NISHITANI'S BUDDHIST RESPONSE TO “NIHILISM”

Abstract

Keiji Nishitani presents a Buddhist philosophy that at once speaks from Buddhist religious and expresses a sensibility. It is his defense of the that above all qualifies his philosophy as Buddhist. Nishitani is a Buddhist thinker not so much in drawing on the rich history of classical Buddhist philosophy as in drawing on his sense of the value of Buddhist meditation (zazen in Japanese) and meditational experiences. The Buddhist works he cites are principally poems and various meditation manuals within the Japanese tradition, not the analyses and speculations of classical Buddhist schools. Nishitani's philosophic education is much more Western than Buddhist, and his explicit intent is to defend the Zen experience not so much with terms and concepts that have been hammered out through centuries of Buddhist reflection as with those of Western traditions. The most important concepts in Nishitani's work remain those of Mahayana Buddhism, and the influence of Mahayana scriptures such as the Prajindparamitdsuitra-s-whether directly through Nishitani's own study or through their influence on Dogen and some other Japanese teachers who are his more immediate precursorsnevertheless must be counted as large.' But Nishitani presents his own modern interpretation replete with an arsenal of contemporary arguments. His defense of mysticism is hardly a matter of scriptural exegesis.