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 78-12,214
KREBS, Harry D., 1942·
THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF NISHITANI
KEIJI.
Temple University,
Ph.D., 1978
Re11g1on, philosophy

THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF NISHITANI KEIJI

University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Mlchl,an 48106

(C) Harry D. Krebs 1977

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Harry D. Krebs
January 1978

Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
...... ,

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE BOARD TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE . . . i

INTRODUCTION. 1

I. THE CONTEXT OF THE INQUIRY:

MODERNIZATION, SCIENCE AND MYTH. 23
Tick of DluM4cloft: THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF NISHITANI KEIJI
Modernization. 23
Science. • . . 39
Myth • . • . • • 62
II . THE PARAl1ETERS OF THE INQUIRY:
NISHITANI'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE
OF RELIGION • • • . . • . • . 71

AlichOI': Dharma. . . . . . . . . . • • · .. 71
Religion as the "Middle Path," the
HARRY D. KREBS "way of negativity". 84
Fields of Reality •. 89

_qJJ~ ~ ~--,
Great Doubt. 101
Sin and Evil • • . 106
"""'"" Appmwd br• Atheism. • . • • • 111
Conclusions . . • • 115
~ - --·~- l- :+L~
-~ .J III. NISHITANI'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE
.,. __ ; _ .. \_I ~, cr c L. "" -- - - - - - - - - - - PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL. 120
Modernity and Science as Impersonal. 120
The Personal in Buddhism and
Christianity • . • • • • • 131
Eckhart: r.od as Impersonal • • • • • 136
Man as Personal. • • • • • • . • • • 145
IV. NIHILISM: THE NATURE OF SUBSTANCE
IN METAPHYSICS . . • • • • • . • 150
Nihilum as Toward Life or Toward Death 150
Nihi1um as Death-sive-Life • • • . • • . 168
Date IUbmittcd to the Graduate ~YemlleL.S......l.217______ Nihi1um and Substance. . • • • • . • • . 178
v. SUNYATA: THE NATURE OF EMPTINESS AND
NOTHINGNESS . . . . • . 183
Aca:ptcd by the Graduate Board of Temple
degm: of Doctor of Phil0110phy. Field and Subject • • • 183
The Field of Emptiness . 195
,.,4ft11- ~- Emptiness as Self • • • 203
 VI. PREFACE
SAMSARA: THE NATURE OF LIFE AND DEATH
IN TIME • ... .... 211
History and Definition • This dissertation is an attempt to do a critical expo-
211
. . .. . .
Keto . . . . • . . . .
Body and Mind. • • ... 221
227 sition of the work of Nishitani Keiji relating to the sub-
VII. KARMA: THE NATURE OF LIFE AND DEATH ject of religion. We make a fine but vital distinction be-
IN HISTORY • , , • , . • • •
235
tween analyzing the thought of Nishitani and less generally,
Western Theories of History •• , , • , 235
Time as Circular • . • • • • . • • 248 but more to our point, analyzing his specific treatment of
The "task-character" and "infinite
aperture" of History • . • • • 258 religion in terms of its place in the Comparative Study of
The "infinite impulse" of Modern Man . • 267
Aspects of Time. • . . • . • • • 273 Religions. Historically, our intention is to see the place
Religious Practice: Compassion, 2 79
of Nishitani's religious thought as a significant part of
VIII. CONCLUSIONS •• .... 290
the development of man's inquiry into the nature of religion
BIBLIOGP~HY, •••• .... 313
and his own situation that is not bound to a particular
cultural or civilizational context. Structurally, the em-
phasis is placed on elucidating and evaluating Nishitani's
attempt to assess on his own grounds certain problems in the
history of western religious thought and modern scientific
thought, and his construction of a view of reality which
represents his own synthesis of earlier Buddhist thought--
especially that of Madhyamika and Zen. This is not, then,
so much a philosophy of religion as a critical evaluation of
Nishitani's understanding of religion from a comparativist's
point of view; it is not our intention to criticize, either,
Nishitani as a historian of philosophy, i.e., to correct his
interpretation of such as Nietzsche, Kant, Eckhart, etc.
whose work he considers in answering the question he poses:

i
"What is Religion?" who has suffered longest and contributed most is the person
We begin by putting forward the context for this in- to whom it is dedicated: my wife Jane.
quiry: describing the arena into which Nishitani's work is
thrust and articulating some of our own methodological as-
sumptions. We show how his analysis of the confrontation
between science and religion sheds light on the human con-
dition and how the human condition, particularly that of
modern man, in turn provides the context for realizing the
resolution to the problem of what is religion. We then put
forward the context within which Nishitani's own work must
be seen by examining some of the prominent considerations
which are presupposed in his own study. We proceed to give
a critical overview of Nishitani's understanding of religion
followed by chapters on the key categories in which he con-
siders different aspects of religion--these amounting to
perspectives from which he views the subject of religion.
We conclude by assessing the contribution of Nishitani in
his own terms and those of western thought.
The flaws in this work must remain our own but the
writer wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the two men
who have most profoundly shaped his thinking: Dr. Richard J.
DeMartino and Dr. Nishitani Keiji himself. Dr. DeMartino,
particularly, has waited a long time for this work to come
to fruition. Dr. Nishitani has been particularly helpful in
providing many of the materials as well as the model of
argumentation on which this study is based. The person, though,

ii II iii

INTRODUCTION
Nishitani Keiji was born in 1900 and graduated from
the Faculty of Literature of Kyoto Imperial University in
1924. He was appointed assistant professor of the Univer-
sity in 1935, full Professor of Philosophy there in 1943, re-
tired in 1964 and is currently Professor Emeritus of Relig-
ious Philosophy at Otani University. His first great work
w~s The Philosophy of Fundamental Subjectivity published in
1940. Other works which followed were: World View and State
View (1941), Studies in Aristotle (1948), God and Absolute
Nothingness (1948), Nihilism (1949), Religion and the Social
Problems of Modern Times (1951), and, perhaps his most im-
portant publication, What is Religion? (1956). Perhaps the
strongest influence on Nishitani's work has been his work
under Nishida Kitaro. Other major influences were his at-
traction to Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Emerson, Carlyle, the
Judea-Christian scriptures, St. Francis of Assisi, Natsurne
Soseki (1867-1916), and the two famous Zen masters Hakuin
(1~5~768) and Takuan (1573-1645). From the left-wing He-
gelian, Max Stirner (1806-1856), he adopted the concept of
"creative nothingness" which we will refer to methodologi-
cally as the "way of negativity."
Nishitani saw within himself the connection between
nihilism which so occupied his thoughts and the way to en-
lightenment called the "Great Doubt." His work on nihilism,
2
prompted by Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche (especially the lat-
ter's too facile comparison of European nihilism with Bud-
dhist emptiness), led him into the study of ethics andre-
ligion which nihilism largely rejects. His work deals
regularly with the problem of evil and after making contri-
butions to the study of mysticism (a short history and an
answer to Rudolf Otto's Die West-Hstliche Mystik are in-
cluded in his God and Absolute Nothingness) he has recently
been most concerned with the relationship of eastern and
western cultural influences and the relationship between the
sciences, religion and philosophy. His work under Heidegger
in Freiburg before World War II is manifest in this work es-
pecially.
In a review of lVha t is Religion?, 1 Abe Masao, calling
What is Religion? an "epoch-making book," suggests that it
tries--and succeeds--in doing for the second half of the
twentieth century what Friedrich Schleiermacher's Uber die
Religion did at the end of the eighteenth century: "showing
the roots of religion itself and making clear the irreduc-
ible value and truth of religion, as distinguished from
ethics and metaphysics. Since both books, however, are a
thoroughgoing confrontation with their respective contempor-
ary religious situations, their standpoints are bound to dif-
fer greatly. SCHLEIE~CHER was living in a Western Christ-
Tetsugaku KenkyO (Kyoto University, 1962), No. 483, 83-
104. Quotes here are taken from Jan van Bragt's "Notulae on
Emptiness and Dialogue: Reading Professor Nishitani' s 't.Jhat
is Religion?"' Japanese Religions, IV, No. 4 (Winter, 1966)
pp. 50-78.
 3 4

ian tradition and confronted the rationalistic tendencies ness ." 4 Nishitani hoped to find an original formulation of

of the Enlightenffient. NISHITANI lives in a real 'world'- the solution to the problem of man striving to comP to grips

situation, where East and West meet. His work is a radical with Reality. He says, in the Preface to his What is Reli-

confrontation wi:h the present scientific men t ality, athe- gion?, "In so far as I am questioning all religion, I do not

ism , and Nihilism, and at the same time with Christianity, base my reasoning on any article of faith or doctrine of any

Buddhism and HEIDEGGER." 2 He makes no attempt at an objec- particular religion. Therefore, even when I draw them into

tive, scientific study of religious phenomena but concen- the discussion, I treat them as provisionally einge:~lam­
5
trates on a subjective examination based on the reality of mert (put into brackets).

the self in the present age and focused on the root ground Nishitani, living in a highly westernized mode~ Japan,

or fundament out of which religion and the "religions" is painfully aware of the problem at hand. As he h~mself

emerge. 3 In this way he hopes to arrive at what religion says, "Westernization has destroyed almost all our ~: raditions,

"ought" to be for modern man; striving to find the "place" including the traditional spirituality, the religions, and

of religion by opening up the way within the sal£. The goal philosophies of our ancestors; and what may be a su :)stitute

is to reach Reality, Real Reality, via Religion in its "place," for the traditional spirituality has not as yet been imported,

the "place of Emptiness." Consequently we have an empty place in the foundation of our

Nishitani is really only concerned to establish points life, at the depth of our spiritual being . . • . Such things

of contact with other viewpoints and cultures and his own as philosophy and religion by their very nature cannot be

description of the standpoint of Emptiness refiects, as Abe readily transplanted in the same way as techniques and poli-

suggests, "the severe and deep personal experience of the tical systems, for example, can. When a religion or phi-

author who, for a long time, was immersed in the awareness of losophy is transplanted, there is no other way but zor it to

'nihil', but broke through it into the standpoint of Empti- spring up from the inner source in the mind of the ~eople.

. • . The path can be opened only by each one alone, and at-
2
Ibid., pp. Sl-52.
tained only by one's own effort. " 6
3
on the one hand, man's psyche is considered as react-
ing privately, emotionally--even arbitrarily--in a "subjec- 4 Ibid., p. 61, note 20.
tive" manner over against the scientific, "real" objectivity.
On the other hand man as subject is considered as the origi- Srbid. , p. 61.
nator and carrier of cultural reality, i.e., as historically
creative subject. Here subjectivity is opposed to cultural 6"The Religious Situation in Present-Day Japan," Con-
reality as a given. temporary Religions in Japan, I, No. 1 (l~rch 1960), p:-Il.
 5 6
One of the major motivating forces behind much of the
work done in the field of religious studies in the West in
the last one hmtdred or so years since the pioneering work
of Friedrich Max Muller has b~en the desire to establish the
study of religion as an autonomous discipline, as an "obj ec-
tive" science in its own right. To this end scholars have
invested their entire lives in formulating definitions, ana-
lyzing the proper relation between religion and other sci-
ences such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc., and,
more importantly, trying to remove the normative 7 elements
from this study--at the very least to draw clear lines of
demarcation between the various methodological perspectives
of these sciences and in turn within them. That this is
the case is made especially clear when we read the work of
Asian scholars who have read deeply in the western tradi-
tions and in turn formulated categories which rest upon an
analysis of them. Kishimoto Hideo is representative of
such scholars and has even prompted the coining of the word
"religiology" to designate the most "objective" and scienti-
fic aspect of the study of religion. 8
7
"Normative understanding is that level of understand-
ing or knowledge which asks the question of truth . • . .
Normative understanding asks: 'Is such a view about Ultimate
Reality true? Is it worthy of allegiance?'" Robert D.
Baird, Categorr Formation and the History of Religions (The
Hague: Mouton Co., 1971), pp. 106-7.
8 Hideo, "Religiology," NI.IIllen, XIV, No. 1 (June 1966), 81-86,
He suggests that the two subjective aspects of the
study of religion are the theological and philosophical and
that the two objective aspects are the historical and sci-
entific. Theology is based on the ~tandpoint of faith, phi-
losophy of religion constitutes the study of religion based
This is not to argue for the futility of such studies;
on the contrary we have been much advanced in our under-
standing of man and the human community in the larger world
environment. But such investigations and the stigma often
attached to diverging from the mainstream of inquiry has not
much advanced the normative question. Few scholars have
actually argued that the normative inquiry was useless or
irnpossible 9 but merely that it is a discrete enterprise, the
intrusion of which can only do injury to more objectiv~ in-
vestigations by adding confusing elements, i.e., the subjec-
tive dimension of man. Nishitani believes that there is no
such thing as a totally "objective" or "scientific" study
of anything. At best we can only try to keep close track of
various levels or dimensions of any inquiry, fully conscious
that these are not "pure" inquiries any more than there are
"pure" phenomena apart from their relation to the observer.
It is clear that,whether talking about C. P. Tiele who felt
he could tabulate a hierarchy of religious truth or Max
Muller whose "science of religion" included "comparative
theology," the science of religion did not substitute ob-
jectivity for a more subjective interpretation but merely
on reason (the meaning of religion for rational thought), the
historical study of religion treats objects as unique phe-
nomena, and religiology (the scientific) regards objects as
manifestations of typical, universal phenomena. Kishimoto
and "An Operational Definition of Religion," Numen, VIII,
No. 3 (December 1961), 236-240.
9
It may well be that their inattention to the matter
indicates something of their priorities and apprehensions.
 7 8
exchanged one subjective position for another. "Although
Joachim Wach held that the science of religion was not nor-
mative, and placed the question of truth in suspension, the
phenomenological goal of verstehen (understanding) was not
merely an act of the mind, but involved the total being of
10
a scholar, hence militating against pure objectivity."
Historians are surely interested in early, classical or mod-
ern understandings of God, Reality and the Ground of Being
but these are not entities devoid of connection with man and
his various activities, the study of which is more properly
the focus of historians. The same can be said of philosophers
and perhaps even of theologians. Those who aim at describing
and fathoming the structures of the apprehension of God,
Sunyata, and the Ground of Being are asking a different type
of question from those who are asking, "What is the nature
of God, Sunyata, and the Ground of Being?"
The point, of course, is that while different types of
questions may each have their own validity, the intention of
the investigators must be clearly differentiated. The bulk
of this dissertation is a descriptive analysis of one man's
normative inquiry. In our efforts we are concerned to assess
the utility and adequacy of Nishitani's more normative and
ontological definition. He wants to know what is religion;
we want to know whether his conclusions have wider implica-
tions at two levels. The first is more or less objective
and historical in that any light Nishitani might be able to
10 Baird, p. 107.
shed on the nature of religion could further our understand-
ing of the variegated and complex nature of man. The second
is more or less subjective and perhaps normative in that we
assume that all investigations of man in general or in par-
ticular require some evaluation in order for them to have
meaning for us. That is, they finally help us address our
own version of the normative question posed by Nishitani as:
"What is Religion?"
With respect to our own definition of religion we find
ourselves faced with an almost endless variety of alterna-
~ive~ posed by scholars over the centuries. We do not pro-
pose to critique these many definitions and have answered the
prior question whether or not to bother defining religion
at all by adopting a working definition, variations of which
have served representatives of both western and Asian schol-
ars well, though certainly not without criticism, and may
be useful in the context of a study of Nishitani's thought.
By religion we mean to indicate man's self-awareness in re-
lation to what he considers ultimately valuable and meaning-
ful.11 In this context, the various religious traditions
11
Ultimate does not refer hPr.e to anything with abso-
lute metaphysical stacus. Thet·.:: may be such objects of
reference in an absolutely real sense but we are not con-
cerned to affirm or deny this. In a descriptive or struc-
tural sense we only hope to indicate whatever it is to which
all else is subordinate for the person under consideration
at the moment. The point is that we are making certain
methodological delimitations rather than any theological as-
sertions, and these methodological delimitations do not rule
out or conflict with any definition which focuses on the
object of the inquiry rather than the subject. Cf. Baird,
chpts. l and 2. Our working definition owes less to Paul
 9 10

r-r "religions" such as Christianity, Buddhism, etc. are them. For Nishi tani, then, although he too engages in the

related, but ever-changing, structures of human experience descripti,re enterprise, his primary intention is normative

and expression within continuous, and unchanging, symbolic and it remains to be seen if his assumptions are supported

forms or paradigms of man's relation to the ultimate con- and his arguments warrant his conclusions. At the very least

ditions of his existence. We are not trying necessarily to Nishitani is arguing that religion is a word we may use to

avoid any of the connotations attached elsewhere to the word label a class of phenomena--things and events--in the exter-

religion but are merely trying to bring some degree of focus nal world; normatively he is arguing for much more. We

to the term which may be meaningful in the context of this shoul d not be surprised to find him describing the normative

study. Further, it should be clear that religion defined sys tems of other thinkers and traditions--western and east-

in this way suggests that it is appropriate to focus on the ern-- and then, in Buddhist fashion, arguing that religion

study of man. This is not, again, exclusive but suggests is not that.

that particularly in the context of the comparative study Since the "hidden agenda" behind any attempt such as

of religion it may be more helpful to introduce such matters this to provide a description and analysis of another norma-

as the Holy or the Transcendent at a later point in our in- tive statement is the normative content informing the ob-

quiry and then with reference to man. This avoic·, at the server's pP.rspective, we propose to make more explicit this

outset at least, conflicts with such religious traditions starting point and acknowledge that it is considerably in-

as implicitly or explicitly deny such a dimension of real- formed by the work of Nishitani--both in his writings and

ity. I~ ulso helps avoid the tendency to investigate the teaching.

nature of religion on the basis of unstated, ~ priori assump- Religion as man's experience of what he finds ultimately

tions which, as normative assertions, require as much sup- valuable and meaningful provides an opening to reality for

port as the conclusions which may be argued as following upon him, in as ultimate a sense as may be metaphysically the
case, but, and this is more meaningful to him, it is as ser-
Tillich' s famous discussion of religion as "ultimate concern"
than to Robert Bellah's formulation of religion as "man's ious an exercise in his control of his experience as he is
attitudes and actions with respect to his ultimate concern"
which we do find helpful, enp. in the study of Japanese relig- capable of at any given moment. It may have practical, so-
ion--a useful consideration in this dissertation. Cf. Robert
Bellah, Toku awa Reli ion: The Values of Pre-Industrial Ja an cial implications and, indeed, even be validated by communal
(Boston: Beacon Press, l 7 , p. . In this way one avoi s
focusing upon various "isms" rather than the study of man, or consensus; but it must also provide for him a mode of re-
merely upon materials which have traditionally been included
in the study of the "religions." lease from these entanglernencs, i.e. , provide an awareness
 12
11

ness and the things of which we are aware. The resolution

of a reality that is more than the social and perhaps even
of the problems posed for us by these dualities is seen by
than the existential. An inquiry into the nature of religion
us as more or less urgent. Individuals rely in varying de-
or any description of religion must take seriously the as-
grees upon themselves or others for resolutions. Religious
sercions and affirmations of adherents of other religious
traditions have historically been more or less concerned to
traditions or accept the risk that it may have seriously im-
provide, interpret and/or preserve resolutions for persons
paired the inquirer's own experience, i.e., rendered it less
who may not have found their own r~~olution, indeed, may not
than ultimate for him. The magnitude of this task throws up
even have become conscious of the problem. 12 Certainly one
before man the other factors involved in his religiosity,
must not confuse the need to inform others with the need
viz., the anxiety, frustration and meaninglessness of his
felt by some to make clearer for themselves their own under-
experience--not always felt in any ultimate sense but none-
standing of the nature of religion by writing or speaking.
theless always felt.
More formally the comparative study of religions is a
There are what seem to be certain universal character-
useful exercise in comprehending the history and structure
istics of human existence. Nature and society provide us
of man's existential anxiety in terms of his own understand-
with certain contexts or settings in which we live our lives.
ing of his relation to himself, to his fellowmen, to his
We cannot avoid feelings of contingency and uncertainty about
world, and to whatever he attaches ultimate significance in
ordinary matters, however important, such as what we will eat
solving the problem of life and death. In the normative
and wear; and about more fundamental matters such as whether
enterprise it provides a wider range of experiences to draw
we will live another moment. We are often more or less power-
on in resolving that problem for oneself. Methodologically
less in the face of forces we do not fully understand and
the historical, structural and evaluative considerations are
conditions which exist in society. Our experience of life
informative perspectives on the problem. It is, of course,
onlluarily takes on a dialectical character in which we see
the latter consideration, the evaluative, that is the most
things and events in terms of dualities: ultimate concerns
(life and death) and preliminary concerns (material well- 12 This accounts for the need felt within Christianity
and Islam to inform (and occasionally to coerce) others who
being); ordinary and extraordinary experiences; the sacred have not heard the resolution to their problems, and, among
those traditions less concerned, the lack of need felt by
and the secular; right and wrong; good and evil; even epis- adherents of Zen. Different schools within Buddhism thus
reacted quite differently to the so-called silence of the
temologically we see this dualism in the form of experi- Buddha on "questions which tend not to edification."
encer and thing experienced; knower and thing known, aware-
 13
controversial and the most frequently avoided. Clearly
evaluation is necessary in historical and structural con-
siderations to select the most relevant data and to choose
between innate and imposed categories. Evaluation at the
normative level makes discerning, cautious judgments about
meaning and truth and value in an attempt to resolve, not
merely such problems as ere relation of Buddhism to Christianity,
but the problem oi, .i.n Nishitani' s phrase, "What is Relig-
ion?" which is the problem of life and death.
The commonest errors generally arise out of a misplaced
emphasis on one or the other of the methodoloeical tools to
the exclusion of the others. Thus excessive emphasis on the
historical-descriptive method, as sometimes occurs in the
hands of sociologists, ethnologists and anthropologists,
leads to inadequate attention being paid to the dynamic,
life-or-death nature of human activity. Undue emphasis on
structural matters by phenomenologists or morphologists
often leads to the interpretation or translation of the con-
cerns of religion into the language of economics, psychology,
etc., i.e., to a "reduction," This kind of reduction is a
form of desacralization much feared by many historians of
religion. Continual attention to normative evaluations
brings constantly to bear the pressure of man's attitude or
orientation to things in the world, the fundamental ten-
dency of consciousness to take a stand in relation to what
it encounters. Consciousness and experience, the two aspects
14
of human awareness, are thus kept in balance and dialogue. 13
Just as man's fundamental problems are seen in dualities,
so man's self-awareness is cast in relief against the things
and events of the world in which he stands. The crucial
thing is that man is not merely aware of some thing or event
but stands in some fundamental relation to that objective
thing or event in relation to which he is the subjective cor-
relate. In making this problem uniquely his own man takes
on his particular version of the religious quest for self-
awareness in its ultimate form for him. In Mahayana Bud-
dhism this takes the form of the extinction of avidya by
mahaprajna and mahakaruna. This is the resolution of crises
or breaking points variously described by Nishitani as the
"turn-abouts" or "about faces" from condemnation, pessimism,
dis-ease, and anxiety to possibility, hope, at-ease, and
tranquillity. The method of the self-reflective thinker is
to realize or make explicit what is ordinarily hidden; this
in the form of actualizing his understanding of his problem in
an absolutely serious way.
This is the fundamental philosophical act of ~riticism,
radical criticism. From Buddhism we can learn that meta-
physical inquiry is not necessary, perhaps not even helpful.
13 There are, to be sure, many ways of defining self-
awareness which may be more specific but the aspects of con-
sciousness and experience seem to us to include the referents
of the term "self-awareness" as utilized in our definition of
religion. The components of consciousness and experience
might further be broken down into the doxic, the emotive, the
volitional and the evaluative. Further, one may speak of var-
ious modes of awareness such as perception, memory, antici-
pation, judgment, symbolization, etc.
 15 16

reflec tive thinker is precipitated by a crisis (of varying

John G. Arapura has suggested that Buddhism is an existen-
degrees of seriousness) of an existential and epistemic
tialism of tranquillity in which ". . anxiety gives way
sort. This is the experience and consciousness which are
to, and is resolved, in tranquillity which alone is thence-
aspect;s of the "whole bodily experience" out of which self-
forth endowed with ontological dignity." 14 Its four-fold
awar eness emerges. The negative dialectic, as the method
negative dialectic stands outside what it considers spurious
or "way into and beyond," and the epistemological experi-
metaphysical problems of being in favor of a genuine existen-
ence are mutually interpenetrating. They are a more or less
tial ontology. Though it is doubtful that this is a fair
serious (urgent or critical) action-intuition. The emergent
assessment of such schools of Buddhism as T'ien-t'ai and
self-awareness, if concerned with what man considers ulti-
Hua-yen and certainly is not true of Nishitani's thought ic
mately valuable or meaningful, is more than a mere awareness
does represent a distinctive form of the fundamental philo-
of objects. It is the mutual interpenetration of subject
:ophical act of criticism to be assessed along with other
and object. A problem (uncomfortable, unfami.liar, ill-at-ease)
epistemic cl~ims. It also serves to remind us that the reso-
calls our attention to, or is cast in relief against, the
lution of man's fundamental problems may u~t require look-
unproblematic (comfortable, familiar, at-ease). The resolu-
ing £or first caus.::s, indeed, it may more producti,rely be
tion of the problem is a form of the epistemic search; it
seen as auto-creative or self-derived.
is ultimately critical as an attempt to pacify the "heart-
It is probably safe to say that the majority of the
mind." It entails ceasing to take for granted the seemingly
western intellectual tradition since Plato has seen epis-
unproblematic, questioning the formerly unquestioned. It
temic claims as finally concerned with the nature of Being.
further involves a context to which it is correlative with
Along with these considerations which continue to require
varying levels of perception and difficulty, the descriptive
our attention we must take seriously that another aspect of
explication of the "ordinary," the common, and the "taken
epistemic claims is their communicative value. Perhaps the
for granted." Finally, if pursued with seriousness it yields
vast Prajnaparamita literature is most illustrativ~ of this
a resolution proportional to that seriousness. Buddhism as
side of epistemology--providing spiritual guidelines with-
a tradition may be seen in this light as providing a topes
out making elaborate or systematic claims about the nature
or "place" or possibility for this inquiry. 15
of truth. The criticism (more or less radical) of the self-
15
"Place" and topob are translations of the word basho.
Nishitani and other mem ers of the Kyoto School use thrs---
term consistently, having taken it from the Nishidatetsugaku,

17
It is crucial what kind of affairs are attended to or
t reated with seriousness. For example, Nishitani (and
practically everyone else for that matter) speaks of the
radical collapse of norms and values in today's modern
world. It is the case that such a collapse is defined by
a particular historical situation and context but not for
all time; for this reason any epistemic claims in connection
with this affair need to be seen, not in terms of their
absolute claim to truth, but in terms of their communica-
tive--one might even say therapeutic--value. In this man-
ner, one treats orher claims with full seriousness but
without the dangers of the exclusive nature of some truth
claims. Fundamentally, man's problem is always based in
certain beliefs: minimally in the "fact" of the world and
himself in that world. The former is an almost primordial
commitment ; it is a form of "animal faith" or cust"m and
habit. The latter is conceived with varying degrees of
importance as existing within the world as taken for granted.
One of the major enlightenments of western intellectual
history has been a kind of astonishment that whatever is is
a function of our subjective beliefs. 16 This may be the
ed.
18
modern equivalent of the search for the numinous in the West
but it has long since been realized in Buddhism. It has
reintroduced the possibility of focusing once again on the
study of man in the West whereas it never left that focus
in much of eastern thought. Carried to extremes, the search
for the nurinous constituted the de-humanization of man. 17
This is not to argue for or against the numinous as reality
but to assert the methodological superiority of focusing
ones epistemic search on the study of man. Ones search for
absolutes constitutes a form of tanha (grasping, thirst, de-
sire). A genuine search is a radical criticism where every-
thing and nothing is holy, where the resolve is to stop at
nothing, to take nothing for granted, to acknowledge that
there may be no straightforward exposition of how and why.
For the Buddhist and Nishitani this is the negative dia-
lectic. This dialectic, however, cannot even stick to its
own principle. It cannot be maintained as a structure that
will stay basic no matter how it is modified. In criticizing
saw this most clearly but instead of embracing it as funda-
mental saw it as a reason for despair and skepticism. The
former attitude he shares with Buddhism but not the latter.
As far as can be determined Hume rejected his insight on-
tologically but not in terms of the actions of ordinary
life, the things done by custom and habit.
17 Attempts to preserve the transcendent by claiming as
transcendent the experience of the self as a subject know-
ing itself by turning critically inward perpetuates the
basic problematic, i.e., the dualism between the knower and
the known. It produces a sophisticated, but patho-logical
transcendental ego.
 19 20

a metaphysics or an ontology we do not aim at another meta- . • . Folly is truth in the form which men are struck with

physics or a variant ontology--not even at one of being as amid untruth they will not let truth go. ,lS We must

nonmetaphysical or nonontological. This would be hypostatiz- speak on this false base or die on this base and in this

ing the concept of nonconceptuality and acting counter to sense, too, language is also necessary. Irresponsibility

the meaning of the dialectic. For Nishitani no "total" phi- lies both in excessive trust in the past and unwillingness

losl'lphy is desirable--this would be attachment. to risk the future. Modernity appears to be the only real

In this context, language or talk, written or spoken or security there is because it is precisely this openness to

acted, may be seen to have different aspects. Language change in full awareness of the attendant risks. It is

(and systems or "philosophies" constructed by means of it) always the willingness to forsake old content and, in times

is, on the one hand, always false. It is incomplete and of metaphysical revolutions, even the forms which have given

often taken for granted. On the other hand it is also neces- temporary meaning to that content. It is understandable in

sary. It constitutes the record of man's own understanding this context that the usual Buddhist attitude toward scrip-

of his place in and commitment to the world. Language is tures has been that they are preliminarily useful but not

bound to the past; it is false precisely because it is so ultimately so; that words must ultimately fall short of

bound. It is dead, static. It is, however, also necessary. grasping Reality. This is not so different from r.hristian-

We cannot speak in the future, there is no present and the ity with respect to words but quite fundamentally different

past becomes the context or provides the parameters for our with respect to scriptures. The value in this is, of course,

existence. It is thus necessary, even though false. We are that it again precludes exclusivist claims while facilitating

guided by a dead language that is both false and necessary communicative ones. 19

because we cannot see or know into the future; we can only In these and Buddhist terms we may say that Nishitani

act with a certain bravado, a courage, into the unknown as offers us an existential ontology, both false and necessary,
through which he tells us of his own normative trans~ntologi-
though we were guided by the "Truth." There is no certainty
in this that is not also false. As Theodor Adorno has sug- 18
Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ash-
gested, "A thought that does not capitulate to the wretchedly ton (Ne~• York: The Seabury Press, 19 73) , p. 405.

ontical will founder u~on its criteria; truth will turn into 19
we are aware in all this, of course, that we may be
proposing a small-scale metaphysic of correlation. Our own
untruth, philosophy into folly. And yet philosophy cannot remarks must also be subject to the dual nature of epistemic
claims and the nature of language.
abdicate if stupidity is not to triumph in realized unreason.
 21 22

cal or trans-metaphysical conclusions. The importance of ence" or self-awareness involves the whole heart-mind moving
the undertaking and the dangers with which it is fraught may f rom avidya with i~s dukkha/pathos to the realization that
perhaps be best stated in his own words: " fire does not burn fire." It involves the subjective grasp
With the encounter of East and West proceeding of human life as rooted in the world; anicca is seen as the
in all fields of human activities at a surprisingly
rapid tempo, the mutual understanding is, needless context or topos; anatrnan reveals the self to be both false
to say, one of the most important tasks facing man-
kind today. Among the many difficulties lying hidden and necessary in the inquiry, it represents the intrusion
along the way of this task, the greatest appears when,
trying to penetrate in some degree the inner thought, of sunyata or Absolute Nothingness and obliges us to take
feelings and purposes of our copartners, we find
words and concepts, the inevitable vehicles of this t he problem seriously without resting finally in the start-
communication, rising up time and again to bar the
way. i ng point of subjectivity.
In that region near the innermost core of the mind,
in the region of things spiritual, the above-mentioned
difficulty becomes almost insurmountable. It is es-
pecially so in the case of encounter between world-
religions, such as Buddhism and Christianity, where
the differences between the religious faiths, residing
in the innermost mental core of both sides, are con-
cerned. In each of them, their own faith or insight
has long been formulated into creed and authoritatively
laid down as dogma predominating over all that men
think, feel or will, so that people become firmly
convinced of their own opinions and come to have great
confidence in themselves. Often their conviction and
self-confidence are armored by sharp analysis and
subtle dialectics which are developed in dogmatics.
In short, the religious faith or insight is translated
into words and concepts and these give birth to dogma
and dogmatics, which, in turn, serve to confirm that
faith or insight. Here is a process in which faith is
brought closer and closer to itself, thereby bP.coming
more firm and more self-confirmed, and thus more en-
closed within itself. Such is the process that occurs
in most cases within the innermost mind in religious
thinking, and therein arises the extreme difficulty
of mutual understanding between minds of different
religious faiths.20
Lived experience leads him to temporary structures which in
turn must be radically critiqued. The "whole bodily experi-
2
°Keij i Nishi tani, "Preliminary Remark," to "Two Addresses
by Martin Heidegger," Eastern Buddhist (New Series), Vol. I ,
No. 2, Sept., 1966, pp . 59-77.

CHAPTER I
THE CONTEXT OF THE INQUIRY:
MODERNIZATION, SCIENCE AND MYTH
I. Modernization
In order to facilitate understanding Nishitani's de-
tailed inquiry into "What is Religion 'l " it will be useful
to address ourselves to an exposition of three pivotal
factors which inform Nishitani's writings generally and pro-
vide something of the context for his inquiry. Nishitani
generally distinguishes between two uses of the term "con-
cept." "On the one hand, 'concept' simply indicates a uni-
versal 'something'; on the other hand, 'concept' refers to
an idea, interpretation, or expression of that univeral
'something. ,,l Ordinarily we do not distinguish between
these two aspects for this must be done when searching for
a radically new interpretation of a universal idea, a uni-
versal "something." Nishitani is not concerned to argue
that concepts such as faith, revelation, transc·mdence,
nihilism, etc. have of themselves become problematical.
Rather these remain the indispensible moments of the great
"religions" of the world. These concepts do, however, "1long
with man's attitudes toward them, require radical re-exami-
1 cation SerLes, No. 1, InternatLonal InstLtute for Japan
Keiji Nishitani, "A Buddhist Philosophn Looks at the
Future of Christianity," The Japan Christian Yearbook, 1968,
p. 108.
24
nation. These factors are the questions concerning modernity
and tradition, the conf:ict of science and religion, and the
r ole of myth as it informs the study of religion.
The study of religion, and especially the comparative
s tudy of religion, is inextricably bound up in the problem
of modernization. The process is unique in certain 1nspects
given the different traditions which have shaped it in dif-
f erent societies and civilizations but it shares certain com-
mon, universal features. Without attempting an exhaustive
li st, Nishitani cites two fundamental points:
One point is the fact that the fundamental driving
force behind the process of modernization is the de-
velopment of science and scientific technique. I
think we can say that science and scientific technique
have permeated every phase of man's personal and so-
cial life and that this is the most important factor
effecting the severance from tradition. The second
point cannot be fully considered apart from the first,
but I tentatively separate it (from the first) for
purposes of analysis. It is the concept of man which
has been formed through che historical process of
modern times--that is, the great change in the way a
human beint; vie~;s himself. 2
The ground out of which most scientis~s. from Demo-
cr itus, through Roger Bacon, the alchemists, Darwin, Einstein
and Bohr, operate is religious in the broadest sense. Inso-
f ar as that standpoint was identified with Christianity it
has gradually faded out of the picture in terms of its moti-
vational importance, Indeed, the entire process of history
2
Keiji ~ishitani, "On Modernization and Tradition in
J apan," Modernization and Tradition in Japan, Special Publi-
Studies, 1969, p. 69. By "concept of man" Nishitani refers
both to the theoretical viewpoint and to man in practical
l ife going about the "business of living."
 25 26

if man violates the order, he is no longer man, .• .. J

is closely tied to this shedding of any explicit religious
point of view. Nishi tani uses the term hitodenashi, a human being, yet not

The change in the concept of man has also had a pro- a true human being. Whether in the ontological order

found effect on human thinking on mat:t:ers rangiu~ Erom hu- (Plato's world of Ideas) or in the order of creation in

man freedom to political and economic problems. Nishitani Chris tianity , man's being was thought to be in some way

notes the increasing frequency throughout history of the rooted within the divine order. The highest humanity or

notion of "fundamental human rights" ; rights with which all "order of being" loses its essentially true humanity when,

human beings are endcwed by virtue of their being human. in the Platonic sense, he loses ponsession of the logos; or

The changing concept of man is closely linked with the con- in the Christian sense, he sins. "If man deviates from the

nection between (and their gradually emerging sundering cos mic order of all being, or from God's order of creation,

from) these fundamental rights and their being endowed by God. he then is not what man should be--he falls into self-con-

If we distinguish between modern times generally (post- tra diction."4 To violate the "order of being" is to be no

Descartes?) and the present (post-Industrial Revolution) we longer man, but hitodenashi. It is this order that the

could, according to Nishitani, characterize the various technological advance made possible by Darwin negated, or

problems of our time as invariably related in some more or was thought to negate. Man's animalistic nature had long

less direct way to technology. For instance, Darwin's evolu- been affirmed but was held in check by reason; Darwin and

tionary thccries were a technological advance and inflicted sub sequent technologists reversed the perspective and

a deep wound in the flesh of western thought, especially its seemed to be arguing that the intellect or reason was some-

explicitly religious thought. All subsequent thought had to how dependent upon man's animal nature.

take into account the scientific "fact" that man is merely Technology is one of the grounds underlying all dimen-

(albeit uniquely) an extension of a long line of animals. sions of man's being; it is a perspective from ~o1hich every-

This came on the scene as a fundamental denial of the basic thing is seen as a source of energy or power in the physical

understanding of man which underlay much of Greek and Judea- sense and relates to both the theoretical and practical

Christian thought. "In both Greek philosophy and Christian- asp ects of man's life. Matter, seen as the source of energy,

ity, man's being is viewed on a ground which is in some 3

rbid. ' p. 73.
sense 'holy'--where holy means something which, in essence, 4 Ibid.
man is not a llowed to violate, and 'in essence' means that

looks or appears differently to different people. Nishitani
suggests that there may be a "religious" way of perceiving
water. In this perception man must view the use of water
from the point of view of concern for his 0~·!!'1 bejn:;.
means considering water as directly a part of man's "order
of being." It is in this sense that "nature" and"Buddha"
are equally full of the "holy" in Buddhism. "Holy" is "the
order in which all being (especially man's being) is destined
to be." 5 When water is the embodiment of nature in this
sense of holy it is no different from man. This "destined
to be" is, of course, karmic determinism. Religious experi-
ence and existence is none other than the realization, wheth-
er by water or by man, of this "fated" order of being.
short, both the being of man and the being of water are des-
tined to be 'naturally' through nature, and in this order of
nature they are inseparable from each other." 6 It is char-
acteristic in the East that the tea master, the poet, and
the religious man all perceive water in this context, i.e.,
encounter the being of water. D. T. Suzuki quotes Takuan on
this point: "The way of cha-!:!£-~· therefore, is to appre-
ciate the spirit of a naturally harmonious blending of Hea-
ven and Earth, to see the pervading presence of the five
elements (~-hsing) by one's fireside, where the mountains,
rivers, rocks, and trees are found as they are in Nature, to
draw the refreshing water from the well of Nature, to taste
5 Ibid., p. 76.
6
rbid.
28
27
with one's own mouth the flavor supplied by Nature. How
grand this enjoyment of the harmonious blending of Heaven
7
an d Earth 1"
Technology, as opposed to religion, consists in seeing
This
water in physical terms as, for example, a source of hydro-
el ectric power. In this same vein, animals are viewed as
sources of protein and men as manpower hours or some sort
of equivalent physical unit. Even in the social sciences
man is seen as nothing more than "energy flowing within the
social framework." At the basis of technology lies the "de-
naturalization" of nature and the "de-humanization" of hu-
manity. Nishitani views the problem of technology as at-
t empting to grasp being only in abstraction. 8 As such it
"In
i s fundamentally destructive of the spiritual ground on which
r eligion, philosophy and art are formed. "It must be empha-
si zed that such an investigation is utterly impossible to
7"Zen and the Art of Tea, Part I," Zen and Ja,anese
Culture (New York: Random House, Inc., 1965), p. 2 8.
8 In our own time matters have been reduced even beyond
this. "Since the sciences' irrevocable farewell to ideal-
i stic philosophy, the successful sciences are no longer seek-
ing to legitimize themselves otherwise than by a statement
of their method. Their self-exegesis . . . accepts itself
as given and thereby sanctions also its currently existing
form, its division of labor, altho~gh in the long run the in-
sufficiency of that fo~ cannot be concealed. The intellect-
ual sciences in particular, due to their borrowed ideal of
positivity, lapse into the irrelevance and nonconceptual-
ity of countless special investigations. The cuts between
special disciplines such as sociology, economics, and his-
tory make the cognitive interest vanish in pedantically
drawn,inflatedly defended trenches." Theodor Adorno, Nega-
tive Dialectics, trans. by E. B. Ashton (New York: The Sea-
bury Press, 1973), p. 73.
 29 30

accomplish from without, from some place distant to the en- hot in the precise point where it was hot. In the act of

counter. Neither is it possible to accomplish it by means burning, the fire did not burn, was not fire; and in the self

of biological, sociological, anthropological, ethical, or t hat feels pain, St. Francis did not feel pain, was not him-

other such methods. All such explanations want to solve the s elf. Just as fire does not burn fire, St. Francis was in

whole problem at a place that has not attained the deepest his home-ground as a "self that is not self," he was "emptied
ground. " 9 of self." The fire was "beautiful" on its home-ground. In

The religious perspective, then, demands that we not t his way fi::e and the "I" are fundamentally united as one

limit the I-thou relation to human beings but extend it to within the same order of being. Here we "see" in the sense

all phenomena and in so doing combat technological abstrac- of human existence essentially considered as "seeing and

tions. Nishitani cites the case of St. Francis of Assisi being" in Buddhism, and beyond analytic knowledge. It is

who called fire "brother." He did so when treated by means a ll these things--"the religious," "holy," "fire is," or

of a red hot iron for a disease of the eyes. His friends "water is"--that are being erased and negated by technology.

shrank from the scene of pain but St. Francis felt no pain In defense of technology and science, Nishitani admits

and said, "Fire, my brother, you are the most beautiful t hat it is the generative force behind civilization and man's

among God's creatures . . . I have always loved you enlightenment and has greatly promoted happiness and well-
10 being. This is only true, however, when it is properly seen
Treat me gently today." To his brethren he said: "0
cowards, and of little faith, why did you fly? In truth I on the ground of human existence. Today this seems not to

say unto you, that I have felt neither any pain nor the heat be the case. Technology seems capable of raising problems

of the fire. ,ll Of course the fire was hot and St. Francis qualitatively different from any man has ever known. Tech-

did feel physical pain (we might say technological pain) but nology need not mean, and has not always meant, imbalance

in the religious terms Nishitani is speaking of, it was not between itself and human existence. Technology in the ma-

9
chine age, however, seems to be a self-sustaining rush toward
Keiji Nishitani, "On The I-Thou Relation in Zen Budd-
hism," trans. Norman Waddell, The Eastern Buddhist, new Series, the abstraction of real existence. Even what Hishitani calls
II, Nc. 2 (1969 p. 72.
10
"individual subjective self-consciousness" seems frequently
Quoted by Nishitani in "On Modernization and Tradi-
tion in Japan," p. 78. in danger of being swept aside in the rush toward technologized
11K ... "' . h. . society. Man is perceived to have "substance" only where "man
eLJL ~Ls LtanL, EmptLness
II•
an d H.Lstory, II manuscrLp
• t
trans. of Chapter Six of ShUk~o to wa Nanika ("tVhat is Relig- is man" in the sense equivalent to what is meant when we say
ion?"), SObunsha, 1961, p. 11 . - -
 31
"fire does not burn fire . " This perspective seems to cease
to be meaningful when substance is seen only as energy, i.e.,
when reality is abstracted. The subject as acting can only
be maintained when the self is considered to have substance.
This subjectivity does not remain when all phenomena, in-
cluding the self, are taken as reducible to energy or matter
or infinitely manipulable and controllable. ~ihen the self
is seen as manipulating or manipulable it becomes a meaning-
less abstraction--"manipulable mcnipulating." Even this
would be appropriate if man was forced herein to see the
essence of science as suspended over the abyss of nothing-
ness and led thereby to a Great Death. In fact, this has led
to the de-humanization of man; to a condition where all things
become "thous," utterly non-resistant to an evaporating "I".
Here "'I' becomes simply the power which controls the world
of power" and even man's subjectivity slips away. 13
It is in such circumstances, of course, where individual
persons--each conscious of himself as an absolute I or ego--
find their freedom running up against the freedom of others,
i.e., relativized. Efficacious co-existence r~quires the
postulating of norms, the mutual recognition of law or even
of some universal. This condition is "the boundless 'Suf-
fering' that the Buddha said forms the way of the World. ,l 4
13
Keiji Nishitani, "The Problem of Myth," Religious
Studies in Japan, ~okyo: The Maruzen Company, LTD., 1959),
p. ll3.
14
Idem., "On the I- Thou Relation in Zen Buddhism,"
p. 78. - -
32
l1odernization poses a problem for tradition differently
in different cultures. Almost unique to Asian countries is
the seeming fact that these countries could not or at least
did not themselves give birth to science or technology in
the sense that Nishitani defines these terms. They could not
create what the West knows so well as "subjective self-con-
sciousness." The comparative study of religion or of civili-
zations obliges us to ask "Why?" The traditional point of
vi ew, was, of course, to imagine that Asian religions or civili-
za tions "lacked" something which the West (usually conceived
as Christianity) had. Certainly we usually credit the Greeks
with providing the base for science as characterized by ra-
ti onal thought and subsequently permeating all so-called
"higher" western religions and civilizations. Likewise we
may credit the Judea-Christian-Islamic complex of traditions
fo r developing the notion of a subjective self-consciousness
out of its doctrine of man's personal relationship with a
dei ty. Both of these are typically "lacking" in the major
Asian traditions. 15 Host frequently, the answer given to the
encroachment of technology (when it is even recognized as
encroachment) takes the form of a call back to the pristine
past of the particular tradition speaking. Few, however,
have seriously considered what this means exactly. As Nishi-
tani says, "I think we have failed to fully come to grips
with a very basic problem involved in really bringing the
15
With the exception, perhaps, of the Indian astika
tradition.
 33 34

classical Greek spirit into new life in modern times and in parallel to such an effort to be found in the western tra-

reviving Christian faith in a new form. " 16 dition would be, according to Nishitani, the efforts of Nie-

From Nishitani's point of view, both the problem and the tzsche and Heidegger. Both advocate a return but not in

proposed solutions have the same roots. They are so inextri- the chronological or historical sense--rather in the sense

cably intertwined that untying one tradition seems to entail of toward something more fundamental. This "return" would

more and more resistance from the other. Modern science be to the origins of philosophy; in Nishitani's case (and

and man-centeredness are born directly out of the Greek and perhaps in Nietzsche's case via the influence of Schopen-

Christian traditions. Neither can be interpreted apart from hauer) this means via another heterodox culture: Buddhism.

the other. Nishitani proposes that an encounter with a for- This is precisely what Nishitani attempts in his analyses

eign culture or religion may be helpful in sorting out the of modernization, myth, history, time, and most importantly,

problem and its solution. This comparative approach is in- of religion. In the western tradition this would mean going

creasingly being applauded, even demanded, in the study of back to Greece. This does not mean back to Plato or Aristotle

religion in the West by such notable scholars as Wilfred who were full-fledged philosophers--this is the procedure

Cantwell Smith who has suggested "that in principle there is foll owed by many modern philosophers. It means minimally

illumination, and potential profit, in considering any human try ing to retrace the pre-Socratics to their origins. Even

problem thus from an unwonted angle, and in a wider context; this does not involve the foreign heterogeneous culture which

pondering how a matter has appeared to men in other civili- Nis hitani proposes is probably necessary. At the very mini-

zations, and comparing that with how it appears to us. A mum we must return to the grounds of philosophy and religion

comparativist approach to almost any issue can prove not -- and thus of our selves--with "a wider amplitude than any

only refreshing but instructive: our civilization is no longer of the attempts made up to and including the modern age." 18

faring so gratifyingly that we can blandly ignore criteria We must open up a new horizon from which to reconsider the

that transcend it. " 17 The closest methodological problem of technology, philosophy and religion. For Nishitani
this horizon will be the Buddhist sunyata (emptiness/nothing-
"On Modernization and Tradition in ness).
The activity of technology, then, is abstracting. Tra-

