The Introduction of Buddhism

 Well, I sang a song asking God for grace and directly gained faith, but what should I do next?

I have faith, but I'm still not sure which religion or sect to choose. This may be a bit contrary to normal. If you live in an area where Christianity is deeply rooted, such as the West, you can choose Christianity; if you live in an area where Islam is deeply rooted, such as the Middle East, you can choose Islam; if you are Jewish, you can choose Judaism; if you are Indian, you can choose Hinduism; if you have a religion that is deeply rooted in your area, you may not have to worry. On the contrary, you may have been baptized from birth and have been a believer since the beginning. Even though Buddhism is deeply rooted in Japan as a culture, there are few people who actually believe it. So, which one should I choose? New religions are very active, but some of them seem suspicious, so what should I do? I guess I'll start with an orthodox traditional religion.

So, I'll start with Buddhism, which is close to Japan.

That said, I won't convert right away. It seems that every religion and every sect says that they are the only ones who are right and that you can't be saved anywhere else. If that's true, it would be a big problem. If you mistakenly join a religion that doesn't save you, that's the end of the story, isn't it? So which religion to choose is a once-in-a-lifetime gamble. You can't make a mistake.

So what should you do?

You can't make a decision without at least listening to what they have to say. So you have to read the scriptures of each religion, and if there are words from the founders of each sect, at least read the scriptures of that sect. So, I thought I would try to listen to them in the following order:

Buddhism → Christianity → Islam

In other words, I thought I would listen to the words of the scriptures. In other words,

Buddhist scriptures → Bible (Old and New Testaments) → Quran, Hadith

I thought I would go with that. Judaism seems to be limited to the Jewish people, so it's okay because it's the Old Testament, and Hinduism seems to be limited to India, so I thought I could put it off for later. Sorry to the Jews and Hindus. Anyway, you can't do everything at once.

By the way, there are a lot of Buddhisms, aren't there? First of all, it is divided into Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. Moreover, many sects were established in Japan during the Kamakura period, and there are various sects within Mahayana Buddhism. At first, there was Tendai Buddhism, Shingon Buddhism, and later there were Jodo Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, etc. And within those sects, there are Jodo Buddhism, Jodo Shinshu, Jishu, Zen Buddhism, Rinzai Buddhism, Soto Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, Nichiren Shoshu, etc., and it seems that Soka Gakkai is now separate.

Isn't that a bit too much?

How can you choose one from all of these when there are so many?

And there are so many Buddhist scriptures.

And it seems that many of the esoteric Buddhist scriptures have not yet been translated into modern Japanese.

But just because it's a hassle, you can't just decide randomly. It's a matter of whether you'll be saved or not. Oh, let's just decide with a game of lottery. Or maybe you draw Shinran first and it turns out to be the winner. Shinran's Jodo Shinshu is Amida Buddha.

There are so many traditional religions, so how many are there if we include new religions? How can we choose one from them?

Come to think of it, I forgot about Shinto even though I'm Japanese. The song "Manimani" that I sang last time was inspired by an ancient Japanese Kagura song, so Shinto is actually included. It also sings "Great King, have mercy." But Shinto seems to be limited to Japan, so I thought I couldn't stop there. I had to see the world.

So I decided to start with the Buddhist scriptures. Fortunately, it seems that there are quite a few modern translations, so I thought I could read them.

I've written before that I've forgotten whether I started with the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, the Agama sutras, or Shinran first. But it seems that I was conscious of Buddhism from the time I started making music. I've written quite a few songs like that. Looking back, there were signs of that. Or perhaps I was guided by it.

So, here's a song from that time. It's "The Introduction of Buddhism." The violin plays the main melody against a background of the Kannon Sutra set to a modern beat. This is different from my previous song, "Manimani," in that I was conscious of making it a song for people to listen to, so music was still the main focus, religion secondary. In "Manimani," however, I was singing to God, so religion was the main focus. At that time I was aiming for music that intersected between the East and the West, ancient and modern. Religion was more of a "side dish." But, even so, I received benefits from it. I had merit. Because, Kannon Bodhisattva guided me properly.

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