This article is the second translation of the preface and first chapter of Hatano Seiichi's Time and Eternity. A full translation of the text, published by Suzuki Ichiro 鈴木一郎 in 1963, is not easily accessible to most readers, while an excellent partial translation by Joseph O'Leary has recently been made accessible to a wider audience through the monumental work, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook. By providing a short historical introduction to both Hatano's life and works as a great thinker and (...) teacher, this article intends to supplement O'Leary's contribution and therefore enable more readers to gain access to the opening sections of Hatano's Time and Eternity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 95-99 [Access article in PDF] The Distinction between ego (e) and ego-Self (e/S): Notes on Religious Practice Based upon Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Yagi Seiichi Toin University The Goal of Religious Practice We cannot see the transcendent as an object. Nor is it the case that the transcendent and the human are two separated realities that are united afterwards. When the Self (Christ in me--Gal. 2:19-20) (...) reveals itself to and in the ego (Gal. 1:16), the ego becomes aware of the Self, which is divine--human or transcendent--immanent. This is called enlightenment.In enlightenment, the ego (hereafter: e) does not vanish.When the Self (hereafter: S) appears to and in the ego, the ego (now a relatively independent part of S) becomes the function of S. The ego, understanding itself as the knot of inner and outer reality, plays the role of the reason of the whole body, the center of which is S. In this case we represent such a person as e/S. e/S is the subjectivity of the religious life. D.T.Suzuki and one of his disciples, Ryomin Akizuki called e/S the "individual qua trans-individual." 1 In enlightenment, e/S as the authentic subject, which remains potential before enlightenment, is actualized or realized so that it understands itself as e/S, no more as the mere ego. In order for e/S to be realized and understand itself as e/S, egocentricity, egoism and the confusion of the verbalized reality with "reality as it is" must be overcome. This is the goal of religious practice. e/S From the point of view of interreligious dialogue,"Christ who lives in me" corresponds to "actualized Buddha-nature" or "the Formless Self" in Buddhist language, that is, the Self as we call it. 2 In the case of Paul,"Christ who lives in me" is the ultimate subject of him on the one hand, and "Christ the Son of God" is the object of his faith on the other (Gal. 2:19-20). That means: the ego of Paul that believes in the Son of God is borne by "Christ in me"; as Paul says, "Christ was revealed to and [End Page 95] in me" (Gal. 1:16). In this way, the subjectivity of Paul consists of e/S. Of S, namely, Paul is aware as e/S--neither as e, which is ignorant of S, nor as S. It is impossible for S to exist alone. Egocentricity and Egoism The distinction between e and e/S is of fundamental importance to our theme. e means in this essay the mere ego that is ignorant of S.When it becomes aware of S we represent it as the ego of e/S. e is egocentric and egoistic. It goes without saying that the ego-centered "I" driven by desires produces immorality and social anomies. The biblical word for this is sin, the transgression of the Law.But there is another problematic concerning e, namely egoism, which can be at work even in the effort to attain a high level of morality. We understand the egoistic ego as follows: the ego is to itself the only reality that concerns and moves it. It posits itself solely on itself apart from the relation to others and to S. By itself it projects itself and strives to realize itself. It can, among others, set up its own ideals and pursue their realization. It can, for example, conceive the moralistic ideal that seems to be the reverse of immorality and social anomie. Indeed, it can succeed in controlling egocentricity so that it seems to have attained perfect morality. In reality, it is interested only in its own moral perfection, not in the person encountered (moralistic egoism). Such e is illustrated in Luke 18:9-14 and described in Romans 7:7-24. Egoistic ego must die to itself and must be freed from egoism. (In Romans 6, for example, Paul does... (shrink)

Schopenhauer and the two linguists, Tokieda and Miura, are indispensable figures to elucidate the logic of construction of our counterfactual experiences. In addition to the conditional and the ….

