Beyond Personal Identity Curzon Studies in Asian Religion

Series Editor: Sue Hamilton, King's College, London

Editorial Advisory Board: Nick Allen, University of Oxford Catherine Despeux, INALCO, Paris Chris Minkowski, Cornell University Fabio Rambelli, Williams College, Massachusetts Andrew Rippin, University of Calgary

Curzon Press publishes a Series specifically devoted to Asian Religion, considered from a variety of perspectives: those of theology, , anthropology, sociology, history, politics and literature. The primary objects of study will be all the religious traditions of the Indian sub-continent, Tibet, China, Japan, South-East Asia, Central Asia, and the Near and Middle East. The methodology used in the works published in the Series is either comparative or one focused on (a feature of) a specific tradition. The level of readership ranges from undergraduates to specialist scholars. The type of book varies from the introductory textbook to the scholarly monograph.

Tradition and Liberation The Hindu Tradition in the Indian Women's Movement Catherine A. Robinson

Shinto in History Ways of the Kami John Breen and Mark Teeuwen

Beyond Personal Identity Dagen, Nishida, and a Phenomenology of No-Self Gereon Kopf

Proposal or scripts for the Series will be welcomed by the Series Editor or by Jonathan Price, Chief Editor, Curzon Press. Beyond Personal Identity Dagen, Nishida, and a Phenomenology of No-Self

Gereon Kopf

CURZON First Published in 2001 by Curzon Press Richmond, Surrey http://www.curzonpress.co.uk © 2001 Gereon Kopf Typeset in Horley Old Style by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-7007-1217-8 ----It CONTENTS _,1------

Preface IX Introduction Xl Dagen Kigen Xli Nishida Kitara XIV Methodological Considerations XVlI

PART ONE: Personal Identity Revisited

CHAPTER ONE: The Problem of Personal Identity 3 Introduction 3 The concept ofpersonal identity 5 Three theories ofpersonal identity 8 introduction 8 personal identity qua substance 9 personal identity qua bodily continuity 15 personal identity qua psychological continuity 18 The concept ofpersonal identity revealed as a convenient fiction 22 personal identity as further fact 22 the indeterminacy of personal identity 24 personal identity is not "what matters" 25 The construction ofpersonal identity 28 personal identity and intentionality 28 the emergence of two selves 31 Summary 33

v CONTENTS PART TWO: Zen Buddhism and Phenomenology on Self-Awareness

CHAPTER TWO: Selfhood 37 Introduction 37 outline of part two 37 the problem of selfhood 38 Cogito and self-consciousness: a phenomenology of the self 40 the conception of the cogito 40 cogito as intentional act 44 self-consciousness 46 the dual self 49 summary 52 "To study the self is to forget the self" - selfhood in Dogen 53 no-self in Buddhism 53 introduction to Dagen 55 Dagen's "self" as positional act 58 self-awareness in Dagen 63 somaticity and self-awareness 67 Nishida on selfhood 69 introduction 69 the dual self 70 non-positional awareness 73 self-awareness and internal negation 75 conclusion 79 Summary 80

CHAPTER THREE: Otherness 83 Introduction 83 Alterity and intersubjectivity 87 existential ambiguity of self and other 87 excursion: psychic synchronization and psychic entanglement in Jung 94 "To cast offselfand other" - alterity in Dogen 97 alterity in early Buddhism 97 Dagen and otherness 99 the moment of alterity 101 the paradox of alterity 103 intersubjectivity 105 I and Thou in Nishida 110 The interaction of I and Thou 111

VI CONTENTS the disappearance of the self 113 non-thetic awareness 117 the modality of expression 11 9 Summary 121

CHAPTER FOUR: Continuity of Experience 124 Introduction 124 The notion of continuity 125 No-self and continuity in Early Buddhism 132 and permanence 133 impermanence and continuity 137 the collapse of continuity 141 From dharma-position to dharma-position - continuity in Dogen 144 From the present to the present - continuity in Nishida 153 from the created to the creating 154 from the present to the present 157 Summary 161

