A Forest for a Thousand Years: Cultivating Life and Disciplining Death at Daihonzan Sōjiji, a Japanese Sōtō Zen Temple by Joshua Aaron Irizarry A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in The University of Michigan 2011 Doctoral Committee: Professor Jennifer E. Robertson, Chair Professor Gillian Feeley-Harnik Professor Erik A. Mueggler Assistant Professor Micah L. Auerback © Joshua Aaron Irizarry 2011 For Ita Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te. ii Acknowledgements No work of ethnography can be accomplished without the help of a great many people who were generous of their time, patience, and trust. However, the need to protect the identities and privacy of my informants must trump all feelings of gratitude and indebtedness that I might feel. As is convention in ethnography, all individuals named in this work are pseudonyms; and all individually identifying information has been altered. Since I cannot thank individuals by name, I can only express a deep and lasting appreciation for the generosity and patience of both the clerical and lay communities of Daihonzan Sōjiji. In particular, my thanks go to the members of Sōjiji’s Baikakō and Nichiyō Sanzenkai who welcomed me into their number with friendship and a willingness to tolerate my never-ending series of questions. I am indebted to the entire clerical community at Sōjiji for their understanding, patience and willingness to help me see and understand the inner workings of a large Sōtō Zen monastery. I am especially grateful to those priests and unsui who candidly shared with me their experiences and memories of Sōjiji. All of this would have been impossible without the introduction of the late Saitō Shingi, who facilitated my initial entrée into the Sōjiji community. I was terribly saddened to hear of his passing, and will be forever thankful for the kindnesses he showed me. My field research from 2006 through 2008 was conducted under the auspices of a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellowship, endowed by the Mitsubishi Corporation. I am grateful to David Satterwhite and Jinko Brinkman of the Japan-U.S. Educational Commission for their priceless support and assistance throughout my fieldwork in Japan. I am thankful to all of my Japanese language instructors at the University of Michigan, the FALCON Program at Cornell University, Middlebury College’s Summer Language Institute, and the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies. I wish to especially thank Kōno Tamaki from the IUC for her infinite patience and continuing support in helping to deepen my understanding of Japanese language and culture. Samuel Meyrowitz and Joseph Joffe provided steady reminders that there is life outside of graduate school and a world beyond the dissertation. David Offenbach-Abbott was instrumental in preserving my sanity and helping me keep perspective at times when I seemed to be lacking in either. iii Thank you to Satō Seiko, Yamamoto Shin’ichi, Erik Schicketanz, and Jolyon Thomas for giving me encouragement, support and friendship throughout my time in Japan. The Anthropology Department at the University of Colorado Denver provided a safe haven (and office space) to facilitate my transition from graduate student to professional scholar. I am particularly grateful to Steve Koester, David Tracer, Charles Musiba, Sarah Horton and Julien Riel-Salvatore for their guidance, encouragement, and friendship throughout the writing process. Getting through graduate school is in many ways a team effort, and I was fortunate to find a wonderful cohort of friends and colleagues at the University of Michigan. Thank you to John Thiels, Karen Smid, Cat Bolten, Ann-Elise Lewallen, Chris Ames, and Eva- Marie Dubuisson for always being there for me when I needed them to be. Of special note is Laurie Marx who has been a peerless navigator of the dangerous seas of institutional bureaucracy throughout my entire graduate career. This research took me far from my home and family, but I am grateful to Dad and Pam, Mom and Gregg, Cody and Alyssa for never being too far away, and for being always willing to meet me more than halfway. My love and gratitude go to Akiyama Taka’aki, Chiyōko, Kentarō, Nobuyuki and Ichi for making me and my wife a part of their family. Since my very first trip to Japan in the summer of 2001, Shimazono Susumu at the University of Tokyo has been a source of wisdom, guidance, and support for my research. I am extremely fortunate to count myself among the family of scholars of religion in whose careers Shimazono-sensei has played a vital and defining role. Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Erik Mueggler, and Micah Auerback challenged me when I needed to be challenged, encouraged me when I needed encouragement, and inspired me when I needed inspiration. I am very fortunate to have had worked with such a stellar dissertation committee. My humblest gratitude goes to my advisor and mentor, Jennifer Robertson, for taking a chance on a brash and overconfident graduate student who knew close to nothing about Japan. It is due to her painstaking cultivation, her tireless advocacy, and unwavering confidence in my abilities that I was able to become the scholar I am today. Lastly, to my beloved wife, Ita, belongs the true triumph of this dissertation. At every step of the way, she has been the strength behind my efforts and the inspiration behind my words. I hope only that this work is worthy of her, and deserving of the years love and support she so selflessly gave to me in order to bring this project to fruition. To all of the people named above and to all those who cannot be named, my gratitude is boundless. The responsibility for any mistakes, omissions, or inaccuracies in this work is borne solely on my shoulders. iv Table of Contents Dedication………………………………………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...iii List of Appendices………………………………………………………………………vi Chapter I. Honzan……………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter II. Unsui……………………………………………………………………….61 Chapter III. Sōryo……………………………………………………………………..127 Chapter IV. Sanzen……………………………………………………………………188 Chapter V. Baika……………………………………………………………...………246 Chapter VI. Kuyō…………………………………………………………………......295 Chapter VII. Conclusion……………………………………………………………...355 Appendices………..……………………………………………………………………366 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….…..375 v List of Appendices Appendix A. Photographs…………………………………………………….………366 Appendix B. Character Glossary……………………………………….…….………371 vi Chapter I Honzan “People Tilling Upon the Dharma Hall” Japanese summers are known for their intense heat and oppressive humidity, and today is no different. As I walk through the streets of Tsurumi towards Sōjiji, I take every opportunity to hide in the shade of storefront awnings, but it does little good. The heat is inescapable, and there is virtually no breeze to provide relief. I will be participating in a ceremony in the Daisodō today, and I am wearing a respectable long-sleeved shirt and slacks. Making matters worse is my over-the-shoulder bag, heavy with notebooks, a camera and my recording gear. In the twenty minutes it takes to cover the mile or so from my front door, through the busy streets of Tsurumi, and to the entrance of Sōjiji’s reception hall, my face and shirt are drenched with sweat. I begin to regret my decision not to take a taxi. At first glance, Tsurumi is an unlikely place to find a venerable Zen temple. The municipal ward of Tsurumi sits in the northeastern corner of Yokohama, immediately adjacent to the industrial city of Kawasaki to the north and Tokyo Bay to the east. Tsurumi is a testament to the rapid industrialization of Japan throughout the twentieth century, a landscape of concrete and metal dotted with pockets of greenery that are more 1 the product of urban planning than nature. As a place name, Tsurumi means “to see cranes,” after the rare and majestic birds which used to frequent the shores of the village. Today, however, the only cranes visible are the massive metal monoliths that service the factories and warehouses situated along the coastline of Tokyo Bay, itself recreated to fit the needs of industry. The town’s location between Tokyo and central Yokohama places the town along the main rail artery and roadways which links the two metropolises. For twenty hours a day, trains thunder along the railway that runs through Japan Railways’ (JR) Tsurumi station, the commercial center of the town. One either side of the station, wide avenues allow for high volumes of motor traffic throughout the day. At major intersections, the chirping of pedestrian crossing signals is a constant accent to the hum of automated traffic. At railway crossings, such as the one in front of Sōjiji, the sound is amplified nearly ten-fold by bells warning pedestrians and drivers of the oncoming rail traffic. Trains run almost constantly through the Tsurumi artery and as a consequence, the crossings bells ring for nine minutes out of every ten. Visitors with experience of other large Japanese Buddhists temples are quick to note that the area surrounding Sōjiji proper differs greatly from other temple approaches (sandō). In contrast to temples like Asakusa Kannon-dō and Kawasaki Daishi, the storefronts and booths hawking food or tourist goods are nowhere to be found, nor are the crowds of tourists that push along the sidewalk. A five-story department store sits on one side of the rotary used as a bus terminus and taxi stand, while restaurants, convenience stores, a pharmacy and a McDonalds line the road toward the temple proper. Closer to the temple, the approach to Sōjiji would be indistinguishable from any other commercial 2 street in Tsurumi save for the quiet but visible presence of florist shops, stores selling stone monuments, and immediately across from the temple entrance, the branch office of a funeral company. Neither the temple precincts nor architecture are visible from the street.