Hase Article On Nishitani

Nihilism, Science, and Emptiness in Nishitani
Author(s): Hase Shoto

Source: Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 19 (1999), pp. 139-154
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
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NISHITANI
Nihilism, Science,
and
Emptiness
in Nishitani
Hase Shoto
EMPTINESS AND NIHILISM
It
may
be
sufficiently
known
by
now that the trunk line of Nishitani's
philosophy
is
the 'idea of
emptiness.'
Indeed,
from his
Philosophy ofPrimordial Subjectivity
(1940)
through
his God and Absolute
Nothingness
(1948)
and Nihilism
(1949)
right
into
Religion
and
Nothingness
(1961),
Nishitani's
thinking
has
fundamentally
turned
around the idea of
emptiness.1
Not that in the three works
preceding Religion
and
Nothingness
the idea of
emptiness
is treated
overtly
as such.
Rather,
in those works
the idea is
continually growing,
as it
were,
on an invisible
underground
level,
to
come
finally
to the surface in
Religion
and
Nothingness.
It is as if the
emptiness
that
had
grown strong by withstanding
the
pressure
of the 'rock' of nihilism came into
the
open by overthrowing
that rock.
As it was the
key
to the solution of the
problem
of nihilism that had beset him
in his
youth,
the idea of
emptiness
was more than a mere idea for Nishitani. It was
something
on which the
possibility
of existence
entirely depended
for him. There-
fore,
he did not
speak
of the idea of
emptiness
but of the
'standpoint
of
emptiness.'
For
Nishitani,
nihilism was not
simply
a
philosophical problem,
a
problem
acciden-
tally
encountered in the course of his
philosophical investigations.
It was a
problem
he had been saddled with
willy nilly
as a result of his own nature and
temperament
as well as of the conditions of his time. He then decided to shoulder the
problem
as
his
particular
task. In other
words,
nihilism assumed for him the nature of a
destiny.
Consequently,
the
'standpoint
of
emptiness,'
at which he arrived at the end of the
arduous
struggle
for the solution of the
problem
of
nihilism,
took on for him the
character of a reliable slab of
granite
discovered at the bottom of his own existence:
something
with a
depth reaching
all the
way
to the core of the earth and a
solidity
sufficient to
carry
the
weight
of nihilism. Of all this Nishitani himself was
clearly
aware. Let me reflect a few moments on Nishitani's idea of
emptiness
in its relation-
ship
with nihilism.
How did Nishitani view this nihilism that constituted the basic
problem
for him?
He defined his own
philosophical standpoint
as,
in the final
analysis,
"the overcom-
ing
of nihilism
by way
of nihilism." In his own
estimate,
the nihilism he
struggled
with was an
extremely
"difficult" and "hard to solve"
problem
for
philosophy-a
problem
wherein intellectual
aporia
and existential conundrum
intertwine;
not the
Buddhist-Christian Studies 19
(1999).
?
by University
of Hawai'i Press. All
rights
reserved.
HASE SHOTO
kind of
problem
that finds a solution
provided
one makes the
necessary
efforts;
a
problem
that is hard to
get
hold of: the
study
of various
thought systems appears
only
to circle around its
periphery.
Thus,
"at a certain moment I decided to
give up
my philosophical
efforts and to tackle the
problem by
Zen
[meditation],
away
from
all intellectual efforts. At that
point,
for the first time and little
by
little,
a
way
to its
solution came in
sight."2
This kind of
patient struggling
with one
particular problem,
as we see it in Nishi-
tani's
case,
may
not be unheard of but is
certainly
not
commonplace.
If we
may
call
this attitude or
way
of
facing problems
a
'method,'
it
appears
to be described
by
Simone
Weil,
where she writes: "The method
proper
to
philosophy
consists in
clearly seeing
insoluble
problems
in their
insolubility,
and then to
contemplate
them,
concentratedly
and
indefatigably,
for
years,
without
any hope
in the
waiting.
According
to this
criterion,
there are few
philosophers.
But 'few'
may
be
saying
too
much. The
passage
to the transcendent is
opened
when the human faculties-intel-
lect, will,
human love-run into a
limit,
and then the human
being stays
on this
threshold,
beyond
which it cannot
put
a
single step-and
this without
turning
away,
without
knowing
what it
desires,
and concentrated on the
waiting.
It is a state
of extreme humiliation. It is unachievable for
anybody
who is not
capable
of
accept-
ing
humiliation."3
We
may say
that,
just
like Simone Weil
herself,
who for
many years struggled
with the insoluble
problem of'unhappiness'
and
finally
found the
way
to a solution
on a
supernatural
level,
Nishitani
too,
who faced the insoluble
problem
of nihilism
and
kept up
a
solitary
intellectual battle with it for
long years,
was
truly
one of those
rare
philosophers worthy
of the name.
Under which
guise
did the idea of
emptiness present
itself to Nishitani in the
midst of that
Auseingndersetzung
with nihilism? Of
course,
the idea of
emptiness
forms the center of the doctrine of
Mahayana
Buddhism and as such has been end-
lessly
discussed. A
bibliographical
list of these studies would contain a
gigantic
num-
ber of items. What would then be the characteristic feature of Nishitani's idea of
emptiness
in the midst of that
plethora
of
interpretations?
It lies in the fact that
Nishitani conceives of it
subjectively
or
existentially,
from his own
bodily
existence
in the
present.
In
fact,
such a
subjective approach
is the attitude
originally required
in matters of
religion; religious
truth reveals itself
only
in such an attitude. The fact
that it is a
question
to be asked in the attitude
original
to
religion,
however,
does not
necessarily
mean that it is universal.
In Buddhist
parlance,
to treat a
problem
from one's own
present bodily
existence
would mean to
put
the
question
of "sentient
beings becoming
Buddha"
right
in the
middle of
it;
in other
words,
to ask about
satori,
or
awakening.
At
present,
to ask the
question
from that
angle
is the
only right way
to come into contact with the Bud-
dhist tradition. An
investigation
of the Buddhist
scriptures merely
from the
angle
of
"Buddhism
being
the doctrine
preached by
the
Buddha,"
without consideration of
the
integration
of the Buddha's
enlightenment
in the
self,
was branded
by Soga
Ryojin
as "Buddhist materialism."4 It is
viewing
the sutras in the same
way
as sci-
ence views material
things, treating
the
scriptures
the
way
science
analyzes
the water
in a
cup. Just
as the water in a
cup evaporates,
so too the full
reality
of
emptiness
140
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
AND EMPTINESS IN NISHITANI
evaporates
in such treatment. When handled this
way,
the
question
of
"becoming
Buddha" is absent from the
beginning. Only
when thematized
subjectively,
in rela-
tion to a
problem imposed by
the actual
situation,
the idea of
emptiness
becomes
spirit. Emptiness
considered
apart
from such a relation
degenerates
into a mere
'thing.' Soga says
it in the
following way:
"When
viewing
the
prevalent
tendencies
in most of
present-day
Buddhist
studies,
that is the conclusion I have to come to.
