Kuroki Masako is a professor of sociology at Kyoto Gakuen University, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the International Institute for the Study of Religion, Japan.
關鍵詞
spiritual quest (gudō); Tendai Buddhist women priest; station in life; dualistic gender role; spiritual hybridity
摘要
This article is an examination of the unconventional spiritual exploration that one woman, a priest of the Tendai School, engaged in from her twenties into her fifties. It follows her conflicts regarding her spiritual quest and gender roles, and further through her encounters with Christianity, Shinto, and Buddhism. Throughout these encounters, she pressed ahead in her spiritual explorations while persistently refusing to make an either-or choice in her life, neither choosing between immersion in gender roles and pursuit of her quest, nor among the three religions. Neither rejecting nor choosing from these alternatives, she pursued her quest until it finally led her to find her “true station in life” in Buddhism. Until she reached that point, however, her path was not so much a trajectory through choices she made of her own volition as it was a process of rushing headlong, as though across an “invisible map,” and being guided to experience those encounters. Ever since building her own temple, however, she has still held the multiple identities of priest, Japanese language teacher, wife, and mother while also continuing her spiritual quest in the very midst of the secular world. This article examines how a certain woman maintained her unconventional spiritual exploration for forty years, and how she met the challenge of a hybrid form of spirituality and dualistic gender roles.
