The Japanese Spiritual Worldview

Chapter One

Buddhism Arrives — An Encounter with Thought from Abroad

第一章 — 仏教の伝来・外来思想との出会い

Introduction — New Water Flows over the Ancient Stratum

What we saw in the prologue was the deepest and oldest stratum of Japanese spiritual culture — the simple, unsystematised sensibility in which a god dwells in every thing of nature. It is the underground water that has flowed through these islands since before writing.

Over this ancient stratum, in the sixth century, a great body of thought flows in from the continent: Buddhism.

This was no mere arrival of a new religion. Buddhism brought a fundamental sense of time the Japanese had not before possessed — "impermanence." All things shift, change, and in time perish. This sensibility would seep into every corner of Japanese culture and become the soil that nurtures all the axes of this essay: Zen, the way of the warrior, the way of tea. In this chapter, we wish to depict the moment of that encounter.

I. A Sixth-Century Event — Buddha Images and Sutras Cross the Sea

Buddhism was officially transmitted to Japan in the sixth century. King Seong of Baekje, on the Korean peninsula, sent to Emperor Kinmei of the Yamato court a gilt-bronze image of the Buddha and sutras, among other things — and this is regarded as the beginning of Japanese Buddhism.1

Two dates are given. There is the year 552, based on the Nihon Shoki, and the year 538, based on such sources as the Jōgū Shōtoku Hōō Teisetsu and the Gangōji Engi.23 Present-day scholarship favours 538.34 Such an official, state-to-state transmission is called the "official transmission of Buddhism" (bukkyō kōden); in fact, through exchange at the popular level, Buddhism is thought to have been transmitted in fragments earlier still.2

In any case, in the middle of the sixth century these islands came face to face with an utterly foreign system of thought — Buddhism, born in India, matured by way of China and Korea, and possessed of a profound philosophy and cosmology.

II. The Struggle over Acceptance — The Old Gods and the New Buddha

The coming of this new thought did not proceed in peace. Over whether to accept Buddhism, the Yamato court split in two.

It was the Soga clan, with their deep ties to immigrant families, who sought to embrace Buddhism.1 Opposing them were the likes of the Mononobe clan, who served the old gods.1 The Mononobe resisted, holding that to worship a god come from abroad — the Buddha — would call down the wrath of the gods of this land, the kunitsukami.5

Here a striking configuration appears. The old sensibility that honoured the "eight million gods," seen in the prologue, collided head-on with the newly arrived Buddhism. The conflict was not settled in a single generation; it carried over to the sons of the Soga and the Mononobe, until at last, in 587, the Soga defeated the Mononobe and laid the ground in which Buddhism could take root.15 The young Prince Shōtoku (Prince Umayado) is said to have joined this battle.5

In time Prince Shōtoku gave Buddhism his devoted protection, raising temples such as Hōryū-ji and Shitennō-ji.5 In the land of the old gods, the teaching of the Buddha had truly begun to put down roots.

III. The Gods and the Buddhas Did Not Wage War — Syncretism

Here a remarkable phenomenon arises, one that shows the suppleness of Japanese spiritual culture.

The newly come Buddhism did not drive out the old Shintō. Conversely, the old Shintō did not refuse Buddhism outright. Over a long span of time, the two mingled and came to coexist. This phenomenon is called shinbutsu-shūgō, the syncretism of kami and Buddhas.

Recalling the nature of the Japanese view of nature seen in the prologue, this is no wonder. The sensibility that honours the eight million gods sets up no single, absolute god to begin with. Gods may be without number. If so, the newly come Buddha, too, may find a place among those countless gods. The suppleness to take in a god from abroad was present in the Japanese view of nature from the first.

This supple coexistence is what characterises Japanese spiritual culture. In the monotheistic world, the coming of a new faith often breeds an irreconcilable conflict with the old. But in Japan, the old gods and the new Buddhas have been enshrined together on the same soil for more than a thousand years. A temple beside a shrine; people visiting a shrine at the New Year and holding their funerals at a temple — this layered form of faith, which continues to this day, began in this age.

IV. What Buddhism Brought — Time as "Impermanence"

The deepest gift Buddhism brought to Japan was neither temple nor Buddha image. It was a sense of time — "impermanence" (mujō).

"All things are impermanent" (shogyō mujō) is, in origin, a fundamental Buddhist idea.6 It holds that everything in this world changes ceaselessly, and that nothing remains forever in the same form.7 Youth, life, wealth, rank, power — the very things people wish to be eternal are precisely those that must shift and, in time, perish.7

This vision of impermanence would become the skeleton of Japanese culture. In the Kamakura period, against the great turning of the age that was the Genpei war, a literature taking impermanence as its theme arose, one work after another.8 The Tale of the Heike opens by intoning, "The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things," and depicts the fall of the once all-powerful Heike clan as an embodiment of impermanence.7 Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (An Account of My Hut), gazing at the flow of a river, holds through the whole of the work the vision of impermanence — that all things shift and perish.9

What is striking is that the Japanese did not receive this "impermanence" as mere pessimism or despair. Rather, the vision of impermanence grew into a singular sensibility: to feel what passes as fleeting, and to find beauty precisely within that fleetingness.8 A heart that mourns the falling cherry blossom and feels it beautiful because it falls. This was a form of spirit peculiar to Japan, born of the meeting between the sensibility of "being with nature," seen in the prologue, and the Buddhist sense of "impermanence."