Such a view of the
history
of Buddhism amounts to a Buddhist materialist view of
history
that
explains
the decline of Buddhism while
basing
itself on a materialist the-
ory
that is a
negation
of all
religion."5
It
may
be
easy
to 'shoot holes' in this
sweep-
ing
statement
by Soga,
but it cannot be denied that his contention that a
study
of
Buddhism unconnected with
subjective-existential problems
is,
in the final
analysis,
a kind of "Buddhist materialism" contains a
good part
of truth.
Seen from that
point,
Nishitani's attitude toward
religion,
once described
by
him-
self as
"inquiring
into
religion
from the
point
where it
emerges
from man
himself,
as a
subject,
as a self
living
in the
present,"6 certainly goes
in a direction
opposed
to
that of materialism. With
regard, then,
to
emptiness,
it is
only
when
putting
it into
question subjectively,
from one's own existence in the
present
time,
that the tradi-
tion of
emptiness
will revive in the
present
and become alive and
operative
there.
What made Nishitani
question emptiness
on the basis of his own
present
exis-
tence was
precisely
nihilism. It is
through
the mediation of nihilism that
emptiness
was removed from a museum showcase-that
is,
from its status as a dead
'thing'
to
be viewed or an
object
of
archaeological study,
to make its
appearance
in the real
marketplace
as a
currency
with actual
power,
restored to its status of
living
and
oper-
ative
spirit.
The real
marketplace,
of which we
speak
here,
also has the
meaning
of
the town called "The
Motley
Cow,"
where Nietzsche's Zarathustra
proclaimed
his
idea of the eternal recurrence.
According
to
Nishitani,
this "town called The
Motley
Cow" means "the multicolored world with its infinite
variety
of
forms";
in other
words,
the
contemporary
world. To let
emptiness
loose into it is to walk that town
barefoot,
or to stand in the
very
midst of nihilism.
According
to
Nishitani,
it is
pre-
cisely
when
standing
there that a human
being gets
in touch with the
point
of ori-
gin
or zero
point
from where
religion
as
religion
is born.
Nishitani's claim that the
overcoming
of nihilism is
only possible
in
emptiness
is
based on what could be called his 'faith in
emptiness':
the conviction that
emptiness
is the
only path
of transcendence
open
in the
present day.
It
may
sound
strange
to
speak
of'faith' in
emptiness.
Still,
it seems to me that
faith
is
precisely
the
right
word
to characterize Nishitani's vision of the
certainty
of
emptiness
as the
path
of tran-
scendence. The selection or decision to choose
emptiness,
not as one of
many paths,
but as the
only path
of transcendence in a
present day
dominated
by
nihilism,
is at
work in Nishitani. We can find therein a frame of mind reminiscent of Honen's
"Selection of the Primal Vow." Amid the consciousness of
living
in the
Age
of the
Latter
Days
of the Law
(mappo),
which was
rampant
in the transition
period
from
the Heian era to the Kamakura
era,
Honen made the
desperate
move of
selecting
the
way
of Other-Power
(salvation
by
Amida's Primal
Vow)
as the
only path
still
open
to
salvation,
thereby rejecting
all other Buddhist
paths
as not walkable
any longer.
A similar
standpoint
of selection and
rejection
shows
up
in the earlier-mentioned
141
HASE SHOTO
fact that Nishitani
speaks
of the
"standpoint
of
emptiness"
rather than of the idea of
emptiness.
This
'faith'
of Nishitani was
supported by
his sense of
reality
and view of
history.
His sense of the
age
he was
living
in had much in common with that of the founders
of the
Japanese
Pure Land
schools,
who defined their
age
as Latter
Days
and looked
for a
path
of transcendence
truly
effective in such an
age. Up
to a
point,
the sense
of nihilism in our
age
and the sense of Latter
Days
of the Late Heian
people
are
par-
allel
phenomena.
In the Latter
Day age,
we encounter in Shinran and others the
standpoint
of
Other-Power,
which
opened up by accepting
the Latter
Day
situation
as it
was;
in the
age
of
nihilism,
there is Nishitani to whom the
standpoint
of
empti-
ness
appeared
as the
only
walkable
path.
The awareness of the Latter
Day
is not a
matter of clear and
objective knowledge
to
anybody;
it makes its
appearance
within
a
specific
sense of
history
and sense of the
age. Similarly,
to
pin
down
nihility
as
nihility,
a "subtle
spirit" (esprit definesse)
is
required.
Nishida calls this the "sense of
reality-a
sense one cannot learn from
somebody
else."
J.
Van
Bragt speaks
in this
connection of Nishitani's
"prophetic
character."7 If there is in Nishitani
anything
that can be called
by
that
name,
it finds its
origin
in that sense of
reality,
that sense
of
certainty.
What is of
primary importance
in Nishitani's
standpoint
of
emptiness
is the sense of the earth
or,
to use an earlier
simile,
the sense of the Town of the Mot-
ley
Cow,
wherein
emptiness
must strike roots. It can also be called the sense of the
present
self
or,
in Buddhist
parlance,
the sense of ki
(the
capability
of the concrete
subject
[to
grasp
the Buddha's
message]).
In Nishitani's
case,
nihilism shows the
character of such a sense of
ki;
and
'emptiness'
stands for one more
certainty,
which,
while based on that sense of
ki,
is able to overcome it.
Let us make nihilism the
starting point
of our reflections for a moment. What
kind of
nihility
would the
nihility
in nihilism be?
Why
was the nihilism Nishitani
encountered hard to overcome? The reason lies in the essence of that nihilism itself:
that it has to do with a
nihility
"in the second
power."
It is not
simply
the universal
nihility,
which is an essential trait of all human existence
irrespective
of time and
place,
and which
Sakyamuni
had in mind when he said that "all is
impermanent."
Nihilism refers to a
nihility originating
within a historical
situation,
anchored in his-
torical, social,
and cultural conditions. In other
words,
the
nihility
of nihilism is a
nihility
that makes its
appearance
anew within the values that have enabled human-
ity
to overcome the
nihility
that is natural and essential to it.
Through
it the natural
nihility
is raised to the second
power by
the
nihility arising
in
history
and
society.
Nishitani
distinguishes
the two
aspects
contained in nihilism and then
says
that
nihilism is the
compound
of the two. In Nishitani's own words: "On the one
hand,
nihilism is a
problem
that transcends time and
space
and is rooted in the essence of
human
being,
an existential
problem
in which the
being
of the self is revealed to the
self itself as
something groundless.
On the other
hand,
it is a historical and social
phenomenon....
