Reflections on a Japan-U.S. Dialogue
Jonathan S. Watts
This article is not intended as an objective or comprehensive account of the conference but rather the view of one participant who understands that Buddhist Chaplaincy is another important face of Socially Engaged Buddhism in the contemporary world. Any perceived criticisms are not to diminish in any way the work of the participants to address acute suffering in their regions but rather to highlight essential connections between personal and collective suffering that will engender social transformation for the liberation of all sentient beings.
“Foundations of Buddhist Chaplaincy: A Japan-US Dialogue” was an international conference held from March 27–29, 2024 at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS) in Berkeley, California. The expressed intent of the conference was “to bring together chaplaincy educators and working chaplains in Japan and the United States to reflect on how we connect Buddhist teachings with effective service. We will discuss the current state of chaplaincy in our respective countries, the practice of Buddhist chaplaincy on the ground, the training and education of Buddhist chaplains, as well as the role of chaplains in our changing world. Through a dialogical session format, we intend to exchange ideas, create and strengthen relationships, and share resources that will equip and enrich Buddhist chaplaincy practice and education.” The event was hosted by IBS, which was established by the Jodo Shin Pure Land Hongan-ji sect 浄土真宗本願寺派, one of the largest traditional Buddhist denominations in Japan. It was also supported by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; the Numata Foundation, another Jodo Shin Hongan-ji related institution; and the Buddhist Ministry Working Group, a pan-Buddhist collective working in the United States.
The Place of Social Justice in Buddhist Chaplaincy
The first session of the conference focused around the following prompts: “What developments in the field of chaplaincy are worth naming and/or celebrating? How is the work of chaplains evolving alongside the changing nature of our world? What are the key issues and challenges faced by chaplains and chaplaincy educators today? In this workshop, what do we hope to learn from each other in our respective approaches to chaplaincy?”
The first speaker was Rev. Hirano Shunko 平野俊興, former abbot of Chugen-ji temple 中原寺 and a long-time death row chaplain at the Tokyo Detention House 東京拘置所. He detailed his very intense work in the Japanese penal system for over four decades, specifically with prisoners on death row. Rev. Hirano began his chaplaincy at the Tokyo Detention House in January of 1981, the largest prison in Japan that houses a great number of inmates sentenced to death. There are about 110 inmates presently sentenced to death in Japan, with about half of them housed in the Tokyo Detention House.
In this first talk, one of the most important themes of the conference from the Japanese side emerged: the constitutional “separation of church and state” (政教分離 seikyo-bunri). This separation was created in Japan’s early modern period, known as the Meiji Era (1868-1912), in order to marginalize Buddhism, Christianity, and other faiths so that a Confucian-Shinto religious (神儒教宗教 shin-jukyo shukyo) nationalism could be promulgated as the state ideology through the school system.[1] This policy continued after the war under the guise of American democratic secularism, and while the Shinto nationalist elements retreated, a particular form of East Asian authoritarian Confucianism continued as the tacit national ideology. Buddhism has remained marginalized since this time, and there has been a strict policy of barring not only Buddhists, but any religious professionals, from serving in the public sector, for example, as chaplains in hospitals. Prison chaplaincy has been one of the few exceptions, and while not widely practiced, it has existed since before the war. Still, this basic attitude towards secularism was highlighted in Rev. Hirano’s speech when he discussed Article 32 of the “Act on Penal Detention Facilities and Treatment of Inmates and Detainees”, which states, “Inmates sentenced to death shall be given advice, lectures, and other measures deemed to contribute to their emotional stability, seeking the cooperation of private supporters as necessary.” This law was not brought into effect until May 2005, indicating that much of the spirit of Japan’s constitution that guarantees “freedom of religion” seems to be more about “freedom from religion”.
