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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S

An exposition on the Kyoto School's philosophy and analysis of its related complications.

Karanveer Singh

Department of Philosophy, King’s College, University of Western Ontario

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

—William Blake.

The perennial questions concerning the of self and the meaning and purpose of life have brought us to the point of intellectual exhaustion, still without quenching any thirst. However, these questions still retain their intensity and victimize each of one us with existential angst, at least once in the lifetime. The Buddha describes it as dukkha, Tolstoy calls it an arrest of life1,

Nishitani calls it 'The Great Doubt.'2

Traditional western religions, philosophy, consumerism, the 'pursuit of happiness' have failed us with these questions, abandoning us with even more piercing spiritual vacuity; rampant substance abuse and the silent epidemic of suicide are only the tips of the iceberg of nihility. This spiritual vacuity has compelled us to seek elsewhere; this desperation initiated the import of

Eastern religions and in the west.

This paper explores the potential of the Kyoto School's philosophy to navigate amidst the terra damnata of spiritual vacuity and nihility. As a disclaimer, the east, especially the Kyoto

School, does not suffer from the schism of religion and philosophy like the west, where runs athwart the religion.3 Nishitani describes religion as a necessity, an existential force that makes life possible and sees the role of philosophy to articulate and conceptualize the religious feeling; religion articulates the religious feeling.4 To better articulate, this paper's thesis is to provide an exposition on the Kyoto School's philosophy and analysis of its related complications.

1 Arrest of life is similar to notion of existential angst and loss of meaning (Tolstoy & Kentish, 1987, p. 33). 2 The Great Doubt is when the object as well as the subject comes under doubt (Nishitani, 1982) 3 Refer Nishitani’s Religion and Nothingness. 4 Refer Nishitani’s Religion and Nothingness.

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

First, I discuss the most fundamental of between western and ; in this section, I will briefly explore the roots of substance and process-based ontology to build a background for a better explication of Kyoto school's philosophy. The second part will juxtapose these two ontological positions and their implications in philosophy and religion. Third, I will expound on the Kyoto school's origin, their main ideas such as emptiness and nothingness and their soteriology. Fourth, I will advance my three concerns regarding the

Kyoto school's framework. The fifth and last part will recapitulate and conclude.

Before we traverse the subject of Kyoto School's philosophy, it is imperative to build a historical background of western and eastern thought that documents their evolution. To accomplish that, I will start with the basics by focusing on Western and eastern thought's different ontological positions. Ontology deals with questions regarding the nature of , and ; there are primarily two schools of ontology; substance and process-based.

The school of substance-based ontology maintains a substance as an unchanging foundation of reality. Its roots can be traced back to 475 BC in Ancient Greece, where Greek philosopher Parmenides, also considered the founder of ontology and , first conceptualized substance-based ontology.5 A significant portion of Western ontology, primarily until early modern, fall under this category—for example, Plato's forms, Leibniz's monads, and others. However, the Substance-based conception of reality runs into a few complexities.

First, substance-based ontology, which holds an unchanging foundation of reality, manifests as the longing for an unchanging objective reality not contingent on the perceiver; it undermines the subjectivity as one cannot universalize subjective . This obsession with

5 Milič Čapek in The New Aspects of Time argues that the influence of Parmenides’ ontology on is without parallels (Capek, 1991, p. 145)

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY the objective, universal and transcendental that lies outside the human has completely divorced the physical sciences from the spirit's science, causing widespread cerebrotonia where the 'objective' intellect became orthogonal to feelings and superseded it. Mind-independent reality presupposes to be universal, static, context-free, and non-interactive. The pursuit of

'knowledge' reduces the interactive proficiency of navigating in one's environment into a set of abstract rules assumed to hold universally. As a contemporary example, physicists expect the same set of laws to work at sub-atomic, medium-sized objects and stellar level; they want to unify

Newtonian physics, relativity and quantum theory into one; hence, the romance with the theory of everything that works in every context.6

Propositional knowledge best exhibits the essence of substance-based knowledge. For example, if Peter knows that John is a philosopher, Peter can be said to possess the propositional knowledge that "John is a philosopher." There is the expectation from the proposition to hold a truth value, either true or false, universally, but this expectation is bizarre because other Johns might not be philosophers, or John might change his profession. Proposition, "John is a philosopher" will hold only in a context, for example, in a university X, in the Philosophy department where a student named John is enrolled, but not universally. The assumption of knowledge being context-free is often implicit in the colloquial utterances such as "He has the knowledge," where the utterance suggests the 'knowledge' as an isolated entity possessed by the individual. The quest for mind-independent reality has not been in vain; this quest provided the fertile ground for the development of sciences and mathematics that are relentlessly progressing the human endeavour.