18
Keiji Nishitani, "On Modernization and Tradition in
Japan," p. 86.
 35
ditional thought has viewed everything in terms of substance
but technology views things in terms of function. Man who
has lose the subjective sense of "I" responding co "thous"
is a purely ftmc tional man. Hhen this view is taken, the
subject of anything, whether water or man or whatever, is
seen in the functioning of that thing rather than in its be-
ing. This is a Marxian view of man as a laborer; a view
where, because everything is seen as function rather than
substance, there is a "work" quality or aspect in everything.
The way a thing functions is the way a thing "works." In
this view, all things and all people are seen in their capac-
ity to work, ftmction, energize rather than their capacity
to be. Here man cannot see himself as subject and he is
alienated. Furthermore, objects of this work are also re-
duced by technology to abstract subjects of work. Objects
are no longer things with being (subjects in their own right)
but have only the nature of function. Using Buber's cate-
gories, Nishitani reminds us that the cognitive position al-
ready reduces the I-Thou relation to an I-It (subject-object)
relation and technology pushes the borderline farther back
to where this subject-object relation is abstracted into an
It-It relation. This is a mere relation between things,
two physical things. "Moreover, this is not even a substan-
tial 'thing' (Es); rather, it takes on the character of an
abstract subject as a mere functional 'thing that acts. "• 19
l9Ibid.' p. 89.
36
Nishitani is also dissatisfied with Suber's categories, be-
lieving that there is a problem hidden right in the depths
of the personal !-Thou relation. "The first is that the I
as well as the Thou are absolutes in their respective sub-
jectivities. The second is that the I and the Thou directly
through their relation upon one another are, on the other
han d, absolutely relative. ,.ZO
In this context these three relations (Ich-Du, Ich-Es,
Es -Es) may be thought to be exhaustive of the possibilities
but here Nishit:ani asserts that an eastern perspective may
be useful in viewing the rna tter. In the ~·!estern tradition
when man takes or perceives water as just being water and
sees in it the substance of water, he is already objectify-
ing it. Han as human being (subject) sees water as another
fo rm of being (object). In early Japanese history, the "name"
had great significance. It symbolized the bearer himself in
a very real way, i.e., it was a manifestation of him and was
one with him. For a woman to reveal her name to a man was
to reveal herself to him, signifying that she had already
given herself to him. This is also the meaning of the ex-
pressions "Amida's Name" and "In Jesus Christ's Name" which
signify that Buddha and God are proclaiming, revealing them-
selves. Naming has presently ceased to mean so much; modem
science has reduced naming to an abstraction which no longer
reveals any essence. This is the situation described by Nishi-
2
°Keiji Nishitani, "On the !-Thou Relation in Zen Budd-
hism," p. 73.
 37
tani when he suggests that, "It could well be that the pride
of the so-called scientific age is an expression of folly
21
still unaware of its deep blindness. " Nishitani as an east-
ern man does not perceive water as an object nor does he
"grasp" water. Nature is said to be onozukara-Shikari--
"being so of itself." "Nature ('jinen'), being so of itself,
being what it is of itself--these mean that something like
water, for instance, realizes itself in a given place as water,
the being of which is of-itself. This water is of-itself as
water. 1122 This means that no outs ide force makes it be what
it is. Water is water of its own accord. The Chinese ii
jiko ( _ _ -self) and the shi of shizen ( _ _ -nature) have the
meaning both of "of-itself" (onozukara) and "for-itself"
(mizukara). Both of these notions in one is called hitori-
deni. In this sense water presents itself of its own accord.
It does not bear the character of "will" (either as free
will or volitional subject), it does not bear the character-
istic of "subject of work" (abstracted as a function), it
does not imply ego or "self," and it is not forced by another
power o= will. It does not then refer to what we might call
"natural necessity"which implies a sort of coercion or force.
Scientific "laws" would be such a coercion or force in west-
ern scientific thought necessitating that water "function"
according to unalterable norms or rules. Som~thing that is
21Ibid. • p. 79.
22Ibid., p. 89.
38
'what-it-is-of-itself' in the eastern sense of 'nature' is
not a 'substantial' being. Neither is it a "subject" in the
" personal" sense or the "impersonal" (abstract) sense.
From this view of 'natural,' on the one hand, in-
dividual things are taken in their complete existence,
where they are as themselves at a given time and place
--in their complete individuality. This is different
from the view which takes (being) as the substance, or
'ego' as the subject in a thing. When we perceive
substance or subject in this latter way, then we in-
evitably divide the ..... istence of an individual thing
from its essence. We grasp the being of a thing t>vo-
fold. As opposed to this on the eastern view of
'nature,' the being of a thing is simply onefold--
einfach in German, and hitoe in Japanese. Each in-
dividual is 'onefoldly'-rcs-own self.23
of Nishitani goes on to suggest, on the other hand and at
the same time, in the western view of substance and subject,
everything has its own private makeup. A can only be A and
not B which in turn can only be B. The western "laws" of
nature are conceived as an effort to put these scattered
things together. The same is true of the laws of reason or
logos. Rationality is seen in this view to have a coercive
power. But in the eastern view, while A = A and B = B, at
the same time there is a mutual interpenetration. Nishitani
refers to this as jitafuni (self and others are not two); they
are not fixed, they are ~umuge (interpenetrating and recip-
rocal). In Buddhist terms they (A and B) are mujisho (self-
less) and mujishoku (selfless nothingness). In the science
of logic, even in the ordinary "coin of the realm" this is a
contradiction but in "natural being" it is merely two sides
23Ibid. , P · 91.
 39 40

of the coin; it is being without a "framework of being." pomo rphisms and thus having effectively created a new world

Buddhism expresses this in rupa = sunyata -- sunyata = rupa view directly beneath that dominating the view that domi-

(matter = void--void = matter; Jap., shikisokuzeku-- nates the traditional religions, especially the major west-

kusokuseshiki). ern theocentric religions. We can say that a new field,

that of the impossibility of being, has opened up beneath

II. Science the traditional view of a field of man's being-in-the-world

as possibility. Our being is revealed by modern science to

What had, to traditional philosophers and theologians, be a brief, fleeting instant hovering over the abyss of death

seemed like a "natural" progression frora the "life" of organic and nothingness. This reduction of all forms of sentient

beings in the natural world to the "soul" and "spirit" of man being and being itself is not the only reduction. Similarly

and on to the "divine" or "God" (the teleological world- re duced are the myriad forms of consciousness, all sorts of

view) was dealt a fatal blow by modern science when it ex- human physical and mental activity. These are the five

cluded teleology frora the natural world. The mythological skandhas of our existence--our corporeality, feeling, per-

harmony between the internal and external worlds fell to ception, volition and our consciousness--~·lhich forra the veil

the externalization of its laws into a cosmic universality. through which modern science attempts to cut in its progres-

There is no life or soul or spirit in a world reducible to sive exteriorization. Man, as being-in-the-world, finds his

matter. Modern science not only did not stop here but ~vent "mind" and "spirit" nullified. 25 As a result, man appears as

on to point out to man that his life was even more tenuous "home-less" and the grounds for God are destroyed. Modern

than he had thought; that even such physical matters as the science thus exteriorized not only the natural world but the

range of temperatures within which he could sustain life was entire world of substance and form including life and mind.

maintained on earth in barely stable balance. For Nishitani Its "necessary consequence was the annihilation of all sorts

this signals that " .• in this understanding, the universe of 'eidos' (or 'substantial form'), that is, not only of

in its usual state comes to be, for living beings, a world the substantiality of visible things, but also of the essence

of death." 24 Nishitani cites l1ax Planck as depicting a modern of life, soul and the spirit. " 26 Modern science did not,

science which has given us a view of nature devoid of anthro- 25 For Nietzsche this marked the advent of European
nihilism.
24Keij i Nishi tani, "Science and Zen," trans. R. Det1artino, 26 Keiji Nishitani , "Science and Zen," pp. 81-82.
The Eastern Buddhist, New Series, I. No. 1 (Sept. 1965), p. 79.
 41
however, trace out the full implications of its 0~1 position.
!1odern science and modern scientists have not gener-
ally been self-aware of the consequences of undermining the
"pre-established harmony" between the external and internal
aspects of life and the world. "The result is that, on the
one hand, scientists destroy the teleological image of the
world with its characteristic of being the environment for
life and instead present as the true feature of the world
material processes without life and spirit and devoid of
telos and meaning; on the other hand, as human beings engaged
in scientific research these scientists are living a personal
existence within a world which constitutes an environment
for life." 27 The essential structure of scientific thousht
entails certitut:e in two ways: the nature of scientific knowl-
edge rests on the certainty inherent in mathematical reason-
ing and the result is certainty in the scientist himself as
personal conviction. It is not, however, a part of the sci-
entific enterprise to quesc~on the assumptions or base upon
which rests the possibility of such certainty-conviction.
Certainty, as Hegel pointed out, is not necessarily t~~th.
The philosophical position of "scientism" makes its error in
assuming the synonymity of certainty and truth, This makes
the scientific enterprise seem more sophisticated and it re-
quires the adoption of scientific rationality as the standard
for a system of value. The profound blindness of science
27 Ibid., pp. 81-32.
42
res ts in maya, "illusion," and avidya, "ignorance" at the
very root of human intellect and is brought on by self-
attachment.
To subdue these two, various theories and ideologies
are contrived, and manifold 'laws'--civil, moral and
divine laws for example--are established. But such
laws are incapable of cutting the powerful root of
self-attachment, and self-attachment appears under
the cover of the laws. One falls into pride in one's
country, moral pride, pride in one's gods or buddhas.
The same holds true for the different ideologies as
well . . . . Law is not bad. What is bad is man's
way of fixing himself upon some universal as 'being,'
his mode of becoming attached to law--in heteronomous,
autonomous or 'theonomous' form.28
This has led to a "progress"-oriented glorification of the
gradual enlightenment of mankind, This point of view has
a risen concurrently with Nietzschean atheistic nihilism.
Where scientism led to a naive optimism, Nietzsche's grasp
of the same situation, grounded also on the demise of non-
material, anthropomorphized concepts such as life, spirit,
mind, led him in the opposite direction to a much less naive
pessimism. He was not, of course, consumed by a pessimistic
and fatalistic nihilism; rather he turned toward an "active
nihilism" which Look a.ll fo:rn~er traditional metaphysical
worldviews as confining and exulted in the liberation from
these constraints. No longer need man, he thought, be worried
about the "idea" of God which was destroyed by modern science.
Instead of confusing the "idea" of God with the very dif-
28
Keiji Nishitani, "On the I-Thou Relation in Zen Budd-
hism," p. 84.
 43 44

ferent question of God (as scientism does) Nietzsche affirmed to consider the consequences of the collapse of the teleo-

life as grasped from the bottom of pessimism, as having moved logical world view. "Science has descended upon the world

through the aperture which lies beneath all being, i.e., of teleology like an angel with a sword, or rather like a

nothingness. demon with a sword. " 29 Theologians can no longer try to

The rise of modern science and the increase in techno- reorganize the whole system anew into a teleological hier-

logical sophistication have paralleled the decline in tra- archy under the absolute nature of God and scientists cannot

ditional religious sentiment. Religions have been and are view the \'lorld as reducible to matter and yet live their lives

obliged to reexamine the bases and worldviews which ground as if they were living outside of the material, mechanical

their metaphysics. The teleological vie\v can only be seen world which they observe. In Zen terms there has been a

from the point of modern science to be much too "human," a "destruction of the house and demolition of the hearth," a

"home" in which man works out his destiny without any clear break-up of the "nest and cave of the spirit." This is the

perception of his impending doom because of his naive confi- "fatal" question which reduces man to a question mark. The

dence in a sustaining deity or its equivalent. Traditional essence of science can thus be seen to be a problem which

religions, of course, have resisted in various ways the threat lies beyond the domain of science. The scientist who ser-

posed by the modern scientific view of the universe with its iously confronted the problem posed by his own discipline

callous indifference. The resolution of this problem, the would be accepting the purposelessness of his own investiga-

confrontation between scientific and religious views of the tions.

world, has been a major part of the task of modern philosophy Paradoxically these investigations have thus far most

from Descartes on. But Descartes' investigation of the physi- often been carried on by seemingly quite unscientific thinkers

cal sciences is constructed upon the metaphysical base of such as Nietzsche. In a passage from A Genealogy of Morals

teleological confidence in the existence of God. A vicious Nietzsche declait~ against those who hold to scientism:

and insoluble dualism between mind and body was the direct "These trumpeters of reality are bad musicians, their voices

consequence of his investigations. Even Kant's thing-in-it- obviously do not come from the depths, the abyss of the sci-

self left philosophy with the noumenal-phenomenal dualism. entific conscience does ~ speak through them--for today

Again and again, assumptions based upon certainty were taken the scientific conscience is an abyss--the word 'science' in

to be truth. From Nishitani's point of view, Nietzsche is 29

Keij i Nishi tani, "Science and Zen," p. 85.
clearly correct--God is dead--and the task at hand should be
 45 46

the mouths of such trumpeters is simply an indecency, an spirit has been deprived of its hearth. As Masao Abe has

abuse, and a piece of impudence." 30 He was not attacking suggested, "Modern European culture with its scientific

the scientific enterprise but rather the shallowness of orientation, pervasive as it is in highly industrialized
those who refuse to pursue this enterprise to its uncompro- societies, is based on human rationality and the principle
mising end where the question of the essence of science it- of life, while neglecting to deal with the irrational ele-

self can be asked. "This means, in other words, to take ments in human existence, especially death. " 32

science upon oneself as a fire with which to purge and temper Facing the lifeless materiality of the universe means

the traditional religions and philosophies, that is, as a new viewing the universe as a field of existential death for all

s carting point for the inquiry into the essence of man. " 31 mankind, a field of absolute negation. Buddhism spoke of

From the viewpoint of science, for example, death is a this in mythological terms when it described the Kalpa Fire

normal material process. On our planet, nature makes an en- as a fact and a fat~ directly underneath our very feet. Nishi-

vironment for "life" and is the place wherein the "soul" and tani cites the Zen koan:

"spirit" work out history. Outside this small place the A monk asked Tai-sui: 'The all-consuming Kalpa
Fire now rages; the thousand great worlds all perish.
scientist sees bottomless death, an environment that will not I wonder, does 'rhis One perish or not?'

sustain life or form the base for history. The same sci- Tai-sui answered: 'It perishes!'

entist (and ourselves as well) sees an "underground" side of The monk said: 'If so, does it go off following
the other?' (The word 'other' used by the monk here
life on this planet which is simply the death of living means the universe in the cosmic fire.)

beings. For the scientist all these phenomena are part of Tai-sui answered: 'It goes off following the
other.' 33
one continuous material process. But it is the philosophi-
Even the inwardness, the inner dimension of transcendence of
cal or religious conscience which must take up proceedings
the "This One" is consumed and must perish with the "other,"
in an entirely different way, as an existential problem. At
the universe in the Kalpa Fire. The demythologization of this
this existential level, man's "horne" has been destroyed, his
koan lies in its being taken as an indisputable actuality by
3 both the questioner and the questioned, whether these two
°Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans.
Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random
House, Vintage Books, 1969), pp. 146, 147. 32 "B ddh"
u ~st N"~rvana: 1ts
. . .f.~cance ~n
s1gn~ . contemporary
thought and life," Living Faiths and Ultimate Goals, ed. S.
31 J. Samartha (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1974), p. 19.
Keiji Nishitani, "Science and Zen," p. 87.
33From the Blue Cliff Collection, quoted by Nishitani
in "Science and Zen," pp. 88-89.
 47
parties be the monk and 1'ai-sui or a layman anc.l a scientist.
The universe as bottomless death is the universe in the Kalpa
Fire. Nishitani points to the atomic bomb and the condition
of Hiroshima immediately after the fall of the bomb as evi-
dence of that hidden scientific actuality openly manifesting
itself as an actuality in the human realm. The koan must be
addressed on the religious dimension wherein the essence of
science becomes a question to itself and scientific actual-
ity is taken as existential actuality. For the monk and for
us the question must be put forth while standing on the di-
mension where the universe has become a field for the "aban-
cloning of oneself and the throwing away of one's own life."
The Zen master T' ou- tzu described the kalpa fire as "An
unspeakably awesome cold! " 34 The deadly nature of such cold
breaks down the teleological view of the natural world (when
taken at the common-sense level) and also the whole world of
the soul, reason, and spirit based upon it (when pursuing the
rational consequences of such a break-down). "It means a
breaking-through of everything 'inner' on all levels-- . . . ,
it means the spiritual 'destruction of the house and demoli-
tion of the hearth. '" 35 The life-inhibiting universe of
modern science is thus exposed as the field of the Great
Death in actual existence and the answers of the Zen masters
are offered as places for that Great Death in the actual
34
Quoted by Nishitani in 'Science and Zen," p. 90.
35 Ibid., p. 91.
48
lives of the questioners. "The myth of eschatology was thus
de-mythulogized and turned into the religiosity of the Great
Death of the questioner as well as of the world itself."
"And this was made possible through the process in which the
s cientific actuality of the cosmos, or the cosmos in its
aspect of abyssal death, was transmuted into the reality of
t he religious existence of the Great Death. " 36 The essence
of science must be questioned in an inseparable correlation
with the essence of man. On the religious dimension, de-
mythologization of the mythical and existentializa tion of
t he scientific are one process. By opening up a revolution-
ary view of the essential nature of man, Buddhism offered a
more basic and permanent principle of social transformation
t han could ever be offered by a mere ideology. "From its
very beginning, Buddhism was a religion that indicated the
path to transcend the 'w;:>rld. '" 37 The community of Budd-
hists, the sangha, was based on the negation of all sorts of
"worldly" differentiations, social as well as psychological.
If Nishitani speaks of the "killing sword" he means
also the "sword which gives life." The "This One" in Tai-
sui' s declaration is "a piece of ice glistening in the midst
of a (kalpa) fire (which burns up all things~" 38 The Zen
master's answer is an expression of the universe and thus of
T6
Ibid., p. 91.
37
Keiji Nishitani, "The Awakening of Self in Buddhism,"
trans. Shojun Bando, The Eastern Buddhist, New Series, I.
No.2 (Sept. 1966), p. 3.
38
Keiji Nishitani, "Science and Zen," p. 92, parentheti-
cal additions mine.
 50
49

life-environment which fears these ordinary scientific

himself and it offers the Aletheia (truth) in Heidegger's
actualities just as earlier man feared the fires of hell,
sense of unhidden and presenting itself to the monk; the
the darkness of the underworld or the kalpa fires. Even
monk is taken in and offered his salvation on the field
the idea of the end of the world comes to be seen as a sci-
where he exists as himself in his own Aletheia (truth). At
en tific actuality rather than a myth. The end of the world,
precisely the point where everything is negated, there is in-
however, with the implication of the end of all teleological
dicated the path to life. "Something 'iliU!lortal' or rather,
vi ews and the end of history, implies something abyssal, a
in Buddhistic terminology, something which is 'unborn as well
bottomless death. When this end of the world is grasped by
as imperishable'--something which lies beyond the duality of
existential man as actually underlying his present existence,
life and death, which is increate and immortal--stands there
this abyssal, bottomless death becomes a present actuality.
self-exposed." 39 Everything that subsists has its subsistence
When such an acceptance takes place, the temperature of
in being purged by the kalpa fire, i.e., by being brought to
co smic matter and all other natural phenomena can be taken
the abyss of nothing where the path to life is found. Here
as something abyssal in spite of its being finite, and as
man sees that there is nothing at the base of his egoistic
be ing necessarily finite however far out on its quantitative
self and comes face to face with his "unborn self" or "origi-
sp ectrum it exists. The reduction of these phenomena to
nal face." Nishitani's clear point is that in order to
quantitative or even mathematical relations can thus be ac-
realize (actualize and comprehend) this original face, man
cepted as they are into the dimension of bottomlessness.
must move in his own existence through the Great Death, the
By this we recognize that both natural and abstract forms
radical confrontation with the nihilum which lies beneath
can be accepted as truth in any particular discipline, e.g.,
this material world. For Tai-sui and for Nishitani the
chemistry, biology, etc. but also that they are more deeply
mythical kalpa fire and scientific actuality are both "Truth-
truth-full and factual when transposed into the qualitatively
in-itself" as aspects of the reality of religious existence.
infinite dimension of bottomlessness.
The kalpa fire is really an aspect of ordinary existence.
It can be said to be the place where concrete
It is this in the same way that extraordinarily hot or cold facts of nature emerge presenting themselves as
they actually are and of more 'truth' than when
temperatures (which will not sustain life) are part of the they are ordinarily experienced as true facts,
and the place where scientific truths emerge pre-
ordinary worlds as known by science. History unfolds in a senting themselves as they actually are and of
more 'fact' than when they are ordinarily thought
39Ibid.
 52
51

me chanistically to material processes and further to mathe-

of as truths concerning facts. 40
matical formulas. But the eidos or forms can never be de-
Here the Leibnizian distinction between factual and eternal
duced from these formulas. The process works only in one
truth obtains on the same level where all facts and truths
direction. We may conclude that all "forms" can be con-
are ultimately pragma and ultimately logos at the same time.
si dered to be an idea or representation in our consciousness
This occurs, however, only through a religious existence
further reducible to activities of the brain cells but these
which accepts the universe as the place for the abandonment
cells also belong to th~: world of "forms" in their own turn.
of oneself and the throwing away of ones life. The true be-
Man's intellect, like everything else in its aspect of eidos,
ing of a thing occurs only on the dimension of bottomlessness/
can be reduced from a whole into its component parts but
nothingness. This dimension is "the field where all phe-
t hat intellect is incapable of constructing its eidos out of
nomena are of even more fact and of even more truth--the field
mere component parts. Things in their eidos are a qualita-
of the Sole Self-exposed One in the midst of all phenomena." 41
tive unity and are unanalyzable. It is not just that a mind
Nishitani suggests it is an undeniable fact of existence
or intellect is "more than" the sum of its component parts,
that there are phenomena that we label consciousness, life,
it is a qualitative unity while its component parts (taken
spirit, etc. Even science cannot deny the world in which
now as parts of a larger whole and not in their own eidos
living beings live and adapt to their environment or that
aspect) are seen quantiatively. The world is, when viewed
phenomena such as we have labelled feelings,emotion, will
in terms of its eidos character, thoroughly of an cidos char-
and thinking have evolved. This is the so-called "abiding
acter. This eidos or form character can only be truly re-
aspect of all phenomena." 42 This is the ~oJorld where even
vealed on the dimension of nothingness whereas its (the
reductionists "reduce." These phenomena are the base mater-
world's) quantitative and reducible character is seen in the
ials which were then organized into a now discredited tele-
scientific world, the world of conscious intellection, ra-
ological worldview. The world of concrete things, where
tionality. II
it is the field of emptiness (sunyata)
"mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers" can be reduced
or absolute Non-being--or what may perhaps be called the
40
Ibid., p. 95. None in contrast to, and beyond the One--which enables the
41 Ibid. , p. 96.
manifold phenomena to attain their true Being and realize
42
Keiji Nishitani, "On the !-Thou Relation in Zen Budd- their real Truth." 43 This None is not something cognizable
hism," p. 84.
43
Keiji Nishitani, "Science and Zen," p. 98.
 53 54

which we might reach via the way of object-cognition in mutual interp enetration of all things wherein they are cancelled,
everyday experience and scientific inquiry. Self-conscious- elevated and preserved; a world where "iron trees come into

ness, because it is condition bound by the noesis-noema dichot- blossom in the spring beyond the kalpas." This field is the

amy, cannot see or grasp itself except by seeing or grasping essence of religious existence; as the Sole Self-exposed One

something; and the None is not something. This is the point it is the Truth (Aletheia) itself. This is, of course, only

of representation where the self sees itself as an idea pro- one aspect of religious existence, the positive aspect in

jected upon its consciousness. The field of our environment which all things give testimony of their ultimate factuality

and of the objective world are normally taken to be extensions and truth through the Sole Self-exposed One as Truth itself.

outside of us and the objects perceived and experienced This is also the positive aspect of the Self. The other

therein to be the world itself. But when expereinced from aspect, the negative aspect, is the equally ultimate and true

the field of emptiness, these objects are more truly perceived "Sole Self-exposed One in the midst of all things"; this is

and experienceu; they present themselves as they actually are its hidden aspect in which it has the character of appearance.

in their true factuality. This is their like-reality . "The When we become aware of somet:hing in an extra-ordinary man-

world presenting itself on such a field of bottomlessness ner or in its hidden aspect we mean "that something in this

lies beyond both the mechanistically viewed world and the world (e.g. a mountain) is not just received as such, as in

teleologically viewed world. It is at once neither of them daily expereince, but is distinguished from among other

and both of them. In this world, neither is any living be- things as if it originated in a deeper essence. It is not

ing whatever, with or without a soul or spirit, 'reduced' to a supernatural being from a supernatural world, but a cer-

a material mechanism nor is any material thing whatever re- tain thing found in the natural world presenting itself as

garded as 1iving,' endowed with a 'soul.' This world is if on a supernatural plane. Yet it is actually a natural

neither the merely 'scientific' world nor the merely 'mythi- presence in reality but revealing its true and authentic na-

cal' world, neither the world of mere 'matter' nor the world ture. It shows 'inactivity' as if 'time' had stopped, but

of mere 'life'; in other words, neither the world merely in it is not an eternal being from an eternal world, but some-

its aspect of death nor the world merely in its aspect of thing in the middle of the movement of time presenting it-
l ~"f e. .. 44 This is the circuminsessional interpenetration or self as though on a timeless plane." 45 This is the Self
45 Keiji Nishitani, "The Concept of Kami," Offprint
44Ibid, , p. 99 · from Proceedings of the Second International conference for
Shinto Studies, no date.
 56
55

