Tag: Japan

The American Encounter with Buddhism: What it tells us about Japan and it’s Pursuit of Modernity

In the second chapter of The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent, Thomas Tweed discusses American engagement with Buddhism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Tweed explains that, “This study analyzes the public conversation about Buddhism (in English) and focuses on Euro-American Buddhists.”1 The author describes a contradictory engagement with Buddhism in America: the chapter starts off with evidence of Buddhism’s proliferation in America, but quickly turns to consider the many factors which limited American support of Buddhism. In addition to shedding light on American reactions to Buddhism, Tweed’s chapter, “Shall We All Become Buddhists?” points to major differences in Japanese and Chinese engagement with overseas populations, and illuminates in particular the Japanese relationship with modernity. 

In his discussion about Asian-American Buddhists, Tweed asserts that “The Japanese provided greater support for their immigrant Buddhist communities than the Chinese. They apparently did so, in part, in response to Christian missionary efforts.”2 As evidence for this assertion, he points to the 1898 decision by the Japanese Jodo-Shin-shu (True Pure Land Sect) to send two representatives to the United States to study immigrant spiritual practices and the subsequent move by the Kyoto headquarters to send two missionaries, officially recognizing the Buddhist mission in America. Tweed’s observations are useful in a discussion of Japanese reactions to Western industrialization and modernization. Just as the arrival of Mathew Perry’s “black ships” in 1854 threatened Japanese sovereignty, Christian missionaries’ attempt to convert Japanese immigrants in America jeopardized the future of one of the major Japanese religious traditions. Japanese powers intervened to preserve Pure Land Buddhism in America and therefore prove that it was a religion suited for the modern age. Tweed points out that as opposed to Japanese powers, the Chinese did not send missionaries to their American immigrant communities.3 The resulting poor adherence to Buddhism that Tweed notes among Chinese-Americans mirrors China’s failure to institute the systematic program of modernization undertaken in the Meiji era in Japan.  

Both the adoption of Western ideas about Chinese-Americans and the copying of certain Western elements of Buddhism that Tweed observes also represent manifestations of Japan’s pursuit of modernity. Although they largely arrived after the Chinese, “Japanese immigrants, often repeating American criticism of the Chinese, tried to distinguish themselves from the “lower class” Chinese who seemed unable to assimilate.”4 This adoption of western beliefs allow Japanese-Americans to elevate themselves to a status above Chinese-Americans, and therefore separate themselves from a “less developed” nation. In addition, Tweed comments that “A limited amount of Americanization and Protestantization also occurred in Japanese Pure Land Buddhist communities before World War I.”4 The construction of Buddhism along Western lines demonstrates Japan’s attempt to Westernize within the traditional Japanese framework of Pure Land Buddhism. Modern Western powers attained global primacy through intense industrialization and a Christian civilizing mission, Japan sought to do the same by utilizing the discursive tradition made available by Buddhism. 

This pattern is indicative of the new conceptualization of religion which emerged in mid nineteenth century Japan “as both transcending the profane society and responsible for improving and ‘civilizing’ its mores.”5 Religion was now seen as a force separate from the state, that could be used as a tool in Japan’s civilizing and modernizing mission. The Japanese policy regarding Buddhism in America mirrors the propagation of Christianity as a “civilizing religion” by Western powers and is a reaction to the introduction of Western modernity which reached Japan, along with Perry’s ships, in 1854. 

 

Bibliography 

Tikhonov, V. M, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea – The Beginnings, 1883-1910: Survival as an Ideology of Korean Modernity (Brill, 2010). 

Tweed, Thomas, The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent (UNC Press Books, 2005). 

 

 

  1. Thomas Tweed, The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent (UNC Press Books, 2005), p. 38 [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 36 [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 35 [↩]
  4. Ibid., p. 37 [↩] [↩]
  5. V. M. Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea – The Beginnings, 1883-1910: Survival as an Ideology of Korean Modernity (Brill, 2010), p. 113. [↩]

‘Truth’ in Muso Soseki’s ‘Sermon at the Dedication of Tenryu-ji Dharma Hall’.

