On Dogen 11

A New Religious Movement Born from the Depths of Despair

The age of Mount Hiei had come to an end. Ever since the capital moved to Heian-kyo in 794, Mount Hiei had wielded overwhelming hegemony and commanded the hidden systems that sustained the capital from behind the scenes. Standing to the northeast of Heian-kyo in the direction of the demon gate, it assumed the spiritual role of guardian against malevolent forces and became the headquarters for prayers of national protection, operating in the shadows as the front line against calamity. Its glory eventually reached its zenith as it backed the capital’s ruling powers both openly and covertly. From its very inception when Saicho (767-822) founded the mountain monastery in 788 after returning from Tang China, Mount Hiei existed as one body and one soul with Heian-kyo. If either collapsed, everything would end. They were bound together in an inseparable fate. Yet by the late twelfth century, more than four centuries after its founding, the religious prestige that once radiated from the mountain had fallen into ruin. Its spiritual power spent, the sight of Mount Hiei disillusioned everyone who beheld it. It was precisely at this moment, when the collective illusion that had sustained Mount Hiei’s long dominance finally dissolved, that the possibility of a new religion began to germinate.

What deserves particular attention is the fact that the great tide of faith seeking a future beyond Mount Hiei did not emerge from outside that collective illusion but from within it. Without understanding the process that led to this point, the new religious movement that was about to begin cannot be grasped. This is why I have devoted this series to tracing the contours of the era from my own perspective. The culmination of that effort lies in recognizing that everything was reset during the six brutal years of civil war from 1180 to 1185, the terminal convulsion of Heian-kyo. That said, it is a constant of history that the signs of a regime’s collapse always appear slightly before the decisive events themselves. Just yesterday on the Japanese side, a snap general election was held at the behest of the entrenched interests led by self-serving politicians, bureaucrats, and the U.S. military establishment in Japan. The result was the establishment of a Liberal Democratic Party dictatorship succeeding the second Abe administration, an outcome made possible by a majority electorate in a hyper-aged society utterly lacking the capacity to judge its own future. When one surveys the final years of the Heian period in this way, it becomes self-evident that nothing has changed.

It is true that on the level of an individual life it is only human to wish for a lifetime free of upheaval and to hope to live out one’s days in peace. Yet since every system inevitably rots, it is equally true that without periodic resets no light can break through. Moreover, as someone who loves the study of history, I cannot help but feel personally that an ending is not cause for despair but a harbinger of hope for the future. What must end will always end. Put another way, what must end must be brought to an end. The rise and fall of the Taira clan under Taira no Kiyomori, which we have traced up to this point, was eventually passed down through the ages as The Tale of the Heike, and even now the impermanence of that prosperity resonates deep in the heart. For me this series of reflections functions as a kind of mirror held up to the hidden face of Japan today.