Abstract
Shinran (1173–1263) is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and consequential Buddhist thinkers in Japanese history, and the Buddhist school that stems from his teachings, Jōdo shinshū (the Pure Land Shin tradition), remains one of the largest and most vital Buddhist institutions in Japan. This chapter seeks to raise the question of what Shinran and Pope Francis might say in conversation, from their standpoints in distinct religious traditions, across more than eight centuries and still significant cultural and social differences. How might they find mutual understanding and accord in addressing—out of the resources of their religious awareness—issues of justice, human suffering, and inequality in the contemporary world?
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Notes
- 1.
See Dennis Hirota et al., trans. and ed., The Collected Works of Shinran, vol 1 (Kyoto: Honpa Hongwanji, 1997), 664. Hereafter, “CWS.” Translations have been modified. For Tannishō, see also Dennis Hirota, trans., Tannishō: A Primer (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1983).
- 2.
Pope Francis’s Remarks to Holy See Diplomatic Corps, March 2013.
- 3.
To a group of Japanese students, 21 August 2013.
- 4.
Pope Francis’s Remarks to Holy See Diplomatic Corps, March 2013.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
International Meeting for Peace organized by Sant’Egidio Community, from September 29–October 1, on the topic “The Courage of Hope: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue.”
- 8.
To a group of Japanese students, 21 August 2013.
- 9.
Vatican Information Service, no. 67, 20 March 2013.
- 10.
Pope Francis’s Remarks to the Holy See Diplomatic Corps, March 2013.
- 11.
To a group of Japanese students, 21 August 2013.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Pope Francis, War Is Always A Defeat For Humanity, 7 September 2013.
- 14.
Vatican Information Service, no. 67.
- 15.
International Meeting for Peace, “The Courage of Hope.”
- 16.
Vatican Information Service, no. 67.
- 17.
Pope Francis audience with representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of the Different Religions, 20 March 2013.
- 18.
Evangelii Gaudium, Apostolic Exhortation of the Holy Father Francis.
- 19.
D. T. Suzuki, Shin Buddhism (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 13–14.
- 20.
Luis Frois, Historia Eclesiastica, f. 2, in They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640, Michael Cooper, trans. and ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 373–374.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Karl Barth, On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion, trans. Garrett Green (London: T & T Clark, 2006), 105–106.
- 23.
Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 654–655.
- 24.
Barth, On Religion, 105.
- 25.
Frois, Historia.
- 26.
Pope’s Address to Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Vatican City, 28 November 2013.
- 27.
- 28.
Quoted by Shinran in his major writing, A Collection of Passages on the True Teaching, Practice, and Realization of the Pure Land Way, CWS I: 241.
- 29.
Vatican Information Service, no. 67, 20 March 2013.
- 30.
International Meeting for Peace, “The Courage of Hope.”
- 31.
Tannishō, §3, Dennis Hirota, trans., Tannishō: A Primer, 24. Also CWS I: 663.
- 32.
Charles Taylor, “Perils of Moralism” in Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 349.
- 33.
Ibid., 350.
- 34.
Ibid., 349.
- 35.
Ibid., 350.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
See Dennis Hirota, Asura’s Harp: Engagement with Language as Buddhist Path (Heidelberg, Universitätsverlag, 2006), and my article “Shinran’s View of Language: A Buddhist Hermeneutics of Faith” in The Eastern Buddhist 26, no. 1 (1993): 50–93 and in The Eastern Buddhist 26, no. 2 (1993): 91–130.
- 38.
Nishida Kitarō, “Gutoku Shinran,” The Eastern Buddhist, New Series 28, no. 2, trans. Dennis Hirota (1995): 243–244.
- 39.
Taylor, “Perils of Moralism,” 351.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid., 352.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Cf. Taylor, “Perils of Moralism,” 350.
- 44.
Recorded in Shinran Denne, Illustrated Biography of Shinran, 1294, §3.
- 45.
VIS, no. 67, 20 March 2013.
- 46.
Taylor, “Perils of Moralism,” 352.
- 47.
Robert D. Stolorow, World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 2011), 63ff.
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Hirota, D. (2018). Toward Dialogue with Pope Francis: A Japanese Buddhist Perspective. In: Kasimow, H., Race, A. (eds) Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96095-1_13
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