This study focuses on the role played by the work of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) in shaping socialism and agrarian-Buddhist utopianism in Japan. As Japanese translations of Tolstoy’s fiction and ...philosophy, and accounts of his life became more available at the end of the 19th century, his ideas on the individual, religion, society, and politics had a tremendous impact on the generation coming of age in the 1900s and his popularity grew among young intellectuals. One important legacy of Tolstoy in Japan is his particular concern with the peasantry and agricultural reform. Among those inspired by Tolstoy and the narodniki lifestyle, three individuals, Tokutomi Roka, Eto Tekirei, and Mushakōji Saneatsu illustrate how prominent writers and thinkers adopted the master’s lifestyle and attempted to put his ideas into practice. In the spirit of the New Buddhists of late Meiji, they envisioned a comprehensive lifestyle structure. As Eto Tekirei moved to the village of Takaido with the assistance of Tokutomi Roka, he called his new home Hyakushō Aidōjō (literally, Farmers Love Training Ground). He and his family endeavored to follow a Tolstoyan life, which included labor, philosophy, art, religion, society, and politics, a grand project that he saw as a “non-religious religion.” As such, Tekirei’s utopian vision might be conceived as an experiment in “alter-modernity.”
The secularization thesis, rooted in the idea that "modernity" brings with it the destruction—or, at least, the ruthless privatization—of religion, is clearly grounded in specific, often ...oversimplified, interpretations of Western historical developments since the eighteenth century. In this article, I use the case of the New Buddhist Fellowship (Shin Bukkyō Dōshikai) of the Meiji period (1868-1912) to query the category of the secular in the context of Japanese modernity. I argue that the New Buddhists, drawing on elements of classical and East Asian Buddhism as well as modern Western thought, promoted a resolutely social and this-worldly Buddhism that collapses—or preempts—the conceptual and practical boundaries between religion and the secular. In short, the New Buddhists sought a lived Buddhism rooted in a decidedly "immanent frame" (Taylor), even while rejecting the "vulgar materialism" of secular radicalism.
In the past twenty years, the sub-discipline of Buddhist ethics has expanded in terms of the breadth of methodological perspective and depth of inquiry. Scholars have used Buddhist resources to ...analyse a number of contemporary controversies, including human rights, women’s rights, animal rights, sexuality, war, terrorism, violence, social, economic and retributive justice, as well as various issues of concern to biomedical and environmental ethics. Beyond matters of philosophical and applied ethics, anthropologists and sociologists have studied the effect of Buddhism upon various cultures of Asia. The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics is intended as a comprehensive overview of the state of the field of Buddhist ethics in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Contributions by twenty-nine international scholars provide balanced and critical review essays on particular aspects of Buddhist ethics related to their current research. This handbook will serve as a leading resource for current and future scholars in this burgeoning field of study but will also be of interest to anyone interested in multiple perspectives on ethical issues.
After the Fall Shields, James Mark
Journal of religion in Japan,
12/2018, Letnik:
7, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助 (1877-1955), the dominant figure in Buddhist historical scholarship in Japan from the 1930s until the mid-1950s, is known to have employed a broad range of sources in ...order to provide a comprehensive analysis of his subject. This essay examines Tsuji's conception of Buddhist history in relation to the emergence of both National Historical Studies (kokushigaku 国史学) and so-called State Shintō (kokka shintō 国家神道) and argues against the image of Tsuji as an "objective historian" resistant to nationalist trends in historical scholarship. In fact, Tsuji was involved in the creation of an alternative, "Buddhistic" national history, or bukkyōshugi kokushi 仏教主義国史的. In particular, comparisons are drawn between Tsuji's conception of Buddhism and the earlier arguments of New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) and the Daijō hi-bussetsuron 大乗非仏説論, in addition to his more general conception of the contributions of Buddhism to the humanitarian spirit of Japanese leaders-both emperors and military warlords. Can there be-should there be-an objective history of religion? What is the significance of sacred history-and the history of Buddhism more particularly-to the still-emerging "modern" nation of Japan? How does Buddhism, a pan-Asian and "borrowed religion," fit with the "Japanist" ideology of national uniqueness? These are some of the questions posed by Tsuji in his writings.
This article focuses on several key philosophical themes in the criticism of Sakaguchi Ango (1906—1955), one of postwar Japan's most influential and controversial writers. Associated with the ...underground kasutori culture as well as the Burai-ha of Tamura Taijirō (1911-1983), Oda Sakunosuke (1913-1947) and Dazai Osamu (1909-1948), Ango gained fame for two provocative essays on the theme of daraku or "decadence"—"Darakuron" and "Zoku darakuron"—published in 1946, in the wake of Japan's traumatic defeat and the beginnings of the Allied Occupation. Less well known is the fact that Ango spent his student years studying classical Buddhist texts in Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan, and that at one time he aspired to the priesthood. This article analyses the concept of daraku in the two essays noted above, particularly as it relates to Ango's vision of a refashioned morality based on an interpretation of human subjectivity vis-à-vis the themes of illusion and disillusion. It argues that, despite the radical and modernist flavor of Ango's essays, his "decadence" is best understood in terms of Mahāyāna and Zen Buddhist concepts. Moreover, when the two essays on decadence are read in tandem with Ango's wartime essay on Japanese culture ("Nihon bunka shikan," 1942), they form the foundation for a "post-metaphysical Buddhist critique of culture," one that is pragmatic, humanistic, and non-reductively physicalist.
The late Meiji period (1868-1912) witnessed the birth of various forms of "progressive" and "radical" Buddhism both within and beyond traditional Japanese Buddhist institutions. This paper examines ...several historical precedents for "Buddhist revolution" in East Asian-and particularly Japanese-peasant rebellions of the early modern period. I argue that these rebellions, or at least the received narratives of such, provided significant "root paradigms" for the thought and practice of early Buddhist socialists and radical Buddhists of early twentieth century Japan. Even if these narratives ended in "failure"-as, indeed, they often did-they can be understood as examples of what James White calls "expressionistic action," in which figures act out of interests or on the basis of principle without concern for "success." Although White argues that: "Such expressionistic action was not a significant component of popular contention in Tokugawa Japan"-that does not mean that the received tales were not interpreted in such a fashion by later Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa-era sympathizers.
Beyond Zen: D. T. Suzuki and the Modern Transformation of
Buddhism is an accessible collection of multidisciplinary essays,
which offer a genuinely new appraisal of the great Zen
...scholar-practitioner, D. T. Suzuki (1870-1966). Suzuki's writings
and lectures continue to exert a profound influence on how Zen,
Buddhism more broadly, and indeed Japanese culture as a whole, are
understood in the United States, Europe, and across the globe. With
the publication of Beyond Zen, we have at last in a single volume a
comprehensive assessment of Suzuki that locates him and his legacy
in the context of the turbulent age in which he lived. Now is the
perfect moment for reflection and stocktaking. The fiftieth
anniversary of Suzuki's death passed just a few years ago, the
copyright on his literary output has expired, and his selected
works have recently been published by a major American university
press. The work comprises twelve essays by some of the best Zen
scholars in the world, Anglophone and Japanese, seasoned and young.
They take a fresh look at Suzuki, his life and legacy, and their
themes range broadly. Readers will find here explorations of Suzuki
as he engaged with Zen and Mahāyāna Buddhism; nationalism and
international relations; war and peace; religion, literature, and
the media; the individual and society; and family, friends, and
animals. Beyond Zen is structured chronologically to reveal the
development in Suzuki's thought during his long and eventful life.
All in all, this collection offers a compelling, provocative, and
multidimensional reappraisal of an extraordinary man and his
times.
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