October–December 2014, Volume 41
Features
Buddhism and Language
Religion in general has a close affinity with language, and both are vital components of any culture. Language is used to express and teach the religious truths that people of faith believe have been inspired by divine beings. Believers use language to explain and share spiritual insights.
Buddhism, especially Zen, however, values the kind of direct spiritual awakening that comes when the mind transcends language. This does not mean, however, that language is not vital to Buddhism. To record and share the Buddha’s teachings, numerous sutras and commentaries have been written and have been translated into many languages in the course of Buddhism’s transmission from one country to another.
Now that Buddhism is no longer a mainly Asian religion, but is embraced beyond Asia by millions of people in the West and other areas where Judeo-Christianity has prevailed, language has become more important than ever as a tool for people of different cultural backgrounds to share its teachings.
To gain an overview of what role language plays in Buddhism, we would like to approach the theme from the following angles: (1) the power of sutras; (2) the role of mantras and dharani in Buddhism in India, Tibet, and East Asia; (3) the significance of parables and similes; (4) the significance of language in revealed religion and the religion of awakening; (5) the pros and cons of using language as a means of spiritual liberation; (6) the difficulty of translating Buddhist sutras and commentaries into Western languages; (7) recent progress in worldwide spread of the teachings and the influence of linguistic and cultural differences on the teachings.
Features
Buddhism and Language: The Lotus Sutra
by Gene Reeves
Broadly speaking, I think there are at least two reasons behind the Lotus Sutra’s positive view of language, behind its admonition to have faith in and seek to understand the truthful words of the Buddha: its positive view of nearly everything, and its teaching of skillful means.
Embodying Buddha-Speech
by Natalie Gummer
If “reading” can lead to . . . radical transformations—if reading is a process of incorporating buddha-speech—then it entails much more than silent engagement with the meaning of the text. The practices advocated in the sutras offer the listener a pathway toward the progressive incorporation of the text, one that invites repeated and ever-more-intense engagement with its words.
A Buddhist Paradigm of Language
by Dennis Hirota
For Pure Land Buddhists, the way leads not through dispelling discriminative thought and speech by meditative praxis but precisely in and through language.
Subverting Words: Impasse and Breakthrough in Zen Kōan Practice
by Ruben L. F. Habito
Kōans are not about doctrinal content, nor are they moral guidelines or ritual performance. Rather, they are to be taken as configurations of words whose entire function is to overturn the conventional use of words and lead a spiritual seeker toward a transformative experience.
Buddhism and Language: Thoughts on the Relationship between Word, Writing, and Performance in Buddhist Cultural History
by Brian Ruppert
Just as the Gospel of John offered a new interpretation of language with its discourse of logos at the time of its completion near the end of the first century CE, the appearance of the Mahāyāna sūtras constituted a watershed moment in the history of the ritual and narrative role of language in Buddhist belief and practice.
Why Gautama Buddha Hesitated to Preach: Challenging the Constraints of Language in Buddhism
by Hiroyuki Sato
Buddhism’s establishment is . . . inextricably tied up with words in a relationship based not on the belief that everything can be conveyed through words but on the determination to push words to their limit precisely because Buddhism recognizes that words cannot convey everything.
Essay
Jewish and Buddhist Responses to Violence
by Harold Kasimow
In spite of the radical differences between the Buddhist and Jewish religious traditions, their responses to violence are surprisingly similar. The profound reverence for life that Nikkyo Niwano stresses in his book A Buddhist Approach to Peace is as central to Judaism as it is to Buddhism.
Founder’s Memoirs
The Brighter Society Movement and the Spirit of the “Universal Gate of Truth”
by Nikkyo Niwano
The Prism of the Lotus Sutra (6)
by Atsushi Kanazawa
Lay Buddhist Conference
The Significance of Lay Buddhism in Japanese History
by Masazumi Shōjun Okano
The International Lay Buddhist Forum held its seventh world assembly April 23–29 at Rissho Kosei-kai headquarters in Tokyo. Some fifty people, including leaders of lay Buddhist organizations in Australia, Europe, North America, South Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, discussed “Varieties of Lay Buddhism.” The following is a keynote speech at the opening session by Rev. Dr. Masazumi Shōjun Okano, president of Kodo Kyodan Buddhist Fellowship, a lay Buddhist organization based in Yokohama.