Another fascinating point found in Rev. Hirano’s talk were the words of inmates expressed to him that he quoted, “What are priests and religious organizations doing to deal with various issues such as social wrongs, poverty, human rights, discrimination?”.[2] Rev. Hirano took this to mean that many common Japanese “mistrust religion, mistrust religious organizations, and are dissatisfied with priests who do not act to deal with societal issues”. While this is certainly a well acknowledged aspect of modern Japanese Buddhism, it did not seem that Rev. Hirano himself was looking at his chaplaincy from a level that extended beyond caring for inmates on death row towards engaging in public advocacy against the death penalty. He did speak of the term “collective karma” (共業 gugo), which he explained as, “No act is done by one person alone, and everything is related to it in great or small ways whether the act is good or bad. By becoming aware of the complexity of the events and actions of the world, I think people can instigate a reform within themselves.” (author’s italics) In my own years of work in Japan, I find the call for individual self-awareness to instigate reform from within a very common refrain, especially among Buddhists who feel uncomfortable speaking out about social justice issues. Any sort of foray into such areas gets labeled as “political”. Buddhists seemed to have internalized this mentality of separation of church and state, which was initially used to oppress their work in society, and now believe themselves that such work should be avoided. As we came to learn from both his open and private comments, Rev. Hirano has not been able to engage in any sort of advocacy or social justice work on the death penalty as doing so would immediately endanger his work. Choosing to remain as a vital line of spiritual support to death row inmates, he has had to choose to not extend his chaplaincy into the institutional level due to the structural and cultural violence of government policy.
Thus, right from the start, a basic difference emerged in the presentations and interpretations of chaplaincy in Japan and the United States. The Japanese were largely focused on addressing the suffering of individuals and communities, while the Americans often spoke of wider social forces, especially those of racism, sexism, and economic and state generated injustice; for example, in the comments of the fourth speaker on the panel, Rev. Mary Remington, Director of the Spiritual Care Department at Good Samaritan Hospital, Suffern, NY; and Director of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program at Upaya Institute and Zen Center. She spoke of “an aspect of mind caught in battles of hierarchy, separation, and power-over paradigms all of which source our suffering and overdraw our sense of humanity and belonging to one another. Actions that emanate from this kind of mind create much of the suffering we experience today…. our social and socio-economic disparity, political polarization, environmental devastation, an increase of the unhoused, in addictive behaviors, mental health conditions, suicide, chronic illness.” She further elaborated about “the inner stability to respond to the ever-changing moment with comport, compassion and radical openness. This inner stability, this not turning away, works as a medicinal response to the patterns of reactivity and separation that largely characterize our times. To me, this is right where Buddhist chaplaincy is synonymous with social justice and kinship.” (author’s italics).
Remington, as the Director of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program of Upaya Institute and Zen Center under Roshi Joan Halifax, has inherited a specific mandate articulated by Halifax that bridges the world of personal chaplaincy and the one of social chaplaincy. Halifax has written that, “Our training, especially the chaplaincy program, is basically on socially engaged Buddhism”.[3] Halifax teaches about 4 levels of engagement that involve the transformation of: 1) patients, 2) the caregivers themselves, 3) the wider medical community, and ultimately 4) institutions and social systems.[4] Her interpretation falls in line with the mandate of chaplains working in the public sector in the U.S. and trained in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) to engage in ethical issues. These may involve advocating for persons caught in systems in which patriarchy, sexism, and other forms of discrimination are causing harm. As noted in Remington’s talk, and most of the talks at this conference by American chaplains, engagement in the wider social system is seen as an essential role of the chaplain.
Lost in Translation? The Importance of Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Sharing
From this initial difference in perspective on the role of the chaplain in Japan and the United States, it became clear the need for such conferences to share and exchange cross-cultural perspectives. Rev./Dr. Daijaku Kinst— Professor Emerita of IBS; guiding co-teacher at Ocean Gate Zen Center; and International Teacher of the Soto Zen denomination of Japan—emphasized this point in her talk, stating, “Thinking more broadly, engaging in the exchange of thoughts, practices, and perspectives across academic fields, religious traditions, and cultures is particularly valuable between societies, such as those in North America, in which Buddhism has taken root only in the last 125 years or so, and those cultures and societies with long standing roots in Buddhist traditions. Dialogue between us, clarifies and deepens our understanding, provides us with opportunities to develop new perspectives and examine and reassess our cultural assumptions and cherished principles, and enrich our practice and service in chaplaincy.”
