Masao Abe

Masao Abe
Religion	Buddhism
Personal
Born	1915 Osaka, Japan
Died	September 10, 2006
Senior posting
Title	Professor Author

Masao Abe (阿部 正雄, Abe Masao, 1915 – September 10, 2006) was a Japanese Buddhist and professor in religious studies, who became well known for his work in Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue, which later included Judaism. He wrote also on the experience of Zen.

Masao Abe was a Japanese academic in comparative religion (concluding as emeritus professor at Nara University), and a Buddhist philosopher. His mature views were developed within the Kyoto School of philosophy founded by Kitaro Nishida. Hence his interest in, and ability to compare and contrast, Buddhism and Christianity. "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 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. 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.

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