6 The Theory of Everything conceptualized first by Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (Hawking, 2006).

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

However, to our dismay, postmodernism has blithely demonstrated no overarching grand narrative that there is no theory of everything that no one rule, ideology, or perspective can describe the whole of ; this is what Nietzsche meant when he claimed, "God is dead." The arche, the first principle, has died.7

Modern physics delivered the final blow to the substance-based ontology by concluding that no stable particles constitute the foundation of reality, as held earlier by classical physics, but flows and processes that are a function of ever-changing and ever-evolving wave functions. The fuzzy and befuddling laws of quantum theory are the living violation of substance-based metaphysics.8 The above mentioned philosophical and scientific developments dethroned substance-based metaphysics' hegemony in western thought; substance-based ontology had run its course. The west needs a foundation immune to philosophical and scientific skepticism; it is the west's spiritual vacuity that catalyzed 's contemporary emergence.

On the other hand, the school of process-based ontology holds no stable foundation of reality; instead, posit changes and processes as the foundation of reality; eastern ontology subscribes to this school. Heraclitus was the first one to introduce process-based ontology in the west around the same time as Parmenides; his ontology is epitomized by the famous quote, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man" and

"All is flux, stays still." In this framework, the notion of self-identity that we take so given would not hold; for example, the number one will not be equal to number one, 1=!1, because the referent of the symbol '1' is not constant and changing the same way a river cannot be equated to self because it is continually flowing.

7 Refer Charles Taylor’s Malaise of Modernity (Taylor, 1992) 8 See The Theory of Everything (Hawking, 2006).

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

Process-based ontology was prevalent in the east, even before Buddhism. Buddhism though it emerged from Hinduism, was radically different. Hinduism subscribed to a substantial self (ātman) that survives biological death and is permanent, invariable, unconditioned and the seat of decision-making and control; it is similar to the Christian conception of the soul.9 On the other hand, the Buddha subscribed to the doctrine of 'non-self' (anattā), that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in phenomena. The Buddhist concept of anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) is the fundamental differences between Buddhism and Hinduism, with the latter asserting that ātman's existence. Buddha's concept of anātman is a revision of the Hindu concept of ātman in that the ātman is an eternal, unchanging and non-physical entity that survives physical death, whereas anātman is the idea that there is no-self. The Buddha claims that the five aggregates (pañcakkhandha), namely, form (rupa), feelings (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental activity or formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vijnana), give us the illusion of self as no one part can be equated to a self. The doctrine of non-self also emphasizes impermanence in that the self changes every moment, leaving no scope for the possibility of a permanent self; it contrasts with the notion of ātman that purports that there is an eternal and unchanging self.

The Buddhist process-based ontology stands its ground in post-quantum modern physics, too, that has concluded that there are no such stable particles that constitute the foundation of reality, as held earlier by classical physics, but processes that are a function of ever-changing and evolving wave functions. The process-based ontology of Buddhism is not only relevant in modern physics but also promotes psychological health by revealing the illusion of self (ātman) as a constant flux of five aggregates (pañcupādānakkhandhā), enabling one to become detached and

9 See In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Bodhi, 2005, pp. 61-63)

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY let go. The detachment and 'letting go' directly results from the realization that there is no ātman or self to hold on to, but only a perpetual flux; the illusion of permanence is but a change in slow motion. The Buddha calls the suffering that arises from positing a substantial self as viparinama- dukkha. The notion of anātman comes in an equiprimordial triad, called as three marks of existence (tilakkhaṇa); the other two are impermanence (anicca) and suffering (duḥkha); together, these three aspects confirm the process-based ontology of both physical and mental phenomena.

