A Chinese American Buddhist Healer, with Kin Cheung

Blue Beryl

In this episode, I sit down with Kin Cheung, a scholar of contemporary Buddhism at Moravian University. We talk about his research on a Chinese American community healer who happens to be his father. We discuss how his father’s practice raises challenging questions for scholars, and reveals gaping holes in current academic approaches to Buddhism. Along the way, we talk about how code-switching between different ontologies is a feature of life for Asian Americans, and hear Kin’s father conduct a blessing ritual.
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Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• First installment of Pierce's blog series on Meta Approaches to Asian Medicine
• Chenxing Han, Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021)
• Duncan Ryūken Williams, American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War (2019)
• Pierce Salguero, Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (2020)
• Jivaka Project Philadelphia (documentary films on Asian American Buddhism in Philadelphia, by Pierce and Lan)
• Pierce Salguero, Kin Cheung, and Susannah Deane, Buddhism and Healing in the Modern World (2024)
• Pierce Salguero and Andrew Macomber, Buddhist Healing in Medieval China and Japan (2020)