She brought up an example of this issue in the United States of a Buddhist chaplaincy intern who described her intention in chaplaincy to “drop the self and simply enter a chaplaincy visit with an open and flexible mind.” Her consulting committee, which was made up mostly of Christian chaplains, “understood her to mean that she was avoiding coming to terms with the narrative/essence that was central to her being (her core self), and therefore could not effectively attend to the person she was hoping to serve.” This cognitive dissonance between religious traditions reminds me of a similar challenge in chaplaincy in Japan. As the earliest steps of chaplaincy were established by Christians, there is now a common reference to offering “spiritual care”. This term has not been skillfully translated into Japanese and is simply transliterated as “spirichuaru kea”. Some Buddhists, such as Rev. Jin Hitoshi 神仁, the director of the Rinbutsuken Buddhist Chaplaincy training program 臨床仏教養成講座, have felt uncomfortable with this term, one that most common Japanese do not understand. In the Rinbutsuken program, he has attempted to indigenize aspects of the American CPE system into a Japanese context, such as developing a new term called “life care” (いのちのケア inochi-no-kea).
Indeed, Rev. Kinst noted in her talk the work of Prof. Paula Arai, who also participating in this conference. In her book Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s Rituals[5], she articulates a model of ten indigenous Japanese healing principles drawn from her ethnographic work with Japanese Buddhist lay women that “could easily be adapted to form the basis of” a modern Japanese Buddhist chaplaincy system. The fourth speaker, Prof. Kigoshi Yasushi 木越康–Professor of Shin Buddhist Studies at Otani University, affiliated with the Jodo Shin Pure Land Otani sect–made similar such points in his presentation. He questioned the effect of modernization that began in the Meiji Era on Japanese Buddhist studies and how it became overly rational, demythologized, and reinterpreted in an existential manner. He noted that the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster in 2011 “prompted the previously closed-minded Buddhist community to engage in a variety of social activities”. However, in many cases, they found themselves challenged to really serve the suffering of the people as their theologies had become too disconnected from the real-life experiences of the people, especially those who has endured the incredible trauma of this accident. For him, a new kind of “contemporary Buddhism”, which he calls rinsho-bukkyo 臨床仏教, is essential. This form “emphasizes the importance of being present with and listening to the suffering and joy that arises amidst people’s lives in the present day”.
In considering the connections between Buddhist chaplaincy and engaged Buddhism, we can note how both emphasize interfaith and ecumenical exchange. Whether caring for a dying hospice patient of different religious background or joining hands in a social campaign to rescue the environment, the focus is not on the difference of our religions but our common concern for suffering and the issue we are working on.
Two Models of Buddhist Chaplaincy Training in Japan[6]
In the second panel, we learned more about the training style of the new chaplaincy systems in Japan. Rev. Taniyama Yozo 谷山洋三, Professor of Practical Religious Studies at Tohoku University 東北大学実践宗教学寄附講座, has been one of the important pioneers in chaplaincy training in Japan for two decades. In 2012, he helped to establish one of the first programs at Tohoku University in Sendai city in response to the tsunami disaster that directly affected this region. This program has sought to train what Taniyama has translated into English as “interfaith chaplains” (臨床宗教師 rinsho shukyo-shi). In his presentation, he explained that “students learn about the reality of religion in modern society through religious studies, life and death studies, religion and psychotherapy, religion and social welfare, grief care, and spiritual care. In face-to-face group work, all trainees participate in rituals and other spiritual work and reflect on the results of schooling and self-assignments.” In part due to the emphasis on grief care and ritual, this program has been readily adapted in numerous universities run by religious groups, especially Buddhist ones, throughout the country.
In contrast is the training course for “Buddhist chaplains” (臨床仏教師 rinsho bukkyo-shi) founded at the same time also in response to the tsunami disaster. The program was created by the aforementioned Rev. Jin Hitoshi, Director of the Rinbutsuken Institute for Engaged Buddhism 臨床仏教研究所. The Institute had actually been established earlier in 2008 under the Zenseikyo Foundation & Buddhist Council for Youth and Child Welfare 全国青少年教化協議会, which has been supported by 64 traditional Buddhist denominations since 1961. Rev. Jin translated the term rinsho-bukkyo in a unique way, not directly as “clinical Buddhism” or even as “contemporary Buddhism” as with Prof. Kigoshi above. Rather creatively, he uses the term “engaged Buddhism”, which denotes a critical distinction between the “interfaith chaplain” (rinsho-shukyo) programs. As engaged Buddhism, the rinsho-bukkyo program, like Halifax’s programs in the U.S., provides a wider range of chaplaincy models for its students, such as in suicide prevention, supporting the homeless, community development, and anti-nuclear activism. It also specifically trains its chaplains in social analysis in order to understand and engage in structural and cultural violence. Perhaps this is one reason it has not be as readily accepted by religious based universities, conditioned over the years by the secular culture of “separation of church and state” to not become political or critique the system. Still, the program has been endorsed and co-sponsored for a second training module in western Japan by Hanazono University, affiliated with the Rinzai Zen Myoshin-ji sect 臨済禅妙心寺派, through the former head of the sect and university, Ven. Kono Taitsu 河野太通. During the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, Ven. Kono was one of the few voices from the Buddhist establishment supporting an end to nuclear energy in Japan and even connecting its tacit support to the Buddhist establishment’s earlier support for the Pacific War. The rinsho-bukkyo program has also been able to increase its influence by drawing candidates, including many women, from Zenseikyo’s nationwide network of temples.