well as rationally. As a modern western commentator has

as the field in which all things "appear" as the maya-like
put it: "The crux of the matter is not one's attitude toward
veil of representation and illusion. What is it that things
science and technology, . . • Instead, it is our conception
and phenomena hide? What is the ultimate "reality" or
of reason, , . . When the pride of the scientific revolution-
"truth" which they as appearances cover? It is of course
ary ts diluted by time, the result is sadness and, finally,
the True Self. This True Self has these dual aspects of both
anxi ety and nausea. These are the last emotions of a deca-
appearing and hiding itself at one and the same time.
4
dent enlightenment, " 7 The point is not chat the efforts of
The Sole Self-Exposed One is none other than what
appears in and as all things (or phenomena), thereby sci ence or such philosophers as Descartes are ill-conceived
hiding Itself as Itself; so that it makes, by hiding
Itself as Itself, all things (or phenomena) Its own but that they are merely conceived; neither goes far enough.
'appearances' with their character of unreality and
untruth, and at the same time gives to the same ap- Eac h sees the things, the phenomena (whether as ideas or mat-
pearances, in and as which It appears, the character
of truth and reality which ail things (or phenomena) ter ) but does not see the Self "in the midst of all things."
have as 'gacts.' These two aspects are essentially
inseparable, they constitute one and the same essence Though Nishitani does not, we might go on to point out that
of the religious existence.46
there are many other analogies to these two efforts. For
It is its capacity for hiding the "forms" that makes the
eAawpla, ~he
•t ....:.J- -t-- . . ''
"'.t..uc-,::n.&.uw
_t.. _______
~o-uQJ..Cl'-'-C4
_ :
V•
.. \.. ....
wu.\:..
-~ .. --.:--1
t-'u}~.t..\-a..J..
---'
QU\.l
--- .... .,.
IIICU L..d.J.
modern scientific enterprise an affeccaLiun ;_
.L.&.I.
~~~
""~·-
~~-o~~~~M
----- ---··

achievements of some of the more famous yogins and even

of the latter, negative direction. All phenomena are repre-
practitioners of the Asian martial arts are of this sort.
sented as appearances of "matter" or physical processes which
In the midst of these things and phenomena (and rarely sought
science must reduce to their smallest quantifiable component
after) stands the Sole Self-Exposed One. We might say that
parts (ignorant afits inability to see that the qualitative
the words and activities of the charlatan are the work of
eidos of each part is itself not reducible) . Science, in
Hara or the devil because they overemphasize the "hidden" as-
this standpoint, is still confined to viewing itself from
pect of religious existence and rarely, if at all, show the
within itself, i.e., from the subjective to the objective,
"appearing" or "revealing" aspect, This is often true of
and is thus directly analogous to the representational per-
various doctrines of traditional religions which, in a new
spective of many philosophers, such as Descartes, who ideal-
age, require de-mythologizing.
ized or represented the self as incapable of doubting itself,
Nishitani relates a tale which makes such a point:
and, also like Descartes, failed to doubt existentially as
47 stanley Rosen, Nihilism: A Philosolhical Essay (New
46 Keiji Nishitani, "Science and Zen," p. 101. Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), p. 1 0.
 57
Once there came to China an Indian monk who was
famous because of his ability to discriminate various
sounds and voices. A king invited Hslian-sha, a great
Zen master of the 9th century, to subject the Indian
monk to a test. The master struck an iron kettle
with a copper tong and asked the monk: 't.fuat sound
is this?' The monk answered: 'A sound of copper and
iron.' Hearing this, the master said to the king:
'Oh, my king, don't be deceived by strangers. '48
It is not that there is no truth in the monk's answer. There
is a similar kind of truth in the second law of thermo-
dynamics or in Einstein's theory of relativity. It is simply
that such an answer focuses upon the thing rather than the
Self standing in the midst of things. This perspective is
reflected in Hsuan-sha's remark to the king. This is True
Suchness (Tathata) as it is called in Buddhism.
Traditional religions, like science, have generally for-
mulated their doctrines and oriented their practices toward
men; even "God" or "the gods" have functioned largely with
the demands of man as their fo~us. It is easy to see why,
then, when man tries to understand himself as homo religiosus,
he has, as Freud observed, made God in his own image and con-
sequently been both the starting point and the telos of his
inquiry. In this view, the world is viewed in the same per-
spective as the gift of God (or the gods) to man as his en-
vironment to be used toward his own ends. Even the radically
thea-centric perspective which laments the homo-centric em-
phasis of other views is ultimately man-oriented since its
God is always exclusively concerned with man and his history.
48
Keiji Nishitani, "Science and Zen," p. 102.
58
The s ame is true of positions which speak of the sacred and
the profane and regard the "wholly other" (ganz andere) as
th e center of religious experience. This homo-centric per-
spe ctive is, of course, best represented in "mythical" relig-
ions in which the anthropocentric orientation appears in its
archetypal genuineness. Most traditional religions and cer-
tainly the Judea-Christian-Islamic complex retain their con-
ne ctions to this mythic structure, however de-mythologized.
They are never, and usually do not choose to be, liberated
f rom such an orientation.
The radical difference between modern science and tra-
ditional religions is that the former knows no limitation im-
posed by any teleological perspective. The universe as
viewed by modern science is not man-centered because it can-
not be understood simply as an environment for man. The
laws of the universe apply to all species, even other inr.el-
ligent life if there were any on other planets. It is quite
simple to see why modern science must view early teleologi-
cal views as simple-minded products of the imagination and
see the expansion of its own data-bank as a movement from
fantasy to enlightenment. Traditional religions and meta-
physics have, since the rise of modern science, largely had
to occupy their time finding a way to reconcile their doc-
trine of man (and God, when retained) with an ever shifting,
constantly new image of the universe which is now seen, not
as infinitely manipulable by man, but, as constantly threaten-
ing the very existence of man. "The fact that man has be-
 59
come again a question mark means, after all, that traditional
religions have become radically problematical. " 49
At the same time there are difficulties within science
in that it has been unable to get at the essence of man in
spite of brilliant progress in other matters. It has demon-
strated more than adequately that it is itself inadequate
for such an investigation into the nature of the Self. We
need not limit our criticism of science here to the natural
sciences; the social sciences, especially insofar as they
have increasingly tended to be reductionistic, have at best
been able to clarify certain mechanisms of society, history
and the consciousness. An existential quest or investiga-
tion of man by man himself is necessary and, ironically, this
has been hampered by the very "scientific" investigation in
the natural and social sciences which hoped to shed some
light on the problem. This is because of the confusion which
arises in mistaking the things for the Self which stands in
its midst and also because of the tremendous upheaval of
tradition wrought by the natural and social sciences. The
science which regards man as mere mechanism leads men in
general to the same mistaken conclusion. Man thus comes to
lose both his essential and substantial form as "man." "There
remains, however, one basic question: what on earth is this
man himself who is endowed with, among other abilities, the
very capacity of inquiring in so scientific a way into the
49rbiu., p. 10s.
60
mechanisms of nature, society and human consciousness?"SO
The sciences can only try to answer such a question by try-
ing to reduce it or inquire into its mechanisms. In Nishi-
tani's view, what is needed is an investigation which shares
both aspects of religious existence. The mechanically viewed
universe should be accepted existentially as the field of
the Great Death of man where he "abandons himself and throws
away his own life." At the same time, this universe should
be taken as such in the field of bottomlessness-nothingness
where every fact of the universe emerges as true fact. What
is require d "is a standpoint which is beyond the teleologi-
cal as well as the mechanistic view of the world or, in
other words, beyond the two world-images, one the qualita-
tive and consisting of concrete eidos-varieties, and the
other the quantitativeand yielding to an indefinite analy-
sis."51 Here we could see "a wooden man sing and a stone
woman dance."
Nishitani is suggesting that just as the universal laws
of nature and the universe hold true of all possible forms
of intelligent life, this same cosmic universality must apply
to the contents of the teachings of religions. Such species
of living beings endowed with intelligence, should they
actually exist, might have entirely different forms of ex-
istence, different eidos-varie:ti.es. Given the different en-
vironment, society and history of such species (and Nishi-
50
rbid., p. 106.
Sllbid., p. 107.
 61
tani suggests, as Buddhism suggests in speaking of sentient
beings, that the range of the species here on earth is
wider than normally treated by traditional teleological world-
views) any standpoint which has access to the essence of man
must go beyond the teleological perspective which has refer-
ence to man only. As Masao Abe suggests, "This dynamic in-
terrelationship occurs in the common realization of egoless-
ness and Emptiness. This realization provides the Buddhist
foundation for man in true community. Furthermore, this
realization applies not only to man's relationship to man,
but all things in nature, from dogs to mountains." 52 In
Nishitani' s view, Buddhism, especially Zen, while needing
to be amended in various ways, has pointed to such a future
direction toward a cosmic universality, and, thus, to a solu-
cion to the problem of science and religion. The impact of
Buddhism has, of course, declined in the modern world. To
Nishitani this is largely because "it has penetrated too
pervasively into our daily life; it has changed into a sort
of social custom and has fallen into a state of stagnation.
. . . Buddhism is not a so-called 'social movement'; it rather
transforms man's inner mind radically, and develops man's
most basic being into a flowering that it has never reached
before. In short, it has become a moving force in society by
opening up a way to transform man himself. " 53
52 Hasao Abe, ibid. , p. 20.
53
Keiji Nishitani, "The Awakening of Self in Buddhism,"
p. 1.
62
III. Myth
The study of myth unlike the study of science usually
carries with it the connotation of the study of something out
of the distant past. Certainly this is only a common notion
and not a necessary one. In point of fact it is necessary
to examine the position of myth just as carefully as the
position of science if one wishes to clarify the relation-
ship between science and religion or to get at the meaning
and significance of religion.
In medieval times all aspects of human existence in-
cluding worldview, practical, private and social life were
addressed from and understooci on a religious perspective. In
our own time, and concurrently with its rise, science has come
to occupy this integrating perspective. The struggle between
religion and science has been occurring from untraceable anti-
quity but has moved to the fore in recent centuries, eventu-
ally replacing religion and then even philosophy as the con-
troll ing force in many fields of human life. We should say
that Nishitani does not resent this shift as inevitably bad
but notes its significance in paralleling the increasing
shift toward rationality and the consequent attack against
irrational factors contained in one way or other in the mind
and life of human beings. Typically in such encounters,
rel igion was regarded as irrational, mere myth "understood
as superstition based on fantasy or illusion, or as the
pr i mitive way of thinking before the appearance of rational
 63
thinking ... 54
Nishitani observes two tendencies which have emerged
from the consideration of rationalism (and science) as anti-
religious and the emerging dominance of scientific rational-
ism as the appropriate means of inquiring into the nature of
life in this world. The first tendency is that toward the
total mechanization of human life. m1at Nishitani means by
this is, first, that the world is understood mechanically,
and secondly, that human social relations and even the way
of thinking, or the human mind and spirit, are gradually
mechani=ed. Virtually all modern writers are aware of and
have written on this phenomenon. Perhaps the great problem
of our time is the gradual fragmentation of our lives which
is the result of the weakening of the view of life as organic
by mechanistic reduction. The introspective way of reflect-
ing inwardly and of deepening the awareness of the ultimate
depths of one's being is being gradually forgotten.
The second tendency, actually a persistence in spite of
the first tendency , "is a tendency to recollect the perspective
which is in opposition to science, namely, the perspective
of myth, in which a view based on life or organically ani-
mated nature appears in its most pristine form ... ss This is
not a movement to the past but an attecpt to see , perhaps in
5
~eiji Nishitani, "The Problem of Myth," Religious
Studies in Japan (Tokyo: The Maruzen Company, LTD., 1959),
p. 51.
55 Ibid.
64
new forms, the power that continues to work in the present
in the deepest roots of our life. This is what was meant by
Plato's doctrine of anamnesis in one of its implications.
For Plato, cognition was the soul returning to its home-
groun d to avoid the illusions and suffering brought about
by sensory experience. tVhat Nishitani means by recollection
is different in that he is dealing with historical existence
rather than cognition. He is arguing for a return to the
foun tainhead or hom~-ground of the present historical and
cultural life, i.e., to return to the mythical world as the
beginning of every culture, the origin from 1~hich every
culture came, as from the mother's womb. This is not a
simple return to the past, a re-enactment of the past brought
about as a result of a "nostalgia for paradise." 56 It takes
place in the present, at itsvery depths. This second tendency
represents a fundamental aspiration to overcome the mechanized
world in a thorough-going way. It is not, of course, a simple
task. The problem is that it is an undeniable fact that sci-
ence has broken down for all time many of the beliefs which
were necessary to the sustenance of much of mythology. The
scientific way of thinking broke down the very foundations
56
This "archaic therapy" differs in large part because
it is conceived as a means by which man is rendered contem-
porary with Creation or some primal creative power. Budd-
hism argues for the extinction of this nostalgia or attach-
ment to some supposed time of an initial plentitude of being.
For a more complete discussion of this phenomenon see:
Mircea Eliade, Hyths, Dreams and Nbs teries, trans. Philip
Mairet (New York : Harper & Row, Pu lishers, 1967), especially
chapter III.
 66
65

torical life and culture. It is also an attempt to reckon

of myth in such a way that much of the development of tra-
with the destructive "insatiable cognitive drive" oi the
ditional western religion has taken on the character of a
scientific and rational way of understanding. Nietzsche
more or less orderly retreat in the face of an ever-encroach-
58
himse lf suggests that out of this problem nihilism arose.
ing scientific rationalism. It is not simply a uni-direc-
The conscience of science to which he refers is the con-
tional movement, however, since as Nishitani observes, there
science of the scientist as an "existential" human being; in
is a more or less religious sense of despair that has re-
this being is felt the abyss. To the extent that such a
sisted the onslaught of science and rendered its progress a
scientist carries out his work in a mechanical world by a
rather hollow victory. The mythical and scientific are mutu-
mec hanized methodology he does not grasp the essence of sci-
ally breaking one another down. Nishitani describes them
ence as an abyss. It is only when he has taken science as
as "fatally stabbing each other at the heart of their re-
a part of his own existence that he becomes a question to him-
spective positions • .,S] We might even view the history of
self. When he accepts the standpoint of science as his own
modern thought as a pendulum swinging between these two posi-
'personal' problem and tries to carry it out conscientiously,
tions. When science dominates there emerges a position which
he experiences great distress. Such a scientist cannot help
emphasizes something unanalyzable by the scientifc method
but destroy, within himself, the grounds for human nature,
such as emotion, life, experience or inspiration. The pendu-
morality, even the ground for God.
lum even seems to swing within the disciplines representa-
This does not mean that scientists are generally pes-
tive of the two poses; there are mathematical and "psycho"-
simistic; quite to the contrary they are usually quite con-
logical sciences and there are rationalist and "mytho"-
fi dent that reason will prevail over irrationality. They
logical religions. \fuat is crucial is that none of these
ar e intellectually but not existentially involved in their
alone can sustain human life.
work and its implications. This means that they do not take
It was in this context that nihilism arose as a problem
t heir ground on Nietzsche's conscience (which ought to be the
of culture and thought. Its base is, according to Nishitani,
ground of their science) nor see themselves suspended over
the conflict between myth and science. He considers Nie-
any abyss. Instead they profess a sort of intellectual
tzsche's The Birth of Tragedy to be an effort to grasp some-
atheism; God is dead for such scientists for material rea-
thing mythical as the most fundamental element of our his-
58 see the third essay, section 23 of his The Genealogy
57 Keiji Nishitani, "The Problem of Myth," p. 53.
Of Morals.
 67
sons, not for existential reasons.
We might say that religion is "ahead" of science if only
in the sense that because it is most existentially threatened
with extinction it is more keenly aware that its position in
relation to science is one of mutually destroying the founda-
tions of each other. Because of this recognition we might
say, as Nishitani seems to feel, that religion is in a bet-
ter place to see and realize its potential for the future by
penetrating to the base of history where religion and science
are destroying each other, and where nihilism originates.
Clearly nihilism is one of the most basic problems of con-
temporary religion. This is not a mere frivolous intellect-
ual nihilism; Nishitani likens it to a "submarine earthquake."
The more superficial d~spair and fragmentation we ordinarily
feel are extensions of the real problem just as tidal waves
are the extension of more serious shocks at the depths of the
sea. No matter how highly the various social and scientific
theories and solutions are refined they will hide the more
serious problem.
Nishi tani sees the problem between science and religion
as properly focused throughout history on the relations
among three things: God (or his philosophical equivalent),
the world (taken as all phenomena), and the soul (or more
properly, the self as subjective being). Certainly these
constitute the three pillars of traditional religions and
metaphysics in the West. In this context, myth is usually
taken as arising out of a view which assumes the complete
68
and direct union of these three factors; a kind of mobile
and dynamic relationship in which distinctions are barely
discernible. This is the position of imagination or think-
ing in images.
Of course myth is usually thought of in terms of the
fanta stic as though it were conjured up like a day-dream in
the consciousness. This is not the real function nor an
accurate picture of the ioagination. The function of the
imaginar:ion should be thought of as conforming to the "forms"
(eidos) of things. This covers natural, historical, social
phenomena and even the imagined "forms" of spirits, deities,
ange ls , etc. "Every being, as it exists, is always found
having its own eidos. A man is, having the 'form' of the
man; and a pine tree is, having the 'form' of the pine tree.
What is called 'form' here covers not only a visible form
but also an invisible eidos, namely, the substance of a thing.
. In the case of myth, a 'thing' is there, which in its
be i ng, cannot be distinguished from other various 'things,'
or as what, ontologically speaking, mutually flows into and
among other things, so to speak. " 59 This is equally true of
s elves and deities. Imagination is neither "subjective"
f antasy nor a "faculty" in the consciousness of an individual.
It is a thinking which mutually interpenetrates all "things."
At this level, the "individual" as self-conscious or in its
subjectivity does not yet appear. For Nishitani imagination
59 Keiji Nishitani, "The Problem of Hyth," p. 58.
 69
is nothing but a fundamental way of "existence" of man in
the world of "things." This is in obvious disagreement with
thinking of imagination from the epistemological point of
view as a mere faculty of human consciousness. 60 Myth and
imagination are more essentially a sort of existential way
of living.
The history of western thought has often been considered
as a progressive breaking down of mythos by logos. 61 Demo-
critus was one of the first (along with Thales and Heraclitus)
co see the world from within, and from the perspective of,
the world itself. Here already the world comes to be seen
mechanically and atomistically, cutting off the relation be-
tween God and man. As the precursor of modern science we
have here a world understood as dead and material. This is
the first consequence of the position of logos dominating
mythos. Consequent upon this materialism arises the second
characteristic wherein the life and faculties of human be-
ings take on a technical quality in which the living relation-
ship between God and the world is cut off. In this view man
rules and conquers nature by his own power through his "tech-
nique," i.e., he is more technically oriented. Finally the
scientific way of understanding breaks down the living rela-
tion between the world and the self. Man becomes egocentric
60 Nishitani cites Ernst Cassirer as a proponent of such
a view.
70
and has only an abstract universal relation to the world.
These three--materialism, technology, and abstract reason
in their interrelationships--break down the mythic position
which maintains a living relation between God, man and the
world.
Phi losophy has tried to find a base upon which these dis-
parate views can be rectified and reunified. Plato's dia-
logues are partly directed against the ills which befell
Greek society as a result of Democritean views of the world.
His phi losophy of the "ideas" was his attempt co deal with
this problem as Nishitani sees it. We might well observe
that the philosophical enterprise seems to have broken down
or in many cases to have sold out to the scientific enter-
prise. At any rate, it eventuated in Nietzsche's views on
nihilis m and his attempt to deal with this consequence of sci-
entific rationalism. These are the problems which Nishitani
wishes to treat in terms of the Buddhist analysis of sunyata
(nothingness).

CHAPTER II
THE PARAMETERS OF THE INQUIRY:
NISHIT&~I'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF RELIGION
I. Dharma
At heart, the central problem of all religions is the
problem of Reality. The Buddha said, "A brother who is con-
centrated knows a thing as it really is." 1 The remark in-
valves all three of the Jewels or Treasures of Buddhism.
Said by the Buddha, it becomes therefore part of his Dharma-
body; said of a brother it thus involves the Sangha. As a
problem of the sangha it involves the relationship between
religious men, of man to man. The Three Treasures are, of
course, essentially one in their indication of the nature of
Reality: "Three Treasures make one body, one Truth, one Re-
ality." Man is, according to Nishitani Keiji, homo religi-
~· To argue that all men are h0mo religiosus is a value-
laden assertion. It is really to argue that all men should
be homo religiosus, a normative statement about which there
may be certainty in the mind of the person making such an
assertion but about which there can be no objective proof.
When a wise man (however we may define wisdom) makes such an
assertion we may be convinced--but not so much by the claim
to truth of the assertion as by the rhetorical force of the
Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism: The Light of Asia (Woodbury,
N.Y .: Barron's Educational Series, Inc . , 1968), p. 41.
72
proponent. In some respects the Buddhist theory of karma
rests, as does its Indian antecedent doctrine, on the obser-
vation of the large number of human beings at any given point
of time who do not realize or believe that the religious
quest i s of any significance to them. The theory argues
that t hough such persons do not at that moment understand
the nature of suffering or even that they suffer, they will
eventually understand this condition. Karma functions as
the normative assertion that all men should recognize this
condi tion and the facticity of the force behind the theory
is irrelevant. The distinction between the sacred and the
profane is another way of recognizing this varying degree of
awareness among men.
Of the Three Treasures, Nishitani deals primarily with
Dharma in coming to grips with Reality. Two of the view-
poin ts suggested by Nishitani for grasping the complexity
of t he Dharma are the ontological and the epistemological.
Dharma has, on the one hand, the side of being. This is to
say that existing things can lead to True Being. Considera-
tions of this nature belong in the ontological realm of
thought and philosophy. On the other hand, Dharma has the
side of doctrine of knowledge of True Beings. Here Truth is
considered as Teachings. The teachings of the Buddha owe
thei r truth to their grounding in True Being, in Reality.
This type of consideration belongs to the epistemological
realm of cognition. By all considerations, Truth in being
and Truth in knowledge are One Truth, identical. Nishitani
 73
sums it up as a problem of metaphysics, much on the order of
Aristotle's First or Fundamental Philosophy. "True Knowledge
i s the Truth which can be grasped by True Being." 2
Searching for an adequate western equivalent for dharma
l eaves us largely confused though logos seems to come close.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith suggests the close relationship between
dharma and "God" by arguing that dharma is a pre-existent
Truth to which Buddha awoke, i.e., by emphasizing its salvific
force as moral law. "He became a Buddha by discovering what
if we were to speak in Greek terms we could only call the pre-
existent logos. " 3 As the 'brder prevailing in things" it sig-
nifies to Nishitani a kind of cosmic order while at the same
time meaning "knowledge," "reason." Objectively it means law,
order, concept, the contents of knowledge. Subjectively it
means speech or words, drawing on the infinitive legein, "to
speak," "to pronounce."
At its base dharma is a problem of Being-itself; of
man's Being, viewed in its ultimate dimensions; not of man
as being, ! posteriori, as already existing. The problem of
man in his essence is a priori; it concerns his "transcen-
dental possibility." 4 The! priori is that which every act-
2 one side Reality makes being really actual.
Keiji Nishitani, "Topics in Buddhist Thought," an un-
published lecture delivered at Temple University, Philadel-
phia on Septemb<>r 1.9, 1969, hereinafter referred to as
"Topics."
3 onymo us with "trans-metaphysical." It refers to the "place"
wilfred Cantwell Smith, "Religious Atheism? Early Budd-
hist and Recent American," Milla ~-Milla 6 (Dec. 1966), 10-ll.
4 cali ty, iSinOt the object of some assertion but is the pre-
Keij i Nishi tani , "Topics." This use of the word
"transcendental" will later be explained more specifically
74
ual man presupposes as man. Being, or actuality, is con-
ceived a s the "field" on which all men are viewed as actual.
Here we ask questions about and consider the conscience (so-
cial, political, etc.) and those problems which make exis-
tence possible here. This is not "transcendental possibil-
ity. II
"What is man in his essence?" is an inquiry on the level
of transcendental possibility, of Being-itself. This is the
level of dharma, of logos. Existentialism attempts to view
man in his transcendental possibility according to Nishitani
and he is fond of citing the work of Kierkegaard on the con-
cept of Dread and Heidegger's notion of death as ultimate
possib ility. The existentialist has once again spoken with
understanding of ekstasis, in the sense of "to stand out of,"
to transcend the duality of subject/object.
Nishitani cites a phrase in the Prajnaparamitahridaya-
~ as one of the most important in Mahayana Buddhism. The
phrase is rupam sunyata, "form (that:) is emptiness." 5 The
distinction is one between "to be" (reality) and "to appear"
(as when manifesting itself, revealing itself). Within these
distinctions appears the problem of Truth and Illusion. On
The quest for
Reality should be in some way brought out (through appearance)
as the "yonder-side" or "this-side." It is also used as syn-
of sunyata or prajna and is often expressed in paradox as in
"sams ara-sive-nirvana." This possibility, trans-metaphysi-
suppos ed ground of all assertions.
5
Ke i ji Nishitani, "Topics," Oct. 10, 1969.
 75
as it is, as such. We must know how it is even in appear-
ance. There is , then, a duality between Reality-manifest-
ing-itself and Reality-as-it-is-manifested, The solution
of the duality or the problem comes only when "to appear" is
one and the same with "to be." On what "place," what "di-
mension" is this possible?--the Void. Emptiness has been
opened as this dimension.
The problem of Reality can be stated many ways. Budd-
hisr.: considers it in relation to tathata or "suchness" tJhich
means, basically, "to know a thing au it really is." 6 The
term did not mean the same thing to every sect and school of
Buddhism but it figured in the concerns of all of them.
Takakusu summarizes its role in Buddhist thought in this
way: "To see the true nature or the true state of al.l. things
is not to find one in many or one before many, not is it to
distinguish unity from diversity or the static from the dy-
namic. The true ~ is the ~ without any special
condition. It is, in fact, 'the true reality t>lithout a re-
ality,' i.e., without any specific character or nature.'
. This amounts to saying that we see inaction in action
and action in inaction, immotion in motion and motion in
imrnotion, calm in wave and wave in calm. We thus arrive at
6"What is Religion?" trans. Janice IJ. Rowe, revised Nishi-
tani Keiji, Philosophical Studies of Jaean, II, Tokyo, 1960
p. 41. Chapter one of Shtikyo to wa Namka ("What is Relig-
i on? ")I Sobunsha, 1961. Tathata or suchness is a term of
Chinese origin. Nishitani uses this term extensively, con-
sidering it to be one of the keywords of Japanese religiosity.
It translates the word nyojitsu or the expression ari ££
~·
76
7
the true state of all things, i.e., the Middle Path." Re-
ality, Truth, Purity; these are names for man's transcen-
dental possibility, his suchness, when seen from different
perspectives. If the problem is stated ontologically we
seek Reality. If it is stated epistemologically we seek to
know the Truth. Ethically or existentially we strive for
Purity . The problem of man is not consumed by Real Reality
or actuality. There remains the Really Real Reality as well
as our attitude tmvard Reality, i.e., the "belief" or "faith"
of man . God, or Reality, cannot be sought without giving up
self, yet one's belief is rooted in the relation between
Real ity and self. What is distinctive is the "fact that the
reali zation of man was brought about on the basis of none
other than the Buddhist standpoint of non-ego. The event is
fundamentally different from its western counterpart which
occurred at the dawn of the modern era and in which man's
reali zation of himself took place in the form of the reali-
zation of ego." 8 Reality manifests itself in the spiritual
even ts of men. In the domain of "things in their everyday
sense," then, the problem of man is dealt with by natural
science along with the social and political sciences. In
the domain of Being-itself and Reality the problem of man is
7JunjirO Takakusu, The Essentials v • u~~-·~w~ . . . --~w~,.. ..,
ed. Wing-tsit Chan and Charles A. Moore C 1 1 ~n·
Appliance Co., Ltd., 1956), pp. 46-47.
8Keiji ~ishitani, "The Awakening of Self in Buddhism,"
p. 6.
 77
a religious or philosophical one. Emptiness is trans-meta-
physically and trans-ontologically beyond even this domain--
and at the same time tvithin all these domains. "Now when
man casts off his small self and piously enters Reality,
Great Wisdom (prajna) opens up as the native place of all
things, as the place where they emerge and realize them-
selves as they are--the place of Reality itself. This open-
ing up is, directly, none other than man realizing Reality
in its suchness. The light of this 'Sun of Wisdom' as it
is, is also the insight in tvhich man sees his 'primary and
original face. "' 9
One of the methods of Nishitani is to bring the discus-
sion continually back to man's starting place. Having sug-
gested that the Void is the "dimension" of the solution of
the problem of man, he takes experience as the most immedi-
ate field, the starting point of all things. "Experience
is identical in itself" and so provides a locus, a mode of
being, the true mode of being. He means, by experience,
everyday life with its objective and subjective aspects; the
world of things and events. Right here in everyday experi-
ence is the alpha and omega of religious life. 10 Philo-
9 concept because concepts are functions of thought and sun-
Keiji Nishitani, "On the I-Thou Relation in Zen Budd-
hism," pp. 85-86.
10
In any experience is included its "place," its topes.
Place is "defined space"--to define space is to locate a
place experience is. One cannot experience without space/
time. The one who experiences (sees, hears) joins subject
and object (perhaps as a function of self) ; the connection
is essential and within experience. Experience must include
78
sophical reflection disappears in the immediacy of everyday
experience . Drawing upon the insights of Nishida Kitaro,
William James, Henri Bergson and John Dewey, Nishitani speaks
of cons ciousness in its immediacy. In Buddhism, Nishitani
suggests, this is even more evident though it is not merely
conceptual. Buddhism does, however, share characteristics
with these men and with the mystics (which also occupy the
standpoint of immediate experience). Nishitani even suggests
that perhaps the religious character of experience is pre-
cisely this immediacy culminating in mystical union; not
merely objective reflection upon experience. As Ashvaghosa
said in the Diamond Needle Tract, "Therefore, it is to be
known that one is called a Brahmin, not according to his
lineage, conduct, practice, blood, but according to his vir-
tue." 11 Anyone who has the characteristics of persever-
ance, endeavor, contemplation (dhyana), wisdom (prajna), and
comp assion, i.e., is virtuous, is no longer attached to
the differentiation of "self" and "others." We are reminded,
tho ugh, to recall the important thing with regard to Budd-
hism and these men; namely, the trans-conceptual difference
denot ed by Sunyata. Sunyata cannot really be treated as a
both subject anJ object. Being/time, space/time--these are
inseparable dualisms and bound up in sunyata which is the
"deepest experience of them in no subject/object sense."
"Topics," Oct. 24, 1969.
11Keij i Nishitani, "The Awakening of Self in Buddhism,"
quote d, p. 5.
 79 80

yata is not the object of thought. It is \o~ithout form and that Socrates is a man, not a plant, which opens up the

therefore called "Formless'"; it is without name and there- essential, the inner structure of Being-itself. This judg-
. h out de f 1n1teness;
f ore w1t ' . . 1s
1t . de f'1na bl e. 12
. 1n ment seeks the Truth of Being, and is found in everyday

This point is of supreme importance and constitutes for existence which is the variegated conjunction of particular

~ishitani the chief difference between western and eastern and universal modes of being. It is a part of the phi-

viewpoints. Pre-Heideggerian western philosophy has rarely losophical/scientific question, "What is man?", to which the

found it necessary to seek understanding beyond the simply answer can be given that he is an ontological species, an

declarative subject/predicate assertion. Some universal animal , rational, a livi~g being with logos (speech, intel-

concept or mode of being is predicated about a singular or ligence). This basically scientific realm, the social, na-

particular mode of being. Such formulations are usually tural and philosophical scientia, is not Emptiness. Sunyata

cast in the following equation: S = P. For example, Socrates quali tatively transcends all beings OJtterly. Nothingness is

(subject, particular mode of being) ~s a man (predicate, uni- the tr anscendence of Being-itself, qualitatively. It is

versal concept or mode of being). There are an infinite not quantitative, not a matter of higher or lower, not con-

number of variations of such assertions but the components cerned with continuity or degree of. It is beyond even the

remain as concepts. This is the philosophical grasping of svabhava ("own-being" or "self-being" as Nishitani prefers
13
things which ~ishitani disclaims as without the possibility to call it), which is an object existing in itself.

of offering any solution. It is, to be sure, a necessary Furthermore, existence and "self-being" are temporal

part of our evaluative structure. One can make metaphysical categories and so time occupies a very important place in

pronouncements, but it is ontological analysis, the judgment the thought of Nishitani. 14 Past and future are less sig-
nificant for him than the present. He is especially fond
12 Douglas D. Daye suggests that emptiness is a reflexive
concept, derivative and logically dependent on the two con- of the term, "instant." The "instant" is a kind of eternal
cepts of dependent or relational origination (pratitya-
samutpada) and own-being (svabhava); it is a descriptive time, the eternal present. T. S. Eliot speaks of the inter-
device which has no ontological import. To reify this term
is to make a category mistake since it denotes or designates 13 See footnote 12.
nothing. It delimits or sets the parameters of what we can
know, i.e., it has a restricted epistemic role. "Empti- 14we will deal more completely in 01apter VI of this
ness is a nonreferring word about referring words; it has
merely nine letters!' cf. "MaJor Schools of the t1ahayana: thesis with Nishitani's understanding of time. Here we will
Madhyamika," in Buddhism: A Hodern Perspective, Charles S. con tent ourselves with a brief exposition to show the place
Prebish, ed. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State Uni- of this concept in Nishitani's understanding of the nature
versity Press, 1975), p. 92. of Religion.
 81
section of Time and the Timeless. This intersection means
the present in its essential meaning--the instant, here,
now. Only at this locus can we speak of being. The present
is the "place" of being, where being establishes icself.
"The past is not, the future is not--only the present is the
place of being, ,lS accorJing to Nishitani. The horizontal
plane of Time and the vertical plane of Eternity intersect
at the instant which is Timeless. Nishitani speaks of "time-
less time" and "timely timelessness," groping for an adequate
expression. The recognition of this phenomena is not netol or
unique but to focus so exclusively upon this may be uniquely
Buddhist. As part of general theories of time it has been
addressed by many commentators, for example, S. G. F. Brandon,
who observes: "At any given moment, if we analyze our con-
sciousness, we realize that the 'here-now' of present experi-
ence is conditioned by memory of past experience and by the
anticipation of future experience. Indeed, it is impossible
to be aware of what is purely 'here-now'; for the present is
a razor-edge line, between past and future, which is ever
moving, so chat what is 'now' has become 'past,' as we con-
template it, and in the very act we have moved into the
future." And further, that "Upon this Time-sense the whole
complex structure of our cultural and technological civili-
zation has been built--whether it be planning for next year's
harvest, getting a rocket to the moon, or taking out an in-
15 Keiji Nishitani, "Topics," Nov. 14, 1969.
82
surance policy, every activity or transaction involves the
visualization of future needs in the light of past experi-
16
ence. " The problem of being/ time is as old as philosophy
itself in the West. Plato, Parmenides and the St. Augustine
of the Confessions all wrestle with the issue as did Meister
Eckhart and the medieval mystics after them. !1ore recently
Ki erkegaard revived it in his discussion of the concept of
Dread. Nietzsche and Heidegger, too, have been eloquent
spokesmen on the subject.
"The past is no more--the future is not yet," says
Nishitani. 17 Time expresses itself in everyday experience;
here sunyata is expressed in the transience of temporality.
l~ egativity is an essential factor of Reality. Sunyata, or
emptiness, is where the negative (unreality) is made mean-
i ngful or given justification as a factor in Reality. The
Enlightenment of the Buddha signified his victory over tran-
s iency (life/death; birth/death). Anicca, or impermanence,
i s one of the great principles of Buddhism usually considered
along with anatta (non-self) and dukkha (suffering or ill)
as pivotal points in any discussion of Buddhist doctrine. 18
16 Ibid.
17
rbid., Nov. 7, 1969.
18
rt must be noted that this theory of impermanence,
which constitutes one of the three characteristics of exis-
tence, is not to be confused with the later doctrine of mo-
ments (ksanavacla) which emerged from the Abhidharmic logical
analysis of the process of change. David Kalupahana argues
that the early theory was an empiricist one which merely in-
sisted upon the temporally finite nature of immediate experi-
 84
83

reality, face-to-face. This is unavoidable, authentic, in-

Life and death are transience itself, impermanence itself.
evi table to the solution of the problem of Reality--which
The impermanence of all actual beings consists in the fact
is our self, our being.
of a beginning and end to all being, i.e., temporality. The
The "way of negativity" is to go into ourselves and
essential structure of beings in this world can therefore
ask ourselves, question ourselves; not just scientifically/
be viewed as a mixture of being and non-being. The mixture
obj ectively but concerning the root fact that we exist, that
is cyclical in nature. Non-being leads to being (birth)
we live. It is penetrating our being, a way which is open
which in turn leads to non-being (death) in a samsaric activ-
in ourselves. The way is within and must be opened by us
ity ending only with enlightenment. In birth a new being
just by going on the way. This way is the true program of
(transient) comes into being. Nishitani, in the tradition
knowledge, it is religious practice. It is a sort of exis-
of Mahayana Buddhism, says that Anicca is Nirvana, Sam-
tential quest, inseparable from practice (not just the casual
sara is Nirvana (impermanence is enlightenment, life and
practice of dhyana or yoga, but the absolute investment of
death is enlightenment). The problem, and it is monumental,
t he suffering self). 19 This practice has negative and posi-
lies in the is. This is is the result of absolute negation.
t ive aspects. The way of negation is really inseparable
To say that impermanence is Nirvana and life and death is
from the way of affirmation, wherein it is consummated. It
Nirvana is to use a theoretical formulation, a form of judg-
is just going the way that is open within us, by ourselves,
ment, an objective expression of truth, a form. The diffi-
to attain True Reality. It is not a "given" outside us but
culty is one of content, i.e., the is. ~e very formulation
within us; not an easy-going, avoidable way but the consum-
is a contradiction, a sort of "illogical madness." Nirvana
mation of negativity. The problem of both ways (positivity/
means enlightenment (the great knowledge, all-knowing stand-
negativity) is the problem of ourselves.
point), emptiness, no-self. To go the way of absolute nega-
tion to its end and consummation we take on the negative II. Religion as the "Middle Path," the "way of negativity"
aspect of Reality itself. We do not seek to escape or avoid The very question, "what is religion?" presents us with
meeting the negative aspect of Reality, i.e., essential Un- a paradox arising out of this "Middle Path." The poser of
the question obviously does not yet grasp the seriousness of

19 Keiji Nishitani, "Topics," November 7, 1969.

 86
85

not be understood from the outside as an objective observer

the question, does not feel compelled by its necessity while
of the acting subject; and also, the lower-level question of
at the same time, it is the nature of religion that it is
what is the utility of religion must be broken through by
necessary just for such a person. Unique to the matter of
the question, "For what purpose do we ourselves exist?"
religion is the fact that "the relation of religion to us
This avoids the problem of asking what is religion without
is a contradictory relation in which the person for whom
undertaking the religious quest. Everything but religion
religion is not a necessity is, by that very fact, just the
can be examined in its relation to us or mankind generally.
person for whom religion is a necessity. ,ZO Religion is not
It is precisely where these relations break down and become
just something for living well as are the arts and learning
meaningless that the religious question comes to bear. "\fuen
nor is it essential for physical survival as is food. Re-
we thus come to doubt the meaning of our existence, and when
ligion poses the problem of life and death in such a way as
we ourselves become a question to ourselves, the religious
to be vital to life itself. Of natural, social or cultural
quest springs up from within us." 23 \fuen life itself is
matters one can ask as to their utility. Indeed, the func-
questioned by death, emptiness (nihilum), sin, etc., we are
tional approach to religion is an extremely popular one in
brought face to face with the religious question. This does
the works of many western observers of religion. 21 This is
no t mean that we are literally dying before the question can
perhaps because much of our life is lived at the level of
confront us. It may be brought sharply into focus by many
the natural or cultural. The necessity of religion derives
existential crises or breaking-points. \fuenever our hither-
from its compelling us to return to the source of life, to
tofo re comfortable existence is undercut or threatened we
break through our ordinary mode of living. 22 Nishitani makes
may, as it were, see our life flash before our eyes and call
explicit two points in this connection: religion always con-
our very selves into question. It is here that we see most
cerns each individual as his own personal concern and can-
cle arly that the natural or cultural matters of life are not
20
Idem, "What is Religion?", p. 21. ultimately satisfying; that what we may previously have
21 F · · . o f t h.LS poLnt
or an LnterestLng ana l ysLS . of .
v~ew see taken to be our religious comfort, whether it be practices,
Hans H. Penner, "The Poverty of Frmctionalism," History of
Religions, Vol. II, No. 1 (August 1971), pp. 91-97. ideologies, or social security, is in fact a counterfeit com-
22 fort, an idolatry. As Nishitani puts it so eloquently,
As we stated in the last chapter, this is not to
be confused with any "nostalgia for paradise" of which
other writers such as Mircea Eliade have so eloquently written. 23 Keiji Nishitani, "\fuat is Religion?", p. 23.
 87 88

II
. death is not something which we may meet in the dis- This is the significance, for Nishitani, of the question,

tant future. We come into the world bearing death with us. "What is religion?"

Our life encounters death in its each step, and is inces- Nishitani also makes the distinction between describing

santly inserting one foot into the domain of death. Ever and criticizing other views of the natur~ of religion, and

on the verge of an abyss, it may come in an instant to his own efforts to consider the problem from a different per-

nothing." 24 Our existence is, as Buddhism affirms, anicca, spective, "--in a word, from the perspective of the aware-

( transient, impermanent). It consists in the instant which ness of Reality, or, more strictly, the real awareness of

is to say it is neither past nor future, but rather pulsates Reali ty." 27 It is in man's own awareness of Reality that Re-

over the void of nothingness. Our self-awareness is ob- ality itself comes into its own realization. It is not some

structed by our continual relation to other things and entity out there, transcendent to and apart from man. This

events: learning, the arts and other cultural and social mat- realization denotes both the meaning of actualizing and under-

ters. These things both constitute the problem and hinder standing. As Nishitani says, "the term 'realization' de-

our seeing them as problematic. "Then the sense of nothing- note s real experience, not theoretical knowledge, as in the

ness . . . causes one, as is said in Zen, to 'reflect one's case of a philosophical cognition: a 'bodily' understanding,
,.28 This use of the term "body" refers
light upon what is underfoot.'" "Again, as expressed in so to speak,

Zen, this is 'to step back and come to oneself.' It is the to the whole man with his spirit, soul and body. This whole

about-face of our life." 25 Thus the proper study of man is bodily experience, this awareness of Reality is our real be-

not simply ego-centered or man-centered as often appears to ing itself and the true reality of our existence. The

be claimed in many humanistic or existentialist philosophies, search for knowledge, then, is not the religious quest. On

but is the standpoint of asking for what purpose we our- the contrary, the religious quest is "that which,--in con-

selves exist. It is this to which Adorno is referring in trast to thinking, intellectual or philosophical, which re-

his critique of Exis tentialisrn when he notes: "The dichotomy mains in abstraction--really seeks the true reality, and to

of subject and object is not to be voided by a reduction to try from this approach to answer the question, 'what is re-

the human person, not even to the absolutely isolated person." 26 Ashton (New York: The Seabury Press, 1973), p. 51.
27 This perspective is none other than the normative per-
T4 Ibid., pp. 23-24.
spective to which we referred in the Introduction. Keiji
25 Ibid., p. 24. Nishi tani, "What is Religion?" p. 25.
26 28 Ibid.
Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B.

89
ligion,' by tracing that path through which the quest for
what is truly real is really pursued," 29
III. Fields of Reality
Nishitani speaks of fields of Reality or stages in the
consideration of Reality and the corresponding problems for
man in each. 30 There is also a subjective and objective,
internal and external perspective or dimension of the first
two fields. The first field is that of sense perception and
ordinary experience. From the objective perspective of this
ordinar:r field of experience, reality is thought of as things
and events external to us. Here Reality consists in the
whole visible universe--plants, tools, mountains; or even
other people, societies, nations, human activities and events.
On its objective side (science) truth for the self is practi-
cal, usable, reliable in ordinary existence. The subjective
perspective, also from the ordinary point of view, considers
Reality as internal experiences such as desire, feelings,
thought, etc. As Inada suggests: "The so-called 'internal'
activities, though private to each of us, are the grounds,
the source of meaning." 31 Obviously, combinations of these
perspectives are possible but they are linked by the fact
that they are individuals' points of view. It is a peculiarly
29 Ibid., p. 26.
30 Ibid. and "Topics," November 21, 1969.
31
Kenneth Inada, "A Buddhist Response to Fragmentation
of Meaning in Modern Culture," Young East, New Series
(Spring 1975), Vol. I, No. 2, p. 5.
90
Buddhist insight that it saw something wrong with the way
life is understood in the ordinary sense. In the context
of time an.d impermanence, man has tended to treat this prob-
lem by considering a whole life to be the sum of these parts.
This is where Buddhism perceived the problem and provided
its doctrine of dukkha or suffering. "Duhkha or universal
suffering includes physical and mental sufferings, but at
bottom it refers to the inability to understand the frag-
32 Only in a crisis
mentation process in our ordinary lives. "
do we become aware that these are merely preliminary aspects
of Re:11i ty.
On its subjective (ethical) side, truth for the self is
exhibited in truthfulness, trustworthiness, in Conscience.
A con scientious man will be true to himself as a realization
or ac tualization of truth--i.e., truth is expressed in sub-
jectivity. Both sides are merely aspects and exist in a kind
of mutual negation; there is no other relation between them.
Here things are dealt with as "matters of fact" leading to
certainty of knowledge. At this first stage, the being that
experiences does so in the mode of self-being (as in "the
one who experiences"). Self-identity is a fundamental factor
in every experience to be taken in its immediacy. In this
stage of experience there is included duality and identity.
The matter of Conscience requires further elucidation.
It is an intangible kind of subjective moral knowledge, a
32Ibid.
 91
"good-certainty," "good-mind" (so important in Chinese Con-
fucian teaching) , "good-knowledge." In German it is the
Gewissheit or "certainty in religious matters." Only from
the standpoint of conscience can we establish confidence.
Often there appears a contradiction, or an apparent one, be-
tween scientific certainty and sureness of moral conscience.
The self-being is led to despair and nihilism (not, however,
in its most radical form at this level). The private con-
sciousness or conscience is perhaps the apex of self-being.
The "good-mind" is the fountain or fundament of all virtues
as "one's own self-being." It is not good in relation to
bad but fundamentally good. It is where one's own-being
stands only in relation to itself as moral self-conscious-
ness, self-knowledge, self-being. As it is with Confucian
teaching, conscience is the "knowing which is not waiting
for any-thing to know." It has the potential to open itself
like Heaven or God. Where the Chinese speak with the phrase
to "stand facing heaven," Nishitani adopts the phrase, "I
stand alone before God, in my conscience." The good-mind
is a sort of ontological self-being, immediate self-knowl-
edge, the "unity of heaven and man." 33
From the point of view of epistemology, we have been
speaking of truth in "matters of fact" which concern Reality
and we may equate this knowledge with wissenschaft or
episteme. At this level there is a fundamental knowledge
33 Keiji Nishitani, "Topics," Dec. 5, 1969.
92
where thought (even as a kind of science), philosophy, meta-
physics, the "sciences" are one. The reason of mathematics
an d logic operates here as a sort of broad base for kno\<rl-
edge in everyday existence and experience. The stages are
de scriptively not too distinct, however, and we begin to
creep into the second stage which is that of th~ mode of
being of man with consciousness and intellect.
In the stage of consciousness, the problem is one of
certainty. At the stase of experience, science was purely
objective; concerned with the purification of everyday ex-
perience, with knowledge of the objective world. At the
l evel of consciousness the sciences take on a narrower mean-
i ng as suggested by the increasing feeling of certainty de-
r ived from logic, mathematics, etc. Any doubt entertained
by consciousness is by nature more radical at this level.
Hoving to the level or stage of certainty of consciousness
i n its subjective aspect m~ans moving from mere truthfulness
towards men and trustworthiness, to certainty of man in re-
lation to himself, to his inner self. It means certainty of
man in relation to other men as Buber suggests in his dis-
cussion of Ich-Uu. The conscientious man is truthful in him-
self. At this level, then, there is certitude such that
doubt must be radical; similar to the "Great Doubt" of Zen
though not qualitatively equal to it. (In the "Great Doubt"
there is only the act of doubting; even the Self, God, World
are included in this doubt.) Such doubt does not come easily
due to the self re-enforcing nature of rationality. Cer-
 93 94

tainty is the conceptual response to the fragmentary and simplicity is deceptive and confusing. Often it is the case

impermanent nature of the world of sense perception, i.e., that what a particular person views as real in his profes-

experience. 34 The level of certainty is much more philosophi- sion, e.g., physics, is seen at odds with what he views in

cally abstract, much more scientifically theoretical than his personal life, e.g., in his religion. We might character-

at the level of experience, even though based upon experi- ize such positions loosely as "talk" and concede that they

ence. It has come to prevail over the first field, that of are necessary in conducting the everyday affairs of life but

ordinary experience, by being raised by the sciences as dis- we must also see them as "talk" in the sense that they are

ciplines. This is due, of course, to overconfidence in our are false, i.e., they are simplistic reductions of reality

rational faculties. Everything must be brought within a in to everyday language.

certain set of logical rules and this includes even sense It is at the interface between the second and the final

perception. Reason, deceiving itself, has made objectivity fi elds of Reality that Religion and Metaphysics come into

its cardinal rule. For the natural sciences atoms or energy pl ay. Their concerns or problems are those of the third

or scientific laws are considered as real. Social scientists fi eld but their language and formulations are bound to the

may treat economic or other principles or laws as real. s econd field. The former are trans-ontological, trans-con-

These four perspectives of the first two fields of Re- c eptual, trans-relational; the latter are merely ontologi-

a 1 1.. ty s h are t he cotmllon error o f b e~ng

. . 35 Th.~s
. 1'~s t~c.
s~mp
cal, conceptual and relational. The word transcendent is
used to indicate this diletmlla. The first two fields have
34 In an essay on fragmentation, Kenneth Inada suggests
that, "We have, over the years, bound ourselves with layers nothing of the transcendent in them (except when "viewed"
upon layers of conceptual elements that are retained for
their static, persistent and permanent characteristics. i n the perspective of the Great Awakening). The transcen-
These elements have engendered our uncritical perspectives
on life simply because we place such high premium on fixed dent indicates the third field and attempts to move bayond
ideas, a fixation of thought, whose value refers more to
material things than to the non-material . . . though even t he problem of relation which is critical for the prior two
that statement stands to be corrected or modified in light
of contemporary science." Kenneth Inada, "A Buddhist Re- s tages. 36
sponse to Fragmentation of Meaning in Modern Culture," p. 5.
Transcendence is a problem conceptually in metaphysics
35 In fact, the history of education may in large part
be characterized as the progressive narrowing down of the i n such questions as the existence of God, the nature of
various aspects of these perspectives into fields, depart-
ments, areas, etc. Often these are formalized into disci- t he Prime Mover, etc. Religiously it includes some form of
plines which try desperately not to tread on the toes of
those in other disciplines. 36 Keij i Nishitani, "Topics," Nov. 21 and Dec. 12, 1969.
 95
metaphysics and is concerned with God and God's relation to
man. Transcendence itself is concerned with the character
of the problem of the Absolute; not of certainty but on the
plane of the transcendent--beyond the level of certainty/
uncertainty. The aspects of subject and object are no longer
any help but part of the hindrance of conceptual apparatus.
It is insufficient to speak of the subjective in terms of
morality and moral certainty; or as that in which objective
truth becomes certain as in Descartes' cogito. It is also
also insufficient to speak of the objective as absoLutely
certain; this certainty does not touch the problem of 11 \-:he-
ther?" of actuality and validity. The Great Doubt is trans-
conceptual, a stage of samadhi, in Buddhism whereas the
doubt in Descartes' thought is only a method--his certainty
of being, knowing, etc. appear in ergo ~· Here Absolute
Knowledge is no longer objective knowledge in some metaphysi-
cal sense, it is religious, even moral, in the sense of
"Truly" livi:1g as the absolutely subjective Subject. The
seventeenth century Zen master Shido Bunan puts it: "Be-
come a dead man, remaining alive; become thoroughly dead;
then do what you like, according to your own mind; all your
works then are good." 37
In spite of being based in the human experience of the
first two fields and four perspectives, it is Nishitani's
conviction that apart from these various standpoints of every-
37
Quoted by Nishitani, "Preliminary Remark," p. 57.
96
day life, there is the reality of death and nothingness
(nihilum).
Nihilum means the absolute negativity as regards
the being of the other various things and phenomena;
death means the absolute negativity as regards life
itself. And just as it can be said that life a~d the
existence of things are real, it can be said that
death and nihilum, too, are real. When there is a
finite being--and all things are finite--nihilum ne-
cessarily obtains; and where there is life, there is
necessarily death. And before nihilum and death, all
existence and life lose their certaLnty and weight as
reality and come, instead, to seem unreal.38
From the ordinary point of view, the nothingness or nihil that
i s absolute negativity lacks the kind of reality assigned to
everyday things and events. But if we consider that all things
fi nally come to nothing we can conclude that everything which
has . being is real although not all reality has being. 39 It is
i n this sense that the so-called mystical unity or order of
the universe which so many have felt or intuited does not ex-
haust reality or totally grasp it. It will, indeed, be clear
t hat Nishitani acknowledges these experiences of the divine
i nterdependence of things in the universe but he doubts that
t his is the ~ reality of things and events because it does
38 Keiji Nishitani, "~.fuat is Religion?" p. 27.
39
The idea of "being" has been characterized as the
Archirnedean point of western thought. Its entire civiliza-
tion has turned on this point. Cf. Yoshinori Takeuchi,
" Buddhism and Existentialism: The Dialogue between Oriental
and Occidental Thought," Religion and Culture: Essays in
Honor of Paul Tillich, ed. Walter Leibrecht (New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1959), pp. 291-318. This same author goes on
to warn that the eastern and Buddhist notion of "nothing-
ness" is used differently from the way it is understood in
the West. This difference will become apparent as we pro-
c eed.
 97
not attend to the problem of absolute nothingness .
Our everyday or external perspective of the things and
events of the world is, of course, the field of consciousness,
the topes of consciousness. The field of consciousness is
the "self-centered" field from which the self as subject views
the external world or internal self as object. Here even the
self becomes fundamentally separated into subject and object.
Self-consciousness is, then, illusory, i.e., unreal, since it
is merely the self as subject presuming to view the internal
aspects of itself as objects. There is of course such a self
in the ordinary view of reality but from Nishitani's point of
view it must necessarily be a self which is estranged from
things--shut up within itself. "In this, the self always puts
itself before itself and regards itself as a 'thing' called
'self,' separated from other things . . . . There intervenes
the representation, in which the self presents itself in the
form of 'things.' This self is not really at home with it-
self . • . . To sum up, things and the self, feelings and
desires, all are real, but it cannot be said that they are
present in their true reality in the field of consciousness,
where they are always present only in the form of representa-
tion and are, nevertheless, usually taken as real. " 40 It is
in this limited sense of reality that we may say that we are
really conscious of our emotion, desires, etc. This field of
the internal and external must be broken through before we
4
°Keiji Nishitani, "What is Religion?" p. 30.
98
experience the realization of real Reality. This contradic-
tion is responsible for perpetuating the various conceptual
opposi tions such as materialism and idealism.
Ni shitani suggests that Descartes, the father of mod-
ern philosophy, is the best exemplar of this condition with
his dis tinction between res cogitans and res extensa. This
marks the beginning of the formal acceptance of a mechanistic
worldview. Nishitani is not, of course, lamenting the ad-
vances this made possible in our mastery of nature through
the scientific techniques it eventually facilitated. lie
does, however, lament that it did not also provide the occa-
sion for seeing the radical nature of the problem posed by
such a dualistic worldview. The ego came to be an undoubted
reali ty by an ultimately uncritical self-assertion and the
things in the natural world and even the objectified things
of the "internal" self came to be the object of inquiry. In
this respect pre-scientific man was perhaps closer to the
truth of things.
If nature and society pose such conditions and limita-
tion s as uncertainty and contingency one may be well-advised
to seek comfort in the security of an ego. If life, will,
in tellect, etc. are thought of as intrinsic abilities and
activities of the ego there may be thought to be a security
available to man that he had previously either lost or had
not kno~Yn. Intellectual history after Freud is profound
testimony to the compelling power of Descartes' argument. 41
41 As Michael Polanyi has observed : "The method of doubt
 99
But Nishitani questions the argument by asking whether Des-
cartes may not really have only posed the dilemma for man in
a different or more striking form. What really has happened
in Descartes is that a tremendous stride forward was taken
toward understanding the nature of self-consciousness but
no movement at all toward resolving the crises posed by no-
thingness and death, Although continuing efforts persist in
the effort to explain man in terms of matter or in terms of
his consciousness (or pre-, sub-, or un-conscious dimensions
of consciousness), one does not satisfy what Nishitani calls
man's religious aspirations by attempts to get behind or
under the field of consciousness and self-consciousness.
Designating that as subject which can never be made an ob-
ject or can never be derived from any other object does not
make it so. The subject is, "on the contrary, the point of
departure for considering all other objects, " 42 The cogito
is a self-evident fact only at the level of consciousness
whose self-evidence remains to be exposed from a yet more
fundamental level. The establishment of the fact "I think"
is not, then, to be explained by pre-conscious life, i.e.,
by a scientific "reduction" in the manner of Freud or in terms
is a logical corollary of objectivism. It trusts that the
uprooting of all voluntary components of belief will leave
behind unassailed a residue of knowledge that is completely
determined by the objective evidence," Personal Knowledge:
Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 269.
42
Keiji tlishitani, "What is Religion?" p. 33.
100
of objective matter as seems to be intended by modern bio-
lo gical and physical sciences. For Nishitani it is incon-
ceivable that noesis could ever be explained by ~ be-
cause knowing always contains a sort of transcendence over
what is known. On the other hand, neither is it to be ex-
plained in terms of a "god" above who is now dead as Nishi-
tani agrees Nietzsche clearly demonstrated. Rather, we must
go back further along the axis of subjectivity and pene-
trate in to the fundament of 'I think' itself. Thinking of
"I think" from the position of "I think" may yield the most
di rectly evident truth but it is only one philosophical
position; it is the self-centered revelation of the ego it-
s elf. In this sense the ego consists of self-consciousness
endlessly reflecting itself. "But the fact that the ego is
conceived of in this way, that self-consciousness is end-
l essly reflected in self-consciousness, and 'I think' is
t hought from the standpoint of 'I think' itself, means that
t he ego is the mode of being of the self shut up within it-
s elf. We may also say the self attaching to itself, ,,4 3 The
various problems which rise up in the self such as radical
evil and original sin, loneliness and. the loss of self in
society, the possibility of cognition, the demand for the
salvation and deliverance of the soul, are evidence that the
very mode of being of the ego turns at last into a problem
for the ego itself. The level of the "I think" must, then,
43 rbid., p. 34.
 102
101

be broken through to a more fundamental level, a more basic sciou~ne ss as the field of the engagement between the ex-

self-awareness. Here religion may be viewed as "an existen- istence of self and other things and events. The "great"

tial exposure of the problematical which is contained in the refer s to a level or field of self-awareness in which being

usual mode of self-being. " 44 Religion may be called the no l onger hides the nothingness which, at the level of con-

marga or path of the "I think" realizing and clarifying the scio usness, has been covered. "To stand subjectively on

"I am. II nothingness (where, in truth, there is no plane to stand

47
on) is for the self to become more fundamentally itsel£."
IV. Great Doubt
This does not mean that we "are" no more but that nothing-
At this point Nishitani devotes some space to comparing
nes s appears at the foundation of the prior level of con-
Descartes' methodical doubt to the Great Doubt of Zen in
sciousness where there is separation of "external" and "in-
one of his more extended treatments of Zen. Zen he takes
ternal." "Such a realization of nothingness is not simply
here to be the place of the most fundamental and radical a conscious, 'subjective' phenomenon; it is rather the real
treatments of doubt in the world of religion. 45 Zen speaks mani festation of what is actually concealed at the founda-
of "the self-presence of the great doubt" and means by ti on of the self and everything in the world." 48 This is
"great" the seriousness, the fundamental nature of the doubt not the existentialists' "annihilation of being" but a
to ~1hich it refers. Birth and death are a "great matter" "transformation into nothingness ." We "are," but at a
in this fundamental sense. "Great" also refers to the ser-
fun damentally more subjective level where the self and other
iousness of our own "consciousness of our manner of exis- ar e essentially turned into a question mark. This is a mode
tence and our own behavior vis a vis this 'great matter. '" 46 of existence on the "yonder" or "this" side of psychologi-
We realize death and nothingness as real, constitutive en-
cal analysis. The "great" doubt is not merely a doubting
tities at the base of our existence. We have described con-
of self-consciousness but "appears as a reality from the

44 Ibid. one foundation of oneself and the world. When it appears,

I p. 35.
45 For an extended treatment of Zen in this light by a it appears as an inevitablility, and we, with our conscious-
Zen Buddnist to whom Nishitani has acknowledged his own in- ness and our arbitrary will, cannot know what to do with it.
debtedness see Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, "Zen: Its Meaning for
Modern Civilization," The Eastern Buddhist, New Series, Vol. Through this manifestation of the 'Doubt' in our self, our
I, No. l (September . l965), pp. 22-47, and his "The Character-
istics of Oriental Nothingness," Philosophical Studies of
Japan, Vol. II (1950), pp. 65-97. 47Ibid. • p. 36.
46 Keiji Nishitani, "What is Religion?" p. 35. 4Bibid.
 103
self really becomes the Doubt itself. It becomes itself
the realization of the great Doubt, which is in itself a
reality. " 49 It is a "whole bodily experience" of the Doubt,
doubt as sarnadhi or concentration. Such a doubt is ser-
ious as we have spoken of seriousness to the extent that
it is realized existentially. The fundamental difference
between this religious problematic and the exercise of phi-
losophy is that the philosophical doubt usually turns back
to the theoretical for an explanation of the doubt, i.e.,
the solution to the problem. 50 It is this enterprise which
Buddha refused to embarkupon and these questions in the
face of which he remained silent. It is this to which Hisa-
matsu is referring in his discussion of an expression at-
tributed to Bodhidharma:
Not relying on words or letters,
An independent Self-transmitting apart from any
teaching;
Directly pointing to man's Mind,
Awakening his (Original-) Nature, thereby actual-
izing his Buddhahood.
Hisamatsu suggests that: "As regards the first part of
49 Ibid., p. 37.
50
If we recall that relieion and philosophy (metaphysics)
operate in the interface between the second and final fields
of Reality, anu that distinctions and formulations are some-
what blurred in this interface, we \dll be properly aware of
the tentative nature of such an assertion as this. Takeuchi
is expressing such a point of distinction when he says: "For
instance, Heidegger's 'ontological difference between Sein
and Seiendes' is of a philosophical nature, and on the-otKer
hand, Kierkegaard's 'absolute distinction between absolute
telos and relative telos' (cf. Concluding Unscientific Post-
script [Princeton, 1941], pp. 347££.) is of a religious na-
ture; notwithstanding, both are the expression of authentic
existential passion (pathos).
104
Zen's basic expression, 'Not relying on words,' this is not
to be taken simply literally. 'Not relying on words' does
not mean the complete negation (as ordinarily understood)
of words. Rather, it is to be taken to mean 'prior to
words' in the sense of not depending on words, not being
bound or caught by words." 51 It must be obvious that Nishi-
tani considers Descartes to be engaged at the philosophi-
cal level. There are no doubt philosophical and psychologi-
cal counterparts to the existential condition of Great
Do ubt but they must not be mistaken for the Great Doubt it-
self . The "single-mindedness" of samadhi is not a psycho-
logi cal condition or state. To illustrate the difference
between the doubting process of Descartes and the experi-
enc e described in so much of the Zen literature, Nishitani
quo tes at some length from Takusui' s "Sermons":
The method to be practised is as follows: you must
doubt concerning the subject in you which hears all
voices. All voices are heard just now because there
certainly is in you a subject that hears. Although
you hear voices with ears, the holes of the ears
are not the subject that hears. If they were, dead
men also would hear voices . . . • You must doubt
deeply again and again, asking yourself what could
be the subject of hearing. Don't mind the various
illusive thoughts and ideas that may occur to you.
Only doubt more and more deeply, with all the gathered
might of your entire self, without aiming at or ex-
pecting anything beforehand, without even intending
to be enlightened, but also without intending not to
intend to be enlightened; and being within your breast
like a child • • • . But, however you go on doubting,
you will find it impossible to know the subject that
hears. Then you must still more deeply explore just
51 Hisamatsu Shin' ichi, "Zen: Its Meaning for Modern
Civilization," p. 23.
 105 106

V. Sin and Evil

there, where it is not to be known. Doubt deeply Ne xt Nishitani moves on to two other problems for man:
in a state of single-mindedness, looking neither
before nor after, right nor left, becoming wholly sin and evil. He wants to show that, whereas they have
like a dead man and becoming unaware even of your
own person being there. When this method is tradit ionally been considered fundamental problems for
practised more and more deeply, you will come to a
state of being totally absent-minded and vacant. man, in fact they are fundamental problems in an entirely
Even then, you must raise up the great doubt, "what
is the subject that hears?" and must doubt further, diffe rent sen£e, a deeper sense. He cites Kant's notion
being all the time wholly like a dead man. And after
that, when you are aware no more of your being of "radical evil" as illustrative of sin and evil present-
wholly like a dead man, are no more conscious of
your procedure of "great doubting" and become, your- ing themselves on this deeper level in their true reality
self, through and through a great doubt-mass, there
will come all of a sudden a moment when you come on a field transcending the field of the conscious self.
out into a transcendence called the Great Enlighten-
ment, as if you woke up from a great dream, of as if This radical evil is not something "we" as subjects have
you, being completely dead, suddenly revived.52
committed, i.e., some objective act. It is not to be as-
E~ doubt which is truly real has these characteristics,
sociated with ~ posteriori events of the world of temporal
whether or not they issue from a great deal of religious
exp erience. It is supra-temporal; it does not precede
practice. In this manner of doubting we realize (under-
temporal events in some causal fashion. It is the funda-
stand and actualize) nothingness and death. The Great
ment beneath time itself, the Kierkegaardic.n "atom of
Doubt emerges, opens up on the field of nothingness and as
eternity in time." It 1ies in what tnshi tani likes to call
such is also called the Great Death. This turn-about or
