NISHITANI'S BUDDHIST RESPONSE TO “NIHILISM”
Stephen Phillips
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 1987 DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lv.1.75 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key points | Argues that Keiji Nishitani's philosophy qualifies as Buddhist chiefly through his defense of Zen meditative experience rather than through classical Buddhist scholarship, and that despite his Western philosophical training and Western conceptual vocabulary, Mahayana concepts and scriptures remain central to his work. |
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.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |