About

Raoul Birnbaum is a Professor in the Division of Arts at UC Santa Cruz, holding the Rebele Endowed Chair. He is affiliated with the Department of History of Art/Visual Culture, Cowell College, and is part of the Anthropology Department, East Asian Studies, and Jewish Studies. His academic role is designated as a regular faculty member. Further details about his research focus, background, and key contributions are not provided in the available page text.

Research topics

• Geography
• Classics
• History
• Literature
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• Theology
• Aesthetics
• Art

Selected publications

• Master Hongyi’s Confucian Dreams

  2025-07-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The notable monk Hongyi (1880–1942) has been widely respected in Chinese Buddhist worlds as a great exemplar of Buddhist life. A multi-talented artist of considerable renown, he stepped away from elite life to become a Buddhist monk at age thirty-eight. In many ways he appears to have had a whole-hearted dedication to Buddhist learning and ideals. However, Hongyi’s report of a dream in his last year, one that consisted solely of a quote from the Confucian Analects, complicates our understanding of this prominent and influential Buddhist monk and prompts a reconsideration of the contours of his interior life. We might then wonder: beyond Buddhist commitments, what were the constituent threads of Hongyi’s mind during those Buddhist years? What other dreams did he chose to report, and why? As a thoughtful man of his elite class, with a formation that included a classical as well as a modern education, prior to his Buddhist commitments Hongyi had made serious studies of core Confucian texts, as well as works by Liu Zongzhou, a late-Ming Confucian thinker concerned with self-cultivation. Prompted by that “Confucian dream,” investigation of a wide range of primary sources (including newly-discovered manuscript materials) shows that Confucian studies had a lasting and powerful influence on this influential Buddhist; indeed, they formed a powerful undercurrent to Hongyi’s Buddhist modes of self-cultivation. This paper looks to these interrelations of Buddhist and Confucian studies in Hongyi’s world of self-cultivation, and the significance of dreams in that world.

  PublisherDOI

• Acknowledgments

  University of Hawaii Press eBooks · 2023

  • Geography

  Stories about Xuanzang, that most famous of pilgrims, have traveled far and wide.It seems appropriate, then, that this book, a story about stories, has taken shape on the road.It began in Taiwan,

  DOI

• Vinaya Master Hongyi’s 弘一 Vinaya Problem

  BRILL eBooks · 2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Literature
  • Philosophy
  • Aesthetics

  This chapter considers Vinaya issues within the life of one individual from the context of his cultivation practices. At mid-career, Hongyi 弘一 (1880–1942), the most acclaimed Chinese Vinaya master of the modern era, found himself in a serious quandary. He concluded that his 1918 ordination procedure had been so flawed that he had not actually received the biqiu precepts (biqiu jie 比丘戒). Thus, he was not an ordained monk. There was no way to properly receive those precepts, for in his view there was no longer a single properly ordained monk to be found, much less the requisite ten, to officiate. Precepts bear precious value beyond their importance as behavioral guidelines, for they also bear a mystical element (the jieti 戒體) that merges with precept holders and powerfully assists them in their cultivation practices. Therefore, a close look at some of the cultivation methods taught by Hongyi during this particular period, including one particular way of solving problems, provides us with a possibility for understanding the dimensions of the problem within his individual context. Hongyi found that Bodhisattva precepts, at least, could be effectively received through a self-transmission rite, and he proceeded to do so in 1931. Because of their intrinsic importance to the Bodhisattva precepts and centrality to Hongyi’s inner life, this chapter explores the distinctive differences between precepts (jie 戒) and vows (yuan 願). Early in 1933, Hongyi had a powerful dream that he interpreted as a good omen for his Vinaya teachings in Fujian. (The dream may also be understood as a sign that the self-transmission rite had been successful.) Hongyi gathered a small group of students and provided systematic Vinaya teachings throughout that year. This was the start of his Vinaya teaching career, he said (although he had been teaching and writing for many years already). During that intensive teaching year, Hongyi made sure that his students also received Bodhisattva precepts through the same method he had employed. Thus, as Hongyi’s naming practices reveal, while he often used the title shamen 沙門 (śramaṇa, a left-home wandering ascetic) in his signature, he never termed himself a biqiu, for the greatest Vinaya master of modern times recognized that he was not actually an ordained monk.

