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Buddhist Philosophy

Kyoto School of Philosophy

Ran-gaku or “Dutch Knowledge” developed during the Tokugawa Era, more precisely in the beginning of the 18^th century. This form of imported science – in contradistinction to the revival of “National Science” (koku-gaku) – furthered rationalist thought in Japan. This led to a compromise, in which koku-gaku was seen as a superior (i.e. Confucianist) teaching necessary for the moral and social education of man, whereas ran-gaku, with subjects such as medicine, biology, astronomy, architecture, etc. was considered to be a ‘practical’, i.e. technical knowledge. The actual ‘modern’ period of Japan starts from 1868. At first, the Meiji regime aimed at a cooperation between the western forms of technology, science, and even ‘knowledge’ on the one hand, and the official State-Shinto thought (plus a large dose of Confucianism…) on the other, to thus establish the foundation for a modern, but national socio-moral and cultural life.

Young intellectuals however laid a greater emphasis on the imported philosophical systems than on the own Shinto-Confucianist heritage. From the 1870’s onward their main interest went to August Comte, J. Stuart Mill, Darwin; in the 80’s it extended to an interest in the French, e.g. Voltaire and Rousseau. In the 1890’s it were however the German philosophers that occupied their main interest: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer – although also Nietzsche, Bergson, Tolstoi and William James were actively studied.

In most intellectual circles, however, it wasn’t so much the “adoption” of foreign systems that was aimed at, but their comparison with familiar Buddhist and Confucianist values, towards which goal they used e.g. ‘categorical’ methods and criteria characteristic to western philosophy. This point of view did not lead to an imitation but to a more sharp and often more critical insight. Often, however, the Japanese intellectuals of the 2^nd half of the 19^th century were presented with a superficial image of European and American philosophy. All this changed in the beginning of the 20^th century thanks to the endeavor towards a synthesis of both eastern and western worlds of thought. Characteristic of this phenomenon is the publication of Hatano Seiichi’s (1877-1950) study on Spinoza in 1904, which was – remarkably enough – written in German only to be translated in Japanese in 1910.

The breakthrough came with the informal foundation of the “Kyoto School of Philosophy” within the lap of the faculties of philosophy and religion of the Kyoto State University, mainly under the impulse of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), known as Japan’s most important philosopher since the Meiji Restoration.

The Kyoto School is in the first place a renewed way of applying philosophy, “more of a philosophical ethos than a unified system of thought”. As a basis for this we see:

a profound respect for the own religious traditions;
a definite openness towards that what western thought has to offer;
the intention of arriving at a synthesis of what the West has to offer (e.g. Christianity) and of the eastern heritage (e.g. Buddhism)

This basis can only be realized through a thorough, competent knowledge of both sides of the problem. It can not be characterized by missionary intentions or proselyte polemics, but should on the contrary move across contradictions and paradoxes, which is expressed by Nishida as a “self-identity of absolute contradictories”.

Among the most important representatives of the Kyoto School we find – besides Nishida – Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), D. T. Suzuki (1870-1966), Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990), Takeuchi Yoshinori (1913-..), and Abe Masao (1915-..).

For this essay on the Kyoto School of Philosophy we will limit ourselves to the two main currents: that of Nishida Kitaro, which is clearly inspired by Zen philosophy, and that of Tanabe Hajime, which is mainly based on Shinran (1173-1262: Founder of Jodo-Shinshu).

Nishida Kitaro

(A Study of Good, 1911, English translation 1960)

Through his Zen-experience, Nishida’s thought is based on Prajñaparamita-literature and Madhyamika-philosophy. His remarkable point of view on the topos of Nothingness is directly derived from the intuition to which he gave the meaning of ‘pure experience’.

Topos (Greek ‘place’; J. basho) has – for Nishida – a broader significance than usual, e.g. in Plato’s Timaeus or with Aristotle. Also the modern concept of ‘force-field’ or ‘cosmic field’ (Einstein) is said to have influenced Nishida. To approach his understanding of topos, we must keep in mind that our everyday word ‘place’ is neither a merely non-existing ‘nothing’ nor an existing ‘something’. According to Jan Van Bragt “it is more in the nature of what Jaspers calls an “encompassing” (Umgreifendes) that allows things to exist where they are: each on its own, and yet all together in a sort of oneness.”

Also the term “Nothingness” clearly refers to sunyata (‘emptiness’), although also here Nishida gives a broader interpretation than is usual, namely a “no-thingness” (Undinglichkeit). His attitude is in the first place “to see the form of the formless and to hear the voice of the voiceless”:

“By intuition (or seeing) I mean our way of seeing things in the world through which we see a ‘being’, but also our own act of seeing, as a shadow image of the Self-reflection of Nothingness – I mean the shadow of Self-reflection of Nothingness that fulfills its function by projecting itself on one point within its topos.”

To philosophically clarify the Topos-nature of Nothingness, Nishida introduces his three key-ideas of ‘action-intuition’, the ‘Eternal Now’ and the ‘historical world in its identity of contradictories’.

