Inoue Enryo

This article examines the process by which Buddhism became a “religion” in Meiji Japan (1868–1912). As part of the climate of modernization, foreigners, government officials, and the press increasingly identified Buddhism as superstitious and backward. In response, Buddhist leaders divided traditional Buddhist cosmology and practices into the newly constructed categories “superstition” and “religion.” Superstition was deemed “not really Buddhism” and purged, while the remainder of Buddhism was made to accord with West- ernized ideas of religion. Buddhist philosopher Inoue Enryō was crucial to this process. This paper explores “superstition” and “religion” in his writings, and it discusses the aspects of Buddhism that were invented and sublimated under the influence of this distinction. This paper argues that not only did Buddhism became a religion in Meiji Japan but also that in order to do so it had to eliminate superstitions, which included numerous practices and beliefs that had previously been central.

Heroism consists of actions that must help others, even if it is a possibility and risk of the helper s injury or even death. Some people consider heroism to be very close to altruism, but it is different. Where altruism emphasizes self-denying acts that help others, heroism means a personal sacrifice. The kernel of heroism rotates around of the obligation of the person to a noble goal and readiness to accept a consequence of fighting for this goal. Heroism is old as humanity itself. The human bent fort commemorating heroes is a universal quality of human culture. Heroes are honored in ancient paintings, folklore and myth. Societies dispatched such stories in oral traditions and legends, and myths into epic poems and eddas. Modern societies uphold the tradition of honoring heroes not only in literally masterpieces but also in movies and journalism. Some of heroic ideas are becoming lost or changed by general culture. Being a hero is not just being an outstanding figure. We believe it has become needful to revise the historical senses of the word, and to force it to arrive in modern timeframes. Historically, heroism has been closely connected with military service, although social heroism also deserves close research. For instance, Achilles is the archetypal war hero, whose values were so strong, that Socrates willingness to die for it was also a heroic exploit. Heroism that consist a notable idea is usually not so dramatic like heroism that entails direct physical risk. These different ways of exhorting with the heroic ideal mean a deeper, more tangled definition of heroism. Actions considered as heroic are ordinarily made voluntarily in the sense that they are not compelled by external pressures or at least go out the bounds of the behavior ordinarily prompted by external pressures. By understanding of heroism as a universal characteristic of human nature, not as an unusual feature, heroism becomes something that stands in the line of possibilities for everyone, possibly inspiring us to answer that call. The thought about the banality of heroism disrobes the myth of the heroic elect. It is a myth that strengthens two fundamental human tendencies: to attribute very rare personal feature to special people who do special feats-to see them as superhuman, comparing to the rest of us and the trap of inertial some people call it as the bystander effect. Investigation has shown that this effect is often motivated by scattering of responsibility. In their article The Banality of Heroism , Zeno Franco and Philip Zimbardo tell that heroism is made up of four autonomous measurements at least (based on authors analysis of many acts that they consider heroic). First, heroism involves some type of quest, which may range from the preservation of life to the preservation of an ideal (Franco, Zimbardo). Second, heroism should have some form of sacrifice (risk). This can be some form of physical danger or a strong social sacrifice. The physical risks in this case are clearly heroic in nature. For instance, Tom Cahill, a researcher from the University of California, called a press conference where defined the EPA s findings that in the after-grass of the September 11 events the air nearby Ground Zero was safe for breathing. With this action he risked his confidence as a scientist. Third, the heroic feat may be active or passive. Often we think of heroism as a courageous activity, something that is clearly perceptible. But some forms of heroism involve passive opposition or reluctance to be moved. And finally, heroism may be an unexpected, one time action, or something that continues over a longer time period. This may have a meaning that heroism may be a nearly immediate reaction to a situation. Or it may be a well considered series of actions endure over days, months, ANGELINO

Author(s): Lazopoulos, George | Advisor(s): Barshay, Andrew E | Abstract: This dissertation is a critical history of Buddhist thought in Japan from 1868 to 1931. During this time, many intellectuals became fascinated with the Buddhism of Japan's medieval period. Some saw it as a form of religious experience that could overcome the modern problem of alienated existence. Others declared that the cultural history of medieval Japanese Buddhism held the essence of Japanese cultural authenticity. These philosophical and historical interpretations of Buddhism together constituted a modern cultural discourse that I call Japanese Medievalism: a romantic vision of medieval Japan as a world of Buddhist spirituality. This dissertation traces the evolution of Japanese Medievalism, reconstructs its main arguments, and examines its ideological significance as a cultural artifact of modern Japan. Japanese Medievalism had an ambiguous ideological function. On the one hand, it was a religious rev...

