This essay focuses on Albert J. Edmunds, a British-American Buddhist sympathizer, and it considers the ways that Western occult traditions, especially Swedenborgianism, moved back and forth across the Pacific and shaped the work of D. T. Suzuki.

In response, Buddhist leaders divided traditional Buddhist cosmology and practices into the newly constructed categories ‘superstition’ and ‘religion.’ Superstition was deemed ‘not really Buddhism’ and purged, while the remainder of Buddhism was made to accord with Westernized ideas of ‘religion.’

Shinnyo-en’s founders and their successors envisioned a particular strategy for being Buddhist in modernity, one which aligns with some, but not all, scholarly characterizations of Buddhist modernism. As a result, Shinnyo-en and other lay organizations have largely remained on the margins of Buddhist studies despite their apparent popularity and proliferation. This article offers a new category for theorizing and positioning such organizations as contramodern—connected with, but divergent from mainstream forms of Buddhist modernism.

Buddhist temples were meant to be halls of truth, places where the Buddha’s teachings are imparted and practiced and centers where those whose lives are sustained by that truth can gather. But in the Edo period, temples came to be supported not by individual believers but by the parish, or danka, system. Temples became places where memorial services for parishioners’ ancestors were held…

This short and easy-to-read cultural history pays especial attention to the wider, non-Buddhist forces and trends which shaped the history of Buddhism in Japan.

We explore how Japanese Buddhists of varying contexts drew upon Buddhist ideas and practices to make sense of their lives, to solve problems, and to create a meaningful world – a cosmos – out of chaos.

This academic overview of Japanese Buddhist history serves as an excellent launching pad for further study as it makes passing reference to a large number of historical events and figures showing how they fit into the larger evolution of Buddhist thought in Japan.

Nakatsukasa did not do the pilgrimage just once but kept going around the island on a journey lasting some fifty-six years until his death in 1922. In this time he completed 280 pilgrimage circuits of Shikoku and left the island just twice.

Many Japanese Buddhists become “addicted” to the beautiful life of the pilgrimage circuit.

See also the NBN interview about the book.

Of course, one who dies while sitting in zazen will never be unhappy. But it is nearly impossible to die in this manner if your body is suffering the pain of sickness. My own master (Gudō Kokushi) said, ‘Your zazen for one sitting is a lifetime of zazen.’ How edifying these words of his are.

A collection of short teachings to “seekers who would desire to go in the same way” originally compiled in 1670.

The translation here was published by The Eastern Buddhist in three installments in 1970 and 1971:

1. New Series vol 3 n 2, pp. 89–118
2. New Series vol 4 n 1, pp. 116–123
3. New Series vol 4 n 2, pp. 119–127

They are gathered here into a single PDF for your convenience.

old altars are increasingly encountered as surplus goods by those who lack the space, ritual expertise, or inclination to care for them. Like other forms of sacred waste (like human corpses), disposal is complicated for practical and moral reasons, and often requires the performance of special rites (供養 kuyō).

The old court eventually fell to a new military government which brought about the Kamakura period (1192–1333). The increasing discord and chaos of the times led to disillusionment and a call for the revival of faith. It was during these troubled time that Hōnen (1133–1212), Shinran (1173–1262), Eisai (1141–1215), Dōgen (1200–1253), Nichiren (1222–1282), and other Buddhist leaders appeared and expounded their teachings of salvation for all.

A concise history of Buddhism in Japan, tracing its development from its arrival to the present day. The work also explores the relationship between Japanese daily life and Buddhist rituals. It concludes with a hopeful message of fostering world peace through an understanding of oneness.

It’s not entirely clear when Japanese women began to fear attacks by the spirits of their vengeful aborted fetuses, but it is clear that beginning in the late 1970s, women began requesting and paying for a new religious rite called mizuko kuyō (water child memorial) that Buddhist and Shinto priests had never heard of before.

​This podcast explores the phenomenon of mizuko spirit attacks in 1980s Japan, where middle and high school girls reported hauntings by the spirits of aborted fetuses. It delves into the media’s role in amplifying these stories and examines the cultural and spiritual practices, such as mizuko kuyō rituals, that emerged to address the grief and guilt associated with abortions in Japan.​

To learn more about Yuki Kawae and his approach to Zen gardens and art see his 2021 interview with Whitewall.

There are 400+ deities herein, and 4,000+ photos of statuary from Kamakura, Nara, Kyoto, and elsewhere in Japan.

