1st Edition
Global Shin Buddhism and Ritual Practice Histories, Transformations and Localisations
This book explores the globalisation of Shin Buddhism through an examination of ritual practice and its transformations in four main geographical areas: Japan, the United States, South America, and Europe.
Interrogating conservative and mono-ethnic images of Shin Buddhism, linked to the preservation of Japanese identity in diaspora communities, it offers a complex picture of this form of Buddhism, as multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and ever-changing. Drawing on historical sources, as well as fieldwork conducted in sites from three continents, the study shows the dynamic and transnational routes and local transformations of contemporary Shin Buddhism. The book further considers a range of ritual expressions of Shin Buddhism, including spatiality and architecture; music; embodiment and performance; and ritual adaptations to new virtual environments since the Covid-19 pandemic. All the authors are ordained Shin Buddhist priests, as well as academics, and bring a perspective which is informed both by academic research and by their first-hand experience of Shin Buddhism, including participation in ritual training.
An analysis of Shin Buddhism as a global religion, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of religious studies, Anthropology, and the sociology of religion. It will also be of interest to researchers in Buddhist Studies and Asian Religions, in particular those interested in Buddhism as a world religion and Buddhist modernism.
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Jōdo Shinshū responses to modernity in Japan: Ritual and its transformations
Chapter 3 Routes of Change: the expansion of Jōdo Shinshū outside Japan
Chapter 4 Creating the Ritual Body
Chapter 5 Ritual space
Chapter 6 Mindfulness and meditation
Chapter 7 Mindfulness of the Buddha, Saying the Name
Chapter 8 Soundscapes of the Pure Land? Music, identity, and adapting to the times in globalising Jōdo Shinshū
Chapter 9 Online Transformations During the Covid Era
Chapter 10 Conclusion – Globalisation and Ritual
Biography
Louella Matsunaga was senior lecturer in the anthropology of Japan at Oxford Brookes University from 2011 until her retirement in 2024. She currently has a research attachment to Oxford Brookes University and is an academic visitor at the University of Oxford. She received her PhD in anthropology in 1995 from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research focuses on ritual and the globalisation of Jōdo Shinshū, in particular ritual and embodiment. She was ordained as a Jōdo Shinshū priest in 2019.
Enrique Galvan-Alvarez is Full Professor at the all-online Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (Spain). He received his PhD in modern languages in 2011 from the Universidad de Alcalá (Spain) and his research has an interdisciplinary focus with an interest in post-colonial contexts, Buddhism and narrative constructions of identity. He was ordained as a Jōdo Shinshū priest in 2019 and has been actively involved since in Spanish-speaking and English-speaking Buddhist communities.
Mitsuya Dake is Full Professor in Shin Buddhist Studies at Ryukoku University (Japan). He completed his PhD coursework in 1989 at Ryukoku University. His areas of research include: Shinran Thought, Engaged Buddhism, and Inter-faith Dialogue. Currently, he is the president of the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies. He serves on the editorial board of several journals, including Contemporary Voices of Dalit (Sage). He was ordained as a Jōdo Shinshū priest in 1984.
