Are we not all Innately Buddhas?
No period in the
history of Japanese Buddhism has attracted more scholarly attention than
the Kamakura period (1185 to 1333). Many Buddhist studies on the developments
in this period, either from a historical or a doctrinal standpoint, have
focused on a particular school or founder of that school. Unfortunately,
these studies sometimes tend to be rather biased because of sectarian
affiliations or hagiographic inclinations. Those studies that try to capture
the characteristics of Kamakura Buddhism as a whole fall into another
category. The dominant paradigm they often use is the distinction between
the old or orthodox schools such as from the Shingon and Tendai traditions,
and the new or heterodox forms, like the Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren
schools. These studies, however, occasionally lapse into oversimplification,
or run into the mistake of using a selective choice of data in order to
fit a preconceived model.
* By MARK BUIJNSTERS
The
present study by Jacqueline Stone on the discourse of 'original enlightenment'
(hongaku), the claim
that all beings are Buddhas inherently, has the refreshing and highly
recommendable quality of being subject to neither of these unacademic
approaches. Since its introduction to the Japanese academic world by
the renowned Buddhologist Shimaji Dait¯o (1875-1927), hongaku
thought in medieval Japan has been a prominent topic of scholarly debate.
Hongaku thought has
alternately been exalted as 'the climax of Buddhist philosophy' and condemned
as 'not being Buddhism' or as a 'game of concepts'. But if the latter
two allegations are justifiable, Stone wonders, how did such a tradition
managed to survive and flourish for nearly six hundred years?
Stone's book is divided into three parts consisting of seven
chapters, and is completed by a thorough conclusion. In the first part,
'Perspectives and Problems', Stone traces the genealogy of hongaku
thought, discusses its roots and subsequent developments in the Japanese
Tendai School, and lists the various problems that confront the researcher
in this area. Chapter two outlines the major issues concerning the scholarship
on the relationship between Tendai hongaku
thought and the emergence of the so-called 'new Kamakura Buddhism'.
Part two, 'The World of Medieval Tendai', explores 'the
culture of secret transmission', the tradition of master-disciple lineages
in which oral teachings (kuden)
related to hongaku ideas
were developed and disseminated. In addition, Stone introduces and analyses
other, overlapping Tendai lineages involved in the production of hongaku
discourse and shows that, contrary to received scholarly opinion, the
medieval period was not a time of Tendai scholarly decline but one of
intellectual activity. Chapter four addresses the hermeneutical techniques
employed in medieval Tendai kuden
texts. The main concern here is to demonstrate that hongaku
literature did not amount to an abstract body of philosophy that displayed
a decline in orthodox modes of exegesis, but instead represented a vital
and innovative tradition that creatively reformulated doctrinal issues
in response to institutional change. In the final chapter of the second
part which I think forms the core of this book Stone reappraises
the relationship of hongaku
thought to the new Kamakura Buddhism by disclosing their shared paradigm
of re-imagining enlightenment or salvation in a nonlinear fashion. Without
ignoring the mutual distinctions in doctrine and practice, she departs
from the use of traditional categories that have hitherto been used to
analyse Kamakura Buddhism. She argues that both the Tendai and new traditions
were concerned with liberation that was directly accessible and not dependent
on moral cultivation or the long-term accumulation of merit.
In part three, 'Nichiren and His Successors', the discussion
shifts focus from medieval Tendai hongaku
thought to Nichiren (1222-1282), one of the founders of the new Kamakura
schools, and to the tradition that emerged from his following. Stone addresses
the scholarly controversy about whether Nichiren upheld, rejected, or
reformed Tendai hongaku thought.
She concludes that Nichiren appropriated and developed the same, non-linear
paradigm of liberation found in hongaku
thought, but transformed it by assimilating it to a different social context
and set of ideological concerns. Next, the discussion is taken beyond
the thirteenth century in an examination of the interaction that took
place between the 'Lotus Sect' (Hokkesh(breve)u) as the Nichiren
tradition called itself -- and the medieval Tendai institutions. She shows
that by appropiating interpretive techniques and doctrinal formulations
of Tendai hongaku
thought, the Hokkesh¯u developed its own style of original enlightenment
discourse.
This book brims over with stimulating discussions, sharp
analyses, and a variety of interesting topics. At the same time, Stone
manages to keep her line of argument clear and comprehensible. For those
reasons alone, the present study is valuable both to the specialist and
to anyone interested in Japanese Buddhism in general. It would go beyond
the scope of this review to discuss this book in detail, but what follows
are a few comments for further thought.
In view of her previous publications and the rich history
of debate within the Nichiren school itself, Stone's choice of Nichiren
for discussing the relationship between Tendai hongaku
thought and the new Kamakura Buddhism is understandable. I wonder, however,
whether it has been a good choice to take the discussion beyond the thirteenth
century only in one final chapter. Both in her preface and in the fifth
chapter, Stone emphasizes that she '[has] delimited this study by focusing
on ideas of original enlightenment solely within the context of Tendai
and one of the new movements that emerged from it' (p. xiii-xiv) and that
'this [shared] paradigm [of re-imagining liberation in a non-linear fashion]
by no means encompasses the whole of Kamakura Buddhism' (p. 234). It is
exactly the approach of employing this self-imposed restriction in the
scope of her study that considerably adds to its strength. By extending
the discussion on hongaku
thought to the interactions between the Lotus and Tendai traditions after
Nichiren's death, which in itself would deserve a study on its own, the
analysis becomes a bit too generalistic for my taste.
In addition, Stone herself makes a couple of observations
that I would have liked her to elaborate on. After discussing four characteristics
of the paradigm of Buddhist liberation that were shared by Tendai hongaku
thought and the new Kamakura Buddhism (pp. 228-234), she remarks that
'competing models were certainly available. [...] The vinaya [Buddhist
precepts] revival movements that appeared from within the Nara schools,
for example, may represent a different understanding of practice and enlightenment'
(p. 234). It is one of the representatives of these movements, the Kegon
and Shingon monk, My¯oe (1173-1232), whose view of bodhicitta
(the mind aspiring to enlightenment) being the essence of all Buddhism
that has recently become a topic of scholarly debate in relation to hongaku
thought. In her conclusion, Stone quotes the authoritative scholar Sueki
Fumihiko to acknowledge the formative influence of Heian period Buddhism
(794 to 1185). According to Stone, 'all the significant features of hongaku
discourse [...] can be traced to the Heian period' (p. 365). Stone indeed
discusses the sources of origin of hongaku
thought, but both this origination and the role of hongaku
thought in the 'orthodox' traditions other than that of Tendai, deserve
more attention.
Stone opens her excellent study with the observation that 'this volume should be taken as a preliminary, rather than a definitive, study', and concludes that 'this study is an introduction; much more waits to be done'. Let us hope we will soon hear from her again. *
Stone, Jacqueline, Original
Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medievel Japanese Buddhism,
University of Hawai'i Press (1999), xxi + 544 pp., ISBN 0-8248-2026-6.
Character glossary, index, charts, and illustrations.
Marc
Buijnsters, MA is PhD candidate at the Research school CNWS,
the School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies, Leiden. His research
concerns the Pure Land thought of the thirteenth-century priest, My¯oe.
E-mail:
M.M.E. Buijnsters@let.leidenuniv.nl