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=== The True Character of Temple Buddhism ===
'''B:''' Then today’s Nichiren sect, Nenbutsu sect, Shingon sect, and so forth, with their ruling hierarchies claiming divine authority and their fixed doctrines, “revelations,” creeds, and rituals, are what might be called “religion in the ordinary sense.”

'''A:''' They are indeed typical examples. Look at Mount Minobu, the eastern and western Honganji temples, or Narita’s Fudō temple. Where in any of them do we find a “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” or the “most fundamental spiritual impulse,” the vital force of life, being nurtured and fostered? What kind of contact do these sacred places have with young people, in whom spiritual impulses are at their strongest? Among the pilgrims to these sacred places, most are old people with no future, people making selfish petitions, or perhaps bourgeois and petit-bourgeois youth. What kind of promise do they make to the young people of tomorrow?

And speaking of that,…

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…Tsukiji Honganji, I hear, is planning to construct an enormous reinforced-concrete temple hall with a building budget of more than two million yen. The reason for doing so is truly remarkable. Since the Great Earthquake destroyed its main hall, most large funerals have been going instead to Zōjōji in Shiba. The new building, it is rumored, is therefore a scheme to win those customers back.<ref>Tsukiji Honganji 築地本願寺, the major Honganji-ha temple in Tokyo, lost its main hall in the fires following the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. Its replacement, designed by Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 (1867–1954), was constructed in reinforced concrete between 1931 and 1934 in a distinctive Indian-inspired style, at a cost of more than two million yen. Seno’o refers critically to reports that the expensive reconstruction was driven partly by competition with Zōjōji 増上寺, the prominent Jōdo-shū temple in Shiba, for lucrative funerals. He presents the episode as an example of Buddhist institutions pursuing wealth and institutional prestige rather than the welfare of the masses.</ref> What kind of grotesque commercial competition between funeral corporations is this?

Given Buddhism under the leadership of temples like these, there is hardly any need to explain what the lives of ordinary Buddhists look like today. It amounts to little more than mouthing phrases such as “From Impermanence to Devotion,” accompanied by a smiling face, as though economic life were an entirely separate matter. People may shed grateful tears at the thought that “the founder spent ninety years clothed in paper,”<ref>“The founder spent ninety years clothed in paper” alludes to a celebrated haiku by Ōtani Kubutsu 大谷句仏 (Ōtani Kōen, 1875–1943), the twenty-third head of Higashi Honganji: “How humbling! The founder spent ninety years clothed in paper” (勿体なや祖師は紙衣の九十年). The “founder” is Shinran (1173–1263), while “paper clothing” (kamiko 紙衣) evokes the austerity traditionally associated with his life. Seno’o invokes the verse ironically to contrast Shinran’s celebrated simplicity with the wealth and institutional practices of contemporary Shin Buddhism.</ref> and may be deeply moved as they recall his exile at Tsukahara; but how is any of that spirit actually woven into the everyday lives of believers? Look again at the recent practice of the ruling class, as one means of ideological guidance, of having elementary-school teachers install ''kamidana'' in their classrooms in order to instill the ideology of reverence for the gods and veneration of the ancestors. These are precisely the fossilized religious rites Sinclair was describing. What a strange situation we have today: at a time when there are said to be as many as a thousand villages where teachers’ salaries go unpaid, the gods and buddhas whose very life is equality and love are shut up inside such little boxes, while the ruling class orders teachers to bow before them in the name of ideological guidance.<ref>Seno’o refers to the increasing use of State Shintō rites in public education during the early Shōwa period, when practices such as the installation of kamidana 神棚 and shrine worship were promoted as expressions of civic morality and reverence for the emperor rather than as “religion.” He juxtaposes this ideological mobilization of elementary-school teachers with their low salaries and precarious economic position, exposing what he sees as the contradiction between state-sponsored moral edification and the material conditions of those charged with carrying it out.</ref> The ruling class is bad enough—but surely the teachers who have no choice but to reply, “Yes, indeed,” and obey deserve our sympathy as well. Think about it. Why should governors and department heads receive monthly salaries of four or five hundred yen, while elementary-school teachers receive only sixty or seventy? And isn’t the amount of time they actually spend working in precisely the opposite proportion?

Earlier I mentioned Dr. Takakusu’s “Eight Principles of Buddhism.” Among its four outward-facing principles are non-harm, great compassion, peace, and equality.<ref>Takakusu Junjirō’s “Eight Principles of Buddhism” (Bukkyō no hachidai kōryō 仏教の八大綱領) distinguished four inward-facing principles from four outward-facing social principles, the latter comprising non-harm, great compassion, peace, and equality. See Takakusu, Bukkyō Tetsugaku Tsūron 仏教哲学通論 (General Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy; Tokyo: Dai’ichi Shobō, 1927).</ref> He says that Buddhism’s distinctive characteristic lies in carrying each of these principles through to its fullest possible extent. But that is merely a story about the past. Where do we see these principles being practiced today? Where are Buddhists even calling for their practice? Indeed, what could be more upside-down and confused than the fact that Buddhism now attacks socialism—which seeks to put those very principles into practice—as though it were the devil itself? We must once again recover the Buddha’s life of equality.