Another basic difference between the rinsho-bukkyo program and the rinsho-shukyo programs is the former attempts to transform the Buddhist world in Japan. Under this seminal influence of the “separation of church and state”, Buddhist priests became marginalized from most of their traditional social roles. In the postwar period, Japanese Buddhism became pejoratively dubbed as “Funeral Buddhism” (葬式仏教 soshiki-bukkyo) and its priests criticized for using income from funerals for secular pleasures. While Rev. Taniyama is also very interested in reforming the Japanese Buddhist world, he too faces the structural barriers of the separation of church and state in his work. He developed the interfaith chaplaincy program with the necessary systemic support of Tohoku University, which as a public institution could not allow the focus on a single religious tradition, like Buddhism. While this may be similar to the U.S., in other predominantly Buddhist countries in Asia, support for Buddhist education by public organizations in not such a barrier. Even in specifically Buddhist created private institutions, like the Vihara Hongan-ji Nursing Home and Asoka Vihara Clinic for terminal patients near Kyoto, problems in offering holistic care have been encountered. In the fourth panel. Rev. Uchimoto Koyu 打本弘祐, one of the first chaplains at the Asoka Clinic, said that:
At the time, there were very few vihara priests [a.k.a. hospice chaplains] in Japan, so there was little understanding by medical staff, and it was misunderstood that they would force people to convert to Jodo Shin-shu. The priests around me said, “You must lead your patients to Jodo Shin-shu.” I was in a dilemma. Therefore, I insisted that vihara priests should respect any faith (including non-believers) that the hospitalized patients and their families may have. In secularized Japanese hospitals, the “right to religious assistance” is not particularly advocated. Even today, Asoka Vihara Hospital makes effective use of religious resources outside the hospital (religious leaders, religious communities, and so on.), whose work is appreciated by patients and families of different faiths.
Rev. Taniyama also remarked that while his program has been able to locate some of their chaplains in hospitals, the Covid crisis was a blow as chaplains were regarded as non-essential staff and locked out. He noted very little sense of trust and even suspicion of chaplains supporting medical staff.
Indeed, because of not just the system but now the culture of the separation of church and state, hospitals have actually been one of the last frontiers of chaplaincy work in Japan as opposed to one of the first in the U.S. One of the most important areas of Buddhist chaplaincy in Japan, which has its own networks and training programs without reference to chaplaincy, is suicide prevention. Fortunately, this area of work was well represented at the conference by Prof. Kawamoto Kanae 川本佳苗—a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia of Tokyo University—who profiled the work of one such well known suicide prevention priest, Rev. Nemoto Jotetsu 根本紹徹of the Rinzai Zen Myoshin-ji sect.[7]
The development of hospital chaplaincy in Japan may face other barriers to development as terminal care is being outsourced to communities due to the economic crisis of managing so many elderly through the state medical system. For the development of Buddhist chaplains, however, this provides a better opportunity for them to engage more freely and deeply with community caregivers. An integrative example of this is the work of Rev. Okochi Daihaku 大河内大博, a Jodo Pure Land denomination 浄土宗 priest and abbot of Gansei-ji temple 願生寺 in Osaka. Rev. Okochi was once a colleague of Rev. Taniyama’s in the early 2000s at the first Buddhist hospice ward in Japan at Nagaoka Nishi Hospital in Niigata. He has since become one of the chaplaincy trainers in the rinsho-bukkyo program. After his father died in 2017, he had to devote more time to being a full-time abbot, yet has used this opportunity to create an initiative with local health care workers to attend to the elderly and dying in his community. In making home visits, he has come in contact with many other social issues like suicide, hikikomori, and bullying, and thus has become a comprehensive community chaplain, or some might say, a socially engaged Buddhist.[8]
Indeed, in local communities in Japan, where priests are better known and trusted by local officials, cracks in the “separation between church and state” are emerging for the betterment of citizens. In the area of suicide prevention, Rev. Fujio Soin 藤尾聡允–a Rinzai Zen Kencho-ji denomination priest and abbot of Dokuon-ji temple 独園寺 in Yokosuka City south of Yokohama—has become a trusted “gatekeeper” at the local city hall. In this role, he helps to provide triage services to those with mental health needs and other problems.[9] As many priests know a wide variety of people in the community through providing funeral and memorial services, they are also highly qualified to mobilize support networks within the community and region for people who are falling through gaps in the social safety net. Such “integrated care” was also emphasized by Rebecca Nie, a Buddhist chaplain at Stanford University. This vision has also been articulated by Rev. Taniyama.[10]
