Vol. 27 | The Precepts in Japanese Buddhism, Seen Through the Shinran Muki

Reading the full series? Browse all volumes here.

Before diving in — Vol. 2 sets out the author’s framing and caveats.

Last time, the author described how Shinran received a revelation from Guze Kannon Bodhisattva in a dream and went on to become a disciple of Honen.

This was a pivotal moment in Shinran’s journey, but the same dream carries another important message: Guze Kannon told Shinran that he need not keep fuin-kai, the precept against sexual intercourse. In other words, the revelation released him from the rule that forbids monks from having sex.

Guze Kannon’s words: “Even if you have sex, I will lead you to the Pure Land”

In her book What Is Jodo Shinshu? Shinran’s Teaching and Its Lineage, Satoko Koyama gives the following modern Japanese rendering of the Shinran Muki (Shinran’s Dream Record):

“If you, a practitioner of the Buddha Way (Shinran), should through karmic causes from a past life come to have relations with a woman, I will take the form of a beautiful, jewel-like woman and become your wife. Throughout your life I will support you well, and at the hour of your death I will lead you to the Pure Land of Utmost Bliss.”*¹

Many of the world’s religions forbid their clergy from having sex; the Catholic Church is one example. Buddhism, too, in principle prohibits monks from sexual activity. In Buddhism, the precept forbidding sex is called fuin-kai, and a monk who breaks it may be expelled from the order.*² It is also said that he will not attain a good ojo (rebirth in the Pure Land).*³ This can be read as the very opposite of Guze Kannon’s promise to lead Shinran to the Pure Land: the transgressor cannot go there.

One view holds that, at the time of this dream, Shinran was tormented by sexual desire. He was 29 years old, and such desire would have been perfectly natural for any living creature. The author, too, thinks there may have been an element of that.

That said, the author also suspects that desire and sex are, in the end, symbolic acts here, and that Shinran and the early leaders of Jodo Shinshu used the dream story to express their thoughts on human karma and its forgiveness.

At this point, it is worth touching on the heart of Jodo Shinshu teaching.

One of the central ideas in Jodo Shinshu is Akunin Shoki. Shinshu Kyodan Rengo (Shinshu Buddhist Federation), an association of ten Jodo Shinshu schools, explains that Akunin Shoki means “it is precisely ‘evil people’ who are the principal and proper recipients of salvation through Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow (salvation by Other Power)”.*⁴ The “evil people” here are not criminals or enemies of humanity. Well, the term may include such people, but broadly it refers to those who cannot escape bonno (worldly passions) and delusion. Put simply, the “evil person” of Akunin Shoki is an ordinary person. And Jodo Shinshu teaches that it is precisely such people who can be saved by Amida Buddha.

Besides the prohibition on sexual intercourse, the Buddhist precepts forbid killing living beings and lying, among other things. But how many Buddhists, monks included, or followers of other religions can actually keep these precepts? Even the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was married and had a child before he renounced the world.*⁵

However hard they try, most people cannot keep the precepts because of their worldly passions. Yet it would be far too cruel if such ordinary people could not be saved. Perhaps what Guze Kannon spoke of in Shinran’s dream was forgiveness not only for sex, but for breaking the precepts in general. Perhaps the dream is a metaphor: even if one breaks the precepts, what matters most is the will to uphold faith and morality. The author believes that Shinran himself, or the early leaders of Jodo Shinshu, may have interpreted the dream in this way.

Does everyone who breaks the precepts go to hell?

As noted last time, Shinran had a wife, Eshin-ni. Moreover, among today’s Jodo Shinshu schools, the two with the largest followings are the Hongwanji-ha and the Otani-ha, and both have been headed for generations by Shinran’s descendants. (Why there are two will be taken up in a later instalment.)

It also appears that by Shinran’s time it was not unusual for Japanese monks to take wives.

