Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan.
Editors’ note: Professor KIGOSHI Yasushi teaches at Ōtani University, a private university in Kyoto, Japan, with an emphasis on Shin Buddhist studies. In addition to being an alumni of the university, Professor Kigoshi served as president from 2016 to 2022. Unique among the Japanese authors contributing to this edited volume, Professor Kigoshi has lived in the United States for short periods of time. He was visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley 2022–2023, and he also spent part of his childhood in Berkeley while his father served as a Jōdo Shinshū minister for the Berkeley Higashi Honganji temple. Professor Kigsohi is well respected in the emerging field of chaplaincy in Japan for his compassionate and innovative leadership, taking Ōtani University student volunteers to disaster-stricken areas affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In this way, he is one of the pioneers in initiating theological field education (contextual education) in Japanese Buddhist higher education.