Ursula Baatz has written an excellent book in German about him (it hasn’t been translated into English, although I think there are already other European language editions). His influence there is especially strong. He introduced Zen as a meditative practice among many young Jesuits and other Christians in Japan and, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, within Europe. After World War II, he became an ardent student of Zen, other Eastern meditative traditions and Christianity’s own mysticism. Lassalle, who was born in Germany, had become interested in Zen before World War II and, long before the ecumenical movement took hold, he was reaching out to Buddhists in Japan. He went on to conceive of the World Peace Memorial Cathedral, win papal approval, raise funds around the world and work with the famous architect Togo Murano on it. One of the other priests became one of the six main characters in John Hersey’s wonderful “Hiroshima.” Although Lassalle was blocked from leaving the city by fires, a rescue party from a monastery about 2.5 miles or so away made it into Hiroshima that night and took him to safety. But Lassalle had been badly injured in the bombing, which blew down the priests’ residence where he lived. Lassalle wasn’t one to talk much about himself, so he didn’t like to dwell on his bombing experience. Late on a hot afternoon, I heard about him and, with an interpreter, hurried out to interview him. Hugo Enomiya Lassalle, a Jesuit priest, came to Hiroshima in 1986 to receive a special honorary citizen award from the city at the annual commemoration of the bombing anniversary. Inspired still by the memory of meeting a Catholic priest who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, I went to a Zen meditation session.įr. I was in Tokyo last week and did something I had been thinking about for more than 20 years.
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