- The Buddha Eye:An
Anthology of the Kyoto School, edit by Frederick Franck
- Reviewed by Steven Heine
The Buddha Eye, one of a new series of
works on contemporary Japanese thought, the Nazan Studies in Religion and
Culture, is an important and interesting collection, although some qualifications must be
noted concerning its title. The term "Kyoto School," used here for the first
time in the title of an English language book, generally refers to the philosophical
writings of Nishida Kitaroo (Nishida tetsugaku), which seek a logical exposition of the
"place" (basho) of "pure experience" (junsui keiken) as the unified
ground of reality. "Kyoto School" also includes the influence of Nishida's
thought on noted disciples such as Tanabe Hajime, and associates such as Watsuji Tetsuroo
and Suzuki Daisetz, who were based in Kyoto University and nearby institutions. Finally,
it covers the "second-generation" followers who have applied Nishida's
metaphysical standpoint to various areas including ethics, aesthetics, logic, social
theory, and the philosophies of religion, history, and science.
But The Buddha Eye deals only indirectly
with Nishida, omits Tanabe and Watsuji, and also contains pieces by writers who have no
association with the Kyoto School, like the medieval Zen poet Ikkyuu and modern Pure Land
thinker Kiyozawa Manshi. Thus, it is really an anthology of one branch of the Kyoto
School: the Suzuki-oriented approach to Buddhist studies expressed through interreligious
dialogue in light of Rinzai Zen. A quarter of the essays are by Suzuki: most of the
remaining ones are from the journal Eastern Buddhist, founded by Suzuki, including three
by its editor, Nishitani Keiji. In this regard, it is important to note that the
Suzuki-orientation represents but one of the major contemporary Japanese approaches to
Buddhist studies. The other, for which one might use the term the "Tokyo
School," as it is centered in Tokyo and Komazawa Universities, has received far less
exposure in the West; it stresses historical and philological studies, perhaps reflecting
the scholastic tradition of the Sootoo Zen sect.
There is a significant discrepancy in
methodology between the Suzuki approach to Zen and that of Nishida tetsugaku. Franck
remarks that the two main characteristics of the Kyoto School are: "... its staunch
faithfulness to, and rootedness in, the Mahaayaana Buddhist tradition, coupled with a
complete openness to Western thought and a commitment to bring about a meeting of East and
West, a 'unity of differences' " (p. 2). While this may be true of the essays
selected for The Buddha Eye, Franck's characterization would be misleading if applied to
Nishida tetsugaku. In Nishida's works, Mahaayaana and Zen doctrines of nothingness are not
necessarily a matter of ideological commitment, but form a deep and subtle background to
his uniquely independent philosophical investigations. Furthermore, comparative thought is
used not for the sake of East-West synthesis, but as a philosophical tool to enhance the
complexity and logical consistency of his arguments. In The Buddha Eye, a potentially
fruitful analysis of the relation between the Suzuki-oriented approach and Nishida
tetsugaku, as well as the entire context of the Kyoto School, is not attempted.
The Buddha Eye does offer an organized and
representative collection of some of the most significant essays by contemporary Japanese
thinkers dealing with Zen (and, briefly, Pure Land), including Abe Masao, Ueda Shizuteru,
Hisamatsu Shin'ichi and Takeuchi Yoshinori, in addition to Suzuki and Nishitani. Franck's
characterization highlights the fundamental strengths and drawbacks of the Kyoto thinkers'
philosophical aims and techniques. The most stimulating and intriguing aspect is an
open-ended and flexible comparative stance which places this group at the forefront of
cross-cultural philosoph-ical endeavors. The essays demonstrate that the Kyoto thinkers
are consistently well-grounded in a wide range of Western traditions, including nineteenth
and twentieth-century philosophers and theologians such as Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx,
Schleiermacher, and Buber; mystical thinkers such as Meister Eckhart and Pseudo-Dionysus;
as well as classical Greek and Biblical sources. For the most part, Buddhist doctrines and
Western thinkers are not simply lined up side-by-side, but insightfully and creatively
explored so as to illuminate both poles of the comparative interchange.
The essays seem to fall into three general
categories. First, those which explicate various aspects of Japanese Zen, such as
Takeuchi's exposition of Nishida through a philosoph-ical analysis of Bashoo's haiku and
Rinzai's "fourfold consideration" of the ultimately void relation between
subject and object. Second, the majority of writings, which attempt to clarify
misconceptions about the Zen understanding of nondifferentiation through a contrast with
Western views that seem to approach but, from the standpoint of the authors, fall short of
achieving it. Thus, Nishitani refutes Buber's doctrine of "I and Thou" on the
basis of Zen nothingness, for which, he writes, "there is neither self nor other;
hence there is no person and no personal relationship left" (p. 55). Similarly, Abe
argues that, as opposed to the Pauline view of being "baptized into Christ," the
essence of Zen "is not identification with Christ or with Buddha, but identification
with emptiness" (p. 67). A third category, which has one main representative, delves
beyond the compara-tive framework established in the second classification to resolve a
philosophical issue that no previous system of thought has directly addressed. Nishitani's
"Science and Zen" points to the need for a philosophical overcoming of the
nihilism that lies at the root of the technological world view in order to prevent the
apocalyptic conflagration it may cause. Although Nishitani maintains that the Zen view of
nature could serve as a basis for this, he stresses, perhaps reflecting a Heideggerian
influence, that the transformation must develop from within the philosophical ground of
the technological tradition itself.
The central limitation of the Kyoto
approach occurs when the two traits cited by Franck-a commitment to Mahaayaana and the
pursuit of East-West synthesis-become contradictory rather than complementary. In Nishida
tetsugaku, the complex hermeneutic issues underlying the difference between philosophical
and religious discourse are sensitively and lucidly treated. Frequently, however, the
authors of the essays in The Buddha Eye tend to supercede the boundaries of philosophical
criticism, and to confuse the distinction between logical analysis and theological
affirmation. Rather than attempt, as Nishida does, to formulate a cogent philosophical
reasoning unbound by any particular tradition, the implicit assumption takes over in their
writings that Zen has philosophical priority over any other standpoint: Western traditions
are not clarified by such an endeavor, but become manipulated so that they are easy to
deflate; they are criticized on the basis of the fact that they are not Zen. At other
times, a tendency toward the notion of "perennialism" is evident: all
traditions, at least all esoteric or mystical traditions, are fundamentally the same.
Nishitani's compelling piece on "Science and Zen" stands as a notable exception
to these tendencies.
The appearance of this volume in the
Nanzan series raises key questions about the role of Kyoto thinkers in forthcoming trends
in comparative philosophy. Will they begin to receive attention from Western philosophers,
who may be far less informed about Oriental thought than the Kyoto thinkers are about the
West, forcing them to come to terms with the East? Will this have the dialectical effect
of recharging the Kyoto thinkers to overcome their philosophical biases in pursuit of a
truly universal methodology? It seems that the lack of overall philosophical consistency
in the current work may not be conducive to such developments. Furthermore, Franck's
introductory comments on each essay, while generally helpful, lack the philosophical depth
necessary to establish a viable basis for commanding the attention of a new readership. It
is likely that The Buddha Eye will remain the domain of those already interested in the
material-scholars of Buddhist and Japanese studies as well as Western theologians
concerned with cross-cultural dialogue, such as Merton, Graham, and Franck himself.
Transcribed for Buddhism
Today by Thich Nu Lien Hoa