Religious Discourse in Modern Japan explores the transportation of the Western concept of “religion” in in the modern era; the emergence of discourse on Shinto, philosophy, and Buddhism; and the evolution of the academic discipline of religious studies in Japan.

政治社会への新しい視座を導く案内書。「正義」からではなく「不正義」から見ると自明とされている制度や規範はどのように異なって見えるのか。思想家たちが問題を発見してきた視座に注目し、この社会の政治を問い返 す。.

Previous studies have suggested that musical training in childhood is beneficial for sociability. However, it remains unclear how age of onset of group music lessons is associated with the late sociability of children from a long-term perspective. This study investigated associations between group music lessons conducted at a music school and children’s levels of sociability by focusing on the age of onset of the lessons. We conducted a survey of 276 children aged 4–5 years (M = 58.5 months) and 6–7 (...) years (M = 82.7 months) who commenced music lessons at ages 1, 2, 4, and 6 years. We found that (1) the empathy scores of children aged 6–7 years who began lessons when 1-year-old were greater than those who began lessons when 4-years-old, (2) the communication scores of children aged 4–5 years who began lessons when 1-year-old were greater than those who began lessons when older than 1 year, and (3) the empathy and extraversion scores were high in those aged 6–7 years who began lessons in that age range. The results suggest that early onset of music lessons could positively influence children’s sociability; in contrast, after about age 7 years, children who already had high sociability may be more inclined to select group music lessons. By focusing on the impact of regular group music lessons from a very young age on later levels of sociability, these results further elucidate the effects of musical lessons. In sum, participation in group music lessons 2–4 times per month can be effective social training for very young children and foster their later sociability. (shrink)

Children, in their everyday lives, encounter several types of humanoid robots. The purpose of this study was to investigate children’s folk knowledge of robots using the card-choice task. In the task, both adults and five- and six-year-old children were given nine questions concerning the biological and psychological properties of robots. They were asked to choose the appropriate stimuli from among five objects including living things, nonliving things, and a robot. The results revealed that the children tended to attribute certain biological (...) properties to the robot. These results accorded with previous results. However, in our study, contrary to previous such studies, even older children showed such a tendency. Moreover, the children were unable to choose all the cards in the same way as the adults. Thus, it can be concluded that children’s knowledge of robots is incomplete. And the children’s knowledge is changed by method. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Masao Abe: A Bodhisattva’s VowJames FredericksAbout ten years ago, I enjoyed a fine Japanese lunch with my friend and teacher, the late Masao Abe. I gathered with him and his wife, Ikuko, in a traditional restaurant in Kyoto. Abe Sensei had been somewhat pensive and withdrawn for most of the meal. Mrs. Abe and I had been bantering about how late the tsuyu rains had been that year and (...) the effect it was having on Kyoto’s hydrangea. Suddenly Sensei began to speak with an unusual tone of voice, as if saying something of great importance to no one in particular. “It is not enough,” he said. Mrs. Abe and I fell silent and attentive. He repeated himself in the same voice: “It is not enough.” I knew immediately what my teacher was talking about. In his old age and after a long and distinguished career of teaching and lecturing about Zen in the West, Abe Sensei was talking about a Buddhist teaching dear to his heart, “the standpoint of emptiness.” Out of politeness, I did not want to indicate that I understood his meaning so directly and sat wondering what I should say in response. Finally, I settled on something like this: “I will continue to study; Sensei, please continue to teach.” I spoke in the most formal Japanese I could muster out of respect for my teacher and friend.Sitting on the tatami mats in that restaurant in Kyoto was not the only time that Sensei has ever said “it is not enough.” In April 1942, four months after the beginning of the Pacific War, Masao Abe entered Kyoto Imperial University to study philosophy of religion. He was twenty-seven years old, buffeted by criticism for not enlisting in the military, and fearful of the power of nihilism at work in his homeland. In Kyoto, he was much attracted by the lectures of Tanabe Hajime, who was already filled with foreboding over Japan’s impending defeat and looking to Pure Land Buddhism for guidance. Tanabe’s comment “Amida is not far from here” brought Abe to weep inconsolably in the realization that it was he who was moving away from Amida even as Amida was moving toward him. Even still, Sensei would eventually find the Pure Land path “not enough” for resisting the forces of nihilism in the world and in