Course Reader REL 444/544 Medieval Japanese Buddhism, Fall 2015

 

Introductory background material for those without coursework in Buddhism or Japanese Religion

  1. Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 9-26.
  2. Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987) 56-63, 73-77.
  3. Hayao Kawai, "Japanese Mythology: Balancing the Gods," in his Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan (Daimon, 1995) 67-97.

 

Matrix of Japanese society and religion leading up to the Kamakura Period

  1. Toshio Kuroda, "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion," tr. by James Dobbins and Suzanne Gay, Journal of Japanese Studies 7:1 (Winter 1981), 1-21.
  2. Joseph Kitagawa, "Chapter 6. The Shadow and the Sun: A Glimpse of the Fujiwara and the Imperial Families in Japan," in his On Understanding Japanese Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 98-116.
  3. William LaFleur, "Chapter 2 In and out of the Rokudō," in his Karma of Words-Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1983) 26-59.

 

Matrix of Japanese society and the development of Buddhism into the Kamakura Period

  1. Helen Craig McCullough, tr. The Tale of the Heike (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 1-6, 17-19, 23-37.
  2. Robert E. Morrell, "Tendai's Jien as Buddhist Priest," Early Kamakura Buddhism-A Minority Report, 23-43.
  3. Jeffrey P. Mass, "The Emergence of the Kamakura Bakufu [Military Government]" in Medieval Japan-Essays in Institutional History, ed. John W. Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 127-156.
  4. Kazuo OSUMI, ÒBuddhism in the Kamakura Period,Ó in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol 3 Medieval Japan, gen. ed. Kozo YAMAMURA (NY: Cambridge University Press), 544-563.

 

The Zen Buddhism of Dōgen

  1. Mark Unno, ÒPhilosophical Terms in the Zen Buddhist Thought of Dōgen.Ó
  2. Norman Waddell & Masao Abe, tr. "Shōbōgenzō Genjōkōan," by Dōgen Kigen, The Eastern Buddhist 5:2 (10/1972), 129-140.
  3. Mark Unno, ÒCommentary, Fascicle 30: Gyōji Part II (ge),Ó DōgenÕs Shushōgi (Boston: Wisdom), forthcoming, 1-3.
  4. Kōshō Uchiyama, Refining Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment, trans. Tom Wright (New York: Weatherhill, 1983) vii-xiv, 3-19.
  5. Steven Heine, The Zen Poetry of Dogen (Boston: Tuttle, 1997), 1-34.
  6. Barbara Ruch, "The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," in The Cambridge History of Japan - Volume 3 Medieval Japan, 500-511.

 

The Shingon Buddhist practice of Myōe

  1. Mark Unno, ÒRecommending Faith in the Sand of the Mantra of Light: Myōe KōbenÕs Kōmyō Shingon Dosha Kanjinki,Ó in Re-Visioning Kamakura Buddhism, ed. Richard Payne (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 167-218.
  2. Mark Unno, Shingon Refractions: Myōe and the Mantra of Light (Boston: Wisdom, 2004), 111-145.

 

The Shin Buddhism of Shinran

  1. Mark Unno, ÒKey Terms – Pure Land Buddhism and the Philosophy of Hōnen and Shinran.Ó
  2. Mark Unno, "The Nembutsu of No-Meaning and the Problem of Genres in the Writings and Statements of Gutoku Shinran," The Pure Land 10-11 (12/1994) 1-9.

 

Further readings on the background of women and gender in Buddhism and in the context of the Kamakura Period

  1. Rita Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 29-54.
  2. Lori Meeks, Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010) 250-300.