Lately I've started studying Buddhism lightly. Middle and high school were Buddhist-affiliated, but there was almost no education about Buddhism itself, so learning feels fresh. More precisely, maybe they taught it and I simply had zero interest.
The trigger: versus the common religious image "why suffer? God's trial, or consequence of sin" — a Western/Christian approach — Buddhism tries a more logical (scientific) approach: "why suffer? Because you're attached to the object. You're attached because you mistake the object as unchanging." That felt very interesting. (Neither should be ranked superior; I may just be ignorant and both may have similar approaches.)
I noticed I may be drawn to things that "don't look logical at first but actually have logical structure" — not only Buddhism. (Or maybe everything is that, to some degree.)
Embarrassingly, I didn't even know what country the person called Buddha was from, or what era.
Basic common knowledge, I know — but I never studied world history earnestly. About ten years ago during the "liberal arts boom" I tried religion and world history several times, never found what was interesting, failed repeatedly, and got here.
This time I'll learn while outputting — not my usual free-association thinking style, but a simple refresher blog on Buddhism.
I've only skimmed about five intro books and poked around the web, so plenty may be inaccurate — please forgive that.
First, the founder called Shakyamuni / Buddha lived around 500 B.C. Borders were fuzzy then, so exact ethnicity is unclear; geographically today, Nepalese, effectively Indian, apparently.
Born into royalty, long interested in religious matters, he abandoned living as a conventional householder and left home to become a monk around 29.
He went that far because he wanted answers to this:
"I too will age, sicken, and die. Is there no way to escape this suffering?"
That's the root of everything — the proposition for which Buddhism exists.
At the time the mainstream idea was "torment the body and the mind sharpens," so he tried that practice for about six years.
No answer came, so he realized "hurting the body alone is meaningless" and stopped asceticism.
He washed in a river and recovered strength by eating "milk porridge" from a girl named Sujata (the namesake of that Sujata ice cream you can buy on the Shinkansen).
Recovered, he reconsidered: "luxurious pre-awakening life is no good, but suffering-only practice is meaningless too," sat under a bodhi tree, vowed "I won't move until I have an answer," and meditated.
He succeeded in awakening. Age 35. Then he taught for about 45 years and died at 80.
A famous episode: when a disciple asked "does God exist? is there an afterlife?" he didn't answer, and replied with something like: if someone shot by a poisoned arrow said they'd only pull it after learning who made it and from what materials — what would happen?
Don't spend time on unanswerable questions while there's suffering to solve now. People often imagine Buddhism as reincarnation and such, but he deliberately avoided discussing the afterlife.
A bit off-topic but interesting: how it reached Japan.
Japanese Buddhism came via China — closer to treating it as a remixed "neo-Buddhism" from the original. (Not a good/bad judgment.)
China already had Taoism with teachings similar to Buddhism, so it was accepted without much resistance. (Later Buddhism grew too powerful and was suppressed.)
Either way, original doctrine is the concentrate and the essence, but very hard — "it had to be remixed to be understandable" seems right.
There are Mahayana and Hinayana (Theravada); the former is what Japan recognizes as Buddhism, the latter closer to the original. Difference: the former's scope of salvation is wider. Simply: Pure Land schools' nuance of "even ordinary people who can't practice — just believe and you're OK."
One difference in how Buddhism is seen: in Japan many monks are involved in funeral rites, but Shakyamuni never affirmed an afterlife and basically said the opposite — "practice before worrying about afterlives, and don't get involved in funeral-like rituals!"
By the way, in the Edo period when Christianity spread, the shogunate used the temple registration system (terauke) to suppress Christians — registering every citizen as a temple parishioner. Temples became a kind of "government office," with household registry and funerals/memorials as main work.
Doctrine interpretation changing with physical distance is interesting — and regardless of Buddhism, when spreading a teaching, lowering the barrier to belief is a natural transformation. Suddenly importing hyper-stoic preaching from abroad — easy to imagine nobody believes it.
Business analogy: a branch office physically far from HQ won't inherit HQ culture unless HQ people stay committed — even in the same company.
From India via China and the Korean peninsula to Japan took over 1,000 years.
Officially, Buddhism's introduction to Japan is the 538 (or 552) transmission: envoys of King Seong of Baekje presented a bronze Shakyamuni image, scriptures, and ritual implements to Emperor Kinmei.
Baekje often sought Japanese military aid amid Korean peninsula conflict; the transmission was a return gift.
