Tag: Pure Land

An Internalised Pure Land: Haijime Kawakami and the Imprisonment of Self.

Haijime Kawakami was an economist and one of Japan’s first Marxist philosophers, born in the late 20th century. He published articles which aimed to educate workers in Marxist theory and provided the introduction for the Japanese translation of Marx’s Das Kapital.[1] His activity with the Japanese Communist Party led to his imprisonment in the 1920s, which was formative in his engagement with the Buddhist philosophy of Pure Land. Kawakami’s engagement with the Pure Land is significant, as he belonged to a new generation of secular Pure Land philosophers who aimed to identify and reconfigure the Pure Land independent of religious tradition. Alongside Miki Kiyoshi and Ienaga Saburo, Kawakami used his Marxist background to discuss the potential of the Pure Land as a tool for the liberation of the masses from the state.[2]

Kawakami’s Prison Ramblings, written in 1937 after his arrest because of his involvement in the Japanese Communist Party, reveal his adoption of Pure Land philosophy.[3] This is synthesised with Marxist ideas to create a new sphere in which to propagate a utopian Japanese vision of the future. Consequently, in this work, Kawakami contributed to the reconfiguration of the Pure Land as something accessible and mouldable in the secular sphere. Primarily, Kawakami speaks of a ‘consciousness of consciousness’. He believed that in order to gain a true understanding of ourselves (which was needed in an age of repressive state techniques and the blanket identity of Japanese modernisation) we must examine our own consciousness in an extraordinary way.[4] This acts as an internal reconsideration which places our thought processes beyond the present and extracts us from accepted contemporary thought. Kawakami’s process of reimagining the Pure Land is based on an internalisation of thought which leads to an expansion of the mind beyond traditional peripheries. As such, it is a process of negation that eliminates all thoughts in order to provide access to a sphere of personal realisation, an ‘estranging image’.[5] This is what gave Kawakami’s Pure Land the power against the state. It removes reality in order to lead to an internalised realisation which, in turn, resituates Kawakami in the here and now. This implies an entirely empty vision which extracts the mind from restrictive structures of the state and the physical possibility of the Pure Land and locates Kawakami’s thought in the abstract. It is a positive discovery of the internalised conscience.

The internalisation of thought can be traced to Kawakami’s experience in prison. tenko, or ideological conversion, was a popular technique for confession or release of a prisoner.[6] Kawakami’s attempts, as a secular man, to draw on Buddhist philosophy are therefore surprising due to this attempted suppression and coercion. However, the internalised nature of his thought suggests a physical and mental withdrawal from any association with the state and their narrative of conversion and suppression. Just as the Pure Land itself gave internalised liberation, the actual process of Kawakami’s philosophy and writing of his Prison Ramblings liberated him from the horror of the present moment. As such, the very process of modern Pure Land thought was just as significant as the Marxist ideology behind it. Kawakami’s thought in prison created a space which the state could not access and therefore gave him the freedom that Pure Land advocated. It allowed him to create a solution to tradition, and from the very entrapment of his prison cell, force liberation and globalisation of philosophy. Kawakami’s Pure Land was a product of his Marxist thought- a rejection of the structures of state which literally surrounded him in prison, and emphasis on the individual. A connection with others philosophical liberation grounded him in the Marxist ideal of a communal victory for the masses, whilst his Pure Land remained abstracted within the self.

Kawakami’s Pure Land was revolutionary. He used Marxist theory to reject the structures of the state and remove the need for a centrally controlled paradise. His Pure Land was accessible only individually, through the internalisation of thought and negation of the constrictions of the present world. This was Kawakami’s way of waging revolution on the Japanese government when he was physically restricted in the present world. It was also a philosophical revolution in the sense that Kawakami had no Buddhist background. He uprooted Pure Land philosophy from its traditional religious sphere and opened it up as a possibility for secular philosophers and ordinary people. Both these revolutionary aspects reveal Kawakami’s desire to create a Pure Land which was accessible to the masses, via their own resource of the inner mind. The internalisation which Kawakami advocated can be seen as a philosophical representation of his tangible experiences in the present world. Imprisonment, coercion, and his end of life in the days after World War Two, where briefly, the possibility of a globalised world had become apparent. Kawakami’s internalised Pure Land was a modernist and globalised vision which sought to project this philosophy into the future.

[1] Melissa Curley, Pure Land, Real World: Modern Buddhism, Japanese Leftists and the Utopian Imagination (Honolulu, 2017), pp.86-87.

[2] Curley, Pure Land, Real World, p.84.

[3] Curley, Pure Land, Real World, p.89.

[4] Curley, Pure Land, Real World, p.97.

[5] Curley, Pure Land, Real World, p.29.

[6] Curley, Pure Land, Real World, p.92.

Soga Ryojin and the Formalisation of the Abstract Pure Land.

Soga Ryojin was a 20th century Shin Buddhist philosopher, who worked together with Kiyozawa Manshi to reformulate Shin Buddhism in a modern context. He achieved this through the incorporation of Western philosophical ideas which advocated the rejection of the state and organised structures. Soga and other Shin modernists sought disassociation with structure, instead projecting their image of the Pure Land into the abstract. Initially, therefore, it is apparent that Pure Land intellectualism became personal and internalised. However, conversely, with engagement in philosophical discussion of the Pure Land, Soga contributed to a formalisation of Shin intellectualism and the abstract.

