Revisiting Yemyo Imamura’s Discourses on Religious Diversity

Futaba Memorial Lectures

Prof. Tomoe Moriya will discuss ideas of Yemyo Imamura and D. T. Suzuki that resonate with modern America.

During the 100% Americanization movement in the Territory of Hawaii, bilingual Japanese American Buddhists were often challenged by the prevailing notion that they were not “American” enough. Imamura responded with his pluralistic Buddhist Americanism, which raised important issues including religious diversity. He also wrote an antiwar booklet out of his Buddhist pacifism during WWI, which offers us an important lesson in time of conflicts and hostilities.

The lecture also highlights D. T. Suzuki’s social criticism essays and postwar American lectures on Buddhist livelihood in modern society. Suzuki is known for his works on Zen and mysticism, but he was also a critic of the Japanese militarism and promoted Buddhist social ethics based on the Four Great Vows. One of his lectures at a local Shin Buddhist temple dealt with living the “spirit of Shinran” to “get humanized once more” in response to the ongoing nuclear arms race.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

• 8:30 Registration
• 9:00 Lecture: Dr. Tomoe Moriya, “The Blue Lotus Radiating a Blue Light, the Yellow a Yellow Light”: Revisiting Yemyo Imamura’s Discourses on Religious Diversity
• 10:30 Discussion & Questions
• 11:00 Break
• 11:30 Lecture: Dr. Tomoe Moriya, Eastward Dharma: Buddhism in America and its Transformation
• 12:30 Discussion & Questions
• 1:00 Closing

Doctor Tomoe Moriya

Dr. Tomoe Moriya is a professor at Hannan University in Osaka, Japan. She has written extensively on transnational aspects of Japanese/Japanese American Buddhism in Japanese and English. Her works include “Buddhism at the Crossroads of the Pacific: Imamura Yemyō and Buddhist Social Ethics,” in Hawai‘i at the Crossroads of the U.S. and Japan before the Pacific War (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), Issei Buddhism in the Americas (co-edited with Duncan Ryūken Williams, University of Illinois Press, 2010), and Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume 3: Comparative Religion (co-edited with Jeff Wilson, University of California Press, 2016).

Bishop Eric Matsumoto (respondent)

Bishop Eric Matsumoto is the 16th head minister of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii. Rev. Matsumoto was born in Kona, Hawaii and graduated from Konawaena High School. He graduated from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, majoring in History and Liberal Studies-Japanese Language & Culture. Then, he entered Ryukoku University Graduate School majoring in Shin Buddhism Studies. Bishop Matsumoto is a recipient of the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship. Rev. Matsumoto has served at Hawaii Betsuin, Honoka’a, Kamuela, Kohala, Paauilo and Moiliili Hongwanji Missions. Rev. Matsumoto has served as Bishop since March 2011.

The Futaba Lecture Series is endowed by Dr. Alfred & Mrs. Dorothy N. Bloom to honor the memory of friend and mentor, Professor Kenko Futaba. Dr. Bloom, who helped plan these Futaba lectures before his passing in August 2017, fervently hopes that this lecture series will be a continuing inspiration for the nurturing of American Buddhism and for the social participation of Buddhists in the quest of social justice and peace.