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Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Paperback)
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Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Paperback)
Series: Studies in East Asian Buddhism
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Original enlightenment thought (hongaku shiso) dominated Buddhist
intellectual circles throughout Japan's medieval period.
Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be
achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all
things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the
primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is. Seen in its true
aspect, every activity of daily life-eating, sleeping, even one's
deluded thinking-is the Buddha's conduct. Emerging from within the
powerful Tendai School, ideas of original enlightenment were
appropriated by a number of Buddhist traditions and influenced
nascent theories about the kami (local deities) as well as medieval
aesthetics and the literary and performing arts. Scholars and
commentators have long recognized the historical importance of
original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is
to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist
philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the
paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality.
According other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism
that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a
decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious
discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology
that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized
hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance
or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault
line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be
differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and
Nichiren) that arose during Japan's medieval period. Jacqueline
Stone's groundbreaking study moves beyond the treatment of the
original enlightenment doctrine as abstract philosophy to explore
its historical dimension. Drawing on a wealth of medieval primary
sources and modern Japanese scholarship, it places this discourse
in its ritual, institutional, and social contexts, illuminating its
importance to the maintenance of traditions of lineage and the
secret transmission of knowledge that characterized several
medieval Japanese elite culture. It sheds new light on interpretive
strategies employed in pre-modern Japanese Buddhist texts, an area
that hitherto has received a little attention. Through these and
other lines of investigation, Stone problematizes entrenched
notions of "corruption" in the medieval Buddhist establishment.
Using the examples of Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism and their
interactions throughout the medieval period, she calls into
question both overly facile distinctions between "old" and "new"
Buddhism and the long-standing scholarly assumptions that have
perpetuated them. This study marks a significant contribution to
ongoing debates over definitions of Buddhism in the Kamakura era
(1185-1333), long regarded as a formative period in Japanese
religion and culture. Stone argues that "original enlightenment
thought" represents a substantial rethinking of Buddhist
enlightenment that cuts across the distinction between "old" and
"new" institutions and was particularly characteristic of the
medieval period.
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