the Eternal Present. 53 "It is something real that presents
about-face is to the Great Enlightenment or Great Awakening.
itself in its own 'suchness' at the ground of our own be-
It is an attainment but also a "falling off" of our pre-
ing itself. 'We' cannot, therefore, grasp it; or, it can-
vious mode of existence. It comes to present itself as
not be grasped on the field where we speak of 'we' commit-
Reality from the foundation of the self-together-with-all-
ting some evil. In this sense, it is 'incomprehensible'
things. This Reality is the true reality of the self and
for 'us,' for the ego; and that it is incomprehensible is
of all things; that is, it is precisely their being present
that it presents itself really, and in its 'suchness. "• 54
as they are--each in suchness. The Reality which emerges
Kant's "intelligibele Tat" refers to this bodily experience
is none other than our "original face," our true and origi-
or realization. Buddhist karma and avidya also have their
nal Self; it is what Buddhism refers to as mahaprajna or
53 Keiji Nishitani, "Topics," Nov. 14, 1969.
Great Wisdom.
54 rdem., "What is Religion?" p. 42.
52
Keiji Nishitani, "What is Religion?" pp. 39-40.
 lUI
origin in this supratemporal fundament. 55
Only in religion is this subjective dimension realized;
in the social sciences this evil and sin take the form of
an objective crime or social disorder and become problems
treated as objective events. This is, of course, the error
of environmental theories of human behavior. Such a view,
as scientific as it may appear to be, can only hinder men
from seeing the true roots of evil. Even ethics is generally
considered at this superficial level where crime and other
evils are treated as committed by individual egos, as ob-
jective actions. The difference here between ethics andre-
ligion can be seen as paralleling the difference between phi-
losophy and religion on the matter of doubt. 56
Nishitani himself is critical of certain theories which
are considered generally to be religious points of view but
which he considers to fall shore of ultimately religious
views. Karl Barth believed that the image of God in man
was completely corrupted; Emil Brunner believed the same
but that reason was the anKn~pfungspunkt for God's grace.
55
The bodhisattva is, of course, one who is enlightened
to this fundamental condition of man and therefore of all
men and who, by his own enlightenment, enables other men to
become enlightened.
56
As one contemporary writer has put it: "The path of
religion leads through morality, but when one approaches
the goal, one enters into an entirely different element. The
saint who has attained the calm of Nirvana is said to be be-
yond good and evil." and "The ideal Sl.tuation should be per-
fectly pure, so it is said to transcend secular notions of
good and evil." · Hajime Nakamura, Parallel Developments: A
Com}arative History of Ideas (Tokyo: Kodansha Lta:, 1975),
p. 86.
108
Nishitani poses the obvious questions: If Barth is right,
why does man seek God at all or recognize him when he
speaks? If Brunner is right, man has not yet fully recog-
ni zed the extent of his sinfulness. Brunner was probably
ri ght to look for a "point of contact" but wrong in select-
i ng reason as this point. 57 "The place of 'contact' must,
I think, be sought somehow in the complete corruption it-
s elf; and it is probably to be found in the very aware-
ness of the fact of complete corruption." 58 This is the
f ield of nothingness, the field of our spiritual death, the
awareness of avidya. This field is not some place that can
be corrupted or remain uncorrupted. One cannot therefore
adequately speak of the original nature of man as being sin-
ful. The deepest awareness at the boundary of man's being
i s simply nothingness--neither good nor evil. "Therefore,
this awareness of our finitude not only gives an occasion
for transcending it, in the sense that it directs our mind
t o the experience of our own potentiality, that is, cultural
and spiritual creativity, but further it also drives us to
transcescend from this transcendence and fall into the abyss
of non-being . .,sg This is not mt!rely the form of man as op-
57 Nishitani is not, of course, attempting to discredit
the significance of many of the particulars of such theories;
but rather to point to their limits with respect to the
problem being considered here.
58 Keiji Nishitani, "What is Religion?" p. 44.
59 Yoshinori Takeuchi, "Buddhism and Existentialism,"
p. 297.
 109 110

posed to the contents of man. It is the formless Form, sword that kills man" and "a sword that gives him life."
the formal aspect of the totality of form and contents. I t negates the ego-centered self and thus gives life to
Faith is described in Nishitani's view as the reception man's fundamental self-awareness. One pure act of faith
of God's love really and~ it is. It is not an intentional in this sense is sufficient; it is not merely a temporal
act toward something from within the self. "Just as sin (and therefore temporary) affirmation of the consciousness
comes to be realized within the self as a reality emerging of the self but an actual realization of the original Self.
from the foundation of all human existence--or of all living This is what is meant by the instant of the pure act of re-
things (sattva)--together with the self itself, the belief signing oneself to Buddha. "~en this way of thinking is
that means a tum-about from this sin, that is, salvation, drawn to its furthest consequence, even the simple act of
must become a great reality in the same way. We can find faith is removed from the purview of the will of man and
the concept of faith in this sense in Christianity as well relegated to the compassionate being. For instance, in
as in Buddhism. In the former, faith is considered as a Japan it is believed that the value of Nembucsu (repeating
grace we receive through God's love, and the latter speaks the 'Namu Amidabutsu' formula) is the virtue of true com-
of 'two sores of profound faith,' of v1hich one, the faith . an d not t h e mer~tor~ous
. . acto f man. " 61 Th us,
0

pass~on, ~t ~s
•

of man who seeks salvation, consists in the above-mentioned
real awareness of man's own sinfulness, and the other, the
faith of 'dharma,' means that faith in salvation is a
grace emanating from the Buddha Amida's saving 'Power of
the Original Vow' (that is, His saving Will). " 60 This
faith occurs when the self truly becomffi the self itself.
This fundamental awareness is the place where the self in
its uniqueness, its unsubstitutableness finds no proxy in
any other person or even in the ego. This realization al-
ways occurs at once as the absolute negation and affirma-
tion of the solitary self; it is, in the words of Zen, "a
6 Religion?" p. 48.
°Keiji Nishitani, "~fuat is Religion?" pp. 45, 46.
"when we bow our heads and worship the Buddha, we are in
the realm of this world, and when we have raised our heads,
enter the realm of Amida." 62
Nishitani has now asserted three things, without sug-
gesting what Reality really is. First, nothingness is re-
alized as real where things and mental processes are un-
real, i.e., where the field of consciousness has been
passed through. Second, enlightenment and faith are turn-
abouts or about-faces from doubt and sin and evil viewed
61
Nakamura, p. 390.
62
zendo, "Hanshosan," quoted by Nishitani, "What is
 111
as the intrusion of nothingness appearing in our self-
awareness on the "yonder" and "this" side of self-conscious
ego. Finally, that doubt and enlightenment, sin and faith
become really ours only when we truly become the realiza-
tion of them in their suchness. In this connection Nishi-
tani raised the question of God and Tathagata Buddha and
proceeds now to a preliminary, but necessary, discussion of
modern atheism.
VI. Atheism
Religious traditions which are in some sense theistic
or at least incorporate some reference to deities are the
normally encountered religious traditions. This is not to
argue that they all conceive or consider those deities in
the same manner or, for that matter, even in the same num-
ber, but students of religion have always had to deal with
the question of God or gods. Recognizing that atheism has
in many instances been raised to the rank of a substitute
for religions with deities, Nishitani is obliged to take it
into special account. Where humanism often tends merely to
ignore the question of God, atheism takes special pains to
repudiate theism. It does so by trying to point out an al-
ternate basis for human existence or end of human life. As
early as Feuerbach's philosophical anthropology we encounter
optimistic humanisms which hold that though God has become
a useless, out-of-date hypothesis, man himself can be the
basis for a better system of values providing the norms for
society, mo~ality, culture, etc. Nishitani does not specifi-
112
cal ly attend to this assertion with regard to Feuerbach but
it i s easy to see that he considers his characterization of
an ego-conscious subjectivity to be applicable to these
op timistic humanisms and moves directly to forms of atheism
whi ch he considers subtler and seemingly more persuasive.
Sartre, referring to The Brothers Karamazov, tells us
that, "Dostoevsky once wrote, 'If God did not exist, every-
thing would be permitted'; and that, for existentialism, is
the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God
does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he
cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside
himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse ."63
If, as Sartre insists, existence precedes essence, man can
never explain his actions by reference to a given and specif-
i c human nature. There is no determinism, man is freedom
i tself. One may properly conclude that it is a matter of
s ome distress that man finds out that God does not exist.
I t means that man must fashion his own essence having merely
turned up on the scene. "Man is nothing else but what he
makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existen-
tialism. It is also what is called subjectivity, .. 64
63 Jean Paul Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism,"
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, trans. Walter
Kaufmann (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1956),
pp. 294-95.
64
Idem., Existentialism and Human Emotions (New York:
Philosophical Library, Inc., 1957), p. 15.
 113
The foundation of human existence is nothingness or the
fact that nothing is found at the foundation of our being
itself and that we come, pre-reflectively, to an awareness
of our subjectivity. The difference here, as Nishitani
sees it, between Sartre and Descartes is that between
atheism and theism. Sartre's ego is a subjectivity which
can count on nothing within or without; Descartes' ego is
a subjectivity which postulates on its own cognizance an
object, i.e., God. Hodern science, then, merely substitutes
its own confidence in an objective world for God. Sartre's
existentialism claims to be a humanism on the ground that
"a man who chooses and creates himself at the same time cre-
ates an image of man such as he believes he ought to be." 65
Whereas in Christianity, man is created in the "image of
God," in Sartre man creates the "image of man." It is not
surprising that Nishitani is not satisfied with Sartre's
analysis of the human condition and problematic. Just as
was the case in Descartes, here too the status of the ego
consists in the "I think" being thought from the standpoint
of the "I think." In this case the self is merely shut up
within itself; "clinging to oneself" and "being bound by
one's own hands with one's own rope" are descriptive of this
condition. The field of self-consciousness is not broken
through here. However noble we might consider Sartre's ef-
65
Keiji Nishitani, "What is Religion?" p. 50; cf.
Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, p. 17.
114
for t to restore man to his own dignity we must finally con-
clude that he has only more securely tied man to the prob-
lem of seeing himself as an object. The freedom and inde-
pendence are only social and historical but not real.
There is only one situation in which complete
freedom can be attained without falling into anar-
chism. It must be one in which freedom and equal-
ity--essentially contradictory--can co-exist in a
paradoxical way. Indeed this can only happen where
the place of Void becomes the place of freedom;
and the place of void is attained when equality,
which tends to negate freedom, is traversed into
the consequent end of absolute negation or nothing-
ness. True freedom can only be consummated when 66
its absolute negation is its absolute affirmation.
"Nothing" becomes a "thing," a springboard for the self whose
e xistence consists of "projet." This is what Zen refers to
a s "living in the Demon's Cavern," i.e., in the cave of the
s elf-conscious ego with its subjective "nothingness" opened
up at its base. It is the "perversely-grasped Sunyata
(Emptiness)" which is rebuked by Buddhism. No doubt the
subjectivity is deepened but it appears, nonetheless, as a
representation (idea), an object of consciousness or of at-
tachment. For Sartre there is no reality except in actions
and existentialism shows the connection between the absolute
character of free involvement and the relative nature of
the culture which results. Nishitani's discomfort with this
position stems from the subjective topos on which these ac-
tions and man's self-realization take place. Such statements
of Sartre' s as "Each of us performs an absolute act in
66 Keiji Nishitani, "On the I-Thou Relation in Zen Budd-
hism," p. 76.
 115
breathing, eating, sleeping, or behaving in any way what-
ever" sound very much like Zen statements except for the
place of their origin, the place to which they refer. The
nothingness of Sartre has a self hiding behind it.
VII. Conclusions
We have alluded to the emergence of modern man and mod-
ern science from this subjective understanding of man.
Nishitani feels that Christianity contains what is funda-
mentally the same problem. It has always recognized ego-
tistic existence in sin and disobedience as constituting the
basic mode of exist~nce of humanity. Man's freedom has been
claimed, paradoxically, to consist in subordinating his own
will to that of God--to God's absolute power. This doctrine,
of course, conflicts directly with the emerging ego as
facilitated by Descartes and others. Man has increasingly
come to consider his own subjective independence as limited
by such authority and to desire liberation from what has
now come to be seen as bondage--the bondage of other. "Prin-
ciples in the domains of the sciences, arts, politics, ethics,
and all other such areas have become independent from their
religious groundings, and the universal 'secularization' of
human life has been more and more developed. The alienation
of the actualities of human life from religion thus consti-
tutes the fundamental problem in the his tory of modern man. " 6 7
~11 the atheisms, humanisms and modern sciences are merely,
67
Keiji Nishitani, "What is Religion?" p. 55.
116
in res ponse to this situation, standpoints wherein man runs
up against himself inside himself or in the form of some ob-
jectivized other. In view of this Nishitani asks the Hegel-
ian question: "Do not these two mutually exclusive positions
--namely, man's freedom pushed to its ontological conclusion
in any subjective nothingness and in subjectivized atheism
on the one hand, and the religious freedom manifested in the
Christian tradition on the other hand,--require to attain
by some means a new and higher synthesis which is to be at-
tained only through self-negation and the mutual negation of
the se two positions? Modern atheism should not be regarded
by Christianity merely as something to be eliminated. Nor
is Christianity able to eliminate it. It should rather re-
cei ve modern atheism as a mediation to the possibility of
its own new development." 68
The existence of modern man poses a problem to Christian-
ity which has gone essentially unanswered, according to
Nish itani, and forced man to look elsewhere for his answers.
It is the absolutely transcendent yet personal character of
God which is the root of the dilemma. According to Christian-
ity, ~~l ~~ings are created out of nothing; since they (and
therefore man) have nothing at their foundation they are ab-
solutely distinct from their creator. This doctrine causes
the ontological relationship between God and the created
things to be a perpetual problem in Christianity. Since all
68 rbid., pp. 55-56.
 117
things "are" in some sense, what is the nature of this ex-
istence and this relationship to God? between man's being
and God's being? Plato suggested the notion of "participa-
tion" and Aristotle that of "analogia ~" but the prob-
lem has never been considered satisfactorily solved. Nishi-
tani's point is that this must remain an existential ques-
tion in the existence of each religious man. Proclaiming
that we are created by God means proclaiming that we are not
God. Instead we are shut off from the ground of our being
by the nihilum at the foundation of the world. At the same
time, we encounter the power of this God in the very existence
of all created things in their actuality. "It means that
in our very inability to encounter God, no matter where we
turn in the world, we encounter Him, no matter where we
69
turn. " This is God in his absolute negativity. God's
omnipresence when met on the existential standpoint presses
close upon our own existence and will not allow advance or
retreat. Nishitani holds that few Christians ~ave seen or felt
God's transcendence in this light; notable exceptions being
the situations of ~1oses and the prophets, or Paul, St. Fran-
cis of Assisi, and Luther. 70
In contrast to this encounter with absolute transcendence
in the existence of all created things, it is customary to
69
Ibid., p. 57.
70This reflects something of Nishitani's selective and
typological understanding of Christianity and his lack of a
comprehensive grasp of its history. We will have more to say
of this as we proceed and in our conclusions.
ll8
suggest that God's transcendence is met in a personal rela-
tionship with God, through the consciousness of sin. The
fo rmer is considered pantheism and the latter, more personal
theism is considered the more orthodox view. "But in the
idea of God's omnipresence is contained the possibility of
encountering God everywhere in the world. This is not the
so -called pantheism.. For this does no:: mean that Universe
is God, or that God is the immanent Life of the world itself,
but it means that an absolutely transcendent God is, as such,
absolutely immanent." 71 To be created out of nothing means
that the "nothing" is more immanent in the thing created than
t he "being" of the thing created. This being grounded on
nothing is immanence as absolute negativity. This does nut
mean, as Nishitani shows in chapter two, that the field of
transcendence and the field of existence cannot be described
i n terms of a personal relationship between God and man.
The relationship may be described as personally impersonal
or impersonally personal in a new way so that Nishitani of-
fers eventually a new way for reconsidering the relationship
between God and man so that, as he says, "In Christianity,
too, it may become possible to proclaim, 'Once cr,e Great
Death, then the Universe becomes nE~v. "' and "God's reality
must be taken up in the mode of its being as is revealed on
the level where there is neither 'internal' nor 'external',
and the existence of a man who meets with it must also be
71 Keiji Nishitani, "~oJhat is Religion?" p. 60.
 119

considered on the same level, not as just 'internally' per-

sonal existence." 72 CHAPTER III

Without having answered directly his question "What is

NISHITAIH' S UNDERSTANDING OF
Religion?" Nishitani has, in the first chapter of his book
THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL
laid out the parameters of his inquiry and given the reader
a microcosmic view of his whole work. He has introduced the I. Hodernity and Science as Impersonal

problem of the self limited by its self-consciousness and We have dealt with Nishitani's understanding of scien~e

set this problem in the context of the relation between and myth as it relates to modernization in our first chapter

science and religion. It is in the larger context of the but it is difficult to understand his discussion of the Per-

relation between these two that he proceeds through his anal- sonal and the Impersonal without linking it in some pre-

ysis of certain fundamental notions in his attempt finally liminary fashion to these topics. 1

to answer the original question. It is crucial that these Science, since medieval times in the West (and this is

notions be continually understood in this context since als o the heritage shared by the East), has broken away from

religion is not the dead artifact of tradition but a prob- the teleological, subjective intentions of previous thought

lem of everyday life and this means in the presence of mod- and has espoused objectivity, even pure objectivity, as its

ern secular science. Religion must not be imagined to be wat chword. Whereas, previously, thought was concerned always

some thing or event which can be abstracted out of or re- with the relation between man and nature as inextricably in-

duced from some "archaic" or purely mythological past; it ter twined, and thus paralleled the Chinese preoccupation with

is to be experienced on some field deeper than that of self- the relation between man and nature, 2 it came more and more
consciousness. to be preoccupied with the analysis of nature itself toward

1
we have been guided somewhat in our willingness to re-
capitulate by Nishitani's own procedures which involve the
constant reintroduction and reintegration of previously dis-
cussed notions freshly viewed from a new perspective. One
might properly speak of the aesthetic element as figuring
heavily in such a presentation or draw the analogy of some-
one viewing a three-dimensional object such as a sculpture
fr om various directions, thus yielding new insights.
2
72 Especially in such as early schools of Taoism, Yin-
Ibid., p. 60. Yang and the Five Elements schools of classical thought.
 121
the end of its being increasingly utilized by man but, none-
the less, viewed as "out there," essentially apart from man;
somehow to be assimilated into man's self-understanding but
not essentially a part of man's whole bodily-experience.
Buddhist notion of svabhava, or own-being (Nishitani's self-
being), long a subject of debate among Buddhist philosophers
but generally conceived to be the opposite of anatman, was
long considered by Indian philosophers to be the representa-
tion in existence of Reality. Svabhava was viewed by Budd-
hists, and subsequently is understood by Nishitani, as the
socially useful but ultimately unreal representation of Re-
ality.3 Not only is it unreal but finally it must always
impede ones search for, or obscure ones view of Reality by
posing as it. The search for objectivity becomes increas-
ingly impersonal and mechanistic; an end in and of itself.
The subjective, personal dimension of science is therefore
lost. Nishitani does not, of course, advocate emphasizing
the opposite extreme and the consequent risk of obscuring
Reality by wallowing in subjectivity or self-conscious activ-
ity. Neither of these extremes is finally useful in the
quest for ultimate Reality but science in modern times has
most often fallen into a kind of pseudo-objectivity, de-
ceiving itself into believing it has grasped Reality or moved
closer co grasping Reality by sorting out one more of its
component parts or by breaking down Reality into its smallest
That is to say, it pertains only to the first two
fields of Reality we described in the last chapter.
122
component pares.
Nis hitani is not, of course, suggesting that science
has no role to play in the modern world; to the contrary it
The is quite properly concerned with the analysis and explana-
tion of the impersonal world. It is continually concerned
with the purification of experience. Psychology, for ex-
ample, in its objective role, i.e., its scientific role,
must do its "behavioural" thing, must be concerned with
quant ification and laboratory analysis. This is the con-
trap untal counterpoint to its psychoanalytic and psycho-
the rapeutic side. Nishitani suggests only that in these
more or less impersonal ventures the psychologist reminds
himself continually that he is himself a person and is deal-
ing in turn with persons. "Science is not separate from
those who engage in it. Horeover, the pursuit of science
is only one aspect of human knowledge." 4
The psychologist-scientist is continually, or should
be, confronted with doubt concerning the meaning of his own
existence. This is extended into his scientific vocation
as doubt concerning the meaning of existence of all things.
Thi s means taking personally all considerations he might
otherwise hold at arm's length, i.e., objectify and deper-
sonalized in the name of the scientific objectivity modern-
4 Keiji Nishitani, "The Personal and the Impersonal in
Religion," trans. Rev. Jan Van Bragt and Yamamoto Seisaku,
The Eastern Buddhist, New Series, III. Nos. 1 (June 1970)
1-18; 2 (Oct. 1970), 80-88. Chapter Two of Shllkyo to wa
Nanika ("What is Religion?") , Sobunsha, 1961.
 123
ity seems to call for. The dimension in which such doubts
arise far transcends the dimension on which the scientific
inquiry begins. The scientific inquiry and the quest for ob-
jectivity begin in and are a part of the problem itself.
Man's inability to find enduring order in a world where the
past emerges directly out of the future without any duration
to the present but only the instant (Nishitani's Eternal
Present), blinds man to the presence of Reality in the in-
stant and leads him to seize upon the illusion of objectivity,
i.e., Science.
The arena for this inquiry is, of course, nature with
its seemingly less personal (read anthropormorphic) character-
istics. Following Descartes' breakdown of previously more
holistic worldviews and the increasingly acceptable division
of Reality into dualistic categories such as subject-object,
personal-impersonal, the view man has of the world takes on
quite a different character. Whereas previously cosmic order
meant the unification of the order of the natural world and
the order of the human world seen operating according to the
laws of nature under the providence of God (Nishitani cites
Augustine, Plato, Pythagoras, the Upanishads, Kepler and
Newton as exemplars of this view), with the establishment of
natural science and the scientific world view "the concep-
tion of the natural world changed from a teleological to a
mechanistic view, bringing with it a fundamental change in
the relation between man and nature." 5 This marks the begin-
Srbid., p. 3.
124
ning of the split between science and religion. Nishitani
reminds us of Kant's attack, following the great Lisbon
earthquake of 1755, upon the blasphemous notion "that would
vi ew such a natural phenomenon as divine punishment, or
wo uld notice 'a purpose of divine solicitude' therein, which
he called a 'mistaken, human teleology. "' 6 The upshot of
al l this is the increasingly mechanistic view of a cold,
dead, impersonal world. We live within this world but it
s eems to thwart our attempts to realize our humanity within
i t ; indeed, it coldly, cruelly and calculatedly removes us
f rom existence with what often seems to be totally impersonal
mechanisms. It has been, however, very persuasively argued
t hat science and scientists do not take this fact seriously.
They continue in the Ptolemaic and Biblical tradition to
assign man a central position in the universe. Had they
learned the lesson of Copernicus--to abandon all sentimental
egoism and see man objectively in the true perspective (the
scientific perspective) of time and space--they would spend
no more than a moment considering the history of human be-
ings in the panorama of the history of the universe. "Alter-
natively, if we decided to examine the universe objectively
in the sense of paying equal attention to portions of equal
mass, this would result in a life-long pre-occupation with
interstellar dust, relieved only at brief intervals by a sur-
vey of incandescent masses of hydrogen-- not in a thousand
million lifetimes would the turn come to give man even a
6Ibid.
 125
second's notice."7 Our seeming scientific objectivity only
serves to exacerbate, not to heal, t~e despair which is the
natural consequence of holding this depersonalized natural
world view.
Nishitani observes that from within that despair
arises our awareness of nihilum. The question arises, "How
and in what dimension does the resolution of this despair,
this awareness of nihilum, occur?" Surely the old teleo-
logical view of nature is inadequate but is the new notion
of an indifferent natural order completely incompatible with
the concept of God? As Nietzsche observed, most religions
were preoccupied with human concerns. Nishitani wants to
question the assumption that the foundation on which salva-
tion is possible remains within the realm of "human" con-
cerns. "The problem is this: when the relation between an
insentient world and man and the relation between such a
world and God are made the foundation of religion, what does
the relation of God and man--that is, religion--become?" 8
In the teleological view, the God-man relation had been
the axis. Han was seen as the highest representative of
things in the world; this was (is) true of all the great west-
ern monotheistic traditions. The relationship between God
and man seems to have a primarily human focus, i.e., it is
7Polanyi, p. 3. Obviously we pay only lip service to
"objectivity." It is this vastness and coldness of the ob-
jective universe that we discussed previously in Nishitani's
references to the "kalpa fires."
8Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 4.
126
"personal." The new world view portrays the world as a
place in which man cannot exist comfortably and from which
he cannot escape. This world view has in turn created a so-
cial context in which modern science can thrive and find
its elf "self-" sustained. "In the modern world religion is
a remnant--a recollection of what was once thought to be
'the natural order,' the order involved in community life.
It is . . . a matter of the creation of a social context in
whi ch empirical-rational thinking is demanded because the
soc ial order itself is no longer invested with sacred mean-
ings and mysteries, but is regulated by technology. Tech-
nology is the encapsulation of a form of rationality." 9 It
r efuses to take him seriously or personally and quantifies
him in biological and material categories. The laws of na-
ture become the focus, the axis, and the death aspect of man
is bluntly pointed out and cast before his despairing eyes.
Reality has, before modern science, been viewed largely in
its life aspect. True Reality has a life and a death aspect;
it is two-fold. Whereas "soul," "personality," and "spirit"
have always been considered in their life aspect, "matter"
projects before us the death aspect. They must be seen to-
gether; Reality can be viewed in each but is not reducible
to any of them. "Reality is that which appears as life and
as death." 10 This will be explored further in a later section;
9sryan R. Wilson, "Aspects of Secularization in the lvest,"
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (Dec. 1976), Vol. 3,
No. 4, p. 266.
lOKeiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 7.
 127 128

what is important is that the order of nature and history dence of his own self-being. Here man becomes free and in-

had previously been viewed in its life aspect and as a re- dependent in the realization of the void at the base of his

sult calamities, both natural and man-made, had been viewed existence. This atheism has three components: scientific

as extensions of God's personality in the form of wrath, rationalism, materialism and progress.

punishment, etc., i.e. as primarily human concerns. 1bis Scientific rationalism represents the emergence of the

notion of "personality" will be clarified with reference to power of human reason to explore, elucidate, and control

Nishitani's discussion of man's awareness of his own sub- the materialistic world without any metaphysical reason

jectivity. grounded in the divine will of a creator God. On the con-

Having described how the laws of nature in the modern trary it represents a frontal assault on such a view and

scientific concept of nature come to be seen as completely purports to be the ordering mechanism which would discover

indifferent to man and his concerns, and how a \vorld so ruled the matrices and interstices in a logically and mechanically

seems to undermine traditional unders tan <.lings of the personal organized natural world. Increasingly, it attempts to impose

relationship between God and man, Nishitani concludes that these same patterns and limits upon the human psyche seen

the world can only seem completely incompatible with the as a logical extension of the natural world it once set out

idea of "personality." This is of enormous concern to the to explore but now has become the model for exploration it-

man with such a world-view who experiences the despair aris- self. Thus, in its extreme forms, social engineering can be

ing out of a materialistic scientific frame of inquiry pre- seen as an extreme representation of an impersonal, scienti-

occupied with the death aspect of Reality. How can man re- fic, materialistic inquiry come back upon itself to produce

establish in his 0~1 awareness tne now lost security of a despair in the inquirer.

more intimate, more personal understanding of Reality? In the atheistic view, human reason came to be viewed

Surely one could take the tack of supposing such an un- on a field wherein it was almighty, a surrogate deity, a sub-

derstanding to be unnecessary, even undesirable. This ap- stitute for the metaphysical reason which was itself sub-

proach finds its consummation in the subjectivization of ordinate to a divine Order. That reason is in complete con-

atheism. Nihilum, in Nietzsche's terms signifying the death trol is a result of the implication within the materialistic

of God, emerges from beneath the ground of the material, world view that the world is absolutely passive and subject

mechanical world and is realized by modern or "post-modern" to human control. Since all things are ultimately reducible

man as an abyss in which he reaches the "ecstatic" transcen- to matter, man comes via his reason to see himself as com-
 129
pletely active and completely free. 11 As human reason en-
gages, analyzes, and organizes each material object that
comes within its purview, it takes on the character of a
machine, inexorably moving forward and gives credence to the
idea of an inevitable progress. The optimism of modern
atheism and what rescues , or seems to rescue, it from the
despair of a purely mechanistic world view, can be seen as
a modern form of maya, a veil of illusion created by so-called
objective reason obscuring Reality. This ~ emerges out
of the unification of man's increasing awareness of his sub-
jectivity (and seeming freedom therein) and the materialistic
world view. This is, of course, a shallow, early form of
atheism not yet awakened to the nihilum concealed at the
bottom of such a world. Thus, "for presentday man, only
when he comes to an awareness of nihilurn within himself as
the subjective ground of his existence beyond even reason,
and only when he treads on that nihilum, is it truly possible
for him, so he thinks, to speak of subj ecti vi ty. " 12 Such a
man as subject can by no means be reduced to an objective
existence. According to Nishitani, this subjectivity is
analogous to Yahweh's calling himself "I am that I am" or,
we might adc.i, the characterizing of Brahman as tat ~ asi.
Further, the nihilum brought to consciousness by this break-
through is analogous to the nihilum referred to in the Chris-
tian notion of creatio ex nihilo. For the "creator" is sub-
11
rbid .. 0. 9 rbid. , P · 11.
12
rbid. , p. 10 ·
130
stituted the abyss which lies at the foundation of the world
and oneself. Such an atheism cannot be naively optimistic
as its earlier form could be and the idea of inevitable
pro gress cannot be held. Han stands out in ecstasy upon
the field of nihilum, a reversal of the earlier forms of
transcendence which moved in the direction of God. Substi-
tuted for this optimism, this faith in progress, is the
mos t "abys smal" despair. This is the dukkha, the suffering,
the ill-at-ease-ness of Buddhism--the third and final mark
of existence.
Nishitani is critical of Sartre because of his insistence
up on confining existence to the frame of humanism, substi-
tut ing man for God. Nietzsche saw that atheism concerns all
th ings and events in the world; it means, therefore, a radi-
cal tum-about in the way of looking at the world, of living;
"a fundamental reorientation in their existence and evalua-
tion. "l3 Even the field of consciousness upon which Sartre
saw man resolving his existence must be transcended, broken
through. For Nietzsche, as for Kierkegaard before him, the
existential attitude has a fundamentally religious signifi-
cance. For the former, atheism is truly subjectivized and
nothingness takes on a transcendental character as the place
of the "ekstasis" of self-existence; man absolutely con-
fronts his being essentially dependent on God. For the lat-
ter, man has his existence established "either . • . on the
13
 131
foundation of God's salvation, or, without that salvation,
in the despair of the so-called "sickness unto death, " 14 there-
by falling into unauthentic existence. In Nishitani's view,
Kierkegaard falls short of Nietzsche precisely because he has
not "passed through the purgative fires of the mechanistic
world view in order to enter into a confrontation with the
new way of human being which lies hidden in the establish-
ment of the natural sciences, •. .. 15
II. The Personal in Buddhism and Christianity
Nishitani wants to show that doing away with the person-
al element, as seems to have happened in the indifference of
science, does not do away with the ground or root-source of
that personal element but merely obscures it. He holds that
the work of love has a personal characteristic and derives
in the Christian tradition from a belief in God's perfection
(and love as perfection). The personal comes into being as
the imitation or embodiment of this more fundamental perfec-
tion.16 It may well be that Nishitani's view of Christianity
i s selective but there is little doubt that he does no dis-
service to it as he sees certain parallels with his own Budd-
hist tradition. He tries to show that the Christian notion
of kenosis or ekkenosis (the emptying out of self) as mani-
14 Ibid., p. 12.
l5Ibid., pp. 12 , 13.
16 Ibid. p. 16.
I
132
fested in God the Father and the Son has its analogue in the
Sunyata or Emptiness of Buddhist thought. 17
He begins by quoting the passages from Matthe~~ (5:43-
48) to show that in the western tradition there is an "indif-
ference of love" which parallels and counters the "indiffer-
ence of nature" we have previously discussed. In the latter
is the problem; in the former is its resolution. This "in-
difference of love" is described in the verses:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt
love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, and do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, and perse-
cute you. ( 5:43 E)
The injunction follows:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect. (5:48)
This "indifference of love," unlike the "indifference
of nature" which reduces everything to the most abstract com-
mon denominator, "is an indifference which embraces all things
in their most concrete form--for example, good men and evil
men, embracing the differences just as they are." 18 This is
the imitation of God who: " . maketh his sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and
17 r · appropr~ate
·
t ~s to remem b er tat
h N. I .
.~sl~tan~. ' sun d er-
standing of Buddhism is an essentially Mahayanistic one.
Furthermore his discussion of sunyata becomes increasingly
Madhyamikan and even Zen centered. The former is surely
the most philosophical of the schools discussing sun~ata and
the latter reveals his indebtedness to Nishida and H~samatsu.
18 Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 14.

133
on the unjust" (5 :45). In Buddhism this is called "non-
differentiating love beyond enemy and friend." Christianity
then, just as it has been the matrix of both modern science
and modern atheism, is their antagonist in the attempt to
provide a resolution to the problems they pose. In Nishi-
tani's mind the question must be whether the resolution is
ultimate and applicable to all men or whether we must look
elsewhere to find a deeper resolution to the problem; indeed,
it may be that the problem has not even been fully enough
stated within Christianity especially if one takes the posi-
tion that the problem fully stated and understood is, at one
and the same time, the resolution.
For this reason he goes on to show the analogous state-
ment of the problem in its Buddhist formulation. 19 We might
say that Emptiness is the conceptual and functional equiva-
lent of the Christian God. Just as this God has the tri-
adic aspects of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so Emptiness as
the Eternal Buddha has the aspects of dharma-kaya (the "body
of Buddha as law"), sambhoga-kaya (the "body of bliss"), and
nirmana -kaya (the "body of transformation," i.e. , the his tori-
cal Buddha). All these manifestations, even the fact that
there are considered to be such manifestations, are evidence
19
rt must already be obvious why it is important to
note the somewhat limited and selective parameters of Nishi-
tani's grasp of Christianity. It is not part of our inten-
tion to claim that other spokesmen within Christianity have
not articulated the problem more completely, that resolutions
are not to be found within the Christian tradition, nor even
that the problem and its resolution are coterminous.
134
of the mahakaruna or "Great Compassion" which is one of the
most fundamental characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism. 20 To
go back to the notion of ekkenosis , Nishitani suggests that
ekkenosis is already included in God's original perfection,
i.e. , it is a part of his original nature, and is a work
which has been fulfilled in the case of the Son in his taking
on the form of a man, even more of a servant. The maha-
karuna is likewise grounded in Emptiness and is a work which
has been fulfilled in the case of the nirmana-kaya or histori-
cal Buddha. Because the Buddha and all historical existence
is viewed as being fundamentally anatrnan or muga (non-ego or
sel flessness) Nishitani sees these two traditions, up to
thi s point, as mirror-images--Christianity as Being emptying
itself and Buddhism as Emptiness taking on Being. Other
mirror-images describing this juxtaposition would be: being
manifest and being hidden, form and formless, self-determina-
tion and self-negation, Thus-Gone and Thus-Come. 21
Nishitani recognizes that there are many dimensions of
love; he speaks of the distinction between ~ and ~·
The former is the differentiating love which causes us to
20 This mahakaruna along with rnahaprajna ("Great Wisdom")
are the two great philosophical pivots of Mahayana and are
to be equally emphasized. It is the mahakaruna that is the
hallmark of, indeed gives rise to, the Bodhisattva which
figures so prominently in the Mahayana Buddhism of China
and Japan but is so notably absent in the Buddhism of South
and Southeast Asia.
21
Thus-Come refers to the Buddha as sambho6a-kaya
("body of bliss"), i.e., in its self-manifestat~on as the
compassionate Tathagata (Thus-Come).
 135
love friends and hate enemies and is ego-centric; the latter
is undifferentiating and exhibits selflessness, self-nega-
tion. This latter is an act in imitation of God's perfection
and is the deepening of the notion of "personal" into "a kind
of trans-personality or impersonality--not an impersonality
which is in simple contradistinction to personality, but . .
a personal impersonality. " 22 This impersonality is the ground
from which personality derives as a notion which was attacked
and destroyed by modern science and modern atheism. Cer-
tainly the Christian tradition itself has generally focused
upon the personal aspect of God's perfection and has spoken
of God's "choosing" a people, of his "commanding" with abso-
lute will and power, of "loving" the righteous, and of "pun-
ishing" the wicked and sinful. Instances of the attempt,
within Christianity, to attend to the "impersonal" aspect
are usually referred to as "negative th~ology" and are few.
Nishitani doubts that Christian dogmatics has successfully
treated this aspect but feels that if it were to do so it
would be via this approach. Certainly it must do so if it
is to combat the "indifference of nature" which has become
such a problem for religion and science. Negative theology
has made its attempt primarily regarding the problems of
man's freedom and independence and the awakening of his sub-
jectivity, thus opening up the aspect of the trans-personal
in God.
22
Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal ... ", p. 17.
136
III. Eckhart: God as Impersonal
Nis hitani takes up a consideration of the negative
theology of Johannes Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328) as rep-
resent ative of the highest moment of the various attempts
within Christianity to treat God in his impersonal aspect. 23
He att empts to show that somehow Eckhart has gone farther
even than Nietzsche in articulating the religious quest.
Niet zsche, modern science and modern atheism are all taken
as having shifted the direction of the inquiry by making it
impo ssible to continue to cling to a personal God. Eckhart
took a more productive tack by deepening his consideration
of the problem. To be sure, Eckhart was historically prior
to the awakening of the modern scientific consciousness but
Nis hitani will eventually show that the direction taken by
Eckhart is a more productive one even though it too must
fi nally fall short of a satisfactory resolution.
Nishitani cites three unique contributions of Eckhart's
thought:
First, the 'essence' of God is thought to be found
only where the personal 'God' which stands in confronta-
23I t ~s
. wort h not~ng
. r-ot: . r: h 1.<:
. .
!1n1nr- ·"' 1 •• I
: >'lZ'Jtcl h .
.<: n servat~on
that Eckhart seems to be an extraordinary Christian. "Eckhart's
Chris tianity is unique and has many points which make us hesi-
tate to classify him as belonging to the type we generally
associate with rationalized modernism or with conservative tra-
diti onalism. He stands on his own experiences which emerged
from a rich, deep, religious personality. He attempts to rec-
oncile them with the historical type of Christianity modeled
after legends and mythology. He tries to give an 'esoteric'
or_inner meaning to them, and by so doing he enters fields
wh~ ch were not touched by most of his historical predeces-
s~rs." Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Budd-
~ (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), pp. 11-12.
 137
tion to created bein~s is transcended. Second, the
'essence' of God or Godhead' is discovered as abso-
lute nothingness, which presents itself to us more-
over as the place of our absolute death-sive-life.
Third, in the 'Godhead' alone is it possible for man
to be truly himself, and only in the openness of ab-
solute nothingness is the consummation of man's free-
dom and independence (man's subjectivity) to be
found. "24
Eckhart distinguishes be tween God and "Godhead"
(Gottheit). 25 God refers to the personal dimension of God-
head which is the essence of God. In Eckhart's psychology,
man's essence is the soul; it is pure unity and does not act.
Its agents act: the imagination imagines, the understanding
thinks. The soul itself cannot be distinguished from the
Godhead. Ideas, volitions, etc. all come from outside the
soul, via the senses, and the soul gets at things by means
of ideas which are entities created by the soul's agents
(intelligence, memory, etc,). These ideas, since they come
to the soul from outside, via the senses, cannot tell the
soul anything about itself. It is because of this freedom
and innocence of all instrumentalities and ideas that God
24
Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal . . . " pp. 73, 74.
25 suzuki describes this distinction after having noted
appropriately that Eckhart does not always hold to his inten-
tions to distinguish carefully between these two terms.
"Though he often fails to make a clear dis tine tion be tween
the two and would use 'God' where really 'Godhead' is meant,
his at temp.t to make a dis tine tion is noteworthy. With him
God is still a something as long as there is any trace of
movement or work or of doing something. When we come to
the Godhead, we for the first time find that it is the unmoved,
a no thing where there is no path (~padh) to reach. It is ab-
solute nothingness; therefore it LS t e ground of being from
when ce all beings come." Suzuki, p. 19.
138
can unite with it, "he, too, being pure and without idea or
likeness." 26 Among the ideas we have are those such as
that God is good, wise, merciful, etc., i.e., God as personal.
Thes e Eckhart acknowledges cannot be the essence of God be-
caus e ideas, though they may be divinely blessed, are sym-
bols. In anticipation of Tillich, Eckhart says in Sermon l,
"No idea represents or signifies itself. It always points
to something else, of which it is the symbol. " 27 The Godhead
its elf is the eternal abyss, the absolute nothingness, out
of which comes divine being. Absolute nothingness, taken
in Nishitani's sense of death-sive-life presents us with a
contradiction. Presented on the ground of their own nature
they are absolutely distinct, as "eternal" or "absolute" life
and death. While this is logically clear, they are also ab-
sol utely inseparable. They are not two separate things but
make up one entity. There is no objective self-identity
since no "thing" or "being" can be made up of contradictory
opposites; this would be mere fantasy. The oneness of which
Nishi tani is speaking here is non-objectifiable. Objecti-
fied it would be part of the domain of conceptual thought,
a part of the duality of subject-object. The understanding
of life and death as essentially inseparable can only take
place existentially through immediate experience in our ex-
istence, at one and the same level as the religious quest.
26 Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, trans. Raymond
B. Blakney (New York: Harper & Brothers, Harper Torchbooks,
1957), p. 97.
27
Ibid., p. 98.
 139
This kind of essential inseparability of conceptually con-
tradictory ideas is expressed by Nishitani in such phrases
as "life-sive-death" and "affirmation-~-negation." "Ab-
solute nothingness means here the place where every mode of
being is transcended, not only the various modes of creatu-
ral being, but even the modes of Divine being, such as the
Creator or Divine Love . .. ZB
God the Creator is known only by "creatures," God as
Love is known only by "lovers," i.e., each personal aspect
is known only via personalities, selves, egos, The essence
(this is already a limitation) of God, the Godhead, is only
"known" by the essence of the soul; it transcends every as-
pect of Being and therefore all personal aspects. It is im-
personal, but in a new and much deeper sense.
There are three movements in this transcending. The
self or person is tied to corporeality, space and time.
experience the "birth of God" within we must turn away from
these quantifiable things in order to be "broken into by
God."
As Eckhart puts it in Sermon 21: "As God penetrates
me I penetrate God in return. God leads the human spirit
i nto the desert, into his own unity, in which he is pure One
and self-creating . . . . Here the spirit achieves unity and
freedom."29
This birth of God in the soul is "already a pro-
cedure in which the 'selfness' or 'self-will' of the soul,
28
Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 71.
29
Blakney, p. 193.
140
the soul's ego-centered mode of being, is broken. " 30 This
is the first step or movement. God having penetrated into
the soul, the second movement is the soul's penetration into
God as born in the soul. This is the same as the depth of
God revealing itself within the soul. The third movement,
then , is the soul returning more and more deeply to itself
and becoming more truly itself. The consummation is the
so ul reaching absolute nothingness, which is the essence of
Go d. This is the bottomless ground of the soul as selfless.
As Nishitani describes it: "it is the self-identity of the
so ul which is self-identical with the self-identity of
Go d. " 31 In one of his more famous statements Eckhart pro-
clai:ns that: "The eye \-lith which I see God is the eye with
which God sees me." 32
The unity and freedom of which Eckhart speaks 33 is,
To
of course, man's subjectivity but it is not the subjectivity
of the ego. It is the subjectivity which arises from the
absolute death of the ego; the subjectivity which arises
from pure Oneness with God. 34 Nishitani sees that in Eck-
hart's unio mystica, . the final stage of perfection in mysti-
3°Keij i Nishi tani, "Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 72.
31 Ibid.
32 Blakney, Sermon 23, p. 206.
33 see footnote 29 above.
34 The "pure" refers here to the non-objectifiable one-
ness indicated in Nishitani's use of the phrase death-sive-
life. --
 141
cal experience, i.e., unification with God (~ unitum
~), there is still a subject-object distinction lurking
in the background in the form of God's Being as the object
to be united with. It does not mean to return to ones true
self but rather to lose ones self in God, in the Absolute
One. As over against modern science and its search for a
thoroughgoing objectivity, in Eckhart it is the thorough-
going pursuit of subjectivity that makes necessary the dis-
tinction between God and the Godhead or absolute nothing-
ness which is its ground.
This absolute nothingness and the uncreated "I am" are
not, however, imagined by Eckhart to be some place far from
ordinary reality. He vigorously warns against any such con-
sideration. Absolute nothingness is lived in the midst of
practical, everyday life and is always open within ordinary
existence. This uncreated "I am" is not to be found some-
where apart from the creaturely man. Here we have uncreated-
ness-sive-createdness; eternality and temporality as a living
whole. Eckhart himself presents us with similarly non-ob-
jectifiable statements: "I flee from God for the sake of
God." "I beg of God that He may cause me to be rid of God. " 35
Eckhart has clearly articulated the concerns of modern
existentialism in his account of the encounter be tween God
and man's subjectivity (his freedom and independence). Nishi-
35
Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal .. • " p. 75.
Nishitani's translation from Sermon 28; cf. Blakney, p. 231.
142
tani notes, however, that there are some striking differ-
ences. It is not the atheism of Nietzsche nor is it the
thei sm of Kierkegaard. He is standing at the "other shore"
beyond both atheism and theism. For Christianity, generally,
Go d stands beyond the nihilum of creatio ~ nihilo ; for
atheism, nihilurn takes the place of God whose person has
been negated and is realized in the gro~~d of man's subjectiv-
ity . The abyss of Christianity occurs just short of the
ab ode of God; the abyss of atheism occurs within man's sub-
j ectivity. Eckhart's abyss of nothingness is, in Nishitani's
opinion, even more thoroughgoing than either. The nihilum
is more thoroughgoing than that of atheism and the subjectiv-
ity or man's subjective self-awareness is more radically re-
· d . 36 N.1s h.1tan~. exp 1a1ns
a 1 ~ze . t h.~s:
The subjectivity of the uncreated 'I am' appears
only through the complete negation (Abgeschiedenheit
or detachment) of the subjectivity of selfness •
. . . it is just in 'I am' at its ultimate oneness
that absolute affirmation can be found. While in
Eckhart, man's true self-awareness is what estab-
lishes itself only as absolute 'negation-sive-af-
firmation,' absolute 'death-sive-life,' i~gures
in the context of contemporary existentialism with-
out passing through an absolute negation. Here, too,
the nihilum appears at the ground of man's existent-
ial being, making it the place of ecstatic self-
awareness. But the self-transcending character of
existential being alone is not yet the absolute nega-
tion of being as being, that is, the absolute nothing-
ness.37
36
"Realized" is to be understood here in both its
meanings: as understood or grasped and as actualized.
37 Keiji Nishitani , ''Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 76.
 143 144

Sartre's existence, while established on nothingness, is still existentialism subjectified nihilum as the place of the

viewed as consciousness; the self-affirmation of subjectivity. self-transcendence of existence, contemporary theology places

Nietzsche's absolute affirmation, his Ja-sagen, while trans- nihilum on the side of the Divine Will, with only an apparent

cending the conscious ego, still stands upon life or the freedom and self-sustainment; the nihilum of creatio ex

"will to power." Neither seems to attain Eckhart's position nihilo is only relative nothingness. Real subjective exist-

wherein absolute nothingness transcends "God", rather than ence is established only in ekstasis; that of God and that

undermining his credibility as person; and life is the life of man. It might well be argued that this distinction exists

of "life-sive-death" rather than the life issuing out of the even within Mahayana Buddhism in the distinction between self-

nothingness of nihilism. help (jiriki) and other-help (tariki). The former position

The problem in all this is partly that Eckhart can is more that of Zen and Nishitani whereas the latter is more

hardly be taken as representative of mainstream, orthodox the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism and Eckhart. Eckhart's

Christianity; in his own time it was regarded as heresy, al- ekstasis, his abgeschiedenheit, are the standpoint of sub-

beit influential heresy. 38 Nishitani cites Emil Brunner as jective existence and constitute a spiritual psychology.

among those contemporary theologians who attempt to defend Where Nishitani's emphasis is on the emptiness of all things

the personal nature of God against the critique, explicit and is metaphysical, Eckhart insists on the psychological

in modern science and modern atheism, and implicit in the significance of nothingness so that God can take hold of the

via negativa of such thinkers as Eckhart, that such a God is individual. The subject is never denied but seen as the

dead. As Nishitani says, "Hhen it is said that God wills the unitary One; the undifferentiated One. Eckhart's context is

existence of free, self-sustaining creatures as that which the parish; his words take the form of sermons for the

really stands against God himself, where can the setting up spiritual benefit of his parishioners. That Eckhart recog-

of this free existence occur?" 39 nized this distinction is clear from his distinction between
God and Godhead; that he does not consistently maintain his
38
rt is not without consequence that two of the major
comparative studies of religion have looked to Meister Eckhart awareness is equally clear. 40 Nishitani wants to maintain
as a point of contact in East-West studies. Clearly the via
negativa cannot be overlooked in any comparative studies-of that even ekstasis as the standpoint of subjective existence
the future and its place and influence in the western tradi-
tion needs careful reassessment. Cf. Rudolf Otto, !1ysticism 40 s uz uk.~ g1 asses over t h.~s d.~st~nct~on.
. Cf . Myst~c~sm:
. ..
East and West: A Com arative Analysis of the Nature of Mystic-
~ New or : er~ ~an oo s, an • . uz ~. ys ~c­ Christian and Buddhist, The Eastern and Western Way, pp.
ism: Christian and Buddhist, The Eastern and Western Way (New 19-29.
York: The Mac~llan Company), 1957.
39
Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal. .. " p. 76.
 145 146

is insufficient. "There remains the more inclusive, more a mode of comprehending ego or person. " 42

chorough position referred to before, that of absolute nega- The fact is, however, that a bias is obvious here. The

tion-sive-affirmation. Ekstasis consists in the direction in creasingly deeper self-consciousness of man reinforces his

from self to the 'ground' of self, from God to the ground of se lf-centeredness and his self-reflectiveness and leads him

God; that is, from being to nothingness. Negation-sive-af- t o continue to grasp his mode of being as self-evidently

firrnation consists in the direction from nothingness to be- s elf-centered. Historically, man has concluded that reality

ing. " 41 Virtually all western thought has considered the prob- is to be found in the personal dimension. The onslaught of

lem of ekstasis from the direction of being toward nothingness. modern science and modem atheism and existentialism has

The uniqueness of negation-sive-affirmation is its indication merely borne increasing evidence of the seemingly obvious.

of a reversal of standpoint allowing a consideration of the Nishitani suggests that this is not liberating but is rather

problem of personal and impersonal from a new perspective. confining; man's self-being is caught in his self-conscious-
ness. Man is blinded to his narcissism by his narcissim.
IV. Man as Personal
I n Nishitani's understanding, the "personal" emerges from,
Along with the idea of God as a personal being, the idea
i s a phenomenon or appearance that appears from, that which
of man as a personal being has, as it emerged in modern phi-
contains in its form no confinement. This is not a Kantian
losophical and religious thought, occupied a place of enormous
phenomenon standing apart from, in contrast to, the ding-
importance. Just as since Descartes' ~ cogito we may say
~-sich which might show itself in some other form different
that the modern period can be viewed as the self-centered
from its own in the manner of the Greek notion of persona
investigation of the self, so to a large extent "person" has
or mask. There is nothing at all behind person, that is to
been viewed from the same perspective. The question raised
say, behind person is absolute nothingness. While this ab-
by eishitani is whether this is the only or even the best way
solute nothingness appears as something wholly other to the
of thinking. Certainly it is natural that this point of
person and negates the person, it is not itself some con-
view should have come about by virlue of the fact that the
ceptual "thing"--the actor behind the mask--behind the per-
very nature of ego or person nec~ssitates inward self-reflec-
son. "Nothingness is not a thing which is nothingness." 43
tion. "So long as the necessity for a more fundamental re-
flection does not arise, people automatically entertain such 42Ibid. , p. 80.
43
Ibid., p. 81.
41 Keiji Nishitani, "Personal/Impersonal. •• " p. 79£.
 147
This would be to set up a duality behind which would then
rest its resolution as something wholly other. Generally
in western thinking, nothingness has functioned in this way;
it is conceived as the functional opposite of being and is
only a nothingness in thought. Nothingness in Nishitani's
sense is, as we have indicated, something that can only be
lived as a part of bodily experience. This is the nothing-
ness brought to light in the existential tum-about or "about-
face" of which Nishitani is so fond of speaking. This is
the Great Death and Great Awakening of Zen. But this involves
the self extricating itself from itself, negating itself in
order to free itself. This occurs on the hither shore of th e
self, beyond the personal self.
This does not mean that the self ceases to be a personal
being. The bodily experience is the self-attestation of a
living nothingness. Absolute "negation-sive-affirmation,"
as we have said before is the true realization of personal
existence in the self. This is the person as "formless
form." The person may in this sense be the mask itself, a
"face" worn by absolute nothingness but not indicating some-
thing real behind it; it is itself the "really real Real-
ity." This personal being is the form of presentation of
absolute nothingness. This is Nishitani's version of the
Buddhist notion of pratityasamutpada, or dependent co-origi-
nation of all phenomenal beings; as developed by Kegon it
is "the unhindered mutual interpenetration between all phe-
nomena." (~isnitani himself speaks of Tendai' s notion of man
148
coming into being "as the 'Middle' of 'Temporary-provisory
being ' and the 'Void'. " 44 It is vital that we not wrench
the mask from absolute nothingness or vice versa. The mask
apart from absolute nothingness is mere self-centered per-
sona lity; absolute nothingness apart from the mask is mere
idea. The living activity of the personality is, like its
spiri t, a manifestation of the supra- or non-spiritual. This
no longer constitutes the subjectivity of modern western
thought, it is the negation of the subjectivity usually as-
cribed to the personality of self-centered interpretation.
It is the release from the confinement imposed by the self
considering itself; it is the key to the prison of ego-
cen tricity. Nishitani illustrates this point from Zen with
a quotation from Gasan Joseki (1275-1365) who wrote an in-
scription over his portrait: 45
The conscious mind of this shadowy man,
At all occasions is to me most familiar--
From long ago mysteriously wondrous,
It is neither I nor other.
Thinking, feeling, willing, sensations and actions--the
whole self--are referred to here as a "shadowy man," "temper-
ary provisional" in t.:hlo! Tendai sense, that is, entirely un-
real. It is the tum-about which occurs from within this per-
sonal self that opens up man's absolute Selfhood as a non-
objectifiable nothingness. Each of these activities--bodily,
mental, and spiritual--now "appears as a shadowy act of a
44
Ibid. , p. 83.
45
Quoted by Nishitani, ibid., p. 84.
 149

phantom player on the now opened stage of nothingness." 46

CHAPTER IV
This is the stage on the "hither shore" referred to earlier.
It is both the external world where we ordinarily see our- NIHILISM: THE NATURE OF SUBSTANCE
self and the innermost depth of the personal self transcend- IN METAPHYSICS
ing itself. This is why it is "most familiar" in Gas an
I. Nihilum as Toward Life or Toward Death
Jos eki's words. It is both within temporality and ecstati-
As we noted earlier, Nishitani has long been preoccupied
cally outside Time at each instant (the Here-now of Eckhart
with the problem of nihilism at the level of deep personal
and the Eternal Present of Nishitani). \men one relates
expe rience. It will be useful if we look more closely at
this self to other selves we ordinarily take these, at the
this problem and at Nishitani's discussion of it in order to
level of ordinary existence, as two absolute existences.
see how it shapes his understanding of the relation between
But on the plane of absolute nothingness they are, though
science and religion. The common Nietzschean understanding
absolute two as persons, absolute non-dual in their imper-
of nihilism defines it as a situation which obtains when
sonality.47 Thus "The conscious mind of this shadowy man
"everything is permitted." Obviously, if everything is per-
. . . is neither I nor other." It is in this way that the
mitted, nothing makes any difference or is worth anything.
Bodhisattva takes upon himself, indeed is himself, the suf-
Value must then be assigned arbitrarily and ~ nihilo and
fering of all others. He actually suffers in his Great Com-
can be reassigned upon any whim at any time with equal justi-
passion for all living beings. It is neither pretended,
fication. No argument for or against anything is of any
metaphorical nor symbolic suffering. As long as living be-
more value than silence. Since silence has proven to be
ings suffer, the suffering of the Bodhisattva can be no less
largely unsatisfactory to modern man, speech has been his
real. His suffering is, however, empty, it is suffering
defense against nihilism and his mode of addressing the prob-
jus t as it is: suffering-sive-health.
lem of nihilism. Nishitani is no different and to this ex-
46 Ibid., p. 85 . tent he will have to use the act of speaking (or writing) to

47 make his understanding of nihilism (and finally of Emptiness

It is this which makes a notion such as Buber' s "I-
Thou," while entirely suitable as an ethical base for the and absolute nothingness) intelligible. The spirit of He-
conriuct of man's affairs in everyday existence, equally
unsuitable as a metaphysical base due to its emphasis on gel's remark is appropriate here: "Science on its side re-
the primacy of persons and their interrelations.
quires the individual self-consciousness to have risen into
 151
this high ether (where science itself flourishes)
Conversely the individual has the right to demand that
science shall hold up the ladder to help him to get at least
as far as this position, shall show him that he has in him-
self this ground to stand on, ,l
Nietzsche did not imagine that nihilism was the in-
evitable result of atheism's victory over theism. He merely
understood that, historically, the theistic view had been
the predominant one and that, when dealt such a harsh blow,
there were no living, viable alternatives to take up the
vacuum created. Nihilism quite naturally seemed, for this
reason, to be causally related to atheism. Albert Camus'
The Rebel also makes and explores this observation. The
net effect of the demise of theism and the impinging threat
of nihilism has been that the conception of "reason" has been
detached from the conception of "good," It is assumed that
one may speak reasonably about empirically verifiable mat-
ters of fact and logical patterns of inference but not about
what is good. Neither can reason be reasonably considered
as what is good. Reason is said to objectify and in its com-
mon alignment with mathematics it is said to alienate man
from his authentic and creative existence. Descartes has be-
come the symbol of the process of man's attempt to compre-
hend the world by relying upon his reason and mathematics
alone. In fact, though, this same project resulted in the
1 philosopher; he did not seem to know that the pride of the
G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenolo~y of Mind, trans. J.
B. Baillie (New York: Harper Torchboo s, Harper & Row, Pub-
lishers, 1967), Preface, p. 87.
152
subjectivism or subjectivity about which Nishitani speaks
so eloquently, describing it as leading to despair and de-
personalization. Modern science and technology begins in
the pride of Descartes which has gradually been negated by
anxiety and despair, Though phenomenally successful in its
own way, modern science has been unable to show us its es-
sential point. Nishitani as well as the "non-scientific"
dimension of even the most "scientific" man is forced to
reckon with the morass of theoretical and practical pre-
suppositions that underlies the rational method, the logi-
cal construction of reality. As history has clearly demon-
strated, these techniques are not self-certifying. The fact
that they work is Wffiaterial to despairing man. Man seems
to be acquiring power but he is losing his freedom. It is
not uncommon for western man to suggest, therefore, that
man needs a rational interpretation of reason; Nishitani,
follo~ing Buddhism in this regard, wants to suggest that rea-
son is not the sole (perhaps not even the most important) key
to unlocking reality.
The modern age begins with the definition of knowledge
as power and might well be said to end with Nietzsche's con-
ception of the will to power. Pascal's life of grace is no
longer a viable alternative to the life of reason or the
mathematical ratio of Descartes. The joy of grace was, Pas-
cal knew, a more secure alternative than the pride of the
philosophers was capable of destroying even the joy of grace.
 153
Though one cannot dispute these developments as part
of history, surely one can refuse to accent them as the domi-
nant truth of history. Nishitani does but we will later
show that he has a somewhat circumscribed view of the de-
velopment of western philosophy and particularly Christian
thought. Nonetheless it is to Nishitani's view that we must
now turn.
Nishitani regards the world-view or ontology of sci-
ence and of the scientific way of thinking in general as
being at complete odds with that of most traditional relig-
ions. That this is the purview of philosophy rather than of
religion is only partly true; when religion comes into be-
ing in historical actuality it always has such a metaphysic
or world-view at its base, even if it is not self-conscious
of that fact. Such a world-view or "philosophy" is the "in-
dispensable condition by virtue of which religion can act-
ually come into existence." 2 The view that science andre-
ligion have no conflict so long as each does business with-
in its own domain is fundamentally mistaken and does not re-
solve the problem of their relation. The borderline which
separates them (the world-view which they share) belongs to
both of them. In fact, the history of metaphysics and phi-
losophy is the history of the investigation of this border-
2
Keiji Nishitani, "Nihilism and Slinyata," trans. Ya-
mamoto Seisaku, The Eastern Buddhist, New Series, IV, No.
2 (Oct. 1971), 30-49; V. No. 1 (May 1972), 55-69; and V, No.
2 (Oct. 1972), 95-106. Chapter Three of Shukyo to wa Nanika
("What is Religion?"), Sobunsha, 1961, p. 30.
154
l ine. The current tendency of science seems to be that it
r efuses to look at the borderline, to accept it, that is,
t o take up the question of its own limits; except, perhaps,
f or the sort of scientific humanism which seems to be both
a science and a philosophy at one and the same time. Sci-
ence has a strong sense of its own absoluteness which is to
say that it has continued to retain the Cartesian sense of
knowledge as a sort of mathematical ratio.
The basis of the scientific position is, of course, that
it holds to the pure objectivity of the laws of nature. These
are both the p~esupposition and the content of scientific
knowledge. One does not question the validity of these laws
of nature except by scientific means. The viciousness of
the circle of the self exploring the self can be seen in this
scientific investigation of science. The power which is
peculiar to science lies in the fact that even its hypotheses
are seemingly objectified by their being composed of so-called
objective facts of which they are an arrangement. The ques-
tion which must immediately be raised is whether, given the
absoluteness of the truth of scientific knowledge, all other
areas of inquiry--religion, philosophy, art, etc.--and their
contents must be merely subjective or imaginary. Clearly
they must be if we do not wish to embroil ourselves in the
awkward contradiction of two absolute truths. Here again
the mathematical ratio asserts itself. Nishitani proposes
that there may be a different way of viewing things; places
or horizons from which the absolute may appear as relative
 155
and the relative may appear as absolute. This is a question
which is addressed to those many who hold to a form of sci-
entific humanism or rationalist nihilism which, in its ex-
creme form, believes that all psychic or mental phenomena
may be reduced to biochemical processes and thereby to mathe-
matically computable energy distributions. The question is
one of on what horizon or at what level is such a law or
truth to be encountered and accepted.
Nishitani first addresses "beings" such as a piece of
bread, a dog, a human being from a physico-chemical point of
view. Deprived of their particular concreteness, these "be-
ings" can be reduced to a homogen<?ous relationship of atoms
and particles. Above this realm, r.h~ psychological, the
"spiritual" and the "personal" are often supposed to exist.
These too are often considered reducible, that is when they
are not merely considered fanciful inventions to explain
what had not yet been scientifically understood. Nishitani
argues, though, that it is undeniable that such "beings" as
a piece of bread, a dog, and a human being each has its
proper mode of being with its proper eidos or form, and that
these "beings" make a particular connection--they have a
particular environment. "The respective properties, manners
of movement, and bodily structures inherent in the human be-
ing and the dog cannot be comprehended apart from the special
characteristic of the environment each of them possesses." 3
3 Ibid., p. 33.
156
There are also many levels at which we accept the laws of
nature with regard to these "beings." In their behaviors
the dog and the human being live the laws of nature; these
laws of nature appear in all living beings as lived. These
laws of nature are also, in a more fundamental sense, bodily
realized or actualized in this living out of the laws of
nature. This is the so-called "instinct." This instinct is
the dynamic intersection of, on the one hand, a particular
relation between individual and environment and, on the other,
the form of the individual in his specific mode of being.
In other words, living beings in their living and acting
bring into being or reveal the laws of nature in embodying
and bodily understanding them. Only in this instinctive
actualization do these laws of nature have any reality as law.
At yet another level than the instinctive, we see in
man what Nishitani calls "technique." "In his comprehension
of the relation between a definite purpose aimed at and
definite means required for its actualization is involved a
knowledge of the laws of nature. In contrast with mere in-
stinct, technique involves some sort of intellectual compre-
hension of these laws." 4 Viewed from the other direction,
knowledge advances only through man acting technically. The
difference from instinct lies in the actualization of the
laws into actions consequent to thought. This thought or
reflection or knowledge is technique. It is on this field
4 Ibid., p. 34.
 157 158

(wherein knowledge advances parallel to action) that the present age, which tend to rationalize and mechanize human

dominance of laws is accepted. Modern science is nothing life, external as well as internal, individual as well as
5 social, rob us of the power of a rational grasp of ourselves
other than the mechanization of this technique. That is,
it is the increasing abstraction of technique as mere knowl- and make us an easy prey of instinctive desires, lust for

edge of the laws of nature. This is the mechanization and power, or other irrational motives. From behind our ration-

depersonalization of observation and experiment which gives alized life something fundamentally irrational is apt to
1
impetus to the advance of scientific knowledge. Here is emerge--even frantically sometimes. Rationalization 1 weakens

where post-Cartesian man thought he would find his security-- our power of self-reflection, that is, the faculty of rea-

in this reciprocal development of knowledge and technique. son, and evokes all sorts of irrationality in its lower

The highly purposive character of this movement is the di- form." 6

mension wherein the laws of nature come to appear in their This law of nature Nishitani calls the law of being and