The Buddhist tale collection Shasekishu (Collection of Sand and Pebbles) records hearsay that Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–1192; Shinran lived 1173–1262), a figure of the generation just above Shinran’s, once remarked, “Kakusu wa shonin, senu hotoke”. What is being hidden is a wife, and shonin here means an eminent monk. In other words, the saying means: “Eminent monks hide their wives; only a Buddha has none.” Honen, whom Shinran revered as his teacher for the rest of his life, strictly observed fuin-kai and never married.

In Japanese Buddhism today, too, it is not unusual for monks to have a husband or a wife. And just as with the head temples of the Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha and Otani-ha, it is also common for the position of chief priest at individual temples to be hereditary.

The author believes that even if a monk has a spouse and has sex, he does not immediately fall into hell. Beyond the clergy, lay followers are bound by a precept similar to fuin-kai: fujain-kai, which prohibits sexual relations outside marriage. Yet whether it is fuin-kai, fujain-kai or the precepts against killing and lying mentioned earlier, the author suspects that breaking them does not send one straight to hell.

Most people today will eat meat at least once in their lives, and in that sense they are taking life. (Buddhism does have the concept of sanshu joniku, the “three kinds of pure meat”,*⁶ which holds that one may eat meat from an animal killed without one’s knowledge or involvement.) As for lying, if one did not tell a lie about once a month, it might actually hinder communication or cause stress.

If breaking any of these precepts even once barred one from the Pure Land, or worse, sent one to hell, would hell not be overflowing? According to the Population Reference Bureau in the US, the cumulative number of humans who have ever lived on Earth comes to just under 120 billion.*⁷ If hell exists, one can only imagine its geography, but if habitable space there is limited, as it is on Earth, it must have a finite capacity. Were almost everyone to end up there, one can imagine its population density far exceeding that of present-day Tokyo (6,365 people per square kilometre*⁸).

In practice, Japanese Buddhism today often teaches the precepts in gentler terms: fuin-kai, for instance, as “do not engage in improper sexual conduct”, and the precept against killing as “do not deliberately take the life of a living being”. Rather than absolute rules never to be broken, they amount to advice to act within the bounds of morality and to know one’s limits. This also seems to echo the Buddha’s teaching of “knowing what is enough”.

This is why the author believes that Shinran’s dream was not a matter of self-serving convenience but contained a genuine teaching.

So, in the world we live in today, are we heeding that teaching: that even if we cannot keep the precepts strictly, we should act within the bounds of morality and know our limits?

This is a Buddhist question, but it is also one for all of humanity, regardless of faith or race. Are we not trying to use every energy resource that exists, and killing more animals than we need? To be honest, the author also relies on electricity for work and eats meat. Even so, perhaps our Buddhist forebears, and perhaps those of other traditional religions too, are asking whether we have broken the precepts beyond “what is necessary to live”.

Writing this, the author may seem to be against the free-market economy, but that is not the case at all. A free-market economy carries the risk of destroying the environment, but the author believes it also holds the potential to stop that from happening.

And the author believes that the Ohmi Shonin of the Edo period onwards, were they alive today, would surely feel the same. This will be taken up once the series has gone a little further into Japanese Buddhism and Jodo Shinshu.

Vol. 11 of this series also examined modern society through the lens of Seken Yoshi (“good for society”), one of the philosophies of the Ohmi Shonin.

OHYASHIMA is seeking information about the Ohmi Shonin

In connection with this series, OHYASHIMA welcomes information about the Ohmi Shonin. The author would be particularly grateful to hear from:

Museum curators and archivists — in Japan or elsewhere — who hold collections related to the Ohmi Shonin
Those who work for companies with ties to the Ohmi Shonin, or whose own ancestors were Ohmi Shonin
Those who know of Ohmi Shonin merchants who conducted business outside Japan

OHYASHIMAは近江商人に関する情報を求めています

本連載にあたり、近江商人に関する情報を募集しています。たとえば、下記に該当する方はぜひご存じの情報をお寄せください。