Land of the Lustrous and Buddhism

 Having a master's degree in Japanese studies always felt like it could be a boon for writing about anime, but the number of series where having a good working knowledge of the Meiji restoration or labor movements in 1920s Japan are very small. I think I got a reference in Gatchaman Crowds to Nakane Chie's Japanese Society, I understand the context of Golden Kamuy pretty well and wrote an article on that, Yuureitou has some post-Occupation social trends I could nod at but generally, the interest or deep engagement with the things I am familiar with is not that common. After working at a bookstore and learning more about Buddhism I was really ready to do some analysis, but there's not a lot. Before now, the most Buddhist anime, in terms of cosmology was actually Ushio and Tora. That is, until Land of the Lustrous. This is a Buddhist as hell series, and knowing the context will help anyone to understand it better. I wondered if the Buddhist Priest character and the invaders disguised as Bodhisattvas were just symbolic window dressing, and once I got deeper into the series if the Buddhist window dressing would just fade away leaving nothing to actually analyze. This did not happen.

What is Buddhism?

I will start with the basics, because although Buddhism is the world's fourth largest religion, to paraphrase Bill Hicks, once you get past the third biggest religion, there's a REAL big dropoff. So while it has a huge influence on Japanese culture, there's no Buddhist Bible. The Buddhist canon is simply huge and even popular books by The Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh will summarize stuff because there's a lot of work to do. There's karma and nirvana and "I have the body of a God, but the God is the Buddha" t-shirts so there's a lot of misunderstanding. The West didn't really even come to understand Buddhism was a "thing" until the 19th century. The Christian World seemed to understand Buddhism as a bunch of disconnected cults of a God called Bouta. Coming from India, through China, and largely to America in the form of Zen in the 1950s with the Beat Generation, its assumptions about the world are basically alien to the Judeo-Christian Cosmology. So it's interesting to study just to see how differently things can be conceived.

Who Was The Buddha?

The Buddha basically predates writing, much of the original sutras were passed down orally, so there are contradictory stories of whether he was a prince, or just the son of a president of a very democratic tribe in India, whether he was born fully able to speak, and all sorts of legendary additions of prophecy and magical powers. The gist of the story is this: A King was given a prophecy that his son would become a great king, or give up the throne to become a religious teacher due to his compassion for others. In order to keep him on the throne, the King decided to hide all of the world's misery from his son. Sickness, aging, dying, suffering, all was hidden and he lived a charmed life wanting for nothing. But one day young Gotama, the Prince, wanted to leave the Palace to go explore. While out, he saw an ill leper and was horrified. He saw an ancient man barely able to care for himself and was stunned. And he saw a corpse and was traumatized. His life was a lie and the world was full of suffering. So he left his family and the palace and decided to try all sorts of traditional Indian ascetic practices, like starving himself and meditating, but nothing worked. He couldn't find the truth of existence, and his followers abandoned him for being such a flake. But one day while meditating, he figured it all out, and came back and shared his Buddha Dharma, or teaching. And since writing didn't exist yet, his whole outlook was made into numbered lists like a Jenny Nicholson video to make it easier to remember.

The Four Noble Truths

The key to Buddhism are four truths that Buddha said explained everything. They are as follows.

1. Life is suffering.

I feel like this one is pretty famous. "Dukkha" is the word translated as suffering, but it can also mean not being at ease, or being unsatisfied. Dying of leprosy is definitely suffering but even something like being mildly disappointed episode three of Dandadan wasn't quite as entertaining as the first two counts. The world is always changing, things are different, and this is unsatisfying. Sometimes you don't get what you want, and that sucks. Sometimes you get what you want and it's disappointing, and that sucks. And sometimes you get what you want and it makes you happy. But it doesn't last forever, and that sucks. So the fundamental condition of humans is Dukkha. Right now if you're thinking of how Phos could never leave well enough alone, or the empty pleasures of the Lunarians, you're getting there.

2. You are suffering because you want things.

The world forever changes but you want things to stay the same. Or you want UFO 50, or a new art commission. You want to stay at the same school, or you want pizza. People always want things, or want things to stay the same, and this is simply impossible. They're still making Ghostbusters movies because people simply cannot let it go. The Buddha saw this thousands of years ago. Wanting change, or wanting similarity, and then not being able to get those things, is the reason people are unhappy.

