Learning from the Japanese

·期刊原文

Learning from the Japanese. (pro-life rituals in Buddhism an Shinto) (Cover Story)

by Gary L. Chamberlain

America

Vol.171 No.7 Pp.14-16 Sept 17, 1994}

COPYRIGHT America Press Inc. 1994


AS THE BUS NEARED PURPLE CLOUD TEMPLE, two long miles by train and
bus from Tokyo, loudspeakers were already blaring in the early
morning sunshine. From the bits of Japanese I know, I could make out
words like "sorrow," "sadness," "water child" and others, which told
me that I had arrived at a unique Buddhist temple devoted
exclusively to prayers and rituals for aborted fetuses. But beyond
the sounds of chants, music and rhythmic phrases, I was overwhelmed
by the sight before me. On every side of the mountains surrounding
the temple, small statues of the god Jizo, special protector of
children, stretched out as far as the eye could see. Row after row
of small, concrete statues climbed up the terraced heights. The jizo
were decorated in bright colors, surrounded by yen coins, small sake
bottles, children's toys and occasional pinwheels spinning in the
morning breeze.

I had come to this spot nestled in the mountains as part of my own
work on abortion and family planning in Japan and the response of
the Roman Catholic Church. In the process, I had seen jizo statues
from Sendai in the north, to Zogoji temple in Tokyo, along the river
bank of Nikko, in the flowing waters of the cemetery in the temple
city of Koyasan, high in the mountains near Nara, at Hasedera temple
in Kamakura, again in small, out of the way temples in Kyoto,
Hiroshima, Nagasaki and near the hot, volcanic waters in Unzen
National Park on the Sea of Japan.

What all these statues, temples and rituals had in common was a set
of practices dating from the 17th century to help women deal with
the anguish and sadness surrounding the deaths of fetuses and young
children, whether from miscarriages, stillbirths, infancy deaths or
abortions. Today these rituals serve at least two purposes. They
provide an outlet and expression of personal loss, and they provide
a ritualized, public policy that replaces our Western reliance upon
law to resolve our anguish about abortion. I believe that such
rituals not only can teach us a great deal about how to deal with
abortion but also, if adopted by Christian communities, can absorb
the divisions and tensions created by the political climate
surrounding abortion in the United States.

Abortion and Mizuko Rituals in Japan.

There has always been some form of opposition to abortion in Japan.
Abortion is not regarded as a "good," but rather as a regrettable or
necessary evil. Because of Shinto's strong emphasis upon life,
Shinto rituals are generally associated with joyous occasions, such
as birth, weddings and seasonal celebrations. Life is given by the
kami or gods themselves and is enshrined in the spirit of the
family's ancestors who provide the seed for new life. Abortion,
then, is the ending of a long string of "life" and an affront to the
kami who gave the seed. Abortion is an aberration, a temporary
affliction of spirit. The healing of such an affliction and
unification with the kami can take place only through the proper
ceremonies.

Buddhism's strong opposition to any form of killing would seem to
support opposition to abortion. However, like Shinto, Buddhism
cannot be expressed in doctrines nor can conclusions be argued from
rational premises, as in Western religious arguments against
abortion. Buddhism, especially in Japan, deals with life as
ambiguous; birthing and dying are processes through stages rather
than fixed events. Even the fetus, more often called "child" in
Japan, is not restricted to a linear development, but can "return"
to be reborn at a later time. Precisely out of compassion for a
woman's or a family's difficult situation, then, Buddhism also
tolerates abortion.

Buddhist practices reflect both concern for the aborted spirit and
compassion for the woman who, constrained by difficult
circumstances, has by necessity resorted to induced abortion.
Because of its belief in transmigration, Buddhism does not view
abortion as the ending of life. Rather, in this unfortunate
instance, the spirit must be returned to the Buddhas for birth at a
later time. In a vein similar to the Shinto fear of retribution from
the kami for the aborted fetus, the Buddhist also stresses the need
to placate this living spirit.

At some time in the 18th century, the practice arose of erecting
statues to the aborted spirits. In his extensive study of abortion
and Buddhism, Liquid Life, William LaFleur argues that these mizuko
practices started as informal rites by women with no priests. The
women simply erected small statues of the Buddhist god Jizo for
mizuko souls. The aborted spirit itself is called mizuko, literally
"child of the water (womb)," or in another meaning of mizo,
"unseeing child," who does not see the mother's face nor the light
of day. This water-child could be considered
"water-which-has-just-begun to take shape as a becoming-human."
Mizuko rituals also refer to miscarriages, early child deaths and
other sufferings of children.

In the period after World War II, when abortion was again legalized,
mizuko devotions began in some enterprises that called themselves
temples. The popularity of such devotions led more traditional
Buddhist temples to offer similar devotions; and now several
temples, such as the Hasedera temple in Nara or the Zogoji in Tokyo,
house thousands of small jizo statues.

The Buddhist and Shinto mizuko rituals are memorial services for the
souls of unborn embryos who wander unhappily, unable to be reborn.
The small sign near the wayside temple I visited in Kyoto captures
this view:
The unborn child is a very miserable and sad being. They are
abandoned by those people who are to be responsible parents in the
due course of time. These unfortunate children are abandoned without
being given the bliss of coming into the world and without any
offering of water and flowers to comfort their souls, without any
prayers to make them sleep in peace.

