In Two Volumes
May & October 2023
Essential Quote Series
from Volume 1 (March-July 2024) & Volume 2 (August-December 2024)
Rebirth and Revolution – Engaged Buddhism in Japan: A Conversation with Jonathan Watts
Buddhist Door Global June 2, 2023
Meetings with Remarkable Buddhists: Socially Engaged Buddhism in Japan in the 21st Century
Meet some of the priests and laypeople in Vol. II in our podcast series!
In the West, available through the Sumeru Press, Amazon and other major outlets. In Asia only, a special printing by INEB in Bangkok offers both volumes at reduced cost. Inside of Japan, order directly from IBEC in Yokohama: wattsj@jneb.net. 日本国内は横浜のIBECに直接注文してください wattsj@jneb.net
Jonathan S. Watts
International Buddhist Exchange Center (IBEC)
Published by The Sumeru Press (Canada)
These volumes offer a unique perspective outside of the normal scholarly or sectarian historical presentations of Japanese Buddhism. Volume I uses a socially engaged Buddhist lens to examine key themes in the development of Buddhism in Japan, particularly in their socio-political context. The latter half of this volume then charts the struggles of modern Japanese Buddhists to develop a socially engaged perspective and practice amidst the trials and tribulations of modernity, imperialism, war, and postwar economic boom. In this way, Volume I offers the critical historical perspectives for understanding contemporary Japanese Buddhism, which so many in Asia and elsewhere find incomprehensible with “monks” who marry, drink, and live largely secular lives.
Out of the distortions of modernity, Volume II offers a series of contemporary case studies of Socially Engaged Buddhist priests (both male and female) who are redefining Japanese Buddhism, and perhaps even Japanese society in the 21st century. Since the Japanese economy began to falter in the 1990s, Buddhist priests have begun to come out of their temples and their once lucrative Funeral Buddhism activities to engage directly in the suffering of the common people. Volume II offers an intimate look into this work in the areas of end-of-life care, suicide prevention, disaster trauma and chaplaincy, poverty and homelessness, anti-nuclear activism and Buddhist development, and peace and social justice. This second volume is the culmination of over fifteen years of participatory research by the International Buddhist Exchange Center (IBEC) of the Kodo Kyodan Buddhist Fellowship in Yokohama.
Endorsements:
Volume II
“This revelatory book sheds a whole new light on Buddhism in Japan, a Buddhism that is socially engaged, brave, and totally surprising. This is a must-read for all of us. The writing is bright and clear; the research deep and thorough; the characters in the book are profoundly memorable.” Roshi Joan Jiko Halifax, founder Upaya Zen Center and Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program
“A long-awaited correction to old stereotypes that Japanese Buddhists escape the world by staring at walls, or succumb to the world by marrying and drinking. Japanese Buddhism leaves its medieval traditions to deal with a sustainable social future; memorably inspiring vignettes of Buddhists addressing real-life issues. Engaged Buddhism from an engaged Buddhist—Jonathan Watts walks the walk with grass-roots leaders of Buddhist responses to hospice, homelessness and suicide, natural and man-made disasters. Watts knows Japan and its engaged Buddhists like no one else; his latest volume is an engaging resource for anyone interested in Buddhism, or activism, or both.” Dr. Carl B. Becker, professor at the Kyoto University Kokoro(Heart-Mind) Research Center and renowned thanatologist
Volume I
“I have spent my life interacting with many of the Japanese progressives and Socially Engaged Buddhists written about in this volume. Watts has a deep appreciation and understanding of their important role in Japanese society, and so this volume is an important contribution. It also helps many of us outside of Japan to come to terms with and appreciate Japan’s unique style of laicized Buddhism.” Sulak Sivaraksa, leading founder, International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB)
“This ambitious book is an attempt to look through the history of Socially Engaged Buddhism in Japan and to identify and clarify various contemporary social issues connected to it. Watts’ review the history of Buddhism since ancient times in light of trends in Socially Engaged Buddhism in the modern world is deeply significant. Although Socially Engaged Buddhism in modern Japan appears to be less prominent, a review of the history of Japanese Buddhism as a whole, and especially the history of modern Japanese Buddhism, will make current issues more understandable. I hope that this book will stimulate discussion about Buddhist social ethics and particularly the social ethics of Japanese Buddhism.” Susumu Shimazono, professor emeritus of Tokyo University and leading scholar on Japanese religion in the modern era.