Buddhism spread from India to China in the 5th century through a Buddhist monk known as and became . By the 13th century, Chan Buddhism indirectly reached Japan, where it became Buddhism. Kyoto School is a prominent strand of founded by Kitarō Nishida in 1913 that synthesizes primarily Zen Buddhism and western philosophy. While retaining its roots in process-based Buddhism, Japanese philosophy further explored the notions of emptiness and nothingness, and hence, these ideas need further explication.10

The word emptiness is a translation of a Sanskrit word Śūnyatā. The notion of Śūnyatā posits that all things are devoid of any self-contained existence and essence (svabhāva); it is akin to the notion of process-based ontology that holds a non-substantial view of nature. Śūnyatā, along with emptiness, also means dependent origination that everything's existence results from a long chain of causes, that things are "empty of own-being" in that they do not have an isolated or stable being of their own, that their being is dependent upon the other.

Dōgen, a Japanese Buddhist priest and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen, best epitomizes this notion in the following utterance.

10 Refer Keenan, 2012

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

"Firewood, when burned, becomes ash; the ash never again reverts to being firewood. Still, we

should not regard firewood as a before, and ash as an after. We must realize that firewood is in

the position of firewood with or without before and after. Ash is in the position of ash with or

without before and after."

It is worth noting that emptiness (Śūnyatā) does not negate the being; it does not deny phenomena but only its independent and stable self-contained essence; things exist, but without essence. Also, this paper will refer to Mahāyāna Buddhism's version of emptiness.

The Kyoto school further builds upon the notion of emptiness by introducing nothingness, also called 'The absolute nothingness.' Nothingness goes one step further by positing emptiness even more fundamental than dependent arising; nothingness encompasses the dependent origination, not vice versa.11 Unlike emptiness or Śūnyatā, which only negates self-contained essence, nothingness negates being too. Critical Buddhism, a recent movement in Japanese philosophy that employs the theory of classical Buddhism to critique the later schools of Buddhism, highlights the potential danger of nothingness a foundation of reality resulting in a new ontology that is based on nothingness. The notion of absolute nothingness is problematic because it is the absoluteness of anything that Śūnyatā negates, favouring a view of dependent origination. The notion of nothingness is an addition to the Buddhist thought by the Kyoto school.

Emptiness and nothingness form key concepts in Kyoto-Buddhist soteriology in that one realizes, through meditation, the Buddha-nature or emptiness. The link between emptiness and salvation needs further explanation. Assuming a substantial nature of things creates attachment; attachment results in dukkha because, in reality, things do not endure and are devoid of any

11 Refer Keenan, 2012

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY essence; the Buddha has a particular name for this kind of dukkha; it is called viparinama- dukkha. For example, while commuting on a bus, a person seeing a particular person daily for months becomes discomforted when they stop taking that bus; one can get attached to anything, be it a person, object or sense of self. However, in the above example, seeing new people every day while commuting does not lead to an attachment as there is nothing substantial to get attached to; to reify the point further, even a person ceases to be the same next moment.

In their soteriological project, they tackle the problem by nihility by dissolving the self itself into it. The threat of nihility becomes imminent when the self becomes prominent; self and nihility are sides of the same coin. Nihility becomes threatening because the objects of the attachment reveal their non-substantial self; the attachment to the illusion of substantial self prevents the self from 'becoming' nihility.

The occidental philosophy differs from the eastern approach in that, when claiming "cogito ergo sum," Descartes did not extend his methodological doubt to the self.12 The Great doubt in Zen

Buddhism, unlike Cartesian methodological doubt, doubts both the things and the self. Nishitani asserts that cogito is an illusion because one infers cogito only based on ego, and ego results from when the self becomes attached to itself. The self becomes self-attached because it posits a substantial nature on self, and since the substantial self is an illusion, cogito as a foundation is contestable. The substantial self leads to other complications such as the need for salvation, alienation, and the problem of good and evil; no such complications arise if one posits no-self.

According to Nishitani, religion's role is to disillusion from the notion of self and attack anthropocentrism.

