Tag Archives: Buddhism

Spirit worship, Tibetan Buddhism and the West

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Critical Religion, Erasmus University of Rotterdam

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While waiting in the rain for His Holiness the Dalai Lama to arrive for his public lecture in Rotterdam this year, alongside the long rows of Tibetans holding ceremonial katas and singing mantras, a louder and visibly much better organized group was catching the attention of visitors through banners, flyers and slogans shouted over a sound reinforcement device. This group was by and large formed by members of the New Kadampa tradition, also known as ‘the Shugden followers’, who since the mid 70’s have made a visible presence at more events such as the one I have witnessed.

The followers of Dorje Shugden started protesting in the summer of 1996, as the Dalai Lama was visiting England. They complain about religious discrimination, the suppression of religious dissent within the Tibetan community and the persecution of those who practice the protector Dorje Shugden, the latter a matter of religious freedom. This was in response to the Dalai Lama’s repeated public stance against the practice of Shugden. The Dalai Lama’s reasons to ‘ban’ this practice were that it encourages sectarianism, that being essentially a form of spirit worship it has nothing to do with Buddhism and because this practice on the whole is not beneficial for the Tibetan community. This post discusses the dynamics of divergent opinions that lie at the core of the ‘Shugden affair’ and critically contributes to the contextualization of this controversy in global terms.

The root of the conflict centers on interpretative questions about religious practice and institutionalization (Dreyfus 1998). Dorje Shugden has the status of Dharma protector or dharmapala in Tibetan Buddhism. The history of Shugden is interwoven with that of one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelugpa, and with the institution of the Dalai Lamas, who are also part of (but are not ‘head’ of, as often erroneously stated) the same Gelugpa school. The 5th Damai Lama is thought to be causally related to the very existence of Shugden: the premature death of Drakba Gyeltsen, who as a boy was not chosen as the reincarnation of the 4th Dalai Lama, transformed the latter into a spirit seeking revenge (Dreyfus 1998). This spirit was incorporated into the colourful pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism and has become especially important for what is considered a fundamentalist lineage within the Gelugpa school (Hilton, 2000). The practice and propitiation of Shugden are especially associated with Pabongka (1878-1941) and his claims of Gelugpa supremacy above the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. He was trying to uphold Gelugpa purity as a countermeasure to the then already popular Rime movement that emphasized an eclectic religious approach based on practices predominantly attributed to the Nyingmapa school (Lohrer 2009). However, the tension between this dharmapala and his followers resurfaced when the 13th Dalai Lama restricted the worship of Shugden. Only after the 13th Dalai Lama’s death in 1933 could Pabongka promote freely the practice of Shugden in order to revive the Gelug monastic order (Lohrer 2009). Pabongka’s disciple, Trijang Rinpoche (1901-1983) one of the main teachers of the present Dalai Lama, passed on the Shugden practice to him and most of the Gelugpa establishment as a ‘mainstream practice’ (Dreyfus, 1998). However, the present Dalai Lama took personal distance from this after 1975 and started to publicly advise against it after discovering its historical background. From 2008 onwards, through a referendum, Shugden devotees were separated from the rest of the Gelugpa establishment and were allocated land to build their own monasteries.

These steps have been interpreted by Shugden followers as a ban and form the basis of their claims of discrimination on the basis of ‘religion’.

However, if we follow this historical overview we can see that the apparently religious part of the controversy is tightly interwoven with its political part, which concerns the struggle of power within a religious group (fundamentalist towards modernist Gelugpas) and in relationship to other groups (Gelugpas as related to other Tibetan Buddhism schools). The core of this tension is the position and authority of the Dalai Lamas and the character of Tibetan national identity, in which Buddhism presently plays a central role. These two being interrelated, the relationship between ‘religion’ as an expression of private autonomy and its performance as ‘a symbol of national unity holds considerable potential for conflict for the institution of the Dalai Lama’ (Kollmar-Paulenz, 2009). The Dalai Lama’s preference for promoting Tibetan Buddhism in general instead of promoting the Gelugpa school can be seen as a form of betrayal by the latter (Hilton, 2000). Furthermore, the present Dalai Lama is a person with many roles: he is simultaneously a ‘simple Buddhist monk’ as he loves to talk about himself, the reincarnation of Chenrezig – the bodhisattva of compassion – a Nobel peace laureate, an internationally renown advocate of the Tibetan cause and a person who until quite recently has held important positions in the Tibetan Government in Exile. Although there is no contradiction between these different roles, there is certainly tension arising at some junctures.