“Socially Engaged Buddhism has had a higher profile in South and Southeast Asia, but it is becoming increasingly important in Japan. Having spent over twenty years in Japan experiencing the shift from high economic growth to its present social disconnection, I highly recommend this definitive history.” David R. Loy, author of A Buddhist History of the West and teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition
“Socially engaged Buddhism is a truism for some of us yet is heresy for others, depending on points of view. Jonathan Watts’ deep dive into Japanese Buddhist history shows that Buddhism has always been engaged with the social structures and systems in which people live. But how do Buddhists engage? Are we more swayed by the pulls and pressures of social forces and prone to prioritize our personal, and perhaps communal, survival and wealth? Or do we give primacy to the Buddha’s liberating vision and practices in line with it? This look into Japanese Buddhist social history gives us much to ponder concerning the ethical and spiritual choices challenging all thoughtful, compassionate followers of the Buddha. This work helps correct the assumption that Socially Engaged Buddhism is somehow new. Although first coined in the 60s ‘engaged buddhism’ has deep roots in Asian Buddhist history and practice. With the biases that often over-assume Western influence, historical reminders and analysis are needed. Here, Jonathan Watts focuses on Japan, filling a lacuna compared with better known movements elsewhere. Given Japan’s influence on Western Buddhism, this study enriches our understanding of Buddhism’s place in the world. Readers in the West should appreciate a healthy dialogue with spiritually oriented thinkers and activists from another ‘advanced economy’ suffering from increasing mental illness, addictions, and meaninglessness amidst the global threat of climate destruction.” Santikaro, translator and disciple of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
“An impressive, ground-breaking overview of Buddhist engagement with Japanese society from the 6th to the dawn of the 21st century. Authored by an American with a time-tested dedication to engaged Buddhism in Japan and beyond, this book will be certain to inspire many who are concerned with the state of Buddhism in Japan to reassess its priorities toward a renewed vision for the future.” Rev. Kenneth Kenshin Tanaka Prof. Emeritus, Musashino University, Tokyo; Chair, Editorial Board of the BDK English Tripiṭaka Translation Project
Jon Watts’ two-volume Engaged Buddhism in Japan is an essential addition to a growing body of scholarship on the development of Buddhism across Asia. Watts skillfully cuts through the colonial, post-colonial, and orientalist mystifications and generalizations about Japanese Buddhism. His skillful investigation shows how Buddhist institutions have continuously adapted to successive social realities in Japan, going back fourteen hundred years to arrive at our present day. Hozan Alan Senauke, Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center and Director of Clear View Project
About the Author: Jonathan S. Watts began working at the main office of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) in Bangkok in 1990 shortly after graduating Princeton University in the United States where he was born and raised. Under the tutelage of renowned Thai engaged Buddhist Sulak Sivaraksa and the teachings of one of the earliest articulators of a progressive modern Buddhism, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, he has spent the last thirty years immersed in the international engaged Buddhist movement. Moving to Japan in 1993, he has worked in a variety of Buddhist settings including nineteen years at the research institute of the Jodo denomination, whose teacher Honen was the first of the great Kamakura Buddhist revolutionaries; the last sixteen years at the Kodo Kyodan Buddhist Fellowship, a modern lay denomination emerging from the ancient Tendai denomination from which the Kamakura masters all sprang; and the last fourteen years the Zenseikyo Foundation and Rinbutsuken Institute for Engaged Buddhism, a non-sectarian foundation formed in the post-war area that is training Buddhist chaplains. He has also taught contemporary Buddhism in Japan and Asia at Keio University since 2008. This volume documents his own work during this time to support Japanese Buddhists to develop their own Socially Engaged Buddhist movement in connection with similar movements in Asia and the West through the Japan Network of Engaged Buddhists (JNEB).
jneb.net 