Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1996 23/1–2 Zen and the Art of Religious Prejudice Efforts to Reform a Tradition of Social Discrimination

Since the so-called Machida affair, the Sõtõ Zen school has become embroiled in controversies over traditional institutional practices that fos-ter prejudicial attitudes and social discrimination. In response to public denunciations by the Buraku Liberation League, the Sõtõ school founded a Human Rights Division charged with eliminating discriminatory prac-tices and reforming Sõtõ’s public image. Evidence of discriminatory lan-guage, necrologies, posthumous names, talismans, and ritual practices within Sõtõ has been publicized and steps taken to eliminate them. This is the larger context within which Sõtõ scholars, including advocates of “Critical Buddhism ” (which has attracted wide attention outside of Japan) have sought to repudiate Buddhist teachings (such as “original awakening”) that they identify as fostering social discrimination. The signicance of continuing dialogue in this context was demon-strated in the manner in which the Buraku people’s problem in Japan came to be rightly understood. In WCRP III a delegate from [Japan] completely denied the existence of discrimination against the Buraku people [i.e., outcastes], but with continuing study of the problem, the same delegate at WCRP IV frankly admitted the fact of [his] being in the camp of discriminating agents. —Proceedings of the Fourth World Conference on Religion and Peace (TAYLOR and GEBHARDT 1986, p. 232)