The
phenomenon
of nihilism shows that ... the value
system
which
supports
our historical life has broken
down,
and that the
entirety
of social
and historical life has loosened itself from its foundations. Nihilism is a
sign
of the
collapse
of the social order
externally
and of
spiritual decay internally."8
The
problem
of nihilism lies in the
point
that,
when these two
combine,
they
142
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
open up
an
abyss
of
nihility
at the bottom of
people living
in
history, whereby
the
very
existence of the human
being
is
put
into
question.
There lies the reason
why
nihilism is such an involved and hard-to-solve
problem:
because the
nihility
encoun-
tered in the existence of the self is rendered
opaque by
the fact that it
implicates
within itself the historical and social
problems
and,
consequently,
the
bringing
to
self-awareness of this nihilism
requires
a historical sense
capable
of
reading,
within
the existence of the
self,
the historical and social tasks of the
age
wherein the self is
located. It demands an
eye
that can see the
nihility
of the
age through
the
nihility
of the existence of the self. All this
explains why
nihilism is such an
intractable, intri-
cate,
and hard-to-solve
problem.
As
already pointed
out,
one can
speak,
in connection with
nihilism,
of a
"nihility
in the second
power,"
in the sense that the
nihility
in
question
is one that infiltrated
anew into the sociocultural values that once overcame the natural human
nihility.
When the social values that made the
overcoming
of the natural
nihility possible
col-
lapse, nihility
loses its
place
to
go,
twists and turns within the culture as a
profound
doubt,
and coils
up,
as it
were,
in its bottom. The cultural
path
that had been
opened
for a time becomes a dead end and ceases to be a
path.
It is for that reason
that nihilism is a historical-cultural
problem.
This
special
character of the
nihility
of
nihilism
may
become clearer if we
compare
it,
for
instance,
with the 'sorrow' that
Nishida saw as the
starting point
of
philosophy.
At first
sight,
the
nihility
of sorrow and the
nihility
of nihilism
may
seem not to
differ,
both
being nihility.
However,
both are
separated by
an invisible
gulf.
The sor-
row that Nishida discovers in the
starting point
of
philosophy
and also at the
origin
of
religion
is the taste of
nihility
a human
being experiences
when
meeting
with
unhappiness
in life.
Sorrow, however,
is not
purely
a
negative feeling;
there is in it a
quality
that can turn the
negative
into
something positive.
Nishida himself
says
that
somebody
who falls into extreme
unhappiness
cannot
keep religious feelings
from
vividly welling up
in himself. The characteristic trait of sorrow is that it elicits the
rise of
religiosity:
transcendent
feelings
that,
within the encountered
negation,
make
the
overcoming
of that
negation possible.
As
something
that heals the wounds
inflicted
by negation, religiosity
is a
healing power
that wells
up
in the bottom of the
self from a
point transcending
the self.
Feelings
of sorrow can introduce a
person
into a
transcending
world,
and the
healing power
at work in them is like the heal-
ing power
of the
Moonlight
Bodhisattva
that healed the wounds of
King Ajatasatru
in the Nirvana Sutra. The reason
why
sorrow itself is sometimes called a
"religious
feeling"
is that there is
present
in it
something
that can heal the wounds of the
per-
son who met with
unhappiness.
In
sorrow,
a
person
is not a
captive
of
despair;
on
the
contrary,
in sorrow a
person
is consoled and saved from
despair.
Nihilism,
on the other
hand,
does not have such a
transcending power.
Instead
of
being open
to transcendence it is closed to it. In
it,
the
path
to the transcendent
is
destroyed,
obliterated.
Consequently, differently
from
sorrow,
there is no
healing
of the bite of
unhappiness
in the
nihility
of nihilism. For that reason the
nihility
of
nihilism is said to be not a direct and
simple nihility,
but a
nihility
in the second
power,
a
nihility
that has become
doubt-suspicion.
Insofar as it reintroduces
nihility
where
nihility
had once been
overcome,
it is a
nihility
become
fur
sich-self-aware.
143
HASE SHOTO
Nishitani likens this to a
germ
or virus that had once been subdued
by strong
chem-
icals but then rebounds with a new resistance to chemicals. It
opens
an
areligious
and
antireligious
realm at the same level as the
place
of
religion
itself. All roads to
religion
are then
closed,
a
deep
breach is introduced into the link between self and
absolute that had been established in
sorrow,
and absolute
distrust-suspicion
comes
to
reign.
The well from which
religion springs
is cut
off,
religiosity
dries
up,
and in
the
place
from where
religious feeling
are
supposed
to
originate,
a
profound
doubt
now lies curled
up.
When he said that the
point
of
departure
of his
philosophy
is
nihilism,
Nishitani was
clearly
aware that the
nihility
he had encountered was some-
thing
of a different nature from the sorrow Nishida
speaks
of,
something
that makes
all salvation
powerless.
It is a
thing
that harbors in itself distrust and
rebellion,
and
merits the name of evil.
That Nishitani had to arrive at the idea of
emptiness
was due to the involved char-
acter of the
nihility
of nihilism. A
nihility
that dissolves and renders null and void
all
paths
to the transcendent demands a
special
means of transcendence.
Emptiness
possesses
a
unique way
of transcendence that makes the
overcoming
of that
nihility
of nihilism
possible.
Furthermore,
it was
by facing
that
nihility
of nihilism that Nishitani arrived at his
distinctive
understanding
of the
relationship
of
religion
and
philosophy.
In Nishi-
tani,
philosophy
is no abstract
theory
that floats in thin air above
life;
it is a
path
that
runs
right through
the
very
middle of life: it shows
up
from before technical
philos-
ophy
and
projects
its
presence beyond philosophy proper.
In that
capacity,
it runs
right through
life as a
path
of absolute
negation,
a
path
of
great
doubt,
a
path
of tran-
scendence. It is
not, therefore,
a
discipline
that would
explain religion
from the side
of
religion.
Nor is it
something
that would be there before
religion
and would
carry
reflection
right up
to the threshold of
religion
and,
when faced with
religion,
would
abandon and
reject
itself. In
Nishitani,
philosophy
is
absolutely
irreverent,
and noth-
ing
can
stop
its course. Nishitani considers it to be the
proper working
of
thought,
and
thereby
conceives of
thinking
as an
activity
able to transcend
anything
whatever.
It is a
standpoint
that,
when faced with
religion,
also
goes beyond religion.
Consequently,
in Nishitani's
philosophy
of
religion, religion
and
philosophy
stand
in a
relationship
not of
harmony
but rather of mutual
warfare,
negation,
and accom-
plishment.
And it
is, indeed,
the
nihility
of nihilism that made Nishitani walk the
path
of a
philosophy
in that sense. Since the
nihility
that faced him
presented
a
prob-
lem without a
solution,
Nishitani was forced to
go
on
thinking
while
abiding
in the
problem
itself. In
fact,
he himself testifies:
"Although recognizing
that
my problem
was
supposed
to find a solution
only
on the level of
religion,
I had to make a detour
through philosophy."9
The
nihility
of nihilism had
paralyzed religion
and rendered
it
impotent
but could not
similarly paralyze philosophy
as the
path
of
thinking.
