Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

174 SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATIONRepresentationWhen one is not satisfied with the situation one is in,it is easy for that person to idealize another situation,another society or culture, as being beautiful, morebeautiful than the one s/he is in. Buddhism in general,and Zen in particular, was often idealized as offeringa worldview that goes beyond the limitedness of thelogical/rational Western mind and/or the predicamentsof Western society and values. David Loy, for instance,writes that Buddhism emphasizes “…the centrality ofhumans in a godless cosmos and neither looks to anyexternal being or power for their respective solutionsto the problem of existence” (Loy 1998). While thisis certainly inconsistent with the actuality of everydaypractice of Thailand, Japan and most other societieswhere the Buddha is widely regarded as similar to agod who will come to save believers in times of trouble,this kind of ideational image and representation exerteda significant influence on the generations who weredisoriented and dissatisfied with the Western way oflife and society and looked elsewhere for inspiration,especially the new romantic ‘hippie’ movement of the1960s in the US and Europe whose impression ofBuddhism largely stemmed from writings by, amongothers, Alan Watts, D.T. Suzuki and Philip Kapleau,and produced such work as Jack Kerouac’s TheDharma Bum. Much of the representation of Japanesespirituality, particularly Zen, in Thailand today can alsotrace its derivation, without much change in debate orargument, from this period of romanticization, as it waslargely mediated through translations of the literaturewritten by and through Western perspectives, ratherthan arriving directly into the country.However, studying this in Japan itself offers quite adifferent outlook. Instead of being a thing of the East—a distinctive worldview and entity quite foreign andapart from the West—Buddhism was brought closerto its Western counterpart, Christianity, and becamegreatly rationalized when it came into contact with thescientific ethos at the onset of modernity. Centuriesbefore the 1960s, representations of Buddhism in the eyeof Westerners also took place, 3 but rather in a negativeway, as something native and backward, as opposedto science-based Western modernity. In Japan, beforethe clear shift of paradigm to wholeheartedly adopt themodern worldview and pursue modern national goalsduring the Meiji era, there was a watershed period ofclashes of ideals and ideas in the Edo era. Being Chineseand adopting Confucian values was an archetype for theJapanese for a long time, and it was still very much so inthe Edo era. Despite its seclusion and a ban on travel,a close tie, imaginative if not physical, still remainedbetween the Japanese and Chinese; for instance, as lateas 1802, Hishiya Heishichi, a Nagoya textile merchant,in his travel journal, Tsukushikikou (A Kyuushuu TravelJournal), wrote, “The scenery in Nagasaki Harborwas like a Chinese landscape painting, and I felt as ifmy boat was in the midst of it all.” Actually, HishiyaHeishichi’s attraction to Chinese Nagasaki was thedriving force behind his visit. Although there were alsoattempts to define unique ‘Japanese-ness’ by such earlyNativist (kokugaku) writers as Motoori Norinaga (18 thCentury)—the forerunner of 19 th and 20 th -centuryJapanese nationalism and Nihonjinron (theoriesabout unique Japanese-ness)—the Other at that timefrom which the Self of Japanese tried to differ waspredominantly Chinese.The wind turned towards the West, significantly theUS, with the arrival of the Black Ships of CommodoreMatthew Perry, who forced the opening of Japanwith the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Althoughchange was arguably already under way long before thatyear, as contact with Westerners, their technologies andtheir entrenched scientific mindset could still be founddespite the official isolation—exemplified by TachibanaNankei (1753-1805), a medical doctor and traveler, whoexclaimed when he encountered the Dutch microscopethat “the precision of a microscope… exceeds eventhe Buddhas’ eyes” (Screech 1996)—it was after theMeiji Restoration that frenzied catch-up with Westernmodernity in every aspect and fabric of society tookplace full-scale. In the spiritual realm, this led to therise in prominence of people like Inoue Enryo (1858-1919) who advocated the exorcism of superstition fromBuddhism (resulting in him being given the nickname‘Dr. Monster’). By doing so, as Josephson (2006) argues,he helped bring Buddhism closer to being a ‘religion’—aterm that had a different meaning in Japanese before—with Christianity as a model or prototype. In otherwords, Buddhism was previously not a ‘religion,’ in themodern sense of the word, but when it became one:More than a mere word game, this change ofstatus would profoundly transform Buddhism.It would lead to sect restructuring, radical reconceptualizationof doctrine, and even a newterm to refer to the tradition – a shift from thepre-modern norm “Buddhist Law” (buppo 仏 法 )to the contemporary “Buddhist teachings” (bukkyo仏 教 ) (Josephson 2006).A similar trend can also be witnessed around the sametime in Siam/Thailand if we look at, for example, thewritings of Kum Bunnag who argued in 1867:Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows