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Introduction: Snapshots of Buddhism in Today’s Japan
- University of Hawai'i Press
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A NEIGHBORHOOD TEMPLE, KANSAI AREA, FALL 1989 Shòshin and I sat on the floor in his room at the temple. Records were scattered all about, guitars leaned against the walls, and books cluttered the desktops. Coltrane played through old speakers as we sat working our way through a bottle of Japanese vodka (shòchû) and discussed Amida Buddha’s vow to save sentient beings. We talked through the night. Shòshin earnestly strove to teach me about the truth of Amida’s vow. In the morning, we made our way downstairs to have breakfast. Shòshin’s young son greeted us loudly. Shòshin’s father, the head priest of the temple, and mother were there as well, and his wife was finishing breakfast preparations in the kitchen. His wife’s chores—caring for her children, helping Shòshin’s mother manage the temple schedule, meeting with the laity, and cleaning—would keep her busy all day. Shòshin, also a priest, helped his father with rituals held at the temple and taught children at the temple’s Sunday school. He put his love of music to use by teaching the children different songs while instructing them in stories about Buddhism. He was also a full-time music teacher at a local junior high school, a job that allowed him to take days off when his ritual duties called. His father was often busy with a full schedule of memorial services. Weekends were an especially demanding time, as services had to be conducted for one family after another. This is life as usual at most temples. The primary work of the priest is performing funeral and memorial services. Moreover, the priest does not live apart from the world, but is fully enmeshed in it. He is married, has children, eats meat, drinks alcohol, and usually has a full-time job outside the temple, such as teaching. This is not the Buddhism I came to expect through my studies at college and through my own reading. Like many others, I suppose I expected mountain temples, meditating priests, and beautiful works of art. At the same time, having lived in Japan and having talked with many people about Buddhism, I had also come to believe that contemporary Japanese Buddhism is no more than a corruption of “real” Buddhism, whatever that might be. Therefore, if I could not find meditating priests on mountaintops, I expected disaffected, businessoriented priests. Shòshin was neither. Certainly he was not sitting meditation with a shaved head in a mountain temple, but neither was he disaffected. As a Introduction Snapshots of Buddhism in Today’s Japan matter of fact, when I first met him, he was in the midst of deep soul-searching, seeking for Amida with all his might and reflecting on what his future as the son of a temple priest would be. In this sense, it was Shòshin’s dilemma that first inspired me to further investigate contemporary Japanese Buddhism. A LARGE TEMPLE IN THE KANTÒ AREA, NEW YEAR’S 1999 The temple had been busy with preparations for more than two weeks leading up to the New Year festival. For three days I had sat on the floor of the main hall assembling protective talismans (fuda) with three high school girls who had been hired as part-time help for the New Year’s rush. Intermittently, a priest would walk over from the fire ritual hall after performing that day’s ceremony and bless the thousands of items packed in boxes stacked three rows deep all around us. Meanwhile, the head priest and managing priest set about arranging for extra priestly help. Area temples sent their priests to help on New Year’s Eve and the days that followed. The ritual celebrations began at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Temple lay members, local community members, and others lined up to ring the temple bell following a short ceremony led by the head priest. Meanwhile, across the compound , in the hall dedicated to the fire ritual (goma), priests began a near roundthe -clock series of fire rituals. For the next week, in a display of austere practice that taxed their physical strength, ten to twelve priests would work in shifts performing the fire ceremony on two daises. The hall at midnight on New Year’s Eve was packed with temple members, the faithful, members of the local community, and others. Many had to stand outside the hall for want of space. Nearly...