Cultivating Spirituality: A Modern Shin Buddhist Anthology

Chapter 6: Soga Ryōjin: Life and Thought

Soga Ryōjin Chapter 6 Soga Ryøjin Life and Thought Robert F. Rhodes Soga Ryøjin 曽我量深 (1875–1971) was arguably the most innovative thinker in the history of modern Shin Buddhism.1 Following in Kiyozawa Manshi’s footsteps, he sought to express his teacher’s insights in terms of traditional Shin Buddhist discourse. Soga was born as the third son of Tomioka Ryødø 富岡量導, the head priest of Entokuji 円徳寺, a Shin Buddist temple in Niigata Prefecture, and his wife Tatsu. The temple was small and poor. But Soga was a brilliant child          *        %  his elder brother. After studying the basics of Buddhism at Beihoku Kyøkø 米北教校, a Higashi Honganji school in Sanjø in Niigata, he moved to Kyoto at the age of eighteen to continue his studies. In 1897, he married Soga Kei and became the adopted son of Soga Enan 恵南, the head priest of the Jøonji 浄恩寺 in Niigata Prefecture. In 1899, Soga entered the graduate division (kenky¶ka 研究科) of Shinsh¨ University, the Higashi Honganji seminary that had been created in 1896 from several departments split off from the Takakura Gakuryø. In 1901, when the school was reorganized as a modern university and moved to Tokyo under the under the leadership of Kiyozawa, Soga followed. In 1902, while still a graduate student, Soga published a series of article criticizing Kiyozawa’s Seishinshugi as a form of passive acceptance of fate. Kiyozawa replied to Soga in an essay entitled “Seishinshugi to sanze” 精神主義と三世 (“Seishinshugi and the Three Periods of Time”), but Soga remained unconvinced.2 However, Soga was soon converted to Kiyozawa’s point of view and joined the Køkødø, the community of Kiyozawa’s disciples, in 1903. 101 102 ROBERT F. RHODES (By this time, Kiyozawa had already left Tokyo, and had returned to his temple, Saihøji.) The following year, Soga become a professor at Shinsh¨ University, but resigned in 1911 when the school was moved from Tokyo to Kyoto. After his resignation, Soga returned to the Jøonji in Niigata to devote himself to thinking and writing. It was at this time that he published the essay translated below, “Chijø no ky¨shu: Høzø Bosatsu shutsugen no igi” 地上の救主—法蔵菩薩出現の意義 (“A Savior on Earth: The Meaning of Dharmåkara Bodhisattva’s Advent”), in the journal Seishinkai in 1913. In this essay, Soga focuses on Dharmåkara Bodhisattva (Høzø Bosatsu 法蔵菩薩), a topic long considered marginal in traditional Shin thought, and interprets it as a symbol of the awakening of faith in human beings. This essay became a key work in the development of his thought. Dharmåkara is, of course, Amida Buddha’s name before he attained Buddhahood. According to the Sutra of Immeasurable Life (Muryøjukyø 無量寿経), the central text of Shin Buddhism, eons ago Dharmåkara vowed to attain enlightenment      " «  åja Buddha. Dharmåkara then made forty-eight vows outlining the kind of Pure Land he would create if and when he became a Buddha. After innumerable kalpas of arduous                    !  " called Sukhåvat¥ (Jpn. Gokuraku) located far off in the west.3 At the beginning of “Chijø no ky¨shu,” Soga confesses that for a long time he considered Dharmåkara Bodhisattva to be pure myth, something created simply to provide Amida Buddha with a plausible background story. However, he continues, through a series of insights he came to understand Dharmåkara as the symbol of Amida’s                %    enlightenment.4 The arising of faith, he declares, is none other than the birth of Dharmåkara Bodhisattva within the heart of us human beings. Formerly, Soga had understood salvation in a passive way, as the faithful acceptance of the fact that we are embraced by the saving light emanating from Amida Buddha residing in a other-worldly realm far up in the heavens. But now, he views faith dynamically, as the voice of Dharmåkara calling to us from the depth of our being, urging us to awaken to our true selves. When we discover Dharmåkara within ourselves, we can entrust ourselves in his power which, like a great ship, ferries us over to the Pure Land. In 1916 Soga returned to Tokyo as professor at Tøyø University, and concurrently served as editor of Seishinkai. In 1922, he published Ky¶sai to jishø 救済と自証 (Salvation and Self-Realization), a collection of his essays. Another important collection of essays entitled Chijø 103 SOGA...