The Encyclopedia of World Religions

256 S koan

Civilizations of Mesoamerica: A Reader (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2000).

M ESOPOTAMIAN RELIGIONS ). The Chinese spoke of the sovereign’s “mandate of heaven” to rule the “mid dle kingdom,” and if a dynasty became unworthy, the mandate might pass to another. When the ruling dynasty had lost the mandate, natural disasters— earthquakes, floods, droughts—as well as social upheavals would indicate that heaven was dis pleased, the house in power had lost its mandate, and it was time for a better emperor to take power. Many RITUALS of kingship make clear the reli gious character of the office. The coronation of European kings, like the rite installing the king or queen of England, takes place in a church or cathedral in the midst of a religious service. The new Japanese emperor communes with his divine ancestors in a mysterious S HINTO midnight cere mony called the Daijosai. Annual kingship ritu als also make the same point. The emperors of China and Japan ritually planted the first rice each spring and offered the first fruits of the harvest in the fall. At a dramatic winter solstice ceremony at the ALTAR of Heaven in Beijing, the Chinese emperor would pray directly to heaven on behalf of the people. Sacred kingship is in serious decline in the modern world, but remnants of it remain, and sometimes have been transferred to the secular state. In the United States, people often talk of the country as established under God’s guidance, but say that to keep his blessing it is important for both leaders and ordinary citizens to follow God’s commandments. Now as ever, humanity wants its political institutions to have sacred meaning and divine sanction. Further reading: Julia Ching, Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Dale Launderville, Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 2003); John Pemberton III and Funso S. Afolayan, Yoruba Sacred Kingship: “A Power like That of the Gods” (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996); Michael E. Smith and Marilyn A. Masson, ed., The Ancient

koan A riddle or puzzling saying used to pro voke enlightenment, especially in the Rinzai school of Z EN B UDDHISM . One koan is very well known in North America: “Show me the sound of one hand clapping.” Koan were first systematized by the great Zen master Hakuin (1686–1769). Because they present the mind with an insoluble problem, MEDITATION on koan should frustrate the meditator and ultimately force him or her to surrender reliance on language and reason. In Zen Buddhism, language and rea son are thought inevitably to distort reality. There fore, they must be overcome. A student receives a koan from a Zen mas ter and is expected to return with an answer. Seri ous students work on a single koan for a year or more. Nevertheless, the answer must be spontane ous rather than premeditated. Although students reflect on their koan during meditation, many stories relate how Zen practitioners unexpectedly discovered answers to their koan while engaged in quite menial activities. Konkokyo One of the “new religions” of Japan ( see J APAN , NEW RELIGIONS IN ), based on revelations in 1859 to its founder, Kawate Bunjiro (1814–83), called Konko Daijin. The revelations were from a deity called Tenchi Kane no Kami, officially translated as “Parent God of the Universe.” They called Kawate to a ministry of mediation between humans and the divine. The religion has WORSHIP in a S HINTO style but is monotheistic ( see MONO THEISM ). A distinctive feature is a practice called toritsugi, mediation, whereby believers can for mally receive personal spiritual guidance from a priest; it has sometimes been compared to con fession in the Roman Catholic Church. The reli gion also puts great emphasis on the presence of mitama or ancestral spirits guiding us today. It has spread throughout Japan and to Japanese commu nities around the world.