Tag Archives: Japanese Buddhism

Volume 32 2025

Pilgrimage and the Problem of Compassion

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Volume 32, 2025

Pilgrimage and the Problem of Compassion: Toward an Ethical Reassessment of the Shikoku Henro

Ronald S. Green
Coastal Carolina University

The Buddhist Pilgrimage in Shikoku Japan (Shikoku Henro) is often described in guidebooks, popular media, and academic literature as a transformative spiritual journey capable of awakening the Bodhisattva ideal through acts of endurance, generosity, and reflection. Yet this dominant narrative obscures a long and troubling history of exclusion, marginalization, and quiet cruelty embedded within the pilgrimage tradition itself. Drawing on Japanese-language sources, personal observation, and the work of scholars such as Mori Masato and Uehara Yoshihiro, this article examines how certain groups, such as impoverished pilgrims, beggars, the disabled, those with Hansen’s disease, and foreign walkers, have been denied the compassion the pilgrimage claims to cultivate. Rather than dismissing the spiritual value of the Henro, I argue for a more ethically grounded reassessment, one that takes seriously the histories of suffering and erasure that continue to haunt this path. If the Shikoku Henro is to remain relevant as a Buddhist practice today, it must do more than offer personal healing; it must also remember those whose footsteps shaped its terrain but were never welcomed upon it.

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Volume 31 2024

Economic Justice in the Buddhist Tradition

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 31, 2024

Economic Justice in the Buddhist Tradition

Christopher Queen
Harvard University

Buddhism is widely associated today with progressive values and exemplary models of economic life. The idea of “Buddhist economics” was paired with the slogan “small is beautiful” by the economist E. F. Schumacher in 1973. Voluntary simplicity, renunciation, and a middle path between self-indulgence and self-denial are seen as keys to sustainable levels of acquisition and consumption. Buddhist kindness and compassion are thought to inspire charitable giving to the poor, and right livelihood to promote occupations of service to society. Yet the history of Buddhist economics does not always support these assumptions. Traditional beliefs in karma and merit-making do not align with modern ideas of justice. We examine the Buddhist record in areas of social equality, property, natural resources, products, wealth, income, jobs, and taxation. Each section surveys Buddhist economics in the Theravāda cultures of South and Southeast Asia; the Mahāyāna cultures that flourished in India, China, Tibet, and East Asia; and the modern period, marked by the rise of Engaged Buddhism in Asia and the West. At each stage we find distinctive teachings and practices in the economic sphere. Read article

Volume 31 2024

Memento Mori in Dōgen’s 12 Fascicles Collection

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Volume 31, 2024

“The Shadow of the Whip:” Memento Mori in Dōgen’s 12 Fascicles Collection (十二卷本集)

Steven Heine
Florida International University

This paper offers a reexamination and reevaluation of the philosophical meaning and significance of Dōgen’s 道元 (1200-1253) last text that was left unfinished shortly before he died and was lost for centuries after that. The main message of the work concerns the inviolability of karmic causality (inga 因果) and the need to offer sincere repentance (zange 懺悔) for offenses committed. For various reasons, I refer to the final text as the 12 Fascicles Collection (Jūnikanbon-shū 十二卷本集) instead of using the customary moniker of the “12-fascicle Shōbōgenzō” (Jūnikanbon Shōbōgenzō 十二卷本正法眼蔵), which implies it is one of several versions of Dōgen’s masterwork. The title of this paper, drawn from a passage in the “Shime (Four Horses)” fascicle of the Collection, highlights that a true Buddhist practitioner learns to respond to an awareness of the imminence of finitude and mortality like a proverbial splendid horse that spontaneously “races off upon seeing the shadow of the whip” (mi ben’ei nigyō 見鞭影而行). This image suggests the steed does not suffer the rider’s reprimands, or to put it another way, a true aspirant need not be prodded to obey the law of causality because he knows how to conduct himself in a principled way in every circumstance. The 12-Fascicles Collection should also be seen as the result of Dōgen’s effort to curate the legacy of his general instructional outlook by rewriting or recasting some of his earlier essays and themes while crafting a timeless primer of basic Buddhist tenets. Its memento mori approach has a resonance with Kamakura-period deathbed practices and morality tales (setsuwa bungaku 説話文学). Read article