himself.After the war, Abe joined a Zen meditation group that met at Myōshinji in Kyoto. The group was directed by Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, a Zen layman and lecturer on Buddhism at the university. In December 1951, Abe had a violent encounter with Hisamatsu that people still talk about. Zen had begun to erode Abe’s Pure Land faith and the threat of nihilism had returned in force. One evening, in great agitation, [End Page 115] Abe rose from his meditation pillow and lunged toward Hisamatsu screaming, “Is this the true self?” He was restrained briefly and then left the room. Later, Abe said in despair, “I cannot find anyplace where I can stand,” and Hisamatsu answered him straight away: “Stand right at that place where there is no place to stand.” This is what Abe Sensei called “the standpoint of emptiness.” Abe would eventually teach at great universities in the United States and Europe and become one of the leading figures in the dialogue among Buddhists and Christians. At the heart of all of this has been his unwavering commitment to expounding the standpoint of emptiness. Unwavering, that is, until that day in Kyoto over lunch when he said, “It is not enough.”Of Buddhism’s many impressive teachings, the bodhisattva ideal must be one of the most wondrous. A bodhisattva is one who, in the quest for enlightenment, has come to the threshold of nirvana itself. Ready to enter into bliss, the bodhisattva renounces nirvana and turns back to samsara. This return to samsara takes the form of a vow to work skillfully for the benefit of every sentient being. In the bodhisattva’s vow, Buddhism teaches a great and paradoxical truth. Since attachment is the birthplace of sorrow, wisdom requires that attachment be renounced. In the quest for liberation from... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Masao Abe’s Early Spiritual Journey and his Later PhilosophyDonald W. MitchellMasao Abe was born in 1915 in Osaka, Japan. He was the third of six children, and his father was a physician. His mother was the only person in the family who practiced religion, namely, Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism. As a university student, Abe attended what is now Osaka Municipal University, where he studied economics and law. While (...) at the university, he read the Tannishō, a text by Shinran. Abe later said that he understood from that text that “self-power” was futile and the only hope for salvation was “other-power” faith in the grace of Amida Buddha. However, he also understood that this life of grace entailed the relinquishment of “self-centered calculation.” Abe felt that he was not able to set aside his ego-self and began for the first time in his life to experience the tension between Buddha and ego, or, in more Western terms, the duality of God and self. This concern led Abe into a very personal spiritual quest that would define his life and work.Given this concern, after graduation, Masao Abe wanted to attend Kyōto University to study Buddhism. Because of family issues, however, he took a position at a trading company in Kōbe, where he worked for four years. Those years were marked by a sense of meaninglessness, and in the end Abe quit his job and entered Kyōto University, where he studied Western philosophy under Tanabe Hajime, who was himself influenced by Shin Buddhism. It was during that time that Abe met Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, an associate professor at Kyōto University and a well-known and committed practitioner of Zen Buddhism.At one point, Abe took his spiritual concerns about the tension he felt between his ego-centeredness and the religious life to Hisamatsu. He asked, “I am nothing more than a lump of selfish passions. Yet, isn’t it true that in Mahāyāna Buddhism one can be saved just as one is, selfish passions and all?” Hisamatsu responded, “The very thought that there are selfish passions is a selfish passion. Originally there is no such thing.” 1 Abe understood from Hisamatsu that there was a more fundamental ground below the dualism between Buddha and ego, a ground in which this dualism is overcome and salvation from any such dualistic struggle could be found.But Abe was not ready to surrender his Pure Land religiosity. In fact, it was during [End Page 107] this time at Kyōto University that he had an experience of Amida Buddha’s grace. As Abe put it, he realized that while he thought that he was “running toward” Amida Buddha in his struggle with faith, he realized that Amida Buddha was not something to go to, but, rather, Amida was already right there with him all the time. Abe said that at that moment he threw himself on the tatami floor and wept in gratitude. It was gratitude for Amida’s presence and grace that embraced Abe just as he was, full of passions and ego. When he told Hisamatsu about this experience, Hisamatsu was very happy and never questioned Abe about his Pure Land views again.Gradually, under the influence of Hisamatsu and with his deeper study of Buddhism, Abe realized that while his Pure Land experience was valid, there was a more fundamental or original religious standpoint to be discovered. Abe still struggled with the duality between the life of Amida’s grace and embracement of Abe with his ego, and Abe’s ego-centered passions themselves. He felt, under Hisamatsu’s influence, that it might be on that more fundamental standpoint that this duality would be overcome. He also saw the undeniable realization of this original nondualistic standpoint in Hisamatsu himself, and this led him to turn more fully to Zen practice under Hisamatsu’s guidance in the context of the F.A.S. Society.Given the foundational paradigm shift Abe faced in Hisamatsu and the depth of his own struggle with the dualism still involved in his Pure Land position, Zen practice under Hisamatsu was extremely demanding for... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Masao Abe: D. T. Suzuki’s Legacies and an “Academic Dharma Lineage” in North AmericaMichiko YusaProfessor Abe is generally regarded as the torch bearer of D. T. Suzuki. But how did that come about? This essay sheds light on the relationship between Suzuki and Abe.Abe’s professor, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, had come to know Suzuki through his mentor Nishida Kitarō. Suzuki was one of Nishida’s closest friends. It appears that Hisamatsu’s (...) and Suzuki’s cordial relationship became closer after Nishida’s death in 1945. Hisamatsu in turn was the link for Abe to come to know Suzuki. Abe recalls his first encounter with Suzuki, which took place in the winter of 1947, when Suzuki was in bed with a bad cold and Abe was sent by Hisamatsu to make a sick call on his behalf. Abe was then Hisamatsu’s teaching assistant ( joshu). Seeing Suzuki in person for the first time, Abe could not help but feel the unique spiritual presence of this man. At that time, Abe, though a committed follower of Pure Land Buddhism, was deeply troubled with his spiritual quest. Perhaps sensing Abe’s agony, Suzuki gave him a copy of his imperial lecture The Essence of Buddhism, in which he had treated Zen and Pure Land thought as sharing the same Mahayana roots.1Abe’s second visit to Suzuki came in the spring of 1949, when Suzuki was preparing to leave for the United States to spend “the rest of his life in order to bring the message of Zen Buddhism” to the West. At that time Abe was to convey Hisamatsu’s concern that Suzuki ought to remain in Japan and contribute to internationalizing Zen by translating Zen texts into English, for, in Hisamatsu’s mind, there was no one better qualified than Suzuki to carry out that task.2Suzuki was ready to make a bold move, however. Having witnessed Hiroshima-Nagasaki, he was convinced that the message of wisdom and compassion based on the awakening to the “true self” that Zen speaks of was an effective and necessary antidote to the egocentric mindset, which manifested also as national ego-centrism, rampant in the post–World War II world. He was convinced that the message of awakening and compassion would give the humanity a better chance at peace. In fact, by the early 1950s, with the intensification of the Cold War and the turmoil in Korea, there was a palpable fear that World War III might break out any day, and Suzuki certainly shared that ominous sense.3 [End Page 111]Zen Must Adopt New ExpressionsSuzuki left for the United States on June 16, 1949, to attend the Second East-West Philosopher’s Conference and to teach at the University of Hawai‘i in the summer and the fall semesters. Through his interaction with Western and Asian thinkers at the conference as well as with his students at the university, he came to feel strongly that (1) it was important to emphasize compassion (hi) in the face of an excessive Zen emphasis on the koan practice, (2) Zen Buddhists must develop their “logical” expression to articulate Zen teaching in language understandable to Westerners, and, in this connection, (3) it was incumbent on him to introduce the thought of Nishida Kitarō to the West. In Suzuki’s own words, “Contemporary Zen is short of compassion (hi). Therefore, it lacks the momentum to engage society and work from within it. Again, it lacks a logical discourse (riron). This is something Nishida always used to say. In order to make Western thinkers understand Zen teaching, one must have a logical system (ronri).” 4These three points are clearly present and developed in Abe’s works. In his introduction to Zen and Western Thought (1985), Abe wrote that (1) Zen embraces a profound philosophy (echoing Suzuki’s concern for the necessity for logical articulation), (2) the ultimate in Zen and in Buddhism is “absolute Nothingness” or “Emptiness” (echoing Nishida’s philosophy), (3) Buddhism is a radical realism and a compassionate way of life (echoing Suzuki’s concern for compassion), and (4) a new cosmology, not a new humanism, is needed in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Is Masao Abe an Original Thinker?Steven HeineDuring the course of a remarkable career spanning six decades in various institutions in Japan and the West, beginning with his training under Hisamatsu Shin’ichi at Kyoto University, Masao Abe became known for several important accomplishments in disseminating