3. You would be happier if you could just let it go.

If you didn't want things, if you weren't always CLINGING to things that change, and CRAVING new things, you'd be happier. I can attest to this in certain things, if you just give up trying to keep current with pop culture you do end up a lot happier. But the idea here is to do this with everything. One reason Buddhists are taught to beg for food is so they have no attachment to what they eat. They eat whatever they are given, and are grateful for that. There are no special orders in a Buddhist monastery. Again, contrast the simpler lifestyle of the gems at the start to the consumer society of the Lunarians and you can see how the characters' desires and wishes just keep growing.

4. Ceasing all desire will lead to Nirvana, the ceasing of desire and suffering

If you can go far enough down the road of isolating yourself from these delusional desires, you can finally reach a state of contentment and happiness. Nirvana is a word with the meaning of a candle being blown out. The burning of desire is no more, and you are quenched. What exactly this means metaphysically is kind of vague, but the goal is to reach contentment this way.

Buddhist Cosmology

Beyond these four truths, the Buddha also saw all of his previous incarnations, over millions of years. The Buddha measures time in kalpas, basically the time it takes to wear down a giant boulder by swinging a cotton handkerchief at it ever 100 years. So it's billions of years. Souls have been reincarnated for millions and millions of years, and Buddhism contains other realms of existence. You have been a spider, you have been a turtle, you have been a dog. You have been a king, you have been a beggar. You have been the King of Heaven, perhaps, and a deva (a kind of Indian spirit), you have been a hungry ghost, you have been in hell. No matter what kind of goals you could achieve in this life, you have done it all before and it has not lasted, even as King of Heaven you started to slip and went back down. It's exhausting. The desire to seek non-existence, and leave the wheel of samara, is not just because high school was rough, it's because you've been to high school a million times. It's like seeing a dub vs. subs debate on Twitter and realizing you have seen the identical debate play out for millions of years. Put in this sense of time-scale, almost like vampires longing for death, the kind of desire for non-existence isn't as inherently suicidal as it may seem. You're just done and ready to move on, seek something new. The characters in Land of the Lustrous do not reincarnate, however. They just all live incredibly long lives so the illusory aspect of Samara isn't even there. They know how long they've been doing the same shit, and it is exhausting. It's time to move on.

Theravada and Mahayana

So... why aren't the Lunarians just meditating? Isn't that what Buddhists do? They aren't even trying to achieve these Noble Truths or follow the Eightfold Path of virtue. How does a robot pray for them? Well, here's where we get into Buddhist Doctrine. The Original Buddhism is the School of the Elders, Theravada. It is here, like the Buddha, that you leave your family and life and join the sangha, the monastic community. Here you meditate and act virtuously and let go of desire, hoping to aim for better reincarnations, and eventually become an Arhat, an enlightened one. But this takes a lot of discipline, and the best most people can do is give food to wandering Buddhist monks for karma points and hope in your next reincarnation you too will have the discipline to become one. But religions that require their followers to work super hard may not be extremely successful. So new sutras were found where the Buddha stated that for different kinds of people, different kinds of enlightenment might be needed. This is termed, skillful means. The Buddha said his teachings were like a raft, not inherently valuable, so once you crossed the river, they could be abandoned. And different kinds of people need different kind of approaches. So the idea of the Bodhisattva is introduced. A Bodhisattva is a Buddha who achieves enlightenment, but stays behind to help other people achieve enlightenment instead of going to Nirvana themselves. Basically, think of Madoka Magica, and Godoka. That is the idea of a Bodhisattva. So Buddhism has one vehicle for disciplined people, but others can simply pray to a Buddha or Bodhisattva for help. The Buddhist chant "Namu Amida" just means "The name of Amida Buddha." As the Buddhist Multiverse grows, there were countless other Buddhas in the past and future, and the Buddha we know was just the Buddha of our own kalpa. Amida was a Buddha who clarified he would not achieve enlightenment until all other souls were saved. And because Amida became a Buddha, we know it worked, so praying to Amida is a good way to seek Nirvana. Finally, in Japan you have the Buddhist idea of Mappo, or the latter days of the law. These are times so fallen and corrupt the original Buddha Dharma was no longer enough, and people could ONLY find salvation through prayer. In Land of the Lustrous, we must assume such a thing has taken place and prayer is the only way to escape, so no Lunarian even tries to keep their desires in check.

Taoism and Zen

As Buddhism passed through China on its way to Japan, it merged with Taoism to become the Chan school. Chan would become Zen in Japan. Its focus is on meditation, simplicity, and lack of desire. Here is where Taoism and Buddhism meet on common ground. Consider this passage from the Tao te Ching, the main text of Taoism, Chapter 80:

Reduce the size and population of the state. Ensure that even though the people
have tools of war for a troop or a battalion they will not use them; and also
that they will be reluctant to move to distant places because they look on death
as no light matter.

