Jack Austin (Buddhist)

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Jack Austin (born July 16, 1917 in Caerleon , Wales ; † August 15, 1993 ) was a British pioneer of European Buddhism and a pioneer of interreligious dialogue, who also worked as an author and magazine editor.

Live and act

Austin turned to Buddhism in his youth through reading the poet Edwin Arnold. He became a friend of Christmas Humphreys , whose Buddhist Society he joined and subsequently took on board functions. During their stays in London he came into contact with Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki , Alan Watts and Edward Conze , who had an influence on his work. Austin also worked with Sangharakshita for a time. Under the direction of Ernő Hetényi , Jack Austin obtained his doctorate in Buddhist philosophy from the Kőrösi Csoma Sándor Buddhológiai Intézet in Budapest in 1961 . Austin had been married since 1949 with four children and eight grandchildren.

Arya Maitreya Mandala

After a European branch of the Arya Maitreya Mandala was founded in 1952 , Austin was accepted into it by Hans-Ulrich Rieker . As a result, Jack Austin maintained close personal contacts with the order's founder Lama Anagarika Govinda and his partner Li Gotami Govinda . He headed the order in the United Kingdom, where, among other things, the Indologist Karel Werner was one of its members. Austin maintained close international relationships in this order, for example with Harry Pieper , Lionel Stützer and Henry Noel Marryat Hardy, who lived in Switzerland .

Encouraged by Lama Anagarika Govinda, Jack Austin acquired a comprehensive practical Buddhist education that went beyond the boundaries of traditional schools. In 1952 he was ordained by Robert Stuart Clifton (1903-1963), who worked as a Buddhist monk under the name Sumangalo, in whose Western Buddhist Order as a priest. "In the fifties, the AMM (= Arya Maitreya Mandala) and the 'Western Buddhist Order' founded by Jack Austin in England were closely connected, later the connections were broken." In 1960 the abbot of the Sōtō-shū temple consecrated Sōjoji in Japan Austin became a Zen priest (Oshō). In 1976 Austin founded a Society for the Study of Pure Land Buddhism in England. A year later he was ordained a Jōdo-Shinshū priest at Nishi Hongan-ji in Kyoto .

Interreligious Dialogue

Jack Austin was a senior member of the World Congress of Faiths founded by Francis Younghusband for decades . In 1974 he took over the position of full-time general secretary of the company.

Although Austin devoted a large part of his life to interreligious dialogue and wanted a harmony of religions, he was convinced that the monotheism of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the spiritual traditions of South and East Asia are incompatible. “About a year before his death, Austin looked back on the quest for dialogue between religions as the toughest business of his life. He did not attribute this solely to external circumstances such as the unwillingness of institutions. The main problem seemed to him to be an ultimately unbridgeable gap between the monotheistic religions and the attitudes of Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism and Shinto. "

editor

Since 1953 he published the magazine The Western Buddhist . This magazine brought articles on the whole spectrum of Buddhist teaching, ethics and practice of different schools. The magazine was appreciated in Buddhist circles in Europe, America and also in Japan for Austin's book reviews.

Komyoji

Jack Austin, who worked with Volker Zotz in the Arya Maitreya Mandala , supported his project of the intercultural institution Komyoji and worked together with Ruth Tabrah and others as a member of the preparatory committee. In this regard, Austin was concerned to provide interested people in Europe with an education that would allow them to study the then little-known Amitabha Buddhism in its philosophical dimensions on a scientific level. Austin, who died in 1993, did not live to see the official founding of Komyoji by Kōshō Ōtani in Vienna the following year . Austin's attitude towards Buddhism in this direction was shaped by the Japanese scholar Zuiken Inagaki (1885–1981), with whom he corresponded for years and whose pupil he was in Japan.

Works

  • The Dhammapada. A New Version. London 1971
  • Buddhist Attitudes towards Animal Life. In: Richard Ryder et al. (Ed.): Animal Rights. A symposium. London 1979
  • Dhammapada. From the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka . London 1988
  • Shin Buddhist Daily Devotions . London 1989
  • Marriage and the Family in Buddhism. In: John Prickett: Marriage and the Family . Cambridge 1985, ISBN 9780718824440

Secondary literature

  • John Snelling: The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Schools, Teaching, Practice, and History. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co 1991 (contains a detailed description of Austin's activities in England)
  • Birgit Zotz : Jack Austin and the principle of dialogue. In: Der Kreis No. 271, May 2014 ISSN  2197-6007 (detailed biography)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Data and information, unless otherwise stated, from the biographical article by Birgit Zotz: Jack Austin and the principle of dialogue. In: Der Kreis , No. 271, May 2014 ( ISSN  2197-6007 )
  2. ^ Sangharakshita: In the Sign of the Golden Wheel: Indian Memoirs of an English Buddhist . Windhorse Publications 1996, p. 164 ( ISBN 9781899579143 )
  3. ↑ "Buddhist Degrees conferred." In: World Fellowship of Buddhists: World Buddhism 10/11 (1961).
  4. ↑ Volker Zotz: “'Stay a philosopher as long as you want it!' The beginnings of Ārya Maitreya Maṇḍala in Europe. ”In: Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture. Festschrift for Armin Gottmann on his 70th birthday. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2013, ISBN 978-2-919771-04-2
  5. ↑ Jack Austin: “Harry Pieper - Pioneer of Shin Buddhism in Europe. A Personal Tribute. " The Pure Land, 2 (1980) No. 1, pp. 32-36
  6. ↑ Piyasīlo: Charisma in Buddhism. A Study of the Work of Father Sumaṅgalo . Singapore 1992, pp. 7 and 34 ( ISBN 9789839030105 )
  7. ↑ Martin Baumann : German Buddhists. History and communities . Diagonal-Verlag 1993, p. 159 ( ISBN 9783927165144 )
  8. ↑ a b Birgit Zotz: Jack Austin and the principle of dialogue. In: Der Kreis , No. 271, May 2014 ( ISSN  2197-6007 )
  9. ↑ Oliver Bottini : The great OW Barth book of Buddhism . Barth 2004, p. 336 ( ISBN 9783502611264 )
  10. ^ World Congress of Faiths: World Faiths Encounter 1-6, 1992, p. 48
  11. ↑ Marcus Braybrooke: A Wider Vision: A History of the World Congress of Faiths 1936-1996 . Oneworld 1996, pp. 84-85 ( ISBN 9781851681198 )
  12. ↑ Marcus Braybrooke: Faiths in Fellowship. London 1976, p. 21
  13. ↑ Birgit Zotz: Jack Austin and the principle of dialogue . In: Der Kreis , No. 271, May 2014 ( ISSN  2197-6007 )
  14. ^ Carolyn Farquhar Ulrich: Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory. Vol. XVI (1975), p. 1358
  15. ^ Benn's Media Directory . London 1986, p. 460
  16. ↑ Komyoji: Jôdô Shinshû - The gateway into the Mahâyâna
  17. ↑ HORAI Association: Correspondence Inagaki-Austin
personal data
SURNAME Austin, Jack
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author and Buddhist
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Caerleon , Wales
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1993