Reinterpretation and Adaptation in Jeff Wilsons Mourning the Unborn Dead: A Buddhist Ritual Comes to America

In this first book (Mourning the Unborn Dead) based on his dissertation by young scholar Jeff Wilson, he looks at the state of ritual in American Buddhist communities and what this means for the state of American Buddhism as well as the categories scholars use to describe Buddhism in America. To do this, Wilson focuses on a Japanese ritual for aborted fetuses called mizuko kuyo and the ways this has manifested within American religiosity. Wilson first compares Japanese-American temples with Zen convert communities practices of this ritual but then moves more broadly to appropriations of this ritual within a non-Buddhist context.

The differences and changes he finds between the Japanese-American and Zen convert temples are illuminating as ways to ethnicize Western Buddhist communities. Wilson demonstrates how American culture is forming a hybrid with Buddhist concepts to create new forms of Buddhist practice. Through investigating how Zen convert communities adapt the mizuko kuyo ritual, Wilson shows how the particular characteristics of Western Buddhist communities such as focusing on meditation, downgrading prayer, group discussion, productivity and emotional catharsis (91). For example in this ritual in America, a portion of the ceremony is dedicated to sharing ones feelings in a circle, which is not found in the Japanese version.

Another example is that in the American ritual, the participants chant the Heart Sutra together in English for all to understand. But in Japan the Heart Sutra is not chanted in modern Japanese, so the focus is on the words which are thought to have power. So the text changes for this ritual in America from something meritor! ious or magical to performing a teaching role. In Zen convert communities therapy is also involved. The participants express feelings and reasons for joining the ritual. Many people cry and weep while sharing their stories. In Japan it is not common to cry or express feelings to strangers.

In the American Zen performance of the mizuko kuyo the lay person is as important in the ritual as the priest. In Japan the priest is necessary but the lay person is notas it is believed that priests have the training to perform the ritual. In American Zen the ritual is performed as an emotional catharsis for those who have lost a small child while in Japan the ritual is used to pacify the spirits of the recently deceased. Therefore in America the point of the ritual is spiritual health of mothernot placating an angered spirit. These changes in the ritual have opened up the reasons to participate to include not just aborted fetuses, but also mourning miscarriages, stillborn births, death of an infant or adult child among other reasons (102). In the American ritual Wilson finds the ritual is more a series of psychotherapeutic exercises performed in a religious arenasimilar to group therapy (103).

The mixture of American cultural ideas of psychotherapy, self-help groups, rationalism and skepticism show that converts dont simply divorce Buddhism from Asian culture as is often stated but instead add their own. Through the lens of the mizuko kuyo ritual Wilson illustrates clearly the reinterpretations that occur within the American Buddhist context. He shows the hybrid formations of American Buddhism which mix common cultural ideas with Buddhist practices.