Abe Masao 1915 – 2006
Abe Masao was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher of the Kyoto School and the principal exponent of Zen thought in interreligious dialogue with Christianity and Judaism in the late twentieth century. A pupil of Hisamatsu Shinichi and Nishitani Keiji, he succeeded D. T. Suzuki as the most prominent Japanese interpreter of Zen to the Western academy and held visiting chairs at many American universities. His Zen and Western Thought, A Study of Dogen, and the long debate gathered in Divine Emptiness and Historical Fullness developed a philosophy of dynamic emptiness as a category for comparative metaphysics and theology.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Japanese
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Buddhism
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Abe Masao:
“Sunyata is not nothingness; it is the dynamic emptiness from which all things arise.”
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Attributed to Abe Masao:
“Zen is the realization, not the doctrine, of one's true self.”
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Attributed to Abe Masao:
“True dialogue requires the suspension of one's own standpoint.”
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Attributed to Abe Masao:
“Self and other are mutually constitutive.”
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Attributed to Abe Masao:
“Religion in our time must engage history without losing the depth of the absolute.”