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This is an English rendering (word-for-word translation) of a part of my master's thesis, "Kokan no Shukyosei —Fushidansekkyo nitsuite" ["The Religion of Kokan: On Fushidansekkyo"] which I submitted on finishing my master's course in Study of Religion at Taisho University in Tokyo, Japan in December, 1996 and by which I earned an MA on the 15th of March, 1997. Thesis Adviser and Chief Examiner: Rev. Dr. Masao Fujii (Study of Religion). Thesis Adviser and Second Examiner: Rev. Prof. Daiji Yamanoi (Study of Religion). 
About Me
I will try to translate the whole of my master thesis in the future.
I have never majored in English literature, but I am setting out to have a faithful translation (a literal rendering) of my original Japanese papers with my English dictionaries. I can assert with probability that I may have committed many faults in English grammar. If you are kind enough to point out my grammatical mistakes and other English errors, I shall be most grateful to you. So, if yo do not dislike Japanese language, please read my original text written in Japanese, for I have full confidence in my grammatical abilities for Japanese as my native language. Master's thesis The Religion of Kokan in Japanese
Please note that:
If religion will, proclaiming that this is the study of Buddha and this is the study of God, excessively ideate and formulate its teachings as "On Buddha" and "On God," there are only to be drawn apart and diluted experiences and matters as "On Man." (1) Yet, even though such a situation is generated, man cannot, unless he is deprived of his sensitivity towards all the ritualistics, stand alone in a stupor. Man's interest in the ultimateness, seeking for the individual's "real" name or what oneself is, impels us towards "expression." (2) That is "ritual" in this paper. And therein manifest human experience and human matter, and the directionality of the power to grasp them, with a transcendental criterion, will arise. It is not merely to find a place where one can live with peace of mind in a shared value judgment and a common interpretation of the world, nor merely to share the words that the human mind speaks while being in aghast or having a keen perception (3) with others. But it is an individual ritual, which appears at the end of the collective search and aggregation, for leaping to the ultimateness.
That which emerges in Fushidansekkyo
is a kokan
[an inter-sympathetic response in a religious phenomenal or religious existential experience]. It is at the core of Fushidansekkyo that is called the "Preaching of Pathos," which is the outpouring of mental and emotional energies of Japanese people at the bottom of human society where agony prevails and which is to be called the fructification of ordinary people's sensitivities and sentiments with their living faith and wish in the background. An intensely exalting scene amidst a religious communication through a koo
[a calling and response] that is reiteratedly carried on between a teller (a preacher or an evangelist) and hearers (the congregation) is looked upon as a kokan, while also including those that arise from the greater frame of meaning which consist in the circumambience of thoughts and words from both a preacher and the congregation, I am to describe them en masse as a kokan. And in this paper, in setting a tentative logical organization of "The Religion of Kokan," for main material, giving the Reverend Shonen Sobue's Fushidansekkyo as "fushidansekkyo" in Buddhism and the Pastor Barbara Ward Farmer's Gospel Mission Work as "fushidansekkyo" in Christianity, and by showing as much elements as I can extract, from a parallel perspective I am going to try to get at the issues of kokan.
There is not the term "fushidansekkyo" in Christianity. Hence, to construe an evangelization with Gospel music in the Baptist Church as "fushidansekkyo" in Christianity is problematic and may well be subjected to criticism over it from Christians as well as from Buddhists. However, as evidenced by its history, first, Gospel music has been the effusion of mental and emotional energies of the people (the cry of their hearts) who live at the lower end of the social structure, specifically, impoverished people who belong to what they call "redneck" or "blue-collar" working class and people who suffer deep-seated discrimination stemming from slavery, and has been the fructification of people's sensitivities and sentiments before a background of their living faith and hope. Second, when I see that among evangelical activities of Christianity it includes the essence of expressiveness and the essence of music and it attaches importance to people's sentiment and that it is the method of propagandism which has been cultivated in the form meeting the needs of the people in the United States who had craved for words and expressions which would reach the people themselves. In the generic conception of mine, this Gospel mission work, as I conceive it, stands out as another "fushidansekkyo." And it goes without saying that those which constitute the generic conception of "fushidansekkyo" as described above, in the outer side of the measure of the differences in nation and religion, makes an intersectional common set with Fushidansekkyo of Shin Buddhism. Based upon the same generic conception, "fushidansekkyo" in Buddhism was previously used to refer to Fushidansekkyo of Shin Buddhism.
The intensely exalting scene in "fushidansekkyo," as will be understood, can, when likening it to a festival and equating it with an excessive expenditure of mental energy, be viewed as Emile Durkheim's "collective effervescence." Once the individuals are assembled, a kind of electricity that quickly transports them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation is generated, shouts are lifted, a procession, dance, song and simulated battle which are held under the light of torches intensify their exaltation. In such a state, a man feels he is no longer himself and seems to have become a new being.(4) The individual consciousness is uplifted, going beyond the individual to the whole, and is assimilated into the collective consciousness. In that direction of the theory of "reintegrating a social group or a society through festival," emphasizing the orgiastic aspect, however, other elements (for example, the space of Kanno Doko
illuminating with reflected light on one another, a personality-on-personality meeting between man and the ultimateness and the self-oriented horizon of "On Man" as a Nembutsu practitioner or a Christian) as viewed there are, if I speak from my experience and observation, not to be seen. Furthermore, although it is accepted that Durkheim's arguments have the mind-set to give due weight to the reaffirmation of the identity through individual emotions, yet in "fushidansekkyo" rapprochement and reaffirmation are not always needed (or not always have to be the final purpose), or rather radically, they develop a strong characteristic of the "creation of identity" as an individual. More specifically, as each one's own expression or expressing oneself, construing the "myth" and bringing it forth anew at all times,(5) and therein will be intertwined the proactive participation, won't it?
What I am going to dissert upon in this paper is not that which controverts Durkheim's theory. As forementioned, in "fushidansekkyo," if we come at persons who gathered in the main hall of the temple or in the church in a collective way, the intensely exalting scene to be seen there shall, applying his theory, be depicted aptly. This thesis is, at a point which diverges from his perspective, with an emphasis on the individual and individual needs, that which tries to pursue an argument on the presence of a preacher (or an evangelist) in a group, an individual practice towards the ultimateness and a bijective universe.
Those who were engaged in the propagandism of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism of Honen
(1133-1212) (Also see An Abbreviated Chronological Table of Kamakura Period) and Shinran
(1173-1262) (Also see An Abbreviated Chronological Table of Kamakura Period), as the territorial expansion of the propagation became deliberate, abolishing their abstruse lectures on canon construction of the Buddhist scriptures and looking at unprecedented preaching techniques, came to focus on audience acquisition and adherent acquisition. "The preaching of medieval emerging Buddhism satisfied the recreational wants of the populace, using a whole lot legendas as subject matters, placing stress on the allegorical-causal tale
[hiyu innen dan], and from the koza
[dais, pulpit] ably talked to, by means of good gestures and expressive facial signals, with a well-trained voice intoned, at times humorously, at other times sadly, and created a form of talking performing arts in every way. What is termed Fushidansekkyo completed." (6)
It was Choken
of the Agui (1126-1203) and Seikaku
of the Agui (1167-1235) who laid the foundations for giving a sermon filled with the common touch, yet it was after Seikaku had come into Honen's Jodomon
[the Pure Land path] that it took firm root. That folksy sermon made great strides and became performing-artified, and it found itself in such a form that Genkoshakusho
[Kokan, Shiren] said that "one sways his body and head and delivers the words with a tune, (...) in readiness to cry first so as to move the audience to tears and performs like an actor, that's stunningly shameful" (7) and called on those who involved in preaching to reflect on themselves. We ought not to, however, forget that as the basis for its considerable development and partaking of the nature of performing arts there were Honen and Shionran's fundamental attitudes towards the edification [propagation and preaching].
Honen had, in Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu Shu [the Collection of Passages on the Nembutsu Chosen in the Original Vow], taken a standpoint of negating solemn cathedralistic Buddhism and denied learned monks of Nara and Mt. Hiei [Kohuku Temple in Nara and Enryaku Temple on Mount Hiei], furthermore, intellectuals, and gone on rejecting even the observance of the precepts. "If the Hongan
(the Original Vow) requires us to erect statues of Buddha and stupas, the poor and destitute would surely have no hope of Birth in the Pure Land, and the rich and highborn are few, whereas the poor and lowborn are many. If the Hongan requires us to have wisdom and great aptitude, the dull and foolish would surely have no hope for Birth in the Pure Land, and the wise are few, whereas the foolish are many. If the Hongan requires us to listen to many teachings and absorb them, those who have heard little and comprehend little would surely have no hope of Birth in the Pure Land, and those who have heard much are few, whereas those who have heard little are many. If the Hongan requires us to abide by the precepts and rules, those who have broken the precepts and those who have never embraced the precepts would have no hope of Birth in the Pure Land, and those who have adhered to the precepts are few, whereas those who have violated the precepts are myriad." (8) Why Honen, who was so erudite that he was once highly praised as "the Wisest Monk" of Mt. Hiei and who had observed the precepts for his entire life, needed to dare to say that is because the Dharma which was to be preached for the benefit of the populace who were wavering in those turbulent times had to be in this manner. Basically, "the enantio-populace contact" in a place of the conveyance of ideas is, for the ideas per se or the formation of ideas, a secondary matter. If we stick resolutely to other party to whom the ideas are trajected, as the absorbing social stratum for certain intellectual religious thoughts is lower class, it would follow either that the reasoning of the thoughts is people's sensitivity itself or that what was absorbed are the altered thoughts by people's sensitivity [subjective appropriation].(9) Assuming all risks, however, Honen articulated the fundamental attitudes of the sermon here. On and from these statements of Honen, all the preachings related to Pure Land School after the demise of Honen has been upheld.
"Taking people's griefs and appeals into heart, to come to terms with them personally and be involved, in a plain and lambent way, to the people at the bottom of the heap is the formula of the preaching. (...) [He] simply set out to be a kindred-spirit friend of ignorant illiterate people and willingly tried to get into the mind of the people. As for Honen's advocation of the Nembutsu, it is quite important to show this formula of the sermon. Just reciting is going to end in a mere contour and a faint force can only be exerted upon disseminating the Nembutsu. It is of particular importance that Honen poured his efforts into the preaching with the basal conditions for forming thoughts in the mind of the populace which was agonizing, suffering, and moaning," (10) Kazuo Sekiyama dissertates.
This Honen and Seikaku became connected with each other, and so became a sermon an everyday affair, and from that time point on it started taking on characteristics of talking performing arts with the common touch. And it is accepted that Seikaku completed the sermon which has the essence of performing arts, what we call Fushidansekkyo. If a preacher goes directly into exalted and abstruse ideas of Buddhism, they are not comprehensible to the populace in the least. Given this factor, with a view to speaking right to the senses in the raw of the people, the performing artistic expressiveness was valued such as gestures and facial expressions, and the musical attributes were introduced, like shomyo [Japanese Buddhist chant with melodious patterns added to the chanting sacred Buddhist words], by adding a tune and rhythm to the sermon.(11)
That the foregoing form of sermon has brought about is due to that there was an inevitability having been driven under the bidirectional influence and taction upon the sermon from two directions: the substance of radical thoughts of Honen that the teachings enable any man to "equally attain Birth in the Pure Land" is what Jodomon that is the way of Easy Practice is and the type of objects to be given a sermon to. [Please note that preaching Buddhism among the populace was still a huge act to do, in view of the antecedent role of Buddhist monks, which was the servant in subordination to the ideology of the Imperial bureaucratic regime and the state system, and the previous conditions, under which Soniryo
(the Code for the Buddhist monks and nuns) barred Buddhist monks from going out of temples and preaching among the people.]
