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Shōchō Hagami

Shōchō Hagami (August 15, 1903–March 7, 1989) was a great acharya of the Tendai school and one of the most prominent Japanese Buddhists of the 20th century. He served as President of the Japan Conference for World Federation and advocated the need for the cooperation of religious leaders that transcends religious and denominational boundaries. Hagami devoted himself to promote interfaith dialogue within Japan and worldwide, and also sought to enhance mutual respect and reconciliation among three monotheistic religions.

Hagami was originally a professor of German philosophy at Taishi University and in turn served as a journalist for the Sanyo Newspaper. The untimely death of his wife as well as the defeat of Japan at WWII triggered him to pursue religious life, whereby to help Japan restore itself from the postwar devastation. He entered the Buddhist monastery at Mount Hiei, the headquarters of the Tendai sect.

Hagami was the 39th monk in history who completed the ordeal of endurance, perseverance, and both physical and mental strength, known as sennichi kaiho gyo (千日回峰行) in Japanese, or “thousand-day around-the-peaks training.” He also completed other ordeals such as a thousand days of unshin kaiho gyo (運心回峰行) and a thousand days of kokke zanmai gyo (法華三昧行). While fostering new generations of Japan for lives of influence and service, Hagami was actively engaged to promote reconciliation and peaceful coexistence worldwide. He appealed Pope Paul VI and other religious leaders of the world to create an International League of all religious people of the whole world in order to end all the wars among religions or conflicts caused in the name of religions.

Hagami once noted: “It is said that the root of all evil is human pride, obstinacy, human ego, class ego, racial ego, and national ego. Yet religion which is supposed above all to teach the casting away of ego, itself has the egoism of sects and religious institutions. And this is what makes me dislike religionists. . . . True religion is born from the abyss of despair. I believe that when it really becomes a question of whether mankind will service or not, then religion will return to a purer position, and will set out in a great new direction.” (Shocho Hagami, Ganshin: My Life (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1986) ix).

Hagami maintained that for the advancement of world peace, Christianity, Islam and Judaism must be reconciled, and that Japanese Buddhists—as religious people of the first victim of nuclear attack in human history—must serve as mediators for that reconciliation. Accordingly, he visited Egypt and the Vatican many times and established close friendships with the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as well as with Cardinal Benadryl of the Vatican.

In July 1977, Hagami visited President Sadat in Egypt and urged Sadat’s decision to make peace with Israel. This was said to be one of the triggers that led Sadat’s dramatic journey to the Knesset in Israel. Sadat himself remarked on this point in his letter of gratitude to Hagami.

At Hagami’s suggestion, Sadat also sponsored a communal service in November 1979, gathering representatives of Islam, Judaism and Christianity at the foot of Mount Sinai on the occasion of the return of the Sinai Peninsula.

In October 1981, when Hagami learned about the assassination of Sadat, he felt personally responsible for Sadat’s death. This is because Hagami urged Sadat to make peace with Israel and Sadat was said to have been killed for shaking hands with Jews. In March 1984, Hagami organized a joint prayer meeting for world peace on Mount Sinai, by appealing to religious leaders in the US and Egypt. 130 people assemble there to represent Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Shintoism, from the US, Egypt, Israel and Japan, and prayed for the speedy end of the Middle East War and performed different religious ceremonies according to the respective styles of rituals.

In August 1987, Hagami invited prominent leaders of various religions of the world to hold the first Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei, Japan. Hagami thereby sought to advance peaceful coexistence, interfaith dialogue, and acceptance of others. He visited Israel in 1988 and was acquainted with a variety of religious leaders and scholars such as Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu and Dr. André Chouraqui. To further advance interfaith dialogue, Hagami planned to hold a Religious Summit Meeting in Jerusalem but died before its fruition.