Buddhism In Japan Essay

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Buddhism in Japan can be thought of a religion built up over the years in Japan from China. Buddhism was started by the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama who passed away 460 C.E. From as early as 500 C.E Japanese monks traveled to the Chinese mainland slowly building the religion taking back buddhist teachings from China with them. However the official story of arrival of buddhism to japan was from Korean missionaries in 538 C.E. These missionaries brought with them many buddhist religious objects such as large bronze statues of the buddha, sutras (a rule or aphorism in Sanskrit literature, or a set of these on a technical subject), some religious objects and a letter praising the Dharma. A temple was later built to house the objects that would later convert most of Japan to Buddhism. However when an epidemic ravaged the land …show more content…
The zen like religion focused on simplicity and minimalism which is why Japan seems to be such a simplistic based culture. This Buddhism is still present today in modern Japan however not as much as it used to be. Buddhism is becoming more unpopular in Japan because it caters more to the dead than to the living which makes it more unpopular. If Japan doesn’t do something to fix it the whole religion will die out and Buddhist temples will close. The lack of successors to the priests is jeopardizing the family owned temples. Unfortunately Buddhism is also decreasing in popularity for funerals as most Japanese will use a funeral home or they won’t have a funeral at all. From 2000-2006 almost 600 buddhist temples had closed and were still closing. Also memberships at most all of the Buddhist temples were declining fast leaving many family temple owners in need for other jobs to keep them financially stable. Although Japan statistically is mostly buddhist (around 6/7 of the population) the religion has little to no moral value or meaning to the people