Funeral Buddhism

In The Human Revolution Volume 2, Katsu Kiyohara explains to people that are attending an introductory meeting (after World War 2) to learn about Nichiren Buddhism that:

     Faith is not merely ideology, but practice.  With correct faith and vigorous practice,

     the human revolution can be achieved.                              (Human Revolution 2, p24)

Most of the audience were with her while she explained the history of Buddhism from Shakyamuni to Nichiren and talked about the Lotus Sutra, but when she mentioned that vigorous practice was involved, people started to show their reluctance.

This lazy attitude to practise started from around the 1630s onwards.  The Japanese government was scared of the rise of Christianity in Japan and made it compulsory for all citizens to be registered with a temple.  If you weren't registered, you wouldn't be able to find employment or transport.

Local temples started to take advantage of this captive membership by introducing a range of fees which covered everything from funeral services to frequent memorial services to special prayers for health, wealth or job success.  Temples tried to come up with as many services as they could to encourage people to join their temple, and the temples that offered the most services and rituals also had the most "followers" and the most money.

The priests knew that most of their followers didn’t really believe and so they introduced a service in which the priests themselves would do morning and evening Gongyo and chant for happiness and enlightenment for you for a fee! 

Initially only the people that were forced to join temples used the service, but in time even devote believers thought it was better to pay the priests to do their prayers and free up their time for other pursuits.

Nichiren Shoshu temples also took advantage of this source of income and some of these services and prayers are still available today, even though this reliance on the temple and priests is totally against Nichiren Buddhism, which focusses on individuals practising for themselves and others.

After the war, many of the new religions (and the established ones) were continuing this tradition of the “join us, pay us, get benefits” school of faith, but the Soka Gakkai was very strict that you could only get benefit through faith and vigorous practice.

Buddhism is not something you can leave to others or something you can do once a week or when you feel like it.  It is a daily practise that influences all aspects of your life and encourages you to better yourself and improve society. 

Our human revolution is OURS and it requires us to invest time and energy to develop and improve ourselves, rather than finding a willing priest and paying them to secure our future happiness.