|
Buddhism has undergone many changes after three
centuries of an incredibly dynamic Japanese society. Buddhist concepts
about such things as Paradise and the transfer of the soul linger on in
folklore but do not serve as guidelines for most people. Monasteries and
temples, both great and small, cover the Japanese landscape but usually play
only a subdued background role in the life of the community. A few
people come to worship and find solace in the Buddhist message of salvation.
Temple grounds are often the neighborhood playground for children. Most
funerals are conducted by Buddhist priests, and burial grounds attached to
temples are the place of interment for most people after cremation, a custom
learned from India.
Some families have ancestral tablets, which they place
on small Buddhist alters on a shelf at home. The Tokugawa system of
requiring the registry of all persons as parishioners of some Buddhist
temple--the purpose of this was to uncover secret Christians--has given all
Japanese families a Buddhist sectarian affiliation, though this usually only
indicates the sect of the temple where the family burial plot is located.
Most temples and monasteries today maintain their
rituals, though often with particularly small numbers of monks or priests.
Some sects took on new intellectual and religious vigor in modern times, in
part response to the Christian missionary movement. They developed published
literature, schools, and even a Buddhist missionary movement in Asia and
America. A few modern Japanese, such as some prewar military men and
postwar business executives, have practiced Zen, but their numbers are small
and their concern is usually less with Buddhist enlightenment than with the
development of their own personalities. Modern Japanese life is full of
traces of Buddhism as a sort of background melody, not as a staple of their
lives.
|
