MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
First Encounters with Japanese Buddhism
As one of European race and education encountering for the first time the Buddhist Tradition as actually practised in Japan, I find that it is rather different from the edited version presented in books for Western consumption. Inevitably I bring with me the tacit presuppositions and latent prejudices of my background; and despite previous study I try, like most foreign visitors, to fit and confine this strange new culture within the familiar old categories, and then censure its attitudes and activities, judging them unjustly by inappropriate criteria. I must of necessity pass through a period of unlearning and re-education before the Japanese outlook can be correctly appreciated and its cultural qualities assimilated. Starting from quite different premises from ours, it is not surprising that the Japanese have arrived at quite different conclusions; yet once their initial assumptions are understood, much of the apparent irrationality and inconsistency of their thought and behaviour (according to our logic) disappears.