Being Witnessed Saving Others: Moral Personhood in Women's Popular Buddhist Practice in Rural Northern Vietnam

Abstract

In popular Buddhist practice in rural northern Vietnam, moral personhood does not merely belong to the self but is embedded in the intersubjective relationship among individuals, the gods, and the community. The inner moral person, characterized as heart/mind ( tâm ), is constituted in the very process of becoming visible in the social world through virtuous action ( đức ) subject to the intentional acts of being witnessed for ( chứng cho ) by the gods and one's peers. Drawing upon popular Buddhist practice of the female followers of a ritual specialist in Bathing Buffalo Village, this article argues that the act of being witnessed for bridges the gap between the invisible and deeply felt experience of moral selfhood and the visible manifestation of that self in the social realm through acts of altruism and filial piety and reveals the inherently social nature of moral personhood.