Advancing the Spirit of the Mahāyāna: A “New Zazen Group Movement” in Postwar Japan.

Abstract (English)

Recent research has shed light on the establishment of lay Zen groups in Japan from the late 19th century. It has also shown that, from the second half of the 20th Century, some of these groups became independent from the Zen Monastic Institutions, meeting in dōjō (道場) outside temples and led by non-ordained Zen masters. There is, however, little research on Zen groups which continued to meet at Zen temples and were led by ordained Zen masters, during the second half of the 20th Century. In this paper, I will give a brief account of what Yamada Mumon and Shibayama Zenkei called a “New Zazen Group Movement” (jp. shinzazenkaiundō, 新坐禅会運動). After delineating the movement’s goals, activities, and scope, I will answer the following question: how did Yamada and Shibayama tried to legitimize this new movement? I will do this by analyzing Recommendations for Zazen Meetings (jp. Zazenkai no susume, 坐禅会のすすね), a manual on how to organize zazen meetings in Zen temples, written by Yamada and Shibayama, and addressed to Zen priests. According to them, the “New Zazen Group Movement” is legitimate to the extent it responds to the needs of their contemporaries and remains faithful to the Zen tradition and “the spirit of the Mahāyāna.” To demonstrate their movement fulfills these conditions of legitimacy, Yamada and Shibayama diagnose their contemporaries, while drawing progressive trajectories from the origins of Buddhism to the present, and from the present to a future where all human beings will enjoy peace of mind. Overall, this research contradicts scholars who affirm that, in Postwar Japan, the Rinzai Zen School has been inactive and disengaged, and that there was no cultural movement promoting zazen as a form of therapy.