 

Muso Soseki’s sermon reveals a Truth exclusive to Zen Buddhism. In Western thought, Truth is often presented as something concrete and revelatory, which reveals the inner nature of someone or something. It is seen as an explanatory interpretation with a finite definition as it sheds light on something which was unknown. Furthermore, Truth in the West is revealed by presenting one’s inner nature to others and granting permission of access.[1] However, in Muso Soseki’s sermon, and other teachings of Zen Buddhism, Truth is presented as personable and flexible. It is not revealed outwardly to others but guarded as something personal and exclusive.

‘I join with my true master…and with all the others throughout infinite empty space…’.[2]

Truth is first discovered within the self, and then shared within the protected community of Zen masters and their disciples. In this quote, Soseki presents the concept of the self, or ‘I’, with a connection to the ‘true master’. This suggests that primarily, an awareness of self is needed to facilitate a connection with the Zen community and reveal the Truth. Consequently, Truth in Zen Buddhism is discovered within one’s being and can only be found through introspective thought and awareness. Truth is envisioned as the essence of thought, indicating that its personal nature lies in its abstract properties and can only be discovered when a true understanding of the self is obtained. This contrasts to a Westernised view of Truth as something given to and shared with others. In conflict, Soseki sees Truth as something you present to yourself, and not others.

Building on the personal nature of Truth, Soseki demonstrates that Truth is not something that is concrete, but mutable depending on the context and recipient. ‘All the others’ implies that Truth has multiple avenues, perspectives and identities. Here, Soseki creates an image of the unity of minds. An individual’s personal Truth combines with all Truths in a mystical environment of non-thinking to discover the ultimate Truth. Other Zen teachers, particularly Dogen also saw the mutable nature of Truth, as he believed reality is a series of individual and personal delusions we impose on the self. For example, Dogen’s use of the Mountain Sutra exemplifies that reality can have multiple meanings and possibilities. ‘One must not doubt’ that the mountains walk just because they do not walk like humans.[3] Therefore, Truth has no limits, only endless possibility and flexibility of the individual mind.

Soseki implies that ‘All Truths are the same Truth’.[4]

Soseki encourages a correspondence with the intellect of self, and the intellect of the higher, greater truth of the Buddha; ‘the same Truth’. As such, after Truth is established within the individual, it can be shared in a personal experience with a Zen master. This view of Truth reflects the importance of the master-disciple relationship within Zen practice. This relationship is guarded by the Zen emphasis on an ancestral lineage which descends from Shakyamuni himself. Zen teaching is limited to those who have a claim to this lineage and as such, the nature of Truth is shared and protected within this community. Both master and disciple engage in ‘katto’ together, in which both internalise their thought within the self, but also become entwined in the Boddhidharma.[5] This process of realisation is achieved through a Truth which is not concrete but acts as the fusing of two minds. As such, the Truth of Soseki’s sermon is not finite, but part of a cyclical existence multiple Truths form the higher Truth of the Buddha. This idea of Truth is dramatically represented in the example of Huike, who cuts his arm off in a physical donation to the community.[6] This demonstrates a literal investment- his Truth is a part of him which must be physically dedicated to his master and the Zen community. In his conclusion, Soseki proclaims: ‘Look! Look! Shakyamuni is here right now on top of my staff’.[7] The Truth he has inherited from his master is literally present on his person. Truth in Zen Buddhism is personal, introspected and fuses with other, flexible Truths to form reality.

[1] T. P. Kasulis, “Truth and Zen.” Philosophy East and West, vol. 30, no. 4, (1980) p.458.

[2] ((De Bary, William, Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol.1: From Earliest Times to 1600, New York 2002, p.329.

[3] Heisig, James, Kasulis, Thomas, Maraldo, John, (Eds.) Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, University of Hawaii Press, (2011), p.152.

[4] De Bary, William, Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol.1: From Earliest Times to 1600, New York 2002, p.328

[5] Heisig, James, Kasulis, Thomas, Maraldo, John, (Eds.) Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, University of Hawaii Press, (2011), p.162.

