Japanese Zen Buddhism, Misc

This book presents the first collection of essays on the philosophy of Ueda Shizuteru in a Western language. Ueda, the last living member of the Kyoto school, has fostered the East-West dialogue in all his works and has helped to open up the Western image of philosophy by engaging the Zen tradition. The book reflects this particular trait of Ueda’s philosophy, but it also covers all thematic fields of his writings. Contributions from both young and established scholars and experts from (...) Japan, Europe and the U.S. make this a unique introduction to and reception of Ueda’s philosophy. Readers will discover discussions of mysticism in the East and West, and consideration of modern philosophy topics including self-awareness, nature and poetic language. The book also presents a focussed look at language and nothingness, considering silence and nihilism. Chapters allow the reader to understand the timeliness of a thinking that mediates and transcends the dichotomy of East and West. This volume will appeal not only to scholars of Nishida, Japanese philosophy, mysticism and religious experience in Japan, but also to scholars of Western philosophy, especially those interested in Meister Eckhart, Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber. It makes an ideal introduction to Zen philosophy and presents important contributions to scholarship on language and experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I use a comparative analysis of mysticism in Zen and the Abrahamic faiths to formulate a phenomenological account of mysticism “as such.” I argue that, while Zen Buddhism is distinct from other forms of mystical experience in important ways, it can still be fit into a general phenomenological category of mystical experience. First, I explicate the phenomenological accounts of mysticism provided by Anthony Steinbock and Angela Bello. Second, I offer an account of Zen mysticism which both coheres (...) with and problematizes these accounts, arguing that Zen demonstrates the inadequacy of these accounts as descriptions of mysticism as a universal religious category. Lastly, I use this investigation to propose that Zen mysticism does generally cohere with the mystical experiences of other religions, but only if we devise a new formula for speaking phenomenologically about mystical experience as such which captures this phenomenon in all of its manifestations. (shrink)

Chief amongst the issues Toshihiko Izutsu broached is the philosophisation of Zen Buddhism in his book Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism. This article aims to critically compare Izutsu’s reconstruction of Zen metaphysics with another metaphysical tradition rooted in Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. Putting Izutsu’s terminological choices into the context of Zen Buddhism, we review his argument based on the subject-object distinction and establish a comparison with the Cartesian cogito. A critical analysis is conducted on the functional relationship between subject (...) and object in Izutsu’s metaphysics of Zen. This is examined step by step from the perspective of Descartes’ Meditations. On the one hand, we focus on prima facie similarities in meditative and reflective methodologies used by the Zen and Cartesian approaches. On the other, we highlight some unequivocal differences in the metaphysical role of the subject: an indubitable foundation for the epistemological access to objective reality, and an introspective apprehension of the egoless void or absolute reality. (shrink)

This paper focuses on one of the mainstays of Japanese psychiatrist and philosopher Kimura Bin’s (1931–2021) philosophical approach. Kimura’s work is characterized by the intersection of therapeutic, philosophical, and intercultural dimensions in ways that enable his clinical practice and philosophical investigations to mutually inform one another. I examine how this dialectic comes together with his conversion of ordinary Japanese words into philosophical concepts. Explicating the concepts Kimura deploys in developing a phenomenology of the self allows us to make new sense (...) of phenomena ranging from the process of individuation to the collective subjectivity of group life, from the breakdown of the self to its fuller realization. (shrink)

ABSTRACTJason Wirth's Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis challenges complacency in two significant ways. First, it performs a commitment to philosophy as creative and capacious practice in contrast to orthodoxies or technical provincialisms. Second, it disrupts unreflective usages of “wealth” and “development” as inherently economic in developing a compelling argument about the way that spiritual poverty informs contemporary ecological pathology. In this review, I present six key claims in Wirth's (...) text and offer unfolding thoughts in response. (shrink)

