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1. “Can I Put This Jizō Together with the Virgin Mary in the Altar?” : Creolizing Zen Buddhism in Brazil
- University of Illinois Press
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1 “Can I Put This Jizō Together with the Virgin Mary in the Altar?” Creolizing Zen Buddhism in Brazil Cristina Rocha In this essay, I analyze the religious practices of Japanese Brazilians who adhere to Sōtō Zen, the only Japanese Zen Buddhist tradition represented in Brazil. I argue that the multiple influences that have shaped Japanese religious practices since their arrival in Brazil in 1908, along with the recent strong interest in Buddhism in Brazilian society, have given rise to creolized religious practices. I use the concept creolization to underscore the notion that identity is not formed through a seamless synthesis of two or more worlds, but rather it emerges from a dynamic process of exchange and interaction. In this context, the concept of creolization can shed light on the various ways in which Japanese immigrants and their descendants have overlaid a Brazilian religious “vocabulary” onto their Buddhist “grammar.” I examine several cases of how Japanese Brazilians strategically draw their religious identity from different sources at different occasions. While until the 1990s the main religious identities were derivations of Catholicism, French Spiritism, and Afro-Brazilian religions, more recently, some Japanese Brazilians are returning to Buddhism as a result of the status and prestige that it has acquired in Brazilian society in general. I show how symbolic and cultural capital—previously associated with Catholicism, and now associated with Buddhism as well—are strategically used to negotiate and construct a distinctive religious identity. Catholic and/or Buddhist? What Is in a Ritual? In January 2001, I was at Tenzuizenji, a temple-cum-Zen center recently established by Coen sensei, a non–Japanese Brazilian nun in São Paulo city,1 6 cristina rocha where I participated in the one-year memorial service that Nícia Takeda, a sansei, organized for her deceased mother. Her mother’s seventh-day mass had been at a Catholic church,2 but the forty-ninth-day memorial service was officiated by Coen sensei at Busshinji, the Sōtōshū headquarters for South America situated in São Paulo city. Although Nícia and her family did not know what Buddhist tradition they belonged to, all the memorial services she remembered (those of her grandfather, grandmother, father, and mother) had been held at Busshinji because, as she put it, “my mother’s sister-in-law’s aunt was a nun at the temple, which made things easier.” After having meditation sessions with Coen at her local martial arts and massage school, Nícia decided to follow Coen when she left Busshinji to establish Tenzuizendo. She had already studied Tibetan Buddhism for three years and visited her lineage’s Rinpoche in India, but after her mother’s passing, Nícia started a long search into her family’s history and traditions. This is how she describes her search: Upon my mother’s death, we realized we didn’t know Buddhism. For instance, we didn’t know what the meaning of the altar was. My mom was the one who took care of the butsudan [Buddhist altar] and without her, we didn’t know how to tend to it. Hence, someone suggested we talk to a monk at Busshinji and my sister and I made an appointment. The monk explained the meaning of having a butsudan at home and how to organize it, the meaning of the ihai [mortuary tablets] and of the offerings, who the historical Buddha was and so on. We, then, set another time when we would come back to show him what we had in our butsudan. This time he explained every little bit of what we had: ihai [mortuary tablets] of brothers who had passed away as children, photos of my grandfather. He told us what had to be kept with us and what could be kept at Busshinji. So we kept my grandmother’s, grandfather’s, and my father’s ihai and had a new one made for my mom. At the one-year memorial service, Nícia revealed to me that her family and friends were not Buddhists but Catholic Japanese Brazilians.3 Interestingly , this included her deceased mother as well. The only Buddhists at the service were Coen sensei, her non–Japanese Brazilian disciples who were assisting the service, and the new sympathizer Nícia. “What should we make of that?” I asked her. Was Nícia betraying her mother’s memory by giving her a Buddhist memorial service? Were her family and friends upset? Why was Nícia so interested...