The site also includes an extensive bibliography of other resources useful for researching Japanese Buddhism.

Everything has the potential to support and realize spiritual life.

Amida Buddha’s vows form the foundation of the Pure Land tradition’s vision of universal salvation. While emphasizing that these vows create the Pure Land as an ideal realm for awakening, Bloom underscores that Amida, as dharmakaya, represents the buddha-nature inherent in all things—making awakening possible anywhere.

Our passions, while remaining just as they are, become one with great wisdom, so that they are gradually transformed like ice melting into water through the working of the wisdom.

This article explores the concept of “deeply entrusting mind” (shinjin) in Shin Buddhism. It highlights Amitabha Buddha’s compassion, the expression of his name, and the transformative experience that follows the awakening of shinjin.

Learn more about the original, here. And you can watch two videos of Allen Ginsberg chanting this translation, here.

Decommissioning of karmically volatile materiality reveals the fragility of Buddhist care structures and highlights growing concerns about how religious activity generates waste. The management of religious materiality in the world’s fastest ageing society has extensive spiritual, moral, and practical implications.

This article examines how inherited Buddhist objects in rural Japan, such as altars and tombs, become burdensome due to depopulation and fragmented kinship. It highlights how temples like Fudōin in Hiroshima Prefecture serve as custodians for these spiritually charged items, navigating the moral and practical challenges of preserving cultural heritage amidst demographic decline.​

We cannot describe it completely. We call the state “ineffable,” or “dharma,” or “truth,” or “reality.” But even these words are inadequate to describe the simple and original state that we return to in Zazen.

A concise introduction to zazen, the central practice of the Sōtō Zen school, according to the teachings of Gudo Nishijima Roshi.

Since in the teachings of Shin Buddhism Obon itself is nothing special but provides one of the opportunities for listening to the Buddha Dharma, there is no reason to do something special for it. In traditions other than Shin Buddhism, however, Obon is a special, fancier and more serious event for people to welcome their ancestors back home.

A short and humorous explanation of the Japanese tradition of Obon.

To this day it is not unusual in Japan for the scholar to be a fine calligrapher and an accomplished poet in addition to possessing the pertinent intellectual abilities.

​This encyclopedia entry explores Japanese aesthetics, highlighting concepts such as mono no aware (the pathos of things), wabi (subdued, austere beauty), and sabi (rustic patina), which reflect a deep appreciation for impermanence and nature. It also examines the integration of art and self-cultivation in Japanese culture, emphasizing that artistic practices are often seen as paths to spiritual and personal development.

On the one hand, it stands squarely upon a Mahayana Buddhist conception of enlightened wisdom as radically nondichotomous and nondual with reality. On the other hand, it directly confronts the nature of human existence in its ineluctable finitude: karmically conditioned, discriminative and reifying in awareness, and given to the afflicting passions…

From its origins in the Buddha Fields of the early Mahāyāna, to Hōnen’s twelfth century Nembutsu teachings, to Shin’s twentieth century engagements with Christian philosophy, this encyclopedia entry gives an overview of the history of Pure Land thought in Japan.

The free, bilateral movement between “not one” and “not two” characterizes Zen’s achievement of a personhood with a third perspective that cannot be confined to either dualism or non-dualism

A lengthy introduction to Zen Buddhist practice and thought in Japan with a particular focus on their view of enlightenment.

I am just ‘who am.’ This ‘who am’ is never grasped as an object. To see this ‘who am’ without grasping or without using concepts is manifesting prajna (wisdom), just being present with ‘who am.’

This introduction to zazen is a collection of writings that includes reflections, instructions, a brief history of the Sōtō school, and translations of short foundational texts on the practice.

Legend has it that a ninth century Buddhist monk sailing back from China was caught in a storm. The monk, Kukai, appealed to a statue of Fudo for protection. The monk was rewarded with the vision of Fudo attacking the waves with the sword calming the storm and saving him the ship

Brief video introducing the guardian deity Fudo Myoo, an emanation of Mahāvairocana.

Hirakawa and Matsunami think that a moribund Buddhism can be revived by understanding traditional doctrines. Akizuki’s new Māhāyana turns out to be nothing but the old Zen. Endō is a harsh critic with no particular plan for reform. Fujii and Sasaki recognize that Buddhism must undergo rebirth, but suggest that current forms will suffice.

A scathing review of several recent books on the state of Buddhism in Japan by traditional Buddhists, suggesting that the “New Religious Movements” in Japan are where the real reforms are happening.

