Women Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns

Women Living Zen This page intentionally left blank Women Living Zen JAPANESE SOTO BUDDHIST NUNS Paula Kane Robinson Arai New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1999 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1999 by Paula Kane Robinson Arai Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Arai, Paula Kane Robinson. Women living Zen : Japanese Soto Buddhist nuns Paula Kane Robinson Arai. p. em. ISBN 0-19-512393-X 1. Monastic and religious life for women—Japan. 2. Monastic and religious life (Zen Buddhism) —Japan. 3. Religious life —Sotoshu. 4. Buddhist nuns—Japan. I. Title, BQ9444.2.A73 1998 294.3'657-dc21 98-17675 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For mv parents, Masuko Arai Robinson Lucian Ford Robinson and my bodhisattva, Kito Shunko This page intentionally left blank FOREWORD Reflections on Women Encountering Buddhism across Cultures and Time Abbess Aoyama Shundo Aichi Zen Monastery for Women in Nagoya, Japan "We must all, male and female alike, profoundly respect Buddhist teachings and practice. We must not argue over male or femaleness." [excerpt from "Raihaitokuzui," Shobogenzo, by Zen Master Dogen] "I chose the study of comparative religion, because I was born betwixt and between a mother who is a Japanese Buddhist and a father who is an American Christian. In time I was drawn to Buddhism, and in 1987 / sojourned to India where I was able to visit the place where Sakyamuni attained enlightenment. It was there that I met the Zen nun, Kito Shunko, who was at the Japanese Temple in Bodh Gaya. I was deeply moved at having encountered a person who genuinely lived according to the Buddhist teachings. At that time, the nun, Kito Sensei, introduced to me the book written by the Abbess, On Becoming a Beautiful Person. These experiences and events drove me to come to this Zen monastery for women in Nagoya, Japan." viii Foreword This was my first conversation with Paula. When she said, "I encountered a person who genuinely lived according to the Buddhist teachings" a tear glistened in her eye. It was a tear that came out of the joy of having had a profound encounter with a wonderful person and teachings while on a journey in search of the truth. At that time, I thought that she must have received the seeds of Buddhist teachings from her mother when she was very young, and her Buddhist-seeking antenna were raised from having experienced the complexities of being raised between the two teachings of Buddhism and Christianity. Having met the nun, Kito Shunko—who is like a living Buddha —she decided the direction of her search. Since then Paula has come directly and deliberately along this path. These are my thoughts about Paula's actions and commitments. Buddhist history is about 2500 years long. Nuns' history is the same 2500 years. The first people who began walking this path were the stepmother who raised Sakyamuni, Mahaprajapati, and his wife, Yasodara. Along with the particularities of cultural and historical influence, the Buddhist teachings have been transmitted from India, China, and Japan. Even if there appeared discrimination between monks and nuns, we today continue to receive the unwavering truth as expressed by Zen Master Dogen's profound heart and mind: "We must all, male and female alike, profoundly respect Buddhist teachings and practice. We must not argue over male or femaleness." The foundation of nuns' responsibility, conscience, and honor is to have been granted the role to support the spiritual dimension of the efforts of women who bear the responsibility—granted by the gods and Buddhas — to give birth to and raise the people of tomorrow who will saddle the world on their shoulders. We must exert ourselves unremittingly. This is the only path on which we must con- tinuously advance. In order to write this book, Paula experienced these nuns' path in a personally embodied way; she studied our history, actual circumstances, and various other dimensions. For Paula's posture of commitment and practice, I express respect from my heart. Gassho. Acknowledgments Giving thanks to people for having helped is one of life's true joys. It is my great pleasure to thank all the people who have contributed to this book with their expertise, time, insights, texts and documents, and hospitality—plus their thoughts and hearts. It is my tremendous sadness, however, that I am unable to thank personally a number of the key people whose efforts were vital to this book, for they have passed on. One of the benefits of writing about nuns, however, is that it has fostered a number of important relationships with truly remarkable people. These relationships have helped sustain me through these losses. Most notably I am grateful for the profound understanding of Kito Shunko, who is the inspiration for this work. I have come to know just how true the heeding of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, my first-year Ph.D.-candidate advisor at Harvard University, was in stressing that the study of religion is the study of religious people. He taught that you must become genuine friends with various religious people. It is only then that you can learn what is in their hearts and understand their religiosity. Friendships, however, were fostered during my tenure in the monastery, not out of a conscious methodological preference, but because we were engaged in an intense shared experience. Silence being the norm in the monastery, unspoken bonds of mutual respect were cultivated — especially during arduous periods of fourteen-hour-a-day meditation. Having established these bonds of trust and respect, at times of crisis we turned to each other for help. Indeed, during a period x Acknowledgments of personal crisis, unrelated to my research, I found sympathy in a number of my female monastic friends. Not only did they help me through this crisis and heighten my respect for them, but this encounter also became a catalyst for deeper connections that gave me access to intimate information, insight into their private feelings, and clearer understanding of their motivations. Although I do not use this information in any explicit fashion, it enables me to understand the context and import of formal responses given on surveys and in interviews. I am indebted to all the nuns who opened their hearts to me. They are too numerous to mention each by name, but my sincere gratitude extends to all. I would, however, like to highlight a few. If I had not met the nun Kito Shunko Sensei, I would not have written this book. My profound gratitude goes to her, a living bodhisattva. She took care of me while I was in the monastery. She had an uncanny knack of knowing even before I did what I would need, whether it was a furoshiki to cover my books, a robe for more formal ceremonies (that was wrinkle-free and dried quickly, even in humid weather), or a reminder that there are many seasons, each with its own valued quality. Aoyama Shundo Roshi, the abbess of Aichi Senmon Nisodo, gave me her trust, an indispensable gift. Without this, I would not have been able to live in the monastery and interview the novices in training, and I would surely not have had much of a response on the surveys. She gave me critical information, clarifying insights, numerous books, free access to the monastery library, and necessary chal- lenges. I am grateful to the late Kojima Kendo Sensei for sharing that glorious week together at Lumbini-en and giving me a visceral sense of the caliber of women that changed Soto history, as well as more documentation of their history. Special thanks are also due to a number of others. One is Yanaga Jissho, for a depth of friendship that requires few words to communicate volumes. She gently showed me how to survive in the monastery by her kind and insightful advice and stellar example. Tomio Sensei brightened me up each time she appeared in the monastery, and she arranged for me to stay in an apartment in her temple building, located near the monastery. Kuriki Kakujo Sensei, my tea ceremony teacher who let me continue taking lessons at her temple twice a week after I left the monastery. She was always conscious of my research and freely gave information that she knew would be helpful in furthering my understanding. There is also Okamoto Sensei, for her care in teaching me how to sew a rakusu, my favorite class at the monastery. Thanks also to the late Miyata Baijun Sensei for her healing laughter, and to Tsuneda Sen'e Sensei for her gifts of time, texts, and the cherished plum blossom incense burner that I have used to bring the smell of temples to my study during the entire process of working on this book—in Nagoya, Tokyo, Cambridge, Hong Kong, and Nashville. Nozawa Wako provided texts and informative conver- sations. All the nuns at Aichi Senmon Nisodo in Nagoya, whom I was cloistered with in the fall of 1989, will remain in my heart for their patient understanding, cooperation, and honesty.

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