However, neither the tension between the different roles of the Dalai Lama, nor the unusual balance between religion and politics in the Tibetan context form the core of the Shugden controversy. Rather it is the new global context that makes the issue explosive. It is not historical tensions which feed controversies such as the ‘Shugden Affair’ rather it is the context of western values, which are taken over at a fast pace through a growing global community and a wide and opinionated and interested public, which now co-define what is truly Tibetan, who has authority and which are the worthy problems in the Tibetan community. ‘The Shugden dispute represents a battleground of views on what is meant by religious and cultural freedom’, but a dispute framed in western terms. The present Buddhist modernism, to use the words of Dreyfus, has greatly transformed both the content and the form of Tibetan Buddhism and is not an expression of its ‘timeless essence’ (Dreyfus, 2005). In this specific case the modernization of faith meant taking distance from ‘spirit-worship’ as to better portray Buddhism as a religion based on reason, contemplation and experience, having a strongly ethical basis, a non-violent approach and being a valuable resource for social action. This modernization allows forms of religious administration and institutionalization to be ethicalized through the use of elements such as lack of discrimination, equal opportunity, religious freedom, but also invites critique through the same avenues. The translation of Tibetan ideas in ‘modern’ terms make possible a distinction between cultural expressions and the essence of Buddhism, but also ensures the loss of unique cultural and religious characteristics. Maybe it is also worth mentioning here that although many Shugden followers are Tibetans, many more are westerners with a good sense of how to catch the attention of the public and media, but maybe with a less thorough understanding of the real issues at stake.

A Sociology of Religion Category: A Japanese Case

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Critical Religion, Shumei University

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Over recent decades, the academic concept of ‘religion’ has been examined critically by a number of scholars, especially, in Religious Studies. First of all, I would like to suggest, as a sociologist, that sociological discourse on religion (‘Sociology of Religion’) should be a subject of the same kind of critical examination. In the light of this scrutiny, I would like to take the concept of ‘religion’ itself as a subject for sociological investigation, and tentatively call this approach ‘Sociology of Religion Category’. Finally, I would like to demonstrate what a sociology of religion category might probably look like, by briefly examining the social construction of ‘religion’ in Japan.

Conceptualisations of ‘religion’ in Marx’s, Weber’s and Durkheim’s writings, for example, have been significantly influential over subsequent sociological discourses on religion. The existing literature focusing on their writings on religion implicitly indicates that the concept of ‘religion’ utilised by each Founding Father carries various historical and cultural baggage, specific to the society in which each of them lived, not necessarily denoting exactly the same social phenomena and the same aspect of human activities as each other. Likewise, it can be assumed that the notions of ‘religion’ shared by contemporary sociologists might have different meaning and nuances from those of the Founding Fathers, although they might also share some similarities.

Given this, the religion category in sociological discourse needs to be critically examined in the ways which have been carried out in Religious Studies. In my view, however, this has not been considered by many sociologists. When such an examination is posited, sociologists become defensive or positively acknowledge the criticisms but only partially reflect them in their own sociological discourses of religion, continuing the analytical use of the concept.

More importantly, such critical examinations of ‘religion’ can be extended to outside sociological literature, analysing the construction of religion category (and nonreligion categories) in the wider social context. Taking the critique of the term ‘religion’ seriously, studying religion sociologically should mean critically examining how the category of religion came into existence in the first place, in a particular social context; how particular value orientations and organisations have come to be socially categorised as ‘religion’; and what kind of assumptions and beliefs govern inclusion in and exclusion from, the category. This is what I call ‘Sociology of Religion Category’.

