REL 444/544 Medieval Japanese Buddhism: Weekly Schedule
[All readings from Course Packet unless followed by (RT)=(Required Text)]

Week I: Oct 1: 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 8: 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.

Week III: Oct 15: Buddhism in the Kamakura Period: Themes and Background                   EXAM A 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.

Week IV: Oct 22: Myoe Koben: Kegon and Shingon Monk                    PAPER I DUE IN CLASS
Mark Unno, “Recommending Faith in the Sand of the Mantra of Light: Myōe Kōben’s Kōmyō Shingon Dosha Kanjinki,” in Re-Visioning Kamakura Buddhism, ed. Richard Payne (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 167-218.

Mark Unno, Shingon Refractions: Myōe and the Mantra of Light (Boston: Wisdom, 2004), 111-145.

Lori Meeks, Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan, 250-300.

Week V: Oct 29: Eihei Dogen: Zen Master of the Soto School
Mark Unno, “Philosophical Terms in the Zen Buddhist Thought of Dōgen.”

Norman Waddell & Masao Abe, tr. "Shobogenzo Genjokoan," by Dogen Kigen, The Eastern Buddhist 5:2 (10/1972), 129-140.

Mark Unno, “Commentary, Fascicle 30: Gyōji Part II (ge),” Dōgen’s Shushōgi (Boston: Wisdom), forthcoming, 1-3.

Kōshō Uchiyama, Refining Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment, trans. Tom Wright (New York: Weatherhill, 1983) vii-xiv, 3-19.

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.

Kazuaki Tanahashi & P. Levitt, eds. The Essential Dogen (RT).

Week VI: Nov 5: Gutoku Shinran: Foolish Being of Pure Land Buddhism      EXAM B IN CLASS
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).

Alfred Bloom, The Essential Shinran (RT).

Week VII: Nov 12: Bridging Pre-modern and Modern I: Uchiyama       PAPER II DUE IN CLASS
Kosho Uchiyama, Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice (Boston: Wisdom, 2004) (RT).

Week VIII: Nov 19: Bridging Pre-modern and Modern II: Coffinman
Shinmon Aoki, Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician (Anaheim, CA: Buddhist Education Ctr, 2002)(RT).

Week IX: Nov 26: Film: Departures; Discussion of Paper Topics

Week X: Dec 3: Wrap Lecture and Discussion -                                       FINAL PAPER DUE IN CLASS
Wrap-up remarks and discussion.