Abstract
Zen Buddhism in particular has become a method of training in perfection, a method of concentration and self-control, a training in efficiency, in aesthetic appreciations, and in creativity. Outside Japan, it is rare to find techniques of mysticism practiced by many without the reward of a religious mystic experience; yet, here in Japan, it is practiced by policemen and soldiers, sportsmen, artists, and businessmen as a superior way of reaching perfection in their chosen way of life. Ancient Buddhism resembles positively in its attempt to shift the center from the worship of God to the service of man. Bushido related to Zen refers not only to martial rectitude, but to personal rectitude: Rectitude or justice is the strongest virtue of Bushido. A well-known samurai defines it this way: “Rectitude is one’s power to decide upon a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering; to die when to die is right, to strike when to strike is right.” Bushido teaches that men should behave according to an absolute moral standard, one that transcends logic. This chapter analyzes the development of Zen and Bushido, and how they shaped the modern Japanese characters, which have strong connections to the Japanese management ethics.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Akamatsu, T., and P. Yampolsky. 1977. Muromachi Zen and the Gozan System. In Japan in the Muromachi Age, ed. J.W. Hall and T. Toyoda. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Bellah, R. 1957. Tokugawa Religion. The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan. New York: Free Press.
Collins, R. 1997. An Asian Route to Capitalism: Religious Economy and the Origins of Self-Transforming Growth in Japan. American Sociological Review 62 (6): 843–865.
Daizen, B. 2006. Zen at War. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Dator JA. 1971, The Protestant Ethic in Japan. In Selected Readings in Modern Japanese Society, eds. G.K. Yamamoto and T. Ishida. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dharma Path, collected by Bhikku Bodhi, http://www.maithri.com/dhammapada.
Dumoulin, H. 1990. Zen Buddhism: A History. New York: Macmillan.
Eberhard, W. 1977. A History of China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Guseynov, A. 1975. Buddhism as an Ethics-centered Worldview in the Symposium with Institute of Philosophy. Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences.
Jacobs, A.J. 2010. Max Weber Was Right About the Preconditions, Just Wrong About Japan: The Japanese Ethic and Its Spirit of Capitalism. The Open Area Studies Journal 3: 12–29.
Hall, J.W., K. Nagahara, and K. Yamamura. 1981. Japan Before Tokugawa: Political Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500 to 1650. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hall, J.W., and T. Toyoda. 1977. Japan in the Muromachi Age. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hanley, S., and K. Yamamura. 1977. Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial Japan, 1600–1868. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hanley, S. 1986. Standard of Living in Nineteenth Century Japan: Reply to Yasuba. Journal of Economic History 46: 225–226.
Hauser, W. 1974. Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan: Osaka and the Kinai Cotton Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hiroike, C. 1928. Treatise on Moral Science. Tokyo: Reitaku University.
Hiroi, Y. 2000. Kea Gaku (A Science of Care). Tokyo: Igaku Shoin.
Holmes, S., and C. Horioka. 1973. Zen Art for Meditation, Rutland. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle.
Inazo, N. 1899. Bushido, The Soul of Japan. Tokyo: Reitaku University.
Kitagawa, J. 1987. On Understanding Japanese Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Mark, E. 1973. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. London: Methuen.
McClain, J.L., and O. Wakita. 1999. The Merchants’ Capital of Early Modern Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
McMullin, N. 1984. Buddhism and State in Sixteenth Century Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Mizuno, J. 1991. Kea no Ningengaku, A Philosophical Anthropology of Care. Tokyo: Yumiru Shuppan.
Morris-Suzuki, T. 1994. The Technological Transformation of Japan: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty- first Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morishima, M. 1987. Confucius and Capitalism. New York: UNESCO.
Nakamura, H. 1967. Suzuki Shosan and the Spirit of Capitalism in Japanese Buddhism. Moniimenta Nipponica 22: 1–14.
Nishijima, S. 1986. The Economic and Social History of Former Han. In The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, The Chin and Han Empires, eds. D. Twitchett and M. Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nishitani, K. 2006. On Buddhism, trans. Seisaku Yamamoto and Robert E. Carter. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Roberts, J.G. 1973. Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business. New York: Weatherhill.
Rozman, G. 1991. The East Asian Region. Confucian Heritage and Its Modern Adaptation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sansom G. 1963a. A History of Japan: 1334–1615. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Sansom, G. 1963b. A History of Japan: 1615–1867. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Suzuki, D.T. 1959. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sydney, C.E. 1963. Changes in Japanese Commerce in the Tokugawa Period. Journal of Asian Studies 23: 387–400.
Takaya K. 2005. The Jodo Shinshu Sectś Missionary Work in Colonial Korea. In Modern Japanese Buddhism and Pan-Asianism. The 19th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Tokyo.
Tamura, Y. 2001. Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History. Tokyo: Kosei.
Wargo, R. 1990. Japanese Ethics: Beyond Good and Evil. Philosophy East & West 40 (4): 499–509.
Weber, M. 1992. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Routledge.
Weber, M. 1991. Sociology of Religion. Boston: Beacon Press.
Yamamoto, S. 1992. The Spirit of Japanese Capitalism. New York: Madison Books.
Yamamura, K. 1997. The Economic Emergence of Modern Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Yamamura, K. 1989. Zen and the gozan. In The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 3, Me-dieval Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yamamura, K. 1981. Returns on Unification: Economic Growth in Japan, 1550–1650. In Japan Before Tokygawa, ed. J. Hall, K. Nagahara, and K. Yamamura. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Yamamura, K. 1990. The Growth of Commerce in Medieval Japan. In The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 3, Medieval Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yasuba, Y. 1986. Standard of Living in Japan before Industrialization: From What Level Did Japan Begin. Journal of Economic History 46: 217–224.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
Japanese DNA Haplogroup:
There are three main Y-haplogroups in Japan, D, O, and C.
D:
Roughly 40% of Japanese belong to D, but nearly all of it is D1b which is unique to Japanese only. There is no D in China or Korea except in Tibet. But Tibetans are D1a.
The D has very unique mutation called YAP. But there is one another haplogroup that has YAP, which is the haplogroup E. E only exists in the eastern Africa, West Asia, and some parts of Europe. So this could be the Japanese connection with Caucasians.
O:
Up to 30% of the Japanese belong to the haplogroup O, but they are O1b2 (O-47z), which almost exclusively occurs in Japan. Koreans are xO-47, and there is none of this in China.
15–20% of Japanese belong to O2. About 70% of the northern Chinese and 35% of Koreans belong to O2, so that this could well be the Japanese connection with Chinese and Koreans.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Basu, D., Miroshnik, V. (2021). Ethics of Japanese Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confusion Philosophy. In: Ethics, Morality and Business: The Development of Modern Economic Systems, Volume I. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71493-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71493-2_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-71492-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-71493-2
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)