In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Report on the Thirtieth Annual Conference of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesYagi YōichiTranslated by Paul L. SwansonIn Japan, the disasters of the giant tsunami and the resulting crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on 11 March 2011 have been grim reminders of the unprecedented tragedies of the nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just sixty-six years ago. These are experiences in which one becomes speechless, when words (...) are no longer able to convey what used to be their usual meaning.At that time, people were faced with basic and universal questions concerning the fundamental constitution of human existence. What is the ultimate basis for our thoughts and actions? Is there a way to know? If there is a way to know these answers, how do we attain them? The state of intellectual inquiry in postwar Japan, however, was not able to face these questions and come up with answers. Rather, there was a tendency to avoid facing these questions directly and instead rely on absorbing the pronouncements of Western thought.Within this postwar intellectual environment in Japan, the Japan Society for Buddhist- Christian Studies has continuously attempted in an academic way to discuss comprehensive themes, based on Buddhist-Christian or Christian-Buddhist foundations, and is perhaps the only forum in Japan that has consistently sought answers to these basic and universal questions of human existence.It was in this time of crisis that the thirtieth annual conference of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies met 5-7 September 2011 at Hanazono University in Kyoto. Discussion of a recent book, Dialogue and Commentary: The Words of Jesus and the Words of Zen (対談評釈 イエスの言葉／ 禅の言葉, Iwanami Shoten, 2010, in Japanese), a series of dialogues and discussions between Ueda Shizuteru and Yagi Seiichi, was chosen as an appropriate theme for this meeting. This book was chosen because it is a splendid synthesis of the activity and discussion carried out by our Society over the past thirty years. Through the magnificent dialogue of these two men, we hoped to open a "living horizon" for a mutual understanding of "the words of Jesus and the words of Zen." The main themes were "direct experience," "self-awareness," "place," and "words."The two dialoguers—Ueda and Yagi—have not only both served and provided [End Page 139] leadership for the Society over many years, as presidents and in other capacities, but also share a basic sense of fundamental questions. They are also leading philosophers of religion who represent the attempt to seek answers to fundamental questions within Buddhism and Christianity in postwar Japan. Ueda Shizuteru, a leading authority and internationally recognized scholar of Meister Eckhart, is also known for his contributions on the philosophy of religion (especially the idea of "place"/basho) in the tradition of Nishida Kitarō, Nishitani Keiji, and Zen Buddhism. His basic philosophical statement is "I am I when I am not I." Yagi Seiichi, on the other hand, is known for promoting religion (philosophy) as "a logic of place" as seen in the New Testament, and for his historical and essentialist critique of New Testament thought. To Yagi, the essence of "the religion of Jesus" is religion as a "logic of place," and if we return to this place we can (to borrow the exquisite phrasing of Yagi himself) "drink directly from the same fountain that was discovered by Jesus." Through this experience we can transcend not only biblical fundamentalism and the exclusivist absolutism of Christianity, but also make it possible to have a true dialogue with other religions. For Yagi, the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity not only should deepen common understanding, but also open the way to mutual reform, clarify the truth that flows at the basis of both religions, and probe into the fundamental constitution of human existence, and this is why he has constantly sought after dialogue with Buddhists.Yagi Seiichi has stood out as a partner in dialogue for many years. His discussions with the Zen master Hisamatsu Shin'ichi (A Religion of Awakening, published in 1980) was an epochal event in intellectual history from the perspective of "Buddhism and Christianity." Yagi has also been involved in important dialogues with Nishitani... (shrink)

This article is a first step in a project to study the influence of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ in the Ottoman world. We argue that, at least from the end of the fourteenth century until well into the second half of the sixteenth, the knowledge presented in the encyclopedic Rasāʾil was a conspicuous scholarly source for the Ottoman cultural milieu, especially at the dynastic court, and played a significant role in forming their epistemological perspective. This argument is developed with reference (...) to three universal histories: (1) in Turkish, the İskendernāme (Book of Alexander) of Taceddin İbrahim İbn Hızır Ahmedi (d. 1413) written between the last quarter of the fourteenth century and the first quarter of the fifteenth; (2) in Arabic, the Naẓm al-sulūk fī musāmarat al-mulūk (The ordering of ways for the conversation of kings) by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 1454), a prominent intellectual and expert in occult sciences, protégé of Sultan Murad II (r. 1421–44, 1446–51); (3) in Persian, the first volume of Shāhnāmā-yi Āl-i ʿUsmān (Book of kings of the house of ʿUsmān) by the Sufi intellectual and litterateur Fethullah Çelebi (d. 1561/62), better known by his pen-name ʿArif. The choice of these three histories enables us to mark the time period for the influence of the Rasāʾil, stretching it (in both directions) further than is accepted in present scholarship. These histories enable us also to draw attention to the proximity to the Ottoman dynasty of the cultural milieu attuned to the Rasāʾil, and highlight the relationship between history and knowledge that is central both for the texts under study here and the Rasāʾil. (shrink)