In reflecting on both the rinsho-shukyo and rinsho-bukkyo programs, they struggle with a lack of resources to support candidates to train more fully and intensely, as most are middle aged and busy with other professional duties. Rev. Taniyama in his talk spoke of other difficulties, such as, the “the training of supervisors is lacking in both quantity and quality”. He also noted, “the introduction of meditation should be considered.” This connects to a fascinating cross-cultural issue between Japanese and American Buddhist chaplaincy. In the latter, the mindfulness movement, especially through the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, established much of the foundation for Buddhist based contemplative care in medical environments and the emergence of Buddhist chaplains. In most forms of convert Western Buddhism, meditation is considered an essential part of practice. While most people outside of Japan associate the nation with Zen meditation, the majority of the Japanese Buddhist world consists of non-meditative, faith-oriented practices and teachings, such as the devotional worship of the Pure Land sects and Lotus Sutra sects. This makes establishing meditation or mindfulness practice in chaplaincy programs problematic, and certain candidates may interpret this as an invasion on their own religious beliefs. Still, these are important steps in the development of Buddhist and interfaith chaplaincy in Japan.
Beyond Personal Care to Social Care
As the conference further unfolded, we were introduced to Buddhist chaplaincy in the United States in a variety of contexts. For example, in the fourth session, Trent Thornley—the Executive Director & CPE Educator of the San Francisco Night Ministry—spoke of their work to engage every night in patrols of the streets to support the wide variety of people in need, whether they be homeless, mentally ill, or addicted to drugs. He explained that the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy’s 2023 report “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” cited research indicating that, “Social disconnection is as dangerous to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and scores worse as a morbidity factor than obesity, physical inactivity, or air pollution”. As an American who has now lived out of the country and in Japan for the last 25 plus years, I found this report ironic. During these years, I have been documenting what is called the “Disconnected Society” (無縁社会 mu-en shakai) in Japan that arose in the late 1990s with hundreds of thousands of suicides and social shut-ins (hikikomori) as well as a growing number of homeless. San Francisco Night Ministry, which began in 1964, is a more evolved version of the One Spoonful Association (Hitosaji-no-kai) begun in 2009 by a young group of Jodo Pure Land priests in Tokyo. Their leader, Rev. Yoshimizu Gakugen 吉水岳彦, is also one of the chaplaincy trainers at the rinsho-bukkyo training program.[11]
Japanese Buddhism has always emphasized the “karmic connection” (縁en) among humans and all sentient life. Contemporary Buddhist chaplains in Japan are re-invigorating this culture by tying together groups of people, such as the suicidal, who have lost their “relationality” or en amidst the crumbling of Japan’s postwar economic miracle. Surgeon General Murthy uses the same term “relationality” as “an untapped resource – a source of healing hiding in plain sight” so that “by taking small steps every day to strengthen our relationships, and by supporting community efforts to rebuild social connection, we can rise to meet this moment together.” This creation of connection (en) is at the core of the San Francisco Night Ministry, where, as Thornley states, “We do not seek to shame, judge or fix their ‘suicidal thoughts’. To do so would be to create further loneliness and alienation. Instead, we listen. And connect. And remind people they are not alone and that they are valuable.” These sentiments are echoed in the work of the One Spoonful Association by Rev. Yoshimizu: “I would like our society to come to see these people as ‘normal’, but what does that really mean? There are good people and also bad people anywhere you live and work. It has nothing to do with living in the street as homeless. Nor is it connected with being a company worker or a student, where we also find good and bad people. It’s not good to pity them, but it’s also not good to prejudice them as if they have done something wrong. I would like it that they are not painted with one color.”[12] (II:232)
Further extensions of Buddhist chaplaincy were seen at the conference in environmental work. In the third panel, Ram Appalaraju of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies spoke of his work as a Buddhist eco-chaplain. The Sati Center, located in Redwood City, California, has offered an introductory year-long training in Buddhist Chaplaincy for over twenty years and since 2018 has started a second program in Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy, which “prepares people to offer spiritual care in relationship to the broader natural world”. Appalaraju explained that Eco-Chaplaincy involves engaging with: 1) hopelessness and despair among people over the environmental crisis, 2) those displaced and affected by it, and 3) those who are disconnected and want to reconnect. In the concluding session of the conference, the differences between this sort of “western” Buddhist chaplaincy as socially engaged Buddhism and that emerging in Japan again came to light. Prof. Kasai Kenta 葛西賢太—Professor at the Graduate School for Applied Religious Studies at Sophia University 上智大学大学院実践宗教学研究科 in Tokyo—remarked that Appalaraju’s presentation was the first time for him to hear about eco-chaplaincy. He explained that the concept seems broadly humanistic and not just Buddhist.