CHAPTER FIVE: Temporality 164 Introduction 164 A phenomenology of time 165 abstract time 166 phenomenal time 170 lived time 173 temporality and the problem of 175 Existence-time - time in Dogen 177 time in early Buddhism 177 time in Dagen 178 inauthentic experience of time 179 authentic experience of time 182 the immediate now 184 The non-relative present - Nishida on time 187 introduction 187 linear time and circular time 188 the problem of repeatability 191 dialectical time 193 eternal present 195 Summary 197 Temporality and personal identity 200

Vll CO:\TE~TS

PART THREE: Zen Conceptions of Identity

CHAPTER SIX: A Zen Phenomenology of Experience 205 Introduction 205 A Mahayana Buddhist phenomenology ofexperience 208 The abstract world 213 The phenomenal world 216 The lived world 218 introduction 218 lived world as epistemic reorientation 21 9 lived world as activity 222 summary 224 The actual world 225 non-positional awareness 225 the dialectic of the actual world 228 The question of impermanence 232

CHAPTER SEVEN: Personhood as Presencing 235 Introduction 235 The concept ofpresencing 235 Dagen's stratification of presencing 235 the role of the universal 238 Synchronic non-duality 240 the dialectic of presencing in Dagen 240 the dialectic of presencing in Nishida 245 Diachronic non-duality 248 the non-dual structure of impermanence 248 presencing qua from the created to the creating 252 identity and non-duality 255 Postscript: presencing is "what matters" 256

Notes 262 Glossary of Japanese Terms 278 Key to Texts by Dagen and Nishida 284 Works Cited 286 Index 294

VIU -----t4 PREFACE _1---

When I took my first course in Buddhism eleven years ago at Temple University, I found myself perplexed and mystified by the writings of Dagen and the concepts of "no-self," "casting off body and mind," and "presencing" they espoused. This class sent me on a journey to understand these concepts within their own conceptual framework and thus into the field of comparative philosophy, Japanese language and culture, and the dialectical philosophy of NISHIDA Kitara. The tentative product of this journey is the present volume, which grew out ofa significant revision ofmy dissertation. It attempts to relate the Zen Buddhist notion of no-self as it is elaborated by Dagen and Nishida to the problem of personal identity and to the theories of self developed in twentieth century phenomenology and ; in short, it presents a phenomenology of no-self. In this sense, it combines my two fundamental intellectual interests: on the one hand, the quest to understand selfhood with all its ethical, psychological, existential, and political ramifications, which are all reflected in the dilemma of reconciling change and a sense of constancy, and, on the other, the attempt to dialogue notions of selfhood as different as Leibniz' monadology, Parfit's rejection of personal identity, Merleau­ Ponty's phenomenology of habit-formation, Buddhist notions of selflessness, and Nishida's infinite dialectic. I hope that this work will reflect this quest and stimulate or nurture the comparative discourse on selfhood. This book could not have been finished if it had not been for a host of teachers, colleagues, friends, and sponsors. Much of my academic development lowe to Professor NAGATOMO Shigenori, whose insightful and perceptive criticism has served both as model of, and as inspiration for, my research. I would also like to thank

IX PREFACE Professors J. N. Mohanty, Thomas Dean, YUASA Yasuo, and KIMURA Kiyotaka for their guidance and vote of confidence; Professors James Heisig, YUSA Michiko, Steven Heine, and Gen Reeves, for their collegial support and advice; my colleagues in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Luther College for their patience and support; Professors TATENO Masami, Jeff Shore, YAMABE Nobuyoshi, KURASAWA Yukihisa, WATANABE Manabu, Alfons Teipen, Terry Rey, Dr. ARAKAWA Naoya, and Dr. Douglas Berger for many conversations and their friendship; Dr. Samuel Brainard for innumerable discussions and insightful criticism; Professor Barbara Thornbury, and Ms. TAMURA Kyoko for introducing me to the Japanese language; Mr. Jonathan Price of Curzon Press for having faith in my proposal; Mr. Peter Spuit, Mr. Nathan Pralle, and Ms. Rebecca Meier for their help with the manuscript; Mr. Jack Kilcrease and Mr. Christian Salter for compiling the index; and the library staff at Luther College. I would like to thank Dr. Martin Srajek for his longstanding friendship and insightful comments which challenged me to look at the topic of personhood from a multitude of perspectives. Particularly, I thank Ms. Francesca Soans, who proofread the manuscript with precision and competency, for being a constant challenge to my ideas, and for simply being there. In addition, I would like to thank Luther College for supporting my research with the Ylvesaker Research Fund and a Faculty Development Grant and the Japan Foundation for its generous Fellowship, which enabled me to study and research for one year under Professor Yuasa, an experience which has been invaluable professionally as well as personally. I am further indebted to Professors Robert Schinzinger, David Dilworth, ABE Masao and Norman Waddell, TAMAKI Koshiro, and YUSA Michiko, whose translations of Dagen and Nishida have influenced me greatly insofar as my interest in Zen preceded my proficiency in Japanese. The process ofcompiling and writing this study has proven once more that interrelatedness in which we find ourselves. The inadequacies and shortcomings of this study, notwithstanding this overwhelming support, however, are solely my responsibility.