At
this
point, philosophy appears
as
something transcending religion.
The idea of
emptiness,
however,
is not
something
that
philosophical thinking
opened up
and established
by
its own
power.
It is a
space
that
opened up by philos-
ophy penetrating
into
religion, going right through
it,
and
exploding religion
from
the inside. The
space
of
freethinking
and
wisdom,
opened up
within
religion by
passing through religion,
is
precisely emptiness.
Since there is
nothing
that can
144
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
obstruct
it,
this
space
of
thinking
has infinite width and
depth.
Nishitani then calls
this
freethinking,
which advances while
overcoming everything
that could obstruct
its
view,
butsukojo (going beyond
the
Buddha).
On the other
hand, however,
think-
ing
is coerced to exert infinite
patience
when
passing through
the midst of life-and
specifically through
the midst of nihilism. And infinite
patience
breaks one's self-
esteem.
Therefore,
in the realm of
thinking, "transcending
the Buddha"
is,
in
turn,
true
humility,
that which shows the
non-ego
of the
thinking.
The
tie-up
of nihilism and
emptiness
makes us
pay
attention to the
unique
char-
acter of the transcendence
present
in
emptiness.
Nishitani maintains that the over-
coming
of nihilism becomes
possible only
in a radicalization of nihilism from within
itself,
and that this is an essential trait of nihilism. That nihilism demands such a
spe-
cial
way
of
overcoming
is due to the
higher
indicated fact that the
nihility
of nihil-
ism becomes a
profound
doubt and
thereby
closes in on itself. What is closed in
within itself can be
opened only
from the inside. And to
open
a
thing
from the inside
becomes
possible only by reaching
the
very own-reality
of the
thing. Emptiness
is the
path
to that
self-reality
of
things.
There then lies the reason
why
the
overcoming
of
nihilism is said to be effected in
emptiness.
The transcendence worked in
emptiness
does not consist in
offering being
over
nothingness,
life over
death,
meaning
over
meaninglessness.
To the
question,
"When the three worlds are without
Dharma,
where to look for the heart-mind?"
emptiness
does not answer
by presenting
the
heart-mind somewhere. It
answers,
"The heart-mind is
unobtainable,"
and
thereby
finds the answer and
peace
of mind within the
question
itself.
Precisely
therein lies
the
standpoint
of
emptiness, says
Nishitani. It is the
path
of
escape
from
meaning-
lessness and
nihility by
a total
acceptance
of
nihility
as
nihility
and
meaninglessness
as
meaninglessness
and
by going deeper
and
deeper
into
nihility
and
meaninglessness.
Faced with the
question,
"Where to find a reason to live?"
emptiness truly
finds the
reason to live and salvation in the
place
of"ohne warum": in order to heal
loneliness,
it
"goes
into the
desert";
it finds the
"point
of no heat" in the
very
midst of heat.
But what kind of transcendence does this
path
offer? It would be
wrong
to think
of it as a
path
of mere
negation
and
irony.
Rather,
it is one more
path,
different from
both those of
negation
and affirmation. Nishitani calls it the
way
of
"reality."10
Emptiness
is the
place
where all
phenomena appear
in their true
reality.
That all
things appear
there in their true
reality
becomes
possible by
the fact that
emptiness
is
"bottomless,"
is a "bottomless
depth"
that has broken
through
all bottoms. The
principle
of
reality
is this bottomlessness. But how would this
path
of
reality
be a
path
of transcendence? Would not for us humans the
way
of transcendence lie in
"transcendence in the
soil,"
transcendence
by way
of the Pure
Land,
rather than in
transcendence in
emptiness
(the
sky)?
This
question
does not fit in our
present prob-
lematic, however,
and I shall therefore not
pursue
it here.
NIHILISM AS A PREPHILOSOPHICAL
QUESTION
Nihilism was the
point
of
departure
of Nishitani's
philosophy.
For Nishitani it
grew
bigger
and
bigger
also as a
till it came to embrace almost all
problems
of the life of
contemporary
humans. It then became the central task of
145
HASE SHOTO
Nishitani's
philosophy
of
religion
to unmask the nihilism that
pervades
the core of
present-day
civilization,
in
problems
such as the scientific worldview and scientific
rationality, technology pervading
all
aspects
of human
life,
moral
decay
in contem-
porary society,
and to look for the direction in which to overcome that nihilism.
But instead of
investigating
that broad
spectrum
of the
problems
connected with
nihilism,
I would like to consider the more
personal question
of how the
young
Nishitani encountered nihilism. Nishitani
speaks
about this in two short
essays
enti-
tled
"My
Youth"
(or
"My Teenage
Period")
and
"My philosophical
Point of
Depar-
ture." Before it built itself into a
nihilism came to obsess the
young
Nishitani as "a nihilistic mood of a
special
character." What would that
"spe-
cial character" have been?
Nishitani tells us about the
point
of
departure
of his
philosophy
in the
following
way:
With
regard
to the motive for
philosophizing,
to the connection between the
pre-philosophical
and
philosophy,
in that sense with
regard
to the
"beginning"
of
philosophy, many things
have been adduced from olden times on. There
are,
of
course,
Aristotle's
"wonderment,"
Christianity's
"for the sake of
apolo-
getics,"
Descartes'
"doubt,"
and so
on; but,
besides these there
is,
for
example,
Nishida
telling
us that
philosophy
wells
up
from the
profound
sorrow of
human life. All these relate to
philosophy
as
"meta-physics,"
but in modern
times there are cases wherein
philosophy originates
in connection with "sci-
ence"
(mathematics
and the natural
sciences,
or social sciences like
psycho-
analysis). My
own
starting point
was different from all these. When I
try
now
to
express
what it
was,
I
cannot,
in the final
analysis,
call it
anything
but
nihilism. Not that this
concept
was clear to me at the
time,
but when I think
back from where I am
now,
I cannot but
give
it that name. Nihilism has
already acquired
the
meaning
of a
specific standpoint
in
philosophy
but,
strictly speaking,
what I am
speaking
of here has a different
meaning.
This
does not mean however that it was
merely
a
nihilityistic
mood. It was a kind
of nihilism
that,
while
being pre-philosophical, essentially
contained the
demand to move to the
philosophical
level.11
In his
"My
Youth,"
Nishitani further
explains
this last sentence in a
very
direct
and
apt way:
To
say
it in one
word,
my
own
youth
was a
period totally
without
hope;
or
rather,
I lived in an
atmosphere
in which the access to
hope
had been thor-
oughly
removed. This
does,
of
course,
not mean that the time of
my youth
as
such was such an
age.
