Casey Collins completed his PhD, entitled "Walking in the Founders' Footsteps: Hagiography and Devotion in Shinnyo-en, a Japanese New Religion," in April 2023 at the University of British Columbia. His work examines sociological and phenomenological approaches to religious studies, charismatic religious leaders, sacred narratives, new religions, and the material culture of religion. Casey has taught Asian Studies courses at Columbia College in Vancouver since 2016. Supervisors: Jessica Main, Clark Chilson, and Donald Baker
Shinnyo-en is often characterized as a Buddhist-derived new religion by scholars, the Japanese go... more Shinnyo-en is often characterized as a Buddhist-derived new religion by scholars, the Japanese government, and Shinnyo-en itself. This dissertation explains why a full picture of this religion requires an understanding of how its Buddhist features relate to what I argue is the most important aspect of Shinnyo-en today: the hagiography of and devotion to its founders, the Itō Family. Every aspect of Shinnyo-en is linked with stories about its founders, which provide members with a reflexive framework for interpreting life events, understanding what is morally good, and cultivating devotional affect. As is the case with other historically new religions, part of Shinnyo-en’s “newness” has been attributed to its recent origins and novel practices derived from a variety of Japanese religious traditions. However, a clear understanding of Shinnyo-en as experienced by the median follower emerges when the hagiography of its founding family is seen as the dominant logic shaping every aspect of Shinnyo-en—its teachings, practices, spaces, material culture, and members’ identities. Borrowing an important Mahāyāna term referring to ultimate truth or the true nature of reality (shinnyo 真如; Skt. tathatā), the religion’s name, “Shinnyo-en” means the “borderless garden” (en) of “truth” (shinnyo). Today, shinnyo has become almost synonymous with the Itō Family, who are for the median member Shinnyo-en’s most immediate manifestations of truth or buddhahood. The Itōs and stories about them have a primary soteriological value for Shinnyo-en members; members’ testimonies demonstrate devotional affect toward the Itōs, who fulfil multiple roles as fictive kin, Buddhist masters, and eternal spiritual beings who watch over and intervene in their followers’ lives. Based on analyses of publications available to the median member, testimonies, material culture, and informal participant observation, this dissertation demonstrates how Shinnyo-en creates a boundless mnemonic environment based on the Itōs and stories of their exceptional lives. This emotional mythos of overcoming trials and unleashing miraculous powers binds members to one another, the organization, and the founders. Members learn to make the story of their own lives—personal challenges and triumphs—into new stories about the Itō Family, as they walk in the founders’ footsteps.
Jewels, Jewelry, and Other Shiny Things in the Buddhist Imaginary, 2021
In Shinnyo-en and other Buddhist new religions, physical objects provide a tangible link with the... more In Shinnyo-en and other Buddhist new religions, physical objects provide a tangible link with the past, even as they are imbued with new uses and meanings. One example is the wish-fulfilling jewel (Jpn. nyoi hōju 如意宝珠), which in Shinnyo-en can hold both Buddhist referents and tacit associations with Shinnyo-en's founders, the Itō family. As marginalized modern communities, new religious movements often retain beliefs, practices, and objects that are discarded or dismissed in some forms of Buddhist modernism. Physical objects in Shinnyo-en 真如苑, including wish-fulfilling jewels, retain many of their classical meanings inherited from Shingon material culture, even as they are adapted and reimagined to accomplish specific institutional and doctrinal goals related to the elevated status accorded to Shinnyo-en's founders. As in other twentieth century esoteric Buddhist movements in East Asia, the tension between tradition and innovation in Shinnyo-en is negotiated primarily through physical objects and stories that link those objects to the founders.
Shinnyo-en, and other twentieth-century Buddhist lay movements emerging from older monastic and t... more Shinnyo-en, and other twentieth-century Buddhist lay movements emerging from older monastic and temple institutions, reconfigures elements of “traditional” Buddhism and “folk” religion to meet the conditions of modernity. Shinnyo-en’s founders and their successors envisioned a particular strategy for being Buddhist in modernity, one which aligns with some, but not all, scholarly characterizations of Buddhist modernism. As a result, Shinnyo-en and other lay organizations have largely remained on the margins of Buddhist studies despite their apparent popularity and proliferation. This article offers a new category for theorizing and positioning such organizations as contramodern—connected with, but divergent from mainstream forms of Buddhist modernism. In this light the emergence of Shinnyo-en in the 1930s, and the soteriological centrality of its founders’ lives, can be better understood in their historical and social contexts as being both connected to over one-thousand years of Shingon tradition and completely unique. The concept of contramodernism opens scholarly discussion of the many forms of Buddhism extant in modernity to those movements and organizations that are historically new, yet not entirely modernist.
