Refocusing Body, Mind and Community Interconnections: Soka Gakkai’s “Mission” and “Human Revolution” amidst the Biosocial Crisis of COVID-19
This paper explores responses to COVID-19 by the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai in Japan. Sōka means ‘value-creation’, but what kind of ‘value’ was created amidst a global pandemic? So-called ‘new religions’ in the context of Japan are typically presumed to embody a ‘flight from the human world’...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2022
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| In: |
Social sciences and missions
Year: 2022, Volume: 35, Issue: 3/4, Pages: 274-307 |
| Further subjects: | B
Yōkai
B buppō B Spirituality B ecological sustainability and biosocial awareness B bien-être B développement durable B Covid-19 B life-state B Spiritualité B human revolution B Well-being B Soka Gakkai B conscience biosociale B santé B SDG s B révolution humaine B Mission (international law |
| Online Access: |
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| Summary: | This paper explores responses to COVID-19 by the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai in Japan. Sōka means ‘value-creation’, but what kind of ‘value’ was created amidst a global pandemic? So-called ‘new religions’ in the context of Japan are typically presumed to embody a ‘flight from the human world’ into the exotic and remote. SG’s response, however, encouraged people to stay very much within a ‘human-bound world’. How did SG differ compared to other popular responses in Japan that drew on yōkai (or ‘spirits’) for comfort in defeating the soon objectified virus ‘monster’? SG may be well-built for responding to disaster in its extensive grassroots networks and its daily newspaper to provide information. Responding with a renewed focus on study, chanting and outreach also highlights, however, how the meaning of ‘hope’ and ‘well-being’ were generated by internal change while structurally working to realise the SDG s as part of more long-term solutions. |
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| ISSN: | 1874-8945 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Social sciences and missions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/18748945-bja10063 |