Word: buddhism
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...Some of the groups may be little more than bizarre clubs or innocuous doctrinal offshoots of traditional Buddhism and Shintoism, Japan's most common faiths. But religious scholars and the police are nonetheless alarmed by what they see as the proliferation of doomsday cults. Mystics consumed with signs of the apocalypse have a tendency to bring their visions horrifically to life. Japanese need no reminder of Aum Shinrikyo, the cult that staged a deadly chemical gas attack on commuters in Tokyo's subway system seven years ago, allegedly masterminded by Aum's Shoko Asahara. Last week, one of Asahara...
...does agree to meet?the first time, he says, he has given an interview to a journalist. A serious man in a business suit, he explains how the movement was started by his grandfather in 1957, when he and his acolytes splintered from the centuries-old Nichiren sect of Buddhism. Kenshokai differs from other Nichiren sects?especially the politically powerful Soka Gakkai?in that its practitioners see it as destined to become the national religion of Japan. "We still believe that," says Katsue Asai...
...thousands of followers during the 1990s, and even ran political candidates in national elections. Aum's godhead was its founder, Asahara, an intelligent misfit who claimed he could levitate and who appeared regularly on TV talk shows. Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, preached distorted versions of Buddhism and Hinduism steeped in apocalyptic theology...
...disaster in Japan, and Asai sensei will become the leader," she says. "You never know from one year to the next who will be the Prime Minister," she adds. "It is always uncertain. But Asai sensei is always with us. He is the only one who talks about Buddhism for the nation. He is the only one who can save...
Before al-Qaeda, before the anthrax scare, there was Aum Shinrikyo. The mysterious cult, based on distortions of the tenets of Buddhism and Hinduism, attracted tens of thousands of followers in Japan and around the world. Asahara, its founder, was an intelligent misfit who claimed he could levitate himself and who appeared regularly on the TV talk-show circuit. Then, on a sunny March morning in 1995, followers of the doomsday cult, in an apparent attempt to create mayhem and distract police investigating their secretive chemical-manufacturing operation, quietly used the tips of umbrellas to puncture plastic bags filled with...