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• Highland Inscriptions in Buddhist China

  T oung Pao · 2017-08-28 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 5. The Deathbed Image of Master Hongyi

  University of Hawaii Press eBooks · 2017-12-31 · 4 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Two Turns in the Life of Master Hongyi, A Buddhist Monk in Twentieth-Century China

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016-12-21 · 9 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter chronicles the life of Hongyi, one of the most celebrated and admired Buddhist monks in modern Chinese history. Before becoming a monk, Hongyi, then known as Li Shutong, was famous for being a talented writer and musician. In his late thirties, in a move that was highly unusual for a person of his background and standing, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk and spent the remainder of his life in various monastic settings. Although not an institution-builder, Hongyi’s brand of “sainthood” was widely admired in China, particularly among the elite, for its detachment and spirituality. One of the best expressions of this spirituality is Hongyi’s famous calligraphy, which he applied to Buddhist purposes after his conversion, producing iconic images of Buddhist texts and inscriptions that Birnbaum analyzes in terms of their “coolness.”

  PublisherDOI

• The Religion of Falun Gong. By Benjamin Penny. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. xiii, 262 pp. $45.00 (cloth).

  The Journal of Asian Studies · 2013-05-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The best-known trope associated with Falun Gong as a historical phenomenon is likely that moment in April 1999 when some ten thousand adherents silently gathered in protest at the gates to the Zhongnanhai residential compound in Beijing, home to most of China's central leadership. Receiving reports about this “besiegement,” Jiang Zemin is said to have asked (with, one might imagine, considerable consternation), “What is Falun Gong?” (p. 2). Others have raised this question as well, generating an outpouring of articles, Web postings, and books—of varying reliability and explanatory value—that seek to pin it down.Benjamin Penny's terrific new book, The Religion of Falun Gong, demonstrates the continued importance of this question. By examining the movement within the context of the history of Chinese religions, Penny explores dimensions of Falun Gong that previously have been obscured, ignored, or insufficiently engaged. The result, building on previous scholarship and a mountain of primary source materials, is a considerably amplified and multidimensional view of a very important phenomenon in recent Chinese history.The most significant recent books that focus on this phenomenon include David Palmer's highly articulate Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), which examines Falun Gong within the context of its origins as a qigong practice and organization, and David Ownby's Falun Gong and the Future of China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), a wide-ranging analytical account that looks especially closely at the Falun Gong movement's relations with the state. Penny's book deliberately joins in conversation with these works and is most profitably read in conjunction with them. Penny's special contribution is his sustained consideration of the religious elements of the movement. Most significantly, he provides an analytical biography of Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi that highlights hagiographical patterns, and he sets forth a clear and detailed account of Falun Gong teachings, including a sharp discussion of how the ethical and cultivation practices of the group fit within its articulated views.One of the great strengths of this book is the extended discussion of Falun Gong cosmological views and their change and development through time. The movement's millenarian views, which are predicated on stark oppositions between social groups, dire predictions of the future, and a clearly defined base of ethical teachings, link Falun Gong to a well-defined stream of indigenous religious movements through Chinese history, even if some other elements have been borrowed from global New Age religious movements. At the very center of Falun Gong cosmological views sits the master, Li Hongzhi, and his teachings on cultivation techniques. Over time, Li has crafted his persona into that of a kind of mystical superman who plays a crucial role—from nearby or afar—in personally initiating the foundations of each individual practitioner's essential bodily disciplines. Anyone who has thought of this movement simply as an ethical teaching linked to exercises and self-healing practices will be stunned to discover the acutely hierarchical cosmological views that Penny carefully delineates.As Penny shows, Falun Gong literature and discourse are permeated by Buddhist vocabulary, beginning with the very name of the organization, falun, the Dharma wheel, a central symbol of the Buddhist way. I might add that the visual culture of Falun Gong, especially as seen in early videotapes of the master, is saturated with Buddhistic cues, even while its teachings and practices are in many ways far distant from any reasonably orthodox Buddhist standard. In the multidimensional discourse of Falun Gong, it seems that some Buddhist terms are to be understood in conventionally Buddhistic ways, while in other cases, the standardized translations released by the organization present an idiosyncratic understanding of these terms that simply relies on their conventional familiarity as a kind of legitimizing support.Penny's research background in Daoist studies provides a reliable basis for his explanations of the Daoist terms that also permeate Falun Gong discourse, especially those associated with the practices of inner alchemy. He addresses Buddhist elements with verve, and opens the door for a more comprehensive analysis that might be taken up by a Buddhist studies specialist. Related to this, one might also seek an analytical account of how the initially confused boundaries between Falun Gong and Buddhism at the time of the 1999 crackdown were negotiated by both the Buddhist establishment and government authorities at national, provincial, and very local levels. This was a matter of considerable concern within Chinese Buddhist communities at the time, and continued to be so well into the first decade of this century. Another question that seems nowhere answered in the voluminous Western-language literature on Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong (at least as far as I have been able to survey it), including Penny's book, is a consideration of the regional origins of Li Hongzhi and his movement. Is there anything particular to the culture of the far northeast, Li Hongzhi's homeland, that might be manifested in the distinctive contours of the teachings and histories of Falun Gong and its leader? One final point of concern is that while Penny carefully and admirably discusses the arbitrary nature of most definitions of “religion,” he never articulates a clear formulation of “religion” as this term applies to Falun Gong, instead using “religion” or “religious” in a generally intuitive manner. While he begins to approach an explicit formulation at the end of the book, it could be articulated with more specificity and precision.These questions should not diminish Penny's considerable achievement. The Religion of Falun Gong is an admirably accessible work of scholarship that is essential reading for anyone interested in the complexities of modern China and for anyone interested in tracing persistent continuities of Chinese religious phenomena across the long reach of history.

