Identity, Community, and Ritual: How Social Media is Changing Contemporary Nichiren Buddhism

This paper investigates how Nichiren monks engage with the Internet, specifically with social media platforms, to promote knowledge related to daiaragyō 大荒行, an austere training that allows monastics to master a variety of initiated prayers (kaji kitō 加持祈祷) and exorcistic techniques. Drawing from Louise Connelly’s (2022) idea that online spaces provide access to a community, information, and opportunities to engage with Buddhism, I argue that social media platforms play a central role in affecting and shaping contemporary Nichiren Buddhism’s identity, communities, and ritual practices. More specifically, social media platforms boost monks’ eminence and reputation, contribute to the creation of larger and more diverse communities, and change the ways in which people produce and engage with religion.

Religious Studies scholars have already discussed how the Internet has created new ways for religions to flourish and thrive in contemporary society. Erica Baffelli, Ian Reader, and Birgit Staemmler (2011) have pointed out how Japanese religious groups employ modern media and technologies to spread their teachings, reach a wider audience, and promote themselves as modern and up-to-date religious organizations. Nichiren monks are doing exactly the same: they share pictures and videos of their temples; advertise the activities they organize; post practical information including business hours and the services they offer; and live stream ceremonies and rituals. Among all these different activities, promoting knowledge related to daiaragyō is by far one of the most popular practices.

As a matter of fact, daiaragyō, despite being a secret practice, has attracted a lot of attention on the Internet over the past few years: monks who have performed daiaragyō share the knowledge that can be made public on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and temples’ websites. Every year, at the beginning and end of the training (November 1st and February 10th), monastics recount their own experiences, support and congratulate their fellow monks undergoing daiaragyō, or reminisce about their training. These activities usually take the form of posts, stories, and reels on Instagram; long and detailed descriptions on the temples’ websites; and informative videos on YouTube.

Monastics who have performed daiaragyō, by posting about their own experiences, gain additional reputation, reverence, and respect for having completed the training. Baffelli and Reader (2011) have demonstrated how the Internet creates or reaffirms religious authority exactly because social media platforms can present, reproduce, and disseminate information countless times. Sharing information about daiaragyō gives authority to Nichiren monks and prestige to their temples; promotes the distribution of daiaragyō-related knowledge; boosts the popularity of the Nichiren school as a whole; and allows Nichiren devotees express their feelings of admiration and devotion towards the monks.

The sharing of daiaragyō-related knowledge on the Internet can also foster the creation of a larger and more diverse Nichiren community that is both physical and virtual. This community is made of different groups, which include Nichiren monks (undergoing the training and not undergoing the training); people physically present at the temples on the first and the last day of daiaragyō (family, friends, monastics, local people); parishioners, family members, friends and local communities who are not physically present but support the monks from far away; devotees on social media, and non-Buddhist curious followers. In his study of the creation of nations states, Benedict Anderson (2006) argued that an imagined community is imagined because, no matter its size, its members will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them.  Yet, in the minds of each lives the image of their community. While many Nichiren monastics know each other, their family members, friends, parishioners, and Internet followers do not necessarily know each other. And yet, promoting daiaragyō-related information encourages faith, devotion, support, and reverence that goes beyond the temple grounds and extends to the entire Nichiren community.

Finally, sharing religious material on social media platforms is changing the ways in which people produce and engage with religion. Baffelli and Reader (2011) have pointed out that, while the Internet has created new forms of religious engagement, “worship from afar” (yōhai 遥拝) is a rather old phenomenon in which specific markers indicate the position from which a devotee may pray to deities whose shrines are located at some distance.  For this reason, they conclude that “virtual worship might not offer anything particularly new in a culture in which various forms of virtual or distance veneration are already accessible” (Baffelli, Reader 2011, 26). While this is a fair statement, I wish to further expand the notion of virtual worship to show how social media platforms are producing new outlets for monastics and laypeople to engage with religion. On YouTube, an increasingly large number of Nichiren monks share videos of chanting, incantations, and other exorcistic practices that they mastered during daiaragyō. These videos usually come with descriptions of what kind of demons or hindrances the exorcism is meant to eradicate. Monks also explain that, by watching the videos, those afflicted with suffering, demonic possession, or trouble will be cured. A quick glance at the comment sections reveals that many viewers indeed believe that watching the videos will help them solve their problems and obtain peace, while others claim to have been healed by watching the videos. The users therefore express their hopes and gratitude and testify to the efficacy of watching the videos. This aligns with Connelly’s (2022) idea that online practice should be considered real and valid, if performed with the right intention.

The involvement of Nichiren monks on the Internet impacts and shapes Nichiren Buddhism’s identity, communities, and ritual practices. Despite being an exclusive practice shrouded in secrecy, the sharing of daiaragyō knowledge and rituals on social media enhances monks’ reputation, fosters the creation of a larger and more diverse community, and allows more personal and flexible ways for lay people to engage with religion.