Soldier Monks from Mt. Heie burned rival temples. |
My
trusty Wikipedia historical calendar, the secret weapon of a blog that
most frequently offers almanac style
history posts, informs me that, “Buddhist monks from Kyoto, Japan’s Enryaku-ji Temple known
as the Tenbun Hokke Disturbance.” The
event is traditionally ascribed to
this date in 1536. Now I know next to nothing about either
Buddhist history or medieval Japan, but that grabbed my attention. After all, isn’t Buddhism supposed to be
about peace and harmony? At least that’s
what my friends who spend their time squatting
cross-legged on mats chanting and/or
meditating tell me. So the idea of rampaging monks wreaking
havoc on rivals is a source of cognitive dissonance.
The
details I could quickly discover in English without being sent scurrying to
thick and dense tome of Japanese history are sketchy but go like this.
The
Enryaku-ji Temple, which grew to be the largest, most influential, and powerful
temple complex in Japan, was founded
about 788 at the height of the Heian
Period, the last epoch of classical Japanese history in the Imperial capitol of Heian-kyō, modern day Kyoto. It was an era of great Chinese influence on
the court and broader culture, particularly the flourishing
of Taoism and Buddhism in a country long dominated by ancestor worshipping Shintoism.
The
monk Saichō, given the posthumous honorific Dengyō Daishi,
studied in China and introduced the Tendai tradition of Mahayana Buddhism to his native country with the support of the Emperor Kammu. Tendai differed sharply with already well
established schools of Buddhism in the Hinayana. He was granted permission to establish a teaching monastery on Mount Hiei.
The monetary at first was instructed to train devotees in two
distinct and rival traditions—a ploy by the Emperor to bring peace between
contentious sects. But Saichō wanted to
train and ordain his monks in the Tendai traditions instead of at the Tōdai-ji
Temple under the ancient Vinaya Code. This request was finally granted only
after the master’s death in 822.
Tendai
Buddhism was based in the teachings of the Bodhisattva
Precepts. I am informed also that it
emphasized Esoteric Buddhism which
aimed at achieving enlightenment through
disciplined meditation and study in one lifetime
rather than over eons of death and rebirth, the Exoteric Tradition. All of
this is fuzzy to me, but I am sure is clear to my many Buddhist readers.
Under
Saichō, his disciples, and successors training at the Enryaku-ji
Temple was extremely rigorous and based on the principles of his personal vows composed when he was only
20:
So long as I
have not attained the stage where my six faculties are pure, I will not venture
out into the world.
So long as I
have not realized the absolute, I will not acquire any special skills or arts [medicine,
divination, calligraphy, etc.]
So long as I
have not kept all the precepts purely, I will not participate in any lay donors
Buddhist meetings.
So long as I
have not attained wisdom, I will not participate in worldly affairs unless it
be to benefit others.
May any merit
from my practice in the past, present and future be given not to me, but to all
sentient beings so that they may attain supreme enlightenment.
Saichō, Founder of the Temple. |
Monks
lived in seclusion from the world for 12 years on remote Mt. Hiei where they
undertook a rigorous program of study and
meditation. More than half of the students at first
left in their first year. After
completing their studies, only the best
and most promising students were
accepted for ordination and sent to
the 3000 sub-temples that were
eventually established throughout Japan.
The remaining students were also highly valued and most entered the Imperial Service as civil servants and soldiers.
Things
continued in this way for almost 300 years when a split occurred among and separate
and competing schools of Tendai monks
were established by the followers of Ennin and Enchin.
Both had been first generations disciples of Saichō and the
teaching of their respective lines did not differ in many essentials. Enchin was said to have promoted the worship
of native Japanese Gods—essentially Shinto—as consist ant with Confucian wisdom in addition to
Buddhist spiritual practice. Over the
centuries the followers of the two schools with Ennins followers still based at
the Enryaku-ji Temple known as the Mountain
Order and Enchins at Mii-dera
which was at the foot of Mt. Hiei, down slope from the mountain top
temple. Enchis’s followers became known
as the Jimon sect or Temple School.
The conflict was more
than anything about influence at court, prestige, and territorial conflicts. Periodic clashes between monks escalated and
each group assembled armies of soldier monks that often clashed
and which also became entangled in court intrigue and dynastic disputes. Sometimes the monk armies were supplemented
with paid mercenaries including samurai and ronin
warriors.
But these disputes
were only a prelude to a more deadly rivalry that began with the rise of Nichiren
Buddhism in the 13 Century. Founded by the monk Nichiren in 1253 who had
studied at Enryaku-ji and other teaching centers, the new
sect revolved heavily around the Lotus
Sutra, which was also honored by Tendai monks. But the Nichiren were highly sectarian to the
point of being what we would no call fundamentalist. They denied the legitimacy of all other
Buddhist Schools and accused them of heresy to the original teaching of the Buddha. Then engaged in polemical wars with rivals, but also physical confrontations. Their targets not only included both the
Mountain Order and Temple School, but newer developing sects including emerging
Zen, Nembutsu, Shingon, and Ritsu.