Soga Ryojin’s discussion of the abstract self is primarily focused on the Dharmakara Boddhisattva narrative, found in the Three Pure Land Sutras.[1] They describe the transformation of the Boddhisattva into Amida Buddha, and subsequent alteration of the world of suffering into an enlightened Pure Land. This realisation is read as an expression of ‘cosmic oneness’.[2] Soga’s work, “A Saviour on Earth: The Meaning of the Dharmakara Bodhisattva’s Advent” sought to re-examine this narrative through two abstracted concepts. The first, that the Bodhisattva is the ‘storehouse consciousness’ and the second, that the Bodhisattva consequently ‘becomes me’. The storehouse consciousness is the deepest layer of the mind which contains seeds of thought. Liberation occurs when these thoughts are set free without entrapment in other parts of the mind and the storehouse consciousness becomes entirely empty. This is the revelation of one’s true inner self, and therefore the discovery of an internalised Pure Land. The ‘Boddhisattva becomes me’ through the manifestation of the personal ‘I’ within the life of the Shin practitioner.[3]

With this, Soga aimed to reformulate the Shin Buddhist path through the centrality of the self to understanding the Pure Land. This philosophy implies that Soga sought an independent intellectual existence for modern Shin practitioners. His vision of the Pure Land was entirely dependent on the internal relationships of the mind and its interdependence with fleeting thought patterns. It implies a disassociation with concrete reality and creates a sphere which Shin teachers, Buddhist monastic institutions and the state had no access to. Through understanding Pure Land through the abstract conceptualisation of thought, the mind-body realisation is totally and exclusively embodied within the practitioner. We are placed interior to our own subjectivity, and therefore the Pure Land remains something remote, exclusive, and untouched. Thus, Soga’s Pure Land appears to be separated by its existence in the abstract realm of the mind as he rejects traditional structures of Shin practice reformulates the Dharamkara Bodhisattva as something manifested within.

Despite Soga’s apparent rejection of structure and focus on the abstract, modern Shin Buddhism can still be described as systematised. Soga’s shift away from discourse of concrete practice and manifestation of the Pure Land does entail an intangible abstraction. However, to replace the concrete narratives of previous Shin philosophers, Soga unconsciously systematises the metaphysics of the abstract Pure Land. The concept of alaya-vijnana or the infinite mind-store exemplifies Soga’s formalisation of the abstract.[4] With its creation, Soga identifies, locates and unpacks the inner consciousness in a disciplined way which amounts to an organisation of the abstract realm. He attempts to order the discussion to make it accessible, and in doing so, imposes structural perimeters.

In a later lecture, Soga discusses the ‘True History of Buddhism’.[5] He attempts to define the history of Buddhism from the standpoint of materialism. Soga claims that this materialism negates any concept of a unified body of Buddhist truth and criticises previous scholars who have focused solely on doctrine instead of the practice of the mind.[6] Here, he in fact argues for the concrete nature of Buddhist history and projection of this past into the present, in order to reveal the path toward our own personal Buddhahood. Consequently, Soga advocates for a non-subjective history of Buddhism which can guide us into the present. Whilst the image of the Pure Land may appear abstract, Soga reinforces it with a concrete timeline of Buddhist faith, locating it firmly within the present. In his lectures, Soga sees the larger Sutras as the unifying thread of Buddhism.[7] In his abstraction of the Pure Land, he still provides an attachment to reality which systematises abstract thought. Consequently, within his writing, we can see they very organisation of thought which Soga’s ideas initially appear to reject. His personal structural understanding of the storehouse consciousness is imposed on the practitioner. This creates an entanglement of thought within the storehouse which Soga aimed to avoid. Whilst initially, it is apparent that Soga rejects all structures, he does, in fact, reinforce these very structures he seeks to avoid- those imposed on the inner mind.

Soga Ryojin’s modernist vision of the Pure Land appears entirely abstracted from the concrete practice of the monastic institution and traditional vision of the Bodhisattva. He advocates internal, mindful reform, where progression is dependent on the interrelation of subjective thought processes within the practitioner’s mind. However, this abstraction of Buddhist practice is not wholly subjective, and the formalisation of intellectual thought can still be seen. Through the discussion of concepts such as the ‘mind-store’ and the unifying timeline of Buddhist history, Soga physically and mentally locates the abstraction of the Pure Land within the worldly sphere of space and time. As such, Soga is still able to systematise the metaphysical elements of his Pure Land discussion through terminology and practical discussion.

 

Bibliography

Bragt, Jan (Trans.) Soga Riyojin: Shinran’s View of Buddhist History, (1999).

Unno, Mark, “Modern Pure Land Thinkers: Kiyozawa Manshi and Soga Riyojin” in Davis (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy, (2017).

 

 

[1] Unno, Mark, “Modern Pure Land Thinkers: Kiyozawa Manshi and Soga Riyojin” in Davis (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy, (2017), p.184.

[2] Ibid, p.184.

[3] Ibid, p.197.

[4] Ibid, p.197.

[5] Bragt, Jan (Trans.) Soga Riyojin: Shinran’s View of Buddhist History, (1999), p.111.

[6] Ibid, p.112.

[7] Ibid, p.118.