Now I would like to briefly examine the religion category in Japan in order to demonstrate a sociology of religion category.

In his book The Invention of Religion in Japan, Jason Josephson demonstrates how the concept of ‘religion’ was introduced to Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. When Japanese translators first encountered the English word ‘religion’ in the 1850s, there was no indigenous equivalent. It was during the Meiji period (1868-1912) that the term ‘religion’ was gradually indigenised as a concept which included Christianity and Islam as well as Buddhism, with cultural baggage from the West, denoting a Christian notion of belief, especially that of Protestantism. ‘Religion’ as a newly imported concept was translated into Japanese in a number of different ways, but in the 1880s the word shūkyō established its place in the Japanese language as the translation of the term ‘religion’.

Importantly, the social category of shūkyō was constructed outside the realm of the Shinto national ethos (or ‘Shinto secular’). The state classified Buddhism, Christianity and sectarian Shinto (which had divorced from the state-authored Shinto institution) as shūkyō and utilised them as a means of ‘moral suasion’. Through the operation of interpellating or hailing particular groups and value orientations as shūkyō, the state had successfully made them docile and mobilised them for propagating the national ethos to the population. Any popular movement outside this state-religion coalition, which did not harmonise with the orthodoxy of Shinto secular, constituted the heterodoxy called at best ‘pseudo religions’ (ruiji shūkyō), and at worst, ‘evil cults’ (jakyō). They were subject to harsh persecution.

The social category of shūkyō was reformulated after the Second World War during the Allied Occupation between 1945 and 1952. While the pre-war category of shūkyō was limited to the ‘three religions’ (i.e. Buddhism, Christianity, sectarian Shinto), the post-war category of shūkyō includes various other faith groups, which would have constituted the pre-war heterodoxy. They are currently termed (mainly by scholars) as ‘New Religions’ (shin-shūkyō) or ‘new New Religions’ (shin-shin-shūkyō). Importantly, it also includes Shinto, which constituted the pre-war Japanese secular. After Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August 1945, the first task of the Allied authority was the demolition of the pre-war Shinto secular. The so-called Shinto Directive, issued by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Power (SCAP) on 15 December 1945, effectively reduced Shinto to the status of a voluntary organization by defining Shinto as a religion.

In addition, the post-war Japanese religion category was configured as an ostensible entity which is somehow distinguishable from the state. However, this constitutional separation has not been clear-cut. One example is ‘official visits’ by the prime minister and his cabinet to the Yasukuni Shrine. The interpretation has been polarised along ideological lines between right and left. The Japanese right perceives visiting Yasukuni as an expression of patriotism, while the left sees its veneration as a ‘religious’ act, therefore, in breach of the constitutional separation of religion and state.

Another example of the ambiguity of the term is how the Japanese term shūkyō is deployed strategically in people’s everyday language. For example, most Japanese people associate the term shūkyō with Christianity and Islam as well as ‘New Religions’ and ‘new New Religions’. The stereotypical image of these specifies that adherents show their commitment to daily practice of their faith, including a participation in activities to propagate their beliefs to others. For this reason, the Japanese are likely to identify themselves as ‘nonreligious’ (mushūkyō) when they are asked the question: ‘Do you believe in any religion?’ The claim of mushūkyō could be seen as an expression of the social norm, to which the emphasis on personal faith is fundamentally alien. The social norm of mushūkyō discursively and symbolically eliminates shūkyō from the structure of social relations, as a source of conflict, disharmony, or ‘pollution’, in order to maintain the existing order.

What various sociological studies of ‘Japanese religion’ have indicated, but not discussed extensively, is that the term ‘religion’ has been employed strategically at different levels of society, in order to distinguish what is called ‘religion’ from what is in turn defined as nonreligion or the secular. What remains to be investigated critically are the ways in which the boundaries between religion and nonreligion or the secular, are demarcated.