Buddhist Culture in Japan
Posted in Beautiful Buddha's Statues, believe, Buddhism and Sustainable Development, Buddhism towards Nature and Animals, Buddhist History, comparative methods, Compassion, Contemporary Buddhism
By Sona Kanti Barua
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| Buddhist Culture in Japan |
There are thirteen Buddhist sects
in Japan. They are: The Kegon (the Avatamsaka school), the Ritsh (the Vinaya
school), the Hosso (the Dharma – Laksna school), the Tendai, the Shingon
(Tantric Buddhism of Charyapada, Bangladesh), the Jodo, the Jodo – shin, the
Yuzunenbutsu, the Ji, the Rinzai, there were three others, namely, the Sanron
(the Three sastra school of Madhyamika), the Kusha (the Abhidharma kosa school)
and Zen Buddhism or the Jojitsu (the Satyasiddhi sastra school), they are more
or less extinct and have little independent influence. Chinese Buddhist sects are sources of
Japanese Buddhist sects. Tantric
Buddhism (Sahajiya Buddhism of Charyapada) was founded by Great monk Kukai (774
to 835) who was the founder of modern Japanese alphabets.
According to the Japanese
history, the sites of governments (or rulers and emperors) have shifted many
times, namely from Asuka (A. D. 645) area to Nara period (710 to 794), Heian
(Kyoto, 794 – 1192) period, the Tendai
Buddhism (by Saicho and the Shingon Buddhism by Kukai who was invented the
Japanese alphabets) Kamakura and Edo (present Tokyo). There are many types of
Buddhism sects came into being.
Lord Buddha enlightened Japan by
his teachings. But Pundravardhana was the ancient name of Bogra district where
the Buddha lived and preached his lofty and noble teachings to the people of
Bangladesh. Bengali people lost Buddhist Text (Tripitaka) and its translations
in Bangladesh. With the establishment of Buddhism in Japan there started a true
and glorious renaissance in the religious and cultural life of the Japanese
people. Lord Buddha lived in Bogora and Rajshahi of Bangladesh and he is the
sun of Japanese wisdom, culture, civilization, heritage and tradition.
Lord Buddha taught “Let us be loving, humble,
hopeful and optimistic.” After cancer surgery, blessings (all sects Buddhist
sects including Zen, Tantric & Pure land) of the Buddha come to alleviate
sufferings of people. All over the world
including Japan Buddha mind or Buddhist meditation system ( Zen & all sects) comes as a capable surgeon and
with a successful operation, the Buddha cuts away of the disease. It will
certainly cause some pain, but what does matter, it brings a cure? Buddhism is
a pure analysis, a pure psychology, its deals with concrete facts. Perhaps best
of all, it is not content with making promise for the future, but it gives a
complete cure here and now if only the patient has patience enough to
follow the prescriptions (Buddhist studies).
Lord Buddha lived in Bangladesh: From Bogra’s Mahastan to Nara (Japan)
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Lord Buddha lived in Bangladesh |
Special Buddhist Calendar in Japanese Life
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| Japanese Buddhist Calendar |
Every day Japanese people remember
and chant with deep respects Namo Amida
(Amitabha) Butsu. Every year with
flowers they (Japanese people) commemorate the baby Buddha Siddhartha in April.
Japanese Buddha Purnima or Flower Festival (Hana Matsuri) : Gautama Buddha, the
founder of Buddhism , who is believed to have been born on April 8, 600
B.C. In Japan on this occasion, a small
shrine covered by many fresh flowers and Buddhist visitors pour sweet tea over
a small image of baby figure prince Siddhartha enshrined in it. According to
the `life of the Buddha’ prince Siddhartha was born in Nepal’s Lumbini Garden
in the midst of flower blossoms which all bloomed at the moment of Buddha’s
(Siddhartha) birth to celebrate the arrival of this baby (Siddhartha) who later
became the Buddha. According to the Buddhist tradition it is believed that
sweet rain fell from the heaven at the moment of Siddhartha’s birth to
celebrate it. On this auspicious occasion to express their joy and to celebrate
the birth day of the Buddha, Japanese Buddhist temples organize special
programs at several beautiful children’s parade in the colorful Japanes costume
with Kimono, an entertainment, a get together party etc.
Japanese Feelings of the Buddha in Nature & Zen Garden
Buddhist Meditation or Zen
system encourages man is a part of nature. Because a human being is a part of
whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. Man experiences
himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind
of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion (moha) is a kind of
prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and a few persons nearest
to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison (attachment and
ignorance) by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty (universal love & meditation on
loving kindness or metta bhavana).
