Buddhism and Shinto Explained: A Complicated History

okay folks look at the religion section of the japan entry in the cia world factbook and you'll notice something a little odd 70.4 percent of the population is shinto 69.8 buddhist wait a minute i'm not a mathematician but that's way over 100 of the population what's going on here well some people say that people in japan are born shinto and die buddhist today shinto in japan mainly focuses on experiences in this earthly life including rites of passage building a sense of community and asking for blessings from the kami meanwhile buddhism handles funerary rights and prepares people for the afterlife and beyond for two religions that seem to harmoniously co-exist there's a lot of disagreement over their historical relationship some claim that shinto has been the distinct and independent indigenous religion of japan since ancient times others such as japanese religion scholar koroda toshio argue that shinto was pretty much the same thing as buddhism for more than a thousand years up until about the mid-19th century as we'll see both of these arguments are a bit of an overstatement in this episode we'll untangle the complicated relationship between shinto and buddhism as i mentioned in episode 1 shinto as we know it grew out of native traditions for venerating kami local gods or forces or spirits that are important to a given place or community but buddhism also had an enormous impact on the way shinto developed by the time buddhism made its way to japan it had already flourished in china for 500 years according to the nihon shoki an 8th century text translated as the chronicles of japan korean monks officially brought buddhism to the yamato court in 552 ce they delivered a letter from their king which promised the emperor that if he embraced buddhism he and his people would have all their wishes fulfilled after this many monks from asia visited the japanese islands introducing the rich literary and visual culture of buddhism through the sutras and the images that they brought as gifts at first people in japan saw buddhist deities as foreign kami who were capable of blessing or punishing people like any other kami however not everybody was excited by the buddha's arrival on their shores while some powerful clans like the soga argued that if buddhism was so popular in china and korea japan should adopt it too others like the mononobe clan warned that adopting buddhism would offend the native kami and lead to disaster it didn't take long for the imperial court to decide to have it both ways on one hand promoting the native kami they identified as their ancestors and promoting the new powerful kami from the asian continent the semi-legendary prince shotoku is credited as one of the first promoters of buddhism in 7th century japan in addition to commissioning temples and sutras he incorporated buddhist doctrine into legal and moral codes following shoku's lead later rulers established separate laws and offices to govern buddhist and kami affairs after a century or two the lines between buddha and kami began to blur this process is called shinbutsu shugo or the combining of kami and buddhas it's useful to think of the relationship between shinto and buddhism as a process of combination because while various groups could combine elements of kami veneration and buddhist practice in all sorts of ways the two traditions never completely merged into a single religion and did not always get along so what did the combination of kami and buddhas look like well we can follow a four stage process over the course of japan's medieval history stretching from the 12th to the 16th century i already mentioned the first stage when buddhas were considered foreign kami in the second stage kami were interpreted as sentient beings who suffered the cycle of birth and rebirth and required enlightenment shrines for the kami were combined with buddhist temples and monks would actually read sutras to the kami to try to teach them about buddhism and lead them to enlightenment in the third stage some kami were enlisted as protectors of buddhism the deity hachiman is a great example hachiman is identified as one of the early mythical emperors a kami of military skill and the patron of warriors and also generally a protector of japan but he's also represented as a kami who became a buddhist priest or as a bodhisattva the fourth stage was the dominant paradigm honji suijaku which interpreted kami as the local manifestations of original buddhist divinities for example ryobu or dual aspect shinto combined elements from shingon buddhism and the ise shrines teaching that the principal kami a matarasu and toyoke were twin manifestations of the buddha vairochana the buddha central to many schools of east asian buddhism japanese buddhist traditions became so rich and so complex that some considered them to be the pinnacle of buddhism they thought of buddhism as a metaphorical tree india was the roots the origin of buddhism china was the branches and leaves and japan was the flowers and fruit the culmination of the buddha's teaching however not all kami were incorporated into a buddhist paradigm some shrines were expressly anti-buddhist and advocated for the strict separation of kami veneration and buddhist practice a great example of a countercultural tradition is yoshida