At this point, one can wonder why Japan—which recently experienced the second greatest nuclear energy accident in history at Fukushima yet also has had a variety of environmental health disasters in the modern era, like Minamata disease—would not have developed forms of eco-chaplaincy? Or perhaps it has already but the very definition of chaplaincy, as noted throughout this article, has been rather confined to engaging in the personal suffering of individuals. A clear example of this point was found in the third panel on collective crisis in the presentation by Rev. Takahashi Eigo 高橋英悟, the abbot of Kichijo-ji Temple 吉祥寺, a Soto Zen denomination 曹洞宗 temple in Iwate prefecture that was struck hard by the great tsunami of 2011. Rev. Takahashi has been doing wonderful work to support the grief of many individuals and families in his region who lost loved ones during the disaster. Indeed, during the conference, other Japanese participants mentioned the work of Buddhist chaplains to support the grief of the many thousands in this region. However, there was never any mention of the ongoing suffering of the people of Fukushima, who not only endured the earthquake and tsunami but have also had to continue to live in highly radiated environments. The Japanese government has engaged in a campaign to deny the effects of this radiation even while cases of thyroid cancer amongst the youth are far beyond normal levels.[13]
The tsunami and nuclear accident is a perfect example of the present limits of Japanese chaplaincy. So much focus has been put on the tsunami victims by religious professionals, much of which involves grieving rituals around life that was lost in an unavoidable “natural disaster” (自然災害 shizen-saigai). However, very little attention has been paid to the people of Fukushima who continue to exist in what an official independent panel dubbed an avoidable “man-made disaster” (人災 jin-sai).[14] This difference is most likely because such chaplaincy would involve critical campaigns against the central government and huge corporate interests. Such work returns us to the issue that arose at the very beginning of the conference, which is the way Buddhists and other religious professionals have been pushed out of the public sphere and lost confidence and courage to engage in anything dubbed “political”. The question that arises in environmental chaplaincy is what is the line between caring for humans victimized by systems and directly confronting the systems? Are chaplains just psycho-spiritual nurses or are they also healers/doctors of “the cause of the dukkha” (samudaya) itself as per the Buddha’s 2nd Noble Truth? This is where chaplaincy and socially engaged Buddhism really intersect.