On the
contrary,
it was the time
immediately
after the
First World
War,
a time in which
Japan,
at least to all outward
appearances,
entered its
brightest
and most
flourishing period.
One could
say
that it was a
period
fit to
provoke hopeful
dreams in
young people.
However,
I
myself
had
fallen into a state wherein all the
hopes
the
age permitted appeared only
as
totally meaningless.
The state I am
speaking
of did not
only
have to do with
outer
situations,
but rather with a
spiritual
situation. To describe
my
state of
146
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
mind at the time in a
word,
I could
say
that it was as if a thorn had been dri-
ven into the bottom of
my
heart. That thorn
continually
caused
pain
and,
beset
by
that
pain,
I suffered from life itself. Since this thorn was such that I
could not remove it with
my
own
powers,
and I
thought
that the
only way
to
get
rid of the
pain
was
by dying, my
life at the time
lay totally
within a nihilis-
tic
sphere,
a realm of
despair.12
The state of
despair
into which Nishitani fell was caused
by
an accumulation of
various misfortunes that make life hard-to
begin
with,
the loss of his father at a
time when he needed a
support
to
step
into
society
and start his own life. We must
pay
due attention to what he further tells us: that this
despair
threw him into "a state
of
melancholy
and
depression,
different from such states as heal
by
themselves."
What is a
"melancholy
that knows no natural
healing?"
Nishitani is
telling
us that
such
melancholy
and loneliness exist in human
life,
and we should take note of the
way
he describes it: "There can be in human life
something
like the
melancholy
of
a tree in whose
very
core a
poisoned
needle has been
inserted,
the loneliness of a tree
that
fights
within itself
against
the fluid of death that is
streaming
in the arteries of
its life. In such a
tree,
the
activity
of the life
fluids,
which want to
expand
when
spring
comes,
becomes itself the
working
of the
poisoned
fluids.
Here,
the direction
of life is at the same time the direction of
death;
life
is,
as it
were,
paralyzed
in its
very
source."13
Nishitani further
points
out that this melancholic
depression
"was of such a
nature that a cure could not be found in
any
outer
thing,"
"a
question
which hid-
denly
contains the answer in
itself,"
a
problem
for which there is no other solution
than "to draw the
power
to
live,
to find the minimal but fundamental
power
of resis-
tance and
hope,
within the
very despair
into which one has been thrown in total
nakedness as it were." Nishitani himself somehow found the
way
out of this
despair
back to
life,
and he tells us
that,
when he later found the
following
sentence
among
the
sayings
of the
ancients-"oppressed by
rocks,
bamboo shoots
creep
out side-
ways;
on the
steep
banks of the
river,
flowers
grow upside
down"-and reflected on
his own
youth,
he
keenly
felt that this described
precisely
how it had been with him.
Since the
nihility
Nishitani had to face in his
youth
was of such a twisted nature and
had demanded from him infinite
submission,
it could not but leave scars in his later
life,
even after it had been
basically
overcome.
What Nishitani showed us in the above discussion was the
specific quality
of the
nihility
of nihilism-what he himself calls
"nihility
in the second
power."
Of this
nihility
Nishitani
spoke already
in the
"Contemporary
Consciousness and
Religion"
chapter
of his
Philosophy of
Primordial
Subjectivity.4
In that
essay,
Nishitani
speaks
of a
despair lurking
in the
religious
consciousness of
present-day people
and calls
this "bashful faith."15 It is the faith of the
person
who attained faith out of
pure
reli-
gious
motives,
such as consciousness of one's own finitude and
sinfulness,
but then
comes to harbor a
despair
while
living
the life of a
specialist
in various
fields,
and
accepting
cultural elements in the
process
of
making
that faith concrete.
Here,
in the
person
who has the consciousness of "I
believe,"
"faith itself is
pushed
into the back-
ground
and becomes thin like a
ghost,
while the interest in the outer world and the
HASE SHOTO
desire for fame and
profit
flare
up
anew."
Here,
the
prayer
"I
believe,
help my
unbe-
lief" fits the inner
reality
of the
person.
When such a
person,
"with the last bit of
sincerity
that rests in
him,
became aware of his own
decadence,
he
might
lose all
interest and fall into a realm of total sloth or inertness."16 In such a "bashful faith"
the
nihility
of nihilism dwells. It is not the
nihility
before
faith,
the
nihility
that
made the
person
turn to
faith,
it is a
nihility
that assails the
person
after he has
attained faith and makes him leave his faith behind.
Concretely speaking,
in what circumstances would this kind of
nihility
show
up?
Nishitani clarifies
things
at the hand of one
example.
Take the case of a woman
who,
after
losing
her husband when still
young
and
raising
a son all
by
herself with much
hardship,
loses also this son. In this
case,
there is still a
way
of salvation out of the
nihility
that
may
assail the
mother, because,
although
she has lost her
child,
she can
still
keep up
the link with him in a
spiritual
world.
But,
imagine
that an air raid
strikes while this mother is
living
with her son. She herself is on the
point
of
death,
but her son
hastily
runs
away
to save
himself,
leaving
her behind.
Suppose
then that
she is saved somehow and she is
living again
with her son. What would then be her
feelings?
The son is still
there,
but the link with him is cut off more
radically
than
when he would have died.
Here,
the
nihility
would be different from the former
case. This time the mother's
feelings
cannot turn toward her
son,
nor to God or the
Buddha either. "It is a situation that
brings
the doubt whether
anything
like God or
the Buddha exists." This
nihility
is the
nihility
of nihilism. Nishitani
says
the fol-
lowing
about it:
This means
that,
at the bottom of the son who
estranged
himself from her, ...
a
profound nihility appeared;
a
nihility
that makes all ethical and
religious
link
impossible.
Moreover,
this
nihility opens up
from below her own
feet,
from the bottom of her own existence. The desire for an
ontological
link,
the
need to find
something
to lean on arises as
before,
but now she cannot turn it
either to her son or to God or Buddha. Those
feelings
turn back on her and
go
on
deepening
the
nihility, strengthening
her
despair
and desolation. This
nihility,
which runs also
through
the realms of ethics and
religion
and is resis-
tant to
them;
this
nihility,
which has come to awareness as
something
that
cannot be
enveloped
even
by
ethics or
religion,
is a
nihility
that has become
ffur
sich. It could also be called a
pessimism
that has found a basis of its cer-
tainty.
Nihilism arises in the form of such "a
becomingfiur
sich of
nihility."
