Approaching non-self: An ethnographic study of Chan practice within the Western Chan Fellowship, a British Lay Buddhist Community

This thesis delves into the practice of contemporary non-monastic British Buddhist practitioners in the UK by focusing on non-self. As a critical Buddhist philosophy, the non-self has yet to be researched in depth among lay Buddhist practitioners in the anthropology of Buddhism. This research is the first long-term ethnographic study in anthropology to focus on non-self and the first time to examine one British Buddhist community in depth anthropologically. It sheds light on how Buddhist practitioners practise non-self on and off their meditation cushions by examining the Western Chan Fellowship (WCF), a British Buddhist lay community with a formal Chinese Chan Buddhist dharma lineage. The researcher of this thesis is an ethnic Chinese who practises Buddhism as an adult, like the WCF members. This unique angle provides novel observations of tradition and the reinventing of Buddhist practice. All conditions combined in investigating the WCF's practice allow this study to challenge the existing knowledge in the anthropology of personhood by introducing a self within a non-self context.

The study highlights the influence of Chan's methods, which embodied non-self, on personal practice in dealing with the spiritual heritage of Christianity and the community's operations as an unbounded organisation connected by cultivating virtue ethics through ambience instead of belonging with or in faith. It argues against the notion of 'dual identities' in religious life by presenting a more complex picture of spiritual identity deeply influenced by the philosophy of non-self. It shows that non-self practice builds a new layer of self among practitioners. This new layer makes practitioners feel flexible in social and cultural identification. Therefore, the self within non-self offers fresh perspectives on religious practice in the digital age, transcendence in daily life, and engaged Buddhism from an individual practice perspective rather than purposes from organisations as social movements.

The critical theoretical contribution of this thesis is that all anthropological topics need to be rethought from a perspective of self within non-self. A non-self society is still a society, and there can still be selves. Notably, the concept of non-self is approached with the understanding that whatever actions a practitioner takes are motivated by and aligned with the principles of virtue ethics in Chan Buddhism context, both as a means and an end in their practice.