Buddhism in Japan

Buddha’s Life

• born in Lumbini, Nepal

• Siddartha Gautama

• Sage of Shakya clan

• born into wealth

• Queen Maya -> white elephant visited her dream

• immaculate conception

• avoidance of the vagina -> born from her side

  • women’s bodies seen as a hindrance to salvation

• birth brings new life, purity

• baby takes 7 steps -> lotuses bloom

  • ‘I am the one, under heaven and above earth’

• dragons give him his first bath

• as an adult he sneaks out of the palace

  • he sees an old man, then a sick man, then a dead man -> no escaping death

  • meets an ascetic -> fasting, meditation, etc.

• leaves the palace, practices asceticism

• meditates for years -> isn’t working

• goes to Bodhgaya, sits under Bodhi tree

• after 3 days, king of hell sends forces and temptations

• acheives divine insight -> reality is an illusion

• mudra -> symbolic hand gesture

• our desires make us suffer

Teachings

• Four Noble Truths

  • All existence is suffering

  • The cause of suffering is desire

  • There is an end to suffering

  • Must practice the Noble Eightfold Path

• Noble Eightfold Path

  • Right understanding

  • Right purpose

  • Right speech

  • Right conduct

  • Right livelihood

  • Right effort

  • Right awareness

  • Right concentration

Buddha’s Death

• predicts his own death at 80

  • going to die in Kushinagar (~480 BCE)

  • going to pass into final Nirvana

• death of a founder -> critical moment in any religion

• lived religion vs doctrine of a religion

• many different schools of Buddhism

• ethnographic approach

Icons

• vivified, often anthropomorphic representation of abstract

• formless deity

• Why make an icon?

  • important for rituals

  • propagate the faith

  • karmic merit

  • right conduct

  • earn a reputation of Buddhist and filial piety

• Iconography: archetypal characteristics of a figure

• Style: visual manner in which iconography is depicted

Hotei Buddha

• Chinese monk who lived as an eccentric

• practicing priest, celebrated for oddness

  • maybe a bodhisattva in hiding?

• made a living doing laundry

• hagiography posthumously -> hidden buddha

How to identify a Buddha

• snail shell curls, often blue

• urna -> coil of hair which projected forth? 3 beams of light? translation issue

• 3 rings at the neck -> Buddha, Dharma, sanga

• monastic robes

• typically no jewelry, crowns, luxury 

• stretched down ears

  • hears every prayer

  • also, previously heavy earrings

• sat in a meditation pose

• dharma wheels on his palms and soles

Deities in Mahayana Buddhism

• innumerable Buddhas in Mahayana Buddhism

  • as many as the sands of the Ganges

• also bodhisattvas

  • awakened and enlightened but chose to forgo leaving the wheel of reincarnation until every soul has achieved awakening

    • intersessionary figures

  • still have urna, no snail shell curls

  • draped in wealth -> contradictory but

    • indication of spiritual attainment 

  • often contrapposto stance

• many other categories of deities 

Relics and Reliquaries

• all disciplines connect in relics

• understand -> don’t estrange people of the past

• hollow statues (often of Shakyamuni) filled with relics

  • personal items, textile organs

• difference between bodily relics and museums?

  • modern preservation of celebrity clothing, etc.

• preservation of ashes, etc

• frame matters: weird vs eccentric

  • zen nun Bunchi created calligraphy with fingernails

    • no semantic gap between Namu Amida Butsu and actual Amida Buddha, relics are the Buddha