?Buddhism .. Learn about "Buddhism" and how it moved and developed in Japan
Buddhism originated in India about 2,500 years ago, and then moved to Japan through China in the sixth century. But the Japanese version of Buddhism differs from the original teachings of the historical figure Buddha in important ways. But how has this religion changed over the centuries and why? In the first part of this series tracing the development of Buddhism in Japan, we learn about the basic tenets of this religion that was taught in India long ago.
Resorting to meditation to get rid of suffering
Buddhism arose about 2,500 years ago. Its founder was a person known in history as Siddhartha Gautama. Siddhartha was born into a noble family in the Kapilavastu kingdom, near the present-day border between India and Nepal. He spent the first years of his life surrounded by luxury and comfort, and perhaps he had the opportunity to become king as one of the princes. But as a young man his eyes were opened to the suffering inherent in human existence. This discovery prompted him to decide to give up his status as a prince and abandon his life of comfort and material luxury. He isolated himself in the woods and began the life of a devout ascetic.
But what prompted him to uproot himself from his comfortable life and embark on a secluded life of uncertainty and comfort? In adolescence, Siddhartha realized that there were happy and unhappy people in society. Although each person's circumstances may be unique, there is one common denominator for all people. Each of us will inevitably go through old age, disease and death. In this sense, all people are equally unhappy. Life itself involves suffering. This suffering cannot be alleviated or eradicated by wealth or status in society. For someone who understood that fact, the social privileges of being a prince meant nothing to him. The only path left for Siddhartha was to devote his life to finding a way to escape the suffering inherent in life and to reach a state of calm and peace.
In the forests far from the towns, Siddhartha studied with hermits expert in the arts of asceticism and meditation, and led a solitary ascetic life. He stripped himself of physical pleasures, subjected himself to bodily hardships, and subjected himself to hunger in the hope that overcoming pain might give him superpowers that would allow him to escape suffering. But after six years of subjugating lusts and self-denial, his goal has not yet been achieved. Therefore, he decided to change his approach, so he abandoned his extreme asceticism and decided to focus on meditation alone. Thanks to this method, he was finally able to achieve enlightenment under the famous Bodhi tree. After attaining enlightenment, he became known as Buddha or "the enlightened one". It is also known as Shakyamuni, referring to its origins in the Shakya tribe in ancient India.
A guide to overcoming destructive feelings
What was the nature of enlightenment that Buddha attained? It is impossible for anyone to fully understand the dramatic changes taking place in another person's heart. That is why the full story of the experience that the Buddha had when he reached enlightenment must remain a mystery. But we can roughly understand what happened from the texts of the sutras and many other Buddhist books that convey the content of the Buddha's teachings based on his experience.
Buddha taught that liberation from suffering is possible only through one's own efforts. No supernatural being comes and frees man from suffering. Buddha used the powers of meditation to examine his heart and mind until he discovered the root of suffering. He understood that the root cause of our suffering comes from holding on to an illusory sense of self. We allow ourselves to be ruled by an ego that doesn't really exist. We see the world in an egoistic way that matches the interests of this imaginary ego. And this self-centered awareness is something that we develop instinctively, but it is a false view of the world. It is from this misunderstanding of the world that spring the disorienting and destructive psychological states that Buddhism calls "Klesha". They include feelings such as anxiety, desire, jealousy and fear, which are psychological states that cloud the mind and lead to harmful actions to perpetuate the cycle of suffering.
Having understood the origin of suffering through self-observation, the Buddha came up with a set of practical guidelines for ending these unhealthy states of mind and freeing oneself from the sea of suffering. This approach to spiritual training is unique to Buddhism. Buddhist practice has two main components. The first is to study the sutras and other texts, and to come to a correct understanding of the Buddha's teachings. The sutras are also a practical guide to Buddhist practice. The second element is the practice of spiritual lessons learned from Buddhist texts under the guidance of more experienced practitioners.