We are too spiritually weak and degenerate at this present time to carry out the earlier disciplines.

The two kinds of Japanese Buddhist schools are those that believe in jiriki (self-power) and those that rely on tariki (other-power) to lead to awakening.

Bashō was a sensitive poet whose values were firmly founded in Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist thought. Bashō, although having seriously studied Zen, was never a monk belonging to a monastery, but he often dressed as a priest and often stayed at temples and shrines.

Matsuo Bashō was a 17th-century, Edo poet and a true master of the Haiku form. His Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Interior) is one of the most celebrated, religious travelogues ever written.

Because official monks were bureaucrats, they did not need to form orders that included secular believers. In contrast, reclusive monks needed to establish orders that included secular believers because they were not supported by the government. Because they were no longer official monks, they were freed from certain restrictions. They could pray for the salvation of women and lepers, conduct funerals, and collect contributions, all of which had previously been regarded as involving impurity.

In the Kamakura Era, several new forms of Buddhism emerged in Japan which broke with the existing schools. Kuroda Toshio’s “exoteric-esoteric” model understood these new schools as rejecting the esoteric ritual system which bound the old schools together. This paper sees the new schools’ rejection of the ritual system as a rejection of entanglement with the state and as a desire to return Buddhist monasticism to its ascetic ideals. By focusing on their relationship with the laity, these “new schools” survived the later withdrawal of government support and are the schools we now think of as constituting “Japanese Buddhism”: Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren.

Focusing on public hearings held in 2006 in which temple wives (jizoku) aired their grievances, the article examines the unique challenges that Japanese Zen must confront since the Meiji Reforms eliminated celibacy from the priesthood.

By using original documents this article shows the evolution of the Zen denominations within the larger context of the legal framework that shaped all Buddhist denominations, and depicts how the divisions between sects and branches were reshuffled several times before stabilizing in their present form.

Someone who experiences a kaicho as a child will have attained full status as an adult by the time of the next kaicho, and will have become an elder member of the community by the time of the one after that. […] The emotional significance of this time frame is not immediately obvious, but becomes clear through conversations with residents of Yokkamachi…

The essay asks what an enlightened moral sensitivity might require, and concludes in challenging the Zen tradition to consider reengaging the Mahayana Buddhist practices of reflection out of which Zen originated in order to assess the possible role of morality in its thought and practice

This essay responds to Brian Victoria’s critique of Zen social ethics by attempting to answer his question about Japanese Zen masters before and during the Second World War: how could they seemingly act without moral conviction in confronting the crisis of their time? How could Zen manifest itself in anything less than morally admirable actions? By assessing the role of morality in Zen tradition, the paper considers how the Zen tradition might extend itself in response to the moral impasse that these questions bring to light.

contemporary Buddhist women actively work through ritual to create meaningful relationships with one another.

When explaining their reasons for using such peculiar statues at their temples, the abbots state that these images brighten the atmosphere…

Jizō is a savior of beings suffering in the world without buddhas

Without a coercive village structure to enforce giving, the low-tension temples found themselves without their effective retainer. With the first-best contract unavailable, many temples have turned to fee-for-service arrangements of which the abortion-related ritual is merely the most notorious. Ironically, the new environment presents an entirely different challenge: temples now find themselves competing with internet-based priest-dispatch services.

For most of the history of Buddhism, “devotional” practices like prayer, invocation, and offerings have not been at odds or even very distinctly separated from “contempla- tive” practices such as meditation, sutra copying, and sutra recitation.

Only in one area was Tokugawa Buddhism innovative and successful: the development of a complete liturgical system for funeral services and remembrance of ancestors. For better or for worse, this feature henceforth became central in popular Buddhist piety.

A history of Japanese Buddhism, explaining how the Kamakura reforms (by such extraordinary individuals as Honen, Shinran, Dogen, and Nichiren) led, eventually, to the practices we see in Japan today.

Through a study of three monks, Tōjū Reisō, Tairyū Bun’i, and Seishū Shusetsu, strategies employed to preserve Rinzai Zen spiritual legacy in the face of the turmoil of Meiji are highlighted. These monks did their best to continue their eremetic existence and to pick up the pieces left by the widespread destruction of Buddhist temples and monasteries in early Meiji Japan.

