Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism)
Description
Original enlightenment thought (hongaku shiso) dominated Buddhist intellectual circles throughout Japans medieval period. Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is. Seen in its true aspect, every activity of daily life—eating, sleeping, even ones deluded thinking—is the Buddhas conduct. Emerging from within the powerful Tendai School, ideas of original enlightenment were appropriated by a ...
ISBN(s)
0824827716, 9780824827717