This article explores the narrative potency and ritual efficacy of a medieval Japanese esoteric Buddhist text in relation to the process of awakening and the construction of imperial legitimation, perceived as two interrelated objectives. Entitled the _Kinpusen himitsuden_, ‘The Secret Transmission of the Golden Peak’, the text was written by the Shingon monk Monkan Kōshin in 1337, soon after the outbreak of the civil war, at the stronghold of the southern court in Yoshino. The text is treated here as a (...) complex ritual platform of metamorphosis and empowerment, intermingling the local cultic structure and the esoteric Buddhist ritual stage of the imperial court as well as realities internal and external to the text, which mutually inform and impregnate one another. Focusing on the articulation of a rock—the body/abode of Zaō, a tutelary mountain deity—we explore its transformation from the site of a local legend of apparition into a Buddha, an object of contemplation, the centerpiece of the imperial stage and a mold for the practitioner’s liturgical body, an achievement allowed by the text taken as a transformative agent. We demonstrate that as an epitome of esoteric Buddhist power, Zaō becomes the source of the emperor’s renewed authority as a Buddhist king, and that in turn, the emperor’s participation in the semiotic sphere of the text endows the deity with sovereign power. As such, this article shows that rather than a vessel of knowledge, the text-as-an-event, is a powerful mechanism of transformation. (shrink)