Volume 31 2024

A Comparison Between the “Gift Debate” in French Postmodern Thought and Dāna-Pāramitā in Mahāyāna Buddhism

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 31, 2024

Emptiness and Otherness: A Comparison Between the “Gift Debate” in French Postmodern Thought and Dāna-Pāramitā in Mahāyāna Buddhism

Mingyi Xiao
University of California, Santa Barbara

This article delves into the intersection of Western postmodern thought’s “gift debate,” rooted in Marcel Mauss’s work and continued by Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, and Mahāyāna Buddhism’s practice of dāna (almsgiving). Examining parallels, the paper identifies resonances in two dimensions. Firstly, in the realm of truth, the wisdom of “three-fold emptiness” in Madhyamaka Buddhism offers insights into the paradoxical nature of the gift, reconciling Derrida’s scarcity and Marion’s abundance perspectives. Secondly, ethically, the emphasis on the “other” in the gift prompts reflection on dāna’s motives, deepening our understanding of self-other relationships in Buddhism. This exploration seeks to facilitate a comparative dialogue between postmodern thought and Mahāyāna Buddhism, unraveling philosophical, ethical, and religious dimensions within the act of giving.
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Volume 31 2024

Review: Precepts, Ordinations, and Practice in Medieval Japanese Tendai

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Volume 31, 2024

Precepts, Ordinations, and Practice in Medieval Japanese Tendai. Studies in East Asian Buddhism 31. By Paul Groner. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2022, xvii + 376 pages, ISBN 978-0-8248-9274-6 (hardback), $68.00, 978-0-8248-9328-6 (paperback), $20.00.

Reviewed by Bryan D. Lowe

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Volume 31 2024

Phases of the Buddhist Approach to the Environment

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Volume 31, 2024

Phases of the Buddhist Approach to the Environment

Johannes Cairns
University of Helsinki

Various typologies of Buddhist ecophilosophies have been proposed but they have overlooked temporal dynamics and the relationship between beliefs and practice. I address this research gap by proposing a three-tier diachronic scheme. The first premodern phase featured a mixed bag of attitudes and behaviors in relation to ecology, with some being supportive of environmental ethics and others subversive. The second phase arose with the early counterculture environmental movement and consisted of ecophilosophies and activism with limited influence. The third phase started in the mid-1990s with political acknowledgement of the ecocrisis and has gained momentum. It consists of global adoption of ecophilosophies and environmental practices, including conservative Asian organizations, and new radical ecology. The dynamics indicate that a tradition of accommodating to prevailing political paradigms may have obstructed Buddhist environmentalism in the past but could facilitate it in the future.
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Volume 30 2023

Indian Traditionalism in Eihei Dōgen’s Shoaku makusa

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Volume 30, 2023

Indian Traditionalism in Eihei Dōgen’s Shoaku makusa

Victor Forte
Albright College

Eihei Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō fascicle Shoaku makusa (“Not Producing Evil”), was presented during the early period of his career, while leading a small group of monastic and lay followers at the Kōshōji temple in Kyoto. Derived from the early Buddhist universal precept and inspired by the Indian ideal of bodhisattvic moral freedom within the dharmadhātu, this work primarily served as a corrective for antinomian inherent awakening doctrine. The ethical implications of this corrective are best understood in the context of Indian Mahāyāna philosophy, an often-overlooked influence on Dōgen’s thought. Not only are such influences to be found in the Shoaku makusa fascicle, but throughout Dōgen’s career, in earlier works like the Shōbōgenzō zuimonki, and later fascicles like Sanjūshichihon bodaibunpō, “The Thirty-seven Factors of Awakening,” and Hotsu bodaishin, “Raising the Mind of Enlightenment,” which were also concerned with the meaning of moral practice from an Indian Buddhist standpoint.
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Volume 30 2023

Review: Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023

Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All. Edited by Sallie B. King. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2021, xvi + 256 pages, ISBN 978-0-367-56181-9 (hardback), $160, 978-1-00-310045-4 (e-book), $44.05.