character as immutable law. Hechanical technique and ma- portrays as having a purposive or teleological character.

chines are the product of the embodiment in man of the laws This is seen in the rational unfolding of the levels of be-

of nature. We encounter the laws of nature on all these ing from material, through living, to knowing; matter, life,

fields: on the material where we are considered a "being" and intellect seen here as characteristics of different

like the dog or the animal man; and the technical where we levels of "beings." In the extreme, man 1 s purposive actions

are the knowing human being making use of instruments and are put in motion as purely mechanical. Along with this un-

machines. We have, of course, glorified this emerging folding of the characteristics of the different levels of

consciousness of these various levels as a highly rational- "beings" there seems to be a proportionate and increasing

ized "progress." Even so it is clear that we are in con- power of the "being" over the laws of nature, i.e., more free-

stant danger of undermining our own progress. We may at dom, albeit potential and frequently lost in the mechaniza-

least take it as a social good that we have risen above the tion. Paradoxically, for inanimate objects or "beings," the

merely instinctual to the rational or technical level. As rule of the laws of nature is more direct (since not resisted)

Nishitani himself recognizes: "The same conditions of the but also shallower. In their mode of being as "living" be-

5Here we are again referring to the objective perspective 6Keij i Nishitani, "The Religious Situation in Present-
of the second field of reality--the field of consciousness Day Japan," Contemporary Religions in Japan, I. No. 1 (March
wherein the problem is one of certainty. 1960). 7-24.
 159
ings, "instinctive" life both actualizes and uses the laws
of nature to an increasing degree. The instinct, which is
subordination to the law, is also the use of the law and
to that degree increased freedom. It is, of course, tech-
nical man who most clearly actualizes and uses the laws of
nature. "It is only in man's actions that we are able
clearly to recognize that the subordination to laws means at
once freedom from their bondage." 7
From one side, we see this radical internalization of
the laws of nature in their appearance and coming into their
own reality within and via man's actions. Machines repre-
sent a completely objectified nature; they are creations of
man's intellect and represent to the highest degree his abil-
icy to turn nature back on itself in a rarefied form not
discernible anywhere else in nature. Man's ultimate rational
creation is also the ultimate testimony to his enslavement
to the laws of nature.
From the other side, this creation of machines, far from
merely representing enslavement to the laws of nature, was
his civilizational salvation; it represents in its increas-
ingly sophisticated forms (but also in its simplest) his free-
dom from the laws of nature in his ability to use and turn
them in his own direction. Man's purpose is seen to domi-
nate the laws of nature and rule nature in a way it cannot
even rule itself.
7 nature's natural character increasingly turns out to lie be-
Keij i Nishi tani, "Nihilism and SGnya ta," p. 37.
160
As one might well have anticipated, the "progress" in
this evolving emancipation was not without its own prob-
lems. As Nishit~ni is quick to point out, a reversal is
taking place, may even be said to have taken place already,
whereby the ruling becomes itself the ruled. We have es-
tablished that the laws of nature increasingly establish
their rule over "beings" as their level of beingness or self-
consciousness intensifies and that this increasing degree of
beingness or self-consciousness gradually frees itself from
the rule of these laws by turning them to its own purposes;
outdoing nature at its own game. At this juncture a new situ-
ation arises.
One side of this situation lies in the increasing
mechanization and depersonalization of man on the field where
the machine came into being, where man becomes technical man.
A new crisis emerges which we may refer to as a civilization-
al crisis, even a world crisis, though Nishitani refers to it
as a culture crisis. It is a civilizational crisis or a
world crisis in the sense that this relationship between man
and the laws of nature obtains on a universal scale in which
all cultures share some degree of the crisis, albeit in a
variety of forms. The crisis is the even more fundamental
depth of radicalization which shows itself in the paradox of
man's ruling of nature while being at the same time ruled by
nature. The limit-situation of man's human nature and of
yond the authentic and natural connection between these two
 161 162

phenomena. On one side man's intellect, his technique, has radically subjectivized field can man act as though nature

become increasingly abstracted into a scientific rational- were something external to him; act almost "instinctively"

ity, and on the other side nature, in the machine, has found but here in a different sense of instinct from the animal-

itself in a state of de-naturalization, or "purer than na- like instinct because here there is not being but nihilum

ture itself." In this fashion the natural relation between at its base--a base not felt by animal "beings." Nishitani

human beings and nature has reversed itself from "a rela- describes this condition as the "plane of life in its natu-
10
tion wherein the rule of natural laws over man's action and ral and raw state, of life's own naked vitality."

life that directly engendered man's rule over the laws of There is, of course, a whole range within which in-

nature . . . to a relation in which the laws of nature once dividuals sense this bottomlessness, see that they stand on

more come to rule man who hitherto has held sway over them." 8 nihilum. In th~ shallowest sense Nishitani suggests it is

The other siae of this situation of reversed relation to be seen and experienced in the person in the contemporary

arises in the rule of natural laws over man; the first side world who devotes himself passionately to sports and other

having been the reversal of his rule over the laws of nature. amusements; here it merely floats, partially submerged, in

Here the limit-situation consists in the profound internal man's life without his becoming clearly self-conscious of it

rule of natural laws over man opening up "a mode of being at all. In Buddhist terms, man's karmic consciousness is

in which man behaves as if he stood entirely outside the laws dim and he is only dimly aware of his existence as dukkha;

of nature. ,.g This is the emergence of nihilum at the bottom he is ill-at-ease but cannot articulate exactly how and why.

of man's being. Man is left seemingly bottomless at that He has many rebirths to go before rising to a level of con-

point where his abstract intellect which demands scientific sciousness where he authentically bodily experiences the

rationality corresponds with denaturalized nature, and he nihilum at the base of his existence.

at the same time relies on that intellect and the world of At the other end of the spectrum there is a nihilism

nature as well. Paradoxically, but understandably, only here which, "wholly antagonistic to the condi cion of the average

in nihilum does man find himself detached and free from the person in mass society, assumes the form of existential soli-

more thoroughgoing and radical rule of the laws of nature in tude, in which nihilum is chosen as the ground of one's own
b e~ng
0

w~t
0 h c 1 ear consc~ousness
0

an d d ec~s~on. .,11
0 0 Th ~s
o ~s
0

a
their mechanized, internalized role. Only on this naked,

8 lOibid.' p. 40. ll!bid.

rbid. ' p. 39.
9 Ibid.
 163 164

steadfast refusal to accept the laws of nature as deter- via the medium of Buddhism) the Japanese have, over the

minative in the form they appear to be when viewed in the centuries, most liked to entertain questions regarding the

mechanistic form into which they are cast by the abstracting nature of reality within the context of the relation be-

intellect of scientific rationality. From the very ground tween man and nature; theological questions very much taking

of the rationalized life of modern science is emerging a the hind seat. Contemporary Japan pointedly illustrates a

"naked life" quite anterior to it and inaccessible to it. situation in which man is dragged along behind the machines

From the point of view of freedom, then, man comes to he has created. As Nishitani says, it "is also the matter

be deprived of his human nature and be mechanized. From the underlying the problem of imbalance between the progress of

side of nature becoming totally internalized and realized in science and the progress of man's morality." 13 This is the

man he appears eventually as though he stood outside its problem we introduced at the beginning of this section on

laws. Both appear as a fundamental whole in man as a mechan- nihilism of the relation between the rational and the good.

ized living being changed into a completely ir-rational sub- Quite naturally Nishitani points to the problem of nuclear

ject. We may consider Sartre and Camus as aware of this con- weapons for a poignant illustration. Politically this di-
. t h e context o f
. cast ~n . . 14 ·
dition. Polanyi has characterized these writers as morti- 1 emma ~s comrnun~st countr~es ~n wh.~c h

fied by self-doubt and without any real meaning in their lives. the tendency is toward the mechanization of governmental in-

In such a condition "We can then no longer say anything in stitutions, and more democratic countries . in which the free-

good faith, and all rational action becomes a lifeless banal- dom of individuals is likely to deteriorate into the whims

ity; . . . Having arrived at this stage, the modern intel- of the desire-driven subject. In this context of a mechan-

lectual will include himself in his nauseated contempt for istic world-image of modern science and the tendency in so-

the moral and cultural futility of his time. Having rendered cial structures and man's inner life toward mechanization,

the universe utterly meaningless, he himself dissolves in a nihilism has come to be viewed as the natural consequence of

universal wasteland." 12 The authentic relation between man this movement. The nihilurn has come to be viewed as what

and world is thus hidden and obscured. Here we see Nishitani 13 Keij i Nishi tani, "Nihilism and Siinyata," p. 41.
14 r t ~s
· ~nterest~n9
· · . t h.~s connect~on
to note ~n . t h at Ad or-
asking and positing answers for questions on a ground on
no attributes Nietzsche s adoption of the term nihilism in
which he is most comfortable. A method to some degree in- response to newspaper accounts of terrorist acts in Russia.
"With an irony to which our ears have been dulled in the mean-
digenous and to some degree inherited from the Chinese (largely time, he used the word to denounce the opposite of what it
meant in the practice of political conspirators: to denounce
Christianity as the institutionalized negation of the will to
12 live." Adorno, p. 379.
Polanyi, p. 236.
 165 166

quite naturally "ought" to be seen as the ground of existence The failure of these attempts is, in Nishitani's mind, rea-

and its mechanical structure. Those contemporary existent- son for opening up a trans-personal field beyond the domain

ialists who seriously focus upon existence have thus come to of so-called personality and spirit, "the precise and the

seize boldly this nihilum rather than succumb to mechaniza- only field, . . • in which personality and spirit come into

cion or the purely desire-driven subjectivity which is its their own reality and appear in their true figure as person-

opposite. 15 This Nishitani calls a positive nihilism. He ality and spirit. " 16 This is the plane hinted at in Eck-

does not see a solution here for the same reason that an hart's remarks about absolute nothingness as the "ground"

investigation of the self by the self is solipsistic and un- of the personal God. Such a plane must be both transcendent

productive; nothing cannot illuminate nothing. to (or yonder-side of) this world and at the same time rad-

Traditional religions have generally assumed the posture ically this-side (even more so than we ordinarily take our-

of drawing up lines of demarcation between religion and sci- selves to be).

ence because they have rightly seen the personal and spirit- For Nishitani it is in the Buddhist standpoint of~­

ual dimensions as the opposites of the mechanization and de- yata (emptiness) that such a point comes to light more

personalization which naturally proceeded out of scientific clearly. Sunyata is the field where both self and all things

rationalism. Surely, it was thought, the latter's inhuman- around us are realized in their true reality (suchness). It

ity must be countered by emphasizing the meaning of man's is only in the context of the above relations that ~•e can

personality or spirit as his correct mode of being. The find the "original face" of the self, i.e., in subordina-

other so-called "humanities" which have emerged in our uni- tion-sive-emancipation. This radical paradox and its ident-

versity curriculum have been thought necessary for precisely ity with death-sive-life necessitates its being taken ser-

the same reasons. The traditional theistic position was iously. Death and rebirth is a theme taken up in many tra-

merely an exaggerated form of this reaction since it seems ditional religions as death to finite life and rebirth in

so firmly grounded upon a "personal" God and his rela cion to eternal life, or death to self and world and rebirth in God.

"persons." Nishitani' s view of western philosophical thought In most instances all such discussions have taken place with

is that it has also consisted in trying to draw lines of de- an emphasis upon the life aspect. Life is considered to be

marcation between a scientific and a human view of reality. more valuable or desirable than death; we speak of soul, per-

15 Cf. note 12. 16 Keij i Nishi tani, "Nihilism and S\inya ta," p. 44. Cf.
discussion of Nishitani on the "personal" and the "imper-
sonal" in Chapter III.
 167
sonality, spirit, even ghosts as "living" a~..l superior to
inanimate objects. Even the philosophers of religion have
glorified the life aspect and seen God as the highest, purest
representative, i.e., as "Eternal Life" and man's salvation
consists in his achieving this purest form of life.
On the other hand the spectrum i1a:; its reverse direc-
tion back through the various forms of life--soul, personal-
ity, etc.--to inanimate things, and at this limit, toward
nihilwn and meaninglessness. In Christianity, nihilum is
that out of which God creates all that is good. It shows up
again when sin is considered to be a self-consciousness of
and attraction to nihilum which is the threat to eternal life.
Salvation appears as overcoming this nihilum, or death, in
its basic form. When we consider the direction toward death,
we are not, Nishitani says, losing sight of God and perceiving
nihilum behind the beingness of finite being--this is merely
a shallow form of nihilism. The death direction, correctly
perceived, extends even in the direction of God's existence
and becomes an abysmal, Godless nihilum where all life what-
soever reveals death at its base. This is death taken as
the ecstatic self-transcendence of self-being. "In place of
the 'image of God,' the image of 'super-man' or the image of
really human, man is here set forth as an intentional objec-
tive inherent in man. " 17 This seems to be the direction of
modern science but Nishitani hopes to show that this is not
l7Ibid.' p. 47.
168
really a leap in the direction of death any more than ordin-
ary nihilism is such a leap.
Taking this to be our dilemma, that is, that traditional
religion has failed to grasp the nature of reality by moving
in a life direction and that modern science has failed in
taking the opposite, death direction; Nishitani proposes to
look in the death-sive-life direction. He hopes to avoid
the dilemmas involved in traditional religions and in modern
science. In the former death intrudes into the life direction
(the personaliLy J.i.1u~••sion) as "original sin," as disobedi-
ence of God's will, as self-destruction, etc. In the latter
life shows up in the death direction (the materiality di-
mension) as meaninglessness and subsequent dissatisfaction
with scientific rationalism. Nishitani proposes that we must
see personality and materiality as a sort of double exposure
rather than speak of ascending to higher degrees of person-
ality or reducing to lower or smaller degrees of materiality.
This double exposure is the viewpoint of sunyata.
II. tahilum as Death-sive-Life
The sunyata or emptiness of which Nishitani speaks is
not, he wants to argue, the same as the nihilum of nihilism.
This nihilum ultimately bears much more relation to person-
ality than it does to sunyata. Recall that the traditional
understanding of personality is established with a self-
centered grasp of itself as nucleus. It represents a sort
of captivity, a self-attachment, a self-sustaining, solip-
 169
sistic subjectivity. Absolute nothingness or emptiness is
the true mode of being of personality, not in any sense of
"out there" or "yonder-side" but radically here and this-
side. Nihilism asserts that man finds his freedom and sub-
jectivity on the ground of nihilum, a plane at the base of
self-being which provides the creative ground for a freedom
which does not fasten on anything; a condition felt by most
as despair and psychological instability but which can be
turned, by being taken seriously, into the only thing upon
which man can count. This may have a parallel in the sort
of remark that "The only Absolute is that there are no Abso-
lutes." This is nihilism existentialized.
The awkwardness here, indeed for Nishitani the impos-
sibility of such a position, is that it differs in no funda-
mental way from the subjectivity of more personalistic posi-
tions, i.e., their being-centered metaphysic. Nothingness
in nihilism is not free from the bias of objectification,
"of taking nothingness as a 'thing' which is nothingness." 18
Nishitani is not thereby denying that modern nihilism is an
existential standpoint; indeed it has real analogies within
the Buddhist tradition and was often mistaken by western
cormnen ta tors as identical to Buddhism generally. Nihilism
does, in fact, found itself upon the real experience of the
nihilum which is at the base of all existence. But the
nihilum appears here as the groundlessness of self-being; it
lBibid. , p . 56·
170
i s seen from the side of self-being and is found outside
that being, on the "yonder-side" of being, as an entity other
than being. Even Heidegger speaks of our self-being as
though it were hanging out over the abyss of nothingness,
This is clearly subject-object language. Nishitani's point
is that "the nihilum in this case is always a nihilum-for-
us, that is, a nihilum encountered by us, we ourselves stand-
ing on the side of 'being. "' 19 This is a nothingness which
stands outside all beingness, an entity absolutely other
than beingness; this is like the view which holds that nothing-
ness is the negation of beingness and is the customary west-
ern view.
But in Mahayana Buddhist thought, emptiness emerges as
something quite different. Its fundamental intention is to
transcend all subject-object dualisms which emerge from logi-
cal analysis. True emptiness is not something that is re-
alized out there on the yonder-side of being but is, rather,
realized at one and the same time with and as self-identical
to being; it is "originally self-emptying," that is, it
empties even the standpoint that shows it as something that
is emptiness. It is not self-shackling as when, in nihilism,
nothingness is tied to itself. Emptiness is the completion
of the direction toward negation which has transcended even
the nihilum which transcended all being. But emptiness
transcends being in an even more radical way since it is in
19Ibid.
 171
no way tied to being. On the other side, one should not
conceive of emptiness merely in terms of transcendence and
objectify it since it reveals itself only as self-identical
with being. The sive of being-sive-nothingness indicates
that they are originally one and the same thing and struc-
turally tied together. In this fashion nothingness or empti-
ness is more radically this-side than even self-being or sub-
jectivity as we ordinarily conceive of it. It is this limited
self-being which is thought to be illusory and one of the
marks of existence in Buddhism as anatman. Thus emptiness
is neither exhausted by the illusion of subjectivity nor
some transcendentally subsisting place called "emptiness"
or "Heaven."
Nihilism obviously made a great stride forward. Freud
had concerned himself in his "Introduction · to Psychoanalysis"
with establishing the necessity for a healthy ego. While
this may be socially and therapeutically useful it goes
against Buddhism's and Nishitani's understanding of the il-
lusory nature of such an ego. This is a "clinging to" ( tanha)
an ego-self which wishes to rid itself of being viewed ob-
jectively but which in the process establishes itself as a
"something," i.e., an object, which is called the atman or
self. Nihilism at least rendered man the service of showing
the false security which comes from this. In a powerful
statement "Against Personalism" Adorno attacks contemporary
ontological efforts to derive transcendence from the person
as the mere exaltation of consciousness. This consciousness
172
"would not be without that universal which th~ir recourse
to the person seeks to bar as an ethical ground, This is
why the concept of the person as well as its variants--the
'I-thou' relation, for example--have assumed the oily tone
of unbelieved theology. " 20 Any concept of the "right human
being" is doomed to be a consecrated duplicate of its own
self-preservation. Even existentialism, with its mode of
being "ecstatic," shows how fundamentally man or his ego is
held out over an abyss and cannot be self-sustaining in any
real sense. Buddhism shows us that even this nihilum origi-
nates in emptiness. As Nishi tani says, ". . . just as nihil urn
is an abyss to anything that exists, so emptiness may be said
to be an abyss to the abyss of nihilum. " 21 This emptiness
is not the atheism which remains something (an "ism") in
the sense that positivism, or materialism, or nihilism may
be said to be. Nishitani seems to be suggesting that empti-
ness is a bringing together in some higher synthesis the
limited truths of these various "isms"; the negative truths
of positivism, materialism, reductionism, nihilism, and the
positive truths of theism and the traditional religions. He
does not want, however, to objectify this synthesis in the
manner in which Eckhart may be said to have done in describing
some unio mystica "with the Godhead," however formless that
Godhead may be. Nor, however, does he make the common mis-
take of thinking of Eckhart's thought as pantheism, since he
20 Adorno, p. 2 7 7.
21
Nishitani, "Nihilism and S!lnyata," p. 58.
 173
recognized in Eckhart's "soul's ground" something which was
radically on the this-side foreground of the self. It is
in Buddhism that Nishitani sees the radical transcendence
of the "yonder-side"-"this-side" distinction; it is a relig-
ion of the absolutely this-side.
Nishitani does not wish to say, as a modern-day Feuer-
bach might, that the abyss of nothingness in nihilism or the
personal God of traditional religions are mere fantasy or
representation, mere products of the imagination. The nihil
is a reality as real as the fact that we exist and is not
remote from our everyday life. It is only because we are so
familiar with :he everyday world that we fail to perceive
in it the reality of nihilum. This is true in much the same
way that we often fail to "know" someone with whom we have
been acquainted, even intimately, for a long time. We give
them names (this is true of all objects within our sphere of
acquaintance) and think thereby that we know them. This
process of "naming" is the way we render such persons and ob-
213
jects our own. This naming is the camoflauge covering
nihilum. Here the everyday conceals rather than reveals.
It is in this sense that the knowledge accumulated by modern
technology conceals rather than reveals reality by making it
so common-place that we fail to see it. But, "In the mode
of being where form is emptiness and emptiness is form, the
'forms' (i.e., all things) are each absolutely nameless,
21
lhis seems to be the motivation behind the high empha-
sis placed by the Chinese on the "rectification of names."
174
unknown, unknowable, and separated from each other by an
absolute rupture." 22 The crucial difference here is that,
whereas the field of nihilum (the barren and bottomless
abyss) opens up an essential difference between ourselves
and that with which we are familiar, emptiness makes this
difference the place of our most intimate encounter with all
beings. This is not encounter in the Buberian sense; it is
where self and other are absolutely two and absolutely ident-
ical. Nishitani quotes the Zen master Daito Kokushi:
"Separated from one another by 100 million kalpas, yet not
apart a single moment: sitting face to face all day long,
yet not oppposed for an instant." 23 In this same fashion
water and waves present each other, each in its own reality,
and are also self-identical. This is the place of sunyata
as the absolute this-side.
Our ordinary mode of being is, however, one in which
body and mind are perceived as separate; we conceive of our-
selves as rational or personal beings. The absolutely this-
side always appears in this case as the absolutely yonder-
side. The self as composed of body-mind, reason, and per-
sonality grasps itself in each of these aspects by these
aspects. This is the self-attachment which is not a volun-
tary attachment; it is an unselfconscious attachment which
binds us to the illusion of an objectified self. To Nishi-
22 Keiji Nishitani, "Nihilism and Slinyata," p. 62.
23
Ibid., p. 63.
 175
tani: "It seems as if when life, consciousness, personality,
or reason, each as a whole, appears from the depths of the
world so as to become individualized and immanent in each
individual being, they betray an essential characteristic
24
of falling into a sort of narcissistic self-attachment. "
This is necessity viewed as destiny but is not a blind, ex-
ternal destiny; it appears disguised as our own acts. It
is this condition which obscures from us the this-side na-
ture of the yonder-side. Nishitani compares Plato and
Christianity by suggesting that for Plato the Ideas appear
as the yonder-side of the sensory world; they are the "hea-
vens" viewed from the "earth," this is the ~ perspective.
Christianity conceives the "heavens" as dominant wherein God
moves toward the "earth" in an ~ perspective. This too
is a yonder-side perspective in which heaven stands against
earth. Metaphysics has used reason as a tool for represent-
ing the yonder-side and the this-side as side by side on the
horizon of dialectical thought.
The abyss of nihilum differs in that it represents the
this side, but a this-side, as we have pointed out, that re-
tains something of the objectified yo.1der-side character.
Instead of moving from earth toward Heaven as Plato does,
and instead of emphasizing Heaven moving toward earth as
Christianity does, here we have a movement from earth toward
its center, its depths. This abyss or chasm still moves at
24 Ibid., p. 64.
176
the level of being.
The standpoint of emptiness embraces both the movement
toward Heaven and the movement from Heaven to the earth's
depths. Where emptiness is emptied to become true emptiness
is the place where every thing appears in its true suchr.ess.
The absolutely this-side character of emptiness means that
it is where the self of reason, personality, with body-mind
dies to itself and is extricated from its self-attachment;
this is the satori of Buddhism or the Abgeschiedenheit (de-
tachment) of Eckhart. It is also the place where this same
self, which is in the above sense unnameable, lives and has
its name in the everyday world. This is self-awareness as
opposed to self-consciousness. Self-awareness is reality
viewed in its suchness, not in some objectifiable sense, but
as inaccessible to the ego's grasping. This is a mode of
being on ones home-ground, the thing as and in itself. Not
a Kantian ding-~-sich nor the "unity" so often glibly used
in both eastern and western philosophical thought; a unity
sought in advance as the logical outcome of reconciling a
pre-supposed dualism. Emptiness or the absolutely this-side
is not a result; "this standpoint is neither monism or dual-
ism of any kind. It is the absolute self-identical One which
is, as it is, the absolute Two." 25
None of this is, of course, self-evident but Nishitani
is not alone in such language or assertions. It is primarily
Zen which has, over the centuries, made similar pronounce-
25Ibid. , p • 68 •
 177 178

ments. What is the mode of being of "forms" (existing more really what they are. The illusion characterized by

things) and the meaning of emptiness? How can things anatman consists in our taking as real what we ordinarily

"practice and confirm the self" while at the same time drop consider as "objective" rather than seeing behind this ap-

away from the self? Muse Kokushi ans~ers : pearance to its ground. This ground is where Heidegger sees

Hills and rivers, the earth, plants and trees, the subject becoming more authentically subjective. Behind
tiles and stones, all of these are the self's own
original part. even this is the fieldof emptiness wherein there is an en-

It is not that the field of that original part tirely different mode of being. Here, Nishitani says, "things
lies in body and mind, or that it lies outside body
and mind, or that body and mind are precisely the are not merely subjective representations as idealism asserts,
place of the original part, or that the original part
is sentient or non-sentient, or that it is the wisdom nor are they merely objective beings or external realities inde-
of Buddhas and saints. Out of the realm of the origi- . " 27
nal part have arisen all things: from the wisdom of pen d ent o f consc~ousness as rea 1 ~sm
' an d mater1a
. l'~sm i ns~st.
.
Buddhas and saints, to the body and mind of every
sentient being, and all lands and worlds.26 The ordinary fact of life and death means, of course, that whereas

The paradox of representation on the field of conscious- things may with difficulty escape the realm of consciousness, no-

ness is that objectivity is never objective in any absolute thing escapes nihilum. Hihilum transcends consciousness and in

sense; it remains always subjectively determined. Though we turn is transcended by emptiness. 28 In Zen language, at the

may say that things exist outside the self or knowing sub- level of consciousness "mountains are mountains and rivers are

ject, epistemologically they remain inside its domain. When rivers," at the level of nihilum we realize that "mountains

we break through this subjectivity to the nihilum at its are not mountains and rivers are not rivers." Behind and prior

base, the nihilum itself is 5ubjectivized as the base of this to this and making the two previous assertions possible is the

self-emancipation. This deprives things of their "reality" level of emptiness where, once again, "mountains are mountains

but does not render them merely illusory from the subject's and rivers are rivers." In Nishitani' s terms this is a kind

standpoint since because they are "nihilized" they come to of "knowing of unknowing."

be more a part of a more authentic self, i.e., more authenti-

III. Nihilum and Substance
cally subjectivized. The field of nihilum is one ~•here things
Nishitani hopes to make clearer this negation of the
cease to be mere objects and are beyond representation. De-
prived of this so-called objective reality, things become 27
Ibid., p. 96.
28 r t ~s
· a concept wh.lC h operates ~n
. Re l'1g~on
. and Phi-
26
Muchu Mondo ("Questions and Answers in a Dream"), losophy (metaphysics) in the interface between the second
quoted by Nishitani, ibid., p. 69. and final fields of Reality as Nishitani describes them.
 179 180

position of nihilism and to describe the mode of being on retically apart and never become a question themselves;

the field of emptiness. To do so he takes up the categories thus the noesis-~ distinction has never been resolved.

of substance and subject. The concept of substance in west- This is not surprising since substance and subject are,

ern thought has always referred to that which in any being, after all, set up on the plane of object-subject duality and

animate or inanimate, makes it be itself, which does not both presuppose the subject. Nihilism breaks through this

change as do the accidental properties of the thing. This duality but not entirely. It calls the subject into ques-

reference is only possible by viewing a thing as an object tion but leaves it in a quandary by failing to see any other

represented by the subject. This involves the paradox we plane; it merely sees the questioning of the subject on the

j ust discussed. Once one concludes that all things are field of consciousness. It ruptures the "logical" but does

"appearances" the Kantian conclusion is quite a natural one, not go beyond that point. It points beyond but in pointing

viz., that substance is an ~ priori something which is "thought at something, i.e., the nihilum which lies at the base of

into" objects. But the division into phenomena and nournena the "pointing" subject, it reestablishes the grasping sub-

does not solve the problem of representation on the field of ject by finding being to consist in an ecstatic transcendence.

consciousness; it merely raises the noumena to a "higher" One might say that the problem of thought, i.e., the "mind"

level of representation, still objectified by the thinking in mind-body is solved but the problem of action, i.e., the

subject. This view of substance (the Kantian one) gives rise "body" is unresolved. 29 Buddhism recognizes this difficulty

ttl the view of the subject as something that rejects any by considering mind and body to be different aspects or per-

objective comprehension whatsoever. This is the subject spectives of one bodily-experience. Truly the designations

which existentialism "improves" upon by thrusting or hold- of substance and subject must be gone beyond in any discus-

ing it ecstatically out over the abyss of nihilum. In this sion of the mode of being of the self on its own home-ground.

way, both subst~nce and subject are disclosed in their es- 29 Adorno spe;aks of this "legacy of action" which is the
sential mode of beingness and called into question as un- residuum of nihilism as "a carrying-on which seems stoical
but is full of inaudible cries that things should be differ-
nameable and incomprehensible. The self as such a subject ent. Such nihilism implies the contrary of identification
with nothingness." He ?oes on to characterize as nihilists
is as close as w~stern thought comes to the realization of (operating on Nishitani s field of consciousness) '' • . • the
ones who oppose nihilism with their more and more faded posi-
the "doubt" of Zen. Nishitani holds that traditional ontol- tivities, the ones who are thus conspiring with all extant
malice, and eventually with the destructive principle itself.
ogy has never moved to such a level of consideration. The Thought honors itself by defending what is damned as nihilism."
Adorno, p. 381.
questioner and the questioned have always been held thea-
 181 182

The concepts of substance and subject provide the grasping ing itself. In burning firewood fire reveals its actual,

ego with a degree of seeming permanence in a world that is acting mode of being or selfness. In fire not burning it-

anicca (impermanence) • They refer to the mode of being-in- self it also reveals its selfness, in this case in this its

itself but inadequately. All these observations occur at non-ac~ing or essential mode of being. Only on this latter

the level of reason or logos. In spite of reason's tradi- ground does it reveal itself to be on its home-ground, its

tional place as the resolver of the dualism between knower fireness to itself as fire. Clearly the traditional view

and known, seer and seen, there remain traces of the knower of things from a substance point of view, the rational point

knowing the known or the seer seeing the seen. Things dis- of view, is inadequate to grasp this non-acting selfness of

close their own selfness (fire reveals its form--to be anal- fire. This latter point of view is a radical turnabout

yzed scientifically, etc.--or substance to be distinguished from the point of view of reason, toward a point of view

from other things) and, also on the field of reason, we com- which negates the substantial self-identity of things mani-

prehend this form. No matter how intently we wish to examine festing themselves. In Buddhist terminology this means that

the fireness of fire, there is always the vehicle of reason the ~ point of view must be negated by the anatman point

between us and that possibility. As Nishitani puts it, "in of view, i.e., that the fire-nature (substance) point of

order to approach the fact 'THAT fire is,' reason always goes view must be negated by the no-fire-nature (fire not burn-

through the process of asking 'WHAT fire is.' " 30 ing itself) point of view. Indeed, the possibility of fire

Substance, then, is the mode of being of a thing as it burning anything lies in its true selfness which is in not

manifests itself to us ar.d is grasped by reason as its self- burning or exhausting itself. In this way ~ishitani hints

identity. From ancient times, however, there have been, in at the nature of emptiness by showing that rational, sub-

the East, such phrases as "Fire does not burn fire," "\<later stance-oriented methods must fail.

does not wash water," "The eye does not see the eye." These
phrases point beyond the self-identity of reason's grasping
to a point where the actual and essential (the THAT and WHAT)
being of things exist on their home-ground. ~Tishitani makes
a distinction becween fire burning firewood and fire not burn-

3°Keij i Nishi tani, "Nihilism and SOnya ta," p. 101.

 184

does not lend itself to mere rational accounting however

subtle or refine (sic) that may be. It is rather the result
CHAPTER V
of prajna, the so-called 'eye of wisdom,' the instrument
SUNYATA: THE NATURE OF which cuts open and at once reveals reality for what it is. 2
EMPTINESS AND NOTHINGNESS "Thus the ultimate reality shown by Mahayana Buddhists is

I. Field and Subject the absolute voidness (sunyata) that is devoid of all quali-
fications and about which no conceptual determination can be
That the concept of sunyata (emptiness or voidness) is
formed." 3 When Nishitani chooses the term sunyata for re-
the gateway to an understandin~ of the essence of Mahayana
ality he has chosen to consider the matter ontologically;
Buddhism has ~ever been questioned, and rightly so. It
whereas from the epistemologic perspective he has been con-
must, however, be admitted that there are perhaps as many
cerned with reality as dharma and prajna (wisdom). We
different interpretations of sunyata as there are scholars
turn now to a more explicit treatment of Nishitani's own
who venture an opinion in this matter. Kenneth Inada has
understanding of sunyata in the context of his investiga-
helpfully summarized and responded to these various posi-
tion of the relation of religion and science on the various
tions in an introduccory essay to his own translation of
fields of Reality.
the Mulamadhyamakakar.ika. He lists the various erroneous
Nishitani has suggested three fields of reality: the
interpretations as absolute monist, radical pluralist,
field of mere sense perception (such as is also found in
nihilist, negativist, relativist, logician and dialectician. l
animals), the field of the mode of being of man with con-
It is important to distinguish between the position he
sciousness and intellect, and a field transcending con-
criticizes as dialectics (by which he means the western, ra-
sciousness and intellect. It is to this third field that we
tional form of dialectical logic) and the "negative dia-
now propose to look more carefully, the field of emptiness
lectics" we have suggested is the method of Nishitani. The
or sunyata. We havealready described this field as the field
former perpetuates the subject-object dichotomy and takes
either the destructive (eristic) or constructive (teleologi-
cal) form. Nishi tani, with Inada, recognizes that "Truth 2 Inada, Nagarjuna •.• , p. 20.

3Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinkin~ of Eastern Peoples:

India-China-Tibet-Japan (Honolulu, 1964 , p. 55.
 185
of a wisdom which could be called a "knowing of unknowing."
Further, we have described this as the field of a praxis
which should be called "action of non-action." And, finally,
we have called it a field wherein knowledge and praxis are
one. This field is beyond the representation of material-
ity and the representation of ideas in the sense that both
are conceived on the one hand "via the thing as it appears
as an 'object' in the field of opposition of subject and ob-
ject and on the other hand . . on the basis of the aspect
of things under which things reveal themselves to us as sub-
jects ... 4 This entanglement is overcome on the field of
nihilum as being essentially rootless. No matter how complex
or enormous a thing is, it shows itself to us in an analyz-
able mode ~~hich must be seen as suspended over this abyss of
nothingness. Here things are dissolved and give evidence of
the Buddhist observation that all is anicca (transient).
This nihilun and transience appear to us from the perspec-
tive of existence and are therefore tied to it as standing
over against it. They represent nothingness in opposition
to being, i.e., a relative nothingness. The emptiness of
sunyata is an absolute emptiness which has emptied also these
represented kinds of emptiness. When we speak of the root
of being we usually think of something far behind what we
4Keiji Nishitani, "The Standpoint of Sunyata," trans.
Jan van Bragt and Yamamoto Seisaku, The Eastern Buddhist,
New Series, Vol. VI, No. 1 (May 1973)L 68-91. Chapter Four
(Ku no tachiba) of the author's ShUkyo to wa Nanika ("What
isReTigion?"), --
186
sense with our senses and think with our mind, i.e., we rep-
resent it at a distance from ourselves; we objectify it. 5
That being opens itself on the field of emptiness means that
this distance is dissolved, that the dissolving of transi-
ence is itself dissolved, and restored to being. Everything
returns to that individual capacity it possesses as a mani-
festation of that possibility of existence. Here is where
mountains again become mountains and rivers again become
rivers. Whereas on the field of reason (by virtue of its
being nihilized) self and things turn into a big question
mark, in emptiness all things again appear as substance, each
possessing its own individual selfhood. Traditionally (ra-
tionally) we speak of this or that thing, existing as this
or that thing. Some philosophers have focused on the thing
and some have focused on the existing. This rational mode
of expression is no longer suitable on the field of empti-
ness. The form of paradox expresses emptiness (though some-
what limited by this verbal form) as in "It is not this
thing or that thing, therefore it is this thing or that
thing."
In speaking about substance in our section on
nihilism we referred to such sayings by the ancients as
"Fire does not burn fire," "A sword does not cut a sword,"
"The eye does not see the eye." In the very fact that
5
Thus we speak of "will" or desire and attachment in
connection with such representation.

fire preserves itself in the midst of its burning there
is non-burning. We may say then that burning is non-
burning and non-burning is burning--this is the language
of paradox. Nishitani wants to go further to say that
such language may also be used of attributes, and not
only of substances. "lofuen one says, for example, that
fire is hot, there is reason to say that the heat itself
is not hot." 6 This not-hot is not some relatively colder
temperature but is beyond the sphere of the relativity
of being and nothingness. Not-hot is not on the same
field as cold but rather the field of not-cold. Heat
and its possibility arise out of its self-identity with
non-heat. Fire is sensed as hot and belongs to the on-
tological category of "quality"; at the same time it is
measurable and belongs to the category of "quantity."
The fact, however, of heat--its hotness as not-hot--can-
not be captured by the terms quality and quantity. It
may be that the Idea of heat as expressed in Platonic
terms is beyond the heat of the senses and therefore not
hot. But this is conceptually grasped and transcends
only the body of the mind-body duality and is still a
part of the subject-object duality of knower-known. The
reality of not-hot pervades the world of senses and in-
tellect but does not belong to either, or both, etc.
6Keiji Nishitani, "The Standpoint of Sunyata,"
tJ. 75.
187 188
"hot" thing is on its home-ground, beyond all categories
of substance, quality, quantity, etc., on the field of
emptiness. Nishitani calls this "the autonomous mode
of being of things." This is not some sort of "front-
side" of things, revealed to us. Neither is it some
mysterious, hidden, "back-side" of things. "'Things'
on their own home-ground have no front or backsides;
they are purely and simply themselves, they are exclu-
sively in-themselves." 7 Obviously this does not simply
mean subjectivity or refer to a self-conscious ego.
The terms "in-themselves" and "autonomous" relate things
to substance and quality but such things are neither
substance nor subject. Nishitani quotes Basho's remark
as illustration of this different notion of existence:
"Learn about the pine tree from the pine tree. Learn
about the bamboo from the bamboo. ,.B This does not mean
some scientific scrutiny or analysis of the pine tree,
or even simply observation. It means getting into the
mode of being a pine tree; into the dimension where they
come into their own, show themselves in their suchness.
"The Japanese word for 'learn' (~) means precisely:
to make efforts to stand essentially in the same mode
of being as the thing you want to learn about. What
A
7
Ibid., p. 77.
8Ibid.
 189 190

hind" things--they show up as though viewing the "center"

renders this possible is the field of emptiness." 9
from the circumference; as "projected on the screen of a
This in-itself mode of being is the samadhi of Bud-
relationship to us." The "thing"-in-itself occurs for
dhist thought. When samadhi is merely considered to be
us only when we leap from the circumference into the cen-
a mental state one is speaking of its form or defini-
ter which is the opening up in ourselves of the abso-
tion. But samadhi-being is not this definition from
lutely this-side which is being at one with emptiness,
outside; it is a mode of its being settled in itself,
i.e., our position.
10 This is our samadhi-being. This
the Taoist wu-wei. Such a thing may be perceived as a
position is more "middle" than the mere positing of a
definite and determined thing, for example a particular
thing. When we try to explain what a thing is we find
individual, but it is not so much that individual as
only a form comparable to the thing itself. This is what
what makes possible the principle of individuation it-
Nangaku Ejo meant in his answer to the Sixth Patriarch's
self. Poetic truths such as "A single falling leaf
question, "What is it that thus comes?": "If you try to
betokes autumn" often involve the expression of facts
explain something by comparing it with anything whatsoever,
on the field where a particular fact is considered an
you fail to hit the middle. ,ll
absolute fact; where the definite is open to the abso-
Having dealth earlier with Nishitani's understanding of
lute. Here the absolute fact is more truly real than
the concept of substance, we turn now to his treatment of
the simple, observed fact that a leaf is falling. The
the concept of subject. He begins his investigation by
former makes possible the latter. The absolute fact
looking back at the history of the emergency of the concept
may seem to have a provisional, an unreal, character
in western philosophy. Substance he has defined as expres-
because it does not have any apparent being but all
sing "something existing at the base of the various attri-
such beings are essentially provisional phenomena.
butes; it expresses the mode of being whereby a thing exists
Nishitani represents the in-itself mode of being by
as itself." "Similarly, 'subject' expresses something which
the term "middle" (Pali = majj hima; Skrt = madhyama;
exists, in a human being, at the basis of his various facul-
Jap- chu). This middle is the home-ground of things.
ties as their unifying factor, the mode of being whereby a
The "shapes" which show up on the fields of sense and
reason always appear as the "front" of things, or "be-
10 rbid., pp. 79, 80. This is the "middle path" considereci
as the ultimate ontological principle. Cf. note 31 above.
11 rbid •• p. 80.
9 rbid. , p. 78.
 191
human being appears as himself. 12 The qnestion is whether
this concept of subject truly expresses man in himself as
he is on his own true home-ground. Nishitani intends to show
that rather than this being the case, the concept of subject
parallels that of substance in expressing man at the level
of his own consciousness. Certainly it is almost univer-
sally the case that the concept of subject is taken to ex-
press the essence of human existence, whether taken to be a
positive thing as is usually the case in western thought or
as illusory as in Buddhism. As we have already emphasized
in earlier sections, this is particularly the case in modern
times. Descrates' cogito was a major impetus in this direc-
tion and Kant probed even more deeply into this standpoint
at all levels of his thought. Kant was a turning point in
that he reversed the position which held that our cognitive
experience is shap~d not by fitting the object of cognition
but rather that the objects of cognition fit ~ priori cate-
gories of our sense perception and understanding. His self-
designated "Copernican Revolution" looked in the oppsoite
direction from traditional metaphysics and opened a critical
standpoint "halfway between the former metaphysics, which
tried to grasp the thing-itself dogmatically by purely ration-
al thinking, and Humean skepticism, which shook this meta-
physics severely--down to its very roots." 13 All objects of
12 rbid., p. 81.
13Ibid., p. 82.
192
experience and the world of phenomena are thus shaped by
the forms of our senses and understanding and we have in such
a view of man a clear foundation for a view of modern man as
subject. This subject is both the knower and the shaper of
the known. This sort of self-awareness involves an aware-
ness of man's power in penetrating to the deepest levels of
existence and of the limitations of this power in being bound
to the phenomenal world without access to the nournenal world
of the things-in-themselves. His standpoint is always rep-
resentational, he sees "things" or phenomena as objects.
This is precisely parallel to the investigation of substance
which is also representational. Both subject and substance
are objects outside the noumenal realm of things-in-them-
selves.
Earlier metaphysics stoutheartedly held to the convic-
tion that there was a correspondence between the things and
the experience or understanding of them. Humean skepticism
made this point of view questionable and Kant takes up the
matter in his self-examination of reason. Substance is no
longer taken as revealing the "being" of a thing as in the
one-dimensional correspondence theory of things but rather
as a "form" or a priori category of pure reason which is
somehow "thought into" the thing. The thinking subject takes
the place of substance in the center of the new ontology.
Nishitani's point, of course, is that they do not differ in
being representational and objectivizing. In the old meta-
physics, our representations fashion themselves after the
 193
object and in the new Kantian metaphysics, the objects
fashion themselves after our representation. In this sense,
Kant marks a critical milepost in the emergence of human
rights in a world that was previously thought of as the to-
tality of the objects of experience. Kant's world was a
world that man as subject could investigate and manipulate,
i . e., it was the world of modern science. This is the sub-
ject standpoint which ran its modern course and is still
running it for some, all the way through Hegel's absolute
reason to Kiekegaard's radical turnabout toward the existen-
tial subject and on through Marx and Nietzsche. From the
rational subject, through the absolute reason, it finally
laid bare the nihilum at its roots. Only then did the sub-
ject reveal itself to be essentially groundless, along with
the world of phenomena. Then, according to Nishitani, "
when the concept of substance, which was supposed to express
the in-itself of things, and the concept of subject, which
was supposed to express the in-itself of the self, collide
at their roots with nihilum and are negated on the spot,
they make a leap forward into the field where 'thing' and
the self (which they tried to grasp) come into their own and
14
reveal their in-itself." Here things and the self are in-
definable, no longer objects of cognition or experience, sub-
ject or substance. This is not skepticism where we doubt a
certain thing but is the situation when all things and we
14
rbid., p. 86.
194
ourselves become one Great Doubt. Things and self and their
cognition are no problem here but rather the problem is the
reality of things and the self. This reality and the under-
s tending of i t are not possible by going back to the cogni-
tive, rational direction but rather by going onward through
the radical doubt, through the field of nihilum to the field
of emptiness where things and self manifest themselves and
really realize themselves. Nihilum is nowhere, divided in
itself; it has shattered reason but is still representational.
It is, furthermore, a transitional field in that it cannot
be fully objectified and therefore represented as a place
wherein to dwell. It only is, radically and actually, tran-
sitional; it is "essentially" void. The standpoint of empti-
ness is not transitional, not void of things; its voidness
or negativity as affirmation. This is a radical about-face;
from the void of nihilum to the absolute affirmation of
things, from the objective, rational world of things to
emptiness. This is not the phenomenal world of Kant, things
as they appear to us; this is not, either, the Kantian Ding-
~-sich or noumenal realm which must rerMin unknown or merely
known about. Emptiness is neither the former as front-side
(this-side) nor the latter as back-side (yonder-side). It
is the Buddhist "reached-beyond" which is absolutely this-
side. "It is the authentic thing-itself, which in fact
15
actually exists." Such a thing-itself is represented in
lSibid., p. 88.
 195
such sayings as "A bird flies and it is like a bird; a fish
moves and it seems to be a fish." This is the "like true
re ality" of suchness. Other expressions we have introduced
to point to this home-ground are "being in the middle" and
"being in its own position" and "samadhi-being." The thing-
itself (self of no-self)(acting as non-acting) and its knowl-
edge (knowing as non-knowing) immediately turns into an ob-
ject of cognition when we speak of it or analyze it.
The thing-itself originally realizes itself as it
is, in its own 'middle' which can never be objecti-
fied; and its non-objective knowledge, the knowledge
of no-knowledge, means that we convert and enter into
the 'middle' of the thing itself. It means that we
stragithen ourselves out, turning to where none of
our turnings obtains in the direction of what negates
all our directions.l6
The pine demands that we "learn to be a pine."
II. The Field of Emptiness
In the course of his speaking about emptiness Nishitani
has introduced a number of expressions and phrases, two of
which he explores in greater depth, via a comparative study.
These phrases are: "Being is only being at one with empti-
ness," and "emptiness is self."
In explaining the in-itself-ness of "things," Nishitani
calls an "image" the mode of being of a thing which appears
as an object on the fields of the senses and of reason, and
refers to the thing-in-itself as the mode of being of a th~ng
16Ibid., p • 90 ·
196
in its own center or "middle." These images are manifesta-
tions of the thing's selfness and are pervaded by the "mid-
dle" but are not the "middle" when viewed from the point of
view of the circumference. To illustrate this Nishitani
represents the fields of the senses and of reason in this
relation by describing a diagram which we render here into
a drawing :
reason
Figure 1
His explanation goes as follows:
. • . we shall represent the fields of the senses
and of reason as the circumferences of two concentric
circles. The objective images, wherein a certain
thing a appears on the fields of the senses and of
reason~ then becomes the two points al and a2, where
a single radiu2 crosses the two circumferences in
fact, al and a are al(a) a 2 (a) . In that case,
the thing-in-itself, (a}, is situated in the center
of the circle. This in-itself mode of being, as a
non-objective way of being-in-the-middle, pervades
 197 198

al and a2. Looked at in that perspectivr th1y are Figure 2 Figure 3

manifestations of a-in-itself a is a (a , a ) . •
medieval nominalism medieval realism
We can represent all other things, b, c, etc. in modern empiricism modern rationalistic ontology
the same way. The infinite yumbrr of possible p~int~
on the circumferences, al, b , c . • . or a2, b , c
. . • are conceived, each as a distinct point while
in the center the infinite number of points !• ~. £
. . . are situated in the same center, are concentrated
into one. This symbolizes the fact that, although on
the fields of the senses and of reason things are
seen each as a sensory thing with its singular sub-
sistence or, again, as the substantial form thereof,
they are gathered into one in thef? non-objective mode
of being as things-in-themselves.
We, as limited egos, realize that an infinite concentra-
tion of points in our self-consciousness is unthinkable with-
in the bounds of sense perceptions and reason, or even from
the point of view of "being" which is comprised of such ex- In all cases, "being" is being conceived not as ! but only
periences--this is the fundamental limitations of western in its manifestations as a 1 or a2, i.e., from the standpoint
ontology. Further, such an ontology never allows for a con- of the ordinary conscious self with all things being con-
sideration of a radical nothingness. Citing medieval nomi- ceived as separate and distinct. The field of nihilum con-
nalism and modern empiricism as illustrations of positions sists in the dawning of the awareness that points al and a2
which take point al as the center of their concerns, and are suspended over or derive from, and are dra'm into the
medieval realism and modern rationalistic ontology as illus- one and only center, or infinity as logically incomprehen-
trations of positions which take point a2 as their center, sible, i.e., as nothingness. Previous attempts in western
Nishitani views western thought as represented by smaller thought to talk about the "One" consisted in making an abso-
circles taking, in the former case al as the center and a 2 lute, or seeking union within either al or a2 or on some
as its circumference (Fig. 2), or, in the latter case a2 as continuum between or beyond them. Nishitani alternatively
the center and alas its circumference (Fig. 3). For example: represents the nihilism aspect as tangent lines drawn to
every arbitrary point on the two circles (Fig. 4) showing
that "every point on the circle contains a direction of dis-
persing infinitely far away, and is suspended out over a
17 rbid., pp. 58-59.
 200
199

mind, etc., are united in being but is a circumferenceless

bottomless abyss." 18
center rendered without circumference by the nihilum and
Figure 4 (showing, for simplicity's
sake, ooly the tangent to the "great" or absolute doubt it brings about. It cannot
point aZ on the field of
reason) be represented by a circle or other diagram or any system
or logic at all. Emptiness has "its circumference nowhere"
and "its center everywhere." The former eliminates illu-
sions and the latter makes the world and ourselves possible.
The field of emptiness is an infinite space or void
which makes all systems of being possible and negatable.
The reality of things is that they are absolutely unique,
not reducible to points on the circumference of any circle
of being. The common charge that certain forms of Buddhism
are mere relativism does not hold up in that relativism is
In traditional philosophy such a circle is always viewed a consideration at the level of the circumferences of circles
from the circumference, i.e., from the standpoint of the of being. 19 In its mode of being as "middle," each and
circle. The center is only the center of the circle. Abso- every thing is absolutely unique and at the same time is
lute unity is often conceived in terms of such a circle. In found in the realm of appearance and illusion; it is both
such a system 'llhich ignores nothingness in favor of concen- master and subordinate. From the point of view of being in
trating on being the all-is-One idea establishes the One as the world, absolute uniqueness can only appear as chaotic,
mere non-differentiation. The viewpoint from the field of relativism; this is because it is a uniqueness which tran-
Emptiness affirms this while at the same time affirming all scends the "reason" circumference of r:he circle of being .
the infinite differentiations represented by the tangent As part of the world it appears in orders and varying de-
lines extending out into infinity. Thus we have the absolute grees of uniqueness and particularity. This relationship of
affirmation-sive-negation. The center of emptiness is not 20
master-subordinate is called "circuminsessional, " and is
the non-differentiation in which senses and reason, body and
I 9Again this fails to understand the nature of the mid-
dle path. It is not merely the avoidance of extremes but an
IBKeij i ~is hi tani, "The Standpoint of Sunyata," (concluded) ontological principle in its own right. Cf. notes 28 and 31.
trans. Rev. Jan van Bragt, The Eastern Buddhist, ~ew Series,
VI, No. 2 (Oct. 1973), pp. 58-96. 20Th· . Rev. Jan van Bragt I s trans l at~on
.
~s ~s o f "..'~s h'~tan~•I s
 201 202

22
possible only on the field of emptiness. In this position, of being, is possible." When we do not refer such a world

each unique thing is subject in the sense that it lies at to the field of emptiness we are obliged to conceive it.

the ground of all other things; it is one moment, the occa- When we try to conceive reality (the fact that things are)

sion, that makes every other thing "be." This is the sub- we find that our clarity in the matter is inversely propor-

ordinate position. This implies the negation of such a tionate to the profundity of our effort. In some way or

subordinate's mastery, its position, its own "being"--it other, all things are interlinked; each "sys tern" has con-

has no ordinary substance. It has a sort of "unreal" char- ceived the links differently. The more scientific intellect

acter. 21 Th ~s
. same t h.~ng can be . d a bout every
sa~
.
un~que
has used the conception of natural cause and effect, neces-

thing in turn, whether ~. ~. £• or any other thing. In this sary relations of a mathematical sort. !1yth and poetry,

sense, all other things in their aspect as ground in turn vehicles of the creative imagination, have recognized a more

render other things master insofar as the former are sub- organic, living connection (in this respect is it not unlike

ordinate. In this sense, "being" comes to "be" only in be- the natural scientist, e.g., the biologist). Philosophers

ing "em!) tied." II

. . it is only in a field where the 'be- have used both but the development of thought has moved in

ing' of all things is a being at one with emptiness that the direction of the absolute One. All of these have dealt

it is possible for all things to gather into One, even while only with the realm of being and even then have failed.

each is a reality as an absolutely unique being; that the Nishitani suggests that only the circurninsessional relation-

'being' of all things and, again, the 'world' as a system ship on the field of emptiness truly is the level of the
really Real. Only through such a "force" (physis, natura,
term egoteki. van Bragt chooses the term circuminsession-
al, he says, because the relationship thus described implies "nature") are all things gathered and brought into relation-
a degree of reciprocity perhaps only even approached by this
term used by the Church Fathers to describe the relationship ship to one another. To "be" in the world means being a mo-
between the divine Persons of the Trinity, and surely with-
out an equivalent anywhere else in western culture. The ment supporting the being of all other things, making them
J~panese term seems to go even beyond this limited equiva-
lent. Ibid., p. 65, n. l. be, establishing them and in turn being supported, made and
21 rhe theoretical side of anatman is that all existences
established by them; not ~erely as subjects and objects, but
have intrinsically no eternally-fixed nature or quality of
their own. This lack of fixed nature is called "muj isho" (Jap: emptied of such cognitive freight. This "mutual interpene-
nihsvabhava, Skt.), which means "lack of own nature or qual-
ity." The "jisho" (svabhava, Skt.), i.e., "Own nature or qual- tration of all things" occurs only at the level of emptiness
ity," or "own-being" or "self-being" as Nishitani prefers to
call it, of "mujish6" points to an independent metaphysical 2
entity of its own. This would be the self-conscious ego of 2l<eij i iHshitani, "The Standpoint of Sunyata," (con-
sense and reason. cluded) , p. 66.
 203 204

and is absolutely essential; more so than any relation pre-

therefore, refer to the self as preceding in some sense of
viously conceived by science, myth, or philosophy at the level
an earlier instant the appearance of the world and things.
of sense or reason. The field of emptiness is a "force field"
We are the field where the world and time in the circumin-
making relation possible.
sessional system of being find their possibility. Each of
The field of emptiness, as the field of the circumin-
sessional relationship, is the field of the 'force' us is such a thing, a "worldly thing" in his individual ex-
whereby all things-in-themselves gather themselves
into one, the field of the possibility of the world. istence. We are both possibility and manifestation. This
At the-iame time, the field of emptiness is the
field of the 'force' whereby a thing gathers itself, 23 is our true self-awareness but it is not self-conscious-
the field of possibility of existence of the 'thing.'
ness, self-knowledge, or intuition. All these things are
This is the "about-face" or conversion when the self seizes the
emptied, left behind on the field of emptiness. t1y eye is
nihilum into its own subjectivity and further ecstatically tran-
my eye both because it sees things and because it does not
scends this doubt to the standpoint of emptiness with the aware-
see itself but makes seeing possible. The suchness of see-
ness that "emptiness is the self." This means breaking through
ing is its essential blindness toward itself. This means
the self of consciousness and self-consciousness with its at-
"that the sensation or perception called seeing itself (and,
tachments to things and even to the self. This is what Nishitani
in general, all consciousness as such) is originallyempty." 24
means by "Being is only being at one with emptiness."
Nishitani reiterates essentially the same arguments he uses

III. Emptiness as Self elsewhere with the form of "the of no- ____

What then is meant by "emptiness is the self?" If the ___" to speak of the self as awareness. The self as self-

emptiness ~..rhich we have been describing is what makes the awareness does not have some (objectifiable) awareness of
itself as self-a~..rare; it does not know itself as knowing,
world possible, then this statement of identity must make all
the above true in some way of the self. In some sense, the it is not reflective, self-conscious, or intuitive. This

self on its home-ground must be anterior to the self of the self-awareness only occurs in an absolutely "forward-look-

world and things. This is not temporal anteriority in the ing" position which is "the point where the self is truly the

sense we usually speak of time. Time is of the domain and self-in-itself." This is realization as both actualization

context of the world which is made possible by emptiness and and as awareness.

therefore is the domain and context of the self. We do not, There are two aspects or directions in this consideration

24rbid.' p. 70.
23
rbid. , p. 68 •
 205
of the self-in-itself in its self-awareness on its home-
ground. The first aspect is the "non-objective self-in-
itself" and the second is the "non-objective self-awareness
as its home-ground." The former is its pure subjectivity,
where it is absolutely no cognizable, experiential object
but pure, authentic existence. The latter is the relation
which obtains in this subjective self-in-itself aware of
it self in the same way that fire relates to itself when not
being consumed in the burning of other things. The former
is the self-in-itself projected on the field of consciousness.
The latter is self-awareness in the above sense of not-know-
ing. "At the point of intersection the subject comes into
being with the structure of self-consciousness, that is,
containing a consciousness of itself as something persist-
ently un-objective and, nevertheless, always opposed to an
object. In other words, 'being' originates in its self-
reflection, in the reflective knowledge of itself as the
unity of the two above directions." 25 The concrete self in
this world is made possible by and consists in the unity of
the "being self" and the "not being self." We may speak of
such a concrete self as a "subject" projected into existence
on the fields of sense and reason. This is a subject which
does not look back to its creation out of nothing but an
absolutely forward-looking self realized in its emptiness.
We may also speak of looking backward from emptiness and the
25 Ibid., p. 73.
206
self-in-itself to the body which is its manifestation in
the world, pervaded by the mode of being of the "middle."
"In other words, the selfness cons its, concretely speaking,
in the self-identity of the selfness and the subject, the
body, etc."26 On the field of emptiness our selfness tran-
scends the so-called subject as we traditionally conceive
of or experience it. Though it casts off all the manifesta-
tions of this mode of existence in their illusion of being
felt, known, etc., it also pervades the various modes of
being in the world as personal, conscious, corporeal, etc.
This Nishitani calls "being self while not being self."
Nishitani recalls Goethe's suggestion that all tran-
sient things are similes of the Eternal. Such similes are
like the "vain discrimination" (vikalpa) and illusory nature
of the personal, conscious corporeal "human being." They
are this in spite of their scientific truth. Nishitani
has already shown the unproductive nature of speaking of the
Eternal in some theistic or temporal sense but refers to
the "primal fact" or original reality which these similes
are when seen on the field of emptiness. This is repre-
sented in the Zen saying: "If you call this a staff you
cling to it, if you do not call it a staff you depart from
the facts." This does not mean that the staff is not a
staff in the world of sense perception, matter, life, but
that the staff is not a staff in the world of these things
26
Ibid., p. 74.
 207
in their primacy. The "being self while not being self"
is a primal fact on its home-ground, not establishable or
reachable via cause, reason, purpose, matter, sensibility,
life, understanding, Ideas, or a "Will to Power" as meta-
physical principles.
"Not to be self while being self" means to be the home
of all other things, to be absolute center absolutely every-
where and therefore never to be "self-centered" or "ego-
centric." It is the negation of the self in all traditional
senses, it is a center without any circumference at all.
The "force" by 1-1hich all this is possible is the circumin-
sessional interpenetration in which we are the home-ground
of all things and all things are in us as home-ground, while
at the same time we are in all things which are our home-
ground. We have our "birth" and our "as-semblance" in this
interpenetration. In this way our selfness has its "being"
in time, while not being bound by temporality. We are in
time in the sense that the "birth-death" cycle is our ordin-
ary mode of existence. But we do not aimlessly, despair-
ingly drift about in this "birth-death"; rather we have our
home-ground there, 1-1e actively live and die "birth-death."
We make time be. We bring it to its fullness and rule it
rather than vice-versa. Herein is dispelled some of the
mystery of such facts as the Buddha's choosing the time of
his death, his moment of paranirvana, or the bodhisattva's
choice to remain in the world out of mahakaruna (Great Com-
passion) to assist others in their pacification of heart-
208
mind. This is "being bottomlessly in time." Thus pass-
ing "out of time into the field of emptiness is not dif-
ferent from radicalizing the mode of being in time, i.e.,
from living positively the vicissitudes of time. " 27 This
is "absolute freedom," it is like-reality in the above sense
of "A bird flies and it is like a bird." The knowing of
this true reality is called, by Nishitani, "like-phantom
Wisdom" in this same sense. He is referring to the Avatam-
saka Sutra where it is written:
The phantom-like Wisdom of the Buddha, without
hindrance, completely penetrates with its light all
dharmas of the three worlds, and enters into the
mental activities of all sentient beings • . . .
Here, it is the deliverance of the Great Light . . •
It is as with the magician who knows magic well
and, dwelling on the crossroads, produces all kinds
of magical effect. t-lithin the fleetingly short time
of a day he conjures a full day or a full night,
even seven days or sevt:n ~ights, a fortnight, a
month, a year, a hundred years. And always it is
all there: cities and hamlets, wells, rivulets,
rivers and seas, sun and moon, clouds and rain,
palaces and residences. The original one day or one
hour is not done away with simply because a long
stretch of years has been shmm in that time; and
the days, months, and years of the phantasmagory are
not demolished ~imply because the original time was
so very short.2l:l
27 Ibid., p. 78.
28As quoted by Nishitani, ibid., pp. 78,79. The
Avatamsaka Sutra, (Hua-yhn thing) expresses the central
tenets of the Hua-yen sc oo . Here all dharmas are said to
have the characteristics of universality, speciality, simi-
larity, diversity, integration, and differentiation, and
also the ten states of suchness. As Nishitani would agree,
all dharmas are in the state of suchness. Nishitar&s choice
of this sutra is significant since Hua-yen self-consciously
combined all other schools' doctrines in syncretic fashion
(similarly to T'ien-t'ai) and (along wi~h T'ien-t'ai) is
often considered to be the theoretical expression of the
general positio~s held by the Ch'an (Zen) sect. The si-
 209 210

On the field of emptiness, all times enter into each and nation creating its images. This is the so-called "phantom

every instant; they are exhausted by it and grounded in technique" of the haiku poet where knowing appears as not-

it. This "like-phantom Time" is the transcendence and si- knowing. In Buddhist terms this is to "Dwell with a bound-

multaneity arising out of the instant. "~ve can, in the less heart, in the phantom-like Wisdom of the Tathagata."

present, encounter Shakyamuni and Jesus, Basho and Bee- As ;:.Jishitani points out,"The identity of 'to be' and 'to

thoven. That religion and culture can originate and be know' is more original than the traditional metaphysics

handed down historically in time, shows us time's very es- imagined it to be ... 3l What once was called the "natural
29 light of reason" can now be seen to be no different than the
sence."
The Avatamsaka Sutra also speaks similarly of place: "being" itself of things themselves, but not seen any longer
"A magician, staying in one place, produces all kinds of as mere subjective cognition. The so-called "light" is self-
magical effects on phantom places; but he does not thereby awareness on the home-ground of knowing things. This occurs
demolish his original place"; "He does not destroy this one at the "middle" where a self is not a self merely, because
world through the fact that those worlds are many, nor are it is at the same time the home-ground of all other selves.
those many worlds destroyed by the fact that this world is This we may call samadhi-being (settled-ness-being). One
one." 30 Time and place circuminsessionally interpenetrate does not seek or look for samadhi. one originally is samadhi-
in the absolute relativity of time and space. Every "thing" being; it is "at our fingertips." Our self is in its "mid-
in the world involves this interpenetration with every other dle," i.e., it is totally inexplicable. It is not Aristotle's
"thing" in the absolute relativity of existence. This same "middle" somewhere between extremes or the mediative activity
field of emptiness as absolute relativity is the possibility of reason in Hegel's thought. These are middles projected
of "source-points" giving rise to such activities as reason on the field of reason. It is the "middle" where "Mountains
positing (positioning) its own images or the creative imagi- and rivers . • . are all the self's original part."

multaneity and absolute reciprocity of all things is very

much like the circuminsessional interpenetration which Nishi-
tani speaks of. Indeed, this egoteki is described by Hua-
yen as "the mutual in terpene tra tion of all things."
29 Ibid., p. 80.

30
Quoted by Nishitani in "The Standpoint of Sunyata,"
p. 80. 31Ibid. I p. 81.
 212

Nishitani takes up first a consideration of the term

samsara which is often translated as transmigration but to
CHAPTER VI
which Nishitani prefers birth-death. Mizuno expresses a
SAMSARA: THE NATURE OF similar reluctance to translate samsara as transmigration.
LIFE AND DEATH IN TIME As he says, "'Samsara' generally goes in English as 'trans-
migration.' But as the word somewhat suggests a soul that
I. History and Definition
transmigrates from one world to the other, it is considered
The problem of birth-death has lone been the preoccu-
not fit for the Buddhist notion of 'samsara. '" 2 Samsara is
pation of the various schools of eastern thought. Though
the mode of being of all sentient things, including humans,
less the focus, it has also been a consideration for western
wherein they move through the birth and death cycle continu-