(※ Via Korea this time, but Japan has repeatedly updated civilization by importing cutting-edge tech and culture from China. Using overseas authority to move domestic politics is a Japanese specialty.)
And the one who tried to build Buddhism into Japan's base thought for politics was Prince Umayado (Prince Shotoku).
I'd only vaguely thought of him as "somehow made a constitution and systems, and really listens to people" — but I gained the view of a practical producer who "tried to systematize the country using ideology."
Before Shotoku, Japan wasn't centralized; clans boasted "my ancestors are gods — the privileges are mine!"
Then Buddhism arrived from abroad: the Mononobe clan said "what is this weird religion — we won't believe that!"
The Soga clan (Shotoku's relatives; Soga no Umako and Shotoku were uncle and nephew) said "why not build a centralized state based on Buddhism?" and clashed head-on. Eventually they defeated the Mononobe.
The Soga were a clan that kept immigrant specialists from the peninsula (today's highly skilled foreign talent) under them, and handled finance at court.
The Mononobe controlled military force as a strong clan, but the Soga were "finance & cutting-edge intelligence," so they won like the CIA strategically dismantling a Mexican mafia — that's the image.
Thus when Shotoku's aunt Empress Suiko took the throne, he was 20 and became sessho (a COO-like role).
As part of building systems: instead of leaving clans free, he set the Seventeen-Article Constitution stating official rules based on Buddhism with the emperor at the top, plus the Twelve Cap Rank system promoting "intelligentsia who properly studied Buddhism" rather than bloodline alone.
After Shotoku died the Soga ran wild again, leading toward the Taika Reform — but that's too far from Buddhism, so Japan stops here for now.
Long detour — back to the Buddha.
There are many concepts; writing them all would never end, and I don't deeply understand them anyway — so I'll write concepts I found approachable and interesting.
It's abstract, so please read with that premise.
I wrote that Buddhism begins from the essential question:
"I too will age, sicken, and die. Is there no way to escape this suffering?"
To explore that you must find why suffering exists.
Why suffer? Because of "klesha" (afflictions).
Because of desires like "I want" and "I want to improve from now."
The answer offered: everything is "empty" (śūnyatā).
We cling (attach) to what we have or want as "unchanging, solidly valuable" — that's how affliction arises.
So take everything as empty.
"Empty" is neither "existence" nor "nonexistence."
It is something without substance that exists through all kinds of "relations." "Relation" is the keyword.
Sometimes people who say "I awakened" take it as "nothing has meaning." That's nihilism — treating everything as "nothing" — different from awakening.
Not a passive "it comes to nothing / meaningless," but an active "it can be interpreted as any meaning."
Yet it's also different from "I can become anything!" potential. That's what I find interesting.
Everything stands through relations — not that it can change into any form. When conditions change, it becomes something else entirely.
For example, in a Buddhist context "I" am a father of one child, a small-company founder, a husband, a resident of Osaka — a substance-less thing that exists on relative relations. You can take it many ways, but that doesn't mean I can become anything.
I can't become as fast as Usain Bolt. Because Bolt also exists in relations, and the conditions that constitute me are completely different.
The most interesting point: a dynamic stance coexists with one-shot uniqueness premised on relations. Normally success makes you seek reproducibility; failure makes you fear repeating it. Both "humility in success" and "detaching from failure" are interpretable — and you need eyes for conditions.
Long enough — finally a fun critique of Buddhism.
Apparently many people, like me, get interested in Buddhism's scientific approach and dive in. Especially in the West since the meditation boom, movements praising Buddhist thought grew.
A critical view: cognitive scientist and philosopher Evan Thompson's book "Why I Am Not a Buddhist" was interesting. (※ Very hard; I only flipped through.)
He says such movements feature claims like "Buddhism isn't religion, it's science of mind" and "unlike other religions it's rational and empirical."
In other words: many people think Buddhism is more essentially superior because it's rational/scientific. Sharp observation.
He also warns against over-commercializing "bring meditation into business" based on Buddhism-as-science.
He's hardcore enough to dialogue with the Dalai Lama as a philosopher — not anti-Buddhism. Likely deeper in knowledge and thought than average monks.
His claim: locate it not as an "exceptionally correct religion" but in equal dialogue with other intellectual traditions — thoroughly sensible.
For dabblers like me who almost blindly go "Buddhism is amazing!", he works as a stopper.
That's all.
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