Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Buddhist Studies
Episode: John K. Nelson, “Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan” (U of Hawaii Press, 2013)
Description: In his recent book, Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2013), John K. Nelson delves into the historical circumstances that have led to the declining fortunes of Japanese Buddhism and explores recent and ongoing attempts by Japanese Buddhist clerics to render Buddhism relevant to Japanese society once again. Based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and the author’s own participation in some of the innovative programs featured in the book, Experimental Buddhism features forty-five temples and some of the experiments that they are undertaking. Shingon monks chanting in a jazz club in Tokyo, a female ca...