Gereon Kopf Decorah, 2000

x ------tt INTRODUCTION _1.....---

I'm known as Nagasena, your Majesty, that's what my fellow monks call me. But though my parents have given me such a name ... it's only a practical designation. There is no question of a permanent individual implied in the use of the word. Nagasena If I say 'It will not be me, but one of my future selves,' I do not imply that I will be that future self. He is one of my later selves, and I am one of his earlier selves. There is no underlying person who we both are. Derek Parfit Although they are not one, they are not different; although they are not different, they are not identical; although they are not identical, they are not many. DOGEN Kigen That which is identical in itself is not merely one but must be the many as one and the one as many. For this , that which changes does not change and that which does not change changes, as does, for example, our self-awareness; we can think of this as self-identity. NISHIDA Kitaro

Among all Buddhist concepts, the notion of no-self (Skrt.: anatman, Jap.: muga) seems to be the single most important concept within the Buddhist tradition and, at the same time, the least intelligible one to those outside of the Buddhist tradition. Recently, however, the Buddhist theory of no-self finds its conceptual equivalent in the outright rejection of an underlying personal identity or self, formulated by the reductionist of and Derek Parfit. 1 Albeit conceived of as highly counterintuitive as well as ethically irresponsible, the Buddhist position, nevertheless, succeeds in questioning the notion ofan enduring subjective and ethical agency

Xl INTRODUCTION on empirical grounds and demands a rethinking of this pivotal philosophical paradigm. In addition, DaGEN Kigen's Zen Bud­ dhism and NISHIDA Kitara's philosophy, which is akin to Zen Buddhism in its conceptual structure, developed a phenomenology of no-self which suggests a conceptual strategy to respond to the questions of personal identity and theorizes a selfless self after the refutation of the notion of personal identity and after the loss of an enduring self. To a philosophy of a self devoid of personal identity, Dagen and Nishida contribute their exploration of three fundamental features which are necessary for, yet often overlooked by, the discourse of personal identity. These are the self-constitution of the self, the moment of alterity and recognition, and a philosophy of time. Beyond Personal Identity discusses Dagen's and Nishida's philosophy of selfhood and personhood under these aspects in order to (1) engage in a comparative philosophy (including representatives of analytical, "Continental," and ) of selfhood, alterity, and time, (2) explore the philosophical implications of Zen Buddhist terminology and rhetoric, and (3) propose a way to theorize and talk about selfhood beyond personal identity.

Dogen Kigen

This book explores the notion of Mensch-sein2 as selfhood, alterity, and continuity within the writings of the medieval Japanese Zen Master DaGEN Kigen. Dagen (1200-1253 C.E.), the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen school,3 lived during the Kamakura period (1192-334 C.E.) in Japan, a time which was characterized by political chaos and corruption, and in which he personified the Zen virtue of "rugged determination and uncompromising independence" (deBary 1969, 357). Confronted with the corrupt Buddhist elite of the traditional Japanese Buddhist schools Tendai and Shingon and a general sentiment, of almost apocalyptic proportions, claiming that the end of the dharma (Jap.: mappo) had arrived, Dagen devoted his life to the proclamation of sitting meditation (Jap.: zazen) as the true transmission ofthe buddha-dharma (Jap.: buppo no shoden). In addition to defying the elitist Buddhism practiced by the traditional Buddhist schools, Dagen distinguished himself by developing a unique literary expression and philosophical articulation of Buddhist ideas. However, his thought was almost unknown for a long time, and it is only through the works of Japanese scholars such as WATSUJI Tetsura,

