Buddhism: "Americanized" Buddhism

In the Incarceration Camp

Since when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the anti-Japanese propaganda in the U.S. intensified. Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, which included issei, nisei, sansei, etc., were incarcerated by Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. 1 The religion and beliefs of these people were also attacked and hated. Most of the people who immigrated to the U.S. from Japan were Buddhists. To live a better life and be accepted in the community, many Japanese and Japanese Americans were “forced” to convert from Buddhism to Christianity. Some even established and ran churches. However, many people managed to keep practicing Buddhism both in the camps and after being released from there. 


Even inside the camp, a lot of Buddhists did not abandon their faith and tried to continue their practices despite the worsened living conditions in the camp. The author of American Sutra, Duncan Ryūken Williams, attributed the devoted attitudes of the incarcerated Buddhists to the lotus flower blooming in muddy water. The lotus flower is often associated with the state of enlightenment and muddy water is associated with factors that prevent people from achieving enlightenment. 2 In the case of Japanese American Buddhist priests, the incarceration was the muddy water, which in many Japanese Buddhism traditions, taught as an essential factor in order to transcend to enlightenment–the nutrients for the lotus flower. 3 The Buddhist practices inside the camp, therefore, required some reconciliation or substitutions for the materials needed for their ordinary time. For instance, in the camp McCoy in Wisconsin, in order to do Hanamaturi, a festival for Buddha’s birthday, they used carrots to carve out the statue of Buddha, sweet coffee as a substitute for sweet tea and beet-dyed toilet paper to represent a cherry blossom flower arrangement. Priests gathered and performed an intersectarian birthday ceremony using an altar, which was also made from bread wrappers and labels of canned food. 4

Reconciliation of Japanese Buddhism to American Culture

As explained in the previous section, throughout the incarceration, Buddhists had to adapt their ways of practicing beliefs in order to survive the harsh situations. They avoided using terminologies such as “Priest” and “Temple” and instead used terms like “Reverend” and “Church”. 5 They have also used some other Christianity-related terms, such as “Lord Buddha” or “Saint Shinran”, instead of “Buddha” or “Shinran Shonin”. 6 In the current day, the influence of the adaptation still remains.

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The Main Hall (Hondo) of the Midwest Buddhist Temple.

They do not have Tatami flooring like Japanese temples. Instead, they have pews to sit down.

In the Midwest Buddhist Temple, you will notice that when you enter the main hall, the Hondo, you will see the pews instead of tatami, the traditional Japanese flooring made out of rush fibers. In these pews, you will also find the service book, which is created for the Buddhist sanghas who join the services. When you take a look at the service book, we will find a number of sheet music for songs. These songs, describing the Buddhist doctrines, were originally created during the incarceration time, adapting Christian hymns. 7 Services in Japanese temples are typically done without songs and piano accompaniment. The singing practice aimed to attract more people to the Buddhist community back in the day. 8 However, Reverend Ron Miyamura in the Midwest Buddhist Temple argues that even though, in the long run, these adaptations provided benefits as they allowed Buddhism to be survived in the US, they also created some shortcomings. 9 For instance, some of the terminologies have been used before not to threaten non-Japanese Americans. However, it turned out that these different names have provided inaccurate nuances of Buddhism to people.

Footnote

  1. Joseph Biden, “Day Of Remembrance Of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II | The White House”, The White House, The White House, February 18, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/02/18/day-of-remembrance-of-japanese-american-incarceration-during-world-war-ii/
  2. Duncan Ryūken Williams, American Sutra (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univerity Press, 2019), 85-6.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Duncan Ryūken Williams, American Sutra (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univerity Press, 2019), 86-7.
  5. National Park Service, “Buddhism Under Japanese Incarceration During WWII (U.S. National Park Service”, National Park Service, National Park Service, February 23, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/buddhism-under-japanese-incarceration-during-wwii.htm
  6. Ron Miyamura. (Reverend of Midwest Buddhist Temple) Talk with Natsumi Hayashi, Erin Newton, Ulpanay Djoldasova, Mai Hasegawa, Gennosuke Kuninaka, Nicole Ruby, and Kengo Uehara, June 21, 2023.
  7. National Park Service, “Buddhism Under Japanese Incarceration During WWII (U.S. National Park Service”, National Park Service, National Park Service, February 23, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/buddhism-under-japanese-incarceration-during-wwii.htm
  8. Ron Miyamura. (Reverend of Midwest Buddhist Temple) Talk with Natsumi Hayashi, Erin Newton, Ulpanay Djoldasova, Mai Hasegawa, Gennosuke Kuninaka, Nicole Ruby, and Kengo Uehara, June 21, 2023.
  9. Ibid.
Buddhism: "Americanized" Buddhism