Buddhist thought in comparative perspectives and global contexts. In addition to his considerable contributions to the teaching and mentoring of several dozen Western scholars (...) of Buddhist studies, a first major achievement was the translation and interpretation of eminent Zen Buddhist thinkers. Abe is especially known for his work on Dōgen, the thirteenth-century founder of the Sōtō Zen sect, and Nishida Kitarō, the leading figure in modern Japanese philosophy and originator of the Kyoto school, of which Abe is considered a prominent member. Abe’s renderings (as a cotranslator) and hermeneutic discussions of Dōgen and Nishida remain among the best and most frequently cited in those respective fields.Second, Abe gained prominence more generally as a presenter of traditional Zen Buddhist thought to the modern West. It was often said that with the passing of D. T. Suzuki in 1966, the mantle was passed to Abe, who became the leading figure playing the role of transmitter. A third accomplishment was Abe’s ever vigorous participation and lifelong commitment to interfaith dialogue, primarily involving Buddhist-Christian studies, as well as exchanges with Jewish thinkers and discussions of thematic issues, such as the encounter of religion and science or the impact of the Holocaust on comparative ethics. The hallmark of the Kyoto school is a comparison of Japanese Buddhism and Western thought. However, Abe went much further than predecessors and colleagues in seeking out and exchanging ideas with dialogue partners from among the leading theologians and philosophers of religion in the West representing a wide ranger of Christian and, to a lesser extent, Jewish traditions.The question that arises is whether and to what extent there may be a fourth area of accomplishment by examining whether Abe can be considered an original thinker, and, if so, what his special contribution to the Kyoto school and cross-cultural religious philosophy in a broader sense might be. Reflecting on this issue, I have often thought about an episode that took place a few years ago, when I requested permission from a journal to reprint an article in a collection of Abe’s work that I was editing for the University of Hawai‘i Press. The editor’s response in consenting to the request [End Page 131] also included the comment that he considered Abe’s contribution to Buddhist studies to be “not a secondary, but a primary source.”What did this remark mean? I believe there are two possibilities. One possibility, on the more critical side, is that Abe does not present Buddhism in an objective, historical fashion and is not worthy of being referred to as a secondary source, which in a way has more validity than what he represents. The positive side of the journal editor’s comment is that Abe’s work offers a distinctively original interpretation that is part of the ongoing construction of Buddhist thought for the modern world. Following this line of understanding, my tentative answer to the question of whether Abe is an original thinker is “yes.” A major reason for my saying this is based on the fact, of which the editor was not aware, that Abe rather late in his life was producing books in Japanese for an audience in Japan rather than the West.1In these three volumes published from 1996 to 2000, Abe began to develop what he innovatively called “sunyata-ology,” or a systematic discussion of the root meaning and far-ranging philosophical implications of the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of śūnyatā or emptiness. This term is often used interchangeably with the notion of nothingness ( Japanese: mu ), in relation to or in contrast with nihilism, nihilation, and negation. Like his Kyoto school predecessors Nishida and Keiji Nishitani, who were in turn greatly influenced by Western philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, the mission of overcoming nihilism at its root must be the central goal of modern thought, according to Abe, who believes... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Unconventional Guest: Masao Abe’s Dialogue with the American AcademyWilliam R. LaFleurDuring the two years we were together at Princeton I once took Masao Abe to meet my parents, then alive and living in New Jersey. I had told them some things in advance about Abe, about Zen, and about what in Abe’s ways could at times be unconventional. My mother, I knew, would put lots of effort into preparing (...) the Sunday dinner we ate on the day of our visit. At the meal’s conclusion Abe turned to my mother and declared: “Mrs. LaFleur, this meal has been simply outrageous! ” For a moment I thought he might have meant “delicious” and had landed on the wrong word. But then I saw his smiling eyes and mouth. He had meant what he said. Everyone laughed and my mother promptly thanked him for his “compliment.”Being at times a genially unconventional guest, one who also in academic or dialogic contexts would say surprising or even unsettling things, was something at which Abe excelled. He was also unconventional in his teaching. He frustrated us when we expected the usual approach. In the book edited by Donald Mitchell