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Zen Buddhist ideas and practices in many ways are unique within the study of religion, and artists, poets and Buddhists practitioners worldwide have found inspiration from this tradition. Until recent years, representations of Zen Buddhism have focussed almost entirely on philosophical, historical or “spiritual” aspects. This book investigates the contemporary living reality of the largest Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist group, Myōshinji. Drawing on textual studies and ethnographic fieldwork, Jørn Borup analyses how its practitioners use and understand their religion, how they practice their religiosity and how different kinds of Zen Buddhists (monks, nuns, priest, lay people) interact and define themselves within the religious organization. Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism portrays a living Zen Buddhism being both uniquely interesting and interestingly typical for common Buddhist and Japanese religiosity.
Myōshinji, a living religion
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Numen Book Series, Volume: 119
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Zen Buddhist ideas and practices in many ways are unique within the study of religion, and artists, poets and Buddhists practitioners worldwide have found inspiration from this tradition. Until recent years, representations of Zen Buddhism have focussed almost entirely on philosophical, historical or “spiritual” aspects. This book investigates the contemporary living reality of the largest Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist group, Myōshinji. Drawing on textual studies and ethnographic fieldwork, Jørn Borup analyses how its practitioners use and understand their religion, how they practice their religiosity and how different kinds of Zen Buddhists (monks, nuns, priest, lay people) interact and define themselves within the religious organization. Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism portrays a living Zen Buddhism being both uniquely interesting and interestingly typical for common Buddhist and Japanese religiosity.
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Abstract
Religious diversity has emerged as a new scholarly field, but historically, and especially beyond a Western sphere, religious diversity has been the norm of most lived religion. As such, a focus on diversity is a perspective revealing monolithic traditions as particular and constructed, rather than universal and essential. Diversity has been used in emic frameworks for discursive and institutional legitimation. Religious traditions have oscillated between different types of diversities and unities in strategic identification and authority narratives. This article will present examples of such inter- and intra-religious unity and diversity representations from Asian (Buddhist, Hindu, Chinese and Japanese) philosophical and sociological contexts in a historical and comparative perspective. While acknowledging post-orientalist theories and critical discourse analyses, it also discusses the importance of seeing such negotiations of diversities as quintessential ingredients of lived religion.
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Abstract
People of East Asian descent living in Denmark make up only 0.5 per cent of the overall population, and their cultural and religious practices are not prominently visible in the public sphere. Institutionalised religion in represented by Vietnamese and Zen Buddhism as well as the Sōka Gakkai, and various small diaspora groups. Additionally, the influence of East Asian culture in Denmark extends beyond organised religion. It includes contributions from Vietnamese refugees, Chinese workers and businessmen, elements of the “cool East Asia” pop culture, practices of alternative medicine, and martial arts. These elements have woven themselves into the fabric of Danish society. Consequently, East Asian religious practices and cultural influences are present in Denmark, both directly and indirectly. This chapter aims to explore and outline the key aspects of East Asian religions’ presence and its impact on Danish culture and the religious landscape.
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Abstract
While historically sharing the characteristics of a universalistic religion and a modernist grand narrative, global Buddhism is mainly the product of a late modern development. Centripetal forces with circulating ideas, practices, and institutions have been part of a liberal market in an open exchange society with “open hermeneutics” and an accessible universal grammar. Its global focus has triggered de-ethnification, de-culturalization, and de-territorialization, claiming transnational universality as a central paradigm fit for a global world beyond isolationalist particularism. However, such seemingly universalist versions of a global Buddhism in recent years, mainly in North America, have been criticized for actually being representations of particular cultures (e.g., “white Buddhism”) with benefits for only particular segments. This article investigates the discourses of this new turn, involving questions of authority, authenticity, identity, cultural appropriation, and representation. It is suggested that criticism of global Buddhism should be seen as typical of what could be called “postglobal Buddhism,” in which identity politics is a frame of reference serving as a centrifugal force, signaling a new phase in “Western Buddhism.” The relevance for the study of religion is further discussed with reflections on how to respond to post-global religious identity politics without being consumed by either stark objectivism or subjectivist go-nativism.
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Numen
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