The purposes of this study are to investigate whether current corporate social responsibility (CSR) is at the theoretically derived achievable level (hereinafter referred to simply as achievable level), to introduce “CSR inefficiency” as the difference between actual and achievable levels of CSR, and to specify its determinants. We established that the achievable level of CSR activity is determined by a range of keiretsu group, government, sector, and resource factors, and choosing specific activities can affect the priority levels of social contributions. (...) CSR inefficiency is affected by its own factors such as internal management, which are different from those of CSR activity. Our study suggests the importance of the differences between the achievable levels of CSR among firms. For example, firms in machinery, electrical equipment, public utilities, and service industries have greater inefficiency in environmental CSR than the other industries. Conversely, the achievable levels of construction and petroleum and gum industries for environmental CSR are higher. Service firms can achieve higher level of environmental CSR, although their emissions and wastes are not as large as those of manufacturing firms in general. In retail industries, the achievable level of environmental CSR is lowest among all industries, while those for labor issues and social contribution are as high as those of other industries. Public utilities have large CSR inefficiency compared with other industries, while construction, steel and nonferrous metals have small CSR inefficiency. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist Philosophy and New Testament TheologyYagi SeiichiPrologueBy way of Buddhist-Christian dialogue we Christians can become aware of the latent motifs in our own tradition. The dialogue gives us opportunities to rethink the Christian tradition, not to interpret it from Buddhist viewpoint but, based on these actualized motifs, to find a more adequate interpretation of its own. In this way Buddhist-Christian dialogue is relevant also for the construction of New (...) Testament theology.On the Philosophy of Nishida, Hisamatsu, and NishitaniThe central problems of Nishida Kitaro’s philosophy were (1) keiken (immediate experience) in his early period, (2) jikaku (seeing oneself in oneself) in his middle period, and (3) basho (topos) in his last years. 1 It should be noted that these terms together cover the essential fields of Buddhist cognition.Nishida began his book Studies of the Good 2 with statements concerning immediate experience. After the publication of the book, he felt compelled to consider the nature of the subject of philosophical cognition at the scene of immediate experience, for the subject in this case is not reason in the sense of Western philosophy. Thus in his middle period, jikaku became the main theme of his reflection. Jikaku means that the self sees itself in itself, and Nishida named the deepest, ultimate self, the self that embraces and sees all levels of cognition in “the field of transcendental predicate.” Then in his last years, Nishida grasped it anew as the topos, in which the individuals work on one another. The structure of the topos was defined as the “unity of the contradictory,” for in the topos the absolute and the relative define each other.His student, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, made jikaku his central theme, whereas the thinking of Nishitani Keiji, another eminent student of Nishida, was centered mainly on topos. Nishida’s understanding of jikaku reminds us somewhat of the Hegelian Geist, for it concerns primarily the subject of cognition. Hisamatsu, however, spoke simply of ‘kaku’ (awakening) of the Formless Self. It means that the ego is awakened to the Formless Self. At the same time it is the awakening of the Formless Self to [End Page 165] Itself. We should note that kaku is not simply self-cognition but rather the actualization of the Self. As is well known, Hisamatsu rejected theism. God or Buddha as ‘other’ or ‘over against’ is at best a secondary human construction and not primary reality. So, if we call God the absolute Other, God must be at the same time the ultimate Self: God as the absolute Other, in Hisamatsu’s view, must be at the same time God who acts as the ultimate subject of humanity. 3 On the other hand, Nishitani preferred the terms common to Mahayana-Buddhism in general: ku (nothingness), engi (dependent orinination), and jijimuge (infinite-fold mutual penetration of the individuals). In his book What Is Religion, 4 Nishitani tried to rethink such Christian themes as personality, time, and history from the standpoint of ku. Remarkably, he stated that the topos of ku is the field of power: “As far as all beings penetrate one another in their being, they are not what they are. On the other hand they are as such what they are. This relation of mutual penetration itself is the power which gathers and binds all beings into one, the power which makes the world the world. The field of ku is the field of power.” 5 As is well known, from the viewpoint of jijimuge, the infinite-fold mutual penetration of the individuals, there is nothing transcendent. Therefore Nishitani, when he speaks of this aspect of reality, does not refer to the paradoxical unity of the absolute and the relative. The field of ku is simply the field of power in which mutual penetration of the individuals is realized.If we combine three keywords of these three philosophers, namely Nishida’s “immediate experience,” Hisamatsu’s “awakening to the Self,” and Nishitani’s “field of ku as the field of power,” they seem to me more genuinely Buddhist than Nishida’s terms: keiken, jikaku, and basho. Whereas Nishida—who as a pioneer attempted to construct a philosophical system from... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 95-99 [Access article in PDF] The Distinction between ego (e) and ego-Self (e/S): Notes on Religious Practice Based upon Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Yagi Seiichi Toin University The Goal of Religious Practice We cannot see the transcendent as an object. Nor is it the case that the transcendent and the human are two separated realities that are united afterwards. When the Self (Christ in me--Gal. 2:19-20) (...) reveals itself to and in the ego (Gal. 1:16), the ego becomes aware of the Self, which is divine--human or transcendent--immanent. This is called enlightenment.In enlightenment, the ego (hereafter: e) does not vanish.When the Self (hereafter: S) appears to and in the ego, the ego (now a relatively independent part of S) becomes the function of S. The ego, understanding itself as the knot of inner and outer reality, plays the role of the reason of the whole body, the center of which is S. In this case we represent such a person as e/S. e/S is the subjectivity of the religious life. D.T.Suzuki and one of his disciples, Ryomin Akizuki called e/S the "individual qua trans-individual." 1 In enlightenment, e/S as the authentic subject, which remains potential before enlightenment, is actualized or realized so that it understands itself as e/S, no more as the mere ego. In order for e/S to be realized and understand itself as e/S, egocentricity, egoism and the confusion of the verbalized reality with "reality as it is" must be overcome. This is the goal of religious practice. e/S From the point of view of interreligious dialogue,"Christ who lives in me" corresponds to "actualized Buddha-nature" or "the Formless Self" in Buddhist language, that is, the Self as we call it. 2 In the case of Paul,"Christ who lives in me" is the ultimate subject of him on the one hand, and "Christ the Son of God" is the object of his faith on the other (Gal. 2:19-20). That means: the ego of Paul that believes in the Son of God is borne by "Christ in me"; as Paul says, "Christ was revealed to and [End Page 95] in me" (Gal. 1:16). In this way, the subjectivity of Paul consists of e/S. Of S, namely, Paul is aware as e/S--neither as e, which is ignorant of S, nor as S. It is impossible for S to exist alone. Egocentricity and Egoism The distinction between e and e/S is of fundamental importance to our theme. e means in this essay the mere ego that is ignorant of S.When it becomes aware of S we represent it as the ego of e/S. e is egocentric and egoistic. It goes without saying that the ego-centered "I" driven by desires produces immorality and social anomies. The biblical word for this is sin, the transgression of the Law.But there is another problematic concerning e, namely egoism, which can be at work even in the effort to attain a high level of morality. We understand the egoistic ego as follows: the ego is to itself the only reality that concerns and moves it. It posits itself solely on itself apart from the relation to others and to S. By itself it projects itself and strives to realize itself. It can, among others, set up its own ideals and pursue their realization. It can, for example, conceive the moralistic ideal that seems to be the reverse of immorality and social anomie. Indeed, it can succeed in controlling egocentricity so that it seems to have attained perfect morality. In reality, it is interested only in its own moral perfection, not in the person encountered (moralistic egoism). Such e is illustrated in Luke 18:9-14 and described in Romans 7:7-24. Egoistic ego must die to itself and must be freed from egoism. (In Romans 6, for example, Paul does... (shrink)