[6] William De Bary, Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol.1: From Earliest Times to 1600, (New York 2002), p.329.

[7] William De Bary, Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol.1: From Earliest Times to 1600, (New York 2002), p.329.

 

Gender or: How Buddhism Learned to Stop Floating and Love the State

The focus of this week’s readings was on Buddhist world orders, and in particular the way in which the religion – and its followers – oriented themselves within the world. In particular, I wanted to understand how Buddhism was deployed in support of the Japanese state. At a first glance, it seems like such a move is impossible. Buddhism is an other-wordly religion which argues that ‘attachment’ to the material world brings about suffering.1 Nevertheless, Buddhism was used to legitimate Japanese power, the tension between this/other-worldly resolved. In order to understand how this was done, I took a look at several ways in which ‘Buddhism’, as an idea, was reinterpreted and imagined by the state. One such way was through gender. The extract below, from the journal Chūō Bukkyō (1934), demonstrates how Buddhism was reimagined in gendered ways, and how this helped resolved the this/other-worldly tension described.

Through a karmic connection Japan received a daughter from another home as its wife. With a sincere heart this wife worked hard to take care of our home, having children and then grandchildren. Our home, not her original home, has been foremost in her mind. Indeed, from early on, more than a daughter from another home, she has been our wife and mother. (( Ōta Kakumin, ‘Zokuhi zokkai’ in Chūō Bukkyō 18:3 (1934), p. 194 in Christoper Ives (tr.), ‘The Mobilization of Doctrine: Buddhist Contributions to Imperial Ideology in Japan’ in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1/2 (Spring 1999), p. 86 ))

This extract encodes Buddhism with the female gender (‘wife’, ‘home’, ‘children’) contra the Japanese state, which is coded male. This has two effects. Firstly, the term ‘wife’ is used to build a sense of unity between the Emperor’s law and Buddha’s law (王法佛法一如).2 ‘Marriage’ conveys the notion that the Japanese state is in line with the Heavenly Way (天道), and that there is a lot of doctrinal overlap between Buddhism and the state. The emperor, for example, plays the role of the buddha, looking out for his subjects-as-children with the compassionate heart (心). In turn, this gives the state spiritual-legitimacy, with the added bonus of elevating the emperor to an ethereal, buddha-like status.

Secondly, this gendering also imparts feminine stereotypes onto Buddhism, and presents us with an image of the religion as passive and – crucially – subjugated to men.3 This limits Buddhism’s influence within society by channelling its doctrine into areas that are ‘acceptable’ for its ‘gender’, so to speak. Any priests that choose to rebel against the state, therefore, are seen as stepping beyond the boundaries of their ‘gendered’ role. Thus, in siphoning Buddhism’s influence into specific areas, gender imposes boundaries onto the religion so as to limit its power. Buddhists are now no longer unconfined by space and time, like clouds.4 Gender confines Buddhism – and Buddhists – to specific realms that are appropriate and least disruptive to the state.

  1. Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (1998), pp. 70, 73 [↩]
  2. Christopher Ives, ‘The Mobilization of Doctrine: Buddhist Contributions to Imperial Ideology in Japan’ in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1/2 (Spring 1999), p. 85 [↩]
  3. See He-Yin Zhen, ‘On the Revenge of Women: Part 1: Instruments of Men’s Rule Over Women’ (1907) in Lydia He Liu, Rebecca Karl, Dorothy Ko (eds.), The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (2013) [↩]
  4. Hwansoo Kim, ‘The Adventures of a Japanese Monk in Colonial Korea: Sōma Shōei’s Zen training with Korean masters’ in E. Anderson (ed.), Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea (2017), p. 63 [↩]

Ogyū Sorai’s Paradoxes

Confucian philosophy cannot be disentangled from politics. The thinkers we have studied this week, Kongzi (孔子), Mengzi (孟子), Xunzi (荀子), and Ogyū Sorai (荻生 徂徠), all centred their works on trying to define the ‘right’ way to organise and run a society.  In asking these philosophical questions, we can infer that these thinkers were responding to what they perceived to be the decay of society, government – political instability, in short. Indeed, all the authors mention rather explicitly in all of their texts that following their thought will lead to the prosperity and success of their home states.1 In light of this dynamic between philosophy and politics, I think it makes sense to explore how Confucian thinkers tried to turn their philosophical ideas into a practical political policy. In particular, I will focus on the difficulties that come with trying to put ideas into action and will reference Ogyū Sorai as a case study to explore this.