Xli INTRODUCTION who published a commentary on Dagen, "Shamon Dagen" (1940, 156-246) at the beginning of this century, that Dagen's thought is made available to the larger academic community. Before Watsuji's commentary, the study of Dagen's works remained largely within the discourse of the Sata sect; today, Dagen is counted as one of the formative thinkers in Japanese intellectual history. When one approaches the thought of Dagen, one has to keep in mind that the primary motive for his writing is the proclamation of zazen as the transmission of the dharma. Dagen's thought has an empirical foundation, namely, it is grounded in religious practice. Based on his spiritual experience, Dagen proposes a theory of Mensch-sein which forces the reader to rethink their conception of personal identity. Among the Buddhist writers Dagen distinguishes himself in that he develops a thorough formulation of a theory of self-cultivation (Jap.: shugyo) and a consequent investigation ofthe empirical and conceptual ramifications of the doctrine of no-self. Employing a phenomenology ofepistemic transformation, Dagen ventures to explore the conception of Mensch-sein in the light of the practice of sitting meditation. He adheres to the primacy of experience to such a degree that he even manipulates Buddhist doctrines and scriptures whenever he deems it necessary so as to articulate the depth of his confirmatory experience of enlightenment. Based on his experience of satori, Dagen investigates thoroughly, and sometimes even systematically, the implications the notion of no-self has for religious life, daily life, , and . In his effort to articulate the experience of no-self, he simultaneously incorporates and transcends the work of his predecessors such as Nagarjuna's dialectic, Chih-i's dogmatism, and the koan practice of Rinzai Zen Buddhism. Dagen abandons any form of dogmatism or textualism in order to emphasize the existential and experiential character ofthe Buddhist notion of no-self. In order to do so, he freely rephrases and modifies existing Buddhist doctrines and stretches linguistic boundaries in the search for an appropriate and exhaustive expression of the experience of satori. For example, while discussing the concept of buddha-nature (Jap.: bussho), Dagen advances a threefold modification of this concept as "non-buddha­ nature" (Jap.: mubussho), "emptiness-buddha-nature" (Jap.: kubussho), and "impermanence-buddha-nature" (Jap.: mujo-bussho) to avoid any essentialist, nihilist, or otherwise doctrinal position; instead, Dagen concludes his conceptual considerations with poetic images such as "inside the mountains flowers blossom" (Dagen 1993, 1: 407) and "flowers fall amidst loathing and weed flourishes in the middle of

Xlll INTRODUCTION disgust" (Dagen 1993, 1: 94)4 in order to express the existential predicament of human experience. Dagen thus advances a radical and existential interpretation of the Buddhist doctrine of no-self. Even though Dagen does not explicitly formulate a theory of Mensch-sein (nor does he have a conceptual equivalent to "personal identity"), his writings nevertheless disclose a consistent underlying interpretation of human experience and, in particular, of selfhood, alterity, and continuity. One of the most often-quoted paragraphs from Dagen's main work Shobogenzo is dedicated to the exploration of selfhood, in Dagen's words "to study the self" (Dagen 1993, 1: 95). Despite his denial of an enduring self, Dagen firmly believes that the process of self-awareness commences with the self-reflective experiential "I," and only a thorough investigation of the self­ conscious function will reveal the emptiness and provisional character of the experiential "I" and its conceptualization of itself as narrative identity. As indicated in his comments, which correlate the transcendence of the self and the transcendence of the other, Dagen maintains the interdependency between the self-conscious function of the experiential "I" and the moment of otherness. Dagen ventures so far as to claim the necessity of otherness, personified by the meditation master, for a successful process of self-cultivation through sitting meditation. Lastly, Dagen attributes major significance to the issue of continuity, especially to the relationship between the experience of continuity and the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness. With his keen sense for philosophical dilemmas, Dagen identifies the tension between the Buddhist proposition of the enlightenment experience, which transcends the boundaries of time and space, and the linear conception of time, which reflects the everyday experience of continuity. Subsequently, Dagen formulates a Buddhist conception of time designed to accommodate both modalities of experience, the experience of continuity and the experience of timelessness, with a special focus on its implications for the theory of Mensch-sein.