These words are designed as much to elicit a sense of guilt and the
need to go through the ritual by "responsible parents," as to
describe the state of the unborn child. Prices for such services can
range from $300 to $2,100. And the demand for them has increased
dramatically since 1975, when a rite was shown on television. A
sample advertisement in a Tokyo newspaper reflects the mixture of
fear of retribution as well as grief over the loss of life:
Everybody wants happiness and prosperity for himself and for the
children. Why then do we forget only these water children? Does
human compassion not urge us to seek happiness and heavenly bliss
for these children? Turn misfortune into bliss! Beware lest what you
did brings misfortune to your family, like divorce.... Apologize for
what you did to this water child just as soon as you can by doing
the memorial service; help this water child to become peaceful.
Although these sentiments in Shinto and Buddhism have not developed
into a movement of opposition to abortion in the period after World
War II, they do add a further indication that abortion is not a
preferred option for the Japanese. More importantly, the rituals
offer the Japanese a way to allay the feelings surrounding abortion,
thereby avoiding much of the recrimination, hatred, violence and
even murder that the passions surrounding abortion trigger among us.

The Catholic Church and Abortion in Japan.

The very ambiguity surrounding life issues in Japan finds its
reflection in the attempts of the church in Japan to respond to the
abortion question. In their 1984 pastoral letter on abortion, "Life,
a Gift of God: the Catholic Position on the Dignity of the Life of
the Unborn Child," the Catholic bishops recognize the tensions
created by the church's official position on abortion in a society
characterized by strong efforts at population control and methods of
birth control with high failure rates, namely condoms and a form of
rhythm. While fully supporting the Vatican's position on abortion as
against the will of God, the Japanese bishops do not argue that the
fetus is a person from the moment of conception, as American bishops
do. Rather the Japanese bishops state: "Now, from the moment the
ovum is fertilized, a new living body, distinct from its parents, is
created...but there is controversy over when the living body
acquires a personality. Rather than drawing a line somewhere and
arguing about the presence or absence of a personality, we wish to
recognize and emphasize the right to life of the living body which
is in the process of acquiring a personality."

The bishops then recognize that "in the concrete situation, the
solution to this problem can be very difficult." Except "where life
is mindlessly terminated simply because it is inconvenient," the
bishops address cases "where an abortion was performed after
considerable doubt and suffering." Indeed, in such cases, say the
bishops, people "may have their own reasons with which we can
sympathize," but nevertheless "must make an appeal to hold human
life dear." The bishops then state the two principles which should
guide all family planning procedures: "(a) Abortion must not be used
by a family or the state as a means of birth control; (b) In the
interests of responsible family planning, methods of birth control
other than artificial should be learned."

THE BISHOPS have recognized the complexities and ambiguities
surrounding abortion. Finally, they address their concerns to the
general public and examine the abortion issue within the limited
context from which they can speak as Roman Catholic leaders. That
is, barring any overt support for artificial forms of contraception
of any kind, the bishops call for raising the moral consciousness of
the people and for the reform of social conditions that constitute
the causes of abortion through assistance to families, unwed mothers
and families without mothers; through needed improvements in housing
policy; by revision of the limited laws on adoption; by amelioration
of the status of women, and through welfare benefits for the
handicapped, many of whom are rejected at birth for their lack of
normality.

In addition, the possibility, acknowledged in the Roman Catholic
tradition, that the fetus develops into a person over a period of
time, as the Japanese bishops mention, leads many Japnese
theologians and theologians working in Japan to support positions
developed by several Western theologians such as Karl Rahner, S.J.,
and Joseph Donceel, S.J., that the embryo is not a person in the
early stages of pregnancy and that, given serious reasons, abortion
could be morally justified during this time. Thus Juan Masia, S.J.,
in a commentary on the Japanese bishops' statement, wrote that "the
Church's declaration of 'protection of life from the time of
conception' most certainly does not mean that the reason for this is
because this is a person from the time of conception." Rather, he
argues, the church adopts the viewpoint of protecting the process
from its inception, and thus it may be possible to apply the
position of the theologians mentioned above "with prudent
flexibility also to exceptional cases."

This latter approach, which views the fetus as developing toward a
person, resembles the notions of a gradual, developing passage into
life among the Japanese religions. This similarity alone would
provide the basis for an exploration of mizuko type rituals in
Christianity. In addition, even among the pro-life Western and
Japanese people with whom I spoke in Japan, I found strong support
for the incorporation of such rituals into Christianity and Roman
Catholicism in particular. Likewise LaFleur in his study notes that
Christians in Japan "have increasingly come to the view that there
is an appreciable level of psychological and spiritual sanity in the
practices of mizuko, and that aspects of these practices should be
introduced into Westen society and the ambit of the West's religious
modalities." Furthermore, he notes that Roman Catholics and clergy
likewise share that interest.

If such a conversation has begun in Japan, then perhaps it is time
for a similar conversation to begin here in the United States. In
our secular society we look to law rather than religion to resolve
our most acute dilemmas of life--abortion, euthanasia, capital
punishment, war itself. It is time for the churches, and those such
as the Catholic Church who are most opposed to abortion, to propose
religious approaches to these complex dilemmas. An equivalent of a
mizuko ritual would not "solve" the abortion battles in America. Yet
such an approach might offer emotional solace to those women and men
who suffer through the realities of abortion, who experience the
deep regret and sense of loss of life. And, just as importantly,
such rituals and practices might lead to compassion and pragmatic
compromise in the public as well as the private areas of our lives.
IF RICHARD NIXON, the Quaker warrior, could open the American door
to China, then perhaps the Roman Catholic Church, as a voice of
opposition to abortion, could open the hearts of a divided public.
In Japan rituals often substitute for laws in guiding behaviro. In
the United States such rituals could at least provide alternatives
to the legal morass of abortion. Perhaps now is the time to give
birth to such an idea.