Politics I: War and Japanese Buddhism

Reading List Entry
Nuclear Power Is Incompatible with the Way of the Buddha / 原発は仏の道とあいいれない – Rev. Taitsu Kono (Sekai Magazine June 2012)
Buddhist federation speaks out against nuclear power: An Interview with Rev. Taitsu Kono (Asahi Shimbun March 21, 2012)
Zen At War (excerpt) by Brian Victoria. New York: Weatherhill, 1997.
Zen and Japanese Culture (excerpt) by Daisetzu T. Suzuki (Tokyo: Charles E Tuttle Company, 1959) especially Chapters 4, 5 & 6 on Zen, Samurai and Swordsmanship. available in the library
“Japanese Nationalism and the Universal Dharma” by Kawanami Hiroko (in Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, Continuum, 1999)
Rebuking the Enemies of the Lotus: Nichirenist Exclusivism in Historical Perspective. by Jacqueline Stone. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies #421, 21/2–3:231-59, 1994.
Sōka Gakkai Founder, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō, A Man of Peace? 創価学会の創立者・牧口恒三郎　平和を愛する男？by Brian Victoria. The Asia Pacific Journal. Vol. 12, 37:3, August 4, 2014
Religion and the Japanese Empire [complete volume of essays] (Ed. Richard M. Jaffe) Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 2010, 37/1
Creation of Worship for War Criminals at Yasukuni Shrine in the 1970s from “Japanese Secularities and the Decline of Temple Buddhism” by John K. Nelson
Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949-1603 by Stephen Turnbull (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2003) – available in the library
Sohei: Japanese Warrior Monks (Wikipedia)

Politics II: Peace and Japanese Buddhism

Reading List Entry
Nichiren’s Activist Heirs: Soka Gakkai, Rissho Koseikai, Nipponzan Myohoji by Jaqueline Stone from Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism. Eds. Queen, Prebish, Keown. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. For a higher resolution, better quality copy of this pdf files, send me an e-mail and I will e-mail it to you.
Video: Nipponzan Myohoji peace marches (Prof. Watts’ handmade videos of this small devout Japanese order’s demonstrations against nuclear energy after the 2011 Fukushima incident) 1) As part of the mass protest in 2012 to the first nuclear restart after Fukushima (5 mins) 2) No Nukes Day Tokyo 2013 (45 sec) 3) Protest in front of the Rokkasho Nuclear Reprocessing Plant in Aomori in 2013 (52 sec) 4) Protest in front of the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (which runs the Fukushima reactors) headquarters in Tokyo in 2014 (2 mins)
Which Way to Peace? The Role of Japanese Buddhism in Anti-Nuclear Civil Protest by Jonathan Watts
Komeito’s Soka Gakkai Protesters and Supporters: Religious Motivations for Political Activism in Contemporary Japan by Levi McLaughlin. The Asia-Pacific Journal. Volume 13:41 Oct 12, 2015.
State Power vs Individual Freedom: Japan’s Constitutional Past, Present, and Possible Futures by Lawrence Repeta & Colin P.A. Jones in Japan: The Precarious Future Edited by Frank Baldwin and Anne Allison (New York University Press, 2015)
New Komeito’s Role as Partner to the Right Leaning LDP Led Government (Japan Times September 24, 2014)
The Anti-Nuclear Protest Movement in 2011 and Nipponzan Myohoji
Seno Giro and the Dilemma of Modern Buddhism: Leftist Prophet of the Lotus Sutra by Whalen Lai. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies #184, 11/1:7–42, 1984.
My Non Violence: An Autobiography of a Japanese Buddhist by Nichidatsu Fujii (exerpt)
Another exerpt about Nichidatsu Fujii from the biography of Maha Ghosananda– the great peace monk from Cambodia
Video: Check out these extra links on the  Cambodian Peace March with Nipponzan Myohoji and this video of their chanting