"Even if I had been deceived by my Master, Honen Shonin
, and, reciting the Nembutsu, were to fall into hell, I would have no regrets at all!" (Tannisho (12) ), Shinran to whom a turn of the attainment of truly settled faith in Other-Power [the moment when he saw that in him his heart tuned towards the "Faith of the Other-Power"] was brought by Honen utters, "'To hear' means to hear the Primal Vow and be free of doubt. Further, it betokens Shinjin
[True Entrusting, Faith]" (Ichinen Tanen Moni (13) ), "For me, Shinran, There is no alternative but to accept and entrust myself to what Yokihito [refering to Honen, 'my good teacher' in this context] told me: 'Just utter the Nembutsu and be saved by Amida.'" [The teaching of my Master Honen: that simply by uttering the Nembutsu I shall be given deliverance by Amida] (Tannisho). Although Buddhism is, I should say, consummated in "Thus have I heard" ("Nyo Ze Ga Mon"
), yet in the calling voice uttered from Tathagata and one's responding to the calling, Mon Po
[hearing the Dharma] and Mon soku Shin
[Hearing, that is, Entrusting] were the very attitudes which were running through the basis of all edifications [propagation and preaching] of Shinran. It is understood that after the Buddhist scriptures had been codified, the substance of Mon [To Hear, Hearing] would be extended. There must have been visual Mon to see with one's eyes. Still, there has been "To hear" ["When the Larger Sutra says 'hear,' it means that sentient beings, having heard how Amida Buddha made and fulfilled the Vow, entertain no doubt. This is what is meant by 'hear'" (Kyogyoshinsho, Chapter III. Revealing the True Faith)] as one inexorable current. Hearing the words coming directly from the mouth of the person who one believes is Yokihito, with his own ears, is immediately linked to Shin
[Entrusting, Faith]. Hence, Mon Po and Mon soku Shin became the first sector of the edification of Shin Buddhism and, being nothing compared with other Japanese Buddhist denominations, it is natural that sermons became strenuously being given. In the sermon of Shin Buddhism, the awareness of being a voice for (or an "alternative" of) Amitabha Tathagata and Shinran has to be an indispensable requisite. To the people "who do not know even one letter" and "who are ordinary and foolish beings bound by evil passions" and "who are in the lower levels of society, such as hunters and traders
" [There were oppressed and discriminated Japanese people who were called "Eta" and by other discriminatory names, though they were not sold and bought, and the social strata in Japan until the decree of emancipation by the Meiji government in August, 1871. It is truly regrettable that we still find the hidden prejudice in Japan against those who are descendants of the oppressed and discriminated], how assuredly it seemed that the presence of a preacher with a tangible, personal entity upon whom they could lean heavily and rely would make Mon soku Shin a real possibility? By simple, direct affirmations, preachers gave an answer to the spiritual quest of the common man.(14)
Seikaku had previously expounded the cause of Mon soku Shin that Mon and Shin are in extremis combined with one another in his Yuisinsho.(15) As Shinran repeated his word, "Please see Yuishinsho carefully," three times in his epistle addressed to Kyonin no gobo (Shinran's letter, when he was 77 years old, in kencho 3 [1251]), it is believed that Shinran always encouraged others to read this Yuishinsho. And he himself transcribed it, and even annotated it and wrote Yuishinsho Moni [Notes on 'Essentials of Faith Alone'].(16) It is just conceivable that Seikaku's sermon was etched into Shinran's mind,(17) and what is more, it is even said that Shinran highly respected Seikaku and learned the skill in preaching among the people from him.(18)
Another thing that is considered important in learning about Shinran's edification
is his composing Wasan
[the classical Japanese poem of Shinran].(19)
There is no precedent for such a form, from a point of view of intending to read out, it carries an innovative significance as a matter of practical convenience. That Shinran excelled to a great extent at hearing the sound of the words and the feel of the language, in a manner of speaking, the pathos which the word has, is that which Shoji Yoshikawa has pointed out,(20) and indeed, Wasan hymns of Shinran are composed by way of placing one word at a time, and there is the rigor in the selection of a word and is an edge in rhythm. And yet, to set a tune to the form predetermined to be four phrases in shichigocho [seven-and-five syllable meter (5-7-5)] is easy and it is familiar to everyone. Shinran has made Wasan owned by the people who were "like a stone, rubble and debris." Kazuo Sekiyama educes, "Shinran was versed in the efficacy of zogei (or zatsugei) [a general term for songs and ballads which were prevalent in those days] and imayouta [literally, "a today kind of song" at the time], and so he thought of the form that would appeal to feelings of the common people," (21) and Yoritoshi Taya deduces, "Shonin[referring to Shinran, as a reverential title for the founder of Shin Buddhism] might have written down, while humming a tune to himself, when he composed Wasan." (22)
Not only on composing Wasan, but also on receiving the words of the Buddhist scriptures and foregone masters and transcribing them by hand, it is Katsuichiro Kamei who induces that Shinran must have recited them in a quiet voice. "When one recites, it is that he discerns tones and nuances of a word, which is to say, the life of the word, and breathes it in his heart. A voice when one recites is his own and yet is not his own, it is gotten on by the voice of Tathagata. It is to hear a voice which is not his own in himself. When one transcribes, it is that he re-embodies the life of the word that was thus breathed in. This, as I conceive it, is how one savors the words of scriptures and foregone masters and incarnates them. Shinran must have transcribed, while reciting them." (23) And in Kunio Toyoda, "Shinran has taken the word as that which is the wholly characteristic," and he concludes, "In fact, for Shinranin to hear was not so much for hearing the reason, more thoroughly imbued, as for hearing the numen of the word." (24)
As for whether or not there was something run on the realm of Japanese traditional belief in the power of words (kotodama
) in Mon Po of Shinran, I am unable to advert to it here,(25) yet that which is apparent is that Shinran has brought the way of life of the people into the primal perspective of his thoughts, considering the salvation of the people at any given time, and approached the issue of how the popularization of teachings of Pure Land Buddhism should be accomplished from various angles. The postscript by Shinran in Ichinen Tanen Moni [Notes on Once-calling and Many-calling], "For the people in the countryside do not know the meanings of characters and their pitiful and clouded-minded ignorance is as utter as could be, in order to have them all understanding easily, I have written the same thing once and again. Those who are the clear-minded will probably find this writing peculiar and ridicule it. Yet, without regard to such calumnies, I have earnestly written this so that the foolish may readily understand," is regarded as being a key element in the edification of the populace. That is, to tell "the same thing once and again" becomes a substantive matter.
Muneyoshi Yanagi, in his Na Mu A Mi Da Butsu, views the beauty of folk arts and the teachings of Pure Land Buddhism as those which are closely tied together and relates as follows: "Why goods which attained Buddhahood come into the world from craftspeople who are ignorant, deluded persons. Seeing their labor, I realize that there is the endless number of repetition with the heart and the hands. Fortunately, this reiteration causes the differential of abilities to disappear. Being bad will become being not bad. On this iteration, goods are to be borne to the Pure Land. It is this work that creates the same wonders as in the recitation of the Nembutsu. For one thereby leaves himself and gets beyond himself. Or, it could be said that oneself gets into and becomes the work itself. He is himself and yet is not himself. (...) Those which make 'Self' leave are Tanen [Many-calling] and the repetition." (26)
The era when Buddhism belonged to the Imperial family and the aristocracy passed by. The consciousness of the people was urged and the culture was going to be fermented as a popular culture. Setting out to speak to the hearts and minds of the people who were seeing the disturbances of protracted war and the transmutations of fortune before their eyes or to the people who were rich in sentiment rather than in reason, I should say, Pure Land School made Buddhism gliter in the phase of "the tragic
." (27) What assumed that significant role to play was Fushidansekkyo which reveals the teachings of Nembutsu Ojo [attaining Birth through the Nembutsu] and the voice of Amitabha Tathagata, talking to the people ably from the koza [pulpit, dais], with good gestures and cadence and rhythm of well-trained voice. We ought not to, however, forget that there were the underlying ideas of Honen and Shinran, who had to save the people and wished to be saved along with the people, that exhort the teachings of Nembutsu Ojo in their own visceral language, as that which drove Fushidansekkyo or as what was the life of Fushidansekkyo.
With the emergence of Honen and Shinran, the method of the sermon of ancient times and the Heian period which had, aiming at the members of the Imperial family and the aristocracy in a large proportion of cases, been given was undergoing a great transfiguration. In the technical feature for that, those who played the immediate role in its significant progress were Choken,(28) the master of the genre in Japanese Buddhist sermon, who appeared between the closing days of the Heian period and the earliest-Kamakura period (See An Abbreviated Chronological Table of Kamakura Period) and his son Seikaku.(29) Not only has Agui ryu
[the word "ryu" means "way" or "school"] that Choken and Seikaku established in Kyoto marked a new age in the history of Japanese Buddhist sermon, but it has also had a profound influence upon the sermon of after ages, and the descended of the Agui ryu, as orthodox Fushidansekkyo, has carried through to the present day.
