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The X+Y+Zen of “Temple Yoga” in Japan: Heretically-Sealed Cultural Hybridity

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Abstract

As terms, “Yoga” and “Zen” are as ubiquitous as they are banal. They float, freely, empty of any real meaning. Just about anything could be, Zen; in the same way that, just about anything could be, Yoga. In a closed loop, one might even define “Yoga” as “like Zen” or “Zen” to be a form of “Yoga.” However, in various ways, they are forged into a new hybrid. The marketing of syncretic, yoga-inflected Buddhist temple tourist options in and around Kyoto, Japan, demonstrates how “Zen+Yoga” hybrids have become trans-glocal phenomena stretching between London and Sydney. Why does the Zen+Yoga hybrid seem to receive less criticism than other X+Yoga hybrids, such as Goat+Yoga, Beer+Yoga, SUP+Yoga, Death Metal+Yoga, Dog+Yoga, and, to a lesser extent, Hot+Yoga? A significant part of the Zen+Yoga hybrid’s ability to heretically seal itself from criticism is due to the institutionalized religious capital that schools of Zen Buddhism have. Even though the other X+Yoga hybrids rely on similar discursive and haptic logics, they are unconstrained by tradition and institution, unlike Zen. While all hybrids are novel branding attempts for attention from within a thoroughly saturated wellness tourism market, syncretic X+Yoga hybrids are not new. Neither are they universally accepted as heretical cultural appropriations. The common assumption regarding the commensurability of Zen and Yoga practices at epistemological, ontological, and soteriological levels is challenged. As well as, the social, political, and economic realities of tourism and temples are analyzed. This is based on 2 years of ethnographic and specific media content analysis regarding Japan’s yogascapes. This paper focuses the discussion on Tera (temple) Yoga.

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Funding

Funding for this research was provided by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Sincere thanks to Justin Stein, Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, and the anonymous reviewers for reading an earlier draft and providing valuable feedback.

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  1. Anthropological Institute, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan

    Patrick McCartney

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McCartney, P. The X+Y+Zen of “Temple Yoga” in Japan: Heretically-Sealed Cultural Hybridity. DHARM 3, 45–58 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-020-00069-9

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