Non-Buddhist Buddhism and non-Christian Christianity in Japan

Authors

• Harry Thomsen

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67035

Keywords:

Buddhism, Japan, Buddhism -- Missions, Ordination -- Buddhism, Monasticism and religious orders, Conversion, Christianity, Religious movements, Popular, Sōka Gakkai, Shinto, Zen (Buddhist school), Gautama Buddha, Christianity and Buddhism

Abstract

The New Religions in Japan, is in disguise a real renascence of Buddhism. That, for one thing, it forces Buddhism into accommodating and streamlining for the new age at a much more rapid pace than would otherwise have been possible, and that, for another, the New Religions themselves in reality represent Buddhism with its fantastic ability to change. It may to some extent be said that Buddhism is a religious idea in constant movement more than a religion as such—and some observers might be tempted to say that Buddhism, as represented by the New Religions, has moved so far that it has been cut off from its roots and no more is master of its development. The Buddhist will probably answer that this is exactly the main pride of Buddhism, that it always accommodates, that it thrives on syncretism and religious cocktails, that it is always in evergreen renascence, modern to all times.