The Beginnings of Deathbed Practice in Japan

Abstract

Deathbed practices emerged during Japan’s Heian period (794-1185) in connection with growing aspirations for birth after death in a pure land, whether of Amida or of some other buddha or bodhisattva. The ideal of mindful death was stimulated by three seminal events: Yoshishige no Yasutane’s completion of the first Japanese collection of ōjōden, or accounts of men and women said to have been born in Amida Buddha’s realm; the monk Genshin’s authoring of Japan’s first set of instructions for deathbed practice in his Ōjō yōshū; and the formation of the Twenty-Five Samādhi Society, an association of monks committed to assisting one another’s practice at the time of death. Hopes for Amida’s welcoming descent (raigō) and notions of exemplary death leading to birth in the Pure Land, along with corollary fears about falling into the hells, spread through doctrinal developments, religious associations, literature, liturgical performance, songs, and artistic representations.