Precepts in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism the Jōdoshū

Precepts in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism The Jōdoshū

James C. Dobbins

Precepts, supposedly the common thread drawing together the Buddhist world, have had a problematic and controversial place in Japanese Buddhism.* It is no secret that Japanese have long debated their content, function, and ne- cessity, and that the value ascribed to them in Japan has differed in important ways from their value in other Buddhist countries. In fact, in the eyes of other countries, there may be some question as to whether Japanese follow a legiti- mate version of the precepts and whether their clergy are properly ordained. Japan’s discomfort regarding the precepts has existed from early in its history, and some of its prominent forms of Buddhism emerged with a distinct sense of ambivalence toward them. The Pure Land tradition, for one, exemplifies Japan’s attraction-avoidance response to the precepts. Pure Land Buddhism has a long and complex history in Japan, but the par- ticular school to be examined here is the Jōdoshū 浄土宗, or Pure Land school, which claims the eminent master Hōnen 法然 (Genkū 源空; 1133–1212) as its founder. To be more exact, the school is the Chinzei 鎭西 branch of the Jōdoshū, which is traceable to Hōnen’s disciple Benchō 辨長 (1162–1238) and was further developed by such leaders as Ryōchū 良忠 (1199–1287) and Shōgei 聖冏 (1341– 1420). This is in contrast to the Seizan 西山 branch of the Jōdoshū, descended from the close disciple of Hōnen named Shōkū 證空 (1177–1247). The Chinzei branch should also be distinguished from two other Pure Land groups, which likewise emerged in the wake of Hōnens pioneering efforts: the Shinshū 眞宗 (True School), traceable to Shinran 親鸞 (1173–1263); and the Jishū 時宗 (Time School), stemming from Ippen 一遍 (1239–1289). All of these took embryonic form in the Kamakura 鎌倉 period (1185–1333) and gradually assumed a sepa- rate identity from the medieval period’s prevailing forms of Buddhism.

Source: Dobbins, James C., “Precepts in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism: The Jōdoshū,” in William M. Bodiford (ed.), Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 236–254.

* I would like to thank Professor Fukuhara Ryūzen 福原隆善 of Bukkyō 佛教 University in Kyoto and the Venerable Kondō Tesshō 近藤徹称, head resident of the Shōrin’an 照臨庵 in Kyoto, for meeting with me during the preparation of this essay to discuss the precepts in the Jōdoshū.

The Chinzei branch of the Jōdoshū originated somewhat on the periph- ery of Japan’s Buddhist world. It began in Kyūshū 九州, at the western end of Japan, and later expanded eastward into the Kantō 關東 region, where it came to be based particularly at Kōmyōji 光明寺 Temple in Kamakura. In the fifteenth century it grew increasingly prominent and influential when it took over exclusive leadership of Chion’in 知恩院 Temple in Kyoto, the location of Hōnen’s grave-site chapel. The branch’s fortunes were boosted considerably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when it received special patronage from the great unifier of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1542–1616), and subsequently from his shogunate government. Today, the Chinzei Jōdoshū is the second largest Pure Land denomination in Japan after the two main branches of Shinran’s Shinshū.

1 Antecedents of Jōdoshū Precepts

All of the aforementioned Pure Land groups arose in Japan after the Buddhist precepts had become an integral part of the established religious order. The precepts that the Jōdoshū adopted were not those of the Four Part Vinaya, which temples in the old capital of Nara upheld, but the Mahāyāna (or bodhisattva) precepts, also known as the Perfect Sudden Precepts (endon kai 圓頓戒), which Saichō 最澄 (767–822) instituted for ordinations in the Tendai 天台 school (Groner 2000, 107–194). Ample evidence suggests that Saichō’s was not a smooth and problem-free system. Many controversies emerged even in Tendai over the precepts’ meaning and applicability (Groner 1990a, 251–290). But because Tendai was such an influential form of Buddhism in Japan, its ordination system using the bodhisattva precepts was widely accepted, even though other Buddhist countries did not use them in that way. Hōnen and most of his disciples entered the clergy under the Tendai system. Hence, when the Jōdoshū speaks of the precepts, it is referring to the bodhisattva precepts specifically. It inherited most of the associations and significances, as well as the ambivalences, that Tendai had regarding them. At the time the Jōdoshū appeared on the scene, Japanese Buddhism was un- dergoing a crisis over the precepts. The problem was not whether one should follow the Four Part Vinaya or the bodhisattva precepts, as Saichō had argued. Rather, it was whether any precepts at all should be recognized. There emerged a widespread sense in Japan that the clergy was in a state of moral decay. The types of actions most commonly decried were eating meat, consuming liquor, and indulging in sexual activity and even marriage—all violations of the precepts. Whether the clergy were actually worse than in previous periods or