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist Philosophy and New Testament TheologyYagi SeiichiPrologueBy way of Buddhist-Christian dialogue we Christians can become aware of the latent motifs in our own tradition. The dialogue gives us opportunities to rethink the Christian tradition, not to interpret it from Buddhist viewpoint but, based on these actualized motifs, to find a more adequate interpretation of its own. In this way Buddhist-Christian dialogue is relevant also for the construction of New (...) Testament theology.On the Philosophy of Nishida, Hisamatsu, and NishitaniThe central problems of Nishida Kitaro’s philosophy were (1) keiken (immediate experience) in his early period, (2) jikaku (seeing oneself in oneself) in his middle period, and (3) basho (topos) in his last years. 1 It should be noted that these terms together cover the essential fields of Buddhist cognition.Nishida began his book Studies of the Good 2 with statements concerning immediate experience. After the publication of the book, he felt compelled to consider the nature of the subject of philosophical cognition at the scene of immediate experience, for the subject in this case is not reason in the sense of Western philosophy. Thus in his middle period, jikaku became the main theme of his reflection. Jikaku means that the self sees itself in itself, and Nishida named the deepest, ultimate self, the self that embraces and sees all levels of cognition in “the field of transcendental predicate.” Then in his last years, Nishida grasped it anew as the topos, in which the individuals work on one another. The structure of the topos was defined as the “unity of the contradictory,” for in the topos the absolute and the relative define each other.His student, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, made jikaku his central theme, whereas the thinking of Nishitani Keiji, another eminent student of Nishida, was centered mainly on topos. Nishida’s understanding of jikaku reminds us somewhat of the Hegelian Geist, for it concerns primarily the subject of cognition. Hisamatsu, however, spoke simply of ‘kaku’ (awakening) of the Formless Self. It means that the ego is awakened to the Formless Self. At the same time it is the awakening of the Formless Self to [End Page 165] Itself. We should note that kaku is not simply self-cognition but rather the actualization of the Self. As is well known, Hisamatsu rejected theism. God or Buddha as ‘other’ or ‘over against’ is at best a secondary human construction and not primary reality. So, if we call God the absolute Other, God must be at the same time the ultimate Self: God as the absolute Other, in Hisamatsu’s view, must be at the same time God who acts as the ultimate subject of humanity. 3 On the other hand, Nishitani preferred the terms common to Mahayana-Buddhism in general: ku (nothingness), engi (dependent orinination), and jijimuge (infinite-fold mutual penetration of the individuals). In his book What Is Religion, 4 Nishitani tried to rethink such Christian themes as personality, time, and history from the standpoint of ku. Remarkably, he stated that the topos of ku is the field of power: “As far as all beings penetrate one another in their being, they are not what they are. On the other hand they are as such what they are. This relation of mutual penetration itself is the power which gathers and binds all beings into one, the power which makes the world the world. The field of ku is the field of power.” 5 As is well known, from the viewpoint of jijimuge, the infinite-fold mutual penetration of the individuals, there is nothing transcendent. Therefore Nishitani, when he speaks of this aspect of reality, does not refer to the paradoxical unity of the absolute and the relative. The field of ku is simply the field of power in which mutual penetration of the individuals is realized.If we combine three keywords of these three philosophers, namely Nishida’s “immediate experience,” Hisamatsu’s “awakening to the Self,” and Nishitani’s “field of ku as the field of power,” they seem to me more genuinely Buddhist than Nishida’s terms: keiken, jikaku, and basho. Whereas Nishida—who as a pioneer attempted to construct a philosophical system from... (shrink)

The fruit of a lifetime of study and contemplation, Seiichi Hatano's final work, Time and Eternity, develops most fully his tripartite scheme of temporality. For Hatano, one of the first Japanese philosophers to study the works of Western thinkers, human experience could be analyzed with reference to natural, cultural, and religious temporalities. Each temporal stage is further characterized by the type of love that rules at that level of life. In Time and Eternity, Hatano explores the stages of temporality (...) in depth and attempts to locate the kind of love which governs in each phase. (shrink)