New Wine in Old Bottles? Questioning the Category of New Religious Movements (NRMs)

Abstract

New Wine in Old Bottles?: Questioning the Category of New Religious Movements (NRMs) Pamela D. Winfield I was sitting in the boarding area of Newark International Airport in May of 2007 when a middle‐aged Japanese businessman struck up a conversation with me. We were both waiting for our delayed flight to Tokyo, and our conversation consisted of the customary pleasantries, an account of his recent visit to Brazil, and our shared frustrations as travelers in limbo. It was a fairly banal airport exchange triggered only by random proximity and intense boredom, at least on my part. I was not particularly engaged. When he inquired why I was going to Japan, I confess that I tried to put him off with, “Mikkyō” (Japanese esoteric Buddhism). Normally, to the average Japanese business traveler, this would be a conversation‐stopper. Many secular Japanese are more than a little suspicious of anyone who is overly interested in religion, and they think it is particularly curious to study esoteric Buddhism, a twelve‐hundred‐year‐old tradition of secret, or hidden, tantric teachings requiring initiation. My initial attempt at terminating the conversation, however, simply boomeranged. He exclaimed, “Boku mo—mikkyō mikkyō da!” (Me too—I'm mikkyō I'm mikkyō!) This was the first time I had ever encountered anyone who so enthusiastically, publicly, and unselfconsciously self‐identified as an adherent of this ancient tradition. And yet, as I got to know this gentleman who later became one of my main informants, and as I first began researching his particular strain of esoteric Buddhism called Shinnyo‐en, I discovered that Shinnyo‐en was only ever discussed in the scholarly literature as a New Religious Movement or NRM (it was founded in 1936 by an ordained esoteric master named Itō Shinjō). This was a little disconcerting, as the other groups included in the Japanese NRM literature were either unconventional to say the least (e.g., Happy Science) or downright dangerous (Aum Shinrikyō). Shinnyo‐en does indeed display several novel and even idiosyncratic elements that distinguish it from the mainstream, but at the same time, its ninth century former head temple Daigōji in Kyoto still recognizes it as an important (and affluent) part of its age‐old mikkyō lineage. In 1997, it even invited Shinnyo‐en's current female abbess to be the first woman in history to conduct memorial rituals in its main hall, a designated National Treasure. How, then, does this modern mikkyō group differ from other hybrid offshoots that have historically transformed, enriched, or revitalized the Buddhist establishment? How do Shinnyo‐en's modern doctrinal developments, iconographic innovations, or ritual reinventions differ from any of the other historical developments that mark the general evolution of Buddhism in Japan, but which are now discussed as part and parcel of the tradition? Is it only a question of time until Shinnyo‐en becomes a “legitimate” part of mikkyō Buddhist history or are there deeper issues and agendas at work here? To be clear, in proposing this introductory Japanese case study for consideration, I do not wish to engage in any sort of apologetic argument for this particular group's legitimacy. They have their own high‐profile strategies for doing so; they do not need any help from me. Yet, as I began my first six months of fieldwork in Tokyo that year, it became increasingly clear to me that my informants’ self‐legitimating discourse of inheritance and affiliation with tradition contrasted sharply with the scholarly de‐legitimating NRM literature of rupture and disestablishmentarianism. I am keenly aware that many of my informant's traditionalist affirmations were meant to reassure me as part of his proselytizing agenda (which I firmly but respectfully resisted; I clearly stated my role from the outset and tried to engage as much as possible as a serious but sympathetic scholar engaged in participant‐observation). At the same time, however, I was having cognitive dissonance as I wrestled with the perennial conundrum of whose voice counts for more. The adherent's insider perspective engages the hermeneutic of faith to unify, connect and/or restore one's path to the past. The scholarly outsider perspective, by contrast, engages the hermeneutic of suspicion to...