In fact, there are Buddhists very active in environmental work that includes advocating for the end of nuclear energy. The Interfaith Forum for the Review of National Nuclear Policy (原子力行政を問い直す宗教者の会 Genshi-ryoku Gyosei-wo Toi-naosu Shukyo-sha-no-kai) is a national network of Buddhist, Shinto, and Christian clergy established in 1992 to abolish the massive development of nuclear energy across Japan. Besides the ethical concern for future generations who must handle the long-term effects of nuclear waste, most of these priests have experienced first-hand in their own communities the radioactive contamination of power plant workers and the destruction of their local self-sufficient economies by the “tsunami” of government subsidies that are used to bribe localities into hosting reactors. One of the original members of the Interfaith Forum is the small Nipponzan Myohoji denomination 日本山妙法寺, a Lotus Sutra new religion that is better known outside of Japan for its peace walks and peace pagodas throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. After the Fukushima incident began, they established a new type of peace walk to nuclear power plants around the nation to protest their existence.[15] During a personal conversation with the aforementioned Rev. Takahashi in Iwate prefecture, I learned that he had hosted this group on their peace walk through his region—another example of interfaith work for social engagement. One of the most prominent members of the Interfaith Forum, Rev. Okochi Hidehito 大河内秀人, a Jodo Pure Land priest based in Tokyo, has partnered with members of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) in other parts of Asia to build the Eco-Temple Community Development Project that seeks comprehensive solutions to environmental problems from the standpoint of local community temples.[16] The work of the Interfaith Forum, especially Nipponzan Myohoji, ties in with the longer history of Buddhist peace activism in Japan that started after the war. Thus, their activism is seen as highly “political” and largely ignored by the Japanese religious establishment. The Rinbutsuken Institute’s rinsho-bukkyo program has included the nuclear issue in its curriculum, yet no candidates have chosen it or general eco-chaplaincy as a specialization.
Yet there is something compelling in the care for individuals by Buddhist chaplains as an expression of the 1st Noble Truth of confronting suffering. Such work eventually entails a deep engagement in the 2nd Noble Truth of understanding how such suffering has come about, often gradually resulting in an awakening to structural factors and social injustice. This shift in consciousness that results in a new kind of engagement can be seen among some of the suicide prevention priests. For example, Rev. Takemoto Ryogo 竹本了悟, a Jodo Shin Hongan-ji priest from Nara, is the co-founder of the Sotto Self-Death & Suicide Counseling Center 京都自死・自殺相談センター in Kyoto that was established in 2010. After a decade of meaningful work that has included collaboration and support from the Kyoto City government—another example of the weakening of the separation of church and state ideology—he made a radical shift in his work. Experiencing burnout from the never-ending numbers of suicidal and mentally disturbed people as well as the financial burdens of running a non-profit organization, he joined with the other Jodo Shin Hongan-ji priests to establish a Buddhist based electricity company called Tera Energy. In part, inspired by the aforementioned work of Rev. Okochi Hidehito, the company endeavors to sell clean, non-fossil fuel, non-nuclear energy to customers, many of which are temples. The profits are then used for the Warm Heart Fund ほっと資産 from which Tera Energy makes donations once a year to nonprofit organizations, temples, or other groups that are working on social welfare or social justice issues, such as climate change or suicide prevention. For Rev. Takemoto, this is a more systematic way to work on suicide prevention and ultimately heal Japan’s Disconnected Society.[17] In conclusion, environmental ministry does exist in Japan, yet it is largely not recognized as an area of training and endeavor by the new chaplaincy training programs in Japan. Lying more in the realm of socially engaged Buddhism, the hope is that it will become more recognized as an important aspect of chaplaincy as Japanese Buddhists continue to walk the path of the Four Noble Truths.
The Future of Buddhist Chaplaincy in the USA, Japan, and Asia
The final panel of the conference was devoted to this topic of “the future of chaplaincy” with these questions as prompts for discussion: “What is the role of the chaplain in our changing world? With shifting religious demographics, how do we imagine chaplains adapting to the unique needs of their communities? What new forms of chaplaincy are becoming relevant in both Japan and the U.S.?” Rev. Monica Sanford—Assistant Dean for Multireligious Ministry at Harvard Divinity School—made a number of comments but one that stood out was asking whether this work is gendered by noting that all of the speakers from Japan except one was a man. In contrast, she noted that the majority of chaplains in the U.S. are women. To answer this question from the Japanese side again involves diving into various aspects of the culture that differ from the U.S. A fundamental difference is how Buddhism in the United States evolved out of the 1960s counter-culture and subsequent feminist movement so that many prominent Buddhist teachers today are women. In contrast, not only in Japan, but in most of Buddhist Asia, Buddhism is an ancient religion of the establishment dominated by male monastics.