Or
it can be
said,
at the
least,
that such a form is the core around which the
pearl
of nihilism takes
shape.17
The
nihility
of nihilism insinuates itself into the
place
from where
religion
is
sup-
posed
to arise and undermines the
place
of
religion
from the inside. Nishitani
argues
that modern science shows such a character: ". .. the
image
of the natural world has
undergone
a
complete change
since the Renaissance as a result of the
development
of the natural sciences. The world has come to
appear completely unfeeling
and alto-
gether
indifferent to human interests. The world has cut across the
personal
rela-
tionship
between God and man."18
148
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
This view of a mechanical and
nonteleological
nature or
world,
which the nat-
ural sciences have
promoted
in modern
times,
cannot
recognize,
besides this
world,
the existence of a
spiritual
world,
a
religious
world in which a
personal relationship
is established between God and the human
being.
The worldview of the natural sci-
ences ends
up reducing everything
to a world of
death,
in which the insentient and
material
reigns. Thereby,
the view that
distinguishes
a realm of science and a realm
of
religion
and then tries to set the limits of each and determine the
relationship
of
the two is undercut. In other
words,
science
spreads up
to the throne of
God,
throws
it
out,
and
destroys
it.
How, then,
would the
overcoming
of such a
nihilism,
that has become
fir
sich
and cannot be
encompassed by religion,
be
possible?
Nishitani maintains that this is
only possible
in
emptiness.
Therein lies the
necessity
of the link between the
prob-
lem of nihilism and
emptiness.
CONTEMPORARY NIHILISM AND THE METAMORPHOSIS OF SCIENCE
The various
problems
that Nishitani had delved
up
at the roots of the modern
age
in his
Philosophy of
Primordial
Subjectivity
were then all
brought together
under the
rubric of nihilism and further
pursued
as such in
Nihilism,
Religion
and
Nothingness
and the later
writings.
He himself has said that the
problem
of
nihilism,
which had
been the
starting point
of his
philosophy,
became
gradually bigger
and
bigger
as a
problem
and came to embrace almost all the
problems present-day people
encounter
in their existence: the
problem
of scientific worldview and
rationality,
the
problem
of
technology pervading
all realms of human
life,
the
problem
of moral decadence
in
present-day society,
and so on. These
great problems
of
contemporary
civilization
all amount to forms of "masked nihilism" or "nihilism in code." Nishitani's basic
philosophical
task was thus to
bring
to
light
the nihilism that
pervades
the civiliza-
tion of the
present age
in its
very
core and to look for the direction in which this
nihilism could be overcome.
One of the main
symptoms
of the nihilism that
pervades present society
is the fact
that in various
respects,
human relations have become thin and alienated and turned
into
fragmentary
and short-term
things, rejecting
the commitment of the whole
per-
son. The absence of
goal
and
meaning
in
present society
denotes the lack in
society
of a
place
that
permits bringing
out the existence of the self in its
totality.
The fact
that such a
place
cannot be found
anywhere
in social life makes
present society
a sick
one. A
person
who cannot find the
goal, meaning,
and
destiny
of his life in the rela-
tionship
with
society,
and who cannot throw his entire self into
it,
retires into an
unnatural
private
realm and dreams there of a free and autonomous life. But in such
a
private
realm,
free from all
restrictions,
there is to be found
only
the void of inac-
tivity
and
anxiety;
true
joy
is
lacking
in it. Nishitani locates "the
misery
of
people
today"
in that thinness of relations. "It means that ...
among people affinity
and
harmony
are lost
and, instead,
strife and mutual
oppression
become
rampant
in the
various
aspects
of human
relationships;
in other
words,
that the
place
of common-
ality gradually
ceases to exist."19 Nishitani
says
that the lack of a
trustworthy
cer-
149
HASE SHOTO
tainty
that makes a total commitment
possible
takes
away
the
joy
of life and makes
the character formation of the
contemporary
human
being
difficult.
When the mutual
relationships
of
people
do not
grow
out of a
religious
founda-
tion that touches them in their total
reality
and are
placed
under the
aegis
of an imi-
tation set of laws and
contracts,
human relations become conditional and
provi-
sional. When the rational but exterior
relations,
regulated by rights
and contracts
and based on the
autonomy
of the human
being,
take the
place
of the irrational but
religious
relations of sacrifice and
self-denial,
the distance from the modern "auton-
omous
subject"
to the
contemporary "private
human
being"
is but a
single step.
What made this
single step
look like an
infinitely
far distance is
only
the fact that
resistances and obstacles
against
it
persisted
at various
places
in
society;
these had to
be subdued before the idea of the autonomous
subject
could
spread
to all nooks and
crannies of
society.
The
growing thinning
of relations results in
shutting
the human
being up
in a
private
realm and in
producing
a
"private
home" kind of
person
who
turns his or her back on various
relationships.
In
Religion
and
Nothingness,
Nishitani
calls such a
person
"a
subject
driven
by
desires and
impulses, standing entirely
out-
side of the natural laws." At the
origin
of this
predicament
there lies the modern idea
of the autonomous
subject.
The autonomous
subject
of modern
times, however,
was not outside of all laws.
Rather,
its
standpoint originated
in the will to define and realize oneself
according
to the laws of reason. But the
problem
that the idea of the autonomous
subject
car-
ried within itself did not come to the surface as
long
as
modernity
had to
fight
all
kinds of irrational resistances and obstacles in its endeavor to make this idea
pene-
trate into all
aspects
of
society
and to rebuild
society according
to this idea. It was
only
after it had done
away
with the obstacles and it looked as if it had
completely
realized itself that the
problems
contained in it came to the surface and it revealed
the
fragility
of its basis. That is what the
contemporary age
is about.
Why
did this
situation come about?
Why
did the modern autonomous
subject,
which was
sup-
posed
to have established itself
by following
the rules of
reason,
come to turn into
the
present-age subject
of desires
standing entirely
outside all laws?
Nishitani sees modern nihilism at the roots of the
contemporary
sickness. For
him,
modern nihilism
originated by way
of the modern autonomous
subject
and sci-
ence,
and
contemporary
nihilism is an offshoot of modern nihilism.
Thus,
Nishitani
sees
contemporary
nihilism as an extension of modern nihilism. But can
contempo-
rary
nihilism
really
be considered to be in
continuity
with modern nihilism? Is it
not, rather,
that there is a
big
breach between the two and
contemporary
nihilism
shows an
altogether
different face than modern nihilism? The
question
then becomes
where this breach
exactly
lies. The
metamorphosis
of science and
technology
in our
day
could have much to do with it. The loss of the
feeling
of
certainty
and trust in
science is what
separates
the two nihilisms. In modern
nihilism,
"God was dead" but
science was still alive.
Contemporary
nihilism
originated
at the "deathbed of science
and
technology."
At the
origin
of modern nihilism there
lay
the idea of the autonomous
subject
and the concomitant firm belief in science and
technology.
But what
is,
after
all,
this
modern
age
that
gave
rise to the ideas of the autonomous
subject
and of science? It
150
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
was the rise of a new demand for and
conception
of 'truth' and
'certainty.'
This
appears
in the fact that the idea of
'experience'
came to
occupy
the
highest position
in modern times.
