Abstract
HISAMATSU Shin’ichi 久松 真一 (1889–1980) was a well-known Zen philosopher and Zen Buddhist scholar. As a student of NISHIDA Kitarō 西田幾多郎 (1870–1945), and a teacher of ABE Masao (1915–2006), he can be seen as loosely connected to the Kyoto School. However, although he was a professor at Kyoto University and received an honorary doctoral degree from Harvard University, Hisamatsu has primarily become known in the West as a charismatic lay Zen master, who criticized Japanese Zen for its focus on awakening (J. satori 悟り) at the expense of consideration of social and political issues. His aim was to come to a reformed, true Zen. This essay will explore his life and philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
Abe’s essay was originally published in Japanese as “Hisamatsu Shin’ichi Sensei no Kaku no Tetsugaku” 「久松真一先生の覚の哲学」. Risō 理想 424 (September 1968): 10–24.
- 2.
As Abe notes, Hisamatsu himself does not take kenshō (seeing one’s Nature, insight into the Self) as an experience, for “experience” indicates something happening in time and space, whereas kenshō by nature is trans-temporal and trans-spatial (1981: 32, n4).
- 3.
General information on the Kyoto School in this paper has been taken from Davis 2010.
- 4.
For this article, the revised translation by TOKIWA Gishin has been used (Hisamatsu 2005). References will be indicated as ON.
- 5.
In his Records Mirroring the Original Source (C. Zongjinglu 宗鏡録), fascicle six (T48.2016.446c), YONGMING Yanshou 永明延壽 (904-975) explains these meanings quoting from the Commenting on the Mahāyāna śāstra (C. Shimoheyanlun 釋摩訶衍論) fascicle three.
- 6.
Hisamatsu also cites Huineng: “Self-Nature, in its origin constant and without commotion, produces the ten thousand things” (T 48.2008.39a).
- 7.
A record of this dialogue was published as “Dialogues East and West: Paul Tillich and Hisamatsu Shin’ichi,” Eastern Buddhist 4/2 (1971): 89–107; 5/2 (1972): 107–128; and 6/2 (1973): 87–114.
- 8.
For a transcript of the Hisamatsu-Jung dialogue, see their “On the Unconscious, The Self, and Therapy: A Dialogue—Carl C. Jung and Shin-ichi Hisamatsu” (Jung and Hisamatsu 1968).
Works Cited
Abbreviations
ON Hisamatsu Shin’ichi. Oriental Nothingness. Translated by Gishin Tokiwa. 2005. Accessed 28 Mar 2011. http://www.fas.x0.com/writings/hisamatsu/toyotekimunoseikaku.html.
T Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 『大正新修大蔵經』. 100 vols. Edited by Junjirō Takakusu 高楠順次郎 and Kaigyoku Watanabe 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō Issaikyō Kankōkai, 1924–34.
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van der Braak, A. (2019). Hisamatsu Shin’ichi: Oriental Nothingness. In: Kopf, G. (eds) The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2924-9_28
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