Yumiko Inukai is from University of Massachusetts, Boston.
摘要
Hōnen, the founder of the Jōdo School of Buddhism in Japan, came to a strong conviction of the efficacy of the nembutsu through his deep personal experience, in which he realized that he would be incapable of mastering the Buddhist teachings and practices. Although Hōnen refrains from urging the nembutsu practitioner to focus on the mental components of the nembutsu, a close reading of his texts reveals that he has a systematic view of a psychological process that the nembutsu practitioner must go through in order to recite the nembutsu properly. I argue that Hōnen's account of a deep, dynamic psychological structure of the nembutsu practitioner exhibits a strong parallel to psychological factors in the preconditions of religious experience elucidated by James in his Varieties of Religious Experience. Moreover, interestingly, Hōnen's religious conviction of the Jōdo belief being grounded in his own emotionally infused personal experience accords well with James' contention regarding religion in general. James' psychological analyses of religious experience provide an illuminating framework in which we can understand the significance of the psychological process of the nembutsu practitioner expounded by Hōnen in his teachings of the nembutsu as well as the importance of Hōnen's own personal experience.
目次
James’ Psychological Account of Religious Experience 440 Conversion and the Experience of the Unseen Reality 444 Hōnen’s Conception of the Nembutsu 446 Realization of the Nature of the Self 447 Sanjin 三心 (Three Minds) and Self-surrender 448 Psychological Conditions of the Nembutsu Practitioner 453 Conclusion: The Religious Experience of the Sick Soul and the Nembutsu Practitioner 455
