Critical Readings on Pure Land Buddhism in Japan (3 vols.)

Galen D. Amstutz (Ph.D. Religion and East Asian Studies 1992, Princeton University) has served in a variety of roles including librarian, ESL teacher, Buddhist minister, college professor in the United States, Germany and Japan, translator, journal editor, and administrator at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. He is currently an adjunct instructor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (affiliate of Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California) and publishes on Pure Land Buddhism, starting with Interpreting Amida (1997).

Introduction: Brill Critical Readings on Pure Land Buddhism in Japan



part 1: Useful Overarching Perspectives

1 Buddhism as a Religion of Hope: Observations on the “Logic” of a Doctrine and Its Foundational Myth

 Luis O. Gómez



2 Pure Land Buddhism as an Alternative Mārga

 Mark L. Blum



part 2: Early Presence in Japan

3 The Development of Mappō Thought in Japan (I)

 Michele Marra



4 The Development of Mappō Thought in Japan (II)

 Michele Marra



5 The Growth of Pure Land Buddhism in the Heian Period

 Robert F. Rhodes



6 Ōjōyōshū, Nihon Ōjō Gokuraku-ki, and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan

 Robert F. Rhodes



7 With the Help of “Good Friends”

Deathbed Ritual Practices in Early Medieval Japan

 Jacqueline I. Stone



part 3: Turn to the Nembutsu as the Sole Solution

8 Hōnen on Attaining Pure Land Rebirth: the Selected Nenbutsu of the Original Vow

 Allan A. Andrews



9 Hōnen and Popular Pure Land Piety: Assimilation and Transformation

 Allan A. Andrews



10 Socio-Economic Impacts of Hōnen’s Pure Land Doctrines: an Inquiry into the Interplay between Buddhist Teachings and Institutions

 Martin Repp



part 4: Shinran’s More Radical Turn to the Enlightenment Gift as an Involuntary Emergent Property

11 Faith: Its Arising

 Alfred Bloom



12 “Rely on the Meaning, Not on the Words”

Shinran’s Methodology and Strategy for Reading Scriptures and Writing the Kyōgyōshinshō

 Eisho Nasu



part 5: Formation of a Major Institution: Honganji and its Negotiations with Popular Consciousness

13 From Inspiration to Institution

The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jōdo Shinshū

 James C. Dobbins



14 Shin Buddhist Attitudes towards the Kami

From Shinran to Rennyo

 Robert F. Rhodes



15 Popular Pure Land Teachings of the Zenkōji Nyorai and Shinran

 Eisho Nasu



16 Stand by Your Founder

Honganji’s Struggle with Funeral Orthodoxy

 Mark L. Blum



17 Steadied Ambiguity: the Afterlife in “Popular” Shin Buddhism

 Galen Amstutz



18 Ambivalence Regarding Women and Female Gender in Premodern Shin Buddhism

 Galen Amstutz



part 6: The Alternative Field: Pure Land Striven for in This World

19 Ippen and Pure Land Buddhist Wayfarers in Medieval Japan

 James H. Foard



20 The Shingon Subordinating Fire Offering for Amitābha, “Amida Kei Ai Goma”

 Richard K. Payne



21 Breath of Life: the Esoteric Nembutsu

 James H. Sanford



22 Jōkei and the Rhetoric of “Other-Power” and “Easy Practice” in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

 James L. Ford



part 7: Pure Land Fellowships in War and Peace

23 The Life of Rennyo

A Struggle for the Transmission of Dharma

 Yasutomi Shin’ya



24 The Dilemma of Religious Power

Honganji and Hosokawa Masamoto

 Michael Solomon



25 Shin Buddhism and Burakumin in the Edo Period

 Galen Amstutz



26 Precepts in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism

The Jōdoshū

 James C. Dobbins



27 Exemplary Lives

Form and Function in Pure Land Sacred Biography

 Michael Bathgate



28 Preaching as Performance

Notes on a Secretive Shin Buddhist Sermon

 Clark Chilson



29 The Nianfo in Ōbaku Zen: a Look at the Teachings of the Three Founding Masters

 James Baskind



30 Extreme Asceticism, Medicine and Pure Land Faith in the Life of Shuichi Munō (1683–1719)

 Paul Groner



part 8: Meiji and Modernity: Political Resettlement and Realignment, Moments of Intellectual Hybridization, Emigration, Collaboration, Postwar Progressivism, Lingering Conservatism

31 Shin Buddhism in the Meiji Period

 Mark L. Blum



32 Against Buddhist Unity: Murakami Senshō and His Sectarian Critics

 Ryan Ward



33 The Honganji: Guardian of the State (1868–1945)

 Minor L. Rogers and Ann T. Rogers



34 Shinran’s Thought in Present-Day Japan

 Gerhard Schepers



35 Propagation, Accommodation and Negotiating Social Capital: Jōdo Shinshū Responses to Contemporary Crises

 Jørn Borup



36 Family Temples and Religious Learning in Contemporary Japanese Buddhism

 Jessica Starling



37 Shin Buddhist Studies and Secularization

 Mitsuya Dake



38 Amida and Pure Land within a Contemporary Worldview: From Shinran’s Literal Symbolism to Figurative Symbolism

 Kenneth K. Tanaka



39 The Medieval and the Modern in Shin Buddhism

 James C. Dobbins



40 Rethinking Acculturation in the Postmodern World

 Michihiro Ama



41 Nenbutsu and Meditation: Problems with the Categories of Contemplation, Devotion, Meditation, and Faith

 Lisa Grumbach



Index of Personal Names