Will Buddism die out in Japan? Across Japan, Buddhism faces a confluence of problems, the New York Times reports.
Interest in Buddhism is declining in urban areas. The religion’s rural strongholds are being depopulated. Successors to chief priests are lacking. Many temples in the countryside are expected to close.
Buddhism is also losing its grip on the funeral industry as more and more Japanese are turning to funeral homes or choosing not to hold funerals at all. Although the Japanese have long taken an “buffetlike approach to religion", the New York Times writes, the Japanese have traditionally been inflexibly Buddhist when it comes to funerals (they ring out the old year at Buddhist temples and welcoming the new year, several hours later, at Shinto shrines. Weddings hew to Shinto rituals or, just as easily, to Christian ones.)
“Buddhism doesn’t meet people’s spiritual needs”, according to chief priest Ryoko Mori. “If Japanese Buddhism doesn’t act now, it will die out,” he says.
According to anthropologist Noriyuki Ueda, Japanese Buddhism had been sapped of its spiritual side in great part because it had compromised itself during World War II through its close ties with Japan’s military.
>> read the whole story in the New York Times
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