Choken (1126-1203) who pursued his studies of Tendai Buddhism who was early reputed for his oratorical gift, and it is said that when he attended the Buddhist meeting of Saishoko [the annual five days of lectures on the Konkomyo-saishoo kyo (Sutra of Golden Splendour) given at the Imperial palace in the fifth month] in May, Shoan 4 (1174), his eloquence was so irresistible that no one could compete with him. And an anecdote that then Choken offered a prayer for rain in a hyobyaku mon [text of invocation] at Seiryoden Chamber and there was a mystic efficacy ["Ryujin (a dragon god who governs the rain) gave ground to Choken's talking point and heaven and earth sympathized, and the dark clouds immediately rolled in and it began raining heavily. (...) Choken's sermon was of miraculous efficacy. Therefore, he should be raised in rank to quasi-Daisozu"], and he was appointed quasi-Daisozu [an officiary title for Buddhist monks] (Genpeijosuiki) is well known. In later years he became a Daisozu, and in Angen 3 (1177) he was bestowed the rank of Hoin [the highest rank for Buddhist monks] and was honorifically called Choken Hoin by the public. But nevertheless it was not so long before he retired to the Agui on Ichijokoji Omiya Street in Kyoto and took a wife despite his having renounced the world. Although this wed of the Hoin astonished both the clergy and the laity and was castigated,(30) yet in those bewildering and disapproving glances, he reportedly laid bare his own conviction and he commenced a life dedicated to his pursuits as a preacher in which he exerted himself to edify people both of the cloth and of the world by his preaching with a flair for oratory. It is, assumedly, that which shows a trailblazing portion of the institutionalization in which "to preach" was becoming a type of a way of life of Buddhist monks or a style of their ascetic training. And it is alleged that Choken, even though he was an apostate Hoin, garnered enthusiastic support on the strength of his enormous preaching skill.(31)
As for Choken's antecedents and preeminent sermons, we can learn in a knowledgeable way by Genkoshakusho and other records, such as Sonpibunmyaku
[by Toin, Kinsada], Narisukeoki
[by Shirakawa, Narisukeo], Gyokuyo
[by Kujo, Kanezane] and the like.(32) The fineness of his preaching praised as "divine and wonder" (Gyokuyo) appears frequently in those records, yet of particular note is the unbounded admiration, "the master of the sermon across four seas and under a heaven, this school of "exposition" [the original Japanese word "nosetsu" suggests the preaching side and in some cases implies a Buddha and a Bodhisattva] is legitimate" (Sonpibunmyaku). And from the passage written on the third of April in the first year of Yowa (1181), "while preaching, time and again uttered 'the world around us is bad' and the rest" (Gyokuyo), that he gave a sermon, touching upon current events and the plight of the people and, from the passage on the twenty-eighth of December in the first year of Juei (1182), "the sermon was so graceful that the flock wiped tears from their eyes" (Gyokuyo) and the passage on the third of December in the second year of Kenkyu (1191), "today's sermon everyone dried one's eyes" (Gyokuyo), that he gave sermons the affectivity of which was such that "everyone in the full audience was moved" (Gyokuyo) are easily to be imagined. Furthermore, the entry that describes an event, which he preached, among Buddhist monks who upheld "Women are Unhallowed (Inherently Impure)" ["Nyonin Fujo"] as their ace in the hole, that women were better than men because women were [and would be] real mothers of all Buddhas in the past, in the present and in the future, and startled the hearers, as "unduly this must be a rarity, felicitous remark" (33) and the anecdote as to his fine stroke of sarcasm and wit by which he made Kiyomori and Shigemori of the Heike clan feel bad (34) offer a glimpse or two into his character as well.
"The sermon of Choken unfolded the scintillating and intriguing performances on the koza, and that with his scholarly acquisition and cultural accomplishments backed by, reigned over the origin of Japanese talking performing arts (35) which were promoted from the modern age onward." (36) And Choken's oratorical endowment and his surpassing techniques for preaching were inherited by Seikaku, the third son of Choken.
Seikaku (1167-1235) who studied under Seigen of the Chikurinbo on Mt. Hiei and learned the orthodoxy is said to have had superior quality, though he excelled in literary work, especially in sermonic work. Embracing "Preaching is the path to the Pure Land," Seikaku lived in the Agui as his father did, and both father and son were called Hoin of the Agui together. Seikaku after he had come into Honen's Jodomon [the Pure Land path] had a calling to preach, and through preaching established his fame also in Buddhist dogmatics. In Pure Land Buddhism Seikaku was referred to as the "Father of Sekkyo Nembutsu Gi (Sermon Nembutsu Doctrine)" or the "founder of Seppo Gi (Homiletics)" (Jodo Sangoku Busso Den) and was respected. [According to the information from the Reverend Ishikawa, a Japanese Pure Land priest and my senior from graduate school days, who has kindly looked into Seikaku's current standing within the order of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, and his clerical fraternity, it would seem that Seikaku is not held in so high esteem in today's Pure Land Buddhism as of January 24, 2006.]
As for Seikaku, other than what we can learn by Gyokuyo, Meigetsuki
[by Fujiwara, Teika (Sadaie)], Honen Shonin Gyojyo Gazu, Jododentoroku, etc., from sermons in after ages (Shinran Shonin Goichidaiki,(37) etc.) and a number of oral traditions carried on among preachers of Pure Land Buddhism and Shin Buddhism,(38) we may easily be able to conceive his image and how masterly he preached. As for the sermon of Seikaku which is annotated that "a shepherd he has few equals, the master of preaching" (Sonpibunmyaku), it is described as "graceful" in the passage on the twenty-second of December in the second year of Kenkyu (1191) and remarked, "How's that for gracefulness?," on the eighteenth of February in the second year of Kenryaku (1212) (Gyokuyo) and we find mention in the entry on the sixteenth of April in the third year of Genkyu (1206) of his sermon being "joined the ranks of Purana-kasyapa and everyone dropped tears" and in the entry on the ninth of September in the first year of Kenei (1206) [Note: In April 27, 1206, that is, the third year of Genkyu, the imperial era name was changed from Genkyu to Kenei] of its making "sleeves get wet [with tears]" (Sanchoki). In addition, the anecdotes that Seikaku was requested and gave "a sermon which grabs a lot of attention" on Mt. Koya and he cured Honen's illness by his preaching in August in the second year of Genkyu (1205) [it is said that Seikaku was preaching before the portrait of Zendo (Shan-Tao) in this "magical" Buddhist sermon by means of which to cure the warawayami ailment] (I) have been passed down. Furthermore, he has left his work of five volumes titled Shijuhachiganshaku and Jurokumonki (Kurodani Genku Shonin Den), Yuishinsho, Oharadangi Kikigakisho, etc., behind. All of these writings are what connect directly to the sermons of Pure Land Buddhism and Shin Buddhism.(39)
For Choken and Seikaku's "Hoin of the Agui" gained prominence and their style became called "Agui ryu," moreover, their art was inherited from Seikaku to his son Ryusho and to his grandson Kenjichi and to his great-grandson Kenki, the Agui ryu sermon came to have a potent influence on the sermons of after ages.(40) Seeing this genealogical tree from the viewpoint of the history of Japanese performing arts, Agui ryu is the so-called grand sermon master of preachers. And that form of the sermon had, from medieval period through early-modern times to the Meiji period, been handed down primarily to Pure Land Buddhism and Shin Buddhism (especially, Shin Buddhism).
In the theory of Ryoko Kushida (41) that argues over the predominant features of Agui ryu propagandism and the theory of Kazuo Sekiyama (42) that differs with the aspect of Kushida, we ought to be attentive to each point put forth by Kushida and Sekiyama. After having given due consideration to both their theories, the process of Agui ryu generation would be the following.
In a transitional period from Buddhism of the nobility to Buddhism of the commons, the sermon in the earliest stages of Agui ryu having Choken as its pivot was in the style of Invocation (Hyobyaku
) composed chiefly of rhetoric. It was that which, on the one hand, affirmed Merit [Riyaku] from erecting temples and stupas, depending entirely upon Pure Land belief concurring with the thought of Hokke (Lotus Sutra) and the thought of Amida of ancient Japanese Esoteric Tendai Buddhism (43) and preached Shogyo Ojo (attaining Birth in the pure Land through Sundry Practices), yet, on the other hand, preached Ikko Senju
(Exclusive Recitation) and the thought of Hongan (the Original Vow) of Amida
. Although the propagandism of Agui ryu took its stand upon a distinct theory, "Hearing a sermon and Veneration [Kuyo] lead right away to the path to the Pure Land," yet in Choken, probably, his thoughts were, even though he was laying weight upon Amida belief and inculcating Birth in Amida's Pure Land as Easy Practice, still different from the thoughts of Honen, and he was unable to break through the limits of the liturgistic and formalistic secularization by Tendai Pure Land Buddhism of the time. It was, to be sure, awash in aristocratic tinges and lacking in the common touch, but when a proper and specific good text was orotund with worthiness of hyobyaku mon and modulation and rhythm and the rise and fall of the voice, it brought hearers to tears, and they simply believed in the miraculous efficacy of Hyobyaku that "It is the glaring fact that, commencing with the principal image of Buddha, all Buddhas' eyes watching over us answer to it." (44) As times underwent a change, however, hearers became unable to feel satisfaction with this sermon in the style of Invocation. To people who were hard-pressed in a scene of deadly strife and carnage and also faced an earthquake, fire and famine but were trying to live, the "edification" of the old style, which did not solely preach the new thought of Shomyo Nembutsu [Recitation of the Name] and was, with ad hoc remarks or impractical and decorated terms which fitted neither with the times nor with the people, formalized under the conventional auctoritas, became that which would not be appreciated.(45)
Yet Seikaku perceptively took hold of the changing times. Agui ryu sermon responded to the "concreteness" of Age of the Decadent Dharma and started showing an increasing Senju Nembutsu (Exclusive Nembutsu) tilt and the form of the hyobyaku style was gradually moderated so as to enfold the side of the people, not a handful of the nobles, in its arms and was going to be swayed towards the medieval popular sermon. And Agui ryu sermon that had adopted a method which the oral performance (the style of speech act) received the first priority placed an emphasis on folk literature centered around allegorical-causal narratives and enriched the quality of the literary elements. "Choken and Seikaku, switched from one taste to another" (Seiasho, vol. VI), a line reads, but this, I should say, refers not only to the distinction of the elocution as the propagandistic technique. Honen's word, "Seikaku Hoin knows my mind" (Honen Shonin Gyojo Gazu) is what plainly indicates the coidentity of ideological standpoints of Honen and Seikaku.(46) In view of this, Agui ryu sermon in which Seikaku had come to hold the central place was no longer a transitional phase of the foregoing and it was the formation of a popular sermon for the people which disseminated Senju Nembutsu thoroughgoingly. And therewithal it was the establishment of the foundations for Fushidansekkyo of Shin Buddhism that was in due course to be delivered most strenuously in the history of Japanese Buddhism.
The distinctive development of the propagandistic sermon dawned with Choken was perfected by Seikaku, and here Agui ryu "has created a new homiletics and new methods of sermon, which completely differ from the sermon given in the Nara period and the Heian period (the lecture on canon construction of the Buddhist scriptures by Japanese Exoteric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism), before a background of the ideas of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism which was intended specifically for the commons." (47)
Hossokushu (48) sorted out by Shinsho Hoin, a disciple of Seikaku, exposits the ritual codes of the propagandistic sermon in the form of the "oral code" (the oral instruction of the esotericism) and enters into the details of the unique articulation of Agui ryu and the ritual decorum of movements, ranging from the ascending and seating of a ceremony officiating priest to other subjects, such as the way to hold the koro [thurible], how to ring the kei
[kei is a percussion instrument of Chinese origin in the shape of a platy stone with both ends turned down] and the verbalism according to the kind of Buddhist services and the diction and, with the proceedings of the service, Jinbun
[imploring the arrival of Buddhas and deities and gratifying them], Hyobyaku
, Ganmon
[offering a prayer], Hotsugan
[making an oath], Shiguzeigan
(or Shiguseigan) [making Four Universal Vows to be realized as a Bodhisattva], Fujumon
[reading a text of praise out], Kyoke
(or Kyoge) (Buddhist ballad) followed by Seppo
, and then Betsugan
[making a specific vow of a particular Bodhisattva], Eko
[Merit-Transference, giving and being given], So-Eko
[as a whole], the descending and the propagation at the end, and further to the mental attitude. Although all we can do is to get the idea how substantially Agui ryu sermon had an influence upon all the congregation, which is to say, all social strata from the nobles to the people, merely from journals of that time by those record keepers who were not among the people and narratives of the later age, yet behind the sermon that should have moved them to tears, there was, this Hossokushu tells, the scrupulous provision of preachers, put another way, a facet of the institutionalization of preaching as a religious ritual.
