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Women Living Zen Michiko Yusa Western Washington University, Michiko.Yusa@Wwu.Edu Western Washington University Western CEDAR Modern & Classical Languages Humanities 11-2000 Review of: Women Living Zen Michiko Yusa Western Washington University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/mcl_facpubs Part of the Japanese Studies Commons, and the Modern Languages Commons Recommended Citation Yusa, Michiko, "Review of: Women Living Zen" (2000). Modern & Classical Languages. 16. https://cedar.wwu.edu/mcl_facpubs/16 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Humanities at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Modern & Classical Languages by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BOOK REVIEWS-JAPAN 1013 part of the twentiethcentury. Unfortunately, this is only one chapterin the book. One wishesmore of the book read like this. CHRISTOPHER KAPLONSKI UniversityofCambridge RutgersUniversity JAPAN WomenLiving Zen. By PAULA KANE ROBINSON ARAI. New York and Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1999. xix, 233 pp. $39.95 (cloth). This is an anthropologicalstudy, carried out with love, care, and attentionto detail,of the Japanese Sata nuns.Why would modern(Japanese) women want to give up the comfortsof modernlife, part with theirbeautiful hair-a powerfulsymbol of womanhood-and becomemonastics? What are theirself-perceptions and theirdaily lives like? Arai ably answersthese questions. She firsttakes the readeron a journey throughthe history of Japanese monastic Buddhist tradition, which began when three womenwere ordained sometime around the year590. She thenclarifies the modern academic arguments surrounding Dogen's view of women's capacity for enlightenment,and upholds the egalitarianinterpretation of Dogen (which is the interpretationheld by the nuns). She nextlets the readerexperience, first hand, the lives of contemporarySoto Zen nuns. By the end of the journey,readers will find themselvesmoved, their humanity reassured and refreshed. Arai deftlyshows how confidentand competentthese monastic women are-far differentfrom the uninformedperception of nunsas second-classcitizens-especially in her account of how the nuns succeeded,during the last one hundredyears, in claiming their rights to temple leadership,Dharma transmission,and advanced educationfrom within the structureand despite the stricturesof the highlymale- dominatedSoto Zen Administration.To historicallyminded readers,chapters 2 (Historical Background)and 3 (Twentieth-CenturyLeadership) offer a wealth of information.For thosewho wish to get to know the thoughtsand daily lives of the nuns, chapters4 (The Monastic Practices of Zen Nuns) and 5 (Motivations, Commitments,and Self-Perceptions)contain singularly insightful accounts. One of the main reasonswhy nuns wereable to improvetheir status within the Soto sect turnsout to be theirfirm and abiding commitmentto the monasticway of life,as laid out by D13gen.Arai remindsthe reader,whenever necessary, that monastic womenare empoweredby Dogen's egalitarianconviction of women's ability to attain enlightenment.Arai emphasizesthe contrastthat presently holds in Japan:whereas most monksget married,practically every nun remainssingle, which enables her to devote her energyto importanttasks. This, in turn,enhances the nuns' sectarian position.For instance,Kojima Kendo, a keyfigure in the "Nuns' RightsMovement," distinguishedherself in the ministryin Hawaii, 1938-41, and Kito Shunko,Arai's "bodhisattva,"who introducedher to theworld of Soto nuns,worked to help establish theJapanese Temple in Bodh Gaya, India. These womencould not have done their This content downloaded from 140.160.178.168 on Fri, 16 May 2014 14:11:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1014 THE JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES job had they been married(p. 140). This is just anotherexample of how female monasticstoday animate Japanese Buddhism by theircommitment to the ideal of monasticism. Arai concludesthat Soto nuns are the mainstayof contemporarymonastic life, and thatthese women have becomethe carriersof traditionalJapanese culture-be it tea ceremony,flower arrangement, cooking, calligraphy, composition of poetryin Chinese,or polite use of theJapanese language, keigo. Hence, monasticwomen play a vital role in societyand history,by preservingthe Japanese culture. A few quibbles and comments: my article, "Women in Shinto: Images Remembered,"in ArvindSharma, ed., Religionand Women(SUNY 1994), if cited, would have supportedArai's emphasison the powerof femalespirituality (pp. 32- 33). The effectof the post-WorldWar II legal and social changesunder the Allied Occupation Forces seems to merit more attentionand analysisas they obviously improvedthe nuns' statuswithin the Soto sect. I personallywould have liked to see some accountsof monksand the Soto Administrationin reactionto (or against)the nuns' rightsmovements, because I would thinkthe struggleon the partof monastic womento attainequality was not alwayseasy and could not be realizedwithout the understandingand compassionof theirmale colleagues.Were theresignificant male monasticfigures who helped diminishthe monkishdiscrimination against nuns? Anotherquestion that often crossed my mind while reading the book was theposition of nuns in Rinzai Zen. Do theyenjoy equality similar to that the Soto nuns enjoy? There is anothersmall point: becausethere are a numberof monasticmales who are committedto celibacy,a sweepingstatement such as "monksusually defer these tasks [ofarranging flowers and servingtea to guestslto theirwives" (p. 114) mightfall too harshlyon some celibatemale monkears. Typographicerrors are few:it is sengiia,not seng-chia, in pinyin (p. 14); it is Chuo- sen, not Chtuo-sen(p. 57). And thereis one veryfelicitous typo on page 122: "Many ofthese women perceive their monastic experience to be fun,"until one readsthe next line, "damentally,"and realizesthat a hyphenis missing.But thishappy omission of a hyphenstrengthens the image of these joyous monasticwomen, whose photos includedin the book are fullof radiantsmiles! MICHIKO YUSA WesternWashington University NomaiDance Drama: A SurvivingSpirit of MedievalJapan. By SUSANM. ASAI. Westport,Conn. and London:Greenwood Press, 1999. viii, 248 pp. $65.00. NJmaiare ritual,narrative, and comic performancesbelonging to the Yamabushi kagura tradition.They are performedby men in a number of villages in the Higashidorimuradistrict near Osorezan on the ShimokitaPenninsula of Northern Honshu. Susan Asai describesthe religiousand historicalsetting, as well as the training,staging and, in particular,musical structureof this folkperforming art. Based on a yearof on-site fieldwork, when she documentedperformances and training sessions, interviewednumerous masters, and experiencedways in which njmai functionedwithin the community, her research brings together important information on a little-studiedsubject. Yamabushikagura was broughtto NorthernHonshu by mountainascetics well knownfor their powers in exorcism.Their shfgendJ sect combinesBuddhism, Shinto, This content downloaded from 140.160.178.168 on Fri, 16 May 2014 14:11:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions.
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