Monolitna kulturološka označenja kao što je Zapad ili Istok postala su sumnjiva i puki izraz parokijalizma u eri globalizacijskih procesa. Otuda, trebalo bi biti očito da svjetska filozofija nije nešto što se može ograničavati isključivo na jednu tradiciju koja započinje sa Talesom. Ona mora biti dostatno široka da obuhvati svaki čin filozofiranja, svaki oblik traganja za mudrošću, budući da ne moramo svi biti Zapadnjaci da bismo filozofirali. -/- Kako bi dali svoj doprinos prevladavanju općenite kulture ksenofobije na pragu 21. stoljeća (...) u Bosni i Hercegovini i Balkanu općenito, dvojica su priređivača Novih granica japanske filozofije, Nevad Kahteran i James W. Heisig, uključili čitav serijal tekstova (11 eseja o japanskoj filozofskoj tradiciji), potcrtavajući ovaj nesrazmjer u pogledu unošenja azijskih prinosa te napose modela dalekoistočnjakog mišljenja u našim filozofskim seminarima, potičući druge da rade na produbljivanju ovakovrsnih susretanja i transkulturalnom dijalogu. Zapravo, ovim sveskom se sumiraju rezultati prethodna četiri sveska Nanzan Instituta (Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy 1, 2, 3 i 4) te japanski prinosi pluralizmu i interkulturalnim studijama postaju dostupni u našem jeziku. (shrink)

Purpose and Scope of Study. The purpose of the study was to begin an integration of the science of Environmental Psychology and the Eastern tradition of Zen Buddhism, and to construct a dialogue between them relating to the meaningful connection between humankind and environment. The need for such a dialogue was presented as stated by various modern thinkers and scholars in the field of environmental study. The state of the art of Environmental Psychology and of the discipline of Zen Buddhism (...) were described. Zen was further elaborated on through its arts in order to present a deeper insight into its particular awareness as evidenced through Japanese artforms. ;Integration. The study suggests that the integration of Zen with environmental study offers a rounding out of the complete spectrum of knowing necessary to fully understand the individual/environment relationship. Employed as complements to one another, empirical research and spiritual insight of the person/place connection form a composite of rational and arational modes of knowing that encompasses person both as spectator and participant communing with the world, and allows a synthesizing dialogue between science and intuition. The study proposed a guiding theoretical foundation for such an integration, along with implications for practitioners, the environments they create, and people who live in those spaces. The author's personal recounting of her own environmental awareness was offered as a practical application of the proposed integration, along with an invitation to the reader to do the same. (shrink)

Reference in light of Qualia Calculus (QC); Hard Problems in light of QC; The number of qualia in a room in light of QC; verification of 1st-person phenomena; more advanced neurology; 3rd-person and 1st-person aspects of a system; their symmetries; Well-tempered Clavier; the past is not determined; argument for A-theories in light of QC; frames of reference; Standard Model; String Theory; Bach; time; causality; Schrodinger equation; technology; earth; thick present; Zen; the river; free will; materialists in light of QC.

If we reflect on the history of Buddhism, we should be able to acknowledge as an anomaly the present yawning chasm to be seen between North American / Japanese academic scholarship that deals with Zen/Chan and the corresponding practice community. We have on one hand a religious tradition that has, due to a combination of its own rhetorical choices and various historical turns, become largely bereft of the ongoing production of significant scholarship concerning its own history and doctrine. This is (...) juxtaposed with an academic scholarly tradition, generated from its own radically different historical roots that has a historical-philological orientation that ends up being almost completely disconnected from the concerns of the practitioner within the tradition, be she/he a monastic or lay adherent. What is further interesting about this situation is the extent to which it has, despite its peculiarity, come to be taken for granted as normative—at least within Western and Japanese scholarship. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem: Can a synergy be derived from Keiji Nishitani’s conceptualization of Śūnyatā and Paul Tillich’s concept of Being Itself, as philosophies about Ultimate Reality, with the application of Wesley Wildman’s procedures based on the methodology of the Comparative Religious Ideas Project? The paper defines philosophy of religion and argues that it is justified as an academic discipline. A review of the literature demonstrates that both Nishitani and Tillich share common philosophical ground in phenomenological existentialism and nihilism. (...) The paper proceeds to discuss the biographies and religious philosophies of both Keiji Nishitani and Paul Tillich. Subsequently, the paper details the Comparative Religious Ideas Project (CRIP) methodology and then applies Wildman’s procedures to these two philosophers. The thesis concludes that a synergy exists about Ultimate Reality between the contemporary religious philosophies of Nishitani’s description of Buddhism and Tillich’s explanation of Christianity. (shrink)