Moral Consciousness and Practice among the New Religions of Japan

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Morality is taken to be very important among most of the Japanese New Religions. They believe that to be saved from sufferings and to attain the highest state of being people must always have goodwill and do good things. Morality does not only mean external behavior. The inner state of mind or heart must also be kept in a good and purified state. Thus in many cases morality in New Religions is conceived as "kokoro-naoshi" or reformation of the heart. Among the many groups of the New Religions these are some that most emphasize morality. These may be classified as "self-cultivation type" (shuyo-dotoku-gata) New Religions.The aim of my present research project was to investigate the structure of morality in the New Religions. Of course there are diversities as well as similarities among various New Religions with regard to the morality. As a strategy I chose one of the "self-cultivation type" group which is called Shuyodan Hoseikai. The group was founded by Seitaro IDEI(1899-1983), born … More as a poor farmer's son in Tochigi prefecture. In his youth he became a devout believer of Honmichi, an offshoot from Tenrikyo, and then founded his own religion in 1941 in Tokyo. Shuyodan Hoseikai put great emphasis on "piling up merits (toku) and transferring them to others." What then are the "merits" ? Their concept of merits has a cosmic or metaphysical dimension. To acquire merits one must be harmonious with the waves of the whole nature and the rhythms of the cosmos. But it has also a more mundane dimension. Believers are required to love others and to be harmonious with them. Believers must keep their own heart or mind (kokoro) peaceful, pure and joyous.These moral teachings of Shuyodan Hoseikai are one typical manifestation of Japan's popular morality, the pillar of which is the idea of harmony. In the case of Shuyodan Hoseikai, however, it seems that the sense of individual autonomy and the universalistic ethic is much strongerthan that of the average contemporary Japanese mentality. Less