"Shin Buddhist Social Thought in Modern Japan" by Mark Unno.

Summary by Scott Parker. Edited by Mark Unno 3/8/02.

The essay "Shin Buddhist Social Thought in Modern Japan," by Mark T. Unno discusses the relationship between Shin Buddhism and the culture of which it is a part. He uses the example of several thinkers, highlighting the work of Suekawa Hiroshi to demonstrate this relationship.

One predominant influence on Shin during last century was Marxist or socialist thought. Previously, Chikazumi Jokan and Kiyozawa Manshi among others brought a certain social awareness to Shin. This social consciousness can be partially attributed to the influence of Christianity and Western Philosophy. "This new consciousness was marked by the emergence of individual autonomy over against institutional authority, a dialectic that had a well-established genealogy in the West but which in Japan had for the most part been idiosyncratic at best." (71) Before this resurgence in social awareness it was common for Shin practitioners to simply withdraw from prominent institutions.

Socialist efforts in Japan met strong opposition from the Japanese government, which sought to repress any movements in this direction because they were thought to be a threat to the motives of the country. Kamei Katsuichiro was a communist and was arrested in 1929 for disturbing the peace. It wasn't until after being released from prison that Kamei became a Shin Buddhist. However, others like Miki Kiyoshi wedded Shinran's thought with Marxism and carried his protests into imprisonment where he perished.

The thinking of such figures as Kiyozawa, Kamei, and Miki was sometimes inconsistent but they represented those who were willing to face extreme adversity for the sake of their ideals. The influence of these and others led to a call for Japanese to abandon wartime nationalism and rebuild Japan on more universal and globally applicable religious principles.

In the post-war period, Suekawa Hiroshi was called the "leader of the leftists." He was a member of the Society for Social Scientific Research, which studied Marxism and published the results of his research in this area. His efforts went into aiding the Burakumin, "the outcast class of Japanese society" (88) as well as Koreans in Japan who faced great discrimination, and he helped to establish the first labor unions in Japan. Precisely because Suekawa was not as much the revolutionary as some of the others mentioned above, his work may have been more effective. He was no "armchair Marxist," but he also did not "perish in the heart of [his] struggle," (88) allowing his views to be heard and enacted.