REL 444/544 Medieval Japanese Buddhism: Weekly Schedule
[All readings from Course Packet unless followed by (RT)=(Required Text)] (Focus pages marked with asterisk*)
Week I: Sept 29: Introduction-Course Overview: The Background of Buddhism; Buddhism and Japanese Religion
Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 9-26.
Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987), 56-63, 73-77.*
Hayao KAWAI, "Japanese Mythology: Balancing the Gods," in his Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan (Daimon, 1995), 67-97.*
Week II: Oct 6: Background of Japanese Buddhism-Religion and the State; Karma in Medieval Japan
Toshio Kuroda, "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion," tr. by James Dobbins and Suzanne Gay, Journal of Japanese Studies 7:1 (Winter 1981), 1-21.*
Joseph Kitagawa, "Chapter 6. The Shadow and the Sun: A Glimpse of the Fujiwara and the Imperial Families in Japan," in his On Understanding Japanese Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 98-116.
William LaFleur, "Chapter 2 In and out of the Rokudo," Karma of Words-Buddhism and the literary arts in medieval Japan (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1983), 26-59 (48-59*).
Week III: Oct 13: Buddhism in the Kamakura Period: Themes and Background EXAM IN CLASS
Helen Craig McCullough, tr. The Tale of the Heike (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 1-6, 17-19, 23-37.*
Robert E. Morrell, "Tendai's Jien as Buddhist Priest," Early Kamakura Buddhism-A Minority Report, 23-43.
Jeffrey P. Mass, "The Emergence of the Kamakura Bakufu [Military Government]" in Medieval Japan-Essays in Institutional History, ed. John W. Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 127-156.
Kazuo Osumi, "Buddhism in the Kamakura Period," tr. by James Dobbins, in The Cambridge History of Japan-Volume 3 Medieval Japan, 544-563 (544-555, 560-563*).
Week IV: Oct 20: Myoe Koben: Kegon and Shingon Monk PAPER I DUE
Mark Unno, Shingon Refractions: Myōe and the Mantra of Light (Boston: Wisdom, 2004), (1-72, 111-149*) (RT).
Lori Meeks, Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan, 250-300.
Week V: Oct 27: Eihei Dogen: Zen Master of the Soto School
Mark Unno, “Philosophical Terms in the Zen Buddhist Thought of Dōgen.”*
Norman Waddell & Masao Abe, tr. "Shōbōgenzō Genjōkōan," by Dōgen Kigen, The Eastern Buddhist 5:2 (10/1972), 129-140.*
Mark Unno, “18. Shushōgi Paragraph 30,” Engaging Dōgen’s Zen (Boston: Wisdom), 179-184.*
Eihei Dōgen & Kōshō Uchiyama, How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment, trans. Tom Wright (New York: Shambhala 2005)(RT).
Steven Heine, The Zen Poetry of Dogen (Boston: Tuttle, 1997), 1-34.
Barbara Ruch, "The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," in The Cambridge History of Japan - Volume 3 Medieval Japan, ed. by Kozo Yamamura (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 500-511.*
Week VI: Nov 3: Gutoku Shinran: Foolish Being of Pure Land Buddhism GROUP PROJECT DUE
Mark Unno, “The Original Buddhist Rebel - Shinran,” Tricycle (Winter 2017), 1-16.
Mark Unno, "The Nembutsu of No-Meaning and the Problem of Genres in the Writings and Statements of Gutoku Shinran," The Pure Land 10-11 (12/1994), 1-9.*
Mark Unno, "The Nembutsu as the Path of the Sudden Teaching," unpublished paper, IASBS Conference, 1995, 1-7 (online, course web site).
Taitetsu Unno, Tannisho: A Shin Buddhist Classic (Honolulu: Buddhist Study Center Press, 1987)(RT).*
Week VII: Nov 10: Between Pre-modern and Modern I: Coffinman PAPER II DUE
Shinmon Aoki, Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician (Anaheim, CA: Buddhist Education Ctr, 2002)(RT).*
Week VIII: Nov 17: Between Pre-modern and Modern II: Natalie Goldberg
Natalie Goldberg, A Long Quiet Highway (NY: Bantam, 1994)(RT).*
Week IX: Nov 24: Film: Departures; Discussion of Paper Topics
Week X: Dec 1: Wrap Lecture and Discussion FINAL PAPER DUE
Wrap-up remarks and discussion.