Masao Abe

Masao Abe (阿部 正雄) was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and religious studies scholar who was emeritus professor at Nara University.

He is best known for his work in comparative religion, developing a Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue which later also included Judaism.

His mature views were developed within the Kyoto School of philosophy.

Also in New York City, at the Union Theological Seminary, Abe encountered the Christian professors and teachers Paul Tillich (1886–1965) and Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971).

Among Abe's chief academic influences would be the aforementioned Shin'ichi Hisamatsu (1889–1980) and also Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990), as well as Hajime Tanabe (1885–1962), key professors for Abe at Kyoto University, and Kitaro Nishida (1870–1945), teacher of Hisamatsu and Nishitani, and teacher of his own successor Tanabe.

Abe follows Nishida's Kyoto school of philosophy.

For four years during the late 1930s he worked in a business office at a private trading company in neighboring Kobe.

Yet Abe was seriously troubled by an ongoing personal crisis, which stemmed from the perceived conflict: rationality versus faith in the Amida of Pure Land Buddhism.

This conflict he thought he could conclusively resolve in favor of faith through the study of philosophy, by which he could overcome objections posed by reason.

Guided by Hisamatsu, Abe worked with others to revitalize Buddhist youth organization at Kyoto University throughout the 1940s.

Professor Hisamatsu challenged Abe's quasi-theistic faith in Amida Buddha; instead Hisamatsu became for Abe a vital religious model, of a rigorous adherent of Sunyata (which may be called emptiness) as an ultimate reality.

In consequence, Abe came to understand Amida Buddha as a sacred fiction.

Abe's spiritual progression under Hisamatsu was complex and dialectical.

Hisamatsu taught that the revered image of Amida Buddha was but a stage on the way to realizing a "formless" Buddha, whereby one could awaken to one's True Self.

Nonetheless Abe first reacted to Hisamatsu by coming to discover and experience an infinite grace from the Amida Buddha.

Abe's profound quest continued.

Abe entered Kyoto University in April 1942.

It was a courageous step, as he changed career direction in mid-stream, exceptional in Japanese life, yet even more so considering the current political situation.

He studied Western philosophy under Hajime Tanabe.

Also, Abe studied Zen under the direction of Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, a philosophy professor at Kyoto University and a lay practitioner of the Rinzai school.

Before he had been professor at Kyoto Women's College (1946–1948) and Otani University (1948–1950).

During the 1950s and early 1960s Abe was in communication with the well-known Buddhist scholar Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (1870–1966), e.g., at Columbia University in New York City; Abe is said to have later assumed Suzuki's role as academic transmitter of Buddhism.

Also in the mid-1950s he studied Christian theology in New York City at the Union Theological Seminary and at Columbia University.

In December 1951, during a group Zen sitting at the Reiun Temple of the Myōshin-ji in Kyoto, Abe personally challenged Hisamatsu, screaming to him, "Is that the True Self?"

Hisamatsu replied, "That's the True Self."

Thereafter Abe entered an intense phase and struggled with the view that "It's all a lie!"

(which he cried out while dousing himself with a bucket of ice water at a subsequent group sitting).

He agonized over the seeming proximity of the Deity and the devil, and with his own complicity.

Finally, Abe told Hisamatsu, "I just cannot find any place where I can stand."

Hisamatsu told him, "Stand right at that place where there is nowhere to stand."

Along this way Abe confronted, and managed to distinguish and overcome, a "positive nihilism" associated with the secular, irreligious philosopher Frederich Nietzsche.

Reflecting on his life development, Abe acknowledged the crucial role of Shin'ichi Hisamatsu in his spiritual formation.

"Without him I am not what I am."

From 1952 to 1980, Abe served as professor of philosophy at Nara University.

Thereafter, while at Nara, Abe was concurrently professor at Kyoto University from 1955 to 1958, and from 1964-1980 professor at Hana Zono University.

According to Christopher Ives: "Since the death of D. T. Suzuki in 1966, Masao Abe has served as the main representative of Zen Buddhism in Europe and North America."

Abe's father was a medical doctor, his mother a practitioner of Pure Land Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism, from whom came his early faith in Amida Buddha.

Born in Osaka, Abe was the third of six children.

His higher education began at Osaka Municipal University, where he studied Economics and Law.

Then in 1980 he left Nara University and moved to California, to the Department of Religion at the Claremont Graduate School, and later in 1983 to the University of Hawaii where he served as Professor of Japanese Philosophy.