PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Third Series Number 12 Fall 2010 Special Issue: Buddhisms in Japan FRONT COVER PACIFIC WORLD: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Third Series, Number 12 Fall 2010 SPINE PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies HALF-TITLE PAGE i Presentation of Doctorate Honoris Causa to Rev. Toshihide Numata at Mitutoyo Sosensai service, Aurora, Illinois, 14 July 2011. Left to right: Rev. Toshihide Numata, President of Mitutoyo Corporation, and of Buk- kyo Dendo Kyokai, Rev. Koshin Ogui, Socho of the Buddhist Churches of America and President of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, and Dr. Richard K. Payne, Dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studes and Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies. REVERSE HALF TITLE ii PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Third Series Number 12 Fall 2010 SPECIAL ISSUE: BUDDHISMS IN JAPAN TITLE iii Pacific World is an annual journal in English devoted to the dissemination of his- torical, textual, critical, and interpretive articles on Buddhism generally and Shinshu Buddhism particularly to both academic and lay readerships. The journal is distributed free of charge. Articles for consideration by the Pacific World are welcomed and are to be submitted in English and addressed to the Editor, Pacific World, 2140 Durant Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704-1589, USA. Acknowledgment: This annual publication is made possible by the donation of BDK America of Berkeley, California. Guidelines for Authors: Manuscripts (approximately twenty standard pages) should be typed double-spaced with 1-inch margins. Notes are to be endnotes with full biblio- graphic information in the note first mentioning a work, i.e., no separate bibliography. 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Upon request, page proofs may be reviewed by the author. Include institutional affiliation and position, or present status/occupation and place. All manuscripts submitted for publication become the property of Pacific World. By agreeing to publication in the Pacific World, authors give the journal and the In- stitute of Buddhist Studies an unlimited license to publish and reprint the essay. This license includes, but is not limited to, any media format (hard copy, electronic, etc.), and international rights. Copyright remains the author’s. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Richard K. Payne, Chair David Matsumoto Eisho Nasu Natalie Quli Scott Mitchell ASSISTANT EDITOR Natalie Quli BooK REvIEW EDIToR Scott Mitchell REVERSE TITLE PAGE iv PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Third Series, Number 12 Fall 2010 SPECIAL ISSUE: BUDDHISMS IN JAPAN CONTENTS “Japanese Buddhism”: Essence, Construct, or Skillful Means? GEREON KOPF 1 Identity in Difference: Reading Nishida’s Philosophy through the Lens of Shin Buddhism DANIEL FRIEDRICH 27 on- and offline Representations of Japanese Buddhism: Reflections on a Multifaceted Religious Tradition ELISABETTA PORCU 91 Locally Translocal American Shin Buddhism SCOTT A. MITCHELL 109 Paths across Borders: Comparative Reflections on Japanese and Indo-Tibetan Models of the Buddhist Path DAVID L. GARDINER 127 The Dangerous Kami Called Buddha: Ancient Conflicts between Buddhism and Local Cults and Medieval Attempts at Resolution FABIO RAMBELLI 147 “The Karmic Origins of the Morning-Bear Mountain”: Preliminary Research Notes on Asamayama Engi ANNA ANDREEVA 171 Contemplations and Imagery: Issues Relevant to Ancient Japanese Esoteric Buddhist Icons, Ritual Practice, and Cultural Contexts CYNTHEA BOGEL 191 v Ritual of the Clear Light Mantra RICHARD K. PAYNE 223 BooK REvIEW Wild Geese: Buddhism in Canada, edited by John S. Harding, victor Sōgen Hori, and Alexander Soucy BROOKE SCHEDNECK 231 BDK ENGlISH TRIPIṭAKA SERIES 241 vi “Japanese Buddhism”: Essence, Construct, or Skillful Means? Gereon Kopf Luther College THE CATEGORy “Japanese Buddhism” (nihon bukkyō, 日本仏教), commonly used in the field of Japanese religious studies, is seemingly innocuous but actually has interesting and far reaching implications. It is often used by academics to describe a specific subfield of Buddhist studies; by textbooks to identify one particular form of Buddhism, whose major characteristics, ironically, is its division