Julius-Kei Kato: Hybridity, Multiple Identities, and Buddhist-Christian Double Belonging

This presentation will be a reflection, based on this scholar-teacher’s personal experience and research, on how the abovementioned themes apply specifically to Buddhist-Christian double-belonging. It will compare Buddhist-Christian double-belonging to how a person acquires a complex, hybrid identity through the experience of multiple ethnicities and the exposure to different cultures through immigration and diaspora. Just as the experience of hybridity adds a new identity to the subject but does not make the older, original identity disappear, in parallel fashion, immersion through study and practice in another religious tradition (i.e., Buddhism in this scholar-practitioner’s case) adds a new spiritual-religious identity, as it were, but does not make the older, original spiritual-religious identity disappear. Both identities will have to be integrated into the same person. This presentation will also further elaborate on how those multiple dynamics come together to produce a rich spirituality and religiosity that could offer a significant contribution to our contemporary world and epoch, one that is sometimes insightfully described as an “interspiritual” age.