New Books In Buddhist Studies

Clark Chilson‘s new book, Secrecy’s Power: Covert Shin Buddhists in Japan and Contradictions of Concealment (University of Hawai’i Press, 2014) examines secret groups of Shin (i.e., True Pure Land Buddhist) practitioners from the thirteenth century onward, but focuses primarily on the past 150 years. Although today at least thirty different lineages of secret Shin continue to operate, with a total estimated membership numbering in the tens of thousands, because they have been so successful at hiding (a technique they have perfected over a period of centuries), few scholars are even aware of their existence. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork that he conducted from 1998 onward and a number of reports written by mainstream Shin monks who infiltrated these groups or researchers who befriended them, Chilson explains why certain groups concealed their doctrines and practices (and even existence) and, more importantly, reveals the long-term consequences that secrecy had on these groups.In a