12 A method to get to the foundation of reality (see Descartes & Cottingham, 1986).

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

Emptiness supposes a non-substantial and dependently originating nature of things and the self; this view prevents the attachment from developing, leaving no scope of dukkha. Emptiness liberates one from the bondages from the attachment of forms, enables one to take things less seriously, and catalyzes the realization of non-duality as there is no self to differentiate from the world; emptiness weaves everything in the fabric of dependent origination. The Buddhist soteriological project is to realize the buddha-nature of the emptiness. After laying out the context sufficiently, I will now layout a few complications arising from the aforementioned concepts.

My first concern is the criteria for determining the plausibility of substance and process- based ontology. The criteria informed by the confirmation of process-based ontology by natural sciences is contestable. The extrapolation of process-based ontology to the phenomenology lacks valid justification; physical objects' patterns and rules need not apply to psychological entities. For example, socializing improves one's social skills; speaking to people does not deplete one's sociability but improves it; sharing and giving results in more. The same does not hold material objects such as food and money where one gives at one's expense; this example demonstrates that rules that govern the physical realm might not hold in the phenomenology.

Further advancing this line of reasoning, I find applying any of these to the entirety of existence totalizing. For example, one does not encounter dependent origination and process-based ontology in every entity; some seem transient and others permanent. For a person with an average life span of seventy years, entities such as the planet earth, the sun, even countries may seem permanent and substantial. To other livings such as rodents or insects, entities such as plants, trees or even humans may be permanent. I argue that recognizing the substantial or non-substantial nature of things is a function of a scale and that the totalizing of either of the view is unjustified.

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY

My second point picks up from the first point and explores the normative aspect of ontology, just like . In ethics, the descriptive does not become normative; the fact that humans were killing, raping, and pillaging for a very long term in their evolutionary history does not warrant that they should continue this behaviour. I argue that similarly, ontology can also be normative; accordingly, we may posit a substantial or non-substantial view of reality and then manipulate the reality. Increasing lifespans of humans, institutions, governments, corporations, and others are a quest for permanence.

Positing a normative role to ontology frees us to choose either view. I argue that a substance-based ontology will provide us with the impetus to work on larger-than-life projects such as government, corporations and others. On the other hand, under process-based ontology, I speculate that one will see things empty of the essence and lack the rigour for an ethical or political stance and will not see beyond the fabric of dependent origination; for example, striving for glory would not be appealing if it is transitory.

The normative aspect of process-based ontology is not limited to a view or stance on things; it entails manipulating reality. For example, a file stored in a computer can be emailed, transferred to another computer and then finally uploaded to the cloud while staying intact and not losing the

'essence'; we have made substance-based ontology possible; in the same manner; we can make the self substantial by uploading our mind on a computer with the help of technology. Moreover, as per Marx's claim that the material informs ideology, the enabling of substantial self with technology will also change our view on the ontology.

My third concern is understanding this framework's philosophical position on the nature of consciousness. Buddhism posits that there are six fundamental elements (mahābhūta) of reality, earth (pruṭhavī-dhātu), water (āpa-dhātu), fire (teja-dhātu), air (vāyu-dhātu), space (ākāsa-dhātu),

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE KYOTO SCHOOL'S PHILOSOPHY and consciousness (viññāṇa-dhātu).13 By supposing consciousness (viññāṇa-dhātu) as a part of fundamental reality, Buddhism subscribes to a version of panpsychism. It explains why this framework assumes a mereological position that equates the 'whole' of non-self to its constituents' collection; anātman is no more than the six fundamental elements, implying that nothing dies when the self and the body disintegrates into the six fundamental elements at the physical death as there is no substantial self.

However, panpsychism fails to explain the discreetness of the moments of birth and death seem as no one recalls the experience before birth. I argue that either panpsychism is implausible, or Buddhism commits a fallacy by assuming a mereological position that equates the 'whole' of non-self to its constituents' collection. For example, a functional bicycle is more than a collection of its parts. Similarly, I argue that consciousness emerges from a particular biological arrangement of atoms and that consciousness is not a fundamental part of reality but only an emergent one.

During physical death, if not self, it is consciousness that ceases, and life and death become relevant, if not to self, then to consciousness.