The impact that the sermon of Choken and Seikaku of the Agui brought upon Japanese war chronicle literature and didactic literature was enormous. Generally, it is upon medieval storytelling literary arts that the sermon impacted most heavily in the history of Japanese literature, but more importantly, Agui ryu propagandistic sermon acted as a womb for medieval storytelling.
Even if they were in their prime, as it is anyone's call, every one of them was gone. In age, the living must perish and no one lasts out. "All are the ever-changing." Or "this is the law of the world where all things come into and go out of being." The sound of the crystal bells of Jetavanavihara, is ringing to fill me in on.
These phrases, which has a strong resemblance to the initial text of The Tale of the Heike, is a paragraph in The Collection of Hyobyaku of Choken. It is accepted that there can be little doubt that The Tale of the Heike that is written in an excellent style the beginning of which starts off with the rhetorical expression, "Gionshoja no kane no koe, shogyomujyo no hibikiari [The sound of the bells of Jetavanavihara, rings to tell me "All are the ever-changing"]," originated out of the flowing style of Agui ryu sermon.(49) In Japanese storytelling, after such plangent and crisp sentences which were going to sing, a dialogue and deeds of the characters will vividly be portrayed. It is very much the same as the construction of the sermon in which after an impressive hyobyaku mon has been read out, a preacher ably starts telling of the didactic content of an allegorical-causal-themed lore with lively descriptions. To how to write a text (a script for a sermon) by which to move the audience and for that purpose what style to develop, preachers were trying hard, much more the utility of verbal skills and gestures. That Agui ryu regarded as the grand sermon master made out vast amounts of collections of sermons and got the thoroughly scrutinized literary documentations in order (50) has shown how much their conatus focusing was.The notion of Mujo
[Impermanence or Transience] is an exclamatory sentiment that has been running through all Japanese literary arts. Behind that Mujo became a current of thought, and secularized and diffused, and it finally penetrated into the people, along with the experiences of the people in their real lives that were, so to speak, the links between the ideology and the reality, there were, I should say, the manipulation, that is, the conscious act of emphasis in sermons (by preachers) working strong. In the allegorical-causal part
" present in the propagandistic literary arts of that time from Agui ryu down told a new world to the people and it came to signal the beginning of the formation of new thoughts. Yet the people, when sensed the "ever-changing" and the "karmic backlash," at the same time as accepting those straightforwardly, were finding the energy of sublimating the dismal image or the vitality within themselves. That was the voice of Nembutsu of the people and that was a jest or a comic tale in the propagandistic literary arts, and that was also leading to such a work of literary arts as was an outpouring of the popular sensibility (agony, bitternesse and aspiration in popular heart) like sekkyo joruri [ballad drama] Sanseidayu. These are the cultural history of the populace that has not been written in Japanese history and the "ritual" as a manifestation of the hearts and minds of the people of their own insofar as they were able to express them.
The Reverend Shonen Sobue, having been accepted such as "Going through all sorts of tribulations, his life is earnestly devoted to preaching" and "The legitimate preacher who still carries on Fushidansekkyo which was traditional in Japanese Buddhism in the modern age. His excellent expressiveness with his distinctive beautiful voice has, today, the enormous reputation of the best in Japan," (52) who, in this January, made "the peaceful departure of this life" (54) that he "returned to the Pure Land with a smile, having completed his life's mission," (53) is a genuine preacher of the Otani branch of the Shin denomination and a distinguished person of religion. The Reverend Shonen is never an entertainer. Yet that the reverend accurately hands down Fushidansekkyo that is the origin of Japanese talking performances (rakugo [Japanese sit-down comedy], kodan [historical narrative], rokyoku [recitation of stories with samisen] et cetera) to the present day and that his virtuoso preaching is premised on all the conditions as a traditional preacher and it is the emergence of a "true figure of Ho Gei Ichinyo
" [Literally speaking, that the "Dharma" and the "Art" are one unity] possess high cultural-historical value and great significance in the history of the Japanese performing arts.
The Reverend Shonen was born on the eighteenth of September, Meiji 41 (1908) in Oyabu-cho Shigo, Anpachi county of Gifu prefecture. His father is Yasutaro Sobue and mother is No and they were said to have been the deprived peasants. However hard they worked, they were overshadowed by unending poverty, and to be the peasants was, it is said, great misery. As he saw his father beg the land owner ineluctably in tears with many prostrations and obeisances, he came to make a firm resolution to renounce the world and become a Buddhist priest.
I, uhm, delivered a sermon for the first time at the age of eight. When a boy of eight, neither Shinjinwas there, just all-you-can-write. I had a sermon written in four sheets of writing paper, and I, in sleep or wake, learned by heart and by rote, and then, I gave a sermon for the first time. That was, uh, the twenty-seventh of December, it was, uhm, in the old days all were given in vigils, and I preached on the night of the twenty-seventh, a night of vigil. Indays of old, every pulpit was such a koza as this one, and I ascended it, and would give a sermon, but the main hall was full to the doors. So, many a person, an overflow congregation, left me open-mouthed, and I forgot all. Then, in front of the koza, those, in the first grade in elementary school, let me see, the second grade, wasn't it? Friends of mine were there, and started saying, "Looks like he's forgotten," "He became dumb," so they were saying, "Hush! You are noisy!" while yelling at them, all came flooding back to me. That means, to fly into a temper could happen to be a good thing, I thought, and initiated Sandai, and a narrative for the occasion, though I still remember, our founder, straight from Mt. Hiei, well, there was a time when our founder came to Rokkakudo [Choho Temple in Kyoto]. And that's what the story was about, "(tune) Cold gale force winds wast howling, When making headway in the teeth of these winds, In consideration of how were tortures of the damned in Eight Cold Hells, A lot of trouble did he go to (end tune)," the stories like this were written up, some of the stories. Old folks, men and women, cried, and when I stepped down from the koza, "We're impressed by you," well, some gave me candies, some made offerings, and so, thinking of nothing better than giving a sermon, I became addicted...
The content of this first sermon of his is what was cited from "Rokkakudo Sankei [Visiting Choho Temple]" in Shinran Shonin Goichidaiki, [the hagiography of Shinran] and its tune would, employing staff notation,(V) be that which is seen in 'Fushidansekkyo Material 1-b' [Japanese EUC and images (.jpg, .gif)] on another page.Although the reverend thus started giving a sermon at the age of eight, it was, he said, in his Asahikawa days (55) that he actually came to have a desire "to be a fine preacher, instead of ending up as a mere Buddhist priest." That aspiration was strong, and with his willingness to address the full and practical study in order to be able to follow the sacred mission, he decided to leave Hokkaido where he had been for about six years since he was fifteen years old and to return to Japan's main island.
At that time, it is said, in Tokai three prefectures there were eminent Buddhist monks who were active as select preachers competing with one another and struggling for supremacy. On those preachers of repute and their sermons of renown and the bustle of places called Sekkyo-jo [those where sermons were delivered other than temples], Kazuo Sekiyama has elaborated (Sekkyo no Rekishiteki Kenkyu [The Historical Study of Preaching] [Japan: Hozokan, 1973], etc.). According to the Reverend Shonen, sermons were given at temples by preachers including the two leading monks, Michimaro Hattori (1870-1944) and Enjo Miyabe (1854-1934), and others like Osamu Takemura and Chiju Mori from Shiga prefecture, Koei (Akihide) Kawakami from Hokuriku District, Koyo Satoo and Junshin (Suminobu) Nagashima from Gifu prefecture, Shuken Koike and Taiken Fujioka and Shizumoto Fujii from Mie prefecture, outdoing each other with their popularity, and every temple was filled to capacity. Among those preachers, the Reverend Shonen was going to be apprenticed to and attend upon the Reverend Shuken Koike who was a noted Buddhist monk that talked about the tenets of Shin Buddhism, though not spectacularly, but earnestly, and whose excellence in preaching was such that he was called "Buddha of the modern age."
Following the Reverend Koike's indication, "Only if one has had the voice that won't become hoarse from giving many a long talk can he make his way as a preacher. 'One Voice, Two Tune, Three Man' (56) as has long been said, in order to become a real preacher, Voice is of primary importance," the Reverend Shonen began his voice training.
So, we have microphones today, that means, no mater what voice one may have, through a microphone, usually he can preach audibly enough for everyone in the congregation to hear, but in the old days there was no microphone. So when one preaches in the stately pile of Branch Temple or in Head Temple, he will lose his voice in giving a talk. With that said, "If you want to be a real and staunch preacher, you have to hoarsen your voice, in common speech, to break your voice," I was told...
The temple I lived in, that there town called Yoro-cho, and there was Yoro Falls [Waterfalls for the Aged]. By bicycle it took about forty minutes to get there. (...) If it was getting late, a lot of people would come, so, from about four in the morning when people were rarely around, for like two hours in competition with the roar of the waterfall falling into the plunge basin, well, there, while doing that, really in three days, well, I was no longer able to, in the least, say a word, no word whatever. For all that I had lost my voice, I went on doing, from and on about the fifth day, blood was coming out of my throat, with my swollen and bulging throat, I became unable to take in even liquid food through. But, enduring pain, I kept doing, and then, in about one week, slowly I was finding my voice, and that voice is this voice of mine...
Having received his new voice, his zuiko (57) days formally began. The sermons of those days were conventionally scheduled to start from noon and to end the following morning, that is, "ichi chuya (diel)," and in Tokai District a preacher used to preach two times each in the afternoon and evening and next morning, while an attendant used to preach one time each. Accordingly, when "ni chuya," an attendant had to work out the content of the sermon and prepare enough for six preaching times, specifically, to find subject matters himself and produce the script, and that with his originality and ingenuity exercised in setting a tune to words therein, and then to make sure that he remembers all the script. The master will, having listened to his apprentices' sermons, give words of warning to them. In this regard, the Reverend Koike is said to have been an exacting master that rarely commended his apprentices' works and usually scolded them, and was especially heavy upon the matters concerning the tenets and queried the grounds for every subject matter, or all written sources.
They said at that time that good tips on improving one's preaching skills were "to read, to write, to talk, to get others to listen to you and amend your mannerisms." As one would find only a few subject matters in one book, which might be used for preaching, one should read as many books as he can and collect material for sermon, and structure and write a script well, and speak time after time so that every word might be alive on his tongue, and then have listeners and correct his bad habit. "This is only to be expected, but there is no other way. In doing so over again, the art of oracy will be refined," the Reverend Shonen said.
An apprentice had to not only devote himself to preaching, but also run around doing everything from carrying luggage to attending to his master's personal matters. It is said, however, that there was so much to learn in such chores. What the Reverend Koike talked about were, for example, over drinks and even in the bath, always related to the teachings. The Reverend Shonen said that what remained clear in his memory was the Reverend Koike's earnest sincerity in pursuing the truth of the Law for his life with his strong view and abiding faith, like one time when the Reverend Koike was not hesitate to have a heated controversy over the tenets with a resident priest at a temple where he was invited to come. In view of this, one can argue that the retinue system (the apprentice system) is, for apprentices, that which facilitates, in capturing the spirit of their master, their "infiltration" (58) into the "world of their master," by having a close encounter with the life of a Master Preacher, beyond the mere succession and acquisition of skills and tournure.