This study investigates the banking industry's resilience in maintaining its performance during a crisis by examining the impact of an income diversification strategy and considering the ownership structure. Moderated Regression Analysis was employed to explore bank performance proxy by Return on Assets (ROA) ratio as the dependent variable. For the Independent variable, we used income diversification and ownership structure. The research sample comes from 83 banks in Indonesia, consisting of 4 state-owned banks, 26 regional government banks, 30 private banks, and (...) 23 foreign banks in the 2020-2021 quarterly. The results indicate that diversification has no significant effect on bank performance during the Covid-19 pandemic at commercial banks in Indonesia but has a positive direction. The ownership structure was a pure moderator that weakened the relationship between income diversification and bank performance. Meanwhile, state-owned banks need to be more creative in exploring non-interest income sources than private and foreign banks. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the global economy, including the banking sector in Indonesia. However, the Indonesian banking industry has shown resilience during the pandemic. The Indonesian government has implemented several policies to support the banking sector during the pandemic. (shrink)

It is well established that gratitude favours prosocial tendencies in neutral and amicable social interactions. Less is clear, however, about the role of gratitude in threatening situations that br...

Local government reform in Jamaica aims (i) to refocus local authorities to providing leadership and a coordinating framework for the collective efforts of the people towards local development and (ii) to assess local service distribution modalities between central and local governments, the private sector and CSOs for more cost-effective arrangements. The institutional context in which these objectives are to be pursued is characterized by a new local governance framework populated by ‘a federated system of development committees’. Development committees are expected (...) to work in partnership with local authorities in pursuit of economic transformation of geographic spaces. Participatory development that development committees exemplify conjures up images of ownership of local [economic] development projects and an empowered citizenry that has the capacity to direct resources in their favour. Development committees represent a differentiated method of local economic governance. But the concern is: Are development committees fit for purpose? This is the fundamental question with which this research is concerned. A survey of parish development committees (PDCs) was conducted to determine the extent to which the organizations are giving effect to their mandate. The study is exploratory in design and relies on qualitative methodologies. The results of the study will be important for assisting the local governance reform process currently underway in Jamaica but should contribute to the discourse on the alternative approaches to managing development in developing countries. (shrink)

China and Islam examines the intersection of two critical issues of the contemporary world: Islamic revival and an assertive China, questioning the assumption that Islamic law is incompatible with state law. It finds that both Hui and the Party-State invoke, interpret, and make arguments based on Islamic law, a minjian law in China, to pursue their respective visions of 'the good'. Based on fieldwork in Linxia, 'China's Little Mecca', this study follows Hui clerics, youthful translators on the 'New Silk Road', (...) female educators who reform traditional madrasas, and Party cadres as they reconcile Islamic and socialist laws in the course of the everyday. The first study of Islamic law in China and one of the first ethnographic accounts of law in postsocialist China, China and Islam unsettles unidimensional perceptions of extremist Islam and authoritarian China through Hui minjian practices of law. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of the organizational identification level of the employees on the relationship between their organizational role stress level and job satisfaction. Data were gathered from 460 white-collar employees with snowball sampling. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was used in data analysis. According to the research results, it was found that there is a significant negative relationship between the organizational role stress level of the employees and their job satisfaction. This research also shows that organizational (...) identification has a moderating effect on the negative relationship between organizational role stress and job satisfaction. An employee who has a high level of organizational identification has more job satisfaction than an employee who has less organizational identification. (shrink)

