“All My Life Revolves around Buddhism. Buddhism, Work, Children, Family...”: a Biographical Project of a Modern Buddhist

The article represents the analysis of a biographical interview with a member of St. Petersburg Buddhist community, which is considered as an ideally typical case. The study focuses on the life trajectory of the modern Buddhist and the role of religious conversion in his biographical project. As a methodological toolkit of the biographical research, the conception of F. Schutze’s narrative interview is used. This approach, on the one hand, pays enough attention to the structural limitations set by the social context; on the other hand, it allows to identify intentional processes in the biography and to correlate these restraints and subjective goal-setting with the interpretations of the informant. Based on the analysis of the interview, it can be argued that, for our hero, as a typical representative of a generation born in the 1960s, religious conversion becomes the way of adaptation to the new post-Soviet socio-economic and ideological reality. The symbolic, psychological and social resources of the religious community are used to overcome social exclusion and deprivation, to reach spiritual well-being and are conceptualized as the means of increasing opportunities.