The Pala Kingdom of Bengal represented not just Indian Buddhism, but the religion at its most genuine of Tantric Buddhism (Charyapada), for the Pala territories contained the original nucleus of the Buddhist religion.
Buddhist Sutra’s Emptiness and number zero:
| Laughing Buddha first found in Japan |
Of Buddhism’s numerous
gifts to world, none greater than number zero and the Diamond Sutra is the
first printing (Chinese) book in the world.
The Buddha in the ‘Heart of the Perfect Wisdom Sutra’ to Venerable
Shariputra, “Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva when practicing deeply the Prajna
Paramata perceives that all five senses (skandas) are empty and saved from all
suffering and distress. Shariputra, all dhammas are marked with emptiness.”
Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, the
Vigrahavyavaratini, the Refutation of Opponents, and the Sunnayatasapati,
the Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness, demonstrated the incoherence of such
distinctions ultimately, yet also showed how preaching the emptiness of all
dhammas.
Greedy Western scientists use
scientific laws in its technology in making supermen and selfish political
super powers made several superiority states those challenge each others during
World War I & World War II. As the UNESCO pre-amble to its constitution,
“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds o men peace must be
constructed. “
Freedom & Buddhism:
Buddhism allows
the fullest freedom of thought and naturally there are different schools of
thought; but none of these has interfered or tried to altar the fundamental
teachings of the Buddha, such as the Four Noble truths, Dependent Origination
and the Three Characteristics of Norms: impermanence, discontent and not –self.
The UNESCO’s preamble significantly
asserts, “As wars arise in the minds of men, the frontiers of peace must be
built in the minds of men.” 15 The
statement is particularly important because it is recognition of the truth that
the solution of the mind –problem lies within the mind problem it-self. In this
way, human problems demand human solutions.
Environmental problems and Thomas Berry’s Great Works:
Japanese
Buddhist monks, environmentalists and Thomas Berry suggests that we have become
autistic by our greed in our interactions with the natural world. Technological
greed robed our value of life and beauty of nature. Our present day
environmental crisis is spiritual and ethical. Thomas Berry raised the stark
question, “Is the human a viable species on an endangered planet?” 2The title of the First essay provides the
title of the whole book. Today’s ecological devastation has put lives and
happiness of millions of people at great risk.
Scientific Outlook of Origin of Buddhism:
Anger and
delusion create darkness of mental faculties, compassionate knowledge creates
light of wisdom. So if a religious leader who inspires to initiate to delusion,
pride, hatred made ideological conflicts; he is an enemy of humanity. The enemy
of the whole world is selfishness or anger, hatred, lust through which evils
come to living beings.
The Buddha
refused to subscribe the caste system, which had ceased to be universal
religion (Dharma) and had become a tool of oppression in ancient India
2600 years ago. He would not accept the power-drunk priests as sole agents of
God. Peace loving people of the world have seen America ’s fascination with Buddhism
is a sincere step towards world peace. Fortunately, Buddhism grows over
stronger roots in new world.
Lord
Buddha questioned the authority of the ancient scriptures including the Vedas.
The Buddha was convinced that penance and meditation as mere rituals without
the accompanying sincerity and contemplation were futile.
So
the Buddha set out alone to seek the ultimate truth. As the prince Siddhartha
his search led him to the enlightenment that liberates him as he pondered under
a Bodhi tree. As the Buddha he returned to preach what he had known and
experienced and he did this out of compassion for his fellow being as
converting them was never his aim.
The Buddha laid
great stress on mental training. To the opening words of the Dhammapada (the Buddhist
canon), “Mind precedes all things, mind
dominates all.
With the right attitude of mind every
suffering, physical and mental can be turned to advantage, being a lesson and
stepping – stone to higher values. In the Rohitassa Sutra the term scientific
for the very foundation of Buddhism is based on the Four Noble Truths are :(1)
Problems of life : There are discontents in life (2) Causes of problem:
unlimited desires (3) Solving of problems of
life: Attaining Nirvana and (4) The system of solution : The Noble
Eightfold Path is the formula to attain enlightenment. This great system
formulated by the Buddha after years of search been proved to be the most
scientific approach to understand the problem of human sufferings.8 This is the source of real peace and
equanimity.
For example, the physical sciences, applied
science and technology would have relationship with nature. Buddhism was
encouraged by the new cosmology of Copernicus, Galileo and their successors
changed the geocentric picture of the universe although it was pronounced to be
contrary to the Holy Scriptures of the God’s religions. What would Buddhism
occupy in such a context? To my mind I find that early Buddhism emphasizes the
importance of the scientific outlook in dealing with the problems of human
rights, disarmament, world peace, morality and religion. The Buddha founded the
Godless religion. Albert Einstein and others searched for the unified force
theory. Even the Buddha’s impermanent theory of life and the world influenced
the Uncertainty principles of our great scientist. There are Religions like
Buddhism is the highest development of human wisdom.
