We’ve discussed before the ways in which Japanese society is evolving to address the needs of its LGBT+ citizens. One area where change has been slow to take hold, however, has been the Buddhist community. Fortunately, in the past few years, the Buddhist world in Japan has started to grapple seriously with the question of how to ensure Japanese Buddhism is open and welcoming to all people, regardless of sexual identity.
“Discrimination After Death”
Many of these practices – such as the selection of a kaimyou (戒名), one's Buddhist name granted after death – have been in place since the Edo era or before and haven't been updated in centuries. Click To TweetThe largest positive step occurred just a few months ago. Japan’s Buddhist Association hosted a discussion panel on Buddhism and LGBT+. The meeting was part of the Buddhist world’s continued effort to update Japanese Buddhist practices for modern times. Many of these practices – such as the selection of a kaimyou (戒名), one’s Buddhist name granted after death – haven’t been updated since the Edo era or before.
But the problem goes well beyond support for LGBT+ people. Ugai Hidenori, a Buddhist priest (Pure Land sect) and journalist, recapped Japanese Buddhism’s rocky relationship with human rights. For example, while Buddhism in general has admitted female practitioners for centuries, the earliest and largest Buddhist temples in Japan banned women.
This distinction between the sexes found its way into practices such as kaimyou. In Pure Land Buddhism, a kaimyou carries different suffixes depending on the practitioner’s gender. “There are no kaimyou,” explains Ugai, “that take the needs of LGBTQ people into account.” Gender also plays a major role in the danka system of temple support, in which a family passes down its gravesite and Buddhist altar patrilineally.[1]
Bright Lights and Dark Spots
Ugai notes a Dentsu survey that found some 8.9% percent of people in Japan (“about the same number who are left-handed”) identify as LGBT+. However, only about 35% of those are open about their sexuality. “In other words, we have a set number of priests and lay practitioners now who are LGBTQ. There’s no time to lose for the Buddhist community to be responsive to them.”
The good news is that many in the Buddhist community seem intent on living up to their own ideals. Ugai cites the case of makeup artist and Pure Land sect priest Nishimura Kodo (pictured above), who worried whether he could be a priest given his love of high heels and makeup. Nishimura says the priest he consulted told him not to worry: “My hope is you can communicate the message that everyone, equally, can be saved.”
The bad news? Nishimura says he also heard plenty of degrading statements about LGBT+ people from his fellow trainees. Buddhism’s conservative environment is changing – but it won’t change overnight.
Buddhist Temples Offering LGBT+ Wedding Services
Most people experience Buddhism in Japan through ceremonies associated with 冠婚葬祭 (kankon sousai), or major life events and relationships, such as marriage and death. Japan doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage at the federal level. However, more and more local governments at the city and ward level are offering partnership systems that officially recognize same-sex relationships. As of this writing, over 60 local jurisdictions have some sort of partnership system.
Some Buddhist temples are openly embracing this trend. For example, Saimyoji in Saitama’s Kawagoe earlier this year started a marketing campaign aimed specifically at LGBT+ couples. The move came shortly after Kawagoe introduced its own partnership system.
Maimyoji Assistant Head Priest Chida Akihiro said he was struck when staying in India exactly how far behind and “Galapagos-ed” Japanese Buddhism was with respect to LGBT+ rights. (Garapagosu-ka, ガラパゴス化, is a term frequently used in Japan to highlight the – usually negative – ways the country tends to be an island unto itself.) Chida himself admits to holding “prejudices” against LGBT+ people that he found himself forced to re-examine.
Within a month of starting services for LGBT+ couples, Chida says they received around 20 inquiries – not just from within Japan, but from abroad as well.[2]
“Buddhism is Flexible”
I'm sure there are people who have an image of Buddhism as traditionalist and stiff. But in reality, it's very flexible. Click To TweetSaimyoji isn’t the only temple that’s opening its doors to LGBT+ couples. Shofukuji (正福寺), a Pure Land Buddhist temple in Higashimurayama, Tokyo, began partnering with a travel agency last year to offer LGBT+ wedding services to couples all across Japan. Head Priestess Kiyohara Mutsumi explained her reasoning with a familiar refrain: the concept in Buddhism that all people are equal and thus equally entitled to freedom and a release from suffering.[3]
もしかすると、仏教に伝統的なイメージや堅苦しいイメージを持たれている人もいるかもしれません。しかし、実際はとても柔軟です。すべての人の、すべての悩みを、決して否定することなく、話に耳を傾け、認め、一緒に模索していくのがお寺の役割です。
答えはひとつではありません。その人が生きてきた過程があって、課題や問題を抱えているのですから、さまざまな角度から物事を捉え、寄り添うことができたらと思っております。
I’m sure there are people who have an image of Buddhism as traditionalist and stiff. But in reality, it’s very flexible. The job of a temple is to listen to people’s stories without denying their problems, to acknowledge them, and to think of solutions together.
There’s no one right answer. There’s a process to how a person’s lived their life, one beset with issues and problems, and my hope is I can come at them from various angles and be there for them.
In reading up on this subject, one phrase kept popping up in articles: 重い腰を上げる (omoi koshi o ageru) – i.e., getting off one’s ass and finally doing something. There’s a feeling even among some Buddhist priests that the traditionalist world of Japanese Buddhism has been slow and reluctant to address this issue. But it’s good to see progress – not just at the local temple level, but the national level as well. With anti-LGBT+ prejudice still prevalent in the country, Japan’s sexual minorities could use the support.
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Sources
[1] ｢LGBTQへの差別は死後も続く｣タブー視されてきたお墓と戒名の大問題. https://president.jp/articles/-/40405?page=1
[2] 「葬式専門」を変えたい。僧侶がカラフルな袈裟をまとう理由. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jp/rikakotakahashi/lgbt-wedding-saimyoji-2
[3] 「お寺はすべての人に開かれた場」同性結婚式を行う「正福寺」僧侶・清原睦美さんインタビュー【長崎】. https://getnews.jp/archives/2877953
