Essay on Buddhism in Japan: Origins & Impact on Society

Buddhism was introduced in Japan from Korea. The Soga clan accepted the religion mainly because they were immigrants from Korea. However, by 587 CE, the religion received immense support from the Japanese government (Kita 8). Buddhism is the most ancient of all the Japanese philosophies. According to Seager, “the religion has more than 350 million followers” p.7. The philosophy was started by the Buddha teachings around mid-4th and 6th centuries. Some of the main concepts of Buddhism include impermanence, dependent co-origination, and emptiness. The concepts of impermanence teach that the human body undergoes multiple states; and that nothing exists forever. According to the concept of dependent co-origination, all events are linked to each other in one way. More so, every individual is prone to undergoing suffering. Finally, the concept of emptiness asserts that everything originates from nothing. In ancient Japan, the arrival of Buddhism closely related to the national centralization of power. The government officials seeking to earn blessings from the religion provided free land for the Buddhist monasteries (Kita 8). More so, they were exempted from tax by the emperors, a situation that made the religion both political and economically powerful. Early Buddhism is divided into Theravada and Mahayana. Mahayana Buddhism is widely spread with multiple schools, and the main ones being Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism. Nichiren Buddhism is one of Mahayana Buddhism, which spreads immensely in Japan and is currently felt in other countries like the UK and the US. Therefore, the paper analyses Mahayana Buddhism and its primary schools, including its arrival in Japan and the role of Nichiren Daishonin in the success of Buddhism.

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Many teachings from Mahayana schools of philosophy developed with time. However, the two main ones include Pure Land and Zen Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is also known as Great Vehicle. It arose in the first century AD. According to the believers, Mahayana Buddhism opens the way of liberation to a large population and is intended to liberate everyone. The school of philosophy is rooted in Shakyamuni's teachings. The followers of Mahayana seek to enlighten the welfare of the world. Mahayana tradition appears to have risen at the time when a group of Buddhists who reflected their own experience in practice emerged. These groups assumed the existing institutions to have declined during the 500 years of transmission. According to the Mahayana, the institutions that existed before were inadequate since they were directed towards personal emancipation from painful existence. The group believed that they had discovered the best method for attainment and realization of actual Sakyamuni(Kita 9). That is why Mahayana was referred to as the Great Vehicle because its focus was on attaining authentic enlightenment by all people. Mahayana was also viewed as higher than the institutions that existed before, which they called Hinayana, meaning ‘lesser vehicle’ (Garrison 17).

The Mahayanist belief that Hinayana sages moved away from ordinary life in society. The group opted to perform practices that sought their emancipation from samsaric existence through realizing the insubstantiality of their individualism. According to Mahayana Buddhists, such acts of praxis could no longer free practitioners from a final residue of self-attachment, manifested through the desertion of the beings of Samsara favoring personal liberation (Garrison 11). The teachings of Mahayanist Buddhism explain that thorough relinquishment of all attachments via realization of the consubstantiality pervades for both self, things, and all the people. The seeing or realization is mainly established through eradicating any thinking that can be viewed as discriminative. Such thinking is believed to arise mainly from the perspective of the reified, delusional self (Garrison 8). According to the teachings, any individual transcends dichotomies of self and other Samsara, nirvana, blind passions, and enlightenment and can realize non-discriminative wisdom that guides in seeing things just as they are. The liberation of all beings and attainment of enlightenment oneself is understood to be one.

Pure Land Buddhism

By the 12th century, Pure Land Buddhism had spread immensely in Japan. The teachings strictly follow Amida Buddha’s teachings, who is regarded as the divine Buddha of infinite who deserves light (Tseng 7). Initially, Pure Land Buddhism appealed to the less educated and impoverished society. It also appealed to the wealthy class by promising ultimate rebirth and salvation by faith. Buddha teachings also emphasized humility, charitable work, and devotion. Therefore, Pure Land Buddhism is a convenient form of Buddhism.

Pure land Buddhist teachings have spread widely, taking a distinctive shape in the country. They have managed to generate new determinations of multiple strands of commentarial and literary tradition. There are two fundamental elements of early Mahayana practice that aided in the development of Pure Land Path. One of them was the animating force that resulted in the Mahayana movement. It involved the critical reflection of obdurate self-attachment. The second force was the formulation of sound practice as a bodhisattva career. It offered the symbols and framework of articulating the practice of Pure Land Buddhism.

The Pure Land teachings are perceived as more popularized devotional extensions of Buddhism because of their more philosophical demands. They are mainly based on the doctrine of emptiness or voidness(Tseng 9). The Mahayana conception of genuine wisdom created the path of realization (Tseng 11). Mahayana Sutras explains that bodhisattva's career starts with a profound awakening of the mind aspiring for the enlightenment and the determination to become Buddha irrespective of the circumstances. Firm resolution is declared informal vows in the presence of Buddha. In this case, the bodhisattva receives from the Buddha a prophecy foretelling eventual fulfillment of these vows. Even though Pure Land Buddhism is perceived to teach about the paradisal afterlife, the philosophy developed as a way of achieving no retrogression to offer an alternative to the arduous endeavor (Tseng 18). Even in the early Buddhist tradition, Sakyamuni’s attainment of awakening was not regarded as an utterly unique event. The appearance of Buddha bearing the epochal role of bringing liberation to people through teachings was termed as a momentous event in world history.

