Renegade Monk

The Pure Land Sect of Japanese Buddhism is the strongest Buddhist sect in Japan, with three and a half million followers. In this book, Soho Machida provides the first detailed, objective account in English of the life and thought of its founder, Honenbo Genku (1133-1212), known as Honen. Honen's main tenet was that the simple incantation of namu Amida butsu was sufficient to attain salvation. This represented an irreconcilable break with the traditional Buddhism of the time, which advocated asceticism and reinscribed the preexisting class structure in the afterlife. With his dramatic teachings, Honen revolutionized religious thinking in Japan and attained a large following despite resounding criticism from his contemporaries. His main disciple, Shinran, carried the sect to the next generation, and Shinran's thought has received much scholarly attention; however, Honen's has rarely been studied. Opening with the chaos of Kyoto during Honen's lifetime, Machida explores Honen's social context to discover the roots of his thought and the source of his popularity.