Nishida Kitaro

Nishida, one ofthe foremost philosophers in Japan, contributes to this work because of his threefold function as one of the first comparative philosophers, as the author of a philosophical explication ofZen ideas, and, albeit implicitly, as the author of a philosophy of selfhood. Nishida was born in the small village of Kanazawa on the northeast

XIV INTRODUCTION coast ofHonshu, the main island ofJapan, in 1870. He began his study at Tokyo University, the highest ranked university in Japan. After his graduation he returned to Kanazawa to serve, first, at a local high school, and, then, at Kanazawa University. In 1910 he joined Kyoto University as an assistant professor, where he was awarded a Ph.D. and full professorship in 1913. He remained there until he retired in 1928 and died in 1945. His extensive knowledge ofBritish psychology, including William James, and , especially the of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and phenomenology, provided him with the background to formulate his own philosophical system, which simultaneously fed on the ideas of Japanese Buddhism and western philosophical terminology. Despite his interest in a variety of topics, one of his major contributions to the field of comparative philosophy was to provide Zen Buddhism with a philosophical form and explication. While the claim that Nishida's thought constitutes a Buddhist philosophy or even a Zen philosophy is rather controversials for various , which have to be discussed in a different venue, I believe it is justified to utilize Nishida's thought as a philosophical expression ofZen (and thus as Zen philosophy) in the present context. Nishida develops a philosophical system and, more concretely, a philosophy of self which is not only based on Zen notions such as satori, "no-self" (Jap.: muga), "no-mind" (Jap.: mushin), etc. but, furthermore, either coincides with or expands on Dogen's notions of selfhood, alterity, continuity, and temporality. Even though he did not acknowledge that Zen thought and practice was one source of his philosophy until his last work, "The ofTopos and the Religious World View" ("Bashoteki Ronri to Shukyateki Sekaikan") (Nishida 1988, 11: 371-464), his terminology from early on reflects Nishida's beliefthat the notion ofsatori signifies the most fundamental modality of human existence in the light of which all human activity can be interpreted and examined. In his Inquiry into the Good ("Zen no Kenkyu") (Nishida 1988, 1: 3-200), for example, Nishida attempts nothing less than a mapping of , , ethics, and a under a new paradigm - the notion of "pure experience" (Jap.: junsui keiken) which is structurally equivalent to Dagen's formulation of satori as "casting off body and mind" (Jap.: shinjin datsuraku). Nishida was convinced that a proper explication of this experience in the language of philosophy could not only provide the key to some of the perennial problems in but that it could also function as the heuristic tool to interpret the wealth

xv INTRODUCTION and variety of human experience. Reminiscent of Dagen's agenda, the key theme of Nishida's philosophy is expressed in his underlying and pervasive belief that the dualistic paradigm, which has found its most radical formulation in the philosophy of Rene Descartes and the resulting "two-world theory" (Nishitani 1991, 77), has proven insufficient to solve the most fundamental and burning issues of humankind - namely ontology, ethics, and religion - and has, furthermore, resulted in a deep and existential schism of experience and metaphysics as well as and religion, which has left humankind not only confused but intrinsically alienated from itself. It is in this search for a new and inclusive (inclusively mediating) paradigm that Nishida's Buddhist influence becomes most apparent. Nishida rejects the "extreme positions" which dissociate the pair of opposites characteristic of everyday experience and absolutize either polarity as their respective starting point. Instead, he proposes the notion of the pure experience, which he defines as "unity of the subject and the object" (Jap.: shukyaku no toitsu) (Nishida 1988, 1: 15) as the starting point and most fundamental paradigm, which can equally accommodate the philosophical discourses on personal experience, metaphysics, religion, and science.6 While Dagen's concern is predominantly soteriological, Nishida is mainly concerned with fundamental epistemological issues. From the first page ofhis Inquiry into the Good to the last page ofhis "The Logic of Topos and the Religious World-View," Nishida's writings evolve as an endless struggle to formulate a philosophy that can bridge the seemingly infinite gap between knower and known to stratify a comprehensive theory of knowledge that has the notion of self­ awareness as its center. In a striking resemblance to the phenomen­ ological project of his contemporary Edmund Husserl, Nishida attempts to recapture the pre-reflective unity of the epistemic subject and object to postulate an assumptionless standpoint of philosophy. In analogy to Husserl, Nishida commences some of his philosophical essays written in the twenties and thirties ofthe twentieth century with the existential predicament of everyday consciousness qua the cogito in his "I and " ("Watakushi to Sekai") (Nishida 1988, 7: 85-172), qua human interaction in "The Non-Relative Contradictory Self-Identity" ("Zettai Mujunteki Jiko Doitsu") (9: 147-222), and qua the impossibility "to know what the other thinks" (6: 341) in his "I and Thou" ("Watakushi to Nanji") (6: 341-427). Starting with the existential predicament ofeveryday awareness, Nishida commences to explore the depth-structure of human knowledge. Like Husserl,