New Religious Movements (NRMs) are typically understood by observers as essentially deviant, biza... more New Religious Movements (NRMs) are typically understood by observers as essentially deviant, bizarre, and even pathological forms of religion. This understanding, however, is analytically weak, missing the similarities, and often close connections, between new movements and more established “parent” religious traditions. Shinnyo-en is a Buddhist-derived NRM that began in 1930s Japan. It has strong ties to Shingon Buddhism and is also characterized by an idiosyncratic emphasis on its charismatic founding family. Like other Buddhist-derived NRMs, it is simultaneously contiguous with a parent tradition and distinguished from it. This contiguity can be emphasized if we characterize Shinnyo-en as a modernized form of esoteric Buddhism. How, then, can this relation to a parent religion be incorporated into a model of Japanese NRMs? Abandoning the language of pathology, I suggest that we think of NRMs in the modern period as offering conceptual “spaces” similar to those of “established” religions, secular spaces, and other ideologies. The very meaning of the name Shinnyo-en 真如苑—the “Garden of Truth,” literally a “borderless garden” (en 苑) of “thusness” (shinnyo 真如, Skt. tathatā)—evokes the image of an expansive, cultivated space. The polysemous religious space of Shinnyo-en contains two modalities. In its first modality, practitioners and observers see Shinnyo-en as a modernized form of esoteric Buddhism, drawing on ritual and doctrine inherited from the Shingon school. In this modality, Shinnyo-en’s charismatic founding family are regarded as enlightened Buddhist masters in the established Buddhist sense. In the second modality, an initiated practitioner experiences Shinnyo-en’s idiosyncrasy, which is a function of unique practices and beliefs that cannot exist apart from the charismatic founding family. This hybridized, polymorphic space is made possible and intelligible by Shinnyo-en’s founding family who created an organization around themselves and are increasingly thought of as eternal spiritual beings. The two modalities of the Shinnyo-en tradition are equally important to members, and must be simultaneous kept in mind to best understand this and other Buddhist-derived NRMs. With this conceptual map of the “Garden of Truth,” Shinnyo-en’s esotericism and idiosyncrasies, which have been obstacles to understanding, start to become more sensible, especially its profound emphasis on the founding family and the novel practices and hierarchies they introduced. We discover that Shinnyo-en is both a modernist expression of esoteric Buddhism and a new religion centered on the lives and personalities of its charismatic founders.
Shinnyo-en is often characterized as a Buddhist-derived new religion by scholars, the Japanese go... more Shinnyo-en is often characterized as a Buddhist-derived new religion by scholars, the Japanese government, and Shinnyo-en itself. This dissertation explains why a full picture of this religion requires an understanding of how its Buddhist features relate to what I argue is the most important aspect of Shinnyo-en today: the hagiography of and devotion to its founders, the Itō Family. Every aspect of Shinnyo-en is linked with stories about its founders, which provide members with a reflexive framework for interpreting life events, understanding what is morally good, and cultivating devotional affect. As is the case with other historically new religions, part of Shinnyo-en’s “newness” has been attributed to its recent origins and novel practices derived from a variety of Japanese religious traditions. However, a clear understanding of Shinnyo-en as experienced by the median follower emerges when the hagiography of its founding family is seen as the dominant logic shaping every aspect of Shinnyo-en—its teachings, practices, spaces, material culture, and members’ identities. Borrowing an important Mahāyāna term referring to ultimate truth or the true nature of reality (shinnyo 真如; Skt. tathatā), the religion’s name, “Shinnyo-en” means the “borderless garden” (en) of “truth” (shinnyo). Today, shinnyo has become almost synonymous with the Itō Family, who are for the median member Shinnyo-en’s most immediate manifestations of truth or buddhahood. The Itōs and stories about them have a primary soteriological value for Shinnyo-en members; members’ testimonies demonstrate devotional affect toward the Itōs, who fulfil multiple roles as fictive kin, Buddhist masters, and eternal spiritual beings who watch over and intervene in their followers’ lives. Based on analyses of publications available to the median member, testimonies, material culture, and informal participant observation, this dissertation demonstrates how Shinnyo-en creates a boundless mnemonic environment based on the Itōs and stories of their exceptional lives. This emotional mythos of overcoming trials and unleashing miraculous powers binds members to one another, the organization, and the founders. Members learn to make the story of their own lives—personal challenges and triumphs—into new stories about the Itō Family, as they walk in the founders’ footsteps.