Philosophy claims its goal is to search for truth. The history of philosophy, however, demonstrates that, in most cases, this search for truth is not free from the power structures of the time. The formation of modern philosophy in East Asia is no exception. This essay will demonstrate how the East-West power imbalance at the beginning of the modern period is implicitly and explicitly imbedded in the formation of modern Buddhist philosophy in East Asia. By examining the life and thoughts of two East Asian Buddhist thinkers, Paek Sŏnguk (白性郁1897-1981) and Inoue Enryō (井上円了1858-1919), this essay will demonstrate two seemingly unrelated aspects of the East-West encounter in the philosophizing of the East. On the one hand, Paek’s and Enryō’s Buddhist philosophy tells us that the beginning of philosophy in modern East Asia is inevitably related to the power imbalance between the East and the West. On the other hand, however, the forced encounter of Eastern “thought” tradition with the Western genre called philosophy generated a new mode of philosophizing, which is also shared by some contemporary Western philosophers in their criticism of institutionalized philosophy.

This is chapter 3 of “A Buddha Land in This World” (Punctum, 2022). It discusses Western secular Buddhism and a list of Asian engaged and radical Buddhists including: Anagarika Dharmapāla, A.T. Ariyaratne, Inoue Enryō, Takagi Kenmyō, Uchiyama Gudō, Seno’o Girō, Taixu, Lin Qiuwu, Han Yongun, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhadāsa, Sulak Sivaraksa, U Nu, Gendun Chopel, Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), and B.R. Ambedkar.
The complete book is available here: https://www.academia.edu/76418949

本论文将梳理井上圆了对净土真宗、禅宗、日莲宗的研究，并在此基础上，考察圆了对实践佛教的见解。并从《佛教活论序论》中确认圆了的思想变化。《佛教活论序论》主要考察了大乘佛教的思想，但圆了的思想关心已经移向了起源于镰仓时代的日本佛教。因此，有必要整理《佛教活论序论》与上述三宗派研究的关系。
上述三宗派都极为重视宗教的修行与体验。但是，圆了对该三宗的研究中，并未提及具体的佛教修行。反之，圆了对三宗的研究中，主张在佛教研究中使用知识性哲学的方法，强调知识性哲学的必要性。另外，圆了使用了“现象即实在论”的哲学论。简单来说，该哲学论认为，“实在”被包含在“现象”之中。我们可以发现，圆了对三宗教理的解释受到了“现象即实在论”的影响。也就是说，在圆了看来，实践佛教的思想，与自身重视哲学的思想并无二致。另外，圆了认为《佛教活论序论》中论述的“现象即实在论”建立在天台宗思想的基础上。而且，圆了在对三宗的研究中，也主张三宗的佛教思想无不基于天台宗思想。
也就是说，圆了从初期著作《佛教活论序论》开始，便十分注重天台宗思想，并认为三宗思想不过是天台宗思想的应用。本论文将详细考察圆了思想中，三宗与哲学、宗教体验的关系，并且对三宗教理基于天台宗这一理论展开分析。

Enryō Inoue (井上円了) 1858-1919 was a philosopher and a pioneer of occult studies in early modernity in Japan. His views on occult, or Yōkai, was unique in that he categorized anything supernatural or superstitious as well as natural things that are simply unexplained as Yōkai. His aim in occult studies, or henceforth Yōkai studies, was to explain away the unexplained by means of reason and rationality. He divided the category of Yōkai into four segments: 1) that which cannot be explained with the present method of scientific reasoning, 2) that which can be explained as a natural phenomenon, 3) that which occurs psychologically and therefore a creation of mind due to fear or misunderstanding or prejudice, and lastly 4) that which is made up by people. He published a 8-volume book on these Yokai phenomena that exists in the world, and below is a small section he wrote on the generation and corruption of the soul as well as the status of the soul.

This transversal and transilient thought-experiment explores the application and significance of Japanese animism for environmental education and environmental philosophy. Through the exploration of indigenous knowledge found in Japanese folklore and Japanese Buddhism, the thought-experiment offers a critique of a certain strand of contemporary fatalistic and nihilistic thinking regarding the Anthropocene. At its simplest it questions the trend toward mysticism and obfuscation in environmental education and demands a response to the environmental crisis precisely through reason and rationality. How shall this be undertaken? On one level, the hauntings of 妖怪 (Yōkai) and 幽霊 (Yūrei) in Japanese folklore shall act as a prism through which to understand the impact of the fantastical on the contemporary imagination, and on another level, I shall critique the fantastical as such to question the so-called inaccessibility of the hyperobject (Morton, 2014), which in the end leaves us despairingly passive and without the possibility of response. It is in the work of the Japanese philosopher 井上円了 (Inoue Enryō) and especially his defence of Western Enlightenment beliefs during Japan’s modernisation period (1868–1912) that a curious method and heuristic tool is found that may be used to address not only the problem of mystification in Japanese philosophy but also the obfuscation of the ecological object of recent Western thought. Seemingly sacrilegiously, it is through reason and at the limits of the rational that one may approach the hyperobject-in-itself, which is to say, the unfathomable as such.