Even when they have ships and carts, they will have no use for them; and even
when they have armour and weapons, they will have no occasion to make a show of
them.

Bring it about that the people will return to the use of the knotted rope,
Will find relish in their food,
And beauty in their clothes,
Will be content in their abode,
And happy in the way they live.

Though adjoining states are within sight of one another, and the sound of dogs
barking and cocks crowing in one state can be heard in another, yet the people
of one state will grow old and die without having had any dealings with those of
another.

Again, I cannot help but think of the simple society of people that Kouga initially wanted to set up, without needing weapons, and the kind of simple society at the end. This vision influenced Japanese Buddhism and so shows up in Land of the Lustrous quite plainly.

The Diamond Sutra and No Self

One of my favorite sutras is the diamond sutra, so named because the diamond cuts sharply. It is not the sparkle or beauty of a diamond that makes it valuable, it is its Moh's Hardness Score, so minerals are basically canonical Buddhism. The Diamond Sutra cuts away to the truth, and the truth is this:

“All living beings, whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; whether they have form or do not have form; whether they are aware or unaware, whether they are not aware or not unaware, all living beings will eventually be led by me to the final Nirvana, the final ending of the cycle of birth and death. And when this unfathomable, infinite number of living beings have all been liberated, in truth not even a single being has actually been liberated.”

“Why Subhuti? Because if a disciple still clings to the arbitrary illusions of form or phenomena such as an ego, a personality, a self, a separate person, or a universal self existing eternally, then that person is not an authentic disciple.”

Here the Buddha is talking to a key disciple, Subhuti. It sounds contradictory, that when everyone has been saved, no one has been saved. But the key here, as with much of Zen and estoteric Buddhism, is that the meaning is being deconstructed. There is no "one" to save, because Buddhism does not believe in the inherent idea of a self. The self is an illusion of consciousness according to Buddhism. This is a big and complex idea, but the general meaning is that things to not have core essences, but rather are made up of lots of karmic ties and conditions that build up over time. I think Phos is a good example of this, again. They're always losing part of themselves, and their memories, or joining with other people and their personalities are always combining. There's a kind of Ship of Theseus element to Phos, where it's hard to tell how much of her original "self" remains as she keeps getting entangled in the karmic webs of other characters, promising to assist Cinnabar, obtaining golden limbs, and so on. Their ambition and pride grow far out of the range of what we understood about the initial, restless Phos who was just bored at compiling a Natural History book. And in the end, even she recognizes this and returns to the small fragment of original Phosphyllite that still remains.

Enma and Buddhist Hells

Buddhist seems a pretty peaceful religion but it actually historically has multiple different hells. However, you do get out of the hells, they are not eternal, but have lengths that fit the moral crimes committed in a reasonable manner, and then you are spun on the wheel of reincarnation again. You go the hells for accumulating bad karma from sins. Good karma leads to more pleasant rebirths, but the goal for Buddhism is no karma. Each karmic tie just binds you in samara, so the goal is not to have any attachments at all. Enma, the Japanese name for Yama, is the King of Hell, so presumably the Lunarians are the worst of the worst people. Perhaps Mappo hasn't come, and the Buddha's Noble Path still is valid. Still, the fickle and clingy Lunarians are the most sinful of all people, so perhaps their only hope is Kongo's prayers.

The Number 108

Land of the Lustrous basically follows Phos from her simple life to one of ambition and desire to do more and to be someone. But as Phos realizes and Buddhism says, there was really nobody for her to be. She should have appreciated the simple times when she had them. Even her most noble wishes basically entangled her into a web of complicated karma, desires, sin, revenge, and so on. So in Chapter 108 she basically decides to give that up. 108 has special significance in Buddhism in several ways. 108 is the number of earthly temptations people just overcome to achieve Nirvana, so Buddhist temples in Japan ring the bell 108 times to ring in the new year. In Buddhist Abhidharma, the kind of psychology that undergirds the system, there are 108 kinds of perceptions to have. To quote wikipedia:

this number is reached by multiplying the senses smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, and consciousness by whether they are painful, pleasant or neutral, and then again by whether these are internally generated or externally occurring, and yet again by past, present and future, finally we get 108 feelings. 6 × 3 × 2 × 3 = 108. Thus, the number 108 represents all the possible sensory states that one could experience.

So eating pizza would be taste + pleasant + externally occurring + present. There are even other systems that tie in the karma value of each thought if you want to go down that route.

In Conclusion

Are there any other questions to consider?