Reviewed by Timothy Loftus

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Volume 29 2022

Principles for Jōdo Shinshū Social Engagement

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 29, 2022

Principles for Jōdo Shinshū Social Engagement

Jeff Wilson
Renison University College, University of Waterloo

Despite omission from much of the record of scholarship on Engaged Buddhism, Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism has significant potential for positive involvement with social causes. Here I propose six principles based on elements of the Jōdo Shinshū teachings that might inspire or inform efforts at reducing harm in the world. I further provide some examples of social engagement from Jōdo Shinshū history that demonstrate how they might be applied.

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Volume 29 2022

Review: Buddhist Statecraft in East Asia

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Volume 29, 2022

Buddhist Statecraft in East Asia. Edited by Stephanie Balkwill and James A. Benn. Studies on East Asian Religions 6. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022, x + 191 pages, ISBN 978-90-04-51022-7 (open access e-book: https://brill.com/downloadpdf/ title/61003.pdf)/978-90-04-50961-0 (hardback), $125.00.

Reviewed by Yilun Zhai

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Volume 28 2021

Aquinas and Mipham on Military and Punitive Violence

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Volume 28, 2021

Aquinas and Mipham on Military and Punitive Violence: A Tribute to Michael Jerryson

Damien Keown
Goldsmiths, University of London (Emeritus)

The claim that Buddhism is exclusively a “religion of peace” has been shown to be untenable. Buddhism now faces the challenge of explaining how the pacifist spirit of its teachings can be reconciled with its well-documented recourse to military and punitive violence. Buddhism is not the only religion to face this challenge, and we first consider the Christian stance on violence as formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas before turning to the views of the Tibetan polymath Jamgön Mipham. We consider to what extent the views of the two thinkers are compatible and conclude with a suggestion as to how what Michael Jerryson calls “the quandary of Buddhism and violence” might be resolved.

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Volume 25 2018

A Buddhist Chaplain in Occupied Japan

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Prison and the Pure Land: A Buddhist Chaplain in Occupied Japan

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Ohio State University

In November 1945, the United States military took over the use of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison in order to house those charged by the Allied Powers with war crimes. For close to three years, Hanayama Shinshō served as the prison’s volunteer Buddhist chaplain, attending thirty-six executions. Hanayama did not protest the imposition of the death penalty but this essay argues that in his work as chaplain he nonetheless resisted the carceral logic shaping life and death inside Sugamo by mobilizing the ritual and narrative repertoire of Pure Land Buddhism. In Hanayama’s framing, Sugamo was a site of liberation as well as confinement, affording the condemned a unique opportunity to reflect upon the past and commit themselves to a different future, even in death. As Hanayama tells it, the peace discovered by the dead was an absolute peace, transcending politics; he also insists, however, on a connection between this absolute peace and the ordinary peace that the living might hope to secure. The article concludes with a consideration of the political and ethical implications of Hanayama’s reading of the dead as having “found peace” in light of larger conversations about how best to remember—or forget—the nation’s dark past, and what it means to share responsibility for crimes against humanity.