thought and particul~rly in nihilism. In certain respects,
ously, time after time. The image most frequently used is
nihilism was tied historically and existentially to the fall
that of the wheel, rotating; the sentient being moving
of Europe in modern times via catastrophic wars as well as
through the six realms into which their existence or field
the development of nihilistic philosophic thought. It is,
of being is divided. The "six worlds" are those of: heaven,
for example, in the "history of being" that both Nietzsche
men, asuras (demons), animals, hungry spirits, and hell. Of
and Heidegger couched their thought. This historical con-
the Indian schools it is in Buddhism that samsara was most
text is not co be found in the East. Supposing that the con-
seriously called into qu~stion at the existential level.
version from the standpoint of nihilum to the standpoint of
Samsara is dukkha, or suffering and is often referred to as
emptiness took place also in the East, Nishitani proposes
the ocean of woe of birth-death, unfathomable in its extent
that certair, questions need addressing: "What bearing does
and depth.
the standpoint of emptiness have on emptiness? In what form
The nihilism of modern Europe, in coming to an existen-
did historicity appear in the position of emptiness? In
tial self-awareness of the abyss of nihilum, realized that
what form would it have to appear there?" 1 These questions
existence was permeated by suffering. But Buddhism, some
of history and emptiness are raised and answered in the con-
twenty-five hundred years earlier had gone even further to
text of a general examination of Time.
2Mizuno Kogen, Primitive Buddhism (Tokyo: The Karin-
1
Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and Time," a manuscript bunko, 1969), pp. 67-75.
translation by Rev. Jan van Bragt of Chapter 5 of Nishitani's
ShUkyo to ~ Nanika ("Hhat is Religion?"), p. 2.
 213 214

template himself, to represent himself which is, as we have

declare to all men that "all is suffering"; the Buddha had
said earlier, to objectify himself. This obviously does not
made it the first of his so-called Four Noble Truths. This
cut through the dilemma. It is like saying that when I die
was a move from existential self-awareness to an existential
death will cease to be meaningful to me rather than cutting
interpretation of being-in-the-world. This birth-death takes
through to the bodily experience of death in life, i.e.,
place on the base of man's karmas. What man does is con-
life-sive-death. Here, really, is the problem of man's
ditioned by limitless past lives and the accrued merits or
indifference to the religious question. Generally, man
demerits of those lives and in turn so determines the limit-
grasps or understands death in such a way that it vanishes
less future lives he may yet live. This is the perspective
with him. To the Buddhist view, this merely postpones the
of Buddhism whereby man's present actions (the products of
real confrontation to another, future manifestation and can,
body-mind based upon the will) are completely voluntary but
in fact, lead to a more difficult life as a result of re-
his present condition is determined by the endless causality
fusing to transcend the life-death problem by confronting
of fate. Fate simply means that we reap the rewards of our
it head on. Death does not render death dead any more than
own past actions and exLstence can only be understood when
fire burns fire or birth births birth. Death kills life but
viewed as the natural consequence of man's own deeds; there
is in turn overcome by birth so that man comes back to his
can be no attribution of fault or blame to any other person
problem of birth-death. Therefore, the conceptually valid
or power.
statement that the finite is finite, is existentially in-
Nishitani likes to suggest that in this sense, man's
valid. It fails to cut to the extraordinary infinite de-
finitude is infinite, i.e., in its essence unlimited and
gree to which finitude is finite. As Nishitani points out,
boundless. This is "bad infinity." Discursive thinking is
it was this insight which led Kierkegaard to confront the
not satisfied by such terms; they are contradictory. In-
so-called absolute reason of Hegel.
tuitive thinking cannot grasp the whole at a single stroke;
Such statements as "infinite finitude : have meaning as
infinity cannot be grasped. One cannot dispose of the mat-
Ri (Chinese= li). This is, however, a truth entirely dif-
ter so easily ; to existential man, finitude does seem to go
ferent in character, on a different field, from logical truth.
on infinitely. This is the real nature of finitude as
According to Nishitani, this has contemporary parallels in
finitude, not that it is or is not conceptually or logically
the "intuition of essence" of Husserl and the "existential
possible but that it is faced in an existential self-aware-
interpretation" of Heidegger. This level of existence is
ness, For finite man to grasp himself finitely is to con-
 215 216

the self-awareness that transcends the understanding and pre-logical; it has an existential core which consists in

reason. This level of transcendence renders even Hegel's its existential facing-up to the problem of birth-death.

"absolut:e reason" immanent. "In the standpoint of absolute The intellect has no eye for such a point of view.

reason which can be called the most profound inner continu- Philosophy as a "science" materialized in Greece in an

ity that has ever been opened up in between God and man, all attempt to "de-mythologize" various world-views, and t:rans-

things whatsoever are absorbed in the self-development of form them into logos. One commonly fails to realize the

the rational law of reason, or in t:he process whereby the "mythos" of t:he assumptions which drive man to seek logos

thinking of reason returns back to itself." 3 The disclosure where previously there was only mythos. The roots of myth

of t:he essence of finit:ude takes place on the field of self- have never been lost, they have only been obscured, and t:hey

detachment or the level of "trans-descendence." To clarify have lent depth to the logos. "[Greek] philosophy can be

such a level of transcendence in a person who is character- said to be the de-mythologization of the mythological through

ized as a "rational" man means somehow getting beyond the logos, but can by no means be ident:ified with a simple ne-

horizon of the "human." For Nishitani, the Buddhist view gation of the mythological." 4 It is science, or "scientism,"

shows such a going beyond the merely anthropocentric point which has had the result of negating or attempting to ne-

of view. The essence of birth-death seen as the endless gate, t:he mythological. Science attacks and rejects the rep-

birth-death sequence and all sentient beings seen on one all- resentations of myt:h; philosophy recognizes symbols of reason

inclusive horizon constitute the temporal and spatial aspects in the same representations and reduces them to reason or

of t:he essence of birth-death in the being-in-the-world. The logos. Neither exhaust:s myth of its essence. The mytho-

former is comprehended in the latter, i.e., t:he endless logical must be seen as existence which forms its contents

rounds of finitude are seen in the cont:ext of the horizon and meaning and is its source. Only at the level of existence

of the universality of suffering. The scientific, logical can de-mythologization take place and provide meaning to

crit:icism of such a Buddhist perspective is, of course, that contemporary man; this applies also to the myth of transmi-

t:ransmigration is "mythical," a pre-scientific illusion. gration or samsara. It: is perhaps a major uniqueness of Bud-

Such a criticism of its content is easily justified but the dhism that it has always undertaken such a task in its own

matter is not that simple. Myth is not merely logical or self-interpretation. Transmigration was interpreted as the

3Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and Time," p. 9. 4 Ibid., pp. 13, 14.

 217
opening up in man's existence of nihilum ; an abyssmal
nihilum which a-nihil-ates all things in this world (or
the Buddhist three worlds 5 ). Conceptually such a nihilum
can only be conceived as a meaningless notion devoid of
reality; only existentially can it be encountered, Only
then can nirvana be reached as the "ycnder shore" of the
unfathomable ocean of suffering, the endless causality of
karmas.
Transmigration and the nihilurn which it incorporates
is the limit-situation which pushes man's existence to the
radicalized extreme of ecstatic transcendence beyond ordi-
nary existence. t1an's limit-situation arises as a self-
awareness on the spatial dimension of world-ness; a per-
spective beyond the merely human, beyond qualification as a
human ego encompassed by and limited to the time span of
one birth and one death. At this level of transcendence
the point of view is no longer anthropocentric, no longer
merely subjective. Rather it is a piercing beneath the
level of ordinary, everyday existence to a place where man
is no longer merely "human" but because of his universality
and his infinite finitude, he is being-in-the-world as "all-
sentient-beings-like," i.e., he includes all other forms of
existence. This is truly naked being-in-the world. Man
5Buddhist cosmology divides the universe into the mun-
dane world and the supramundane world. The mundane world
is divided into the above-mentioned three worlds where one
repeats birth and death, i.e., transmigration as a result of
the karma of the good and evil done in one's past lives.
The supramundane world is the world of nirvana which tran-
218
"ek-sists," or stands outside his mere manhood, and in this
abys smal nihilum where he is divested of all qualifications
he stands as pure, simple being-in-the-world. Here, in Bud-
dhist terms, there are no longer "six worlds" and all exis-
tents, heavenly, human and animal-like, stand as pure being.
This kind of ecstatic transcendence, however, does not
transcend being as such even though it strikes against the
bottom of this kind of being. It is still "inner-worldly";
it is not an escape from the three worlds, i.e., the world
of existence. It is the essential image of all existents,
boundless finitude as the limit-situation of all sentient
beings. This ultimate situation, this real image of being
i s the condition of despair; a radical despair which is neve r
doubted as despairing. Doubt is conceptual but despair is
the limit-situation transcending reason and understanding.
It is, of course, the Zen "Great Doubt."
The genuine transcendence which cuts through the despair
of the "Great Doubt" is the Buddhist nirvana. The essence
scends transmigration. According to Abhidharma Buddhism the
three worlds are: the "world of desire" (kamadhatu, Skt.;
yokukai, Jap.), the "world of form" (rupadhatu, Skt.;
shikikai, Jap.), and the "world of no-form" (arupadhatu, Skt.;
mushikikai, Jap.)--all places where living (sentient) beings
lived. This is the sort of cosmology which Nishitani is sug-
gesting has been reinterpreted and restated by various schools
of later Buddhism. A prominent form of reinterpretation
regards the three worlds as the three mental states of man.
Whatever the interpretation they are all three regarded as
part of existence and thus, in Nishitani's terms, must be
a-nihil-ated by the abyssmal nihilum. For a fuller discus-
sion see: Mizuno Kogen, pp. 67-75.
 219 220

of being-in-the-world is "being unto death" and nirvana a valid description of reality? Not so according to Nagar-

may be said to be "the going-through this being unto death juna or Zen or Nishitani. These statements are valid clari-

and the essential turn-about therefrom. " 6 This is the about- fications of man's existence; they detail his progress

face from true finitude to true infinity, i.e., away from from finitude to the realization of infinite finitude through

the infinite finitude (or "bad infinity") of existence to despair to nirvana on the "yonder-side."

infinity in ek-sistence. Nirvana is rebirth to genuine The Mahayana schools of thought developed a standpoint

life from the boundlessness of birth-death; it is the extinc- called non-abiding or non-dwelling nirvana which is birth-

tion of samsara. death-sive-nirvana (samsara-sive-nirvana). This is especial-

This true "infinity" as Re:1lity is beyond the grasp of ly true of Nagarjuna who devotes an entire section of his

conceptualizing and reason; it is encountered only on the Mulamadhyarnakakarika (XXV) to an analysis of nirvana. He

path of ek-sistence. "For infinity to be understood means shows that none of the alternatives of the tetralemma is

that it becomes Reality as life and is really live. " 7 Nir- true~ H~ goes on to state the rationale for handling nir-
vana is this new life; the move, the about-face, from vana as a mental fabrication:

birth-death to nirvana is the turn-about from nihilum to There is nothing whatever which differentiates
the existence-in-flux (stmsara) from nirvana;
Emptiness. But the Buddhist existential clarification of And there is nothing whatever which differen-
tiates nirvana from existence-in-flux.
being did not stop here. Existence had to return back to The extreme limit (koti) of nirvana is also
the extreme limit of ex~stence-in-flux;
its home-ground; the self had to find its authentic self There is not the slightest bit of difference
between these two.9
by going through the so-called existential transcendence to
If understood as Ultimate Reality, self-sufficient and inde-
yet another plane of disclosure. It is customary to con-
pendent, Nirvana will misguide the one who seeks release.
sider the matter closed, the answer found, in dealing with
Only from the perspective of samvritasatya or consciousness
nirvana as the yonder-side. But Nishitani has already sug-
does nirvana seem more "empty" than samsara~ 0 Dogen illus-
gested that the yonder-side must be the absolute this-side.
trates this in his expression: "Only when we acknowledge
Can it simply be, then, that nirvana is true life and true g
MMK. XXV. 4-16
infinity? Is the about-face from birth-death to Emptiness
9
rbid., vss. 19-20.
6Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and Time," p. 21.
10
Cf. Streng, p. 75ff.
7Ibid., p. 22.
 221 222

birth-death to be nirvana,--we can detach ourselves from

There is no "meaning" existing somewhere which we grasp at
birth-death," and "This is birth-death is at once the Life
some time. The understanding of the "meaning" is the com-
of the Buddah."ll This is the standpoint where birth is not
prehension coming into being in the living communication of
birth and death is not death. Degen's term, translated by
one living mind reflecting upon another living mind.
Nishitani as "acknowledge" denotes existence as realization
" . • . the comprehension as Realization is primordial, that
in the dual senses of manifestation (actualization) and
is, the Realization whereby a certain koto really takes pos-
coming to itself (understanding); it is the realization of
session of us and passes into us and hence we really pass
Reality in the sive of birth-death-sive-nirvana. This re-
over into the koto and our mind operates by becoming itself
alization means, in Buddhist terminology, that the Budda-
the koto. " 12 Usually we think of an intellect understanding
nature (buddhata, Skt.; bussho, Jap.) or the Buddha-mind as
a meaning which lies behind an affair or word, but the level
thus-come (tathagata, Skt.; nyorai, Jap.) passes into the
of the fundamental encounter with koto lies beneath this
essence of the actual existence of sentient beings and there-
ordinary understanding. Here "thing and mind abstractedly
fore man's mind, making it turn-about, i.e., letting man's
pass into each other. ,.l3 Intellectualism is the awkward-
mind pass into itself. Ryorai's mind and man's mind reflect
ness wherein one tries to ascertain the meaning of the koto
one another in the metaphor of mirror reflecting mirror when
without first asking the meaning of the "meaning" or assump-
set face to face. Nishitani points out this this "acknowl-
tion which it sets up as its criterion. The objectified
edge" or "realize" means, in Japanese, to "obtain a mind."
keto is the mere image of Reality reflected upon the level
II. Koto of intellect. Thus the meaning of the koto of birth-death-
In this context, Nishitani enters into a discussion of sive-nirvana is only acknowledged or realized in the existen-
the Japanese term koto. Koto signifies an affair and a word tial way wherein Nyoria's mind passes into man's mind and
which is considered to have a meaning or "mind." The term vice versa.
is often used in riddles. To ascertain the meaning or "mind" tve have described Nishi tani' s speech about "the true
is to comprehend its "truth" or logos or the reality of the transcendence is transcendence unto nirvana or emptiness
koto. This is to say that the reality of the koto passes rather than unto nihilum" and about "true infinity in nir-
into the mind of man and that man passes into its reality. 12
Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and Time," p. 26.
13 Ibid.
11
shl5bo~enz5, ShOji, quoted by Nishitani in "Emptiness
and Time," p. 4.
 223 224

vana" (rather than bad infinity in nihilurn). Now he wants as they really are, the Life of the Buddha. 14

to maintain that the "true" in these phrases is not yet truly In turn, truly true finitude is finitude experienced bodily

"true." Truly true transcendence is not nirvana but non- at the level of samsara-sive-nirvana. True finitude is bot-

abiding nirvana (samsara-sive-nirvana). When we pursue tomlessly in time, while embracing the boundless past and

something truly true in the true, we find a paradox or ab- the boundless future, we bring "time" to its fullness. This

surdity which is ordinarily considered incompatible with is the existence referred to in the Buddhist expression:

truth, i.e., untrue. Irrationality and meaninglessness "Body and mind fall a~'lay; the fallen way is body and mind."

appear where rationality and meaningfulness are pushed to The mind referred to in Nishitani's phrase about the

their extremity. Reality is not paradox in some objectifi- "truly essential comprehension of Reality manifesting and

able sense but it only appears in that form. Life as mean- coming to itself is Nyorai 's mind passing into man's mind

ingless is vlhere life truly lives itself, where it tran- and at the same time man's mind passing into Nyoria' s mind"

scends meaning and reason. could easily be substituted for by the term "life." The

Nirvana as the true field of nirvana only comes into mind he refers to is not the consciousness or intellect at

existence where one is not attached to nirvana, on the about - the level where it grasps itself or is captured by itself.

face where nirvana is not nirvana but is samsara. Nirvana It is not the differentiating mind understanding itself. We

is the pure and simple, though paradoxical, life of samsara- have already remarked that this sort of mind was broken

sive-nirvana because "nirvana is essentially life" means through in the detached transcendence onto the field of

that it is death to the life of birth-death which is essen- nihilum. So it is that the mind inherent in the existen-

tially death. Samsara is not truly samsara except in sam- tial self-awareness on the field of true Emptiness, where

sara-sive-nirvana. nirvana is samsara, is even less that differentiating mind.

Birth-death-sive-nirvana is true birth-death, This mind at the level of emptiness is the Buddha-mind and
true nirvana, true-'time' and true eternity. Life
subject to the sequences of birth-death must be, may be said to transcend differentiating thought in the way
just as it is, the very place wherein nirvana pre-
sents itself. What is brought to self-awareness as alluded to in The New Testament injunction: "Take therefore
the essence of human reality in this birth-death
world, that is, the boundless finitude of 'being' no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought
which is inclusive of all forms of existence; (in
the field of the 'world') the history of the causal- for the things of itself" (St. Xatthew 6 :34). True life is
ity of karmas extending into endless future, in
which one, for example, 'leaves donkey's womb only 14rbid .• p. 30.
to enter into a horse's abdomen, '--these things are,
 225 226

beyond all meanings and yet the meaning of every affair and ~ in earnest, we perceive that the five aggregates

word is established by reference to it. "This 'meaning'- (pancha skandhah) are all empty, and cross over all the
17
less-ness of 'life' is here correlative with the non-'dif- sufferings." This mind is "truly empty but mysteriously

ferentiated' -ness of 'mind.' .. lS existent."

This is not the meaninglessness and non-differentia- In terms of the true self we can say that the ego is

tion of the standpoint of nihilism. It is the like-real- not the ego in the basic sense. The authentic self is

ness (tathata) of differentiation on all occasions. It is hidden beneath the ego which is forever blind, as ego, to

the differentiation of non-differentiation wherein the itself. The self as ego-less (anatman) reveals itself

karmas, illusions and discrimination stemming from the actions where "Once the Great Death, then the whole universe be-

of body-mouth-mind in the samsaric world which are "sufficient comes new," and where the "world worlds." This authentic

unto the day" in the sense of "Take no thought, saying, what self is present in every action of the ego but the ego can-

shall we eat? or, What shall we drink?--sufficient unto the not see the "true" ego in the sense that fire does not bum

day is the evil thereof'' (St. !1atthew 6: 31-34). Herein the fire. Such is the "mind" and "life" as the differentiation

Buddhist "everyday is a good day" is realized, i.e. , among of non-differentiation. Life must not be understood on the

the trivial affairs and words of everyday life. This non- basis of merely birth-death-like life, nor must one from

differentiating mind is none other than the field of empti- the side of life make such shallow assertions as that this

ness, the fundamental possibility of being of all things, life is, as it really is, the life of the Buddha. This is

wherein "form is emptiness and emptiness is form. " 16 This mere conceptualizing rather than existential interpretation.

mind is not the object or subject of contemplation but is The "mind" and "life" spoken of here is the "mind" and "life"

existentially "realized." The perceiving insight is not mere on the field where body and mind fall away and fallen away

contemplation but is connected with salvation from suffer- is body and mind. They cannot be researched by physics,

ing. Nishitani quotes the Prajnaparamita-h:daya-sutra where psyciology and psychology because, as Degen says, "The body

it says: "At the time when we put into practice Prajnapara- and mind fallen a~vay are neither form nor consciousness. " 18

15 rbid. J p. 33.
17
16 Keiji Nishitani,"Emptiness and Time," p. 35.
we might just as easily substitute any of the other
four "aggregates" of which reality is said, by Buddhist on- 18 Ibid., p. 38.
tology, to consist: perception, mental conceptions, volition,
and consciousness.
 227
III. Body and Mind
Nishitani wishes to clarify DOgen's use of the phrase:
"Body and mind fall away" because it represents one of the
clearer articulations of the kind of religious existence he
has been discussing and analyzing. DOgen received the
expression via the Chinese monk Ju-ching (1163-1268) under
whose guidance he suddenly attained Enlightenment; this at
hearing Ju-ching say, "Sanzen is the fallen away of body-
mind."19 Sanzen is the interview wherein the student con-
veys his understanding of the loan, given him by the master,
to the master. It is in such a context that our ordinary
regard for our body-mind as the self, the center from which
all things are considered, is crushed and, as in Dagen's
case, the real nature of authentic self becomes manifest.
Nishitani goes on to cite other remarks by Degen, e.g.,
"Sanzen is the fallen away of body-mind and is zazen only,"
or "The fallen away of body-mind is zazen. When we prac-
tice zazen only, we free ourselves from the five desires and
get rid of the five hindrances." This sitting in zazen,
i.e., zazen-only, and fallen away of body-mind are identical.
Both emancipate us from the attachment to the external world
that characterizes our everyday life. It is, therefore,
deliverance from the world of suffering and birth-death and
19
~oge~: Tendo Jojo Zenshi Zoku Goroku batsu; quoted
by Nish~tan~, ibid., p. 39.
I I 228
our self in the context of bad infinity. In Zen this authen-
tic mind means the existence which opens up the field of
transcendence and stands fast on it; it is, in practice,
zazen. Ju-ching .:~dmonished that the fallen a~~.:1y of body-
mind requires the abolishing of avidya (ignorance). Nishi-
tani wants to say that the practice of zazen is the way to
abolish ignorance and illusion. The "demythologized" ver-
sion of this would be to say that simple being-in-the-
world, viewed from the side of being, must be abolished by
the practice of something akin to, or identical with, zazen.
It is critical to note that by "practice" is meant not merely
some physical activity nor merely some intellectual exer-
cise but a holistic "bodily experience." Mere method alone
will not suffice. As Ju-ching says, "You have hitherto
striven for the method through which to detach from the six
hindrances.--If you strive for zazen only, then body-mind
will come to fall away. It is the method whereby to detach
from the five desires, five hindrances and so on. There is
no other means to this end. " 20 In this fallen away one sees
his original face, the so-called flexible mind or "seal of
mlnd" of the Buddha's and patriarchs. This form of existence
is "to stand alone in the midst of all things." This zazen
is the king-meditation (raja-samadhi) of meditations; it is
meditation for its own enjoyment. The cross-legged sitting
is upright body, upright mind, upright body-mind of man's
20 Dogen: Hokeiki; quoted by Nishitani, ibid., pp. 40-41.
 230
229

skin-flesh-bones-marrow and is the measure of all other We meet a leap year after every three years.
The cock crows towards four o'clock in the morning. 22
samadhis. This is not some ego-centric practice away from
In this everyday world, where the world "worlds," is
the daily life of the everyday world. Degen says: "The
the "orieinal face" which is not form, nor matter, is not a
zazen of the Buddhist patriachs, from its first Lnception
thing nor a Buddha. The King-Samadhi, or samadhi for one's
on, gathers in desire the Law of all the Buddhas. There-
own enjoyment is the existence wherein the self is absolutely
fore, in the midst of ~· they do not forget all sentient
the self itself. Here there are no hows and whys, no in-
beings, they turn over all the merits they possess. This
structions but the practice of truth freely and independently.
is why all Buddhas perpetually dwell in this world of greed
This place where body and mind are fallen away is absolutely
and investigate and preach the path of zazen." 21 The
unobjectifiable in the sense that fire does not burn fire.
following passage from the first book of the Eiheikoroku
It is not limited to space and time, this "practicing samadhi
will e;ive some sense of the body-mind on the field of "king-
in an atom"; it is the place of samadhi-being or "position"
samadhi of samadhis": "I, a rustic priest, had not spent
in Nishitani's terms. Sent to China to "find" Zen, he was
much time exercising practical discipline in various zen
obliged, or more accurately "freed" to come "back home with
monasteries. All that I had hitherto done was to have had
empty hands." This going to China or returning to Japan,
an interview with T'ien-t'ung, a~ master, and co have
like that of Bodhidharma and Hui-k' o in the saying "Patriarch
apprehended at that time that the eyes lie horizontally
Bodhidharma did not come to China nor went the second Pa-
and the nose stands vertically, and, not deceived by others,
triarch (i.e., Hui-k'o) to India," is not to be conceived
to have returned to my home with empty hands. This is why
in the rational sense as true or false; its truth is real
I have no teachings of the Buddha at hand and spend time for
only in the eternal present, the moment wherein time does
a while by resigning myself to destiny.
not pass (its temporality) but exists forever in every mo-
Every morning the sun rises in the east
Every night the moon sets in the west ment. This is like being the absolute center everywhere in
The clouds retreat and the mountain masses appear on
the scene. the universe. Again and again the Zen tradition attests to
The rain is over and the surrounding mountains are low.
the reality of breaking through destiny, getting rid of bound-
What is the matter after all? (After a little while, he says,)
lessly expanding space, stepping over countless kalpas, all
in the place of everyday life where the eyes lie horizontally
21
rbid .. !'. 44 -
22 rbid. , p. 45.
 231 232

and the nose lies vertically. It is not realized, however, contradictory in his own assertions about the "laws"

without going through the purging fires of the nihilum and (dharmas) to which he refers by speaking of ontological order

Great Doubt. and logos. Logos ordinarily refers to the essential ration-

It is crucial to Nishitani and to Zen that the language al law inherent in the being itself of "things" and thus as

of identity-differ~nce not be reduced to mere exposition. the object of reason in the history of philosophy (even in

The "kotos" of which he has spoken must be heard, understood , moder.1 science). Nishitani has generally said that we can-

and affirmed from their home-ground where they have no logi- not grasp the in-itself-nature of "things" through this

cal meaning. It is in the phenomena that there is a leap logos; this seems at odds with his discussion of "the fallen
away is body and mind" as th~ store-house of all things in
year every fourth year and that the cock crows at dawn that
we see the appearance of the dharma (law) that holds sway their like-law character, this having been said to possess

over the world of anicca, the world of every-changing be- all things in their logos. In fact, Nishitani says, "the

coming and transition. Scientists have recognized these logos of being qualitatively varies in its meaning according

dharmas in stricter (but thereby more abstract) ways. All as it is seen from the standpoint of reason or from that of

things move according to their ontological order and under ek-sistence (the existence as 'the fallen away is body and
23
the sway of logos; they are "like-law." This is true, how- mind'). " In the standpoint of existence logos comes to

ever, only in the sense that emptiness is "like-law," that acquire the meaning of keto (both an affair and a word).

it lies beneath and makes all things be just as they are. Here the rational law of being refers to the so-called voice-

The structural character of this "like-law" we have already less speech of those grasped by the King-Samadhi who are,

explained in connection with their circuminsessional rela- therefore, lord everywhere. This voiceless speech is a form

tionship. The field of emptiness is the field in which all of sepno which is the preaching of the Buddhist Dharma,

things are "gathered," i.e., they are comprehended. Existence orally or by other means, to save sentient beings; it is

as "body and mind fallen away" is the boundless aperture on- the speech of the Bodhisattva. This is not the communica-

to this field, the place where, in Lin-chi's words, we "be- tion of the law (dharma) by mere rational speech, but an ek-
static preaching of no-preaching. It ~s in this context
come lord everywhere." Here is the dharma-position of man
and all things, where we stand alone in the midst of all that the so-called linguistic raf~ of upaya is brought to

things. 23Ibid., p. 56·

Nishitani recognizes that there seems to be something
 233 234

bear on the problem of karma. "The Buddhist concept of the "self" as "ego-less." Man is both this impersonal "ego-

karma implies (implicitly) that there must be some sort of less" and personal "self."

accommodation by means of a variety of religious doctrines Though it may appear that l~ishitani has lost sight of

which are appropriate and suitable to the different karmic his topic of discussion in all this, he has been building a

endowments of individuals; likewise there must be some meta- case for suggesting that this existence as "the fallen away

concept (upaya) which expresses the conclusion that all is body and mind" also means to be truly in "time" or even

Buddhist religious doctrines are relative to and appropriate more as "time." Living takes place in time and is yet al-

for the different levels of individual karmic capacities ways in the beeinning of time. Beginnings lie at the base

following the Buddhist path. " 24 At this level there is no of temporality, making time possible. It is, therefore,

objective law being preached to objective "things" or men "before" the past and "after" all future. All p.asts and all

because the law is not different from the things. Because remote futures are realized (actualized and comprehended or

the "are" and the "ought" of things is entirely one in gathered) at this beginning of time itself. Existence in

"emptiness," logos appears here as koto, the unified hear- this connection is life in the world as "time" and yet al-

ing-obeying character of things hearing and obeying their ways lives in it from the beginning wherein "time" brings

own character. That things exist authentically means that itself to fullness and the world "worlds." The same can

they express themselves and thus bear witness to what makes also be said of "practice" as we discussed in connection

them be. Nishitani is saying then that "things" preach the with sanzen which is the practice of zazen in the place of

law and "things" obey the commanding law. This preaching "the samadhi for one 1 s own enjoyment," i.e., absolute free-

the law refers, of course, to our earlier discussion of go- dom. One does not attach "form" to this harmonious freedom

ing back to things as they are, to becoming the thing itself by reflective thinking and differentiation. Nishitani cites
1
in order to comprehend it. "If you want to know the bam- Hakuin s opinion that if one thinks of "prajna" or "time" as

boo, make the bamboo your own." What we "know" by this bear- particular things it is like gouging out flesh of the per-

ing witness or clarification is the existence as "body and fect body.

mind fall away" which is "lord everywhere." This in turn is

24
Prebish, p. 91.

CHAPTER VII
KARMA: THE NATURE OF LIFE AJ.~D DEATH
IN HISTORY
I. Western Theories of History
To this point, then, Nishitani has been dealing with
time in connection with samsara (birth-death)-sive-nirvana
i n terms of existence as "The fallen away is body and mind."
Can history be clarified on the basis of such an understand-
ing of time? Having discussed "body and mind fallen away,"
Nishitani reminds us that history is the place of those whose
body and mind has not fallen away and who live in the world
of avidya. The Buddhist idea of emptiness is non-histori-
cal or supra-historical; in fact, Buddhism barely contains
any such historical consciousness. Nishitani suggests that
i t would have been natural for such a development to take
place wherein the problem of history might have been called
i nto question from the point of view of samsara-nirvana and
the way of the bodhisattva, but historically it did not.
Nishitani does not consider the discussion of this problem
to be the most productive avenue to opening up the problem
of history in his terms and simply moves on to a comparative
examination of several western views of history to see if
t hey exhaust the possible standpoints in looking at the
problem and then whether the standpoint of emptiness can in-
236
deed shed any light on the problem.
The first approach to be examined is that of Arnold
Toynbee. Toynbee represents, as we might expect, a histori-
cal-descriptive approach to the study of religion. He is
very much aware of a specifically human pattern running
through the life of all societies. He suggests that relig-
ion is something that passes on from one civilization to
another and can be strengthened in the historical process.
Just as Christianity arose out of a declining Hellenistic
society, it may in turn survive a decaying western civiliza-
tion. Despite his special regard for Christianity, Toynbee
feels that all the higher religions have the same essential
truth. These higher religions (Hinduism, Theravada and
Mahayana Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Zora-
astrianism) are distinguished by underpinning their prac-
tices (which remain the ultimate end) with a foundation of
beliefs. They are unanimous in affirming that man is not
the highest spiritual presence known to man, that man must
try to place himself in harmony with that presence, to choose
between various saving truths, and to face the problem of
1
suffering. The necessary common ground of all these re-
ligious traditions is human nature, especially its self-
centeredness (which he considers man's original sin). 2
Though he seemed to fear the de-humanizing forces of tech-
Arnold Toynbee, Christianitb Among the Religions of
the World (New York, 1957), pp. 2 -24.
2Ibid., p. 85.
 237 238

nology he recognized it as something to be manipulated sentient beings. The individual is dissolved into the uni-

rather than be manipulated by. Technology (or science) versal by emphasizing the universality of the impersonal

has made man's problems more universal because it has annihi- law of a circular universe rather than on the individuality

lated the protective barrier of distance. At the same time, of each person. Here history is deprived of meaning since

technology has made social injustice avoidable and there- everything is reduced to the idea of the universal and all

fore intolerable. 3 is repetition rather than anything new being introduced.

1~ishi tani focuses upon Toynbee' s book An Historian's In the western Judaic view, history is analogous to the

Approach to Religion written in 1956 and proceeds to summarize rhythm in man's individual life. When history is conceived

his arguments. Toynbee suggests that the intellectual chasm in terms of a life plot, the will is considered as the con-

of the future will not fall between liberalism and communism trolling factor. Whether considered as the will of a personal

but between the western Judaic group of philosophies (Judaism, God or of various personal powers it plays a prominent role

Christianity and Islam) and the Buddhaic group of philosophies and history is thought to involve meaning within itself. The

(pre- and post-Buddhaic Indian philosophy and Mahayana and problem here is that this reinforcement of the ego makes it

Theravada Buddhism). The former have shared the view that difficult i£ not impossible to avoid the self-centeredness

"his tori cal time proceeds in a straight line, and is, as a of man. Israel's consciousness of being God's chosen people

whole, controlled by a personal being. History is conditioned is perhaps the most re~rkable example of this. At one

and given its meaning by intellect and will. " 4 The latter level this self-centeredness must be cast off as a sin over

have the following characteristic features: "Firstly, the against the will of God, but becoming one of God's chosen

motions of nature and of the cosmos are circular. Secondly, people recasts this ego into a historically self-conscious

what holds sway over the cosmos and the human world is the self-centeredness.

concept of impersonal law (dharma) ." 5 To Toynbee the Bud- In Nishitani's view this disguises a profounder truth

dhist way of thinking seems to have one advantage over the at its base. "In the concept of God's chosen people, there

western way of thinking: it contains the possibility of lies hidden a projection onto God of ~he Jewish people's

transcending the self-centeredness which is innate in all desire that God should have a hatred for ~•d pass judgment
on other races." "The consummate self-abandonment or whole-
3Ibid., p. Slf.
hearted humility (Demut) towards God turns out to be the
4
Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and Time," p. 72.
5Ibid.
 239 240

base of the superiority complex of the self over against bit. Even the contents of human life is molded by such a

other persons." 6 In spite of an apparent religious self- rotating time. Rituals of renewal are seen in all tradition-

negation there is a reversal into an unconscious self-cen- al religious celebrations and perhaps even in most politi-

teredness. Feuerbach and Nietzsche were prominent critics cal, agricultural and other social celebrations. Annual

of Christianity on this same issue. From the Buddhist point rituals renew the relations between gods and men, gods and

of view, avidya is left here intact. Since history can have the land, the land and men, man and man. In this sense

meaning as history only by involving the self-centered per also, human life is cyclic.

means that the realm of history is the world of The origin of historical consciousness in Judaism in-

being involving ignorance and hence is the world of karmas. volves, for Nishitani, a large problematic. After the fact,

If this is true, as both Toynbee and Nishitani maintain, the historical consciousness, especially in the modern

then there is a kind of dilemma between history and relig- world, has seen a remarkable development to the point where

ion as Nishitani understands them. the cyclical base is forgotten altogether and man's life is

Nishitani questions Toynbee's understanding of Bud- formed almost exclusively by an historical self-conscious-

dhist time as circular. It seems valid but is a judgment ness. The problematic in Christianity is similar but also

from the point of view of a western idea of history. Cir- different. Nishitani describes three factors in this prob-

cularity in time characterizes all religions which incor- lematic: "the awareness of sin, that of freedom and that of

porate an understanding of myth. 7 It is inevitable when one the once-ness of time. " 8 In the concept of original sin (ac-

sees the universe or all things in the universe from the cording to Nishitani, the essential factor in the Christian

natural point of view. The seasons, days, months recur; view of man) man is seen as an autonomous, independent be-

astronomical time, the time of natural phenomena, neces- ing. Having inherited the idea of freedom from Judaism,

sarily returns to its starting point and makes the same or- the Christian is made aware of the subjective role he, by
will, makes in the determination of his c~m salvation. And
6 Ibid., p. 75.
finally, his historical consciousness has made time cease
7It is interesting to note here that the mythology of
Japan differs to the extent that in the Kojiki and the Nihongi to seem recurrent and every moment becomes the opportunity
(compiled by court decree in 721 and 720 AD respectively)
we have a retrospective construction of a nations mythic for something new and creative to emerge. The birth and
origins after the nation is politically cen~ralized and con-
ceived as dating from a one-time, non-recurring descent to 8 Ibid., p. 82.
earth of the descendants of the Sun-goddess Amaterasu.
 242
241

(but at an indefinite time in the future) end initiated by

death (incarnation and atonement) of Jesus Christ have
God and occurring once only as an actual event (the last)
opened up in history the field of man's salvation. 9
in history. The contemporary world with its technological
The religious standpoint of such points of view has a
stance has made the factuality of this occurence dubious.
character of exclusive absoluteness which simply excludes
One could de-mythologize the eschaton in reinterpreting it
the possibility of compatibility with other religions. Re-
in some existential sense but it cannot be omitted due to
ligious truth in this context combines with a once-ness his-
its centrality in Christianity and existentially it cannot
torically that cannot tolerate an alternative view. This
be made to have mu~h historical sense as historical fact.
intolerance is related fundamentally to the personal nature
Outside theology, eschatology is an unknown word; contem-
of the standpoint; the standpoint of the personal relation-
porary historians as scientists do not deal with it at all.
ship between man and God. Nishitani points to the histori-
On the level of historical facts immanent in history it is
cal occurrences which were manifestations of the fundamental
inconceivable that history will end by the initiation of
conflict between the self-centeredness of man's sinful nature
something or some personal being outside history. The idea
and the~ or love of one's fellowmen. 10
of "progress" which emerged in the eighteenth century,
The second problematic in Christianity's understanding
though it was a reaction against the faith and intolerance
of time and history is its eschatology. Mythological relig-
of Christianity and a replacement of these by reason, is
ions and also Buddhism have a rotational view wherein ages
still basically a similar historically conscious movement,
follow ages, each rising out of and ending in some sort of
naively moving through an ever-new unfolding. Though con-
conflagration. Minimally, according to Nishitani, Chistian-
ceived in tolerance (against the intolerance of Christian-
ity's view is controversial since it involves an expected
ity) its contemporary in science has proved itself to be
9 It is probable at this point that Nishitani over-esti-
equally intolerant of other views, still remaining a progress-
mates the necessity for regarding these events as historically
factual. He himself, for example, says, "Special emphasis oriented soteriology.
is here placed upon their historical facticity." Ibid.
10 E.g., the struggles and harsh measures taken against This is connected with the third problematic in Chris-
unbelievers in the Roman era, the crusades of the l1iddle Ages, tianity in Nishitani's interpretation. "Fundamentally
the persecution of heretics, the Inquisition and the relig-
ious wars persisting up through modern times. These are speaking, this rational standpoint can be reduced to man's
found also in Islam but are notably lacking in Buddhism. One
would be hard pressed to find a war initiated by or fought freedom as a rational being."ll Freedom arises in man's
in the name of Buddhism.
lltbid •• p. 88.
 243
having been capable of disobedience to God's will and hence
his original sin, i.e., his ability to make rational
choices. The conflict between faith and reason has never
been absent from the history of Christianity and it has
largely paralleled the conflict between intolerance and
tolerance. The emergence of Nietzsche's nihilism was the
product of a radical skepticism about the tenability of
either the eschatological orientation of a God of judgment
or the alternate faith in the progress made possible by
reason. More to the point, the problems of the modern prog-
ress point of view cannot be solved by a Christian eschatologi -
cal understanding of time and history nor is the reverse
possible.
The Enlightenment and Christian views of history have
in common that they both see meaning in history but are other-
wise diametrically opposed to each other. God's providence
is irreconcilable with anthropocentric reason. Nihilism
goes back behind both of them to a position wherein history
and its origins, including all natural processes are mean-
ingless. At this base, Nietzsche turned to the idea of the
Eternal Return. The Eternal Return of Nietzsche is not,
however, the rotational view of mythological religions;
nihilism itself is conceived as an actual historical event
and the Eternal Return implies all the new creations of his-
tory. All the nihilized "meanings" of his tory are re-affirmed
as attempts of the will itself to posit value. The will to
244
power is a rotating view in that it comes back to history
after having negated it; the "ideas of the will to power and
that of eternal return are a position of great affirmation.•~ 2
The nihilum negates history in the ordinary sense (on the
level of its immanence) where reason gives meaning to his-
tory and permits a confidence in progress. The will to power
is the ek-static basis upon which history is restored only
to find that it cannot complete its authentic historicity,
i.e., that it cannot create anything radically new in time.
It appears as the obverse face of the problematic of Chris-
tianity. Christianity broke down the rotational character
of mythic time in favor of the historicity of time. Nie-
tzsche broke down the historicity of time in favor of some
restoration of the rotational character of mythic time. The
former gave a once for all time historicity to the eschaton;
the latter guarantees the endlessness of time but denies
the completion of anything radically new. Is there any way
by which history will not be brought to a complete stop at
some point in time by the supra-historical and at the same
time realize its supra-historical base? Certainly not, ac-
cording to Nishitani, in the western Judaic or Nietzschean
point of view. Nishitani will find his solution to the
dilemma in moving toward a comparison of emptiness and his-
tory. First, however, he makes a few introductory observa-
tions to his investigation.
12Ibid. ' p. 92.
 245 246

Eschatology is not, obviously, concerned with the end the Christian thinkers and re-expressed in modern times in

of the world in the sense that a geologist or geophysicist a secularized form by the historicism of the nineteenth

might be (contrary to the opinion of many fundamental sects); century. Viewed from the common man's point of view, this

it is not worried about the earth cooling down or being tendency may be taken as derived from a reinforced aware-

sucked into a "black hole." Rather it is interested in the ness of the total dependence of the human being on the his-

disclosure of the supra-historical level through historical torical process in an age of rapid change." 13 Similar

man's awareness. The end of history is directly related to problems arise concerning the beginning of history; scarcely

the beginning of history. History begins for Christianity any well-educated modern man with a clear sense of his own

with Adam's Fall; history is beginning to end, i.e, the historical immanence believes that history began with Adam's

eschaton is upon us with Christ's incarnation and will be fall. As Nishitani points out, "surely this immanent point

completed with the second advent of Christ. Christianity of view which develops into the science of history is essen-

as a religion is based upon once-happening historical events. tial to history no less than the supra-historical point of

Its answer to Nishitani's question "What is Religion?" is: view which unfolds unto a religious understanding of history.

"the history of salvation" or "the his tory of judgment." It is equally essential for historical consciousness and

Representing this eschaton as an historical event is, as we for a view of history." 14 Of course, both the beginnings

have seen, a problematic. Man falls prey to his tools (tech- and end of history present unsolved problems for Christian-

nique) as a historical being and worries about the cooling ity and are in turn incompatible with such a point of view

off of the earth (or considers the great earthquake of Lis- as just expressed.

bon) as God's punishment. But history has another aspect, Nishitani finds the root of the problem in the notion

that of the modern fact-grubbing historian who makes the of a God conceived as personal and provided with a will. His-

tool the sole end in itself and cannot see the moral dimen- tory has a beginning and an end precisely in terms of God's

sion at all. As Goichi Miyake suggests, "This is an extreme punishment (Adam's fall) and his judgment (the eschaton).

generalization of the notion of history if viewed from the History is the manifestation of the divine will. This is a

simple conception of history as the real or possible object self-centered (thea-centric) conception of God as "something

of historical description. This tendency toward the over- 13 Goichi Miyake, "Ontological Study of History," Phi-
generalizatio~ of the notion of history was once held by losophical Studies of Japan, III, 1961, p. 1.
14K . . . N. h. . " EmptLness
.
e~JL rLs LtanL, an d T.Lme, II p. 9 7 .
 247
that is." Nishitani is not being hostile to Christianity
in his critical analysis but has probed deeply into tender
spots in Christian theology. He himself admits that:
Nobody can deny the fact that the notion of a
personal God, a God of judgment (or of justice) or
a God of love, by causing human beings to stand
face to face with the 'sacred' as with a living sub-
ject, face to face with a God who is probably beyond
compare in the sacredness of His majesty and love,
has brought man's conscience and love to special
depth and thus has elevated human personality to a
remarkable extent. Because of this and provided
that the above analysis of the inherent problematic
is right, it would be all the more desirable that
the solution of these problems would arise from
Christianity itself in the future. I think we are
in need of this solution not only for the purpose of
building up a true view of history which future man-
kind should possess but also in order that Christian-
ity itself may successfully confront the 'secularized'
views of history in the modern world.l5
It is, however, in Nietzsche's Eternal Return that Nishi-
tani sees the position closest to a solution and at the same
time closest in atmosphere to the Buddhist view of emptiness.
Nevertheless, the Eternal Return of Nietzsche does not make
time truly be time. Neither does his moment (Augenblick)
have the bottomlessness of the genuine instant of Buddhism.
It cannot, therefore, be the place which makes possible some-
thing "new" which would render comprehensible some new, west-
ern cyclical viPw of history. The reason? Something else,
in this case the "will to power" is conceived as "something
that is" on the supra-historical level, something not truly
emptied.
We might see striking parallels between the God of
lSibid., pp. 98-99.
248
Christianity as the ground of being, the will to power as
the ground of becoming, and the unity of Brahman-Atman to
which the Indians gave expression in the phrase £!£ ~
asi. The will, however, like Brahman-Atman, retains some-
thing of the "what is" character. The will to power in-
volves within itself something that is not completely turned
about into the self. Only in the latter position is time
"what truly bottomlessly arises as time and history that
whose historicity is thoroughly brought to its completion. "16
II. Time as Circular
We must turn now even more directly to Nishitani's ex-
amination of the phenomena of time and history; e3pecially
whether or not Buddhist time is circular as Toynbee suggests.
A rotating world view as a cyclical process has no be-
ginning and no end and viewed from that direction contains
infinity or seems infinitesimal. It does, however, return
continually to its beginning, which tHshitani calls a kind
of provisional ending, and to that extent the rotation char-
acter also signifies finitude. This is a kind of high-
level finitude which, because of the endless nature of its
repetition becomes infinite finitude. It is a mindless,
senseless, abstract limitlessness. The question is whether
this is the same as the Buddhist "without beginning in to
endless future?"
16 Ibid., p. 101.
 249 250

Buddhism does have a kalpa system of reckoning time, is anicca in the fullest sense of the word. tfuen time is

each time system, of kalpa, succeeded by another. The dif- a succession of these instants it can be said to be without

ference is that each kalpa is simultaneous with preceding beginning and end. This kalpa system is like mythological

but continuing ones. Each kalpa is "gathered" or "com- time but its meaning lies in its recognition of the void-

prehended" into larger ones. tiishitani likens the system like aperture at its base rather than the usually found pri-

to the moon rotating around the earth which in turn rotates mordial time to which everything is often thought to be an

around the sun, which solar system in turn rotates around Eternal Return. The ambiguity of Buddhist time is that

some larger system, ad infinitum. 17 This is different from "only as something without beginning or end in a limitless

endless repetition within the same, identical time-frame. aperture, time becomes perpetually something new in every

The latter, the case of the Eternal Return, is a continuous "now. " 19 In this newness there is also an ambiguity. It is

occurrence of the return and may be represented, according positive in the sense that here time is the field of un-

to Nishitani, as a straight line. 18 In the Buddhist system limited creative freedom. But it is also what makes it im-

time is clearly circular because all systems are simultaneous possible for things to have permanence; it drives us con-

but is also rectilinear in being a sequence of "nows" wherein stantly forward to ever new moments or turn-abouts. Herein

the systems are simultaneous. At the bottom of this time is is existence fastened upon us like an "infinite burden."

a void-like aperture not belonging to any system at all. In We cannot "have" or "possess" ourselves. Nishitani speaks

such a system every "now," though belonging to the accumu- of the nature of our being or time as like a debt of an im-

lation of systems, is totally new, without possibility of posed task. We only live by continually doing things.

repetition, instantaneously originating and perishing. This Further, everything done turns into a liability in its not
remaining done. Our life is constantly and essentially one
17
Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and History," a manuscript
translation by Rev. Jan van Braft of Chapter Six of Nishitani's of "fore-throwing" (entwerfend). "To surmnarize, that we
ShUkyo to ~ Nanika ("tfuat is Religion?"), p. 2. 'are' (~) in 'time,' means that we are con·demend inces-
lSTh.~s ~s
· t he case even ~n
. Ch r~st~an~ty
. . . wh ere sue h santly to 'do' (nasu) something; and, that in that constant
thinkers as Eliade place a high emphasis upon the eternal
return but nonetheless conceive of history as a linear doing, our being is established as 'becoming' (~). In
movement from past to future. This system might almost
be represented by some such figure as the coils of a spring other words, existence in time obtains as ceaseless becoming
or a spiral helix.
19 K . . . '-1 • h · . "E mpt~ness
.
e~J~ ~~s ~tan~, an d H.~s t cry," p. 4 .
 251 252

and turning-about." 20 This burden-character of existence aperture" is also ambiguous; it can mean simply nihilum or

is a problem because of its infinity character ; it never it can mean the authentic emptiness. The meaning of time

ends. It appears as though it were imposed by something is vastly altered according to the meaning of this aperture.

outside. It i5 an infinite impulse or infinite urge. The Time is linked with all things emerging in the world and

ancients referred to this feeling as desire (tanha, Pali; envelops their being but in such an ambiguous or enigmatic

~. Jap.) and is analogous to thirsting for water. 21 Here way that we cannot seem to know from where we came or to

the idea of karma has its locus. Karma implies both the where we are going. Our actual existence in time is filled

burden aspect of being and time and the awareness of the with anxiety. Our relationships in existence spread out

essence of time, On the one hand, time in its ever-newness horizontally and vertically in seemingly endless fashion.

is ambiguous as creation, freedom and infinite possibility; "No matter how far the scientific explanation of the 'his-
tory' of living beings, of our globe, of the univere p~og­
and, on the other, as infinite burden and inescapable neces-
sity. resses, it is impossible to exhaust the secrets of this
history's beginning or end, ,.22 In spite of this our
Not only in "newness" is there ambiguity; there is also
ambiguity in "transitoriness." In their transitoriness time actual existence is an actual fact. It is crucial that the

and being are constantly manifesting "an-nihil-ation" from beginninglessness and endlessness of time is rooted in an

their very ~round: they are fleeting and evaporative, con- infinite aperture which in turn is rooted in actual exis-

stantly on the brink of downfall in their instantaneousness. tence. The beginning and end of time can and must be looked

On the other hand they are free and light in their annihila- for inside actual existence. Herein is to be found the

tion because they are not tied to permanence and the deter- essence of being and time. 23 By this is meant, however, that

minate mode of being does not become a hindrance. they must be found, not in time, but at the ground of the

Newness implies being and time, transiency implies present which is the place where actual existence takes

nothingness and time. Time is thus ambiguous. The "infinite place (rather than in the past or future). This is why Nishi-
tani suggests that the judgment and punishment of God must
20
Ibid., p. 5.
21 22
This is referred to as "thirsting love" by Mizuno rbid. , p. 10 •
and distinguished from the compassion of the Bodhisattva. 23 And not in some mere "historicism" which, as Stanley
It is the direct cause of suffering as claimed in the Second Rosen suggests is "the inability to distinguish between
Noble Truth and is the eighth link in the chain of dependent being and time." Rosen, p. 56.
or relational · origination. Cf. MiZ'.!!l0, p. 148-'~9.
 253 254

be found at the ground of the present and are seen working of human reason have both been shown by Nietzsche (accord-

in the home-ground of the present. Likewise Nietzsche's ing to Nishitani) to be impossible.

Eternal Return is found directly beneath the "now"-"moment." Nietzsche used the mutual failure of secularism and

In both cases, however, the problem is overcome only "Platonico-Christianity" as a stepping stone in his own

in a provisional sense. In both cases the problem of time thought. That God is dead means that everything is dead,

is solved by being "managed" by sot:lething-that-is, i.e., that all previously conceived foundations of things have

God and the will to power, respectively. The Christian turned into nihilum. All things have lost their unity in

version takes its invalid assurances on the ambiguity of any transcendent center and float in a limitless and mean-

"newness" by emphasizing being and time. Nietzsche's will ingless time. The annihilation of all being, or the "being"

to power rests on the ambiguity of "transiency" by empha- of all things, relegates existence to the world of change.

sizing the senseless repetition based upon nothingness and Change, which cannot be grasped, renders existence mc~~~ng­

time (nothingness conceived here as nihilum). For Christian- less. This radical nihilism is, however, the turning point

ity the infinite aperture is closed at the bottom of time into life. It takes on a light, transparent quality in that

by focusing upon the eschaton; for Nietzsche there is no time is transitory; meaninglessness turns into bottomless

infinite aperture due to man's being locked up in the ro- meaningless. At the same time it is firmly grounded in the

tating time of the Eternal Return. For contemporary man, now; freed from the impossibility of past and future and

Nietzsche's position has rendered the Christian view impos- always concerned with the actual existence of the "now."

sible without actually solving the ambiguity; merely re- Here nihilum opens up as the field of ek-static transcendence

focussing the emphasis. Science and positivism may be said of world and time. It becomes the infinite aperture im-

to be looking to the past; the idealism of progress may be mediately beneath the present,

said to be looking to the future; each without success. This is what Nietzsche means when he says: "There is
24
Nietzsche has also made these views impossible by pointing nothing except the totality--this is a big emancipation. "

out that it lost the ek-static transcending dimension of time He simply means that there is no "thing" outside this world,

as suspended out over the abyss of nothingness. Thus the no God, no beyond. The opening up of nihilum means that it

theocentric confidence in God as creator of time (man as participates in the world at the ground of the present and

dependent) and the secularist confidence in the independence that all things return to this field. This infinite aperture
24 Twilight of the Idols, quoted by Nishitani, ibid., p.20.
 255 256

beneath the present takes on the character of the eternal, Return is the "lila" or play of such a will. There is nothing
not the eternity of being, but the eternity of nothing, or that is not its manifestation.
of death. This is the clearing out or opening of the This is, of course, in striking contrast to Christian-
present toward the infinite aperture. This death of our- ity and secularism. Nietzsche overcomes the man who de-
selves and the parallel death of the world is not some clares the self-sufficiency of reason (secular man). Man
"matter" of objective events. "This means, . that the has become the murderer of God but has not at the same time
whole world and the self as one reality change into embraced the radical implications of that act of deicide.
nihilum, that 'Great Death' presents itself out of the bot- Secular man must undergo the refining process wherein his
tom where world and self are ~· It is the affair of every illusion is shattered. Christianity, of course, in-
'being- in- the-world,' our own 'affair. "• 25 dulged in the opposite illusion, viz., that there is some
The nihilum participates in actual existence as the transcendent "being" or beyond. Christianity is then forced
realization of "Great Death"; it is the field of self-aware- to view this world as a world of sin, death and transitori-
ness. Here a fundamental tum-about takes place toward ness, i.e., as evil, without the affirmation of the~ in the
"Great Life." It too is not a matter of some objective af- sense of affirmation-sive-negation, as eternal life. Both
fair about which we might ask "Why?" It is a conversion on positions fail in having started from a self-centered per-
a more fundamental field than that at which we ask and answer spective, being unable to embrace the radical consequences
questions. It is, however, precisely this asking and answer- of self-centercdness. Nishitani refers to these positions
ing that traditional religions have continually tried to do. as optical illusions, as essentially unconscious self-decep-
In so doing they looked in the direction of God or Buddha, tions. Nietzsche's position represents an advance by being
toward providence or the original vow of Amida-Buddha. The a renewed affirmation of the radical consequences of con-
Hebrew Scripture Job gives ample testimony to the a-ration- sidering the will to be and become himself the fundamental
ality of the "reason" on the side of Gor or of Buddha. There role of man. Further, the illusions are themselves, ~t their
is only a "that"; never a "what." Nietzsche's will to power base, affirmations of this Nietzschean will to power. The
opens up the field of eternity. As Nishitani suggests, it desire for permanence and subsequent dependence upon a deity
is both the radiating power and what is radiated. The art- or reason are, in spite of not being recognized as such,
less and undefiled eternally rotating world of the Eternal basically a self-affirmation, a desire to affirm the mean-
25
rbid., p. 21.
 257
ing of life. Here the affirmation takes a detour via the
reason or God, Rather than viewing Nietzsche as some sort
of threat, either position might well have seen him as some
minor "savior" who offered them a reinterpretation, a de-
mythologized grasp of their positions. Both were, after
all, mere:y a variation on the theme advanced by Nishitani
as the "infinite impulse." In Christianity thi3 was vieweci
as the attempt to usurp the throne of God, the emergence of
the demonic. In secularism this has emerged as the despair
which dEveloped concomitant with progress. Neither position
has shown itself to be self-critically aware of the origins
of its opposition or even its experience of these phenomena.
This willing self, according to Nishitani, is always to be
found in western considerations of the problems of time and
eternity, history and the supra-historical, under the aspect
of infinity. Furthermore they are considered at the point
where they transect, thus raising problems of "fate,"
"destiny," "providence," et.:. all viewed from the side of
will.
The Buddhist notion of karma is a parallel consideration
of being-in-the-world in the aspect of infinity. Like
secularism it speaks about beginningless and endless time.
The difference is that whereas secularism was unconscious of
this "infinite impulse" aspect, Buddhism embraces the self-
awareness of this impulse. It begins at the base of its
consideration with this assumption rather than, as secularism
258
does, being driven to despair when arriving at this uncon-
scious, nevertheless felt and unavoidable, conclusion which
is experienced but not "comprehended" or "gathered" as it
emerges along with "progress." One might say that in karma,
the being-in-the-world of modern secularization already ap-
pears. The demythologization of karma has a direct bearing
on the contemporary problematic.
III. The "task-character" and "infinte aperture" of History
At this point in the development of his argument, Nishi-
tani wants to pursue more deeply the meaning of the two
points he has stressed in speaking about the expression "with-
out beginning into (endless) future," These are also in-
vestigated in the context of karma. The two points are:
"First, a time without beginning or end gives existence si-
multaneously the character of a burden or an imposed task
and the character of creation and freedom; and again, in the
background of all this there can be detected something that
could be called an infinite impulse. Second, a time with-
out beginning or end can exist only if it contains in its
ground the manifestation of an infinite aperture." 26 We will
examine the points one at a time.
Our being is endlessly thrown forward or back in end-
less time due to the instantaneous nature of the present;
this is our burden. We are condemned to an incessantly new
26Ibid., p. 33.
 259 260

becoming and limitless change. Our karma of word, deed, and bad deeds, words, and thoughts and the influence of

and thought shows itself as our free activity, forever these deeds, etc., in turn pervaded the seeds. "Thus, the

creating something new. Time and our existence within that very essence of our 'being' in time has been conceived in a

time are inconceivable apart from the world of relations dynamic, spontaneous, self-developing 'causal' framework,

and this world of relationship appears as infinitely large . . . One can conceive 'time' as without beginning and end

horizontally and vertically. "Consequently, our 'works' only in an inseparable and essential relationship with such

(samskrta) of every moment as the becoming of time itself an understanding of 'being'- in-' time ... ,ZB This ceaseless

originate vertically, out of the background of the rela- doing of things cannot occur except as doing "something."

tionship without beginning into endless future, and hori- Existence arises in mutual determination; the self doing, or

zontally also, in relation to all things existing simul- determining, itself. The mode of being of the self is de-

taneously with us." 27 This is the aspect of infinity under termining, and being determined by itself.

which being-in-the-world must be viewed. Our karma is to be Nishitani uses the ancient word "innen" (hetupratyaya)

like slaves laboring continually but not at the behest of to express the inseparable union of these two aspects. We

someone or something outside; rather it is the nature of are compelled to consider the totality of mankind and all

existence within time. This is the de-mythologized version things in the world as something "fatally" linked to our

of what was recognized by mythological man even more than existence and working. Our various activivies always real-

by so-called rational man. ize themselves in this "without beginning into endless

This works-like nature of existence is one, paradoxi- future" wave of the totality of all relationships. The "be"

cally, whereby we are required to work out way out of our of being-in-the-world, when existing as "become" is always

dilemma and wherein every act of work is the seed of yet ..i.Iul!.m-like. "Doing" "does" (makes) "being": "do" "becomes"

another act of work. We freely create our own bondage; we "be." "Thus, we are aware of an infinite impulsivity at the

secure our existence in freeing ourselves from it. This self- ground of our 'be' and 'do,' in the ground of our actual

contradictory Cj~amicity can be found in early Mahayana existence; and of an infinite shut-up-in-itself-ness, so to

Buddhism in the Consciousness-only school in which the "store- speak, or of a self-centered-ness in the 'home-ground' which

consciousness" contained the seeds (bija) which led to good

28Ibid., p. 38.
27Ibid., p. 35.
 261 262

is the well-spring of that impulse. " 29 This is the source causality of karma is seen in the perspective of a begin-

of endless karmic activity and is what is meant by avidya ningless and endless aperture of time.

or "fundamental ignorance" (mumyo). This aperture is the focus of Nishitani's second point.

Thus, for Nishitani, karma is the self-awareness of It appears as a nihilum outside existence and its forms. It

the essence of actual existence in time in the dynamics of has been variously conceived as the ground out of which

"be," "do," and "become." In this connection the concept of emerges, or in which is found the fource for the being of

metempsychosis if often found (along with that of transmi- mythical notions of reincarnation, the conceptions of kalpa
gration) and can be understood as the mythologized version and Great Kalpa, the Eternal Return of Nietzsche, and other

of this projection of the self into endless past and future. world views. As Nishitani has described it our being, how-

It can only be understood when we interpret it so as to ever conceived, would not come into being in time v7ithout

bring the contents of that representation back to the home- thi'3 aperture. The "doing" of this existo:nce is paradoxi-

ground of wur existence in the present. Such representations cally described as the free performance of an infinite com-

are born in an intent to grasp the ground of man's actual pulsion. The doing of this karmic activity creates being.

existence and contain an intuition of the essence of being- This does not, however, mean that there is some objective

in-the-world. thing-like content to this nihilum. It means that the doing

In this context, then, Nishitani defines metempsychosis has to rely upon its ground in nihilum in order to transcend

as "the finitude of man is existentially grasped as an in- the determinedness of the innen-like relations of this world.

finite finitude and is comprehended in the horizon of a Anicca (transitoriness) is the Buddhist term for the

'world' that includes also kinds of being other than man, in condition which provides the freedom to transcend this de-

the quintessence of a most basic being-in-the-world. ,JO In terminedness. This transitoriness is only present because

much the same way, the notion of "three worlds" represents there is nihilum at the base of actual existence. "Seen from

a dropping of even the human form in the transition from the that viewpoint, the world of karma is a world wherein each

world of desire through that of form to that of no-form; the individual is determined by its innen-like relations within

infinite extension of limitless world-relationships. The an infinite world-order and, nevertheless, every one's
existence and behaviour, and also each moment of time, orig-
29
Ibid. , P • 0:.1.
inates as something absolutely new and containing freedom
JOibid., p. 43.
 263
and creativity. " 31 The infinite "before" and "after" of
causal necessity lies in every man's present, rendering it
free and creative. 32
The infinite aperture is a supra-temporal aperture or
ec-static transcendence. It is projected into "time" every
time one performs karmic activity in the present. The
nature of being is becoming and every activity establishes
this self. The freedom-nature of this karmic activity makes
it possessible, the karma is always "my" karma.
Though it has this freedom character., we should not
imagine that we are talking about true freedom or true cre-
ativity. Freedom and creativity at this level are timed
to the inner necessity compelling us to do something. The
freedom is inseparably tied to the compulsion or infinite
impulse. We have already described how getting into rela-
tions with something inside the infinite relationship and
therein to be conditioned and determined by the total rela-
tionship is to determine oneself. Our karma appears at one
and the same time to have a free and a fatal character.
Our free "will" chooses and rejects but is, by that choosing
and rejecting "attached" to the object of choosing and re-
jecting. I1asao Abe suggests in this connection that, "we are
bound by our own karma which shares in and is inseparably
31 Ibid., p. 46.
32 Hisamatsu elaborates on the "freedom" and "creative"
nature of Oriental Nothingness in his "positive delineation"
of its characteristics. Cf , his, "The Characteristics of
Oriental Nothingness," pp. 91-97.
264
linked to karma operating in the universe but, on the other
hand, we, as beings with self-consciousness and free will,
have the opportunity to be liberat~d from karma through our
own free act, an act which is based on the total realiza-
tion within oneself of the beginningless and ~ndl~ss pro-
cess of karma, i.e., karma operating in the universe beyond
oneself." and "Universal karma can be realized not objec-
tively but only subjectively, i.e., in and through the
existential realization of personal and individual karma--
and personal karma can be truly transcended only when uni-
versal karma is subjectively overcome within oneself." 33
The ambiguity of this existence is in the constant turn-
abouts from despair to joy and back to despair, a motion
which arises in freeing oneself from ones debt only to cre-
ate in turn further indebtedness. Furthermore, the cre-
ativity aspect, joyful in its activity, must in the end
despair over the transitory nature of the "created." This
ambiguity of existence is what the Japanese call "~ ££
~~~ (the pathos of t:hings); it is the point where desire
and joy are one with the sadness felt over the transitori-
ness of things. ". . • it signifies the point where the
being of man, as something that is while going into relations
with things inside time, comes to self-awareness under the
aspect of infinity, whereby then the essence of all things,
33
"Buddhist Nirvana: Its Significance in Contemporary
Thought and Life," S. J. Samartha, ed. , Living Faiths and
Ultimate Goals: Salvation and World Religions (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1974), pp. 20-21.
 265 266