After two-year apprenticeship in the Reverend Koike's retinue, in Showa 5 (1930) the Reverend Shonen set up on his own. It is to be understood that every single preaching was, with preacher's whole heart grounded in Mon soku Shin, a crucial moment for a preacher concerning whether he could save the people or not as if there were no second chances. Also in practice, it is said that a preacher gave each "preaching" as if it were his last, for at that time there were a number of Buddhist monks who were aspiring to becoming preachers and there was rivalry among them, and the situation was such that a preacher would have a clear idea of whether or not he could get the next preaching assignment after the sermon that he had just delivered. The Reverend Shonen's single-minded dedication to preaching has been for over sixty years, and the truth that every one of his sermons is a fight with real swords has remained unchanged for all those years. The reverend says, "Shinran Shonin is watching us."
Now, humor has its place in preaching.(III) Laughter which causes that a philosophy or a teaching suggests itself to us is, the Reverend Shonen says, real "Laughter." For example, "while we continuously burst into laughter, we are taught human sordidness" or "while laughing, it makes us think and tears flow, and then again it makes us laugh while crying." Put another way, this laughter draws audiences, having them alternate between joy and grief, and is not going to come in and go out with a funny story, but is going to run in accordance with the Law. The reverend had worked on a broad array of laughter and was using his ingenuity in incorporating much laughter into his sermon. As Shoichi Ozawa has remarked,(59) the preaching of the Reverend Shonen starts off by getting a laugh out of the congregation, touching right upon a sore point of the nature of human matters.
[In my neighborhood, well, saying "I'd like to pop off," an old lady who has visited Pokkuri Temple three times in order to die suddenly without ailing, is now in bed, stricken with paralysis. (...) things on a daily basis are important, and yet been hard on a daughter-in-law, saying "I need not be looked after by that kind of daughter-in-law, because I will drop dead," but, that old lady, who is now lying in bed, stricken with paralysis, sobs everyday, why is that? Whenever her daughter-in-law changes her diaper, today's daughter-in-law is clever, a daughter-in-law of former days would smack on her mother-in-law's behind, that makes a sound, and that will become the talk of the neighborhood, today's daughter-in-law won't do such a silly thing, whenever she changes her mother-in-law's diaper, her hate accumulated on a daily basis, now is the time, finds vent, a sharp pinch, another sharp pinch, Good, because of being the orally-challenged, she neither speaks nor cries well, Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, and when a real daughter visited, "What are these black-and-blue things, my mom got?" "Oh, they must be sort of bedsores," things on a daily basis are important...]
The Reverend Shonen is, using everyday concerns familiar to people in their own backyard as subjects to talk about and bodying them forth, with a touch of humor, volubly going to talk to the congregation. While on the other hand, the congregation will respond to every point with a nod or a gasp and carry on roaring with laughter. A man and wife, a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law, illness, money issues, it may sound as if his talk is moving from one subject to another, whereas he is talking about the same thing and the focal point to which is led forward from those subjects is one. Then a story excerpted from the life of Shinran and the legenda starts being told, and as it is about get to the best allegorical-causal part (
[Coming back on foot, Genemon looks back, "O, I am grateful for the Grace of Buddha, so merciful unto me, na mu a mi da butsu, na mu a mi da butsu," yet, when looking ahead, he doesn't know where to cast away his affection for his own son, "Even though for the great practice of responding with gratitude (Hosha), at a mere twenty-three years of age, that who did take his farewell to this world, my dear son... Alas, this is more than I can bear, Oh, that's right, I will try to read Wasan, therein reads, 'All the Bodhisattvas lay down: When we were in the causal stage, Even though all through countless kalpas We have performed the myriad good acts and practices, Affection for our beloved ones was ever so hard to sever, And Birth-and-death was ever so hard to exhaust accordingly, Only after having practiced the Nembutsu samadhi Could we annihilate sins and hindrances and liberate ourselves from Birth-and-death,' even those blessed Bodhisattvas had to say that rather than to go through all sorts of austerities, they were hard put to it to sever the feelings of Affection, and certainly, even more so for this ignorant, deluded person Genemon, looking at my son's body like this, I cannot help but cry, I love my son so much, can't be helped," he looks back and utters the Nembutsu and then looks ahead and is overwhelmed with his affection, and he totters on...]
The Reverend Shonen's "beautiful voice" gets clearer and gains cadence with increasing uplift of the story, and before one is aware, a talk becomes a tune (fushi
). It is the compelling part where the characteristics of the Japanese language is made the most of on the underlying rhythm in shichigocho [seven-and-five syllable meter (5-7-5)].(60) As for this, employing staff notation, though with the limitations of phonetic transcription, that is, the faultiness owing to the fact that it makes a difference when on Western musical staff notation or that there is something in the cadence of Japanese which is dropped out of staff notation,(V) it is shown in 'Fushidansekkyo Material 1-b' [Japanese EUC and images (.jpg, .gif)] on another page. We ought to note that through such a congenial rhythm coming from teller's mouth, it in the main depends upon from-ear-to-heart understanding. By due tenets held in the proper way and Hogo
andWasan [the classical Japanese hymns of Shinran] introduced ably, the Reverend Shonen is, with the exquisite tune of his "beautiful voice," going straight into congregation's heart. People themselves revel in the tune, being enchanted, and they are moved and grateful, and in that religious zeal, being overwhelmed with emotion, the Nembutsu flows out of their mouths. When this uke nembutsu
erupts, there is the world of Kanno Doko
The Reverend Shonen's Fushidansekkyo is what takes the archetypal Godan-ho [five-phases method]. First, for Sandai
, the passages from the Buddhist canon and Shinran's canon construction are impressively read out with modulation and rhythm, as the agenda to focus on for the subsequent duration of the sermon. Second, with expounding the meaning of the tenets of Sandai in somewhat plain terms, it is to be Hosetsu
. Third, Hiyu
is, in order to explain the meaning more clearly, what is inculcated, using as absorbing subjects as possible which are closely connected with what comes up in real life of the congregation. Eko
(496-554) of the Liang Dynasty in China stated the rules for Taikiseppo [preaching in accord with the mental and spiritual faculties of the hearers] in Kosoden: "For the commons, to preach the Dharma by presenting concrete facts to the people and correlating with those which the people see and hear," and the same would hold good for Japanese Buddhist sermon. Fourth, for Innen
, although the cases that have established Sandai and Hosetsu are instantiated, yet, here, Shinran Shonin Goichidaiki and Rennyo Shonin Goichidaiki dominate the talk or the rede referred to Kyogyoshinsho [On Teaching, Practice, Faith, and Enlightenment], Tannisho [Passages Deploring Deviations] and Rennyo Shonin Ofumi [the Letters of Rennyo] becomes the main subject. Fifth, in Kekkan
as a conclusion, it takes the form that Anjin
["Oh, Godensho (the independent text excerpted from the pictorial hagiography of Shinran) is a blessing, Godensho is precious," said one of brethren, so I asked, "Can you tell me what is so precious about Godensho?" and he answered, "That tune, that tune is precious beyond expression," well, there's someone who finds it blessing to hear the tune of Godensho...]
The Reverend Shonen's phrasing stirs up people's hearts and minds. His preaching is not just what delivers the words, but an expression of such beautiful sounds as dwell in one's heart. Generally, in Japanese Buddhist preaching tempo and cadence play important roles to the extent that they have hearers get even a certain sense of urgency combined with the subject matter, yet that largely depends upon the receiving end as well as upon that which from the edifying side. Hence, it is possible that an overly sensory and voluntaristic reception could happen. But it would, in my view, be more of a certain "sound" of expression of life to be kept reciting and telling to the end of time, like Shinran's Wasan as forementioned, so as to ring in the innermost recesses of one's mind. Whereat such a thing as sound is sensed not as a fluctuation, nor as a flexure, but as an embodiment of an aspect of the ethos for what it is.(63) "Like everyone else, it was the tune that I felt drawn to the most," Shoichi Ozawa says,(64) as well as others.
These are audio video material files as to the preacher of the Shin Buddhism in Japan, the Reverend Shonen Sobue.
- Fushidansekkyo Audio Video Material Main Page in English
Audio Video Material A2-1, A2-2, A2-3, A1, A3-3, S1, S2 and S3 : The Reverend Shonen Sobue
A2-1: About Tune [Cadence] (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A2-2: About his first preaching at the age of 8 (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A2-3: "Nothing is left if Amida Buddha is taken away from me." (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A1: About the frame of mind when he decided to be a "preacher" that shepherds the people (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A3-3: About the "beautiful voice," the narrative power and the tune (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
S1: Fushidansekkyo from "Shinran Shonin den": Resting his head on a stone in the snow (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
S2: Fushidansekkyo from "Shinran Shonin den": Refusing to receive his own son Zenran (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
S3: Fushidansekkyo from "Shinran Shonin den": Mountain priest Bennen O my heart was changed forever (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)What the presence of the Reverend Shonen means to the congregation will be shown through the sight when his sermon is over. They utter the Name, "na mu a mi da butsu," time and again, praying with their palms together before the Reverend Shonen on the koza. It should come to our attention here that the koza is placed where the reverend can be seated with the principal image of Buddha as a backdrop. They join their hands in prayer towards the reverend whether as an "alternative" of Amitabha Tathagata or as that of Shinran, and say the Name, having heard that Tathagata hands around and tenders a way of Birth in the Pure Land to them, so that they may express their gratitude. They utter the Name, for the joy of experiencing inly, through the Reverend Shonen that is the presence of a preacher with a tangible, personal entity, that at this present moment their presence is also in the working of Amitabha Tathagata and borne by His Vow's directionality of the power to grasp them.
It is acknowledged by several scholars including Muneyoshi Yanagi and Kazuo Sekiyama as to how marvelously the devouts of the Shin denomination receive the sermon, that is to say, they are "first-class listeners." This is to be ascribed to the fundamental attitudes of Mon Po
" [to insert an interlude, interjection, to barrack].
[Among parishioners of my temple, there is an elderly lady named Haru Kato, (...) in the Hoonko Services at the Yurin Temple, "Would like to participate, but, the reverend, I am sad, because I won't be able to do so," rang me up and told me, "Why's that?" I asked and she answered, "Because I fail in any way to move, suffering from neuralgia," "Someone like you, who has a rare sickness, Oh, I feel sorry, you got neuralgia, well then, we have very little choice, uhm, at ten o'clock in the morning and at one o'clock in the afternoon, from your place, please utter and give a lively interjection,"... ]
To hayasu is reminded of Hayashi [a vocal accompaniment which calls to a solo ballad singer with certain words] in Japanese folk ballads and Hayashikata [those who give an accompaniment] in other Japanese folk performing arts. The term "hayasu" means, etymologically speaking, a division and proliferation of the soul, and by doing hayasu the power of the soul is to pervade whole,(65) while Kunio Yanagita gives his views on Hayashi in Japanese folk ballads that he believes "that this started not so much with the phrases of a chant, more appropriately, as with the internal urge." (66) In either case, the role that uke nembutsu
An English rendering of my published paper "The Art of Kokan"
These are very short audio material files as an example of uke nembutsu.
