Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1999 26/1-2 REVIEW ARTICLE Some Reflections on Critical Buddhism

Bukkyd 批判仏教）began around the mid-1980s in Soto Zen circles, led by Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, both Buddholoeists as well as ordained Soto priests. Since then it has indeed raised storm waves on the normally placid waters of Japanese academic Buddhist studies. “Criticism alone is Buddhism，，declares Hakamaya, by which he means the critical discrimination of truth from error. Aggressively normative, Critical Buddhism does not hesitate to pronounce on what represents “true ” Buddnism and what does not. By its definition, Bud dhism is simply the teachings of non-self (anatman) and dependent origination (pratitya-samutpdda). Many of the most influential of Mahayana ideas, including notions of universal Buddha nature, tathagata-garbha, original enlightenment, the nonduality of the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the “absolute nothingrness ” of the Kyoto school, are all condemned as reverting to fundamentally non-Buddhist notions of dtman, that is, substantial essence or ground.1 hus they ar