Certainty
is established
by
'verification.' When
applied
to
'things,'
this
gives
rise to the idea of
experience;
when
applied
to the
self,
the idea of
'good
conscience' arises. The demand for a
certainty
obtained
by ascertaining
with one's
own
eyes,
while
doing away
with
ambiguous things,
uncertain
things,
and ideas rest-
ing
on
authority
or
preconception, brought
forth,
in the outer
world,
the modern
mechanistic view of a nature
totally regimented by
natural laws and the scientific
worldview; and,
as to the inner
world,
it
spawned
the modern ideas of'autonomous
subject'
and 'conscience.' This became the matrix of the Reformation. The inven-
tion of the machine was
something
that
guaranteed
the 'conscience' that built on
this kind of
certainty
and added a flourish to it. Under God's
dominion,
all creatures
sang
the
glory
of
God;
it was the
machine,
created
by
man,
that
gave praise
to the
glory
of the modern idea of
certainty.
An
ambiguous
machine is
something
unthink-
able,
indeed. In recent
years
the idea of 'fuzziness' has been
introduced,
but this does
not mean that the machine has become
ambiguous.
The machine is what reflects the
laws that
govern
nature in their
purest
form.
On the
opposite
side of
certainty,
the modern scientific worldview evinces insen-
tience,
impersonality,
and absence of value. I need not belabor the
point
that these
characteristics led to the decline of the traditional
religious
and cultural
values,
which
were of a
personal
and
teleological
nature,
and thus
gave
rise to nihilism. But we
must
pay
attention to the fact
that,
while in modern nihilism the traditional
highest
values were done
away
with,
there was
present
in it a trust in science and
technology.
The
strength
to bear the
nihility
that
accompanies
the loss of the
highest
values was
linked to that trust in science and
technology.
It was felt that the
nihility
that comes
in the wake of science and
technology
had to be borne and could be borne. What
has been called
"perfect
nihilism" showed that kind of self-confidence.
Being
able to
bear the
nihility
was deemed to show the
highest strength.
No matter that
they
implied
on their shadow side a world of
nihility
and
death,
science and
technology
were trusted and
warmly
welcomed as
having
rendered the
distinguished
service of
breaking
down the
supreme
values that had
reigned up
to then. In its lack of values
it
may
have been an uncommon
world,
but there was at least a worldview
clearly
dominated
by
laws. Therein
lay
the
specific
nature of modern nihilism.
Contemporary
nihilism,
on the other
hand,
lies
precisely
in the fact that this clear
worldview has
collapsed.
This
is,
in
turn,
connected with the fact that
suspicion
has
fallen on science and
technology:
doubt has been carried into scientific
knowledge,
this last bastion
guaranteeing
truth and
certainty. Through
this relativization of sci-
entific
knowledge,
a clear worldview has become
impossible.
Since the
unitary prin-
ciple
that ruled the world has been thrown
out,
the world has become
fragmentary,
an anarchical
place.
Therein
contemporary
nihilism
originated.
In the wake of "the
death of
God,"
also
science-technology
has died. The death of science and technol-
ogy
does
not,
of
course,
mean that science and
technology
have
disappeared.
This
death does not
lie, either,
in the fact that science and
technology
have led to envi-
ronmental
pollution
and various
tricky problems
in the realms of
biotechnology,
organ transplantation,
and so on. It means that science and
technology
have lost the
HASE SHOTO
halo of
certainty
and have ceased to be of 'value.' When
science-technology
lives on
without this
light,
it turns into an
opaque
and dark
magic power. Contemporary
nihilism lies in the
point
that we are
living
in a realm in which science and tech-
nology
have turned into
magical powers.
Science-technology
was the locus of
certainty,
insofar as it enabled the human
spirit
to
grasp
the world as a whole and to build a clear
picture
of the universe
by
means of the laws that
govern
the world.
Through
that
conviction,
we humans could
also be sure of the
power
of our own
spirit
and were
transported
from a
magical
world wherein
uncertainty
and arbitrariness
reigned
into a rational world of law and
order-elevated from a world of darkness into a world of
light.
It was not
so,
how-
ever,
that
people
lived in such a rational world in actual
fact;
it meant
only
that faith
in science and
technology guaranteed
the existence of such a
world, and,
to that
degree,
modern
people
could
mentally
live in that world.
They
lived in such a world
in their
worldview,
in their
image
of the
world,
in their
thought.
Therein
lay
for them
the 'value' and the
'light'
of
science-technology.
At the
present
time, however,
we humans have sunk anew into a
magical
world,
this time in the midst of the rule of science and
technology.
There lies the
point
of
contemporary
nihilism. Science and
technology
have
collapsed
as
light
and as
thought.
How would this state of affairs have come about?
Why
did modern
science,
this locus of
certainty,
fall into the realm of
uncertainty?
Here we must look for the
metamorphosis
that took
place
in the inner realms of
science,
the
change
and crum-
bling
of the basic
principles
that had
undergirded
modern science. Pluralist and rel-
ativist
views,
such as the
theory
of
relativity,
the
paradigm theory,
and the set
theory
gradually stepped
into the
place
of the monistic view that
lay
at the basis of modern
science.
Theory
of science and
philosophy
of science have
pursued
that metamor-
phosis
of the
principles
of science but have
not,
I
believe,
included in their
ques-
tioning
the
consequences
that the
change
in
worldview,
provoked by
that metamor-
phosis,
have
brought along
in the human world. We stand in need of a more
thorough
and multisided
analysis
of these
consequences.
At the moment we can
only
remark that the
feeling
of liberation and
spiritual
exaltation
present
in modern
nihilism at the time that it was declared that God had died-what Nietzsche called
the vision of an
"open
sea" and a
presentiment
of a "dark
light"-is
absent from con-
temporary
nihilism.
The laws of
nature,
which science tries to
grasp,
became more and more
compli-
cated with the
progress
of
science,
till
they proved
to transcend the
scope
of human
thinking.
At that
moment,
the human
spirit,
which had
grown
in belief in
itself,
self-confidence,
and
pride
with the
widening
of the
scope
of its
thinking,
then,
on
the
contrary,
shrank in the face of science. Laws and
means
may
be there in the com-
plicated
tools and
machines;
they
are
already
nonexistent in the human
spirit.
But
the human
being
can be an autonomous
subject only
insofar as it has the laws and
means within itself and can rediscover them also in
things.
Once the
point
is reached
that laws and means are there in the
things
made
by
man but absent from the human
spirit,
we
humans,
in the
very
midst of a world of
science-technology,
fall back to the
same level as
primitive
man who could
only
fear and tremble before the blind forces
of nature.
Then,
rather than the locus of
certainty, science-technology
becomes a
NIHILISM, SCIENCE,
place
where the
incomprehensible,
the
uncertain,
and the eldritch
reign-what
the
world of nature was for
primitive
man. Thus
present-day humanity,
in the world of
science-technology,
comes to live in a world of
uncertainty
and
chaos,
a
magical
world where
only
doubt
reigns.
