Architects of Buddhist Leisure is Justin McDaniel's third single-author book. It follows his second book, The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk, in which he rejected analytic classifications of opposing heterodox and orthodox religious practices in search of a true Thai Buddhism.Footnote ¹ Architects of Buddhist Leisure similarly eschews the binary opposition between secular and religious ideals by investigating Buddhist leisure sites in Asia.

What does the phrase “Buddhist leisure sites” entail? While McDaniel does not offer a categorical explanation, it appears to include monuments, museums, amusement parks, and gardens that are “characterized by their public accessibility, their ecumenism, and the long and complicated processes involved in their construction” (p. 169). Specifically, the Buddhist leisure sites discussed in the book's three chapters are as follows: (1) the life of Kenzo Tange and his design of the Lumbini master plan to honor the birthplace of the Buddha in Southern Nepal (this is compared to other Buddhist monuments and alternative monastic spaces); (2) the lives of Braphai and Lek Wiriyaphan, who jointly created three massive Buddhist historical amusement parks in Thailand (these are compared to other sculpture gardens), “hell” parks, and entertainment complexes across Asia; and (3) Shi Fa Zhao's continuing efforts to construct a multipurpose “temple” in Singapore (this planned structure is compared to other new Buddhist museums).

Before further discussion, I here introduce McDaniel's assertions about Buddhist leisure sites according to three points. He first insists on the “public” nature of these sites, a notion that is largely synonymous with the terms “non-monastic” and “nonsectarian.” Buddhist leisure sites are designed and promoted by non-monastics, architects, and visionaries with little formal knowledge of Buddhism. Such sites are thus run by laity who are unaffiliated with any single monastery or are only loosely connected to the formal spaces, activities, and concomitant ordained hierarchies. There are virtually no restrictions on religious affiliation, gender, or ethnicity, and information is offered in multiple languages. In short, these are not spaces for didactic sermons, forced spirituality, or ethical directives; they are for fun.

Second, McDaniel values these sites as places of Buddhist “ecumenism.” There has been no concerted Buddhist effort to develop universal strategies or guiding principles. However, non-monastic Buddhist leisure sites often promote assembly and display through accumulation, which is the notion that all Buddhist schools and cultures are equal and should coexist. These institutions generally lack formal, formidable, ritual, ecclesiastical, or sectarian boundaries and make little effort to be “authentic.” They emphasize display, performance, juxtaposition, and an anachronistic conglomerate of various traditional Buddhist elements. McDaniel says this is important because it provides a completely different image of contemporary Buddhism that emphasizes innovation and ecumenism rather than purity and authenticity.

Third, McDaniel describes Buddhist leisure sites based on ever-changing processes rather than outcomes. He refuses the “great man” approach to history, which posits that major achievements are the products of exceptional outliers. McDaniel instead takes a material culture approach that considers the contributions of multiple creators, materials, laborers, licensing agencies, funders, critics, and visitors. Buildings, parks, and the material objects assembled at leisure sites are never simply the creations of one architect; they are altered by each new manager, repairperson, renovator, and visitor. Governments change, zoning laws are rewritten, and access roads are moved. That is, these sites must compromise to achieve local optima over time. This is a process of architectural “metabolism.” Here, buildings are not seen as isolated monuments or functional structures, but as the nodes of energetic couplings. By stressing this process, McDaniel offers alternative ways of interpreting Buddhism as an ever-changing world religion.

Through its analysis of Buddhist leisure sites, this book competently illustrates how the religious and secular are intertwined in contemporary Asian society. It also expresses appreciation for several new research trends and welcomes the possibilities of new religious studies. Architects of Buddhist Leisure has much in common with recent religious studies concepts, including the theory of religious commodification (e.g. Pattana 2008)Footnote ² and religious tourism (e.g. Raj and Griffin eds. 2015).Footnote ³ Consumption is conspicuously practiced at many Buddhist leisure sites. This phenomenon can be called “religious practice without belief.” That is, people do not visit these sites because of their beliefs. Rather, they treat them like any other tourist spots. While many visitors have various experiences with “religious” themes, there is no systematized doctrine attached. Therefore, activities at leisure sites cannot be captured through the traditional concept of “religion” as defined by belief.