XVI INTRODUCTION Nishida realizes the fundamental flaw in the epistemological preconceptions of metaphysics and science; he strives, as Nishitani observed, to develop a philosophical standpoint which simultaneously addresses the "split between experience and metaphysics" (Nishitani 1991,. 71) and the "conflict between the standpoints of science and religion" (73) and intends to build a new philosophy on an objective episteme which resolves the philosophical antinomies and controver­ sies that characterized the history of European philosophy. In this process, however, Nishida is keenly aware ofthe paradoxical nature of his enterprise to know the structure of knowledge - Robert J. J. Wargo terms this riddle the "completeness problem" (Wargo 1972, 204) ­ which is reflected in his terminology of self-contradiction and nothingness. Nevertheless, he seems to believe that such a cognitive unity between the epistemic subject and object not only comprises the underlying depth-structure of human knowledge but further can be attained in religious experiences as diverse as that of St. Paul's self-surrender to god, 7 Shinran's nembutsu, and the Zen satori. At the same time, however, like Dagen, he refuses to dissolve the dichotomy of everyday experience into a mystical oneness and, instead, pleads for a radical non-dualism. This non-dual paradigm, which he terms alternatively as "pure experience" (Jap.: junsui keiken), "union point" (Jap.: goitten), "acting-intuition" (Jap.: koiteki chokkan), "non-relative contradictory self-identity" (Jap.: zettai mujunteki jiko doitsu), and "affirmation-qua-negation" (Jap.: kotei soku hitei), functions as the conceptual and structural basis of Nishida's conceptions of self-awareness, "I-and-Thou," "continuity of discontinuity" (Jap.: hizenroku no zenroku), and "non-relative present" (Jap.: zettai genzai) as "contradictory self-identity" (Jap.: mujunteki jiko doitsu).

Methodological Considerations

To achieve my threefold goal of engaging in a comparative study, exploring the philosophical implications of Zen Buddhist thought, and proposing a Zen conception of personhood devoid of personal identity, I will approach the subject matter in three steps. It is possible to argue that each part introduces the topic "beyond personal identity" from a different perspective: Part One from the perspective ofthe discourse on personal identity, Part Two from the perspective of a comparative philosophy, and Part Three from a Zen perspective.

XVll INTRODUCTION (1) In the first part, I will examine the philosophical pursuit of personal identity which commenced in the philosophical discourse of the European enlightenment as a debate between, among others, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, , and David Hume. This section will define "personal identity" as identity-over-time and trace the debate on personal identity through the discussion of thought experiments in the discourse of analytical philosophy in the nineteen seventies and eighties to Parfit's rejection of personal identity and Paul Ricoeur's critique thereof. In recent years, the discourse on personal identity seems to have been enriched by a discussion of clinical cases8 rather than of the logical and metaphysical conditions of personal identity. Since the present work focuses for the most part on the metaphysical, logical, and epistemological implications of "identity," "self-identity," and "non-duality," I am unable to include a case­ study-oriented approach. This chapter primarily functions to introduce the terminology and problematic of personal identity and to illustrate by implication the difference between the notion of personal identity, Parfit's rejection thereof, and the Zen Buddhist conception of, ifyou will, personal non-duality. It is my thesis that the framing ofthe question of personal identity already implies the notion of an enduring self. Thus, I suggest replacing the search for criteria of personal identity with an examination of the three fundamental issues involved in the pursuit and construction of personal identity, namely, selfhood, alterity, and continuity. I will also argue that any theory of personal identity has to clarify its assumption about temporality and thus relate the quest for personal identity to a philosophy of temporality. In order to avoid the assumption of personal identity, I will refer to the issues ofselfhood, alterity, continuity, and temporality as the problem of Mensch-sein (literally, being-human). The main advantage of the term "Mensch-sein" is that as a neologism it minimizes the ontological connotations and metaphysical assumptions involved. As such, the term does not constitute a conceptual solution but rather rephrases the problem of personal identity without implying a permanent substance. (2) The second part will dialogue the Zen Buddhist notions of selfhood, alterity, continuity, and temporality with twentieth-century existentialism and phenomenology with a special emphasis on Jean­ Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and, to a lesser degree, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In using the label "phenomenology," it is not my intention to either assume or argue that the delineation between existentialism and phenomenology does not hold up; neither

