[Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline

[Franz Metcalf]

Gang,

An article on Buddhism in contemporary Japan that fails to mention the  
two most popular forms of Buddhism there! Sheesh. Thanks, though, to  
Erik and Dan for the links. Taken together, the two articles are  
evocative (though they remain anecdotal). I liked the suggestion, at  
the end of the Asahi Shimbun article, that temples move back toward  
their (possibly imagined) pre-Meiji roles as community centers where  
life and joy were part of the mix. That's what Pure Land temples are  
trying to do here in the States, and that may be a model Japanese  
temples could emulate.

But perhaps the world is moving beyond Buddhism. What good it has done  
in history might now be accomplished via other means. Popularizers  
(not mentioning any names) seem to want to reduce Buddhism to some  
kind of DIY psychological grab-bag, so "Buddhism" is thinning out or  
drying up, no matter what we think about it. Perhaps it's inevitable.  
This *is* mappo, after all.

Franz