[Buddha-l] updates and corrections to "upaya express" (topic:Buddhism in contemporary Japan)

[Dan Lusthaus]

John Nelson suggested some revisions on my comments on Buddhism in Japan 
today. But let's see:

I said:
1. " Zen has always been a minority tradition in Japan -- though we
in the west often
treat it metonymically as "Japanese Buddhism." Largest Japanese sect
is Pure
Land (Jodo)."

John comments:
According to figures released by the (Japanese) Agency for Cultural
Affairs in 1999, there are 20,968 temples belonging to various Zen
denominations, making it the second largest of all Buddhist
organizations in Japan.  Pure Land temples number around 29,628.

This is apples and oranges, but since hard and secure figures are hard to 
come by, let's see what we have. I was talking about active adherents, 
people who identify themselves with a particular sect -- even if just at the 
extreme margin of who the family goes to for funerals and nothing else. John 
is doing a temple count, not an adherent count. Fair question, then: What 
counts as a temple? Little family affairs, storefront shrines, etc., as well 
as huge complexes. Depending on how one counts, a single temple complex 
could be considered to house dozens or even a hundred or more "temples." So 
a temple count has little meaning without determining what is being called a 
temple.

Secondly, the count for Zen temples, esp. Soto will be artificially high 
because of some historical serendipity during the late Tokugawa period, when 
the state officially made Soto temples the main funerary overseers and 
officiants throughout Japan. Without going into a complicated history 
lesson, their fortunes changed dramatically with the Meiji, but many of the 
buildings are still there, though barely functioning.

Here are some figures culled from Adherents.com. I won't vouch for their 
absolute accuracy, but this is probably ballpark ok:

While all sources acknowledge that Jodo Shinshu (which has 10 schools) is 
the largest, I can find no number of adherents with a quick search.

Jodo (not to be confused with Jodo Shinshu) 3,646,000 in 1945;
2,960,000 in 1956

Shingon 9,117,000 in 1945
10,475,770 in 1993

Tendai 2,141,000 in 1945
31,427,310 1993 [!]

Rinzai 2,530,000 in 1945
2,350,000 in 1956

Soto 6,848,000 in 1945
6,750,000 in 1956

I don't have figures for Nichiren Shoshu or Soka Gakkai.

The leap in Tendai seems exaggerated.

Anyone have more reliable figures -- for adherents, not buildings?


John continues:
... most
families have an idea about their affiliation with a temple and the
kind of Buddhism it represents.  They may not be able to tell you a
single point of history or doctrine, but that hardly matters when the
issue at hand concerns memorial services for departed loved ones.

Dan:
I am not the first to report (or notice) that many Japanese are clueless as 
to their family's sectarian affiliation (e.g., see Ian Reader's _Religion in 
Contemporary Japan_), and this is esp. true of younger Japanese who have no 
idea what their family religious history is. There may even be Budddhist 
altars in the home, maybe used by a grandmother for daily chanting, but more 
likely it is simply treated as a valuable family heirloom, that may be 
prominently displayed in the right sort of room (or not), but rarely used. 
And they might guess that the central figure is Amida, but not know for 
sure. All Japanese will recognize the more popular images of Jizo, Kannon, 
etc. which are publicly displayed in a variety of places. And while they are 
largely ignorant of doctrine, they do tend to know the geographical 
distribution of temples, and can name many of them, esp. the more prominent 
or "famous" ones, and may have visited them on school field trips, not as 
religious pilgrimage but the way a US school trip might visit the Washington 
Monument or the Natural History Museum.

John:
Also, I would not categorize all Japanese who come to the west as
having some special inclination to convert to Christianity simply
because they have little commitment to their family's Buddhist heritage.

Dan:
I didn't say "all." The number of Japanese who convert is quite large. I 
meet them all the time.


John:
Compared to
similar interviews conducted with top leaders at Tendai and Soto-Zen
headquarters, the Pure Land folks are far more proactive and
realistic about the future of their tradition.

Dan:
That is probably right.

John:
While it's true that suicide prevention does not generate income for
temples, it remains among the leading issues within most
denominations.  Both Pure Land and True Pure Land denominations have
been very active in supporting hot lines and calling attention to the
issue in publications and at conferences, and the same can be said
for Soto Zen and Nichiren, although I'm not sure about the others.

Dan: This is a very recent phenomenon. The first suicide hotlines appeared 
in the summer of 1999, when the official suicide rate was 27,000 a year (the 
unofficial number was considered much higher). At that time the goal the 
hotline people set for themselves was not necessarily talking a caller out 
of committing suicide -- though if they could do that, all the better; but 
that was not considered realistic -- but their focus was in talking people 
planning to commit suicide from killing their children as well, and had 
armed themselves with a barrage of arguments they hoped would convince those 
people to let their children live. These hotlines, I should add, were not 
created by Buddhist organizations, but by civic, mental health and Christian 
organizations.

http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2008/09/suicide-prevent.html
http://mentalhealth.about.com/b/2005/08/31/japanese-mental-health-agency-opens-suicide-prevention-site.htm
http://tinyurl.com/cuxceb
http://www.benhills.com/articles/articles/JPN28a.html

There have even been some controversies lately concerning suicides being 
committed near some temples and shrines, with a local making efforts to 
prevent them, whose efforts are opposed by the local establishments afraid 
that making a fuss will disturb tourism. So, in general, the push against 
suicide, such as it is in Japan today, is coming largely from non-religious 
forces, and is even opposed at times by the religious establishment.

John:
I think it would be wise to set aside these easy generalizations and
dualities and replace them with more complex, nuanced, and accurate
information.

Dan:

I cautioned at the beginning that the issue was complex I was only offering 
a short(er) take.

That said, I think the stereotype I described is quite accurate for the vast 
majority of Japanese. Rapping monks, etc., are a novelty, not a wellspring 
setting off aspirant's bodhicitta. Obviously there is a range of 
attitudes -- some Japanese are very devout, but that is a small minority. 
The majority imagine themselves to be fully secularized and modern (being up 
to date and cuteness are the two cults at which most young Japanese worship 
these days) -- they aren't, but that's how they imagine themselves.

John:
To be brief, "the Christian influence" should be
rendered in the plural since there is no monolithic Christianity in
Japan.

Dan:
Christmas decorations, Valentine's Day, etc. "Cultural" Christianisms have 
thoroughly integrated themselves into Japanese culture. A Western visitor, 
used to seeing such things back home, may not notice how incongruous and 
historically novel such things are in Japan. Japanese tend not to think 
about these things in *religious* terms -- which is why they are being so 
successfully integrated.

John:
Most Japanese who have attended high school are aware of the
impact Christianity had in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the
draconian efforts of the government to curtail its growth.

Dan:
They probably wouldn't use the word "draconian" and would explain why that 
was necessary at the time (the missionaries were doing more than spreading 
the gospel).