In Japan, this is a particularly thorny issue where conservative social values have sidelined women in wider society but also especially in Buddhist society. At this time, the number of ordained nuns have almost entirely been replaced by the modern face of the Buddhist priest’s wife or jizoku 寺族. Largely shut out of denominational power structures due to their nebulous existence that cuts across “the fictitious principle of the priestly renunciation”, they are largely confined to domestic roles in the heteronormative Buddhist temple family. Prof. Kawahashi Noriko 川橋範子, a long-time scholar of and advocate for their rights, notes that this ingrained social role prevents Buddhist women from going out into society and engaging in the kind of social work of male Buddhist priests that has garnered significant social attention. She notes, “I have seen many male priests who are enthusiastic about environmental issues and social contribution suddenly become unaccepting when it comes to gender issues.”[18]
To answer Rev. Sanford’s question then, it is “yes”, Buddhist chaplaincy and social engagement in Japan are largely gendered. Yet at the same time, Buddhist chaplaincy as a new kind of certification for counseling skills and interpersonal engagement is providing new opportunities for Buddhist women that are far more circumscribed when pursued through traditional systems of priest cultivation. This point is evidenced in the candidates of the Rinbutsuken Institute’s rinsho-bukkyo program. Of the cohort of 21 candidates who in December 2022 stood for examination to move on to the final stage of internship in clinical settings, 10 were women and 11 were men. Of the 10 fully certified Buddhist chaplains to graduate from this program since its beginning in 2013, 4 are women and 6 are men.
Another barrier to women’s participation in Buddhist chaplaincy in Japan returns once again to the ideology of the separation of church and state. With Buddhism being so marginalized in modern secular Japan, it is not seen as a resource or fit with civil society activism. This point is in great contrast with other parts of Asia, especially in the South where Buddhist monks fought together in the anti-colonial struggle and have since emerged as common partners in democracy, civils rights, and a wide variety of social activities that have become known as socially engaged Buddhism. In these societies, lay Buddhists and lay Buddhist women are found active in social service, whereas in Japan very few people involved in civil society identify openly as Buddhists. While this is an ongoing struggle in Japan as seen above, the opportunities for women Buddhist chaplains in other parts of Asia are vast and growing. The foremost example is Taiwan where Buddhist nuns are highly involved in end-of-life care and community elderly care. The suicide prevention movement in Japan began to go beyond national borders in 2017 and is now spreading Buddhist chaplaincy and Buddhist psychotherapy training to Southeast and South Asia. Prof. Elaine Yuen—contemplative educator, chaplain, and professor emerita at Naropa University who spoke on the third panel—is actively involved in this work. After a pilot training workshop held in Thailand in September 2023 in coordination with the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, in 2024 small teams of trainers will be going to specific locales such as northern India and Thailand/Myanmar to offer more culturally specific programs for both monastics and professional therapists. In this way, the future of Buddhist chaplaincy seems exceedingly bright, perhaps not as another turning of the Dharma but certainly as a way for Buddhism to reinvent itself meaningfully to contemporary society. This reinvention also appears to involve and even require a social engagement awareness that confronts social systems and injustice.
Jonathan S. Watts is the coordinator of the INEB based International Buddhist Psychotherapy & Suicide Prevention Network. In 2012, he helped to establish the Buddhist Chaplain (rinsho-bukkyo) Training Program of the Rinbutsuken Institute for Engaged Buddhism based in Tokyo. In 2023, he published a two volume set called Engaged Buddhism in Japan by Sumeru Press in Canada.
[1] Watts, Jonathan S. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume I: An Engaged Buddhist History of Japan from the Ancient to the Modern. (Ontario, Canada: Sumeru Press, 2023), pp. 146-47.
[2] 「世間の不都合や貧困、人権、差別等の諸問題に宗教家や教団はどう行動しているのですか」。
[3] Halifax, Joan Jiko. “USA: Being with Dying: Contemplative End-of-Life Training Program”. In Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved. Eds. Jonathan S. Watts & Yoshiharu Tomatsu. (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012). p. 227.
[4] Ibid. pp. 216-25.
[5] Arai, Paula. Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s Rituals. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011).
[6] Watts, Jonathan S. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II: A New Socially Engaged Buddhism in 21st Century Japan. From Intimate Care to Social Ethics. (Ontario, Canada: Sumeru Press, 2023), pp. 121-27
[7] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 121-27.
[8] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 83-85.
[9] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 116-120.
[10] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 80-81.
[11] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 221-233.
[12] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 232.
[13] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 245-48.
[14] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL3E8I52QK/
[15] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 281-83.
[16] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 294-99.
[17] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. pp. 299-301.
[18] Watts. Engaged Buddhism in Japan, Volume II. p. 319.
JNEB 