And yet ... Japanese "New Religions" (like Soka Gakkai/SKK and Risshō Kōsei-kai) are relatively flourishing ...
... perhaps because they provide "community" for folks who came to the big city and lost their social connections back home, plus easy "Prosperity Buddhism: chant XYZ and your bank account will flourish and your health will improve" messages ...
... when many of the established sects (including Soto-shu) are not really, and are having trouble holding parishioners interest and their income from funerals and memorial services for ancestors, so important to temples to be self supporting.
As I have talked about from time to time, when you say "Buddhism" to the average adult in Japan, they think funerals and memorial services for their dead grandfather, nothing more in most cases, and very little awareness of Zazen as anything but pain. I have often joked that I would get many MANY more Japanese to come to our weekly Zazenkai if I ditched all the "Buddhist" clothes and statues and called it something like "RELAX HAPPY YOGA ENERGY TIME". Truly.
Gassho, J
Sattoday(RELAX HAPPY YOGA ENERGY TIME)LAH
... perhaps because they provide "community" for folks who came to the big city and lost their social connections back home, plus easy "Prosperity Buddhism: chant XYZ and your bank account will flourish and your health will improve" messages ...
... when many of the established sects (including Soto-shu) are not really, and are having trouble holding parishioners interest and their income from funerals and memorial services for ancestors, so important to temples to be self supporting.
Zen no more: A third of Japan's Buddhist temples expected to close within 25 years as religion faces an 'existential crisis'
Shrinking communities and costly traditional funerals are dimming the religion's future
Shrinking communities and costly traditional funerals are dimming the religion's future
As I have talked about from time to time, when you say "Buddhism" to the average adult in Japan, they think funerals and memorial services for their dead grandfather, nothing more in most cases, and very little awareness of Zazen as anything but pain. I have often joked that I would get many MANY more Japanese to come to our weekly Zazenkai if I ditched all the "Buddhist" clothes and statues and called it something like "RELAX HAPPY YOGA ENERGY TIME". Truly.
Gassho, J
Sattoday(RELAX HAPPY YOGA ENERGY TIME)LAH
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