Architects of Buddhist Leisure also has common elements with recent social science developments that stress the importance of the “institution” or “institutionalization” (cf. Merleau-Ponty). From this perspective, it is increasingly common to describe economic, political, and social processes as “path dependent.” Such processes do not steadily progress toward a pre-determined or unique equilibrium. Rather, the nature of any achieved equilibrium depends on the process of getting there. For example, anthropologist Tim Ingold contrasts the “hylomorphic” model with a “morphogenetic” approach that enacts “making” as a contingent process of growth. That is, making involves entering the grain of the world's becoming and bending it to an evolving purpose (Ingold 2013).Footnote ⁴ We can positively evaluate that McDaniel's analysis applies institutional theory to religious studies. It will thus aid in elucidating the actual state of religion as an institution.

The book also employs a unique analysis method. The author states the following: “Although my research here has looked at specific places in Nepal, Singapore, and Thailand, as well as other examples from Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, China, India, Laos, and Louisiana, I do not necessarily see this as a comparative study. I am not comparing individual spaces site to site, but identifying trends and motivations across many sites divided into categories” (p. 166). The data are thin on individual cases compared with ordinary ethnographies. However, McDaniel successfully reveals the features and patterns of Buddhist leisure sites as described above by arranging many cases in parallel. There is a methodological approach in anthropology called “Multisited ethnography.” The methodology used in this book appears to approve of this concept and shows new ethnographic possibilities.

From a theoretical point of view, Architects of Buddhist Leisure asks what “Buddhism” is and how we can study it. I have two questions concerning this issue. First, how do we evaluate previous studies on the monastic world? McDaniel says that “most studies of Buddhist culture and history are rooted in the institution of the monastery” (p. 13). Is this perception reasonable? While writing an ethnography about modern Myanmar monasteries (Kuramoto 2014),Footnote ⁵ I discovered that very few anthropological studies focused on monasteries or monks. Anthropological Buddhist studies, which began through a differentiation of Buddhist doctrinal studies, thus tend to focus on the religious practices of laypeople, which are different from doctrine and cannot easily be deduced thereby. Therefore the monastic world has become a kind of “black box.” McDaniel also seems to see the monastic world as an essential and substantial entity, although his outstanding first book, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words, examined Buddhist monastic education in Laos and Thailand.Footnote ⁶ However, my research has indicated that the monastic system is also regarded as a process of “metabolism” and contains characteristics that cannot be grasped by traditional concepts of “religion” and the “secular.”

Second, how do we understand the relationship between the lay and monastic worlds? McDaniel does not fully explain the relationship between his first work and this book. To the contrary, he seems to overemphasize the contrast between the two worlds. This contrast can be seen in other variations of Buddhist Studies. For example, it is evident in religion and secularism, doctrine and practice, monasteries and pagodas, center and border, and piety and ordinary life. However, I worry that continuing to reproduce these dichotomies will prevent further understanding of the Buddhist world. Are the monastic and lay worlds two incompatible universes? Is the Buddhist world composed of these two universes? How can we think about the relationship between the two?

Buddhism is itself an institution that is an ever-changing process of formation and transformation. Two vectors coexist in this process. One heads toward a public and ecumenical direction (as McDaniel shows in this book), while the other heads the opposite way, that is, toward a private and sectarian destination. Stanley Tambiah, a researcher of Thai Buddhism, argued that these two vectors have caused the Buddhist world to sway between domestication and fundamentalist reform.Footnote ⁷ However, with such a pendulum model, it is impossible to fully describe the entanglement of the two worlds. Solving the relationship between these two worlds, therefore, remains an important topic in Buddhist Studies.