1 Action-intuition:

Nishida here expressly refers to the Oriental methods of thought such as the Zen-koan and the art of Archery. Action-intuition is both the structure and the dynamic of all creative activity. Here there is a mutual process as e.g. with the cutting of a wooden image, whereby the sculptor sees anew and recreates his image with every move, in such a way that with every new ‘seeing’ of the form of the image, he is inspired to cut further. Thus, human creativity only becomes possible when the self-reflecting world expresses itself within the human being, which in its own turn expresses itself and reflects itself by way of its work in the mirror of the world. By way of this mutuality or interdependentness both the world and man realize their synthesis in the historical world.

2 Eternal Now:

The being-present of all things in the world is a “presence in time”, namely in the present, in contradistinction to the past and the future. Only in the present one becomes self-conscious as an individual. This way of being-present-in-time is an immediate or direct event, out of which the endeavor for truth can start. In this, one’s whole being is involved, but also the being of all other things in the world. Nonetheless, this kind of being-present is ephemeral and transient: “it appears as being only to disappear again; and it disappears only to let a new being-present appear.” Being and non-being are in their true structure interrelated to each other. Because of this the present is a unity of contradictory moments.

Although brief and ephemeral, the present envelops the totality of the time-experience, since past, present, and future all belong to that same present. It is in this way that the endless series of moments, from the incalculable past until the incalculable future, are dependent on the brief presence of the ‘here-and-now’. The present is as a time-monad which contains in itself the whole width of past-present-future, despite the fact that it itself belongs to this series as an infinitely small part of the whole. From this follows that the present determines itself: it is ‘the present of the present’. Out of this flows the time-experience, as it where from present to present. This characteristic of time explains the nature of man’s direct (immediate) self-consciousness and feeling of freedom.

Yet, this experience of self-being and of freedom is closely tied to man’s awareness of impermanence. How then is it possible that the fleeting moment can in itself contain the infinitely long series of time-moments? According to Nishida, this is possible because the present is rooted in the Eternal. The Eternal reflects itself and the focus of this self-reflection is the ‘present-of-the-present’.

That the Eternal is topologically equal to the present is, according to Nishida, not a simple identification in the mystical sense of the word. Nishida’s notion is more dialectic. According to him the fleeting present and the Eternal are on the one hand each others opposites; on the other hand however, one can interchange these both poles, since both are tied to each other through their ultimate self-identity. The Eternal, the Absolute-in-time as topos of Nothingness, can within itself summon each separate moment and bring it to life. The Eternal thus establishes each moment as a true (i.e. autonomous and self-determining) individuum: the present. Through this the Eternal and the present are interconnected in an identity of contradictories.

3 The historical world in its identity of contradictories:

The Creative Now is not only a synthesis in time, but also in space. The world itself is the self-reflection of the existence in which all individua are con-cluded. The world is the embodiment of the Eternal Self, or rather: Non-Self, since each individual existence in this body is only the manifestation of this individual. Each present has therefore the characteristic of a time-synthesis in space.

Because of this, time is determined in two ways: linear and spatial circular. Both time-dimensions converge at every time-moment, be it in an individual existence or in the entire world. This, thus, becomes a historical world, wherein time and space are intertwined; it is, in a sense, the same as the religious world since the Absolute Nothingness is the principle of both the historical world and religion. Since Absolute Nothingness is the life-principle in the world, it should be realized in the world. Its transcendence in relation to the world can only be realized through its immanence in the world. Through the unceasing consecutive manifestations of Absolute Nothingness in the world, the real historical world is unceasingly sanctified, i.e. religiously penetrated.

This can be explained by the double aspect that Nishida gives to his notion of Absolute Nothingness: on the one hand the Christian notion of Absolute Being, on the other hand the Buddhist vision of Absolute Enlightenment.

This does, however, not automatically mean that the world is the domain of religion. Nishida here makes a clear distinction between culture and religion. Religion should be regarded as being qualitatively different from the socio-cultural value-determining actions of humanity. The true ground of the world, however, is religious, just as our existence in the world is religious. But what does it mean when we say that we are religious? It is because we realize our restlessness, our brevity, that in our mind we discover the religious as factuality.

What is typical in Nishida’s vision on religion is revealed in what he calls the disjunction/conjunction in the relationship between God and man. ‘God’ stands opposite to man as the divine Will stands opposite to the human will. To man, ‘God’ is a transcendence, and although he is immanent, man can not see him, can not meet him, can not immediately experience him. He is at the same time Absolute Being and Absolute Nothingness in his true identity of contradictories. In each moment in time and at each place in space he both is and is not, in the sense that his absence for the enlightened mind is the proof of his omnipresence.

Tanabe Hajime

Tanabe was originally a student of Nishida but because of his different outset – i.e. different from the Zen-experience – his thought was for a great part a reaction against Nishida. Tanabe was greatly influenced by the teaching of Shinran (1173-1262) and by the works and the life of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903), who – mutatis mutandis – during the turn of the century fulfilled the role within Shin Buddhism that Kierkegaard had fulfilled within the Danish Lutheran Church.