I told how in 1969 at the University of Chicago Abe aggravated those of us graduate students who wanted to do a survey of all of modern Japanese philosophy; Abe forced us to stay with certain sentences in Nishida, wanting our minds to be changed. He would not budge.1Some years later at Princeton he proved to be maddeningly insistent on this. Reading The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch with graduate students in 1977 who knew some Chinese and Japanese was not for Professor Abe going to be exercise in the usual historico-textual excavation; all that was available, he said, in the introduction and notes to Philip Yampolsky’s translation of that text. He was not interested in an “objectification” that put distance between the voice speaking through the text and the person being addressed by it today. For him the ancient text must read as if written for us and for us today. With Abe as teacher the dialogic mode of the seminar room had to replicate in its own way the lecture hall of the Ta-fan Temple! But graduate students at Princeton, inured as they were to the conventional mode of textual-historical analysis, were made clearly uncomfortable by this. Therefore, hoping I might serve as a mediator, they asked me to ask Abe if we might be more historical and move on more quickly. When, with some trepidation, I transmitted this request [End Page 127] to Abe, he merely chuckled and smiled, leaving me to guess why we should expect no change in his emphasis. What follows is my attempt to unpack what was involved in this... and why it remains relevant today.Even some more recent scholars of East Asian Buddhism in our academy today resemble those graduate students back then in Princeton. They, too, have been suggesting that there was something “behind the times” or in need of being updated in the dialogic teaching mode used so brilliantly by Abe—as well as by Hisamatsu Shin’ichi and D. T. Suzuki. However, there is, I think, something both laughably conventional and arrogantly neocolonialist in these critics’ assumptions. They believe that textual and historicist methods (of which Ideologiekritik is an extension) remain something that the West still needs to teach to the non-West, that these render all other methods outdated and irrelevant, and that they can be deployed to expose what remains flawed in the way that, for instance, Japanese such as Abe study and teach Buddhism and Zen.Ironically, this presumptuous stance itself crumbles under historical and textual analysis—at least when applied to Japan. In various studies, Michael Pye has shown that Tominaga Nakamoto’s studies of Buddhist texts, historical and critical to the core, were done in the early seventeenth century and show a solid tradition of scholarship in this mode arising there without any influence from Europe. As Pye shows, interest in the plurality of religions and an early stage of a “science of religions” were present in Japan... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam:Masao Abe (1915–2006)James FredericksProfessor Masao Abe, a pioneer in the international dialogue among Christians and Buddhists, died in Kyoto, Japan, on September 10, 2006. He was 91 years old. Professor Abe was given a quiet funeral service reserved to family and close friends, according to sources in Kyoto.After the death of his mentor D. T. Suzuki, Abe became a leading exponent of Zen in the West and a (...) driving force in the encounter between Buddhism and Christianity. Abe must be credited with much of the intellectual vitality of this dialogue, as well as its relevance to contemporary social problems.Abe was a tireless exponent of the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness as the standpoint for realizing the True Self, yet was also willing to place this basic Buddhist teaching in dialogue with Christianity. Rejecting the notion that Christianity and Buddhism were either fundamentally similar or completely different, Abe saw in interreligious dialogue an opportunity for the mutual transformation of dialogue partners and pursued dialogue to help Buddhists and Christians in confronting the threat of nihilism in the modern world.In the ruins of postwar Japan, Abe began his studies with Hajime Tanabe at the University of Kyoto, a prominent figure in the Kyoto school of contemporary Zen Buddhist philosophy in Japan. But it was his encounter with Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, another philosopher of Zen at the University of Kyoto, that would be decisive for Abe's turn to Zen. In a series of Zen retreats with Hisamatsu at Myoshinji Temple in western Kyoto, Abe was forced to confront the reality of nihilism within himself and eventually resolve this problem by entering the Zen standpoint of emptiness, wherein the enlightened self arises.At age 40, Abe left Kyoto for New York to study at Union Theological Seminary with two of the most prominent Christian theologians of his day, Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. This encounter began a distinguished career of teaching, writing, and, above all, dialogue with leading Christian thinkers, including David Tracy, Langdon