“New Kamakura Buddhism” Revisited: The Putative Transition in Dōgen’s Thought and the Question of its Subsequent Effect on Female Religious Practice within Sōtō Zen
Pieczko, Brandon T.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/114420
Description
Title
“New Kamakura Buddhism” Revisited: The Putative Transition in Dōgen’s Thought and the Question of its Subsequent Effect on Female Religious Practice within Sōtō Zen
Author(s)
Pieczko, Brandon T.
Issue Date
2007-03-08
Keyword(s)
Japanese history; Buddhism, Zen; Dōgen Zenji; gender studies; religious studies
Abstract
Paper presented at the Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, on March 8, 2007.
In addressing the issue of gender in Japanese Buddhism, many scholars have identified the so-called “New Kamakura Buddhism” as the period in which, for the first time, the efficacy of female religious practice was both validated and promoted by prominent members of the male monastic community. Proponents of this view look to such figures as Hōnen, Shinran, and Dōgen; arguing that because they emphasized the possibility of female buddhahood, the schools they founded can be viewed as having an almost feminist understanding of the issue of gender and religious practice. More recently, however, various scholars, both Japanese and Western, have pointed out the problems inherent in such an interpretation of Japanese religious history. By investigating the work of Dōgen specifically, this paper looks to address a noticeable transition in his understanding of effective Buddhist practice and how it relates to the issue of gender. This transition, from an emphasis on gender equality and female buddhahood in his early years, to an exclusive focus on monastic and ascetic practice in his later years, had a detrimental effect on female religious practice within the Sōtō school of Japanese Zen. This paper will attempt to bring to light particular religious and political influences on Dōgen that may have led to this apparent transition in his religious understanding, and proceed to examine the ways in which later Sōtō monastic officials appealed to Dōgen in order to justify their exclusion of women from religious practice, especially during the Edo period.
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