Buddhism had a strong appeal to people as an entirely new type of teaching, and the Buddha soon gained many followers. Buddha taught the methods he learned from his own experience without discriminating among his followers. After his death at the age of 80, his methods and teachings were kept alive by his disciples, and they are still followed by Buddhists in many countries around the world today. Under the Buddha's leadership, his disciples worked their way up the path of meditative spiritual practices that he had laid down for them. That community later became one of the central pillars that supported the development of Buddhism as a religion over the following centuries.
Preserve the sangha
Perhaps the most important reason why the Buddha's teachings have continued uninterrupted for 25 centuries is that the Buddha designed his religion as a society operating according to strict rules. He organized his followers into one organization under his leadership called the Sanga. The community was governed by a strict set of regulations called the Vinaya Pitaka, one of the three central groups of Buddhist texts. After the death of the Buddha, his followers continued to uphold these regulations and maintained the Sangha as an independent community of individuals administered according to the rule of law. From the very beginning, the Sangha formed the basis of Buddhism, which had many benefits.
1. Maintaining the teacher-student relationship
The regulations of the Vinaya Pitaka establish clear teacher-disciple relationships within the sangha. This enables the Buddha's teachings, either in the form of sutras or other texts, to be accurately transmitted across generations. It also facilitates contact with the practical side of meditation and other Buddhist practices, which can be taught face-to-face from master to disciple across generations. This helped make the Sangha a very rational educational organisation.
2. Mutual assistance as a social security
The establishment of a system of mutual aid within the sangha made the relations between the guru and his disciples one of mutual support in daily life. This meant that hermits who had shunned themselves from the secular world to devote themselves to Buddhist practices were given protection and a kind of insurance against illness, injury and old age. The Sangha became a system of mutual support and assistance that its members could trust.
3. Preserving the community through alms
The Sangha of Buddhist monks was a community governed by the rule of law, whose members lived a humble and blameless life according to their own strict code of conduct. This model of upright behavior earned society the respect of the secular outside world. People saw that Buddha's followers were people who lived according to a strict system, and many of them gave alms to support the community. These donations by ordinary people have helped preserve the sangha to the present day.
4. Independence from external authority
By operating as an organization with its own laws and regulations, the Sangha was able to gain a degree of autonomy. This has been an important factor in minimizing the risks of interference by outside forces, and in maintaining an environment conducive to meditation and reflection. Throughout its history, the Sangha functioned as an independent community separate from outside authorities.
Of course, these four characteristics have not been completely preserved without interruption for 2,500 years. Many things have happened over the course of the days that contradict these basic principles. But the fact that these four elements existed from the beginning as founding principles of the religion was very important. Even if the Sangha lost its way occasionally, it was relatively easy to get the community back on track as long as it still had its founding principles to fall back on.
Japanese Buddhism is fundamentally different from early Buddhism
The characteristics of early Buddhism can be summarized in two main points. First, the purpose of living a religious life is meditation. Buddhism does not presuppose the intervention of any external savior. But practitioners use their own powers of observation to look inward, analyze and improve themselves. Daily training through meditation is the main method used to achieve this.
Second, the existence of the sangha as a community provides a place for practitioners to focus on following the path of enlightenment. He founded the Sangha community with the purpose of allowing practitioners to devote themselves to their practices while still relying on the surrounding secular society for their day-to-day needs. Society is run rationally according to the disciplinary laws laid down in the Vinaya Pitaka.
These two features distinguish Buddhism from other religions. But in Japanese Buddhism, these two traits are atrophied. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that they have completely disappeared. This is a focal point for understanding Japanese Buddhism. If the Japanese version lost these two characteristics of early Buddhism, what other characteristics did it develop in their place? In this series, I want to take a look at how Buddhism was received by people in Japan after it came to this country through China. The status of Buddhism in Japan has fluctuated greatly over the centuries. In some periods, religion established close relations with the rulers and authorities in some times. At other times, this religion suffered persecution and oppression. I want to take a look at this long and checkered history and examine the unique path that Buddhism has followed in Japan over the past millennium and a half.
(Originally written in Japanese. Banner photo: A mural on the life of Buddha at the Mulagandakoti Vihara temple in Sarnath near Varanasi, India. Photo courtesy of Avlu.)
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