Buddhist Responses to the 3.11 Disasters in Japan

Abstract

When I visited Ishinomaki nearly three years after the 11 March 2011 triple disasters—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown—former residents of the city and parishioners of Saikōji, a local Jōdo (Pure Land) Buddhist temple, were still living in temporary housing. Saikōji also suffered tsunami damage. Large parts of the temple graveyard had been destroyed by bulldozers of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, who came to search for bodies in the debris. In an effort to help survivors cope with their trauma, vice-head priest Higuchi Shinshō encouraged his parishioners to clean the bones of their family ancestors from the salt of the seawater that flooded Saikōji. Fragments of bones were still piled on the ground when we met, next to a pot and a strainer. Most of the graves, however, had since been repaired. “They cannot rebuild their homes,” Higuchi explained. “Many people from this neighborhood are too old to get bank loans. They don’t want to burden their families. That’s why they invest in their graves, as a final home and resting place” (Higuchi Shinshō, interview 17 January 2014).