Souls of Zen

Name: Souls of Zen
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2013-03-06
Duration: 1 h 29 min
Rating: 8.4
Cast: Tomonori Abe, The Dalai Lama, Taio Kaneta

IMDb RATING

8.4/10

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The documentary Â“Souls of Zen Â– Buddhism, Ancestors, and the 2011 Tsunami in JapanÂ” presents perspectives on Buddhism as practiced by clergy, lay adherents, and families in Japan by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on the daily life of Buddhist temples, monastic education, prayer practice, mortuary rituals, and JapanÂ’s tradition of ancestor veneration in the wake of 3/11. From March to December 2011, Tim Graf and Jakob Montrasio filmed invaluable footage of the greatest religious mobilization in Japan ́s postwar history. This film is the only documentary based on sustained attention to the everyday lives of Buddhist professionals in the disaster zone.
In an ethnographic journey from Tokyo to the hardest-hit prefectures (among other regions in Japan) Souls of Zen covers insights and opinions from scholars, clergy, and lay adherents with a focus on Soto Zen and Jodo Pure Land Buddhism. The filmmakers visited rural graveyards, urban temples, modern funeral halls, prayer monasteries, and public festivals to deliver a detailed account on Buddhism in the midst of Japan ́s recovery from the triple disasters.
The unfamiliar institutional, doctrinal, and psychological challenges Buddhist clergy are facing in the wake of 3/11 form a focal point of the film. These challenges will be discussed in context of long-standing Buddhist traditions, ritual innovations, and religious responses to the March 11, 2011 disaster in Japan. The film intends to re-evaluate the complex role of Buddhism in a society struggling with the sudden impact of catastrophic disasters that exacerbate and otherwise alter continuing dilemmas occasioned by demographic change and religious pluralism.

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The Japanese population's reaction to the catastrophe of March 2011 has been described as "stoic" by the Western media. The Japanese code of conduct is indeed deeply rooted in their Buddhist... Read allThe Japanese population's reaction to the catastrophe of March 2011 has been described as "stoic" by the Western media. The Japanese code of conduct is indeed deeply rooted in their Buddhist traditions.The Japanese population's reaction to the catastrophe of March 2011 has been described as "stoic" by the Western media. The Japanese code of conduct is indeed deeply rooted in their Buddhist traditions.

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IMDb RATING

8.4/10

YOUR RATING

5Critic reviews

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- 1 nomination

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Trivia
No less than four different rough cuts were made.

Quotes
Taio Kaneta: Someone from our temple went to the seaside to take a look, just out of curiosity. Then, that person became severely emotionally disturbed, was not able to sleep for three or four days and underwent a drastic personality shift. So, since that person was a member of our temple, I would be asked to help, somehow. I said we would all pray together. And he recovered! This was a great surprise, but a positive one, for once. While I was counseling him, I asked him, why did you go there? what did you see there? what was your purpose in going? Well, I asked him, could it have been purely out of curiosity, even when there were so many people killed?

Alternate versions
A 50 minute conference cut with more focus on the disaster was produced for the 'American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting' in Chicago, USA as well as the 'Salvage and Salvation - Religion, Disaster Relief, and Reconstruction in Asia' conference at the National University of Singapore.