T he response of the Japanese people to the triple catastrophe of March 2011 won global admiration. The deeply ingrained attitudes of gambaru and gaman suru ("do one's best" and "bear patiently") protected the nation from panic, despair, and anarchy. Collective wisdom dictated that life must go on.
This volume of essays chronicles how Buddhists mobilized their spiritual forces in dealing with crisis and trauma. Arranged chronologically, the essays give a sense of the history as it unfolded. Two Zen priests describe the devastation in the Sendai area, the nuclear anxieties in Fukushima, and the growing awareness that, though the trauma of the tsunami would take long to heal, the nuclear problem would continue indefinitely.
Another Buddhist priest finds a silver lining in the way the tsunami enabled Buddhism to cast off its image as a sleepy funeral religion. Contrary to the sense of Japan as a society without connections (muen-shakai), the bond between helpers and victims brought a "positive energy" and a vision of a better society where "heart-to-heart connections" will flourish. They rediscovered giving (fuse), which is a practice of refining one's own mind; its spiritual benefits outstrip its physical success.