Editor
’
s Note
T
HEREtheme deals aretwo special with “A Critical Inheritance features inthis combined issue of Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki,of Volume 38. The first” and, to commemorate his passing fortyyears ago, we attempt to evaluate his significance today,particularly because hewasthefounder of this journal.The secondfeature is “Natsume Soseki and Buddhism.” Sosekiisknown as an intellectual and a repre sentative figure of modem Japanese thought in the nineteenth century. He is also famous for his novels,many ofwhich remainpopular tothis day. Here,we scrutinize the consequences ofhis seeking a way, which he characterized as spiritual.Although there have been many assessments of D. T. Suzuki’s activities, they haveoften tendedto falltoone of twoextremes. Themajorityof his reviewersseem tohave lacked objectiveand empirical studies on theirpart, and merely worshiped himas a“great man” who had introducedZen totheWest. However, on the other hand,recent criticshavepaid attentionto his wordsanddeeds duringthe period of Japan’s military aggression, and denouncedhis social ethics as unsound. Hence, thereappearstobe a vast divergence inthevariousevaluations of him.
As The Eastern Buddhistitself was founded by D. T. Suzuki, Irequested works fromexperiencedscholars inbothJapanandtheUnited States, whohave studied or been interested in him for a long period of time, that discuss the possibility of retrieving hisreligious thought in a moreholistic sense.We also decidedto investi gate Suzuki’s intellectual activities during his youth, a topic which scholars have neglectedin thepast.Hisessays,whichappeared in a Buddhist journal,ShinBukkyo,
between 1900 and 1915 are quite indispensable in order to understand his early thought. As this collection in Shin Bukkyo is extremely extensive, I solicited help from Moriya Tomoe, one of the contributors, to select thirteen of these essays. However,due to the limitationsof spaceinthis volume,only one of themcouldbe presentedhere.The others will be published infuture issues ofthejournal.
Ibelieve that the relevance ofthe theme of thesecondfeatureforthose living in Japantoday and for the common values transcendingnationaldifferences liesin its exploration of thewaysinwhichJapanesereligiousthinkerssearchedfor a spiritual pathduringaperiod of rapid modernization. As is well known, Japan was able to become modernized by inheriting the civilization from Western Europe and the United States, a process which continues even today in everycomer ofthe world underthe nameof globalization.Inspite ofits glory,however,the darkness ofmod ernization has overshadowedthe lives of human beings. Natsume Soseki,as both a 1
THE EASTERN BUDDHIST XXXVIII, 1 & 2
writer and an intellectual, was one of those seekers who continued to quest for an authentic way of living, while suffering and finding himself caught between the “lightandshadow” of modernization.Althoughrecognizingthebenefits of modem rationality,healso realized its limitations, and after muchexperimentation, he came totermswith the Buddhist world-view. In thispresent volume,wehave attempted to reveal part of his struggles involvedinthis endeavor.
Because D. T. Suzuki and Natsume Soseki lived in the same period, it is possible toclarify theformer’s intellectualactivitiesbycontrasting them with the latter’s way of life.
As an aid to understanding the articles featured in “Natsume Soseki and Buddhism,” I haveincludedabrief summary of Soseki’s novel, Meian (Light and Darkness). I also asked AmaMichihiro to serve as thespecial editor ofthis section.
Ama Toshimaro Editor January 1, 2007