This [Meiji Era] movement resulted in the destruction of tens of thousands of Buddhist temples throughout the country together with their statuary, the forced laicization of large numbers of Buddhist priests and widespread attacks on Buddhist doctrine and praxis, among other repressive measures. In short, Buddhism was attacked as a superstitious, foreign religion that had no place in a Japan modernizing at breakneck speed.

This is the second part of an article concerning the ethical and doctrinal changes to Japanese Buddhism that occurred as a result of its centuries long, syncretistic connection to the indigenous religion of Shintō. The first part of this article, entitled “Counting the Cost of Buddhist Syncretism”, may be read here. While reading the first article is not required, its contents will nevertheless provide a helpful context for the events described in this article.

As Zen aspirants beat a path to Suzuki’s door, he seemed to embrace his new role as Zen’s champion [in the West]. By then his earlier goals of rehabilitating Buddhism in Japan and legitimating Mahayana were largely accomplished.

A fairly thorough biography of one of modern Buddhism’s most influential thinkers.

Embarrassed the organizers were indeed, even dismayed, when they were showered with fervent thanks from the women participants for organizing such a wonderful spiritual experience…

This article discusses the modern reenactments of the Nunohashi kanjoe (the Cloth-Bridge Consecration [Initiation] rite) in Tateyama-cho, Toyama prefecture, and the religious and political issues they raised. Originally a popular Edo-period rite for women’s salvation, the Nunohashi kanjoe was obsolete for one hundred and thirty years, until it was reconstructed and performed as the main spectacle of the Culture Festival ibento (event) in Tateyama in 1996. A decade later, in 2005, 2006, and 2009, its reenactments were resumed as ceremonies of traditional healing. This paper follows the progression of these attempts at transforming a Buddhist ritual into a modern-day cultural event. It looks at the gap between the politics and purposes behind the reenactments of the rites, and the reactions of the women who participated in them. It further considers general issues illuminated by these reenactments, such as the nature and status of religious experiences, and the relations of religion and state in contemporary Japan.

As meat-eating has become normative in modern Japan and among the Japanese Buddhist clergy, a sacrificial rationale has replaced anti-meat-eating discourses that have remained a central feature of Buddhist identity in other parts of East Asia.

This article provides a close reading of Partaking of Life: The Day That Little Mii Becomes Meat, followed by historical contexts for Buddhist vegetarianism and discrimination against professions that rely on killing animals, particularly as these themes pertain to Jōdo Shin Buddhism. The essay ends on an analysis of Team Ichibanboshi’s sermon on Partaking of Life.

Insisting that cremation was sanitary and that it also saved grave space while facilitating- ancestor worship, cremation supporters appropriated state-sanctioned values and aims to win repeal of the ban only two years after it went into effect. Ironically, the end result of the ban was a widely accepted rationale for cremation, which was transformed from a minority practice into a majority one. By the end of the twentieth century, cremation had become the fate of nearly every Japanese.

In the summer of 1873, the Meiji government’s Council of State declared a nationwide ban on cremation, a Buddhist practice that had long been con­sidered barbaric and grossly unfilial by Confucian and nativist scholars. In response to the prohibition, an alliance of Buddhist priests, educated cit­izens, and even government officials proceeded to argue that, far from being an “evil custom” of the past, cremation was a “civilized” practice suited to the future.

There is little in Kapleau’s book to suggest that his teachers were anything but respected members of orthodox Zen monastic orders. Yet such was not the case, for in 1954 Yasutani Hakuun 安谷白雲 (1885-1973), the Zen priest whose teachings are featured in The Three Pillars of Zen, severed his formal ties to the Soto school in order to establish an independent Zen organization called the Sanbokyodan 三宝教団, or “Three Treasures Association.”

The influence exerted by this contemporary lay reform movement on American Zen is out of proportion to its relatively marginal status in Japan: modern Rinzai and Soto monks are generally unaware of, or indifferent to, the polemical attacks that Yasutani and his followers direct against the Zen priesthood.

An excellent overview of the modern Zen sect and how its influential Koan practices contrast with more traditional Rinzai and Soto practice and training.

… samādhi power was, among other uses, employed to enhance the meditator’s ability to kill others. This article focuses on the abuse of samādhi power within Imperial Japan (1868-1945) with the express hope that once exposed and understood, its abuse will never be repeated.

People in Japan are born Shinto and die Buddhist.