In
other words the Nichiren were sanctimonious,
self-righteous, and a pain in the neck to just about everyone who did not
agree with them. That included the monks
of Enryaku-ji Temple. It is probably
wise not to piss off a powerful and established sect with its own army. Things came to a head in 1536 with Tenbun
Hokke Disturbance, the burning of all of those temples, and attendant violence.
The
conflict came amid the chaotic period of Japanese history known as Warring States when feudal lords clashed for supremacy and
Japan lay disunited. A powerful,
would-be uniter arose in the person of the War
Lord Oda Nobunaga. Warring temples and armies of monks represented the
social chaos he strove to squelch as well a potential rival centers of
power. Oda attacked several contentious
Temple centers, but Enryaku-ji was the most powerful. In 1571 he attacked the Temple complex
slaughtering all of the monks he could find and leveled the ancient buildings,
only one small shrine, the Ruri-dō
or Lapis Lazuli Hall, isolated up a narrow and obscure path from the
rest of the complex survive.
After Japan was ultimately unified and the Tokugawa Shogunate was
established in 1601, the monks returned to Mt. Hiei and rebuilt the Enryaku-ji Temple complexes. Those are the buildings that have been
declared a United Nations International
Cultural Site.
One of the many buildings the the UNESCO World Heritage site, Enryaku-ji |
All
of this sounds more like the familiar religious wars of Europe than what we
expect of peace loving Buddhists. The
Japanese Buddhist wars were mostly confined to clashes between monks and
armies, sparing the wide spread civilian
slaughter as punishment for inappropriate
worship that characterized the West. Still, it was brutal enough.
And
it was not entirely isolated in history.
Just a few years ago rival Korean
Buddhists made world-wide headlines for pitched battles with clubs, knives, and swords over
the possession of holy temples. The brutal military masters of Miramar—Burma—were
always said to be passionately observant Buddhists with great reverence for the
tens of thousands of Temple monks, yet they not only turned their guns on their
restive populations, they raided the temples, beat, murdered and imprisoned hundred
of monks.
I
personally know Sri Lankan Buddhist
monks who have converted our old Unitarian
church in Woodstock, Illinois to
the Blue Lotus Temple and I have
never met such gentle spirits. But the
orders of monks from which they sprang back in Sri Lanka are militant in their
opposition to and hatred of the dark-skinned Hindu Tamil minority and have resisted all attempts to find peace
and reconciliation between the communities.
They can’t let go of the decades of tit-for-tat
violence, terrorism, and military atrocities that still grip
the country.
The
point is not to bash Buddhism. Rather it
is to point out that no philosophy, religion, or faith traditions, whatever the teachings of their founders and the continuing
good will of their most spiritual leaders,
are immune from falling into mere sectarianism and resorting to violence
against those who can be seen somehow as others.
It
also does not mean that I believe that religion itself is only that murderous
spirit or is defined by its worst members and moments. As a teenager who discovered the horrors of
the Inquisition, European religious
wars, and the fresh evidence of the Holocaust
I fell into that easy, juvenile trap. I
screamed “a pox on all your houses”,
avowed my atheism, and literally went out of my way to piss on churches for the
next decade. Foolish me.
There
was nothing in the teachings of Jesus
or the Buddha that was
war-like. Quite the contrary, both
taught and sought peace and reconciliation. The problem
seems to come later, when prayers and
incantations become empty words of
ritual, when personal identity with the form of religion takes center stage,
when holy institutions vie for power and wealth, and when those who do not
share your prayer book are
dehumanized into the monstrous other,
that the problems arise.
Militant atheism as opposed to rationalism, free thought, true skepticism, humanism, or agnosticism to easily becomes its own certain faith too eager to tell others
that they should not/can not/will not
have their heretical faith. The atheists
scream with protest when horrors of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et. al.
are laid at their doorsteps, even as they are eager to hold every pew sitting
Christian task for every murderous fanatic
who ever carried a cross.
We
are not much different than either those who have made peace or waged war. We could go either way, given the
circumstances. If we want to choose
peace, we must be on guard against our own certainties and our own eagerness to
cast those with whom we differ as innately
evil and undeserving of either compassion or consideration.
It’s
a lot harder than it looks.
There is only one person in the history of humanity that does not fit within the mold and that is Jesus. We never once read about him sitting around meditating and trying to overcome suffering or being self righteous or hypocritical or trying to overcome his childhood and warding some demons in a cave 'Mohammed'...but then again..someone just dreamed him up out of nowhere for no particular reason -I'm not dissing others really either -only making a comment to differentiate people was were to be remembered for what they said verse a man whose Humanity nad Spirit can today be received in Truth out of Eternity. The difference betwee worldly religious and The Reality is cataclysmically infinite - Christ actually being lived up to such a degree of earth though in fallible human beings is another matter - but He was number meant to be pomp - just how to be the persons we have been meant to be which apparently is extremely difficult for us to do. Still interesting to see how man makes up his own religions to try to obtain the unattainable while Jesus already did it for us. His is The Faith of the Spirit of God and not of man -which few understand
ReplyDeleteGive up exhausted, mentally and physically, cling to nothing, for you can take nothing with you. Then the gate of Zen will open buddhists houston
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