Shinnyo-en?

DaftChris

http://www.shinnyoen.org/

Has anyone heard of this organization? From what I know and have read, it's related to Shingon and is a lay practitioner organization. However, many also label it as a "cult", much of such accusations coming from referring to the head of Shinnto-en as "Her Holiness".

Invincible_summer

Western Tibetan Buddhists and the media often refer to the current Dalai Lama as "His Holiness the Dalai Lama," but I don't hear much about Western Tibetan Buddhism being referred to as a cult. Strange.

Sorry, can't offer much more info.

MaryAnne

What is so bad about calling her "Her Holiness"... isn't that what most people call His Holiness the Dalai Lama?
Is it because she's a woman? Or because she's of no particular "holy lineage?" (I don't know if she is or isn't, just trying to figure out what brings up these accusations....)

DaftChris

Thanks for the answers.

I did a little more digging (including going to the infamous Buddhist site which shall not be named) and found this out about the group (although for some of these I may have to take with a grain of salt; coming from aforementioned site):

1.) The founder was a legitimate Shingon priest.

2.) The current leader is a legitimate ordained Shingon Priestess.

3.) They ask for donations for their meditation sessions and have oracles/mediums.

4.) Their main sutra is the Nirvana Sutra.

6.) The members are "nice but hold strange views". What the strange views are, weren't mentioned.

MaryAnne

Funny, I think we are all pretty much "strange"... What's the big deal?

Invincible_summer

@DaftChris - just wondering, what's your interest in this tradition?

DaftChris

MaryAnne said:

Funny, I think we are all pretty much "strange"... What's the big deal?

I don't know, honestly. All of the remarks against the group are vague. Most calling them "new agey" or comparing them to SGI and New Kampada. I think it mostly has to do with the fact that the group is only a few decades old, uses mediums, is secaritive, and has a woman as the leader.

Then again, many old traditions had mediums (or similar practices) and are secretive, so I guess I don't see the big deal?

DaftChris

Invincible_summer said:

@DaftChris - just wondering, what's your interest in this tradition?

From what I've read, it makes Shingon (a school I'm interested in) more accessible to laypeople (there's a Shinyyo-en center 2 1/2 hours away from me, while the nearest Shingon temple is over 2,000 miles away). It also, supposedly, combines teachings of Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana together.

matthewmartin

Guardedly optimistic.

- It is a cult in the sense of a "new religion". From the sociologists stand point, the world cult is not a slur. But people seem to use it that way as if all new religions or sects are bad until proven otherwise.

- It would be made up of new converts and new converts are generally much more enthusiastic than people who grew up in the tradition

- It has almost no presence among the digerati-- few websites and I haven't met any Shinnyo-en in person. Nichiren was scary until I met a few in person and could form an opinion from real live people. (Nichiren followers are no more exotic than Mormons.)

- It is a "new religion" in the Japanese sense, in that it breaks with the boring Jodo-Shinshu model. There are a bunch of "new religions" (I forget the japanese phrase for them)-- in general, they are a break from funerary-temple-government-sponsored Buddhism, all of which are very Japanese specific problems in Buddhism. In the West people could give a flying F about if Buddhist funerals are too expense, if inheriting temples from your father ruined the sangha or what the Emperor and his bureaucracy has to say about how you practice Buddhism.

- Compared to Jodo-Shinshu, Shingon is exotic and strange.

- From the Vajrayana traditions, these new schools would be somewhat controversial, in that both the Japanese and Chinese Vajrayana schools you see on the web (Hanmi and Shinnyo) are trying move move the line between esoteric and exoteric teachings so that the esoteric is more accessible to lay followers and that would be controversial from inside the vajrayana tradition (since esoteric teachings are reputed to be dangerous in the wrong hands)

DaftChris

@matthewmartin

Great answer! Thank you!

Out of curiosity, and @MaryAnne made a good point with this, what do you think of Shinnyo-en referring to the leader if their organization as "Her Holiness"? On one hand, other faiths do the same thing and no one thinks twice about it. On the other hand, it still appears to be a deification of an ordinary human being; which, to be honest, coming from a western perspective seems a little weird to me.

Jeffrey

Someone who devotes there every waking hour to dharma is holy in the sense that modern medicine is miraculous.

matthewmartin

re: Her Holiness

Japanese vajrayana is a real vajrayana. So guru veneration is part of the package.

The vajrayana tradition makes a reasoned case for guru veneration, it isn't just a single opportunist taking the chance to create a cult of personality. In vajrayana, guru veneration is the official system. If guru veneration is good or safe from exploitation, that's for someone else to speculate about.

I'm sure others could speak better to how best to pick a guru in this system.

One point that is relevant to the "new religions" of Japan is that they typically have some charismatic person in the center who has a rock-star like celebrity status, at least among their own crowd. (The head of SGI comes to mind.) In 500 to 700 AD India where guru veneration developed, there wasn't mass media, so I don't know what they would have thought about gurus with 100,000s of followers and no mathematical possibility of having much of personal relationship.