Drawn during his last years by the Zen monk Giei Satō, these sketches recollect his days as an unsui, an apprentice monk. With humor and steadfast warmth Satō depicts the day of leaving home and the day of returning; the rainy season and the snowy season; the chores, the rainy season and the snowy season; the chores, the celebrations

What was the response of Soto Buddhist priests to the social situation facing Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century? What influence did their religious background have on their responses to the modernization of Japan? This article examines the lives and thought of two Japanese Soto Buddhist priests-Takeda Hanshi and Uchiyama Gudo-both with the same religious training and tradition, yet who chose diametrically opposite responses.

Takeda Hanshi supported Japan’s foreign policies, especially in Korea; Uchiyama opposed Japanese nationalism and militarism, and was executed for treason. What led them to such opposite responses, and what conclusions can be drawn concerning the influence of religious traditions on specific individual choices and activities?

Victoria is probably right in asserting that Makiguchi was not exactly the anti-war zealot described by the Soka Gakkai today, but Victoria misreads and misinterprets Makiguchi’s writing in his mistaken portrait of him as a pro-militarist figure.

… once one village area had set up a pilgrimage route, it was not long before neighbouring communities did the same

On the mimetic nature of one particular Japanese, religious practice.

The Kumano shrines were among the most popular pilgrimage sites of medieval Japan, drawing devotees across geographic, sectarian, class, and gender barriers. Yet this pilgrimage, which is often seen as a paradigmatic and formative example of Japanese popular religion, was instituted by the country’s ruling elite as an elaborate ritual of state.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, as Japanese society became engulfed in war and increasing nationalism, the majority of Buddhist leaders and institutions capitulated to the status quo. One notable exception to this trend, however, was the Shinko Bukkyo Seinen Domei (Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism), founded on 5 April 1931.

Led by Nichiren Buddhist layman Seno’o Giro and made up of young social activists who were critical of capitalism, internationalist in outlook, and committed to a pan-sectarian and humanist form of Buddhism that would work for social justice and world peace, the league’s motto was “carry the Buddha on your backs and go out into the streets”

The Buddhist convent known as Hokkeji, founded in the eighth century in the old capitol of Nara, fell into decline and was all but forgotten for centuries before reemerging in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) as an important pilgrimage site and as the location of a reestablished monastic order for women.

… during this season we remember and celebrate the lives of all our departed loved ones

A brief introduction to the idea behind the Japanese “ghost” festival.

This interview explores David Max Moerman’s study of the largely unknown history of Japanese, Buddhist world maps. His work uncovers an alternative history of Japanese Buddhism shaped by a Buddhist geographic imaginary that engaged multiple cartographic and cosmological worldviews.

Japanese Buddhology today is highly specialized, placing great emphasis on intense textual studies.

How Chinese and Western scholastic approaches have informed the contemporary approach to Buddhist Studies in Japan.

The claim that Zen is the foundation of Japanese culture has the felicitous result of rendering the Japanese spiritual experience both unique and universal at the same time.

How globalization reshaped Zen.

Sōtō Zen temples in Japan kept necrologies in which the ancestors of outcaste members of their congregations were clearly identified, sometimes by derogatory titles such as “beast” or “less than human.” Indeed, Sōtō priests routinely allowed access to these memorial registers by private investigators, who perform background checks to insure that prospective marriage partners or company executives do not come from outcaste families.

After pledging to stop discriminating against “outcasts” in the late ’70s, the Sōtō Zen school in Japan is still grappling with the challenges of modernity.

… arouse the thought of enlightenment…

The first five of Dogen’s ten points of advice on entering the path.

… in this state of not knowing, curiosity and engagement with the world arises. And that engagement, that curiosity is intimate and very, very alive.

A defense of taking seriously the life in things and expanding the range of “normal” ways of being with the world.

Just as I was talking about the unhindered Light,
In rolled the morning fog

A collection of “waka” verses on chanting the nembutsu.

‘Shikoku illness’ is a common term that people use to describe a sense of addiction to the pilgrimage

… unlike other Buddhist traditions based on teachings contained in one or more Buddhist sūtras, the Zen school validates itself on the basis of being “a transmission outside the sutras” (kyōge betsuden). That is to say, a transmission of the Buddha-dharma from the enlightened mind of a Zen master to his/her disciple(s). But what happens in those cases when the “enlightened master” isn’t truly enlightened?

Given certain Zen Masters’ vociferous support of Japan’s militarism during World War II, how can their students today claim to have a legitimate “Dharma transmission”?

For a critique of Brian Victoria’s attack on Makiguchi specifically, see A Critical Analysis by Daniel Metraux.