XV1l1 INTRODUCTION do I intend to negotiate their differences. Rather, and this is supported in the discussion of both existentialist and phenomenological philosophy under the category phenomenology, as it is done by Herbert Spiegelberg (1960) and Bernhard Waldenfels (1983), I believe that the philosophies subsumed under these categories, especially Sartre's and Merleau-Ponty's, reveal a particular methodological and conceptual affinity to Dagen's religious thought and Nishida's philosophy. They thus aid in facilitating a philosophical dialogue between Japanese Zen Buddhism and the discourse on personal identity and selfhood within the Euro-American philosophical tradition, which traces itself back to the philosophy of the ancient Greeks.9 Thus defined, phenomenology shares with Zen Buddhism its existentialist approach, taking everyday awareness qua the "facticity" of self and world (Merleau-Ponty 1962, vii), HusserI's "natural standpoint" (Husserl 1962, 91), Dagen's standpoint of the ordinary person (Jap.: bompu), and Nishida's world of mutually opposing particulars as its starting point. Second, phenomenology discloses the binary structure of everyday awareness, juxtaposing the self qua intentional act and the world qua construct. Starting with the binary structure of everyday awareness, phenomenology then explores the various dimensions of human experience and thus discloses the "world as it is directly or pre­ reflectively experienced" (Shaner 1985, 16). The four main dialogue partners of this section, Dagen, Nishida, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, locate everyday awareness in pre-reflective experience, albeit differently conceived. In addition, all four philosophers emphasize the importance ofselfhood, alterity, continuity, and temporality to a theory ofselfhood. Finally, in the course of this dialogue, I will develop a terminology which arises from both phenomenology and Zen Buddhism and, at the same time, enables me to interpret Zen Buddhism in the light of phenomenology and phenomenology in the light of Zen Buddhism. (3) The third part is dedicated to establishing a Zen conception of personal non-duality from within the philosophies of Dagen and Nishida. Using the terminology that emerged from the comparative dialogue between phenomenology and Zen Buddhism, I will develop a multilayered conception of personhood which applies the notorious non-duality between identity and difference, change and changeless­ ness, temporality and atemporality, so characteristic of Zen Buddhism, to the question of continuity over time. Thus I will introduce the Zen conception of no-self qua presencing to the discourse on personal identity with all its metaphysical, ethical, and soteriological implications.