And it is this sensibility — a tenderness toward what passes — that becomes the source of a great current flowing into the "one encounter in a lifetime" (ichigo ichie) of the way of tea, into the aesthetic of wabi and sabi, and into Bashō's "the constant and the changing" (fueki-ryūkō).

Conclusion — The Soil is Prepared

What we have seen in this chapter is the moment when the great current of Buddhism flowed into the Japanese spiritual world.

In the sixth century, Buddhism, come across the sea, passed through struggle with the old gods and at last put down roots in Japan in the form of syncretism. And it brought to these islands a new sense of time: "impermanence." All things pass — and for that very reason, what is here now is beautiful. This sensibility dissolved into the reverence for nature seen in the prologue and shaped the deep soil of Japanese culture.

The soil is prepared. In the next chapter we proceed to the first axis of this essay, grown from this soil. In the Kamakura period, one form of Buddhism comes again across the sea and exerts a decisive influence upon the spirit of the warrior, upon the way of tea, and upon the Japanese sense of beauty itself: Zen. Zen will deepen this sensibility of "impermanence" into a spirit of concentration upon the "here and now," and bring forth Japan's singular aesthetic of simplicity.

Notes & Sources

This is the first chapter of the white paper "The Japanese Spiritual Worldview." The facts stated rest on the sources cited. Two dates for the official transmission of Buddhism (538, 552) exist and are both noted in the text. This essay treats Buddhism not as an object of faith or proselytism but from the side of its historical influence upon Japanese spiritual culture and the sense of beauty. Primary sources (the texts of the Nihon Shoki, The Tale of the Heike, the Hōjōki, etc.) will be reinforced in future revisions. The account of "a sensibility that turns impermanence into beauty" involves a reading drawn from cultural history.

Footnotes

  1. "The Transmission of Buddhism to Japan and Prince Shōtoku's Buddhist Faith," Fukudenji (Shinshū Ōtani-ha) (on the gift, in 538 [or 552] of the Asuka period, of a gilt-bronze image of the Buddha and scriptures from King Seong of Baekje to Emperor Kinmei as the beginning of Japanese Buddhism; on the conflict between the pro-Buddhist Soga and the anti-Buddhist Mononobe; and on the Soga victory laying the ground for Buddhism). http://fukudenji.jp/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. "Two Dates for the Transmission of Buddhism: 552 in the Nihon Shoki and 538 in the Jōgū Shōtoku Hōō Teisetsu" (on the 538 date resting on the Jōgū Shōtoku Hōō Teisetsu and the 552 date on the Nihon Shoki; on both holding that a Buddha image and scriptures were sent by King Seong of Baekje; and on the term "official transmission" reflecting an earlier popular-level transmission). https://www.sougiya.biz/kiji_detail.php?cid=1256 ↩ ↩2

  3. "A Mnemonic for the Transmission of Buddhism," Japanese History Mnemonics (on the Gangōji Engi and Jōgū Shōtoku Hōō Teisetsu as grounds for the 538 date, and on 538 being favoured over the Nihon Shoki's 552). https://nihonshi-goro.com/bukkyo/ ↩ ↩2

  4. "The History of the Transmission of Buddhism," Touken World (on the two dates, 538 and 552, with 538 now the prevailing view). https://www.touken-world.jp/tips/59180/ ↩

  5. "The Transmission of Buddhism to Japan," Sōka Gakkai (on the struggle between the pro-Buddhist Soga and the anti-Buddhist Mononobe; on the fall of the Mononobe in 587 and the formal acceptance of Buddhism; and on Prince Shōtoku protecting Buddhism and raising Hōryū-ji and Shitennō-ji). https://k-dic.sokanet.jp/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. "Reflections from The Tale of the Heike on Impermanence," Jōdo Shinshū (on shogyō mujō as a Buddhist term in origin; on Buddhism as a thought strongly marked by impermanence; and on the many impermanence-themed works of the Kamakura period — the Heike, the Tsurezuregusa, the Hōjōki). https://1kara.tulip-k.jp/buddhism/2017061998.html ↩

  7. "The Sound of the Gion Shōja Bell," Discover Kyoto Today (on shogyō mujō meaning that all in this world changes and nothing endures; on youth, life, wealth, rank and power being no exception; and on the Heike's opening as a prelude to the clan's rise and fall as an instance of impermanence). https://discoverkyototoday.com/gion-shoja-bell-meaning-heike-monogatari/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. "'Impermanence' and 'Sympathy for the Underdog,'" nippon.com (on the Genpei war as a distillation of the Japanese sense of impermanence; on the Buddhist vision of impermanence underlying the Heike and leading to "the mighty must fall"; and on impermanence shaping the Japanese mentality). https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-topics/c10502/ ↩ ↩2

  9. "Hōjōki," National Institute of Japanese Literature / "An Explanation of the Hōjōki," Katei Kyōshi First (on Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki as an early-Kamakura essay grounded in the Buddhist vision of impermanence — that "all things change ceaselessly and in time perish"). https://www.nijl.ac.jp/etenji/bungakushi/contents/detail/detail03-01_009.html ↩