{"title":"Traversing the Nenbutsu: The Power of Ritual in Contemporary Japanese Buddhism","authors":"Gwendolyn Gillson","doi":"10.18874/JJRS.46.1.2019.31-51","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Gwendolyn Gillson is Assistant Professor of Asian studies at Illinois College. Japanese Buddhism is often disparagingly called “funeral Buddhism” due to its supposed focus on death care. This is accompanied by a belief that contemporary Buddhism is spiritually bankrupt, merely carrying out meaningless rituals. However, the women in the Bukkyō josei no tsudoi and the nenbutsu meeting affiliated with the Jōdoshū, one of the sects of funeral Buddhism, reveal how contemporary Buddhist women actively work through ritual to create meaningful relationships with one another. Utilizing Catherine Bell’s concept of ritualization and Ronald Grimes’s concept of ritual phases, this ethnographic study shows how the different phases of the meetings work together to create both formal and informal ritual that is intentional, effective, and important to the women who perform it. These women illustrate the enduring dedication to traditional Buddhist ritual practices that they see as important for personal and spiritual growth.","PeriodicalId":44102,"journal":{"name":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.18874/JJRS.46.1.2019.31-51","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Gwendolyn Gillson is Assistant Professor of Asian studies at Illinois College. Japanese Buddhism is often disparagingly called “funeral Buddhism” due to its supposed focus on death care. This is accompanied by a belief that contemporary Buddhism is spiritually bankrupt, merely carrying out meaningless rituals. However, the women in the Bukkyō josei no tsudoi and the nenbutsu meeting affiliated with the Jōdoshū, one of the sects of funeral Buddhism, reveal how contemporary Buddhist women actively work through ritual to create meaningful relationships with one another. Utilizing Catherine Bell’s concept of ritualization and Ronald Grimes’s concept of ritual phases, this ethnographic study shows how the different phases of the meetings work together to create both formal and informal ritual that is intentional, effective, and important to the women who perform it. These women illustrate the enduring dedication to traditional Buddhist ritual practices that they see as important for personal and spiritual growth.
期刊介绍:
The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies is a peer-reviewed journal registered as an Open Access Journal with all content freely downloadable. The journal began in 1960 as Contemporary Religions in Japan, which was changed to the JJRS in 1974. It has been published by the Nanzan Institute since 1981. The JJRS aims for a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religion in Japan, and submissions are welcomed from scholars in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. To submit a manuscript or inquiry about publishing in our journal, please contact us at the address below.