their "home-gro~.md" is attached to ones own "home-ground."

the quintessence of being-in-the-world as such, is estheti-
cally felt to the quick." 34 Our present activities real- This self-centeredness makes itself the axis mundi, the

ize themselves at one with each other in their "freedom center of the world. 36 Nishitani has also referred to this

of working" and "fata" character. This infinite shut-up- as abysmal solitude because in the horizon of a very deep

in-itself-ness comes to se~f-awareness as standing out over communication with all others (as axis mundi) it is shut up

the abyss of nihilum, at one with it. This infinite self- in itself. Nishitani refers to this condition also as

centeredness is avidya. It cannot, in the karmic activity original sin, a sin equally original as man's free activity

of the self, go back to the self-itself; it can only go
back to the home-ground of the karmic-activity.
tinually goes in that direction but can only establish it-
self in the world of time without beginning or end, i.e.,
as becoming. "To wander endlessl1 all over time, while
looking for the home-ground of the self itself--that is the
true image of our activity, of our being in 'time,' of our
life." 35 This is "karma without beginning into eternal
future." This despair is what Kierkegaard called "sickness
unto death." :be self-centeredness existing at one with
nihilum, the root of "being" at one with "nothingness," lies
directly beneath human existence but the "human" form of
existence is dropped here. This is the thi::-d world of "no-
form." The gro~.md of e..~i:: :-":1=e as man it11piies a point be-
yond our determination as man. In the ground of our self-
centeredness, the "being" of all things is gathered into one,
34Keiji Nishitani, "Emptiness and History," p. 46.
35 Ibid.
I p. 49.
and existence. The appearance of this original sin is the
freedom character of karma which is attached and therefore
It con-
"fatally" free.
In Chapter IV ("The Standpoint of Sunyata") Nishitani
treated the relationship of the circuminsessional inter-
penetration of all things in the field of emptiness and
called "nature" the force that gathers all things and makes
them relate. In this context, "nature" in karma can be con-
ceived as the original force at work when the self makes all
things relate while gathering them in this relationship. 37
36 This should not be confused with Eliade's category of
the "Sacred" wherein the axis mundi is the center of, but
not a part of, the "profane.-"'---
37This, I think is what Satomi Takahashi means when he
says that, "Nature • . • is not only the mere factor of
human existence . • • although partially the former can be
the moment of the latter. Nevertheless, under the stratum
of historical being in a wide sense, including the history
of nature, must be considered another stratum of being,
like the primary matter (materia prima), which is carry-
ing the historical on itself. It can somehow be called
'field" where the history takes place, and it remains itself
unchanged and accordin*ly must be regarded as unhistorical."
"Historical Actuality,' Philosophical Studies of Japan,
Vol. II (1960), p. 17.
 267
IV. The "infinite impulse" of Modern Man
The point of Nishitani's discussion of karma has, of
course, a direct bearing on the world of history and man's
life in that world. The activity of karma is within that
world and particularly poignantly fits man's modern secu-
larized life. The anthropocentric mode of being is espe-
cially descriptive of modern man's secularized life in that
its essential characteristic is what Nishitani has called
the "infinite impulsiveness" or "self-will." The concept
of karma clarifies that mode of being.
This standpoint, that of karma, must be dropped in the
end because it only reveals its own home-ground as karmic
activity and does not finally and completely reveal the self
itself. There is necessitated a tum-about or conversion
to the standpoint of nirvana or sunyata, and further to the
standpoint of samsara=nirvana or samsara=sunyata. It is
Nishitani's opinion that "the standpoint of emptiness of
Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism lies finally halfway
between the religions with a cyclical worldview wherein,
according to Toynbee, history disappea:s (in his classifica-
tion Buddhism would belong to this group), and the Judaeo-
Christian religions, wherein the sense of history is fully
present, but self-centeredness is never fully avoided;
.. 38
Buddhism is different than either point of view.
38
Keij i Nishitani, 'Emptiness and History," p . 55.
268
The expressions "non-ego" and "body and mind fall away"
express the standpoint of emptiness in which self-centered-
ness is radically negated. There isn't even any high-level
self-centeredness such as is found in the religious self-
consciousness of being among God's elect. The standpoint
negates absolutely all "will" which stands at the base of
all self-centeredness, and is at the base of all western
conceptions of time and history. In the East, this infinite
impulse is found in the idea of karma. The standpoint of
emptiness radically negates all "will" standpoints. It is
not simply that tlt.: · self is shown not to be the self; this
point of view was held and transcended by many thinkers.
Nietzsche went beyond this to the will to power as the true
self, Schopenhauer to the will to life, Asian thought to
karma as the "in-itself" of the self, western mysticism to
the unio mystica where the self is united with God or the
One, Indian thought to the ~ tvam asi of Brahman-Atman.
The standpoint of the true ncn-ego manifests itself only in
the radical reversal of these positions, and is found in
the existential self-awareness whereby the self is realized
(actualized and comprehended) as emergence from non-ego.
Many of the same things Nishitani said of karmic life
he will also affirm of life in the standpoint of emptiness
though they are done from a different perspective. Here
life also exists in ceaselessly doing something; here also
life in its "being" takes the form of ceaseless "becoming."
 269 270

But here the aspect of paying off and creating debts is no exteriorly, causally determined debt. This is the Buddhist

longer. Existence is no longer a burden. Our activity "in accordance with Dharma and following nature'' point of

does not arise out of ignorance (avidya), the home-ground view.

of the infinite impulse. It is no longer karma on the Our actual existence is a focal point, realizing it-

field of nihilum. Here Dagen's phrase is again apt, viz., self over and over again at every moment in time; a focal

that "the everyday life whereby our eyes are horizontal and point of the total world relationship and fatally united

our nose vertical is, as such, coming back home with empty with it. Our doing has the freedom confined only by attach-

hands and, for a time, just living on while leaving things ment, i.e., the freedom determined by its own products in

in the hands of the gods. " 39 karmic causal necessity but free, at the same time, with the

Our life on the field of emptiness takes on a "play" arbitrary freedom that focuses the total relationship into

character. This is not ordinary play which is usually con- the center of the self. This kind of being-determined in a

ceived as some form of recreation, sport, etc. It is opposed world relationship is, of course, self-determination. On

to the "work" we have been describing above, the indebted- the standpoint of karma, "this self-determination is essen-

ness, the burdened cha~acter of existence. Both work and tially an infinite impulse which arises from a self-centered

play in their "yonder-side" and "this-side" meanings are foundation, and something that realizes itself under the

referred to as "play samadhi" (yugi-sanunai). The samskrta 'will-ful' form o£ attachcent and domination; and being-

we discussed as the dynamic relationship of "be"-"do"- determined means being 'fatally' conditicned with causal

"become" (our existence, behaviour, and life) continues to necessity in the total relationship." 40 The free activity

be samskrta but shows a "non-doing" character, a "birds-in- of the will is one of attachment and domination in its rela-

the-air, lilies-in-the-field" look. The spontaneity of do- tion with things; its karma is its "fatal" determination.

ing, being, living, etc. is a freely shouldered burden and The source of this karma is avidya, the infinite shut-up-in-

is the standpoint of samadhi and its no-mind. The self itself-ness of the will. Each of these things comes to self-

emerging out of non-self is true spontaneity. Here the debt awareness only at one with nihilum.

assumes the meaning of an authentic responsibility freely Avidya comes to awareness as the ground of the self that

taken up by the self. This is a debtless debt, not some cannot rid itself of itself; a self in the constantly be-

