The Jivaka Project

An ethnographic survey and documentary film project about Buddhist medicine in Greater Philadelphia (2015–2020). Trailer by Lan A. Li & C. Pierce Salguero

Buddhism plays an important—though often unappreciated—role in the city’s healthcare landscape, especially for Asian immigrants and refugees. We invite you to begin to explore these intersections by visiting one of the six themes below. Each theme includes a short documentary film, further readings, and links for the locations profiled. You can also explore the following links:

Meditation

How do Buddhist communities in Philadelphia link meditation to health and wellbeing?

Healing Rituals

What kinds of Buddhist rituals are performed in Philadelphia to ensure health or fight disease?

Food & Health

What are the health implications of traditional foodways that are celebrated in Buddhist spaces in Philadelphia?

Traditional Medicine

How do Buddhist organizations in Philadelphia promote traditional forms of Asian medical care?

Social Dimensions of Health

How do Buddhist communities in Philadelphia support their members’ psychological and social wellbeing?

Intersections with Mainstream Healthcare

How do Buddhist institutions in Philadelphia interface with mainstream healthcare infrastructure, such as hospitals and health insurance?

Jivaka Project Philadelphia represents the first comprehensive survey of Buddhist healers and healing in any major American city. This website records a wide range of information about Buddhist temples, meditation centers, and community centers around the Greater Philadelphia area between 2015 and 2020. This multimedia and ethnographic material represents a wide range of institutions associated with a number of different Buddhist denominations and cultural/linguistic/ethnic communities.

Buddhist institutions play a visibly important role in the American urban landscape, but their contributions to health and wellness have never been systematically explored. While these connections between Buddhism and health are rarely mentioned in scholarship on Buddhism or on American religion, they are regular parts of daily life for communities of Asian immigrants and refugees, as well as other Buddhists. Buddhist health-seeking activities include the performance of public and private healing rituals, individual or communal chanting and prayer, and the practice of silent meditation punctuated by bells and other instruments. Within the temple grounds, traditional Asian medical procedures are performed, such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, and massage. They also include boisterous festivals that feature native foods with health implications, psychologically healing social interactions among community members, and maybe even booths where attendees can receive a checkup from a medical professional.

The intention behind the project as a whole is to highlight the rich multiethnic social fabric of Greater Philadelphia. We also hope it can become an opportunity to enhance the visibility of the non-white non and non-native-English-speaking practitioners that make up a large portion of contemporary American Buddhism. The diversity of American Buddhism has been increasingly emphasized as an important priority for scholarly research. Critics have pointed out that mainstream English-language media has unduly focused on Caucasians in their coverage of American Buddhism, all too often forgetting or glossing over the significant contributions of people of color. Observers have decried the erasure of Asian-American Buddhism in particular, arguing for more attention to be paid to the role of Asian communities in both the history and contemporary practice of Buddhism in the U.S. One immediate priority in this effort is to bring more diverse perspectives into our understanding of the connections between Buddhism and health. The popular media tend to exclusively focus on the practice of mindfulness meditation, which is becoming ever more popular in mainstream culture. However, bringing more diverse voices into the conversation opens up a richer world of practices and cultural orientations toward health and healing that are currently flourishing within contemporary American Buddhism.

Most of the research for this project was conducted in collaboration with students of Asian heritage with relevant language and cultural skills to serve as ethnographers and liaisons. Please read about the pedagogical methods and philosophy behind this and other aspects of the project here.

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Downloadable materials for faculty to design their own version of the Jivaka Project course. All materials are offered here under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

Pedagogical Methods

Salguero, C. Pierce. 2021. “Buddhist Healthcare in Philadelphia: An Ethnographic Experiment in Student-Centered, Engaged, and Inclusive Pedagogy.” Religions12.6; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060420.

Materials

Note on IRB

This project was reviewed by the IRB at Penn State University (STUDY00009047). It was determined that the project does not meet the definition of human subject research as defined in 45 CFR 46.102(d) and/or (f). The rationale for this determination was that “the data being collected is about the temples and not about the individuals.” Our survey questions focus on the activities and features of institutions, and not on the opinions or experiences of specific individuals. This project may be used as the baseline for further research that does involve human subjects. Any such projects will be reviewed by the respective IRBs of the principal investigators separately. The data collected via those subsequent studies are not included on this website; however, publications describing the results of such studies may be posted in the Articles section. Any scholars participating in this project are encouraged to seek IRB approval or exemption from their own institutions.

Essential Background Reading for Instructors & Advanced Students

Borup, J. 2016. “Who are these Buddhists and How Many of Them are There? Theoretical and Methodological Challenges in Counting Immigrant Buddhists: A Danish Case Study.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 31:1, 85-100, doi: 10.1080/13537903.2016.1109876.
Cadge, W. 2004. Heartwood: The First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cheah, J. 2011. Race and Religion in American Buddhism: White Supremacy and Immigrant Adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hickey, W.S. 2010. “Two Buddhisms, Three Buddhisms, and Racism.” Journal of Global Buddhism 11: 1–25.
Numrich, P. D. 2005. “Complementary and Alternative Medicine in America’s ‘Two Buddhisms.’” In Linda L. Barnes and Susan S. Sered (eds.), Religion and Healing in America. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Quli, N. F. 2009. “Western Self, Asian Other: Modernity, Authenticity, and Nostalgia for ‘Tradition’ in Buddhist Studies.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 16, http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/quli-article.pdf, last accessed 10 Feb. 2018.
Salguero, C. P. 2019. Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources. New York: Columbia University Press, esp. chapters on contemporary Buddhist healers in the US and globally.
———. 2019. “Varieties of Buddhist Healing in Multiethnic Philadelphia,” Religions 10.48; doi:10.3390/rel10010048.
Wilson, Jeff. 2014. Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wu, Hongyu. 2002. “Buddhism, Health, and Healing in a Chinese Community.” http://pluralism.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Wu.pdf, last accessed 10 Feb. 2018.

Research Papers

Blogs

Press

PI, project design, film production, website:
Pierce Salguero, PhD
Associate Professor of Asian History and Religious Studies, Penn State University

Film direction, cinematography, graphic design:
Lan A. Li, PhD
Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University

Research assistance and advice:
Paola Xhuli, Ryan Rose, Somtanuek Chotchoungchatchai, Sungsim Kim, Scott Mitchell, Natalie Quli, Hieu Phung, Jennifer Hunter, Emily S. Wu, Courtney Bruntz

Student contributors:
Photos, video clips, and data have also been anonymously contributed by a large number of students from various classes in Buddhist Studies and other disciplines at Penn State’s Abington College. Special recognition goes to Christina Chen, Ashley Cole, Patrick Kim, Meihang Lim, Alex Medina, Vinh Pham, Angelina Wu, Jane Yeung, Sinna Zheng.

Funding support:

Abington College Undergraduate Research Activities
American Religious Sounds Project (Ohio State University)
Penn State Center for Student Engagement
Penn State Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence
Penn State Teaching & Learning with Technology

All content in this project is offered under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. It may be copied, distributed, or displayed for non-commercial purposes as long as this website is attributed. Any derivative works must be released under the same terms.