Japanese English learners have difficulty speaking Double Object (DO; give B A) than Prepositional Object (PO; give A to B) structures which neural underpinning is unknown. In speaking, syntactic and phonological processing follow semantic encoding, conversion of non-verbal mental representation into a structure suitable for expression. To test whether DO difficulty lies in linguistic or prelinguistic process, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging. Thirty participants described cartoons using DO or PO, or simply named them. Greater reaction times and error rates (...) indicated DO difficulty. DO compared with PO showed parieto-frontal activation including left inferior frontal gyrus, reflecting linguistic process. Psychological priming in PO produced immediately after DO and vice versa compared to after control, indicated shared process between PO and DO. Cross-structural neural repetition suppression was observed in occipito-parietal regions, overlapping the linguistic system in pre-SMA. Thus DO and PO share prelinguistic process, whereas linguistic process imposes overload in DO. (shrink)

The development of a reliable and relatively simple micro‐assay for lipid peroxides in serum or plasma has made it possible to conduct clinical surveys of lipid peroxide levels in man. From many studies made in Japan, those suggesting a relationship between the elevation of lipid peroxide level plasma serum and the occurrence of vascular disorders are discussed here.The data described in this paper show that the elevation of the serum lipid peroxide level over the normal value is a direct cause (...) of the initiation of atherogenesis. Therefore, any factor bringing about the elevation of serum lipid peroxide levels, such as irradiation, would be an indirect cause of atherogenesis. In fact, irradiation is known to provoke this disorder and to elevate serum lipid peroxide levels. (shrink)

Kiyoshi Miki (1897-1945) fut le philosophe dominant des débuts de l’ère Showa (à partir de 1925) au Japon. Il entama sa réflexion en appliquant l’herméneutique phénoménologique aux pensées de Pascal et de Marx puis il se mit en quête d’une philosophie de l’histoire où la conscience présente de l’historicité est centrale. Il allait reconnaître un type d’humanité dotée à la fois de pathos et du logos qu’il réinteprétait. Son engagement dans le movement de la culture prolétarienne et dans les fondements (...) philosophques du Mouvement de l’Ordre Nouveau fut un double échec. Dans sa poursuite d’une philosophie de l’histoire, qui donne sa place aux considerations économiques, en même temps que d’une anthropologie philosophique, Miki a reflété la difficulté de mener une réflexion philosophique sereine durant cette période au Japon. JEL Codes : B24, B31. (shrink)

This essay advances an interpretation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics that is worked out in light of the works of two contemporary German philosophers, Bernhard Waldenfels and Peter Sloterdijk. By bringing Gadamer in dialogue with these two thinkers, I aim to present the dimension of non-difference that characterises his hermeneutic thinking. To this end, Gadamer’s views on the mother tongue and the home will be explored by examining the phenomena of foreignness and birth, each of which was developed by Waldenfels and (...) Sloterdijk respectively. In the first part of the essay, I offer a reading of Gadamer that shows how Waldenfels’ critique of Gadamer based on radical foreignness is unfounded and misguided. I then proceed to make the case that the mother tongue must be thought in terms of the coming-to-language, the notion of which is employed by both Gadamer and Sloterdijk. As a notion that marks our original belonging to the world, I contend that the coming-to-language needs to be understood outside of the logic of difference. This essay thus concludes with the reflection that hermeneutics is essentially bound up with the character of non-difference, which is to be distinguished from the thinking of difference that dominates contemporary discourse. (shrink)

This book intends to renovate the view of social sciences in the German-speaking world. It explores the intellectual tension in the social science in Austria and Germany in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It deals with how the emergence of the new school changed the focus of social science in the German speaking world, and how it prepared the introduction of an evolutionary perspective in economics, politics, and sociology. Based on primary evidence, this development is lively described in a series (...) of encounters and decisions by each social scientists. (shrink)

情報化により「生」を見失った現代。いまこそ宗教は、宗教的真実を現代に通じる言葉で語る時である。宗教回復への道を示す最新講義。.