-Additional audio material U AIFF - An example of uke nembutsu (Kind: AIFF Audio, Data Size: 396.2 K, Data Rate: 14.3 K bytes/sec, Duration: 00:00:27.18)
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The sense of solidarity that occurs when brethren get together and recite with one voice or the self-consciousness towards the strength that they are together, corroborating each other's belief, as adherents in the same persuasion is hands-on faith which differs from faith based on the study of doctrine. There are, however, not only that which is due to being such a follower clustering, but also that which is immediately experiential which won't confine man to the teachings in despite of its beginning with the teachings and is not ideological-conscious understanding. Put simply, what may be called sensory-affective experience as an individual is, it would appear to me, found in Fushidansekkyo. Even if what we see there is whether a sensitivity or a receptivity, "to feel" is something that cannot be stopped on our own. And that is to construe a "myth" as each one's own expression or expressing oneself, and is, when tracing back, what is affirmable by the soliloquized, "When I turn the Vow that Amida fulfilled after five kalpas of contemplation over and over in my mind, I find that it was for me, Shinran, alone!" (Tannisho) in Shinran. The people who came together for hearing the Reverend Shonen's sermon happily say, "I am grateful, I am grateful." To have a finger on the pulse of this "I am grateful, I am grateful" could draw on a breakthrough in exploring aspects of Kokan
There are not a few people who ask a sidesman to tape the Reverend Sonen's preaching on a cassette. An elderly lady tresures a cassette tape up, saying, "I had been unable to go to sleep. But I became able to sleep when listening to his preaching." A middle-aged lady says, "Well, because I can feel relieved." And those who say, "When I listen to the cassette tape, my jangled nerves are eased." These are the people who are looking forward to the regular meeting at the Yurin Temple and who cannot do without hearing the Reverend Shonen's sermon everyday, even if it may be only a cassetted one.(67) For these people his Fushidansekkyo is at once what is their delight and what is to be called the fructification of their sensitivities and sentiments with their living faith and wish in the background. Put another way, it is this missionary work which is lowered and undervalued for being performing-artified that saves people and comforts people's hearts and minds in the midst of people's real lives. And that is also to show the raw power which the original sources of Geino
[Japanese folk performing arts] intrinsically have to us.
[Geino are considered to be those which have become performing arts after what primordially did not assume any form of performing arts had become "behavioral traditions" in the course of the actions being recurring, and had been performing-artified. For example, as seen in the development of "Mai [Japanese Dance]" (Mai differs from Odori), one theory has it, the bodily movements in the peri-possession by a god or a spirit (as a religious phenomenon) and so forth, which were non-conscious and spontaneous movements, gradually came to attain a firmness in consciousness and became intentional ones (including imitative acts), and started giving form to a folk performing art in the end. Although there are those which were further developed into "Geijutsu (fine art, high performing arts)" from "folk art (folk performing arts)," yet they are not Geino, for "Geijutsu" lose touch with our real "lives," while Geino correspond to our real "lives." cf. Orikuchi Shinobu Zenshu 21 Nihon Geino-shi Rokko [The Collected Papers of Shinobu Orikuchi Vol. 21 The Six Lectures on the History of Japanese Performing Arts] (Japan: Chuokoron Sha, 1996), Orikuchi Shinobu Zenshu dai 12 kan (Japan: Chukobunko, 1976), Orikuchi Shinobu Zenshu dai 15 kan (Japan: Chukobunko, 1976) and Yanagita Kunio Zenshu 13 Senzo no Hanashi Nihon no Matsuri Shinto to Minzokugaku hoka [The Collected Papers of Kunio Yanagita Vol. 13 Talk on the Ancestry, Japanese Festival, Shinto and Folklore, etc.] (Japan: Chikumabunko, 1990).]Despite the wishes of many people, it has been long since the negative policy was formulated on Fushidansekkyo within the order of Shin Buddhism, such as criticisms against Fushidansekkyo and disdains for it, and consequently the drastic drop in the population of the keeper of Fushidansekkyo or the issue of the presence or absence of the successor is considerable.
Around Showa eight or nine [1933 or 1934], academians started saying, "To give a sermon with a tune is," for some reason or other, uh, "About the blessed teachings, talking like an entertainer. How disgraceful!" They started saying that. But, if tune is disgraceful, they should try to read out a sutra with no tune, right? na mu a mi da bu na mu a mi da bu. Well, in contrast, when we intone it, it resonates venerably, you know? That's how it should be, the way of saying "There is a mountain," on the other, saying "(cadence) There is a towering mountain (end cadence)," isn't this way more thorough? Even in Sumo, if they call out, like "East, Akebono," no one can feel a surge of excitement and anticipation. Also in swimming, "(cadence) Lane Number One, what's-his-name (end cadence)," something of the sort, if referring to it as "tune" is no good, this is "cadence," at the crescendo, a tune is thus naturally coming out, (...) All of them, and so, uh, my attendants, there are about twenty attendants in my retinue, but, all of them would stumble along the way and goof off, also, a cushy assignment of reading the sutras promises a higher offering...
Thus, the Reverend Shonen was high-spirited.
The Baptist denomination as one sect of the Protestant dissenters is a persuasion of faith which emerged at center stage from the mighty swell of the English Reformation in the history of religions of the 17th century. Although the Separatist denomination (or the Independent denomination) was a group that hoped for the spirit of the Holy Bible to be brought to realization, getting out of the Church of England, for having recognized the limits of the Puritan movement by those who had actively stayed in the Church of England and tried to enforce an all-out Reformation of the Church, laying out a Calvinist direction for the reform, yet it is the Baptist denomination, further out from among the Separatists, that tried to follow up and strengthen church's reformation, for "what the church truly is," in its institution (Church-government) and the ordinances.(68) Thus, the characteristics of the Baptists are to be represented the most in "Congregationalism" in their "system of church operation" and the ideas of baptism based on the "subjective confession of faith [in confirmation]."
In this stream of the Baptists, two distinct forms, namely, the General Baptists grounded on Arminian Theology and the Particular Baptists based on Calvinist Theology,(69) are seen. They plainly differ in the object of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As described by Goki Saito,(70) however, this doctrinal difference was not the conclusive factor that would thwart the coexistence, and they could consolidate. Briefly, the Bible teaches the salvation of particular individuals who are the elect and the salvation of all (Universalism). Hoping for the realization of the "Church as the Body of Christ" (corpus christi) as a community of true believers formed by "true baptism" that rested on an explicit faith confession (Romans, Chapter 6 and Chapter 10), both were those who were on the path of the Free Church struggle for protecting the "freedom of faith and practice for the individual" before God. Also they did not have a great theologian as their denominational founder. Hence, the Baptist denomination, as an evangelizational community, among the coexisting multiple communities which are one in Jesus Christ, has latitude, in the undercurrent of faith, that allows Baptists to open out to other denominational theologies and to hold a dialogue. But, for that reason, they essentially had to stand fast on the doctrinal purity of the Baptist churches centered upon Baptist principles (Nonconformity, Believer's Baptism by Immersion and Anticlericalism) at all times.
It is only natural that in the Baptists a "confession of faith" (71) is the confession uttered by that who has internally experienced the individual conversion and the new birth by the Holy Spirit, and therewithal it is the confession of faith, if an overriding donnee of their struggle for the freedom of faith and their source are expressed through such a confession, that will best show their way to live. Looking at one of those confessions which were issued by the Particular Baptists, Baptism is to be dispensed only upon "persons professing faith, or that are made disciples; who upon profession of faith" (the 39th article of The First London Confession of Particular Baptists (72) adopted in 1644). And "the way and manner of the dispensing of this ordinance the Scripture holds out to be dipping or plunging the whole body under water" (the 40th a). It is generally accepted that this is what expresses the internal fact [and reality] of the "death" (a death of one's old self of unbelief and rebellion) and the "burial" (a burial of one's old self-willed ego) and the "resurrection" (a new birth of one who lives in his new faith in Jesus and love and hope) as a visible sign. A hierarchical relationship would never occur among such believers, and the commission, directly from Christ, was "given to them under no other consideration, but as considered Disciples" and by the appointment of the congregation, any "preaching Disciple" could administer the ordinances (from Articles 36 through 41 and the 45th). By the same token, in that of the General Baptists, Baptism signifies an outward sign of the cleansing from sin and the death and the new birth (the 10th article of Synopsis of Faith of the True English Christian Church at Amsterdam (73) in 1610), and furthermore, therein is clarified the negation of pedobaptism that Baptism "does not belong to infants." And as seen in An Advertisement [Helwys, 1611], the thoroughness of their congregationalism is evidenced. That is to say, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew, Chapter 18, Verse 20), and therefore "they are the people of God and Church of Christ, having right to Christ, and all his ordinances." (74)
The leaders of the early Baptist churches in England were the people at the bottom of the heap. It is accepted as an undisputed fact that they were a sheer "cluster of small and poor people" by any standard in British society at the time. Whether for social or for economic reasons, it was impossible to call on a full-time minister who had received formal education in Theology, and so they did follow only the Bible, having a sense of great purity, and elected their pastors from amongst themselves. Thence they were sneered at as "lay preachers" or "tub preachers," (75) and they were found in all sorts of walks of life, such as a cattle man, a button maker, a shoe repair man, a leather dealer, a hatter and a horse masseur.(76) They were the people called "tradesmen" in a phrase of the time. Each of them was a missionary as a tentmaker as with the Apostle Paul.
Murray Tolmie describes a concrete situation of mission work by lay people, mentioning a lay evangelist of the General Baptists, Thomas Lambe, whose church was the major base for a massive missionary campaign across the South England as a whole in the 1640s. Tolmie says in his The Triumph of the Saints that Thomas Lambe's church was a conspicuous presence in London without equal, especially, in drawing young men and women it was competing with theaters and on holy days many a person from other sectarian groups and districts gathered at this Thomas Lambe's church in search of the novelty.(77) Edwin C. Dargan says in his A History of Preaching that the sermon of John Bunyan [1628-1688], having a large congregation, stirred them deeply, but its most preeminent point of all in his preaching was the vividness and reality of its spiritual power. As for it, John Bunyan reportedly said the following words: "I preached what I felt, what I smartingly did feel, even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble to astonishment." (78)
The first Baptist church in America was founded by Roger Williams [its first pastor] and others who were immigrants from England in Rhode Island (80) described as "the receptacle of all sorts of riff-raff people" of those days in 1639.(79) According to Helmut Richard Niebuhr, "the Baptists, whose churches were not always the heirs of a European tradition but frequently the native-born children of the frontier religious movements. As immigrants they had established themselves on the New England, in Rhode Island, where their sectarian principles had been nurtured in isolation from the established society of the New World as well as of the Old." (81) Naturally the Baptist church achieved success as an "American church" and a "frontier church" in the days of the Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards [Massachusetts revivalist Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), minister of Northampton] and fraternities who stressed the new birth as an individual, that is, through the revival movement in which the desire for articulation of internal experience of grace as an evidence of conversion was brought forth with its emphasis on the will and affectivity, and in the years following the Great Awakening the Baptist churches had increased. And the heir of the movement was still the Baptist church at the start of the nineteenth century. It is the accepted view that the number of individuals who converted into the Baptist faith ran up to a considerable figure, not only for the Baptist church extended to the Southwest Frontier and attended to settlers' religious needs, but also for in the interim it became a recipient of those who had difficulty in keeping connected to the Congregational establishment.(82) Making particular reference to Black Christians, for example, to the overwhelming majority of freedmen becoming Baptists, it is considered attributable to the fact that the Black people were strongly attracted by the water rite of immersion and by the Baptist style of worship. "because they could identify points of continuity between their African heritage and Baptist practice." (83)
The Baptists have thus arisen in England, and then they have grown dramatically after their arrival in America, and they, bringing the Particular Baptists to the mainstream, now rise to be the largest among the Protestant denominations in the United States of America. The Particular Baptists became known and described as the United Baptists after their mergers with the Regular Baptists and with the Separate Baptists and it is said that they take in most of the Baptists from across the globe today. In contrast, the General Baptists were absorbed by the Particular Baptists in England and they are, it is true, present as the Free Will Baptist in the United States, but they have allegedly been unable to exert their true strengths fully to this day.
