The paper will examine how a Buddhist community, headed by a charismatic monk, have adjusted a Buddhist ritual to help transform anxieties around the future of the community's existence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
It will look at the significance of the Buddhist ritual of pouring water together and how this has been translated into a new schema on relatedness and rebirth, making relatives of strangers and inspiring the hope of a communal rebirth to a better future.
There is crisis in the CHT: the rapid changes in the demographics of the hill tracts as a result of the influx of landless Bangladeshi Muslims into the region; and the impact of this in-migration on land ownership has left the Marma community fearing for their future. This Buddhist community is dealing with the in this life anxieties in a way that is novel as they work towards a unique solution for the future. By expanding relatedness to cover different ethnic Buddhists who pour water together and in doing so, the community dream of being reborn together, returning to the landscape of golden temples of the CHT that will endure, and which they call their home.