39 Paraphrased by Nishitani, ibid., p. 58. 40Ibid.' p • 64.

 271 272

coming state of "be"-"do"-"become." There are two realities scends to a point beyond self-centeredness. Here our
in avidya that come into being simultaneously: the "self "being"-" doing"- "becoming" take on a "non-being"- "non-
is forever itself and emerges as a self-centered 'being'"; doing"-"non-becoming" character. "Here, 'being' is 'no-own-
and, also in avidya, "nihilum manifests itself while cease- nature,' it is neither substance as noumenon nor subject
41 ,43
lessly an-nihil-ating the 'being' of the self." Avidya, as will; it is 'in-itself' It is of the nature of
as the well-spring of karma, comes to self-awareness only fire that it does not burn itself, where time is not time
in nihilum, in which it has its ground. and hence is time. Our actual existence in this kind of
In karma, then, our being is condemned forever to make dynamic relationship is "anti- the tically" one with the world-
relations with something and is thus burdensome to itself; relationship. Nishitani suggests that western thinkers
our doing is both the redemption of that burden and con- have pointed to such a standpoint in which the self exists
tinually creates a new burden. There are two aspects of as "play." Heraclitus and Nietzsche, for example, in their
this fact: " • our 'be' vanishes and arises instantane- cyclical world views saw such a play character. The life
ously in every new moment; the nihilum which continuously of the universe permeated their actual existence in such a
an-nihil-ates our being manifests itself here," and, " •• way that they saw life leaping forth from its depths, its
in the same point, • . • there appears something that urges home-grounci, just as fire erupts from the depths of the
us on infinitely from within. In that infinite impulse, earth. Nishitani suggests that Heraclitus' "original fire"
our actual existence is perpetually unable to escape its own and Nietzsche's "Will to Power" arise from such an intui-
home-ground." 42 Karma, then, is the condition in which the tion. They saw therein homo ludens (playing man) as the
self cannot escape itself and yEt is perpetually changing. highest mode of being of man. This original play is, at the
Our actual existence is continually establishing itself in same time, original seriousness. It is the spontaneity of
the emergence from nihilum to avidya. This karmic field is the debtless debt, freely shouldered. Any work which is done
the point from which the true self emerges onto the field of apart from this standpoint is disparate, "scattering one's
emptiness. On this field the self as relation loses its de- mind." The bodhisattva is a paradigm for authentic work-
pendence upon attachment and arbitrary free will and tran- play, having moved from "fatal" work to "vocational" work;
here actual existence is taken up freely as one's vocation.
41 Ibid., pp. 65, 66.
42 43Ibid. , p. 66.
Ibid.
 273
As we have shown, this debtless debt in actual existence ap-
pears as shouldering a debt to our "neighbors," to "other
things." This task-character of authentic existence is
other-centered (but not toward some other in an objective
sense).
We must remember, however, that this direction-to-
others is only one side of the circuminsessional interpene-
tration. Its counterpart is that our actual existence
gathers all things in its own "home- ground" and is "lord
everywhere" as the "absolute center of all things." This is
the "like-law" character we discussed in the last chapter.
This true self-centeredness is the self realizing (actual-
izing and comprehending) itself "like-reality" itself. This
is Dagen's "acknowledging"; it is also the recognition that
"the birth-death cycle is, as such, the life of the Buddha"
in the "body and mind fall away; the fallen away is body and
mind" existence.
V. Aspects of Time
The field of emptiness, realized as a dynamic relation-
ship (time, as discussed earlier, as "be"-"do"-"become") at
one with the infinite world-relationship, permits the con-
sideration of time and our actual existence under three as-
pects. First, it has a task-character, it is a "samskrta"
existence that becomes in the world. It arises and vanishes
instantaneously and simultaneously in beginningless and end-
274
less time. Second, in the field of emptiness as absolute
transcendence, our actual existence stands on the "begin-
ning" (a "before" absolutely anterior to time as process)
and on the "end" (posterior to the "future" of any infinite
process) of time; it transcends the "three worlds"; it is
eternal. This aspect, however, is only realized at one with
the first aspect. Third (and therefore) every moment of
"time" is a monad of eternity. 44 Every time-point of the
past and future is contemporary with the present. The eter-
nal present is the place wherein is reflected all pasts and
futures. The past and future can only come into time as the
present moment. In this way the present remains radically
the present but is also the place of all past and future mo-
ments. This does not abolish the order of events, "past"
and "future," but is the place of their possibility of re-
alization. In Yogacara Buddhist terminology we might say
that not only all past and future occurrences, but even
the possibilia that did not occur, are contained in the
"storehouse" or "store-consciousness" of the present. "The
field of reality as circuminsessional interpenetration, in
its capacity of field of emptiness, is a field including,
at the same time, an infinite indetermination or an inex-
haustible possibility. It is the place of the so-called
44
Nishitani has used the term "monad" of eternity rather
than Kiekegaard's "atom" of eternity since the latter im-
plies something fundamental, a discrete part of, but not the
entirety of eternity.
 275
'inexhaustible storehouse inside the no-thing.' " 45
The first aspect is, of course, our everyday way of think-
ing of time without beginning or end and irreversible. This
infinity is the projection within "time" of the infinite
aperture which opens directly beneath our activities in the
present. This "doing" based on this aperture, continuously
an ··r:.ihil·ates being and at the same time createo "new"
being (this is being as becoming). All being is thus con-
tinuously new and each instantaneous "becoming" is for one
time only and thus is irreversible. " • . . the 'newness'
and 'once-ness' (Einmaligkeit) in the present are essential
moments of the historicity of 'time.'" 46 In everyday time
and actual existence we conceptually abstract these moments
and acts out of their real standpoint and come to the idea
of a "progress" or progression through time from past to
future; this is the view of modern secularism. This point
of view is, of course, blind to the aperture of the infinite
which makes possible such a representation. Nihilum, which
is how the aperture is "represented" to us, makes us aware
of the second aspect of time and actual existence, that it
is transcendent as the horizon of eternity. Here we ab-
stract time out of its proper standpoint into a cyclical
view of history. The eternal appears represenced as nihilum
to which all things return and wherein nothing is new. We
45Ibid., p. 84.
46 Ibid. p. 85.
I
276
can see that the first and second aspects are conceptual
opposites; the first positing an infinite linearity and
each moment as new, the second positing cyclical time and
no newness at all in the present. This second aspect is
represented by the ancients in mythological terms as life
within pantheistic nature, et~rnally renewing itself, and
in modern times by the action of the will on the field of
atheistic nihilum. In neither is there a notion of the
"moment" wherein eternity authenticates time as history;
both views de-historicize time.
These two aspects must be seen in their interconnected-
ness; only when time has the simultaneity of now and eter-
nity, the moment and all moments, can a true image of time
and actual existence open up. For Christianity, the " mo-
ment" of original sin opens up the beginning of history.
In our direction-to-others we participate in the simultaneity
of this sin. Christianity presents us with what we might
call a "perspectival" view of time. From the side of man
time is historical (this is time in its first aspect) with
a seemingly endless past and future and all events are new
in every moment. In order to handle the despair this cre-
ates for man, a new view or perspective was thought to be
necessary which may be said to be God's perspective which
sees the totality of time in the present moment. As we have
discussed earlier, this problem is never really resolved.
Time is considered to be radically historical (man's view)
 277
and yet history is seen to have a beginning and an end (God's
view). Secularism and nihilism were, as we have seen, only
partially successful responses to this problem. The Bud-
dhist karma concept, like secularism, considers time to be
without beginning or end and irreversible, but, like nihil-
ism, posits a nihilum at its base as an infinite aperture.
The standpoint of emptiness, then, is the about-face from
that standpoint of karma, wherein the moment is the syn-
thesis of time and eternity where all points of past and
future are simultaneously "kept" in the present of our act-
ual existence. Here all past and future things are stored
in the ground of the present and become the liability and
task of actual existence as a debtless debt.
The original image of that actual e:dstence is best
represented, according to Nishitani (drawing once again up-
on Buddhism), by what is called "the four great vows of
Boddhisattvahood": "However innumerable sentient beings
are, I vow to take them across; however inexhaustible the
passions are, I vow to extinguish them; however, limitless
the dharmas are, I vow to study them; however infinitely
lofty the Buddha Path is, I vow to achieve it. " 47 This is
the limitless nature of actual existence. The first vow is
the direction-to-others and the second through fourth vows
are the direction-to-itself side of actual existence. Bud-
dhism described this as descending to the level of sentient
47 cited by Nishitani, ibid., p. 90.
278
beings to save them and elevating oneself by aiming at the
attainment of enlightenment. These are interdependent and
inseparable dimensions of actual existence. In this con-
text all practice is "religious practice," free and unhindered.
In the standpoint of e~ptiness, all practice is the work of
historical samskrta, ever new, occurring only once here and
now; and also absolutely transcends time and world. Our
actual existence, "as historical samskrta in the present,
emerges, as it were, with an historicity that has its roots
in the field of emptiness, while being radically finite in
every here-and-now moment, is also radically eternal and,
thus, truly infinite. " 48
Nishitani interprets Christianity as recognizing cer-
tain privileged moments: the moment that God created the
world, the moment that Adam committed his sin, the moments
of Christ's birth and resurrection, Christ's second advent,
and perhaps the moment when the self converts in faith.
These moments parallel the Bodhisattva Path as grave and
solemn moments in time. But for Buddhism, from the stand-
point of emptiness all moments of infinite time possess
this gravity, not just certain paradigmatic or archetypal
moments. Every moment is the realization of the gravity of
the present as a monad of eternity and "thereby brings the
gravity of all 'time' to true gravity. " 49
For Nishitani, herein lies an original view of history.
48Ibid. I
p. 92.
49Ibid.
 279
Each of the aspects of time and actual existence is re-
flected in it. The "illusion aspect" (radical finitude),
the "emptiness aspect" (radical infinitude) and the "mid-
dle aspect" (actual existence); these three constitute one
actual existence which, while entering and leaving these
aspects can show its totality in each of them. This is the
freedom and self-sufficiency of actual existence.
VI. Religious Practice: Compassion
In his practical philosophy, Kant emphasized the Person
as an end in itself, never to be treated as a means. Per-
son is the unifying point of the true freedom of the indi-
vidual and the universal law of morality. This point is the
individual behaving subject and the purpose realized by the
behavior. Nishitani maintains that this is the deepest ex-
pression of the subjective self-awareness of modern man.
Ethics is thus seen to reach its peak when the person is an
end in itself and the community of such persons is the
"realm of ends." As we might imagine, however, Nishitani
is not content with this standpoint; it does not exhaust
the subject of ethical behavior. He suggests that the so-
called self-sufficient subject stands on a still more funda-
mental field. The basis of the existence of such a s :.Jbject
does not reside in the subject itself. The ethical stand-
point is incapable of going further; the Kantian observa-
tion is the end of the ethical road. From Nishitani's point
of view, what religion refers to as Love (agape) or Compas-
sion (jihi, karuna) breaks through the merely ethical stand-
280
point as the negation of the "an end in itself" character
of the self. This is not merely the self-denial entailed
in the will defeating the inclinations of the passions and
following the categorical imperative of practical reason.
Love or Compassion is more than coincidence with some moral
code, more than choosing one of two antagonistic actional
directions. Such self-denial as ethics implies is mere
self-direction, the establishment of personhood. The aspect
of the standpoint of emptiness wherein one throws out the
self is religious, it is absolute self-negation.
This love is also more than the fraternal love which
exists in the "realm of ends" where other persons are recog-
nized as ends in themselves. This respect and affection be-
tween persons is not religious "love of ones neighbor."
Just as Nishitani insisted in examining Kant's epistemology
on a higher plane (the knowledge of no-knowledge) so it must
be on the level of behavior that there is a radical about-
face from the standpoint where the self as a person is its
own end, to the standpoint where the self is a means for all
other things. The ".:md" which the self must reach must be
discovered in other things where it enters into their own
home-ground. " • . • , the self as person, the total reality
as such of the self-itself (and this includes even the self's
reason and will) has to become a 'thing' for the others.
This is potisible on the field of emptiness as absolute this-
side."50
so~ .. p. 98.
 281
For the ethical, behaving subject just like the know-
ing subject, the self as "subject" is the self-"itself" pro-
j ected onto the field of reason. This practical projection
is the most intimate projection possible but it lacks the
unity of the self-other of the standpoint of emptiness in
which there is a master-subordinate relationship. Joshn
was called "stone-bridge Joshu" because he was destined (in
his words) "to carry across donkeys and horses." It is a
standpoint where one can "lie under the feet of donkeys,
horses, and inquisitive people." neither the freedom (mas-
ter) nor necessity (subordinate) perspective adequately de-
scribes the standpoint of religious love and religious
practice. Only in the circuminsessional interpenetration,
the doing of not-doing, can we speak properly of Love and
Compassion. The command to "love ones neighbor as oneself"
must not be naively and superficially understood to be one
of quantity or degree; it cuts right to the heart of the
quality of the standpoint of the self as such. Comparison
with others is irrelevant where love consists in the abso-
lute negation of self-love.
Traditional metaphysics distinguished a form and a sub-
stratum (hupokeimenon) or matter which received the form.
It is this field or substratum that makes possible the love
of ones neighbor as oneself; it appears only when the self
is made nothingness. The world in its suchness opens up
only in the "as itself" of such religious love. This "as"
282
is exactly the "like" of "like-reality." This field is the
field of transcendence of existence and the foundation of
the possibility of the world and the "in-itself" existence
of things. As a field it is essentially prior to existence.
"Therefore, the standpoint of loving one's neighbour as one-
self, the standpoint of seeing oneself in the others, is the
self's being in the home-ground of the other~ in the 'nothing-
ness' of the self and, at the same time, the ?thers' being
in the home-ground of the self in that same 'nothingness'
51
of the sel£." Whereas in Christianity such love is re-
served solely for human beings, for Buddhism and for Nishi-
tani it has to be a field of love of all living beings and
even of love of all "things." Man is more than merely hu-
man in the field or standpoint of subjectum or hupokeimenon.
This is not the "matter" of modern science but the fact of
being itself without form and at one and the same tim~ con-
stituting the base of all things that have a form. It is
more than the limit of things in the direction of the death
of things. We might say that the "matter" of modern science
is a reduction of the "matter" of the traditional metaphysics
whereas the "matter" of religious love is its absolutiza-
tion in affirmation-sive-negation. The latter is the limit
of things in the direction of the Great Death of the self.
·~ ere the self, in the act itself of possessing a body, con-
sciousness, personality, attains the position of a 'thing,'
51
rbid., p. 105.
 283
of 'matter'; it gets into the role of an 'instrument.' In
other words, without ceasing to be a human being, the self
stands on the field of the mode of being that has freed it-
self of human nature." 52
Nishitani has spoken frequently of "doing" as taking
on the character of "religious practice," especially in con-
nection with his discussion of practicing ~ and prac-
ticing the way of Buddha. He does not mean that the original
face shows itself exclusively in the practice of Buddhism
or the Buddhist "religion." This would be to fall immedi-
ately into the pitfall of what he considers the fundamental
shortcoming of much of the Judeo-Christian tradition--its
exclusivism. There are, obviously, many interpretations of
such doct~ines of karma within Buddhism itself. Nishitani
makes the explicit claim to take no particular religion or
philosophy as a basis for his though~53 His aim has been
and is an investigation of the original image of reality
and of man. He includes, therefore, anti-religious and
anti-philosophical standpoints, e.g., Nietzsche and secular
scientism. He does admit, however, that in Buddhism, and
especially in Zen Buddhism, this original image is very,
perhaps most, clearly set forth.
This is evident in his reliance on ideas derived from
Buddhism and Zen, e.g .• Degen's "to acknowledge birth-death
52 rbid., p. 106.
53 For example, ibid., p. 73.
284
as the life of the Buddha." and his interpretation of this
as the realization (achievement-comprehension) of the mind
of the Tathagata. He relies especially heavily upon the
Buddhist doctrines of anatman, anicca, dukkha, avidya, and
karma as well as samsara, nirvana and sunyata. He has, of
course, continually interpreted these in terms of western
thought as well. Christian thought is often paralleled
with Pure Land thought and the compassionate Christ often
seen paralleled to the Bodhisattva. In this context it is
easy to understand Nishitani's use of such remarks as
Degen's "Before it crosses to the beyond, the self take ..
across all the others," and Kiyozawa Manshi's "The self is
nothing other than a being that trusts itself without re-
serve to the absolutely infinite wonderful working, and with -
out its own interference leaving all things to the Law,
dwells in this visible world while dropping it," or Shin-
ran's "One who lives in the faith is called equal to the
Tathagata. A mind of Great Faith is Buddha-Nature and Bud-
dha-Nature is Tathagata." 54 Here Nishitani is affirming
the variety of expressions of "religious practice" wherein
invoking the name of Amida is religious practice of the
original self but is not merely the diligence of the prac-
titioner; it is unhindered "play." He is affirming in all
these contexts the "task-character" of our actual existence.
Both the direction-to-itself and the direction-to-others is
54
rbid., p. 74, 75,
 285
here affirmed. Dogen's remark represents the direction-to-
others in the same sense that Rinzai's "If you meet a Bud-
dha, kill him; if you meet a patriarch, kill him; if you
meet a sage, kill him; if you meet your father and mother,
slay them; if you meet your relatives, slay them. Only
then you shall obtain liberation. This is the nobility of
dwelling in oneself, transparent and free, without depen-
dence on persons or things," 55 represents the direction-to-
itself. The field of itself and others opens up in actual
existence. Becoming aware of that field is the self trust-
ing itself. The true self becomes centered in the about
face from nihilum to the field of emptiness, from the field
of karma to the field of non-ego. This is the "killing" of
the self in the sense of "If you meet the Buddha, kill him."
It is the opening up of the Right Path. When viewed from
this standpoint, Nishitani maintains, the "original play"
of Heraclitus and Nietzsche can hardly be maintained to have
reached the true standpoint. It does not contain the other-
centeredness whereby the self becomes emptied of itself.
Theirs retains the "will" standpoint.
The oneself in "as oneself" is a self absolutely brought
to "nothingness." The field of religious Love or Compas-
sion is more than a field for the love of ones neighbor only.
That Buddhism extends religious compassion to all living
55 cited by Nishitani, ibid., p. 76.
286
beings is the essence of Buddhism as a religion. 56 Even in
Christianity there is St. Francis of Assisi who called all
things "brother" and "sister." These are not figures of
speech as Nishitani reads St. Francis, they are the way St.
Francis encountered these things in actual existence.
The Aristotelian contemplative life represents only one
side of the highest standpoint of all; it represents the
practice of an abstraction: God as "thinking of thinking."
". . . as soon as thinking tries to make explicit the latent
ontological factors, ontology becomes theological instead
of philosophical, and theology itself tends to become a dog-
matics that wants to exclude philosophy altogether." 57 This
is an exclusivistic form of perfection and self-sufficiency.
For Nishitani, perfection "should include the field where
infinitely unfinished and imperfect things and, moreover,
'anti-perfect' things like sin and karma are brought into
being in all their possibility and actuality. ,SS True per-
fection lies in the unity of Aristotelian "perfection"
and its infinite opposites. True self-sufficiency is
"emptying" oneself and thus bringing all thir,gs to be. This
56 It is this all-inclusiveness that highlights the limits
of Buber' s category of "I-Thou" which is a category reserved
to human beings. As Nishitani says, "With regard to a human
being, the dimension out of which a 'thou' confronts an 'I'
is completely erased."
57Nishitani Keiji, "Ontology and Utterance," p. 12. A
paper delivered at the Fourth International Consultation on
Hermeneutics, October 2, 1970, Syracuse University.
58
Nishitani Keiji, "Emptiness and History," p. 109.
 287
is the implication of the shift from Hinayana Buddhism to
Mahayana Buddhism. A modern commentator may be understood
as describing both this shift and Nishitani's method (and
its limits) in his observation that: "The negative dialec-
tic does not lead to the understanding of the Ultimate Truth
but prepares the ground for the true insight to be gained
through concentration. Prajna transcends reason and can
only, if imperfectly, be described as a mystical intuition
which sees by way of not seeing (adarsanayogena), From a
philosophical point of view the Madhyamika system is the
culmination of a basic tendency in Buddhism which consists
in the emptying of ontological categories • • . • The Ulti-
mate Truth cannot be described with words or concepts but
the insight gained in concentration, enables the Yogin to
use his dialectical reason on the plane of samvrti in order
to demonstrate the unsubstantiality of all dharmas, Nirvana
included ... sg
Are these standpoints of love and compassion related
to a worldview? Nishitani represents modern science and
traditional metaphysics as concerned with "matter" in the
direction of death. Traditional metaphysics, however, made
form the center of its worldview and its teleological focus
turned in the direction of form as life, the self-preserva-
tion of things. I~ the standpoint of emptiness, however,
there is neither focus upon the direction of death nor upon
59 J. W. DeJong, "Emptiness," Journal of Indian Phi-
losophy, Vol. 2 (1972), p. 14.
288
the direction of life. As we said, it takes the direction
of "Great Death." In accordance with the Buddhist expres-
sion, "In Great Death heaven and earth are new for the first
time," we have here a world beyond mechanism (modern sci-
ence) and teleology (metaphysics). Their limits are what
prompt Nishitani to say, "Man's thinking seems . to have
become optimistic enough to find a positive meaning in its
own restlessness--which is now called progress--by expelling
every kind of metaphysics, it has enhanced the physical to
the point that even man's being comes to be located therein.
Th1Js, finally, metaphysics itself has begun • • . to find
in process itself the ultimate meaning as reality." 60 It
is the world of original reality in which all things are
truly "like" (such). Here the field of emptiness, the field
of the Great Death, is also the field of the resurrection
of the self.
In the circuminsessional relationship we have the radi-
calization of two perfectly contradictory standpoints being
made perfectly one. The true freedom realized here is not
simply a matter of freedom of will; this is merely the field
of self-consciousness. In-itself freedom is not the liber-
tine freedom of subjectivity. Likewise true equality is not
equal human rights and possessions, the self-centered mode
of being in desires and passions.
60
Nishitani Keiji, "Ont0logy and Utterance," p. 3.
 289
True freedom, . . • is absolute self-rule as
'having nothing to rely on' in the field of empti-
ness • • • . True equality, . • . is an equality
that exists, so to speak, in an exchange of abso-
lute inequality in a reciprocity wherein the self
and the other stand, at the same time, in the posi-
tion of a lord and of a servant with regard to each
other; it is an equality in love.6l
61 Nishitani Keiji, "Emptiness and History," p. 114.
CONCLUSIONS
What then, finally, are we to make of Nishitani's under-
standing of Religion? What, if any, are the possible impli-
cations for Buddhism, or even more pertinently, for modern
man whose situation Nishitani shares and to whom he directs
his remarks? On the one hand it seems safe to say that Nishi-
tani is not merely an apologist for the Buddhist tradition
since he makes no stra~ghtforward attempt to explicate in any
systematic way the doctrines of Buddhism. On the other hand
it is clear that he is immensely indebted to Buddhism in that
he makes use of the explication of particular doctrines or
key concepts such as samsara, karma, sunyata, etc. in his
probing of the question "What is Religion?" We have not
chosen to analyze his indebtedness and relation to other,
more contemporary Buddhist, particularly Japanese Buddhist,
thinkers because we have wanted to examine Nishitani's work
on one subject only--that of religion--in the larger context
of the comparative study of religion. He may profitably be
seen as a bridge between, on the one hand, the traditional
western formulations of the nature of human existence and
their failure to alleviate the suffering of modern man, and
on the other, the insights gained from an examination of tra-
ditional Buddhist formulations. He attempts to speak to
modern man wherever he may be found by pointing out the weak-
 291
nesses of various notions central to Christianity such as its
treatment of God in personal terms and its elevation of his-
tory to almost ontological status by showi~g the limits of
scientific thought in its failure to integrate its insights
into the nature of substance with the suffering condition of
the scientist, and by showing that though Nietzsche was aware
of and pointed out the limits of the Christian and =ational
scientific understandings he was not able to provide a reso-
lution to man's problems which was not itself caught up in
the subject-object duality. One might well ask how pointing
out the weaknesses of other systems of thought can be any
help in itself. Indeed Nishitani is suggesting that the des-
pair of western man generally has not been deep enough and
that he suffers from a misplaced confidence. Like Descartes
he has doubted but he has substituted for his early belief
in the reality of objective existence an uncritical and sup-
posedly indubitable trust in subjectivity. From Descartes
through Kierkegaard and the Existentialists man has continued
to cling to his self-centered, his ego-centric, mode of per-
ception. Nishitiani's program, like that of traditional Bud-
dhism, is to point out the inadequacy of that understanding
of the self.
What kind of enterprise, then, is that of Nishitani?
is, in hjs examination of religion, an attempt to realize Re-
ality via a consideration of the fundamental question "What
is Religion?" He does this by a careful examination of Bud-
292
dhist doctrine under two rubrics. In the epistemological
realm of cognition he asks how does one know. In this light
he focuses upon mythical, intuitive and scientific modes of
apprehension, shows the inherent limits of each and offers
the negative dialectic of Buddhist teaching about Emptiness
in their place. In the ontological realm of thought and con-
sciousness he attempts to set forth levels of Reality, fields
or places whereon Reality may be encountered. Using the
epistemological tool of the negative dialectic he shows the
limits of sense perception and consciousness as inadequate to
the realization of Reality and posits the place of Emptiness
as the place of the Real--a place to be ~ncountered in every-
day existence. The realization of Emptiness throws the in-
quirer, no lonser a conscious, sensuous ego but as a True
Self, back into the world of samsara. it is, however, a
samsara that is no longer felt as a logical contradiction
subject to conscience and certainty. Rather it is the sam-
sara of samsara = nirvana. It is this latter project which
signifies Nishitani's concern for humanity generally. It is
this that makes the Boddhisattva the paradigm, however
emptied of essence and substance, for Nishitani's enterprise.
Let us recapitulate briefly how this takes place and
It indicate how Nishitani's thought contributes to the unde=-
standing of mankind gen~rally and is, therefore, not confined
to modern Japan more specifically.
As we have suggested, Nishitani's choice of the question
 293 294

"What is Religion?" is not an indication of an attempt to Noesis and ~· awareness and that oi which we are aware,

define or delimit a field of study or academic preoccupation. knower and known must always be understood (comprehended)

He is posing the most fundamental of questions--a problem in relation to one another. Nishitani's task at this level

vital to life itself. Its necessity as a problem of human is to make explicit the hidden. This is the first layer of

life lies in its causing us to return to the source of life, his criticism. It is generated by his experience of suffer-

"where life is something beyond function or utility, that ing and the nihilum and is his way of positing himself toward

is, where our usual way of life is surpassed and \vhere our that experience. It is his activity at the level of con-

ordinary mode of being is broken-through ... l It is an in- sciousness. He seizes upon crises from his own experience

tensely personal question and cannot be understood from out- and the experiences of others (e.g. Descartes, Echart, Nie-

side, i.e., it cannot be conceptually understood in terms of tzsche, etc.) in the history of man; analyzes them in terms

an objective answer to a subjective question. of their seriousness and makes his radical critique of their

The resolution to the problem as he poses it is immedi- proposed resolutions. He judges them in terms not only of

ately before us but is not a static "solution" as such. It their internal consistency--indeed this is secondary --but

cannot be reified in terms of archetypes or paradigms of re- in terms of how adequately they perceive the fundamental prob-

ligious experience or revelations of religious truth. Man's lem of man and how adequate are their answers to this problem.

fundamental problem is a form of ego-inebriation, the con- He is in this sense always engaged in the normative enter-

sciousness of one's own-being as permanent in a world of prises.

change. For Nishitani, this fundamental avidya must be ex- Taken as a whole, Nishitani's work on religion does two

tinguished in favor of self-awareness which transcends this things minimally. It asserts certain things to be the case,

ego-centric, conscious field. Our ego-centric awareness, e.g., that the nature of life is suffering, that the teleo-

whether we describe it in terms of belief, emotions, or any logical and scientific worldviews are inadequate, etc. It is,

other aspect of consciousness and experience, encounters the at the same time, communicative. Its arguments, since they

world and formulates its ordinary awareness in terms of dual- are, in the realm of language, both false and necessary, must

ity. For Nishitani, in common with other philosophers, there be considered in light of how they point beyond the particu-

must always be a fundamental or essential correlation between lars of the argument. For Nishitani, the True and the False,

the two poles of each duality at the level of consciousness. the epistemological enterprise and even ontological claims

1Keiji Nishitani, ''vrnat is Religion?", p. 22.

 295 296

tani's view virtually all of western thought on the subject

operate at different levels depending upon the status of the
of religion operates at the level of conventional truth.
inquirer. In accord with earlier Buddhist thought, there is
This is not the same as saying that all western men have
no substratum of being to which truth points or which is
failed to realize their True Self. Nishitani does not con-
symbolized by words, myths, rituals, etc. Furthermore, re-
sider the normative enterprise to be equivalent to this.
ality must be realized (in the sense of understood and
He is only concerned to point out the falsity (along with
actualized) at different levels. We have used the phrase
the necessity) of the contributions he analyzes, most notably
"negative dialectics" to distinguish a method of apprehending
those of Christianity and modern science. Indeed it seems
religious experience or, in the case of Nishitani, of under-
safe to say that Nishitani would accept the likelihood of
standing the nature of Reality. This negative dialectic has
either view providing the stimulus for individuals transcend-
its base in the !:\-TO-level theory of truth of Nagarj una. Con-
ing the particulars of either view (this would be their com-
ventional truth (samvriti) is the level of category mistakes
municative function). At the same time it is clear that he
s~ch as the reification of categories and symbols, and of
does not think this as likely as might be made possible by
conceptual distortions such as the permanence of the self
Buddhism. \vitness to this is the failure of either system
which produce suffering and existential illusion. On the
to minister to the needs of modern suffering humanity. This
other hand, the highest truth (paramartha), though it is
is, of course, Ni::ihitani 's own criticism and need not reflect
trans-conceptual (sunya), cannot be reached without using con-
the actual status of either Christianity or modern science,
ventional truth as a ladder, Thus Nishitani's effort can be
It is important, though, to note that Nishitani's criticism
seen in this light as having that communicative--perhaps even
would apply to any system which takes Being as its metaphysi-
soteriological--function whereby the whole of the enterprise,
cal base and is not, therefore, a simply narrow-minded or
while being false and limited by its conceptual apparatus, is
parochial one.
an indicator of a truth beyond :hc~c limits. In this way
Further, it is even the case that Hishitani encourages
emptiness (sunyata) is the key term in Nishitani's thought
the confrontation with the nihilum which Christianity and
just as it was in Nagarjuna's. It functions, like Nishitani's
modern science also encounter. He has, however, a somewhat
larger enterprise, as a reflexive term, a self-describer
different notion of what constitutes modernity which is remi-
which refers to no simply empirical reality without our experi-
niscent of Vimalakirti's "taking form in response to the thing
ence of space and time. It is easy to see then that in Nishi-
 297
confronted" except that, whereas Vimalakirti considered this
to be tied up inextricably with suffering, Uishitani relates
this to the situation of modern man and suggests it is the
field of suffering itself. Modernity is the context within
which the fundamental problem is to be found and experienced
but is not suffering itself. In fact, modernity is precisely
the projection of the suffering self out over the abyss of
nihilum into the Great Doubt. Modernity is a radica~ open-
ness to change; as the context of religion it is the willing-
ness to forsake old content (the reified paradigms and sym-
bols) and, as a kind of metaphysical revolution, provide a new
language within which to realize the True Self. In this
sense, modernity functions too as a reflexive indicator.
is the domain of things and events in their everyday sense
and can be understood by the enlightened as the contemporary
structure of life and death, i.e., as the samsara of nirvana
samsara.
For Nishitani, then, religion involves ceasing to take
for granted the seemingly unproblematic; questioning the
formerly unquestioned. It involves a resolution proportional
to the seriousness of the commitment. Further, it takes place
in a context to which it is correlative with different levels
of perception and difficulty. The contexts which Nishitani
has examined include those of Christianity, modernization,
science and myth. Buddhism provides his own point of departure,
his own critical apparatus.
298
Nishitani notes a shift in the fundamental spirit of
man from the religious spirit which was predominant in the
wesc until the end of the medieval period, to the scientific
mind of the discoverers of the modern period. Formerly all
aspects of human existence were unified on the basis of the
religious perspective of all social, private and political
life. The struggle began long before this time but received
its major impetus after the medieval period. The struggle
appeared in the form of scientific efforts to explain and
clarify so-called irrational elements of human life. Relig-
ion has been considered by science to be the source for error
and irrationality. Considered as mere myth, religion was
It thought of as superstition based on fantasy or illusion and
as pre-rational.
From this point of view, all criticisms of religion
tend to appear anti-religious rather chan constructive. The
problem is inherent in the general tendency toward a
mechanized worldview which gradually comes to include the
compartmentalizing, segmenting, reductionistic analysis of
every aspect of human existence. Person-to-person relation-
ships do not lend themselves to such an analysis. Nishitani
regards as necessary an anarnesis or recollection of a view
based on life in an organically animated nature in its most
pristine form; a return to the power of the root sources of
life itself. Nishitani proposes a return to the "fountain-
head of the present historical and cultural life, in other
 300
299

the scientist as a human being and the use of its methods

words, to return to the mythical world as the genesis of
by all human beings. When the scientific rationalist "ac-
every culture, namely, as an origin from which every culture
2 cepts the standpoint of science as his own 'personal' prob-
came, as from the mother's womb. " This return does not
lem and tries to carry it out conscientiously, a great de-
merely hark back to archaic time but recalls the beginnings
struction and distress must necessarily happen inwardly." 4
of history in the "instant" of the intersection of eternity
Man gets himself involved in destroying the ground for God,
in the continuum of past and future, in the eternal now.
human nature and morality within himself. Few people, of
The general developmental path of the world's religions,
course, actually accept science as a personal problem. They
including Christianity, has also tended to be a process of
do not actually engage science "existentially" and tend to
gradually breaking down this position based on myth. How-
adopt a basic position similar to that of the atheist. Con-
ever, with the Cartesian dualistic and mechanistic considera-
fident that science (and thus themselves as "scientific"
tion of the ego set against the natural world, the mythic
persons) can go on progressing endlessly, they are never led
understanding of the world was largely abandoned. Conscious-
co question their own existence until some existential drama
ness and its extensions were considered a more sophisticated
grasps them and they find themselves powerless and unprepared
and useful way of coming to grips with the world, or reality.
for such a confrontation. Such reflection upon their o~n
The more sympathetic, psychic relationship, however, need
being leads them toward nihiEsm. !1odern science does not
not be abandoned. In fact, as Nishitani maintains, such
take seriously the question it poses to itself. This is not
sympathy means a "direct contact, before and more direct
nihilism as mere feelin8, thought or notion; it is the shat-
than consciousness; it is the field of the most immediate
tering of the very foundational presuppositions of the sci-
encounter between man and man in the impulsive and instinct-
entific method. We have, then, a situation in which science
ive which lies hidden at the base of emotions, desires and
and myth are mutually destroyin8 one another's foundations.
thoughts. " 3 Still, Nishitani maintains that this pre-con-
In reaction, Nishitani says, we have a situation where
scious level, like its more scientific successor, is finally
the mythical wan':.:; to recollect and the mythical and the sci-
unsatisfactory for the religious quest.
entific are breaking down each other. "Generally viewing
Science itself becomes a problem in the existence of
history down to the present, if, in a certain period, the
2Keiji Nishitani, "The Problem of Myth," p. 52.
4 Idem., "The Problem of Hyth," p. 54.
3Idem., "What is Religion?" p. 31.
 301
302

scientific position gains power and a trend of total

or common sense, The universe as bottomless becomes the
mechanization arises, then as a reaction against it appears
arena or place for abandoning the self, the field for the
a position which emphasizes something irrational or on-
occurrence of the Great Death. The myth of eschatology is
analysable by scientific understanding, for instance, life,
thus demythologized and turned into the religiosity of che
emotion, experience or inspiration. The latter usually
Great Death of the questioner. For Zen, the sword which
reaches something which is religious in the last analysis
brings death also brings life. "Just where everything is
and is connected with something mythical in the broad
negated radically and brought to ultimate extinction--just
sense." 5 The alternating of these emphases points to the
there, an indication of the life path is given by the mas-
fact that neither of them alone can support human life. ter,"6
This is the mahakaruna or Great Compassion side of
The question arises whether it is correct for religions
Buddhism, This grand exposure is none other than the Truth
to try to challenge science by holding on to their old tele-
itself. Natural phenomena retain, of course, their char-
ological worldview? This worldview grasps unfailingly to an
acter as fact within their respective disciplines; it is
environment based on life and the face of bottomless death
when confronted with bottomlessness that a phenomenon be-
rarely shows itself. Thus it is that there is an indispen-
comes more meaningful. Here there is more "truth" and more
sable element lacking in traditional deity-centered religions
"fact" than is ordinarily experienced, The point is that
in their refusal to face so obvious an element as the end
such a dimension can only open up through the religious
of life in a really satisfying way. The man of this religious
existence which accepts the universe as the place for the
outlook finds himself grasping at the wispy straw of life
abandoning of self; only through the Great Death, Here the
(ignoring the fact of death) much in the same way the sci-
world is neither merely one of material things nor one of
entist works his mechanical magic, oblivious to the fact that
life, i.e., neither the world in its aspect of death nor in
the personal aspect of his life exists apart from the mechani-
its aspect of life. The bottomless field of such existence
cal, material universe he observes.
should not be thought of as mere space; it is none other than
Zen masters have traditionally offered bottomless no-
the essence of the religious existence itself, Reality and
thingness, the "unspeakably awesome cold" as a reality of
appearance are merely "The Sole Self-Exposed One" appearing
religious existence on a dimension higher than chat of science
in and as all things (or phenomena) "so that it: makes, by
5 rbid.,p. 53. 6
Keij i Nishi tani, "Science and Zen," p. 9 3.

303
hiding Itself as Itself, all things (or phenomena) Its own
'appearances' with their character of unreality and untruth
and at the same time gives to the same appearances, in and
as which It appears, the character of truth and reality
which all things (or phenomena) have as 'facts.' These two
aspects are essentially inseparable, they constitute one
and the same essence of the religious existence.,] This
is Tathata (True Suchness) as it is called in Buddhism.
Nishitani clearly points out that whereas, tradition-
ally, theocentric religions brought great insight to man re-
garding his position in the universe, it remained for the
scientific vision to make clear the ultimate poverty of its
own and the pre-scientific approach when pursued to their
ultimate conclusions. Religion must have more of a cosmic
universality. tiishitani is not hesitant in pointing to Bud-
dhism and Zen Buddhism as sources of the type of suggestions
we have discussed above. He readily acknowledges that
Japanese Buddhism seems to have little effect on men's lives
today but argues that the direction provided by Buddhism is
the right one. It aims to transform man's inner mind radi-
cally and permits man's inner being to come into full flower.
It is a religion of transcendence in that it offers man a way
to break through day to day existence amid suffering and at-
tain nirvana, the extinguishing of the Kalpa-fires. It
strives to awaken the authentic nature of man, the dharma-
7 8Keiji Nishitani, "The Awakening of Self in Buddhism,"
Ibid., p. 101.
304
nature. 8
Nishitani does not think of Buddhism as the same as
Religion. Religion at its fundament deals with the rela-
tions between men and God and the world. Buddhism at its
fundament deals with the background making such relation
possible. The question does not stop with God (the Abso-
lute) and man but is directed toward the "place" making re-
la.t:i.on possible. "Place" is not brought from "somewhere"
outside man; it is taken as essentially connected with man's
being and the being of the Absolute. Nishitani calls it
the "place of possibility," "place of fundament."
Buddhism is a religion to the extent that it talks of
the relation between man and the Buddha. Nirvana is the
fundament in which Gautama becomes the Buddha; where man is
no more man. The Buddha is the only awakened one, tathata- -
"the one that is in its suchness, in its authentic reality."
Buddha is the True Man; not a being bound by time and space
but the fundamental possibility of man. The fundamental
possibility of man is man in his True Reality. Reality is
thus trans-metaphysical, "the possibility of Buddhahood,"
"the mother of all Buddhas." Other modem ideologies have
failed to know or recognize Nothingness as the religious
Self-realization of "Human-Being"-ness. This destroys all
social, psychological, material or any other distinctions
and moves beyond the pseudo-world of the dualism of subject/
pp. 1-ll.
 305
object.
It is, of course, crucial what kind of everyday af-
fai rs, the things and events of the everyday world, are
a tt ended to. Today's generally perceived collapse of norms
and values is defined by the historical situation or con-
t ext of the various religions of the world but, Nishitani
would maintain, not for all time, i.e., not paradigmatically.
I t i s precisely this overconfidence in history itself that
exacerbates the problem. There is operating here a kind of
preliminary and deceptive enlightenment that is typical of
western thought. It is that western scientific man's view
of his problem is based in an explicit or implicit belief in
two things. First of all the world as believed in is a kind
~f animal faith, an instinct, a primordial commitment.
Secondly, there is the undoubted belief in the self (or the
self as believing in the world). The development of west-
ern philosophical and scientific thought may be seen (is
seen by Nishitani) as the gradual realization that whatever
is, is strictly correlative to, a function of, our subjective
beliefs. This confidence in the rational scientific mind of
modern man has often displaced, but continued to function
as, his earlier concern for the numinous. In Nishitani's
eyes, whether in the religious thought of Eckhart, the athe-
ism of Sartre, the nihilism of Nietzsche or the science of
modern man, this must be finally the process of the cor. ; cious
correlation of subject and object, of awareness and tha~ of
306
which the subjective self is aware. This is ~. the source
of the problem, and can never yield the resolution. This is
a correlation by analysis rather than any "whole bodily ex-
perience" in which a radical doubt via the "negative dia-
lectic, " resolving to stop at nothing, taking nothing for
granted, strips everything of being and lays bare the funda-
ment of emptiness.
We might say that traditional religions and traditional
western thought offer phenomenological descriptions of the
world based upon various ontologies. Intuited or "revealed"
structures lead to or order experiences which are observed
by man's consciousness of his own sense perceptions via his
observation of himself. These archetypes are the false part
of paradigmatic or exemplary acts performed by gods and
heroes of religion and science. The assumption is that re-
ligious experience is reducible to these conscious struc-
tures.
In contrast we might say that Nishitani offers an on-
tology, false and necessary, based on a phenomenology.
Lived experience leads him to temporary structures such as
his levels of Reality which must in turn be radically
critiqued. The "whole bodily experience" involves the whole
heart-mind moving from avidya, with its dukkha/pathos, to the
realization that fire does not burn fire. If Nishitani has
not finally told us "What is Religion?", he has provided us
with a clearer picture of what it is not. This too is con-
 307
sistent with his predecessors in the world of Buddhism,
As Edward Conze has said of Madhyamika, "In this way the
understanding of the conditioned, when carried on long
enough, automatically leads to the appreciation of the
Unconditioned, ,g
It only remains for us to ask certain questions of
Nishitani's work in the same spirit in which he has examined
the work of others before him. It is clearly the case that
all criticisms as well as approbations of Nishitani's work
finally hinge on the reader's view of the role of language,
We must note that there is a long-standing tradition in Bud-
dhism and Chinese thought of the kind of trans-logical,
multi-perspectival use of language which Nishitani has ap-
propriated and used, Further, there is evidence in the
phenomenological movement in the !·lest as well as among such
thinkers as Heidegger of a longing to move, if little suc-
cess in moving, in this direction,
Perhaps the most severe questions must be raised over
whether Nishitani's work has communicative value, whether it
does ease the suffering of modern man. It seems likely that
the criticism levelled against earlier Madhyarnikan and sub-
sequent Zen proponents might well be levelled against Nishi-
tani as well. The teachings of Madhyamika and of Zen have
often been accused of offering little comfort to the layman
or the man of common sense with access only to conventional
9 name of Amida or the incantation of the "namu Mhoho Rhnge
Edward Conze, Buddhist Thought in India: Three Phases
of Buddhist Philosoph~ (Ann Arbor: The University of Michi-
gan Press, 1970), p. 41.
308
truths. It takes what amounts to an act of faith for these
persons to persist in understanding the conditioned so as
to be led automatically to the appreciation of the Uncon-
ditioned,10 If Madhyamikan subtleties were largely appre-
ciated by the man in the forest, so Nishitani's subtleties
are likely to be largely appreciable to the philosopher.
But, at the same time, if our fundamental problem is
merely perpetuated when we cling to systems of thought at
the level of consciousness or cling to the reality of para-
digms at the level of mythic or sensual perception, then
Nishitani's work has the power to dissuade by negation, It
is further noteworthy that the effort of negation and the
results of the negation both take place in J framework of
compassion. Neither belies the slightest trace of personal
animosity or egocentricity--rather it reveals a depth of
compassion difficult to find elsewhere in radical criticism.
Indeed it would appear that Nishitani in some sense is sug-
gesting the substitution of this religious inquiry along
philosophical lines for the meditation which was so central
for Madhyamika and Zen, It is a systemati~ meditation in
which emptiness is the object of rapt contemplation and where
precise philosophical formulations are a form of grasping and
10 It was in consideration of this problem and in the con-
text of the age of mdp~9 that Japanese Buddhist thinkers such
as Honen, Shinran an ~chiren were moved to find ways, in
this degenerate age, for the ignorant to realize the Dharma
through simple acts of faith such as the recitation of the
Kyo." This is found even in the Zen of Dagen w o emp asued
za~~n or just sitting.
 309 310

attachment that deserve only contempt. Though this form the heart of western philosophy and has, at the same time,

of meditation may not be accessible to all and indeed may made a strong case for the West's failure to come to equal

only be accessible to those of sufficient philosophical terms with eastern thought, most particularly Buddhism.

subtlety, it is consistent with general Buddhist teaching If the question is raised whether or not Nishitani has

that meditations exist on different levels. The degree of misunderstood the West by selecting out certain representa-

realization which the faculty of wisdom has achieved is one tive thinkers and even further by quoting out of context,

such consideration as is the aspect of the Dharma which is i.e., that he is an exegete or even an eisagete rather than

being meditated upon. In the former consideration, Nishi- --"rather than what?" one is tempted to ask. It is his ex-

tani, like the Zen tradition before him, assumes an integrity pressed purpose to speak to the larger question "What is

and seriousness of purpose--a depth of suffering--which makes Religion?" rather than comprehend or explicate the subtleties

the inquiry or meditation worth undertaking. In the latter of any particular theological position. To this end he feels

consideration, he has provided us with an investigation at perfectly justified in criticizing the intentional and con-

the level of ontology and at the level of epistemology with- ceptual weaknesses of any given thinker or theologian. For

out reifying either. He subjects both being and knowing to example, he is not critizing the religious experience of

the ruthless scalpel of the negative dialectic. In this Eckhart but rather is showing the inadequacy of Eckhart's ex-

manner the various levels of Reality reveal in referential position of it, pointing out the communicative deficiencies

ways nothingness as the fundamental place of possibility. ..

of Eckhart's explanation of his experience, his witness to

If we are tempted to ask if Nishitani' s categories or an experience that may, itself, have been valid. In this

levels of Reality are universal and applicable to homo re- light one might say that of course Nishitani has not answered

ligiosus everywhere we can answer with a clear yes. Onto- the question he raises himself but he has facilitated the

logically, epistemologically and civilizationally they are resolution of other men's problems by showing up the defects

not bound. On the simple principle of inclusivity they en- in various other metaphysical or ontological statements. He

compass more of man's religious experience than Being-oriented has used language and concepts to show the inherent limits

categories or descriptions of reality which must fall short of all language, including that of Eckhart.

of elucidating the problem of nihilism and nothingness. Nishi- Is such an enterprise morally destructive? Does a two-

tani has clearly shown that he is capable of penetrating to level theory of truth lead to ethical anarchy? Perhaps.
 312
311

tivity is precisely this emptying process. For Nishitani,

Nishitani intends only to show that morality does not precede
the human condition is one of ignorance (an existential and
but rather follows upon the realization of the True Self.
ontological thirst) wherein he clings to things and events
All ethical and moral systems are mere conceptualizations of
at the level of sense perception and consciousness. All
a reified pure type. In the context of the religious sangha
ontological categories are empty, they are negative and
or community it may be advantageous for those whose faculties
dialectical--the paradigms are empty of Reality. One is
of wisdom is less mature to adhere to the sila or vinaya, but
as the history of Buddhism testifies, these are not set in tempted to consider Nishitani's work as a philosopher of
religion in the same relation to post-Platonic, Being-
stone for all time; rather they are preliminary, disciplinary
centered western thought as Nagarjuna's work stood to the
guidelines which facilitate the maturation of the faculty of
Abhidharmic tradition before him.
wisdom and make possible the working of the faculty of compas-
sion. It is not Nishitani's intention to s~ggest ethics and
morality are inappropriate but rather that they are prelimi-
nary guidelines and ultimately empty. They may be altered
as the human and civilizational context demands.
Nishitani's work as a philosopher from a "non-western"
tradition can and does shed light upon the human condition;
moreover it is cast in the contemporary situation and thus
does not perpetuate the (perhaps) naive view that the distant
past or "progress" toward an uncertain future hold any hope
for suffering man. By showing that the structures of re-
ligious apprehension have no reality of their own, Nishitani
is able to speak more directly to contemporary man. As a
form of language these structures are necessary but they are
also false. In this context modern man is encouraged to em-
brace modernity as a social reality in the context of which
he seeks to alleviate his own suffering. Religious crea-
 313 314

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• "Harmony of Religion and Science." Japan Studies.
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No. 9, 2-8. No translator given.
. "Japan in the Contemporary World." Japan Studies.
---~E~d. and pub, International Institute for Japan Studies.
No. 13, 1-6. No translator given.
. "Japan in the World." Japan Studies. Ed. and pub.
---·I-nternational Institute for Japan Studies, No. 2, 2-9.
No translator given.
• "Kami and Fundamental Experience" from The Concept
---~o~f KAMr:--Offprint from the Proceedings of the Second
International Conference for Shinto Studies. No date.
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. "Nihilism and Sunyata." Trans. Yamamoto Seisaku.
----T~h~e Eastern Buddhist, New Series, IV, No. 2 (October
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(October 1972), 95-106. Chapter Three of Shuky5 to wa
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 317
Nishitani, Keiji, "On Modernization and Tradition in Japan."
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. "On the I-Thou Relation in Zen Buddhism." Tr.:~ns.
cwrman Waddell. The Eastern Buddhist, New Seriel'l, II
No. 2 (1969) , 71- •
• "The Personal and the Impersonal in Religion,"
------·t-rans. Rev, Jan van Bragt and Yamamoto Seisaku, The
Eas~ern Buddhist, New Series, III, No, 1 (June 1~)
1-18; No. 2 (October 1970), 80-88, Chapter Two of
ShUkyo to wa Nanika.
•
"Preliminary Remark" to "Two Addresses by Martin
------~H-eidegger." The Eastern Buddhist, New Series, I, No.2
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•"The Problem of Myth." Religious Studies in Japan.
------~E~d. by Japanese Association for Religious Studies.
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------....,....· "Rationale of the International Institute for Japan
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• "Die ReligiHse Existenz im Buddhismus," Proceedings
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7
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______ • "The Philosophy and Religions of the Prajna-
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Unpublished Materials

Dilworth, David A. "Nishida Kitaro: The Development of His

Thought." Ph.D. dissertation: Columbia University,
1970.
Nishitani, Keiji. "Emptiness and Time." Manuscript trans-
lation by Rev. Jan van Bragt and Yamamoto Seisaku of
Chapter Five of ShUkyo to wa Nanika.
"Emptiness and History." Manuscript translation
oy Rev. Jan van Bragt and Yamamoto Seisaku of Chapter
Six of Shukyo to wa Nanika.
• "Ontology and Utterance." Paper delivered at the
---~r.~ourth International Consultation on Hermeneutics,
October 2, 1970, Syracuse University. Originally in
English.