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• Master Hongyi Looks Back: A Modern Man Becomes a Monk in Twentieth-Century China

  2003-09-11 · 10 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The story that I have to tell concerns the quiet dramas of one man’s life. This particular man was born in 1880, in the waning decades of the Qing dynasty, and he came of age as tremendous forces of change swept across China. Li Shutong—a stunningly talented and influential artist, writer, musician, actor, and educator—became famous in China as a “modern man,” but in 1918 at the height of this fame he altered his course to become a Buddhist monk, renamed Hongyi.1 By the time of his death in 1942, Chinese Buddhists considered Hongyi a towering figure in their modern history (Wg. 4.1). Among Buddhists, he was well known for his profound scholarship on Vinaya (monastic rules), but he was honored most especially for the depth of his religious practice. His artistic talents found particular expression in a unique style of brush writing, developed in his mature years, that ever since has been identified as quintessentially “Buddhist.” The center of my narrative focuses on Hongyi’s recollections of the pivotal years at midlife when he decided to “leave home” (become a monk). Since this chapter looks at his recollections, its subject also is self-representation reflections on one man’s experiences and the ways that he chose to express them. Hongyi’s story is neither typical nor representative. He was an extraordinary person in many ways, which is why memories of him linger sixty years after his death. Indeed, he remains well known in China far beyond Buddhist circles as an enigmatic and romantic Wgure of the near past.

  PublisherDOI

• Buddhist China at the Century's Turn

  The China Quarterly · 2003-06-01 · 39 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Based on fieldwork and studies of historical and contemporary materials, this article investigates several issues key to Buddhist life in the present-day PRC, focusing on Han Buddhists, especially the monastic tradition. It argues that many current practices take their shape from the innovations that transformed Chinese Buddhist life in the late Qing and Republican periods. While profound political, economic and social changes have occurred in the past few decades, some of the most pressing issues are extensions of questions raised at that time. The most significant question of the earlier period – what is the Buddhist monastic vocation, and what training and leadership are required to safeguard that ideal? – remains central to present-day activities and conceptions. To consider how to answer this question, or indeed how it is posed within present circumstances, three interconnected matters are investigated: current training methods, the economics of monasteries and the issue of leadership. In this context, Han–Tibetan interchange in the Buddhist field and the influence of overseas Chinese Buddhists on the mainland are also considered.

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• African Buddhists? Some Issues in Buddhist Transmission Across Cultures

  Journal for the Study of Religion · 1997-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Kurtis R. Schaeffer

  University of Virginia

  16 shared

• Steffen Döll

  Universität Hamburg

  16 shared

• Max Deeg

  University of British Columbia

  16 shared

• Donald Lopez

  Heidelberg University

  16 shared

• Juhn Ahn

  University of California, Los Angeles

  16 shared

• Sammi Kile

  University of British Columbia

  16 shared

• Zhaohua Yang

  Heidelberg University

  16 shared

• Miranda Brown

  University of British Columbia

  16 shared