into a multiplic- ity of schools1 and movements; and by ideologues to enter identity pol- itics. On first sight, our term seems to be synonymous with “Buddhism in Japan” but an examination of its history and use quickly shows that it has connotations that are not implied by this phrase. However, while it is common sense that the phrase “Japanese Buddhism” can be useful in certain contexts since it expresses common patterns, the phrase “Buddhism in Japan” cannot, and its use is not without problems. What does it mean, for example, to identify “Japanese Buddhism” as “funeral Buddhism” (sōshiki bukkyō, 葬式佛教)2? Does this claim highlight insti- tutional structures that a majority of Buddhist schools in Japan share at certain times in history or does it designate an inherent essence characteristic of all phenomena that fall under the rubric “Buddhism in Japan”? The key to these questions is the usage and meaning of the term “Japanese Buddhism.” Philosophically speaking, the term “Japanese Buddhism” suggests an essence that all forms of “Japanese Buddhism” share and that dif- ferentiates them from the various forms of Buddhism in other parts of Asia, on the one side, as well as from other religious traditions in Japan, on the other.3 The rhetoric of the proponents who use the term “Japanese Buddhism” as a clearly identifiable discrete entity betrays the difficulty of this very concept. Some ideologues imply that only the schools of Buddhism that were imported to or founded in Japan 1 2 Pacific World in the Heian 平安 (794–1185) and Kamakura 鎌倉 (1185–1333) peri- ods qualify as “real” “Japanese Buddhism.” Such a rhetoric, of course, raises the question as to the identity of the six schools of Nara 奈良 Buddhism.4 In a similar vein the Buddhist movements and groups es- tablished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are referred to primarily as “new religions” (shinshūkyō, 新宗教)5 and only secondarily as “schools of Buddhism.” Second, some thinkers cite as one typical feature of “Japanese Buddhism” its ability to engage in certain forms of what is usually called syncretism,6 such as the slogan evoking the “unity of kami and buddhas” (shinbutsu shūgō, 神仏習合);7 the doctrine that the three religions, Shintō, Buddhism, and Confucianism, are one (sankyō itchi, 三教一致); and religious practices that mix elements from Buddhism with elements from folk religion, Shintō, and Daoism. Besides the fact that syncretic or symbiotic forms of Buddhism are not unique to Japan, the rhetoric of syncretism seems to favor the term “Japanese religion”8 over “Japanese Buddhism” as a workable category to describe Buddhism in Japan. The term “Japanese Buddhism” itself gained currency as a phrase during the Meiji 明治 period (1868–1912) both by Buddhists in Japan to refer to their own tradition as well as by outsiders whether they were Buddhists of a different cultural background or scholars who placed themselves outside the Buddhist tradition altogether. In the Meiji, Taishō 大正 (1912–1926), and early Shōwa 昭和 (1926–1988) periods, when Buddhists in Japan identified themselves and were identified by Buddhists in China and Korea as “Japanese Buddhists,” this phrase was not only used to suggest the uniqueness9 of Japanese Buddhism vis-à-vis other forms of Buddhism but also implied a hierarchy of values, albeit for differing purposes. A significant number of Buddhist thinkers and practitioners in China and Korea interpreted the per- ceived difference of Japanese Buddhism from other forms of Buddhism, especially the violation of the three monastic regulations of celibacy, vegetarianism, and abstinence since the Meiji period, as well as what they took to be the “disintegration” of the Buddhist sangha into a multiplicity of schools,10 as a clear case of corruption and debauchery. Japanese Buddhists, on the other hand, embraced the idea of three na- tions (sangoku, 三国),11 that is, India, China, and Japan, to argue that Japanese Buddhism constituted the highest and most developed form of Buddhism.12 Under the surface of this obvious ideological rhetoric and the concomitant identity politics lie two central questions. First, Kopf: “Japanese Buddhism” 3 is there an essence that unites all of Japanese Buddhism and distin- guishes it from other forms of Buddhism? And second, is there such a thing as authentic Buddhism? Since the advent of postmodernism,