[Buddha-l] The upaya express

[Dan Lusthaus]

> Ah yes....I should have remembered this long tradition of
> family/clan temples.
> JK

Nonetheless, the common figure bantied about in recent years is that 1000 
temples a year are closing in Japan. That's significant.

Buddhist bars will not make Buddhism relevant to modern life. The problems 
are deep, but mostly stem from the fact that Buddhism in Japan for too long 
has basically been a business. For instance, family temples mean your kids, 
or at least one of your sons, is expected to inherit the family business, 
which the kids often do grudgingly; they are trained in the basic rituals, 
sent off to priest-boot camp when the right age, and then begin to run the 
business -- now that the "business" is not sufficiently lucrative all bets 
are off. Parents will not be able to offer reasonable arguments to keep the 
kids in the business...

Moreover, even on the larger institutional level, while westerners fantasize 
about Buddhism as the eschewing of materialism [and Republicans], Japanese 
Buddhism -- much like the Catholic Church of yore -- lives off of 
superstitions it feeds the people, mostly concerning death and afterlife 
(Japanese Buddhism, it is often observed, is basically a funeral business, 
and with the economic downturn since the early 1990s, people are looking for 
cheaper funerals). Japanese are still very superstitious about many things 
(although they like to think of themselves as above all that), but the 
superstitions that feed the funeral cult are fading. Funerals have been the 
major money maker for Buddhist priests and temples (along with an occasional 
exorcism). The Buddhist instititions have become (or have been) merely 
symbiotic parts of the Japanese cultural economy, a part of it that is going 
obsolete. They don't cure duhkha, they make their living off of the 
anxieties duhkha produces.

So drink up.

Dan