Jewels, Jewelry, and Other Shiny Things in the Buddhist Imaginary, 2021
In Shinnyo-en and other Buddhist new religions, physical objects provide a tangible link with the... more In Shinnyo-en and other Buddhist new religions, physical objects provide a tangible link with the past, even as they are imbued with new uses and meanings. One example is the wish-fulfilling jewel (Jpn. nyoi hōju 如意宝珠), which in Shinnyo-en can hold both Buddhist referents and tacit associations with Shinnyo-en's founders, the Itō family. As marginalized modern communities, new religious movements often retain beliefs, practices, and objects that are discarded or dismissed in some forms of Buddhist modernism. Physical objects in Shinnyo-en 真如苑, including wish-fulfilling jewels, retain many of their classical meanings inherited from Shingon material culture, even as they are adapted and reimagined to accomplish specific institutional and doctrinal goals related to the elevated status accorded to Shinnyo-en's founders. As in other twentieth century esoteric Buddhist movements in East Asia, the tension between tradition and innovation in Shinnyo-en is negotiated primarily through physical objects and stories that link those objects to the founders.
Shinnyo-en, and other twentieth-century Buddhist lay movements emerging from older monastic and t... more Shinnyo-en, and other twentieth-century Buddhist lay movements emerging from older monastic and temple institutions, reconfigures elements of “traditional” Buddhism and “folk” religion to meet the conditions of modernity. Shinnyo-en’s founders and their successors envisioned a particular strategy for being Buddhist in modernity, one which aligns with some, but not all, scholarly characterizations of Buddhist modernism. As a result, Shinnyo-en and other lay organizations have largely remained on the margins of Buddhist studies despite their apparent popularity and proliferation. This article offers a new category for theorizing and positioning such organizations as contramodern—connected with, but divergent from mainstream forms of Buddhist modernism. In this light the emergence of Shinnyo-en in the 1930s, and the soteriological centrality of its founders’ lives, can be better understood in their historical and social contexts as being both connected to over one-thousand years of Shingon tradition and completely unique. The concept of contramodernism opens scholarly discussion of the many forms of Buddhism extant in modernity to those movements and organizations that are historically new, yet not entirely modernist.
New Religious Movements (NRMs) are typically understood by observers as essentially deviant, biza... more New Religious Movements (NRMs) are typically understood by observers as essentially deviant, bizarre, and even pathological forms of religion. This understanding, however, is analytically weak, missing the similarities, and often close connections, between new movements and more established “parent” religious traditions. Shinnyo-en is a Buddhist-derived NRM that began in 1930s Japan. It has strong ties to Shingon Buddhism and is also characterized by an idiosyncratic emphasis on its charismatic founding family. Like other Buddhist-derived NRMs, it is simultaneously contiguous with a parent tradition and distinguished from it. This contiguity can be emphasized if we characterize Shinnyo-en as a modernized form of esoteric Buddhism. How, then, can this relation to a parent religion be incorporated into a model of Japanese NRMs? Abandoning the language of pathology, I suggest that we think of NRMs in the modern period as offering conceptual “spaces” similar to those of “established” religions, secular spaces, and other ideologies. The very meaning of the name Shinnyo-en 真如苑—the “Garden of Truth,” literally a “borderless garden” (en 苑) of “thusness” (shinnyo 真如, Skt. tathatā)—evokes the image of an expansive, cultivated space. The polysemous religious space of Shinnyo-en contains two modalities. In its first modality, practitioners and observers see Shinnyo-en as a modernized form of esoteric Buddhism, drawing on ritual and doctrine inherited from the Shingon school. In this modality, Shinnyo-en’s charismatic founding family are regarded as enlightened Buddhist masters in the established Buddhist sense. In the second modality, an initiated practitioner experiences Shinnyo-en’s idiosyncrasy, which is a function of unique practices and beliefs that cannot exist apart from the charismatic founding family. This hybridized, polymorphic space is made possible and intelligible by Shinnyo-en’s founding family who created an organization around themselves and are increasingly thought of as eternal spiritual beings. The two modalities of the Shinnyo-en tradition are equally important to members, and must be simultaneous kept in mind to best understand this and other Buddhist-derived NRMs. With this conceptual map of the “Garden of Truth,” Shinnyo-en’s esotericism and idiosyncrasies, which have been obstacles to understanding, start to become more sensible, especially its profound emphasis on the founding family and the novel practices and hierarchies they introduced. We discover that Shinnyo-en is both a modernist expression of esoteric Buddhism and a new religion centered on the lives and personalities of its charismatic founders.