According to Tanabe the only possibility to transcend the noetic (i.e. Metaphysics as speculative philosophy on the level of the subject/object relationship), is the undergoing of a total turning of the mind (J. e-shin), a metanoia in the “death-and-resurrection-experience”. According to him, the true dialectic is neither the “and-and” speculative synthesis of Hegel, nor the “or-or” ethical concern of Kierkegaard; but the “neither-nor” double negation in our immediateness through the Compassionate activity of the Absolute. Our awareness of ‘sin’, i.e. of our religious non-worth, means than at the same time the abolishment of ‘sin’ through the graceful activity of the Absolute (zettai), since ‘God’ or ‘Buddha’ is Absolute Nothingness, and therefore the power and mercy of absolute self-surrender.

For Tanabe the Absolute is only absolute as Nothingness. Absolute Nothingness is qualitatively different from the world and thus transcendent in relation to the relative world. The Love-Compassion of the Absolute is embodied in this world by the bodhisattva, the teacher who proclaims the message of the metanoic truth and who through his “fire” (i.e. his own experience of death-and-resurrection) ignites his disciples to action-entrusting. The Compassion of Absolute Nothingness is thus transmitted from teacher to disciple.

As mentioned before, Tanabe bases himself on Shinran’s Kyogyoshinsho. The ‘being born in the Pure Land’ was already greatly demythologized by Shinran, who was convinced that the essential experience of death-and-resurrection was fulfilled at the moment of e-shin, of the metanoia that is the ‘moment of shinjin’, the ‘settlement of birth’, i.e. the samsaric aspect of Birth in the Pure Land, of which the nirvanic aspect – the fulfillment of Buddhahood (Absolute Truth) – remains shifted to “the other life”.

Tanabe uses the image of the bodhisattva who makes all preparations to meet the Buddha, fulfills his path until the end and than goes and visits the Buddha in his room. He, however, discovers the Buddha’s absence (the Buddha-room is after all emptiness) and realizes that at this moment the Buddha is in the world; therefore the bodhisattva returns to the world of suffering to work side by side with the Buddha. It is in and through this return that the bodhisattva becomes a Buddha, which in fact is a non-reachable goal because of its utter paradox: Buddhahood is after all a ‘state’ in which even the noble goal of becoming a Buddha is surpassed.

Against Nishida’s action-intuition, Tanabe emphasizes action-entrusting. According to him, Nishida’s topos still belongs to the domain of contemplative speculation. To him (as with Kierkegaard) religious truth in this life is fragmentary and certainly not a continuum. If this truth is a whole, than Being is and it would make no sense to call this Being ‘Nothingness’. Absolute Truth – for Tanabe, Amida’s Light – penetrates us in an intensive manner, not as an extensive totality. Tanabe uses the image of a figure-skater, who only keeps his balance on the ice as long as he is moving. In ‘entrusting’ there is always the presence of a certain anxiety and an existential uncertainty, but the more uncertainty there is, the more certain becomes our awareness of our limitation and our (karmic) awareness of ‘sin’ (i.e. our ‘nothingness’), which can only be lifted through e-shin. The mind of entrusting, as the transformation of our nothingness to Absolute Nothingness, is – according to Tanabe – ‘uncertain certainty’. It becomes established in the repetition of the Name, which is the decisive action. In the ‘here-and-now’ of this religious act there is also present the Absolute Truth, not so much as an eye-to-eye revelation, but as a veiled, i.e. hidden from our consciousness, Truth.

Nishida and Tanabe

Nishida emphasizes action-intuition; Tanabe emphasizes the meaning of action entrusting in the religious existence.
Action-intuition sees our existence as a creative element within the creative, historical world. Tanabe sees the dialectic only in function of the historical world.
Nishida places his creative element in each new moment, in such a way that the whole can continually be seen from a different perspective. To Tanabe, the historical world is at any moment and at any place a dead end street which has to be broken through with entrusting and determination. Nishida emphasizes the integrating aspect (each moment as integrated within the course of time), Tanabe emphasizes the infinity-aspect (mugen = infinite, unconditional light, infinite compassion, infinite wisdom).
The fundamental experience according to Nishida is the immediate realization of Absolute Nothingness as the Dharmakaya in Zen Buddhism. With Tanabe, the ethical standpoint dominates. It is out of his ethico-social concern (cfr. Kiyozawa Manshi) that he focuses on the study of religion, in an attempt to unite the truth of the Buddhist Zen and Pure Land traditions and the truth according to Christianity.

Despite these differences, both philosophers share a number of notions which became characteristic of the Kyoto School of Philosophy:

The absolute should be seen as Absolute Nothingness.
The essence and value of philosophical thought rest in our religious existence.
The representations of the Eternal Now and Nothingness as disjunction/conjunction.