Amazon Selling Buddhist Priest

Amazon.com in Japan started the deliverly service of buddhist priest. There are many dissenting opinion about treating sacred buddhist priest as an product, however at the same time people below middle-age that has less religious spirit thinks that it is a good “product” for  people to have the opportunity to pray. Whether it is good or bad to sell buddhist priest on Amazon it gave Japanese people time to think about the view on religion in Japan.

Recent Japanese people have less relation to religion, but many of Japanese people do their funeral in buddhist style. Funeral itself can be done by funeral home and they can arrange temple and buddhist priest. The problem about buddhist style funeral is that people have to do the first year memorial service, the third year memorial service and the seventh year memorial service. This is a problem to people that have no connection with buddhist priest especially among modern people and it is not rare for young generation to quit these memorial services. Prewar time in Japan, people had their own temple that they belonged to and this practice is fading in Japan.

As a dissenting opinion of buddhist priest, many think that it is a desecrate against religion instead of helping and the portion of the money that they receive is very low. The price of ordering the service of the buddhist priest is 35000 yen about 310 US dollar and most of that money goes to the hand of the operating company. Only one seventh which is 5000yen about less than 50 US dollar  goes to the buddhist priest.

There are still problem that needs to be fixed in selling buddhist priest on Amazon, but I think this is one of the way that can allow people to retain their religious spirit in this modern society.

http://www.musashino-u.ac.jp/bukken/pdf/watanabehiro27.pdf#search=’%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E4%BA%BA%E3%81%AE%E5%AE%97%E6%95%99%E5%89%B2%E5%90%88′

2 thoughts on “Amazon Selling Buddhist Priest”

  1. Selling Buddhist Priest might allow people to retain their religious spirit, however, in my opinion, the purpose of this is totally more profit seeking than social/religion reforming. The practice of selling large amount of Buddhist Priest is already against the belief stated in Buddhism. In addition, a Buddhist Priest wasn’t required for some one to truly follow the guidance of Buddhism and practice Buddhism. A religion is established in the first-hand to store the good human ethical guideline. In addition, Japan now is a very diverse country. Most of time, non-Japanese and non-Buddhist people are the one buying the Buddhist Priest as a souvenir and a piece of decoration. Also, if only one seventh of 5000yen is actually goes to the Buddhist priest, does the operating company really sounds like a socially responsible business?

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  2. Tamaki I think your article is very nice and addresses the claims that the buddhists priest have to bend to the company is absurd. Again, theres also the fact that the buddhist priests are embezzling funds, which is totally unfair. I think the article and the opinion that you propose is very straightforward and I agree with you

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