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Papers by Casey Collins
Abandoning the language of pathology, I suggest that we think of NRMs in the modern period as offering conceptual “spaces” similar to those of “established” religions, secular spaces, and other ideologies. The very meaning of the name Shinnyo-en 真如苑—the “Garden of Truth,” literally a “borderless garden” (en 苑) of “thusness” (shinnyo 真如, Skt. tathatā)—evokes the image of an expansive, cultivated space. The polysemous religious space of Shinnyo-en contains two modalities. In its first modality, practitioners and observers see Shinnyo-en as a modernized form of esoteric Buddhism, drawing on ritual and doctrine inherited from the Shingon school. In this modality, Shinnyo-en’s charismatic founding family are regarded as enlightened Buddhist masters in the established Buddhist sense. In the second modality, an initiated practitioner experiences Shinnyo-en’s idiosyncrasy, which is a function of unique practices and beliefs that cannot exist apart from the charismatic founding family. This hybridized, polymorphic space is made possible and intelligible by Shinnyo-en’s founding family who created an organization around themselves and are increasingly thought of as eternal spiritual beings.
The two modalities of the Shinnyo-en tradition are equally important to members, and must be simultaneous kept in mind to best understand this and other Buddhist-derived NRMs. With this conceptual map of the “Garden of Truth,” Shinnyo-en’s esotericism and idiosyncrasies, which have been obstacles to understanding, start to become more sensible, especially its profound emphasis on the founding family and the novel practices and hierarchies they introduced. We discover that Shinnyo-en is both a modernist expression of esoteric Buddhism and a new religion centered on the lives and personalities of its charismatic founders.
Abandoning the language of pathology, I suggest that we think of NRMs in the modern period as offering conceptual “spaces” similar to those of “established” religions, secular spaces, and other ideologies. The very meaning of the name Shinnyo-en 真如苑—the “Garden of Truth,” literally a “borderless garden” (en 苑) of “thusness” (shinnyo 真如, Skt. tathatā)—evokes the image of an expansive, cultivated space. The polysemous religious space of Shinnyo-en contains two modalities. In its first modality, practitioners and observers see Shinnyo-en as a modernized form of esoteric Buddhism, drawing on ritual and doctrine inherited from the Shingon school. In this modality, Shinnyo-en’s charismatic founding family are regarded as enlightened Buddhist masters in the established Buddhist sense. In the second modality, an initiated practitioner experiences Shinnyo-en’s idiosyncrasy, which is a function of unique practices and beliefs that cannot exist apart from the charismatic founding family. This hybridized, polymorphic space is made possible and intelligible by Shinnyo-en’s founding family who created an organization around themselves and are increasingly thought of as eternal spiritual beings.
The two modalities of the Shinnyo-en tradition are equally important to members, and must be simultaneous kept in mind to best understand this and other Buddhist-derived NRMs. With this conceptual map of the “Garden of Truth,” Shinnyo-en’s esotericism and idiosyncrasies, which have been obstacles to understanding, start to become more sensible, especially its profound emphasis on the founding family and the novel practices and hierarchies they introduced. We discover that Shinnyo-en is both a modernist expression of esoteric Buddhism and a new religion centered on the lives and personalities of its charismatic founders.