The modern nihilism of "God is dead" has been
replaced already by
the
contemporary
nihilism of "science is dead."
When science loses the
light
that it once
had,
when the trust in its
certainty
and
truth is
gone,
there is no norm
anymore
to
distinguish
it from
magic.
That is
why
at
present
science and the
occult,
those two
antipodes,
blend
together,
and those
who
engage
in science and
technology
become more like
magicians
without
any
rela-
tionship
to the
original spirit
of science. The
contemporary age
has lost the
certainty
that the modern
age possessed
at its
outset,
the
light by
which the modern
age
had
been raised from a world of darkness into a world of
clarity. Everything
has become
ambiguous;
true
reality
is nowhere to be found. That constitutes the nihilism of the
contemporary age.
It is a "world of virtual
reality."
This world
originated
at the
point
where a still
deeper
darkness was introduced into the
nihility
of science that had
brought
about the modern nihilism and where the idea of
certainty
that formed the
basis of modern science had
evaporated.
It could be said that the word of Zen man
Pan-shan,
quoted by
Nishitani,
expresses
this state of affairs
admirably:
"The three
worlds are without
Dharma;
where then can I look for
my
heart?"
By positing 'modernity'
at the
origin
of
contemporary
nihilism,
Nishitani
appears
to view modern nihilism and
contemporary
nihilism as continuous realities. In his
presentation,
the identical
science-technology complex
runs
through
both,
and the
worldview and view of man that had been elicited
by
modern science and technol-
ogy
still lies at the bottom of
contemporary
nihilism. But is it not rather the
collapse
of the worldview
resulting
from modern science that lies at the bottom of contem-
porary
nihilism? What lies at the
origin
of
contemporary
nihilism is not the laws of
modern science that had taken on the
coloring
of death and
nihility,
but the law-
lessness of a
contemporary
science that bodes neither death nor life. Instead of the
earlier cited
prospect
of
"open
sea" and "dark
light,"
a "chaos" that does not allow
any prospect
has become dominant. There lies the
specific
difference that marks
contemporary
nihilism off from modern nihilism.
If these considerations have
any validity,
it seems to follow that the
"overcoming
of nihilism" that Nishitani aims at in
Religion
and
Nothingness
is still 'modern' and
stands in need of review from the
perspective
of the
'postmodern.'
The
governing
principle
of
contemporary
nihilism is not the "death
implied by
the natural laws"
but rather the "chaos of lawlessness." Here Pan-shan's
question truly
arises: Where
to look for
reality
in a world that has lost all
certainty?
This is the basic
question
for
today's philosophy
and
religion.
The
meaning
that the transcendence in
emptiness
has in the
present age
resides
in the fact that it overcomes the
"angst
of
meaninglessness."
The
nihility
of nihilism
has to do with the
angst,
not before death or
sin,
but in the face of
meaninglessness.
The
profound
doubt of which I
spoke,
and the
"self-presentation
of the Great
Doubt" of which Zen
speaks,
is the
angst
before
meaninglessness.
This cannot be
removed from the outside. Tillich
already pointed
out that there is no
way
to over-
come it
except through fully accepting
it. Tillich then further
says
that what makes
153
HASE SHOTO
this full
acceptance possible
is not the "God of theism" but "a God
beyond
God,"
a
"God that embraces
everything."
Such a God is
infinitely
close to
emptiness.
Here I have discussed the idea of transcendence in
emptiness
from the
perspec-
tive of its
relationship
with nihilism. Insofar as it is
something
to be
overcome,
nihilism is one of the forms wherein the finitude of the human
being
makes itself
felt. That the human
being
is
fundamentally
finite is
undeniable,
but the awareness
of one's own finitude can take
many
forms. In Nishitani's
case,
it made itself felt in
the form of nihilism. How to break
through
the bottom of that nihilism thus became
Nishitani's basic
problem,
and the solution he found after a
quest
of
many years
is
the
path whereby
nihilism is broken
through
in the direction of
emptiness.
But there
are cases wherein finitude
appears
in the form of sin. In that
case,
the
path
to over-
come finitude
may
have to be
sought
in another direction than that of
emptiness.
If
it is not reflected in the locus of the
actuality
of human
life,
and does not take the
form of
love,
emptiness
does not become an actual force. For
that,
the transcendence
in
emptiness ("sky")
must take the form of transcendence in "earth." When the
sky
is reflected in the
earth,
"emptiness"
cannot but take on the nature of "the
Vow,"
as
found in Pure Land Buddhism. It seems to me that the
study
of nihilism still left the
problem
of the
pursuit
of transcendence from that side untouched. But I must leave
this to a later
essay.
NOTES
1. In
Japanese,
the titles are:
Kongenteki
shutaisei no
tetsugaku,
Kami to zettai mu, Nihiri-
zumu,
and
Shukyo
to wa nanika.
2. Nishitani
Keiji,
Riso 3
(1976).
This was said in a conversation with Masao Abe.
3. Simone
Weil,
La connaissance surnaturelle
(Paris: Gallimard, 1950),
p.
305.
4.
Soga Ryojin,
"Shinran's View of
History,"
in
Soga Ryojin
sensho
[Collected Works],
vol.
5
(Tokyo: Yayoi
Shobo, 1970),
p.
395.
5. Ibid.
6.
Keiji
Nishitani,
Religion
and
Nothingness (Berkeley: University
of California
Press,
1982),
Preface.
7.
J.
Van
Bragt,
"Nishitani the
Prophet,"
The Eastern Buddhist 25 no. 1
(1992),
pp.
28-50.
8. Nishitani
Keiji,
The
Self-Overcoming ofNihilism,
Trans.
by
Graham Parkes and Setsuko
Aihara
(Albany:
State
University
of New York
Press, 1990),
p.
3.
9. Nishitani
Keiji
chosakushu
[Collected Works],
vol. 20
(Tokyo:
Sobunsha, 1986),
p.
193.
10. In this
case,
Nishitani uses the
English
word.
11. Nishitani
Keiji
chosakushu,
vol.
20,
p.
186.
12.
Ibid., p.
176.
13. Ibid., p.
179.
14.
Ibid.,
vol.
1,
p.
99.
15. In
Japanese,
keienteki shinko-more
literally,
"faith that
keeps
at a
(respectful
or dis-
trustful)
distance."
16. Nishitani
Keiji
chosakushu,
vol.
1, p.
102.
17. Ibid.,
vol.
20,
p.
190.
18.
Religion
and
Nothingness, pp.
100-101.
19. Nishitani
Keiji
chosakushu, vol.
20,
p.
78.

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Nihilism, Science, and Emptiness in Nishitani

Author(s): Hase Shoto

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