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Volume 25 2018

Buddhist Leadership

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Volume 25, 2018

Beyond Precepts in Conceptualizing Buddhist Leadership

Phra Nicholas Thanissaro
University of Warwick

Monastic saṅgha members may be seen as monopolizing leadership in traditional forms of Buddhism. The usual Theravādin justification for this is that monastics keep a greater number of precepts than laypeople and therefore provide a higher standard of ethical leadership as well as being symbols of their religion. Such allocation of authority to monks breaks down where the monastic-lay distinction blurs. This paper presents a review of the literature of anthropological and attitude research findings to explore how the demand for alternative modes of leadership, such as charismatic, visionary, servant, facilitative, strategic, or participative leadership or management, has opened up opportunities for lay people to take more prominent roles in Buddhist leadership in Western Buddhism as well as contemporary Asian contexts.

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Volume 24 2017

Review: Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017

Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record: Sharpening a Sword at the Dragon Gate. By Steven Heine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-939776-1 (hardback) 978-0-19-939777-8 (paperback), $105.00 USD (hardback) $36.95 USD (paperback).

Reviewed by Rafal K. Stepien

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Volume 24 2017

Review: Gods of Medieval Japan

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Volume 24, 2017

Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 1: The Fluid Pantheon by Bernard Faure. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015, xii + 496 pages, ISBN 978-0-8248-3933-8 (hardback), $55.00.
Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 2: Protectors and Predators by Bernard Faure. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015, x + 512 pages, ISBN 978-0-8248-3931-4 (hardback), $55.00.
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Reviewed by Joseph P. Elacqua

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Volume 22 2015

Holistic Eco-Buddhism and the Problem of Universal Identity

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 22, 2015

Nature’s No-Thingness: Holistic Eco-Buddhism and the Problem of Universal Identity

Marek Sullivan
University of Oxford

“Holistic eco-Buddhism” has been roundly criticized for its heterodoxy and philosophical incoherence: the Buddha never claimed we should protect an “eco-self” and there are serious philosophical problems attendant on “identifying with things.” Yet this essay finds inadequate attention has been paid to East Asian sources. Metaphysical issues surrounding eco-Buddhism, i.e., problems of identity and difference, universalism and particularity, have a long history in Chinese Buddhism. In particular, I examine the notion of “merging with things” in pre-Huayan and Huayan Buddhism, suggesting these offer unexplored possibilities for a coherent holistic eco-Buddhism based on the differentiating effects of activity and functionality.

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Volume 21 2014

Dōgen’s Primer on the Nonmoral Virtues of the Good Person

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Volume 21, 2014

Dōgen’s Primer on the Nonmoral Virtues of the Good Person

Douglas K. Mikkelson
University of Hawai’i at Hilo

The Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki provides a good introduction to Dōgen’s ideas about the virtues possessed by “the good person.” His depiction includes, but extends beyond, the conception of a “morally good” human being. This is evident by the number of “nonmoral” virtues that are manifest in the text. Edmund Pincoffs presents a schematization of numerous virtues based on his conception of virtues and vices as dispositional properties that provide ground for preference or avoidance of persons. This schematization seems especially well suited for an exploration and description of the nonmoral virtues that appear in the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki.

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Volume 17 2010

Human Rights Founded on Buddha-Nature

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 17, 2010

Founding Human Rights within Buddhism: Exploring Buddha-Nature as an Ethical Foundation

Anton Luis Sevilla
Ateneo de Manila University

In this article, I hope to suggest (1) a fertile ground for human rights and social ethics within Japanese intellectual history and (2) a possible angle for connecting Dōgen’s ethical views with his views on private religious practice. I begin with a review of the attempts to found the notion of rights within Buddhism. I focus on two well-argued attempts: Damien Keown’s foundation of rights on the Four Noble Truths and individual soteriology and Jay Garfield’s foundation of rights on the compassionate drive to liberate others. I then fuse these two approaches in a single concept: Buddha-nature. I analyze Dōgen’s own view on the practice-realization of Buddha-nature, and the equation of Buddha-nature with being, time, emptiness, and impermanence. I end with tentative suggestions concerning how Dōgen’s particular view on Buddha-nature might affect any social ethics or view of rights that is founded on it.