Where Zen (Japanese Buddhism) and Science embrace:
Time magazine of
October 13, 1997
inserted its cover story entitled “The Americanization of Buddhism.” As the
Time’s reporter Ms. Jeanne McDowell reported, “If participants move further
into Buddhism, she says, she will be gratified, but her first goal is to
service, the enormous need of people to find safe home, a refuge, within their
being. Some think meditation will constitute Buddhism’s distinct contribution
to American life.” 4
Can
Buddhism give us some special insight into why there are some similarities
between Buddhism and Science? Before the
modern science Buddhism teaches that all compounded things come into being,
presently exist and cease dependent on causes and conditions. Triple world is the Buddhist term used
to describe the realms of sense, physical form and the unmanifest. Human mind
does no develop morally with the material and technological development. Thus
in economic and international affairs, for instance, business and commercial
relations appear to become increasingly dehumanized.
Creations and destructions are nothing but the shadow of phenomena.:
What
is Nirvana? How should we explain the Nirvana? The Buddha explained the ego or
I of a person after his or her death concerning taking rebirth as the
Robert Oppenheimer explained the electron, “If we ask, for instance, whether
the position of the electron remains the same, we must say ‘no’ if we ask
whether the electron’s position changes with time, we must say ‘no’; if we ask
whether the electron is at rest, we must say
‘no’; if we ask whether it is in action, we must say no.”1
According
to the Buddhist sources, there is no scriptural evidence to prove an eternal,
unchanging, substances or soul in this empirical Individual. In this respect we
also think that the original teachings of the Buddha were not meant to support
any views or beliefs, but to help realize the Four Noble Truths and the
cessation of suffering through insight knowledge. Because of the wrong
understanding of “ego or selfishness” and due to the ignorant influence of
circumstances we create hatred to kill each other.
All things and mind creates all
things.” In the Rohitassa discourse
(sutta) the Buddha said, “In this very one-fathom long body, along with its
perceptions and thoughts, do I proclaim the world, the origin of the world, the
cessation of the world and the path leading to the cessation of the world.”
The vision of
the Buddhist wisdom is said to emerge from the insight contemplation of the
three characteristics of all existences: - (1) Impermanence, (2) suffering and
(3) not – self.
Let us find out
what is Buddhism? What the Buddha Taught? During the time of the Buddha a monk
named Venerable Assaji replied, “Whatsoever phenomena arise from causes, the
Buddha has explained the causes thereof, their (causes) cessation, too he has
explained. This is the teaching of the Buddha.” *
Western science together with common sense being in harmony with Buddhist
teaching, in my view, the last twelve years have seen my education continued in
Canada .
Most of the
discourses of the Buddha are taken up with the exhaustive list all possible
theories concerning the self and the world, whether eternal, infinite, immortal
etc. The Buddha then points out that to hold any kind of fixed view about the
past or the future is to be trapped in a net like fish. Suffering or discontent
lies in clinging to views. What the Buddha taught was not a doctrine but a
method of works (teachings of the Buddha and Dharma or phenomena etc.) whereby
one comes to see for oneself. Everything exists only in fundamental dependence
on everything else. That is why if we finally understand the true nature of our
selves we at the same time understand the true nature of everything.
But Buddhism
made an argument that science cannot teach the common man to control his or her
mind. People talk a lot about science but many things that science can’t do.
Man began to decry religion, future rewards for moral goodness ceased to
interest him and his own desire was the full enjoyment of the present. Has the
modern science invented one single instrument to help man to eliminate
temptation?
Formless Atoms:
Buddhism is a
religion, so this is not a science. Let us consider some of these parallels and
similarities. It is surprising how Rev.
Asanga, a great Mahayana Buddhist philosopher monk of 4th century
A.C. speaking of the atom (Paramanu) says that it has not physical body or
bodily form. The atom is conceived by the intellect (Buddhi) through the
ultimate analysis of matter.*
Venerable Professor Walpola S. Rahula said, “They (scientists) said that even
today they had gone beyond this definition. It is true that the atom has no
physical form; its existence is conceived by the mind, it is a concept, this
they agree.”6
It is also most
remarkable that how the great Buddhist monk Rev. Asanga and his younger brother
monk Vasubandhu of the 4th Century A.D. could define the atom to
agree so closely with modern physics. He was not a physicist and was not
interested in physical science.
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