shinto as i mentioned episode 1 the yoshida were an influential family of shinto priests who worked in the ministry of kami affairs for centuries after the devastating onan war in the late 15th century the ministry was in a bad state and yoshida kanetomo saw an opportunity to claim even greater power and authority for his family that's when he publicized his own version of shinto which he claimed was a secret ancient tradition given to his family by amaterasu herself one major feature of yoshida shinto is that he flipped the script of honji suijaku the theory that kami are local manifestations of buddhist divinities yoshida shinto argued that the kami were the divine origin of everything confucianism and buddhism were misguided offshoots of shinto and buddhas were actually the manifestations of kami and foreign lands not the other way around yoshida shinto was so persuasive that the shogun the military ruler of japan gave the family ultimate authority over the majority of shrines and the process for granting shinto priests licenses to practice yoshida shinto and the yoshida family basically cornered the market on official religion by the early 1600s this leads to a bunch of new ideas about shinto as a distinct tradition from buddhism this was part of an academic movement known as national learning or kokugaku these scholars searched ancient texts for an essential core of japanese culture free from foreign influences they hoped that this common culture would unify the japanese people as a nation and stand up against foreign powers like china europe and later the united states out of this movement emerged restoration shinto an idealized shinto which considered a matarasu and her divine descendants the emperor of greatest importance and considered japan to be a sacred land superior to others restoration shinto provided the ideological backbone for the meiji restoration a political revolution which overthrew the shogun's government in 1867 and established a new government with the meiji emperor as its head and here's where it gets intense one year later the meiji government ordered the total separation of shinto and buddhism across japan a policy known as shinbutsu bunri or the separation of kami and buddhas this basically authorized a wave of violence against buddhist property and required that buddhist monks return to secular life state shinto was adopted as a system of civil ritual while buddhism some shinto sex and some new religious movements were categorized as private religious organizations despite this period of violence if we fast forward to today shinto and buddhism seem to have found a new normal shinto shrines are where you go to venerate the kami cleanse impurities express gratitude ask for blessings and celebrate major milestones buddhist temples are where you go to pay your respects to the buddha reflect on the nature of existence and visit a loved one's grave in any japanese household you might find a buddhist altar or a shinto altar you could find both at the same time or neither of them the people in that house might frequently go to temples and shrines only go on special occasions or go not at all at one of those temples you might find a small shrine to a kami and at a shrine you might find statues of the buddha as scholars ian reader and george tanabe remind us shinto and buddhism have 1500 years of history between them and they still have a lot in common such as a focus on how to live a good life and the ability to grant worldly benefits they go so far as to say that this is the common religion of japan but while shinto and buddhism have intersected a lot throughout japan's history their relationship continues to be anything but simple as always thanks for watching and i'll see you next time hey everyone that was episode 2 in our five part first season of shinto today's sponsor is the freedom forum's religious freedom center they've sponsored the last few episodes here on religion for breakfast but just as a reminder they are a non-profit non-sectarian organization committed to educating the public about the first amendment uh they're longtime friends of religion for breakfast i used to work with them back in the day developing some of their online religious literacy classes they've been hosting a series of seminars on critical social movements in american religious history so the next seminar is on sunday october 18th at 3 o'clock p.m that's u.s east coast time please remember that and the final seminar will be about the fight for african-american voting rights during the jim crow era so topics will include the illegal and impossible literacy test that was on louisiana voting ballots that was specifically designed to discriminate against black voters and the speakers will also share stories of black clergy members and activists who fought for their rights to vote in both louisiana and alabama the series is made possible by support from the arthur vining davis foundations you can click on the link below to register thanks for watching i'll see you next time

Channel: ReligionForBreakfast

Views: 223,063

Keywords: Shinto, Shintoism, kami, Amaterasu, Buddhism, Buddhist, Buddha, syncretism, Meiji Empire, Meiji Restoration, Meiji, jinja, shrine, temple, Toyouke, Yoshida, Japanese religion, Japan

Id: ZP9Vo6qJh8A

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020