Masao Abe: A Zen Life of Dialogue

by Donald W. Mitchell (Editor)

Masao Abe: A Zen Life of Dialogue is a compilation of essays that cover the life and work of Masao Abe, perhaps one of the greatest Zen Buddhist communicators of the twentieth century.

Masao Abe has opened up a rich dialogue between Japan and the West. He is considered the leading living Zen figure in the Kyoto School of Buddhist thought and the successor of D.T. Suzuki, his early mentor, as the foremost exponent of Zen Buddhism in the West.

Through stories and recollections, thirty-five leading intellectual figures explore Abe’s encounter with the West, including his work on interfaith dialogue as a basis for world peace as well as his comparative philosophical scholarship over the past thirty years. This book is a retrospective and an extra ordinary step ahead in the encounter between Zen and the West.

Genres: Philosophy

Paperback

First published April 1, 1998

Reviews

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this for six dollars and ninety-five cents from a place called Downtown Books. Right up front, I will tell you, I had never heard of Masao Abe. Apparently, he had a large influence on popularizing the Kyoto School of Zen Buddhism in the West. Since this book was published 20 years ago as of this review, I assume that the man is dead now. Although, the Japanese are a people with good longevity, so he could still be around at 105 years old.

As the blurb on the back mentions this book is a collection of essays written by various authors from different walks of life. Some of them have specialties in Japanese Literature, some of them are followers of the path of Zen Buddhism, all of them are pretty well done. The essays are organized by theme. Some of them discuss the life and times of Masao Abe, others discuss his work in philosophy. More than anything, Abe was a builder of bridges. He attempted to foster relationships and develop discussions between Eastern and Western schools of thought. In some cases he was successful and in others, the Western Schools didn’t know what he wanted of them. Apparently, they thought that it was only for people that had studied Buddhism or had some grounding in the practice of it, while Abe was perfectly happy to have a total neophyte talk about it from a Western perspective.

I don’t really know what I expected from this book when I bought it, but I supposed it would be in the vein of a biography or autobiography. I did not really expect it to be a series of essays, but there isn’t really a problem with this format as it is. It makes it seem like a less formal affair and that seems appropriate for the subject matter somehow.

In any case, this book was pretty good considering my expectations and experiences.

[Steve Llano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abe is such an interesting character - this book captures the critical writings, and the inspired essays, from his life long work to reconcile Christianity and Buddhist ideas. The conception of dialogue here is far too western, in my view, to lead to a seamless blending, but I fully accept a seamless blending might not either be possible or desirable for those who are invested in this project. Perhaps Abe's most interesting contribution to Christian thought might be the argument he traces where a double negative ("emptiness is empty") creates a vast affirmative, where affirmation is the only possible attitude to have toward the world. It's really well done, and a great read overall.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is interesting to see the impact one man has on the thought systems of so many others...a forensics of memes.