Cultivating Spirituality: A Modern Shin Buddhist Anthology

Chapter 12: Yasuda Rijin: Shin Philosopher of Self-Awareness

Chapter 12 Yasuda Rijin Shin Philosopher of Self-Awareness Paul B. Watt Yasuda Rijin 安田理深 (1900–1982) inherited the legacy of the Shin leaders introduced in the preceding chapters, but he had a special relationship to his teacher Soga Ryøjin. Soga’s emphasis on the Yogåcåra School of Mahåyåna philosophy in interpreting the Shin tradition gave direction to Yasuda’s scholarship throughout his adult life. Indeed, one of Yasuda’s students suggested that he should be viewed in a lineage that extends from Soga Ryøjin to Shinran, the founder of    | ²® %  %  the Yogåcåra School in the fourth century CE.1 For Yasuda, perhaps             %       karma-bound human beings of a transformation of consciousness and the realization of a true awareness of both self and reality. A second salient feature of Yasuda’s thought is the constructive engagement he sought between Shin Buddhism and Western philosophy.2 His   €             Shin scholarship within which he stood, beginning with Kiyozawa Manshi, the founder of that tradition. However, Yasuda’s exploration of modern European thought in particular was also stimulated by his   @       %   Kitarø, Tanabe Hajime 田辺元}‰ŠŠœ“‰[‹”~ @*西谷啓 治 (1900–1990), all scholars who drew on Western, especially modern Continental, thinkers as well as Buddhist sources. 217 218 PAUL WATT Yasuda’s Life Yasuda was born in 1900 in the town of Umigami 海上 in Hyøgo Prefecture and was given the personal name Kameji 亀治. His father, Tsuruzø 鶴造, had married into the Yasuda family, which for generations had provided the local shøya 庄屋 or village headman. A brother, Takuji, was born in 1901. At age six, Yasuda was placed in a Christian kindergarten. His parents divorced when he was seven and, thereafter, he was raised by his mother. After completing primary school in 1913, he attended a private night school from 1914 to 1916 studying morals, classical Japanese and Chinese, history, math, English, and maritime affairs.3 During these years, he developed an interest in Buddhism and he received the precepts from Hioki Mokusen 日置黙仙 (1847–1920), a Søtø Zen master who in 1916 became head of Eiheiji, the Søtø center established by the sect’s founder Døgen in the thirteenth century. While working at a bank in 1917 and 1918, he continued his study of English and also read books on Christianity as well as Buddhism. In 1919, he encountered Kaneko Daiei’s Bukkyø gairon 仏 教概論 (Survey of Buddhism), a book that left a profound impression on him both for its style and for what he judged to be the depth of its treatment of Buddhist thought. After the death of his mother in 1920, Yasuda moved from his native prefecture to Kyoto. For a short time he worked at the water   @蹴上, but his real interests lay in the study of Buddhism. His attraction to Zen Buddhism continued; he listened to sermons and lectures at the famous Kyoto Zen temples of Shøkokuji >*€ >*š   øzan 日種譲山 (n.d.) about how he might pursue his study of Buddhism, he was referred to Sasaki Gesshø      ] ‚   However, instead of contacting Sasaki, Yasuda wrote to Kaneko Daiei and he received a tentative but encouraging reply about the possibility     ] |     ¤    %   of Soga Ryøjin’s writings. As a result, in his early twenties Yasuda appears to have reached the conclusion that the Shin understanding of the Buddhist tradition was personally the most persuasive, despite his interests in Zen. In a diary entry from 1923, he cites approvingly Soga Ryøjin’s criticism of the path of self-realization (jishø 自証) as overly “individualistic and idealistic.” Soga praised, instead, “the eternal practice of the bodhisattva.”4 These references suggest that the attraction of Shin Buddhism for Yasuda was its commitment to giving expression to Mahåyåna Buddhist teachings in the context of daily life.|   ‰[”‘¤   ® %^  Pure Land Treatise (Jødoron 219¤|‚ƒ|+# # 浄土論), a central text in the Pure Land tradition, and decided to make it and Yogåcåra scholarship the focus of his studies from that point on.€    @  ¤  %     ] University in 1924. In 1925, Soga joined the faculty and Yasuda    ¤   ]‰[‘’ and during his student years he began to publish his own writings in small circulation publications. However, the late 1920s were a time of academic turmoil at ] — ø %    ]‰[”™ and who had sought to foster a new era of rigor and openness in Shin scholarship, died suddenly in 1926. In 1928, the highest organ    ]%  øryø, successfully pressured the university to dismiss Kaneko for his demythologizing interpretation of Shin Buddhism. Furthermore, in 1929 Kaneko’s...