The Zen Buddhism

The Zen school's historical root can be traced to one of the teaching sessions when Buddha decided to hold a flower instead of speaking. One of his monks understood the message and, after that, became the head of the community. Zen became popular in Japan around the 12th century as warrior class admired its discipline (Garrison 9). It was brought to Japan from china alongside tea, which is utilized mainly in the Zen ritual ceremonies. According to Zen Buddhists, every person has a Buddha-nature, and people's minds and perspectives hiders them from reaching that realization and direct experience (Garrison 9). The flower symbol is perceived to be aware of the emptiness of everything and the interconnection of all life—the logical mid aims at perceiving the truth by handling concepts. More so, according to Zen Buddhism, the key words referred to direct personal experience, which occurs at any time during the occurrence of the realization.

The history of Zen began when Buddha gave a talk regarding Vulture Peak. He paused in the middle of the talk and held a flower. Every person was silent apart from Mahakasyapa, who broke into a smile (Garrison 9). The essence of Buddha’s teachings is that its content is impossible and straightforward. One expression of the essence of the teachings was holding a flower. Another essence of Buddha's teachings is that it should be handed from one generation to the next, mainly from masters to disciples in mutual wordless understanding.

During the medieval period in Japan, Zen monks played a critical role in introducing the arts of Song-dynasty China to Japan's leaders (Moncayo 12). The Five Mountain Zen temples sponsored by the Japanese imperial family and military rulers accommodated many monks who had visited China. Monks from these temples were chosen to administer government estates, lead a trade mission to China, and teach neo-Confucianism. Therefore, the wealthy Zen monasteries, especially those from Japan, became critical in importation and dissemination of Chinese techniques of calligraphy, printing, painting, ceramics, poetics, and garden design.

The Zen monks from Japan also founded many monasteries and temples in rural areas. Unlike those monks from urban centers, those in rural areas concentrated more on religious matters than Chinese arts and learning (Porcu 7). They mainly focused on worship ceremonies, ritual periods, and the performance of religious services study of public cases. They played essential roles in the popularization of Buddhist rituals, which are currently prevalent in Japan. Some of the Buddhist rituals experienced in Japan include conferment of precept lineages on laypeople, prayer rites for worldly benefits, ancestral memorials, funerals, and exorcisms. When the capital city of Kyoto was destroyed in the 15th and 16th centuries, the monks from rural countryside dominated all Zen institutions in Japan (Moncayo 5).

As a school of Buddhism, Zen focuses on the perfection of personhood. Zen practitioner usually attempts to embody nondiscriminatory wisdom. One of Zen's most distinguishing features is its contention that wisdom and compassion are expressed daily when a person is associating with one's self, nature, and other people. According to Zena school, the daily lifeworld for most individuals is an evanescent transforming pace whereby living is consumed by a dualistic paradigm of thinking with its psychological states like anxiety and stress (Moncayo 11). Zen demands that such a paradigm be overcome through achieving a holistic and nondualistic perspective in cognition. Zen practitioner is therefore expected to embody freedom expressive of the original nature of human beings.

The Zen school of Buddhism usually cherishes simplicity and straightforwardness while grasping and acting on reality (Moncayo 7). Therefore, Zen Buddhism focuses mainly on a specific meditation form leading to a higher level of enlightenment. One of the main ideas of Zen Buddhism is that each person has enough potential to get enlightened, and such a goal can easily be achieved through meditation. Thus, meditation is always emphasized in Zen Buddhism. According to the Zen school concept, preconceptions and attachments are perceived as the major obstacles in achieving enlightenment and meditation. The teachings assert that original Buddha-nature is in every person, but ignorance and mental impurities pollute the people.

Nichiren Buddhism in Japan

Nichiren Buddhism has its roots in Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings. It began in Japan during the 13th century. The monk tried to reform Buddhism in society (Porcu 6). Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings were based on Mahayana Sutra, which is known as Lotus Sutra. Nichiren later understood that he was living a degraded age. According to him, Buddha teachings were misinterpreted, leading to many bad things (Porcu 6). Nichiren strictly followed Lotus Sutra in his teachings, that all people could attain enlightenment on earth through human revolution and chanting. He, therefore, emphasized on Lotus Sutra to the extent that he always taught that it was the only way leading that could lead people to Buddhahood (Porcu 8). According to Nichiren, other Buddhist practices could no longer offer the road to enlightenment. More so, he asserted that the neglect of Lotus Sutra...