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Volume 15 2008

Suzuki Shōsan’s Mōanjō and The Doctrine of the Mean

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Volume 15, 2008

Guiding the Blind Along the Middle Way: A Parallel Reading of Suzuki Shōsan’s Mōanjō and The Doctrine of the Mean

Anton Luis C. Sevilla
Ateneo de Manila University

Japanese intellectual culture is a mélange of many schools of thought—Shinto, many forms of Buddhism, Confucianism, and so on. However, these schools of thought are distinct in approach and focus, and key ideas of one school may even be found to be in contradiction with the key ideas of other schools of thought. Many have deliberately tried, with varying degrees of success, to reconcile these schools of thought, academically, politically, and so forth. But amidst these attempts, one that stands out for its uncontrived naturalness and vitality is that of Zen Master Shōsan.

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Volume 12 2005

Zen Social Ethics in Japan

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Volume 12, 2005

What’s Compassion Got to Do with It? Determinants of Zen Social Ethics in Japan

Christopher Ives
Stonehill College

Judging from pronouncements by contemporary Engaged Buddhists, one might conclude that historical expressions of Zen social ethics have rested on the foundation of compassion and the precepts. The de facto systems of social ethics in Japanese Zen, however, have been shaped largely by other epistemological, sociological, and historical factors, and compassion should best be understood as a “theological virtue” that historically has gained specificity from those other factors.

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Volume 12 2005

Conference: Revisioning Karma

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Volume 12, 2005

Papers from the JBE Online conference

on “Revisioning Karma”

 

Honorary Chairman and Convener: Dale Wright
Occidental College, Los Angeles

 

Critical Questions Towards a Naturalized Concept of Karma in Buddhism

Dale Wright
Occidental College

Groundwork for a Metaphysic of Buddhist Morals: A New Analysis of Puñña and Kusala, in Light of Sukka

Martin Adam
University of Victoria

Merit Transfer in Mahāyāna Buddhism

Barbra Clayton
Mt. Allison University

Reflections on Kant and Karma

Bradford Cokelet
Northwestern University

Karma, Rebirth, and Mental Causation

Christian Coseru
College of Charleston

Is the Buddhist Doctrine of Karma Cognitively Meaningful?

James Deitrick
University of Central Arkansas

Valuing Karma: A Critical Concept for Orienting Interdependence with Wisdom, Attentive Mastery and Moral Clarity

Peter Hershock
East-West Center

Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil

Whitley Kaufman
University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Karma, Character, and Consequentialism

Damien Keown
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Karma in the Later Texts of the Pāli Canon

Jessica Main
McGill University

Karma: Buddhism and the Phenomenology of the Ethical

Eric Nelson
University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Dark and Bright Karma: A New Reading

Abraham Velez
Georgetown University

The Reactionary Role of Karma in 20th Century Japan

Brian Victoria
University of Adelaide

Volume 05 1998

Buddhism and the Morality of Abortion

ISSN:1076–9005
Volume 5 1995

Buddhism and the Morality of Abortion

Michael G. Barnhart
Kingsborough, CUNY

It is quite clear from a variety of sources that abortion has been severely disapproved of in the Buddhist tradition. It is also equally clear that abortion has been tolerated in Buddhist Japan and accommodated under exceptional circumstances by some modern Buddhists in the UṢ. Those sources most often cited that prohibit abortion are Theravādin and ancient. By contrast, Japanese Buddhism as well as the traditions out of which a more lenient approach emerges are more recent and Mahāyāna traditions. Buddhism itself, therefore, speaks with more than one moral voice on this issue, and furthermore, the nature of the moral debate may have important applications for similarly situated others and constitute an enlargement of the repertoire of applicable moral theories and rationales.

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Volume 05 1998

Abortion, Ambiguity, and Exorcism

SSN:1076-9005
Volume 5, 1998

Abortion, Ambiguity, and Exorcism

William R. LaFleur
University of Pennsylvania

In Japan, persons who have had abortions but believe that a fetus has more value than merely disposable matter may act on that belief, most commonly by making a ritual apology to the spiritual aspect of the fetus, referred to as a mizuko or “child of the waters.” R. Zwi Werblowsky wrote a scathing attack on the practice of mizuko kuyô across the board, claiming that it has been nothing more than a scam from beginning to end. And now, in Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan, Helen Hardacre has given us a study which, in essence, makes much the same claim. The issues Hardacre raises are important, not just for an understanding of Japanese religion but because of what they may tell us about the state of our own debates in North America. By this I mean not only our debates about abortion but also about religion, especially as expressed in societies different from our own.

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Volume 04 1997

A Shin Critique of Buddhist Ethics

ISSN:1076-9005 
Volume 4 1997

Teleologized “Virtue” or Mere Religious “Character”? A Critique of Buddhist Ethics From the Shin Buddhist Point of View

Stephen J. Lewis and Galen Amstutz

When comparative ethicists consider the question of ethics in Buddhism, they are tempted to implicate conceptions of teleology and virtue from Western philosophy. Such implications cannot apply to Mahāyāna exemplified in the Japanese Shin tradition. Shin is characterized not only by emptiness philosophy but also by its emphasis on spontaneous (tariki) enlightenment; both of these features undercut the notion that Buddhism can ultimately concern an intentional goal. But a teleological or virtue-oriented sensibility is not needed for the purposes of ordinary life. On the contrary, Shin social history has demonstrated that a powerful tradition of practical life based on Buddhist teaching can exist perfectly well without it. Such wisdom manifests itself both socially and at the individual level as a kind of character, if not ethics in the usual sense.

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Volume 04 1997

Masao Abe, Zen, and Social Ethics

ISSN:1076-9005
Volume 4 1997

Masao Abe, Zen Buddhism, and Social Ethics

Daniel Palmer
Purdue University

As the discourse in the West comes to focus more upon social issues, any form of understanding that is to remain alive must be able to respond to such concerns. If Western Buddhism is to survive it must illustrate how it can address these issues. I will argue that Abe recognizes that this has been an area in which Buddhism has been traditionally deficient, but that by reinterpreting several key Buddhist concepts Abe offers a new paradigm of Buddhism that does allow for the possibility of social critique while still retaining the essential insights of traditional Zen Buddhism. In the first section of the paper I will develop the specific nature of the criticisms in relation to the traditional understanding of Buddhist doctrine. In the second section I will show how Abe’s transvaluation of Zen Buddhism in light of his dialogical hermeneutic takes account of these criticisms and develops the resources within Zen thought to deal with them.

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Volume 04 1997

Review: Japanese Buddhism and Comparative Philosophy

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 4 1997

The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism. By Steve Odin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Pp. xvi, 482. ISBN: 0-7914-2492-8 (paperback), $24.95.

Working Emptiness: Toward a Third Reading of Emptiness in Buddhism and Postmodern Thought. By Newman Robert Glass. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1995. Pp. ix, 146. ISBN: 0-7885-0080-5 (cloth), $38.95; ISBN: 0-7885-0081-3 (paperback), $25.95.

Reviewed by Steven Heine

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Volume 03 1996

Development of Buddhist Economic Ethics

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism:­ Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China and Japan

Gregory K. Ornatowski
Boston University

This paper offers an outline of the development of Buddhist economic ethics using examples from early Theravāda Buddhism in India and the Mahāyāna tradition as it evolved in India, medieval China, and medieval and early modern Japan, in order to illustrate the pattern of continuities and transformations these ethics have undergone. By “economic ethics” the paper refers to four broad areas: (1) attitudes toward wealth, i.e., its accumulation, use, and distribution, including the issues of economic justice and equality/ inequality; (2) attitudes toward charity, i.e., how and to whom wealth should be given; (3) attitudes toward human labor and secular occupations in society; and (4) actual economic activities of temples and monasteries which reflect the lived-practice of Buddhist communities’ economic ethics.

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