The African Black people who were brought into America as slaves were coerced into forsaking all their traditions and cultures. They were not allowed to have a legal marriage, nor to have a parent-child relation, and pulled away from family affection. They were subjected only to slave labor. The only thing that they were given was "the Word of God." "Having apostatized from their traditional religions and having been taught about the Bible, they came to know the teachings of Jesus, and they aspired to the kingdom of God. And they channelled that into their new song. That is to say, the Negro Spiritual." (85)
The Spirituals are generally defined as "the song expression of the Black religious experience in the period of slavery" or "the language of faith" and it is accepted that "Spiritual" denotes "those who revere God" as opposed to "those who are secular" and "those who are profane." Benjamin E. Mays lays stress on the "other-worldly" and "compensatory" aspect of the meaning of the Spirituals in his theological analysis,(86) while Howard Thurman, placing emphasis on the ontological impulse of the antebellum slaves, perceives that "the overriding religious meaning of the Spirituals was the slaves' quest for and insistence on the affirmation of their being that was perpetually being denied by the slave system itself." (87) (the italics by Walker) And James H. Cone sets forth his thoughts, "My contention is that there is a complex world of thought underlying the slave songs that has so far escaped analysis. Further theological analysis is needed to uncover this thought and the fundamental world view that it implies." (88) (the italics by Cone)
Although the Spiritual and the family of music to which it belongs are undoubtedly folk music, its structural (compositional) origin has become a highly controversial subject among scholars since the late nineteenth century. German Musicologist Richard Wallaschek first argued that the Negro songs were mere imitations of European compositions in his Primitive Music [Primitive music: An inquiry into the origin and development of music, songs, instruments, dances, and pantomimes of savage races] published in 1893, and Henry Edward Krehbiel refuted that standpoint in his Afro-American Folk Songs [Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music] in 1913 [Its publication was in 1914] by contending slave songs' distinction and originality and this perspective was followed by those who appreciated it including James Weldon Johnson. In 1928, however, Newman Ivey White presented his American Negro Folk-Songs and in 1934 George Pullen Jackson published his White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands [White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands: The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and 'Buckwheat Notes'] and, with the similarities between White Spiritual (89) and Black Spiritual given, White and Jackson alike expounded on the input of the former onto the latter. Received considerable support, the view of these two scholars entered the mainstream. Nevertheless, the "creative musical expression of the Spirituals" theory was not diminished thereby, and it would seem that the academic controversy between two opposing schools of theory [derivative or distinctive] has continued to present.
To hide yourself in the mountaintop
To hide yourself from God. (White Spiritual)
Went down to the rocks to hide my face,
The rocks cried out no hiding place. (Negro Spiritual)
The above quote are the two sets of lines, which are the frequently cited example for comparison of the two, from "No Hiding Place" telling of the fear of the Last Judgment [in attempting to hide from the wrath of God]. Soichi Minagawa describes as follows: "Though we have to admit to a certain extent that the Negro Spiritual was influenced by the White Spiritual and borrowing from it, (...) Compared them, one could argue that the Negro version is more searing and polyphiloprogenitive than the White version." (90)It should be no surprise that those who to whom music and song were culturally natural when they were in their motherland Africa, were finding an outlet for their anguish and grief in singing. What might initially have been the songs of "work" as the field songs were becoming the songs of "faith" after the adaption of the religious impulse which was brought with them from Africa and the accommodation necessary to the "Jesus-faith" had been fermented for a certain time. Wyatt Tee Walker states, "The New World African's accommodation of the slavemaster's religion and the retention of Africanisms produced the Jesus-faith of the antebellum slave which remains identifiable today. That Jesus-faith which was preserved for posterity in the Spirituals served to insulate the antebellum slave from the real temptation of collective suicide. The Negro Spirituals fashioned in the slave warrens of the South provided the foundation which authenticated the Black religious experience." (91)
It is said that the planters (slave owners) strongly promoted their slaves' singing, and that in the form of explicit requisition in certain cases. Singing was required in order for one thing to increase productivity, because singing improved the way they did their job, while conversation impaired the efficiency of their work, as well as to have control and confirmation of their whereabouts. For another, the world of the faith's message telling of joy not in this world but in the Hearafter expressed in song could act as a certain safety valve that prevented slaves from rebellious acts, suicide and escape. For example, "He Never Said A Mumbling Word" is,
They led Him to Pilate's bar
Not a word, not a word, not a word, not a word
They led Him to Pilate's bar
Not a word, not a word, not a word, not a word
They led Him to Pilate's bar
But He never said a mumblin' word
Not a word, not a word, not a word, not a word
sung as quoted above. It is that which tells them to learn the spirit of patient endurance of hardship from Jesus' attitude that he was crucified with no demur, nor with resistance, and to say yes to it. It is viewed that what accounts for the Spiritual being the great safety feature for White people is that it could present a psychological adjustment to the existence of serfdom. What we have to be aware of here is, however, that there was the manipulation by the planters, that is, the "diluted form of the 'Good News'" (92) in the religious instruction of slaves. Slaves were in most situations tolerated in the masters' churches, and from this aspect alone it may be said that White and Black Christians attended the same services and worshipped together and were the members of the same churches. But, in terms of the religious instruction, it allowed "the slave to receive so much Christian instruction as would suffice for his salvation from Satan but not so much as might lead him to desire redemption from servitude. It was thought necessary, therefore, not only to prohibit the instruction of slaves in reading and writing but also to supervise their religious exercises carefully. This could best be done by requiring their attendance at the church of the master." (93) According to C. Eric Lincoln,(94) even the celebrated Cotton Mather (1663-1728) arranged for the religious instruction of slaves, bearing in mind that it should not conflict with work requirements and that each meeting was adequately staffed ["by 'some wise and good man of the English'"] to monitor and preclude the possibility of any plan for rebellion or escape. And in most instances care was taken about the content so as to provide them only with sound biblical doctrine in the light of slave masters ["to 'make the slaves exemplary servants'"], more specifically, that of conserving the institution of slavery.But, nevertheless, as Gardner C. Taylor says, "the masters said the Bible declared one thing and the slaves heard something far different about what the Bible declared. The owners spoke of slavery being 'God-ordained'; the slaves heard, 'Before I'd be a slave, I'd be buried in my grave.'" (95) As is obvious, above all else, release and freedom (physical and spiritual) were the slave's concerns. Although the common theme throughout their Spirituals was "De udder worl' is not like dis," yet in the community of suffering life was made bearable by the "fact" that they would be released either in this world or in the next, but preferably in this world, that is, the timeless message on the biblical basis that God delivered the faithful from impossible circumstances by supernatural means. Through the Spirituals, they conveyed their faith and spoke of hope for deliverance and sang the Lord's song with all their hearts in a strange land.
The marked characteristic of the Spiritual is, firstly, the iteration, or that there is many a verbal repetition. In the Spiritual, the same lyric line or verse recurs time and again. For example, in the sixteen-line song "On Calvary," "Calvary" was repeated fourteen times and with "surely he died" two times. [I had referred to Soichi Minagawa, America Folk Song no Sekai (The World of American Folk Songs) (Japan: Iwasakibijutsu Sha, 1971) as to the lyrics of "On Calvary" while writing my master's thesis. But, when I referred to the lyrics in Hymnal: A Worship Book, Pew Edition (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press; Newton, Kansas: Faith and Life Press; Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Mennonite Publishing House, 1992) and counted the number of "Calvary" today, the number of times was not fourteen, as quoted on the Notes page.] (II) And in the four-line and nine-verse song "He's Got the Whole World In His Hand," the same wording as the title is repeated four times (note, however, that the second "world" is qualified with the adjective "big round"), and then, the fourth, the eighth and the ninth verse are the recurring of the first verse. This is commonly attributed to the fact that Black people being unlettered had tried to learn the Bible by song. Briefly, they grasped the main points and essence of the Word of God and tried to get them etched into their minds by repeating the simplified lyrics time after time. Some of these which they iterated as their memorizing practice might have resulted in them becoming firmly fixed as lyrics. Secondly, the remarkable feature of the Spiritual may include the antiphonal and responsorial character. The responsorial mode is found in sheer number of Spirituals, and therefore, it is that which chronicles the fact that the Spirituals were not originally made for solo voice, or to put it another way, the presence of communication. "I heard de Preachin' of de Word o'God," to cite a case, sings
Lead: How long did it rain? Can any one tell?
Chorus: Preachin' de word o'God,
Lead: For forty days an' nights it fell,
Chorus: Preachin' de word o'God,
Lead: How long was Jonah in de belly of de whale?
Chorus: Preachin' de word o'God,
Lead: 'Twas three whole days an' nights he sailed,
Chorus: Preachin' de word o'God.
as descried above, and is a telling example of the responsorial character.The antebellum South built the large plantation rested on slave labor, what is called the Cotton Kingdom, and prided itself on its own traditions and culture. Although the postbellum South in the aftermath of its defeat in the American Civil War and economic collapse could not be the same as an erstwhile "paradise" for the Southerners was, yet it was still a "land of Eden," it is said, for those who were intent on reconstructing the South, taking pride in their conventional ways and culture as an emotional prop. In the meantime, though having become freedmen, most of the former slaves who formed a major portion of the work force were not well enough equipped for sustenance, and those who were turned adrift, being confounded by the standardized freedom from above in the chaos of the postwar period, appeared one after another. Provisional and remedial measures were taken to supply food, hospitals, land, and education by the Freedmen's Bureau established in March, 1865 and private entities centered around the churches in the North. But the lives of the Black people were, in another sense, more dire than those in the antebellum period. In spite of the social and personal significance, what they gained was "nominal" freedom, and what is more, White people progressively imposed restraints on that freedom and invidious racial discrimination remained intact. Although I do not mention the history of "struggle" by African-American that was unfolding in succeeding years in this master's thesis because of not being well-versed in the field, when we are trying to tell the raison d'etre of the Black Church, it must be noted that there was always the history of "discrimination" or "suppression" behind it. Their religious language is, it is apparent, emotion-evoking from the Spirituals which resonated in the cotton fields to the Gospel songs which belong to the churches, but still there is in the expression of an outpouring of profound anguish in their impoverished and oppressed lives and aspiration for the otherworld, seeking the love of God, the cry of their hearts.