I find Sorai to be an interesting case study because his thought is littered with paradoxes. ‘Paradox’, for my purposes, refers to an inconsistency between a thinker’s philosophical ideals and the actual political policies they promote. I will demonstrate this with reference to one of many paradoxes in Sorai’s thought: his argument for social equality.

‘In formulating the Way, the early kings focused on the problem of bringing peace and security to all-under-Heaven and posterity … Therefore, the early kings followed the mind of all people to love, nourish, support, and perfect one another.2

This extract shows us that social equality is an important part of Sorai’s thought. In arguing that ‘all-under-Heaven’ ought to experience peace and security, Sorai argues that it is the King’s ultimate duty to provide peace and stability to all of his people, irrespective of class. In order to do this, Sorai suggests that the King ought to help ‘all people … nourish, support, and perfect one another’. The King should give everyone a means of satisfying their basic needs, and also a way for them to attain some kind of virtue and act in good ways. Overall, Sorai appears to be using the Confucian belief in equality to argue for the creation of a society that works to benefit all individuals instead the very few.

However, we see this point turned on its head in another part of Sorai’s thought:

‘If the members of the military class lived in the country, they would not incur any expenses in providing themselves with food, clothing, and shelter, and for this reason their financial condition would be much improved … At present, the merchants are in the dominant position, and the military class is in the subordinate position because the military class lives as though they were at an inn where they cannot do without money and must sell their rice in exchange for money with which to buy their daily necessities from the merchants3

Here, we see Sorai contradict himself. He argues that the Samurai and military class ought to be privileged over the merchant class. Sorai argues that the Samurai ought to provide for themselves, not ‘live in an inn’ (i.e. travel around and live off of their income), so that they can reclaim the ‘dominant position’ in society over the merchants. In referring to ‘dominant’ and ‘subordinate’ positions in society, Sorai is telling us that power within a society ought to be hierarchical, not equal, which thus contradicts the sentiments Sorai expresses in the first extract and generates a paradox.

What are the implications that we can draw out from this analysis? One natural thought might be to say that Sorai was generally unsuccessful in turning his ideals into actual political thought. However, I do not think this thought is particularly charitable to Sorai. In this entry, I have only covered one aspect of his thought. Evaluating him, as a whole, would require a detailed analysis of all aspects of his thought. Instead, I think Sorai’s paradoxes demonstrate that philosophical ideas can become muddled when translated into political policy or put into action. This point, I am sure, will become especially salient in weeks to come when we begin to explore Confucian thought historically, analysing the way it influences and is used in historical events.

  1. See Kongzi 2.1, Mengzi 1A7, and Xunzi Chapter 23 in P.J. Ivanhoe; B. W. Van Norden (eds.), Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, Hackett, 2005. For Ogyū Sorai, see W. T. De Bary; C. Gluck; A. E. Tiedemann; A. Barshey; W. M. Bodiford, ‘Ogyū Sorai and the return to Classics’, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Vol. 2: 1600 to 2000, Columbia University Press, 2010 [↩]
  2. Ogyū Sorai, ‘The Sage: Benmei (Distinguishing Terms)’ in W. T. De Bary; C. Gluck; A. E. Tiedemann; A. Barshey; W. M. Bodiford, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Vol. 2: 1600 to 2000, Columbia University Press, 2010, p. 290 [↩]
  3. Ogyū Sorai, ‘The Sage: Benmei (Distinguishing Terms)’ in W. T. De Bary; C. Gluck; A. E. Tiedemann; A. Barshey; W. M. Bodiford, Sources of Japanese Tradition: Vol. 2: 1600 to 2000, Columbia University Press, 2010, pp. 297, 298 [↩]