On Cultural Bias and Ideology in Western Buddhism and Buddhist Modernism
When he was approximately fifteen years old, Tominaga Nakamoto 富永仲基 (1715–1746) was expelled from the merchant academy in Ōsaka, which his father had enrolled him in, for writing an essay that was critical of Confucianism. He may also have been forced to leave home, but little is known with certainty about Tominaga’s life. A few years later, he apparently found employment as a proofreader at Manpuku temple of the Ōbaku Zen sect in Uji. Buddhist monks traditionally copied sūtras by hand, and it was Tominaga’s job to check for copying errors. This allowed him to read very many sūtras, inspiring...
(Post-) Buddhism without Rebirth
Traditional Buddhists tend to believe that rebirth and karma are essential parts of the Buddhist worldview and that one, therefore, cannot be a Buddhist without accepting those. For example, the 14th Dalai Lama has written that “as long as you are a Buddhist, it is necessary to accept past and future rebirth”, which means that you can’t be a Buddhist without believing in rebirth. Many Buddhist modernists, on the other hand, consider the doctrine of rebirth and karma unimportant, or radically reinterpret it in an attempt to bring it in line with a more or less Western, “materialist” worldview, or...
Universal Liberation
Taixu 太虛 was one of the most influential thinkers of modern East-Asian Buddhism. In 1904, at the age of 14, he became a monk at Xiǎo Jiǔhuá temple 小九華寺 in Suzhou, China. Soon after, he developed an interest in modern science, left-wing politics, and Buddhist reform. A decade later (partially due to changing political circumstances) he had himself sealed in a cell in a monastery to study Buddhist scripture and philosophy. After he left his cell in 1917, he revived a Maitreya Pure Land cult, but also continued working for the modernization and revival of Buddhism in China under the...