After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863,(96) the former slaves, with their simple but profound faith that God had delivered them from "Egypt land," (97) embarked on the building of their own social structures and institutions, though concentrated in the Black Church. "Thus, the great religious energy that was forced to satisfy itself with the services of the cane-brake and the brush-arbors was released and directed into transforming the 'invisible church' (98) into a thoroughly 'visible church.' The Black religious experience now turned to building and acquiring physical structures." (99)
The development of the Spiritual did not end with the act of emancipation, though the creation of Spirituals was wound up shortly subsequent to the proclamation, and its sphere of influence carried on. As physical structures of the Black Church developed, meeting the needs of their religion and worship service that reflected their expanding religious consciousness influenced by the new conditions of the social context,(100) and as literacy increased, by which the use was enabled and the introduction was urged, Euro-American hymns by Dr. Watts (Dr. I. Watts [1674-1748]), Wesley brothers (John Wesley [1703-1791] and Charles Wesly [1707-1788]) (101) came into the Black Church. Both Black Methodists and Baptists received these hymns. The research of W. T. Walker shows (102) that the broad use of these hymn texts in their services reached its ascendancy around 1875 as far as can be ascertained and that they were becoming an integral part of the church life. This, however, was meant neither to cast aside a Spiritual nor to be White Euro-Americanized (or to become a White Church) in their mental base and should have bespoken that "the worshippers took hold of whatever was shared with them and made it into a music of their own. This was not plagiarism. It was an honest effort to give God their best." (103) Nevertheless, the Black churches in which the outer mode change of worship service was of declining "spirit and ardor" that were natural to their beginnings, and, which meant also a transformation of their "ritual," began to result in the internal and qualitative alteration of the Word of God, were becoming what were incisively criticized by James H. Cone and others as "no more Christian than their white counterparts" except in rare instances.
The three major ingredients to support the authentic "Black Church" are music and preaching and praying. It is said that there is a common dictum that "you can't organize Black folks for anything without music," which is to play a crucial role in the worship style and is considered as an instrument in order to raise listener's expectation (or affect) to the highest extent with a view to having the maximum attention and effect being corralled for the sermon. Preaching, the "pulpit stress" of which has no equal, is traditionally more "auditory" than "literary." More specifically, it is accepted that it is aimed not so much at the eye as the route to the mind as, primarily, at the ear as the route to the heart. Thus, the auditory character of Black preaching takes on a musical quality, and therein are recognized various shades of pace and emphasis and a certain intonation that is musical enough to have a "key." Somebody's Calling My Name provides us with a point of view into it that it could be that the preacher perceives that the rhythmic impact of music bears and shares in the message. The transfer is, either consciously or unconsciously, or both, made to the preaching act.(104) Also, it is important to be aware of the fact that preaching is communication and an opportunity to communicate bidirectionally in the Black Church. Charles V. Hamilton describes, "In the black religious tradition, the successful black preacher is an expert orator. His role involves more, however. His relationship with his parishoners is reciprocal; he talks to them, and they talk back to him. This is expected. In many church circles, this talk-back during a sermon is a firm measure of the preacher's effectiveness. The congregation becomes involved." (105) (the italics by Hamilton) It will be shown that preaching is a communication cooperation with people. In view of this, preaching is, to put it strongly, that the formation of a religious thought is going to present itself at the scene of them being there. The communication, that is, the formation of a religious thought, is called the "work of the Holy Spirit." By this "work of the Holy Spirit," both the pastor and the congregation talk to the Lord in preaching, music and prayers, with they experiencing the Word of "freedom" and one's "real" self that resides in the world of "freedom."
Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1899-1993) who is titled the "Father of Gospel Music" was born as the son of a Baptist preacher [Thomas Madison Dorsey] in a small Georgia community, Villa Rica. It is purported that Thomas A. Dorsey coined the words "gospel songs" in the early 1920s, when the songs of faith in the churches were called evangelistic songs.(106) Dorsey started writing sacred music [his Gospel blues] after his [second] nervous breakdown and the subsequent regenerate experience (IV) in 1928. The Gospel music that was born with Dorsey is "Good News" that talks directly to the poor came from those where his early religious life and the religious compositions of Charles Albert Tindley (who was the Pastor of Tindley Temple in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a United Methodist preacher) [the Tindley influence] were combined in Dorsey with his experience in the secular blues-jazz world when known as "Georgia Tom" or "Barrelhouse Tom." It is at the same time Black Church people's own music "which could express their innermost feelings about God, and their emotional involvement which was a part of this expression." (107) This new music was, however, met with certain hostility and rejection often times during its early development due to it being considered "sin music." Dorsey preserved and, it is said, the new music caught on, only after going to the churches that received him and frequenting the National Baptist Convention in his tenacious efforts to introduce it. His music was subsequently enthralling a much broader audience of people in the South beyond Black Christians.
Herbert W. Brewster is eminent as one of pioneers in the Gospel music as well as an accomplished theologian, who is one of the notably covered figures in Anthony Heilbut, THE GOSPEL SOUND: Good News and Bad Times.(108) Using what are quoted in it as a source material, Brewster essentializes Gospel music as follows: "A gospel song is a sermon set to music. It must have sentiment and doctrine, rhetorical beauty and splendor." This Gospel preacher of the East Trigg Baptist Church was born in a Tennessee small farm community, Somerville, in 1897. At the time, they had what they used to call "wang-doodling preachers" in their farm town, who would preach "in these mournful tones, and it was poetry." Showing the vestiges of old-schooled influence, Brewster's speaking style at the pulpit was, it is described, "in the rolling, rhetorical periods of the late nineteenth century." He drew fully upon the folk sentiments of his rural childhood and gave wide currency to it in order to elaborate his doctrines. And to such Brewster's Gospel as a marriage of "doctrine and sentiment," it is accepted, all the great Black leaders from Marcus Garvey to Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X did reverence.
Brewster's Gospel were his "testimonies" themselves [with the musical expression] for him. And "No other gospel writer has so definitively rendered the gospel witness' sense of 'coming up the rough side of the mountain.'" (109) These expressions which the religious awareness presents itself came to pervade an everyday aspect of people in the South, for example, to the point then where the phrase "I'm Leaning and Depending on the Lord" became part of the Southern speech act idioms. Also, the potent approach that repeats words along to a blues riff (the potent combination of blues riffs and verbal repetition), which dictated apparently by emotional stress of a singer, but actually by composition of Brewster, became established as one of the most striking attributes of the new hard Gospel style.
I have so much to thank my Jesus for,
Since I've been a soldier out in this holy war,
I count my blessings one by one,
I just see what God has done,
And then I say I thank you Jesus, oh yes I do.
Chorus: I thank you Lord, I thank you Lord, I thank you Jesus, I thank you Lord, I thank you Lord, you've been so good to me...
We ought to see, however, not only that the technical feature was developed in Gospel music, but also that the repetition became the enhancement of "fact" and "experience" in honesty of emotion more definitely than that of the Spirituals aforementioned. It is the fact and experience in the Reverend Brewster.It could be said that those which are "testimony," "fact" and "experience" lie at the root of "being personality oriented," which is accepted as one of the characteristics of the Gospel arena. As Anthony Heilbut states that "it's the singer, not the song," the Gospel world can be expressed in that where Jesus' teachings come in direct contact with an expressioner's true experience and matter. Accordingly, each Gospel song is going to differ from singer to singer, for it is a representation of "being real" and "private testimony," that is, the experience on Divine Guidance and on one's faith and involvement. Le Roi Jones [Imamu Amiri Baraka] defines music as "is the result of thought," or "is the result of thought perfected at its most empirical, i.e., as attitude, or stance." (110) (the italics by Jones) Gospel music is also a "telling" that imparts the very reflection of the spiritual flame of an expressioner such as his idea, notion, thought, set and view of the world; that is say the music is just a part of the idiom of Gospel music.
Thus the Gospel sound was born of hard times, out of the social context in the face of the worst economic crunch in America's history, the Great Depression (1925-1940). The economic crisis in the nation struck the poor earlier. They were the generality of Black people and those White people who were called "blue-collar workers" or "rednecks." The form of the musical literature spawned in the Depression's dark night is, it can be said, that which incorporated the blues-jazz stylized phrasing taken from the so-called secular world into the "sacred music" and reconnected back with the Black, religious roots which seemed by then to have been all but forgotten on the surface of religion and worship service by merging with the appearance of White evangelism. Put another way, it was Black America's imprint on what is of Euro-American origin, or the initiation of the conscious desire of Black people to be themselves and it signaled a return to roots and to their "Holy Spirit and religious fervency." The rise of this Gospel might have been reminiscent, in terms of a return to a "powerful work of the Spirit of God and a fervent faith," of those of the Great Awakening under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards and those of the second Revival as the religion of the frontier among poor White people. Gospel music "embraces the spiritual idiom, contemporary social comment, elements of meter music style, and, when needed, the lyrics of Euro-American hymns. The composite result is a form of urban spirituals, a song of faith which rallies the hope and aspiration of the faithful in the face of devastating social conditions." (111)
[I will continue my translation of the main text as soon as I become ready. Please bear with me. My excuse: When I wrote my master's thesis, I drew largely upon the available Japanese translations of the books. But, at the start of my translation, I decided to try to get the original books as much as I can and read them and take in what I read today. Because of this, my translation is currently very slow. (January, 2009)]
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The Reverend Shonen SobueA2-1: About Tune [Cadence] (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A2-2: About his first preaching at the age of 8 (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A2-3: "Nothing is left if Amida Buddha is taken away from me." (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A1: About the frame of mind when he decided to be a "preacher" that shepherds the people (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
A3-3: About the "beautiful voice," the narrative power and the tune (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
S1: Fushidansekkyo from "Shinran Shonin den": Resting his head on a stone in the snow (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
S2: Fushidansekkyo from "Shinran Shonin den": Refusing to receive his own son Zenran (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
S3: Fushidansekkyo from "Shinran Shonin den": Mountain priest Bennen O my heart was changed forever (.mov, .rm, .aif, .mp3)
U: Additional Audio Material U: Very short audio material files as an example of uke nembutsu (.aif, .mp3)
The Pastor Barbara Ward FarmerG4-1: The first time that music was mentioned in the Bible: Genesis Chapter 31, Verses 26 and 27 (.aif, .mp3)
G4-2: In a religious context: Exodus Chapter 15, Verses 1 and 2 (.aif, .mp3)
G4-3: Singing was the act of communicating with God - Psalms (.aif, .mp3)
G1-1: The Black experience (.aif, .mp3)
G1-2: This [Music] belongs to the Lord (.aif, .mp3)
G1-3: The Father of Gospel Music (.aif, .mp3)
M2: Gospel Mission Work - with a Japanese Baptist pastor (.aif, .mp3)
M3: Gospel Mission Work "If God Be For Us!" (.aif, .mp3)
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