Also, assuming the mereological position that equates the 'whole' of non-self to its constituents' collection would lead to another complication that fails to account for the entity that takes rebirth if the non-self only constitutes the six fundamental elements. This mereological assumption fails to explain one's position in the lineage of rebirth; rebirth becomes no more than dependent origination.

13 See In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Bodhi, 2005, pp. 349-351)

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I want to make a case from my experience with entheogen ayahuasca guided by a Shaman in Kentucky.14 During that experience, I had a 'proper' ego death, also confirmed by the Shaman.

In the climax of that experience, I lost my sense of body; I was unable to discriminate my body from my surroundings. I forgot everything my name, my language and all the concepts; I was looking at things as if for the first time and could not muster any taxonomy for the objects; I forgot that the thing I was looking at was called a 'lamp.' It was all chaotic, random sensory data with no sense of self or . I feel confident to call it an experience of Śūnyatā or emptiness.

In another experience, during surgery, I was anesthetized entirely and had no awareness.

When I woke up after six hours, initially, I had trouble making sense of everything, and it took almost a couple of seconds to orient myself. It was like waking from a very deep and dreamless sleep with no sense of time; after waking up, I could not guess how much time has passed. I speculate this is what the absolute nothingness or death must 'feel' like.

In light of the above , I contend that the death of the self or Nishitani's The

Great Death is not identical with the biological death in that in the latter, something else, other than the self is lost, and that is the consciousness or the ability to experience. It demands its further inquiry regarding its constitution and its relation to re-incarnation. In light of this realization, consciousness runs the danger of becoming a substance for substantial ontology. Also, I argue that one cannot imagine nothingness due to its nature though one can imagine emptiness, as demonstrated from my experiences; this proves a point mentioned earlier that Śūnyatā is not a life- denying and being negating notion but only negates the self-contained essences. In this way,

14 Ayahuasca is a psychedelic entheogen.

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Buddhism dodges the allegation of being nihilistic and life-denying. Its attack on self-contained essences is only to break the manacles of attachment of forms and appearances.

My fourth and last concern is moving from Buddhism's palliative role to a constructive and futuristic one. The Buddhist soteriology is about realizing the buddha nature of impermanence to get liberated; to free oneself from craving (tanha) and clinging (upadana) that are the foundation for suffering (duḥkha). I speculate that the eradication of all desires leaves no impetus to move forward into the future. One can argue that then the purpose of life becomes to lessen the Duḥkha of the rest of the people. Universalizing this way of life would eventually liberate everyone but with nothing left to do. It is not easy to imagine humanity moving forward with everyone realizing the Buddha-nature. However, as an objection to this claim, one could point out the career-oriented Japan's people and Japan's contribution to art and technology.

To recapitulate, I started with the fundamentals; I discussed the two prominent ontological positions and their origins. Then I elaborated on how these ontologies play out in western and eastern thought. Next, I juxtaposed the eastern and the western thought creating a background to unpack the Kyoto school's ideas. In the following, I expounded on Buddhist thought and its influence on Kyoto school and elaborated on the notions of emptiness and nothingness.

Subsequently, I presented my three discussion points concerning the complications arising out of the Kyoto school's ideas.

In light of the above, I concur with the radical nature of the Kyoto school's ideas and their potential to resolve the deadlocks in western thought. Kyoto school has burst upon us a plethora of fresh perspectives and new modes of thinking and has unleashed the importance of comparative and cross-cultural studies.

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References

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Capek, M. (1991). The new aspects of time: Its continuity and novelties. Dordrecht: Kluwer

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Descartes, R., & Cottingham, J. (1986). Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the

Objections and Replies. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press.

Hawking S. W. (2006). The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe. Phoenix

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Keenan, J. P. (2012). Mahāyāna Emptiness or « Absolute Nothingness » ? The Ambiguity of

Abe Masao’s Role in Buddhist-Christian Understanding / The Ambiguity of Abe

Masao’s Role in Buddhist-Christian Understanding. Théologiques, 20 (1-2), 341–363.

https://doi.org/10.7202/1018863ar

Nishitani, K. (1983). Religion and nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Taylor, C. (1992). The malaise of modernity. Concord, Ont: Anansi.

Tolstoy, L., & Kentish, J. (1987). A confession and other religious writings. Harmondsworth,

Middlesex, England: Penguin.

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