JJRS > Volume 29 Issue 1-2 Jōkei and the Rhetoric of “Other Power” and “Easy Practice” in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Ford, James L.

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In medieval Japan, Hōnen and Shinran appropriated the rhetoric of “other-power” and “easy-practice” to validate their radical doctrines and draw dividing lines between themselves and the established schools of the day. In this essay, I argue that these are not useful categories for understanding the religious dynamics of the period. Like the rhetorical distinctions of Mahāyāna/Hīnayāna and sudden/gradual in earlier Buddhist debates, these polemical labels had only a marginal relationship to the schisms of the day. An examination of the writing's and practices of Jōkei (1155-1213), a prominent monk of the Hossō school and contemporary of Hōnen, reveals that “other-power” and “easy-practice” were, in fact, valued features on both sides of the debate. As a representative of “established” Buddhism, Jōkei was not unique in this respect, but he serves as a useful example to problematize the frequent adoption of these categories in interpretations of “Kamakura Buddhism."