuns after her duty in the family has finished. Through this behavior, they earn great reward by the society because of her chastity to her dead husband. In the past, renunciation was always one of the choices for widowed
women especially when they had no child. Actually, it is not really a choice of women per se, but it is the choice made for them. In other cases, unmarried daughters would be encouraged to become nuns at their private hereditary temples for showing their chastity. Another reason to do that is to avoid problems of where to put the tablet because unmarried daughters cannot have their tablets in the birth families after they die. However, if they become nuns, they can have their tablets in the temple. Therefore, renunciation is a way to solve both social and cultural
problems. Entering an Order is called “chu-ja (出家)” in Chinese. It means leaving the secular families or world. Even if people of the above cases choose renunciation from secular families, they never really leave their secular families because they remain very close with their families. In the end, the ownership of these private owned hereditary temples are still on the hand of the monk or the nun’s family.
Many people choose to be tonsured at the same temples as their relatives.
Either they are influenced by their relatives or they believe the choice of their relatives. Sometimes, a family of father, mother and children joins the same Order.
Therefore, it is not hard to find examples of members having another relative in the same temple. In C.F.S., there are sisters, mothers, daughters, nephews, husbands and wives. Blood relation is hard to ignore. What I mean is that even a nun addresses her mother, for example, by her dharma names in the temple, they still cannot ignore the emotional bond between the two. Interestingly, a “mother nun” can never treat her
“daughter nun” as other tonsure brothers, and in the eyes of this “mother-nun”, her
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daughter is always her daughter despite that their choices of renouncing from secular families. This is also true to most of other monks and nuns. For instance, many monks and nuns still call their mothers as moms but not their names because they treat their mothers still as mothers emotionally, and blood relation is hard to be ignored. At least in my research cases, monks and nuns still remain very close with their families, and they never really leave their families from the act of renunciation.
It is critical that a monk or nun keeps good and close relationship with their families.
In extreme case, that relationship secures their survival for being a monk and a nun.
As what my informants told me, they never knew if they could continue his monastic life without his or her families’ supports. Theoretically, this should not be a problem, but it is in the reality.
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