World Rejection and Pure Land Buddhism in Japan

The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of Pure Land Bud dhism in one particular phase of Japanese religious history. It is well known that Japanese religious history exhibits a dramat ic shift from a Shinto to a Buddhist world view between the sixth and the twelfth centuries a.d. Buddhism was introduced to Japan in the sixth century, and the culture of elite society had already undergone a remarkable Buddhification by the ninth century. But Japanese Buddhism of the ninth century had not yet become an authentic mode of Buddhism and moreover was limited in scope to the elite classes. It is the thesis of this paper that Pure Land Buddhist faith played a crucial role in converting Japan by the twelfth century to a Buddhism that was both au thentic and broadly inclusive of all social classes，the folk as well as the elites. What do we mean by “authentic ” Buddhism? We mean， first and foremost, world rejecting. Early Indian Buddhism, which we take as our standard, rejected as imperfect and painful the natural, unenlightened person and the empirical world as seen and experienced by that person. Both were considered dukkha, “suffering， ’ “disease.， ’ Gautama’s dramatic and thor ough renunciation of the householder’s life is archetypally expressive of this world rejection, and the Buddhist monastic community was developed as a spiritual alternative to those communities left behind by world renouncing Buddhists. Ih is stands in striking contrast to the world affirmation of the Shinto tradition throughout its history. For Shinto the locus of life’s generative power, the dwelling place of the kami, is the given world. The kami are inseparable from natural Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 4/4 Decem ber 1977 251 phenomena and human communities. In revering and re galing the kami, people affirm the natural environment and human institutions as both immediately satisfying and ultimately fulfilling. I should hasten to add that I use neither of these characteri zations pejoratively. I do not mean by “world rejecting ” life-negating or pessimistic. Nor do I intend to imply by “world affirming ” a superficial or naive spirituality. A religious world view is founded on a community’s life-experiences and should be judged only in relation to its adequacy for that community