Gilkey, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Jurgen Moltmann, and Hans Kung. Abe served as visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Purdue University, Claremont College, Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Hawai'i, and other schools. In Germany, [End Page 139] Abe taught at Heidelberg, Tubingen, and Munich. In addition to his many Japanese publications, Abe wrote extensively in English. These works include Zen and Western Thought, an award-winning collection of essays, and a ground-breaking reflection on Christian belief in Christ interpreted from a Buddhist perspective, "Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata." This essay appeared in conjunction with responses from several Christian and Jewish theologians, making the book itself a dialogue. Abe also engaged Jewish intellectuals with his Buddhist reflection on the Holocaust.In 1984, Abe and John Cobb convened a group of Buddhist and Christian intellectuals from Japan, North America, and Europe for dialogue in depth over a sustained period of time on a number of fundamental issues. He was also a guiding influence on the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, which continues his work of dialogue today.Masao Abe is survived by his wife Ikuko Abe, his constant companion in a life of sojourn and dialogue in the West. [End Page 140]James FredericksLoyola Marymount UniversityCopyright © 2007 The University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam:Masao Abe (1915–2006)James FredericksProfessor Masao Abe, a pioneer in the international dialogue among Christians and Buddhists, died in Kyoto, Japan, on September 10, 2006. He was 91 years old. Professor Abe was given a quiet funeral service reserved to family and close friends, according to sources in Kyoto.After the death of his mentor D. T. Suzuki, Abe became a leading exponent of Zen in the West and a (...) driving force in the encounter between Buddhism and Christianity. Abe must be credited with much of the intellectual vitality of this dialogue, as well as its relevance to contemporary social problems.Abe was a tireless exponent of the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness as the standpoint for realizing the True Self, yet was also willing to place this basic Buddhist teaching in dialogue with Christianity. Rejecting the notion that Christianity and Buddhism were either fundamentally similar or completely different, Abe saw in interreligious dialogue an opportunity for the mutual transformation of dialogue partners and pursued dialogue to help Buddhists and Christians in confronting the threat of nihilism in the modern world.In the ruins of postwar Japan, Abe began his studies with Hajime Tanabe at the University of Kyoto, a prominent figure in the Kyoto school of contemporary Zen Buddhist philosophy in Japan. But it was his encounter with Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, another philosopher of Zen at the University of Kyoto, that would be decisive for Abe's turn to Zen. In a series of Zen retreats with Hisamatsu at Myoshinji Temple in western Kyoto, Abe was forced to confront the reality of nihilism within himself and eventually resolve this problem by entering the Zen standpoint of emptiness, wherein the enlightened self arises.At age 40, Abe left Kyoto for New York to study at Union Theological Seminary with two of the most prominent Christian theologians of his day, Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. This encounter began a distinguished career of teaching, writing, and, above all, dialogue with leading Christian thinkers, including David Tracy, Langdon Gilkey, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Jurgen Moltmann, and Hans Kung. Abe served as visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Purdue University, Claremont College, Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Hawai'i, and other schools. In Germany, [End Page 139] Abe taught at Heidelberg, Tubingen, and Munich. In addition to his many Japanese publications, Abe wrote extensively in English. These works include Zen and Western Thought, an award-winning collection of essays, and a ground-breaking reflection on Christian belief in Christ interpreted from a Buddhist perspective, "Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata." This essay appeared in conjunction with responses from several Christian and Jewish theologians, making the book itself a dialogue. Abe also engaged Jewish intellectuals with his Buddhist reflection on the Holocaust.In 1984, Abe and John Cobb convened a group of Buddhist and Christian intellectuals from Japan, North America, and Europe for dialogue in depth over a sustained period of time on a number of fundamental issues. He was also a guiding influence on the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, which continues his work of dialogue today.Masao Abe is survived by his wife Ikuko Abe, his constant companion in a life of sojourn and dialogue in the West. [End Page 140]James FredericksLoyola Marymount UniversityCopyright © 2007 The University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)