Emerging research on questions of doctrine, metaphor, violence, licensed evil, and care among Japanese religious actors across a range of historical periods. Individual papers in this omnibus session explore the discourse of “licensed evil” in the writings of Hōnen’s (1133-1212) followers, with special attention to their concern with salvation through the practice of the nembutsu; the metaphors of violence and their relation to Buddhist doctrinal concerns in the writings of Takuan Sōhō (1573-1645); the Maruyamakō movement, which spread rapidly through eastern Japan beginning in 1870, and whose transformation from movement to sect is explained through the concept of "doctrinalization"; and the eldercare activities of Kōdō Kyōdan, a Tendai Buddhist group founded in 1936, with attention to how interactions between religious and secular institutions shape this Buddhist program's vision of faith as a medium between care and caring in a time of crisis. This papers session will be followed by a business meeting for the Japanese Religions Unit.
Medieval Japanese Buddhists debated the relationship between moral conduct and salvation, widely understood as birth after death in the Buddha Amida’s Pure Land. Some argued that faith rendered rules of proper behavior unnecessary to attain birth in the Pure Land. This paper examines medieval Japanese debates over whether Pure Land teachings license individuals to commit evil. It focuses on Hōnen (1133-1212) and his followers, with whom the discourse of “licensed evil” is closely associated. Hōnen taught that salvation is achieved only by chanting Amida’s name (nenbutsu) and relying totally on his compassion. As his doctrine spread, however, some devotees used it to legitimize the violation of conventions. In this paper, I situate antinomian readings of Hōnen’s doctrine within a broader undercurrent of anxieties over attainment of salvation and show that “licensed evil” became a focal point of debates over how to interpret Hōnen’s doctrine of the exclusive nenbutsu.
In the early twentieth century, militarists eager to dignify violence in service to the modern Japanese state promoted the writings of the Zen priest Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645). To reassess the relationship between Buddhism and violence, as well as Takuan’s role in theorizing that relationship, this paper develops a systematic analysis of the metaphors Takuan used to conceptualize violence. Focusing on Takuan’s works addressing a warrior audience, “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom” (Fudōchi shimyōroku) and “The Annals of [the Sword] Taia” (Taiaki), I will show that Takuan employed metaphor in three important ways: (1) to explain the ‘non-stopping mind’—his neologism for non-attaching immovable wisdom; (2) to analogize swordsmanship to Buddhist practice; and (3) to liken warriors to bodhisattvas. Based on theories of metaphorical conceptualization and master tropes, I will show that Takuan endorsed swordsmanship practiced with the non-stopping mind as a warrior’s entry into the path towards enlightenment.
From 1870 through 1895, the Maruyamakō movement spread rapidly through eastern Japan. It was characterized by outsiders as a millenarian movement with secret, subversive teachings. It is often described as peaking at 1.38 million members in 1889. Maruyamakō’s charismatic founder Itō Rokurōbei has been interpreted in the past as reviving an early modern popular morality. My research instead emphasizes the prominence of faith healing in the group’s spread, and explains its history using the concept of "doctrinalization" which emerges in the history of Sect Shinto. I look at several documents published between March and September 1885 which attempted to control the Maruyamakō movement by imposing doctrine on them. These attempts proved futile, but greater administrative oversight allowed Maruyama Kyōkai to establish strict control over the production and copying of Itō Rokurōbei’s messages from 1887 until his death in 1894.
This study examines the evolving roles of a faith-based social welfare program, the Maitri Help Service, in providing care services in contemporary Japan. Launched in 1998 by the lay Buddhist group Kōdō Kyōdan in Yokohama, the Maitri Help Service offers a wide range of eldercare services to the public. In light of Japan's aging population and the COVID-19 crisis, this ethnographic study investigates the development of the Maitri Help Service and its interactions with external institutions. It seeks to understand the intricate dynamics that this program navigates with multiple interested parties in the non-profit sector. This study argues that the interrelationships between the Maitri Help Service, its parent religious organization, and external institutions are crucial in shaping the program’s actions and visions of how faith can bridge care and caring in times of crisis and enable opportunities for future development.
| Pamela D. Winfield | pwinfield@elon.edu | View |