The “Business” of Japanese Religion

Over the past few months, I’ve talked about Tanabe and Reader’s excellent research into Japanese religion, in the book Practically Religious and their efforts to explore Japanese religion on the ground, contrary to what Western scholars have often overlooked. As I finished the book, I spent 200 pages reading about the economics and business behind Japanese religious institutions, and I think the authors make a strong statement on this subject when they write (emphasis added by me):

In examining the commercial dimensions of the sale of practical benefits—and the economic imperatives that underpin the activities of religious institutions in Japan—one has to recognize that economics, marketing, and commercialization are part of the religious process: they go hand in glove with the ethical and spiritual meanings of religious practice that we have discussed in earlier chapters. No doubt there are tasteful as well as reprehensible ways of doing business, but it is pointless to criticize religious establishments for their economic involvements. These activities are essential to the well-being of the temple or shrine and therefore to the continued practice of religion itself. The promise of practical benefits is not, in any case, simply a matter of securing economic stability: it is also a prime means of making faith and asserting religious truth. (pg. 229-230)

The authors go on to cite genuine Buddhist sutras such as the Medicine Buddha Sutra and others which affirm this, and demonstrate that Buddhism is a true and real religion.¹

Later, the authors also challenge the old myth, still frequent seen on the Internet, that Japanese Buddhism is “moribund” or “dying out”:

Thus the widespread portrayal of established religion as moribund must be reconsidered. In reality, we suggest, it is when the established religions, especially Buddhism, have departed from their central (and sutra-validated) dynamic of this-worldly benefits—concerning themselves with the ritual etiquette of social structures and the maintenance of social order and formality and depending on a settled and parish-based clientele through the danka system—that they have run into problems of stagnation. When they have focused on individual aggrandizement and catered to the pursuit of worldly benefits, they have displayed an inventiveness and a capacity to attract attention that belies the image of decline. (pg. 233)

The danka system (檀家) is a legacy of the Edo Period, when families across Japan were forced by law to register with a local Buddhist temple, while the Shogunate used the temples to track the population and keep an eye on them. I’ve seen a few examples of parish-based Buddhist temples in person, and this is what most people describe as “funeral Buddhism”, but as Reader and Tanabe demonstrate throughout the book, this is only one part of the picture. Most non-Japanese fail to recognize the importance of other components that show that Buddhism and Japanese religion in general are lively and dynamic as ever.

One can describe similar phenomenons in Western religions as well where some aspects of Christianity have become moribund and rigid, while others have been dynamic and adapted to the times. No doubt other religions too. It’s easy to forget this though because we live right in the middle of it, so the book provides an interesting mirror to our religious culture as well.

Anyhow, the book has been pretty engaging and the on-the-ground research is truly impressive. It also helped explain a lot of things to me that I learned through my wife, but couldn’t explain in words (e.g. burning omamori after use). I hope other Japanophiles and Buddhists will take the time to read the book.

P.S. Felt like posting this on Golden Week, since a lot of folks will probably be making tourist trips to famous shrines and temples, among other things.

¹ Westerners who believe that Buddhism is “just a philosophy” should be reminded that philosophies only explain how things work. They have no practical value, and cannot tell you what to do with your life, or how to do it. Buddhism, as Francis Cook once wrote, “is praxis“. Buddhism is about doing. Hence in the Buddhist texts it is referred to as the “holy life”. One can chose to walk it or not, but it is the holy life. It is neither religion nor philosophy.