The Kokoro in Japanese Spiritual Care

Abstract

This article explores the meaning of the kokoro (Chn: xin), meaning “heart” or “mind,” in the context of spiritual care for those facing the end of life in Japan. Care for the kokoro of hospice patients is widely seen as indispensable to the practice of spiritual care in Japan. What is less clear, however, is how care for the “ kokoro” and “spirituality” of patients differ in psychotherapeutic settings. This article first reviews different ways the kokoro is defined and invoked in religious activities, psychotherapeutic settings, and especially in the writings of the modern Buddhist scholar D.T. Suzuki. It then draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Japanese Buddhist and Christian hospices to illustrate how the kokoro is operationalized as both the agent and object of spiritual care. Finally, it considers how recent Japanese scholarship on the Buddhist idea of “ mushin care” (no minded care) simultaneously asserts and subverts the centrality of the kokoro in the practice of spiritual care.