XIX INTRODUCTION Furthermore, the text implies a host of sub-discourses, which are secondary, if not tertiary, to the overall project, such as the structural and conceptual similarities between Dagen and Nishida as well as between Zen and phenomenology, the contributions Sartre and Merleau-Ponty make toward an introduction of Zen Buddhism to the philosophical discourse of the "West," the differences between Parfit's rejection of personal identity and the no-self of early Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, and, last but not least, the importance of a philosophy of time to the conception and conceptualization of selfhood and personal identity. In this context, it will also be important to emphasize that Zen Buddhism is a predominantly soteriological enterprise. While I will be careful to read Dagen's thought within the context of his religious agenda, my primary focus will be the conceptual dimension and ramifications of his concepts "casting off body and mind" (Jap.: shinjin datsuraku) and "presencing" (Jap.: genjo). Finally, I would like to briefly explain my usage and notation of technical terminology and terms from languages other than English. To keep the present work as readable as possible, I generally translated technical terms into the English language. This is especially important since my project is predominantly comparative and draws from a variety of language communities. Generally, I retained those terms whose translation into English posed particular difficulties such as Nishida's "basho" and Dagen's "shinjin datsuraku," literally "casting off body and mind," in their original language. Since my intention is to compare the various terminologies of personhood and selfhood and to develop some kind of metalanguage of Mensch-sein, I decided to italicize every term contributing to my conceptual framework. I thus employ four different notations of translated terms: Everyday language such as "self" or "external object" and generally accepted technical terminology such as "no-self" are written without italics or quotation marks; technical terms discussed as concepts appear in quotation marks; translated terms which inform my conceptual framework are italicized; and technical terms whose meanings differ significantly from everyday usage, such as "to constitute," are italicized. With regard to the notation of titles of monographs and essays, in the case of Dagen, I cite the Japanese titles for ease of reference because the English translations vary significantly. In the case of Nishida's work, I adopted, whenever available, the titles of the translations by ABE Masao, Robert Schinzinger, David A. Dilworth, and YUSA Michiko. The overall criteria for these conventions are readability and clarity.

xx PART ONE Personal Identity Revisited -----It tl---- The Problem of Personal Identity

Introduction

The philosophical discussion ofthe notion ofpersonal identity, that is, the question of how we can conceive of the continuity of persons over time, seems to have reached a pivotal phase. Derek Parfit's radical denial of the notion of personal identity and the subsistence of any personal essence over time, which he first formulated in his essay "Personal Identity" (1971) and later stratified in his ingenious Reasons and Persons (1984), has left the contemporary philosopher with the uneasy choice between reliance on the almost untenable notion of an inconceivable substratum of selfhood or the seemingly unthinkable, unethical (in the eyes of some of Parfit's opponents) and, definitely, counter-intuitive rejection of personal identity. After all, we claim our identity with a past self every day in our self-presentation through stories, curricula vitae, and credit histories as well as through relationships to family relations, friends, and colleagues. Parfit's rejection of the traditional conception of personhood and selfhood has received even more weight since it finds support in recent claims of leading cognitive scientists, such as Ray Jackendoff, and researchers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as Marvin Minsky (1985), that the cognitive processes of the mind do not necessitate an underlying, permanent selfor Ego. l Iftrue, the dictum ofhuman selflessness would have implications beyond the realm of philosophy, influencing psychology, cognitive science, and, most of all, ethics because of the importance of the concept of personal identity to the questions of ethical accountability, responsibility, property rights, and the delinea­ tion of human life. These questions are central not only to general ethical theories but also to the evaluation of ethical and psychological

3 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED consequences of contemporary technology and science, such as brain tissue transplants,2 and real as well as possible achievements in the realm of AI, highlighted by popular entertainment ala Hollywood. It also affects the evaluation and treatment of special psychopathological cases such as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). In addition, the notion of personal identity carries significant soteriological implica­ tions in that it seems to constitute a necessary condition for a belief in an afterlife, whatever form it may take. However, the main question that concerns me in this book can be summarized as follows: How is it possible to talk about persons, selves, and minds in the face ofa theory ofselflessness? Assuming that the dictum ofselflessness, advanced not only by Parfit but also by David Hume, Jackendoff, Minsky, and, most importantly for the present enterprise, Buddhism, is viable, how is it possible to articulate and solve questions concerning the identity, continuity, personhood, and selfhood of the human individual? The present chapter will analyze the conception ofpersonal identity as well as Parfit's rejection of it and propose a way to talk meaningfully about the issues of personhood, selfhood, and the human experience of temporality without presupposing or even necessitating the notion of personal identity. Part Two will explore the notion of selfhood and temporality as advanced by Zen Master Dagen and the philosopher NISHIDA Kitaro. At this point, an important clarification seems necessary. While it is my main interest here to examine the metaphysical structure of the concept "personal identity," I am less concerned with negotiating the arguments supporting and/or refuting the various conceptions of personal identity, which focus on the criteria for personal identity ­ Andrew Brennan (1988), Harold W Noonan, (1989) and John Perry (1975) have already provided comprehensive overviews of the existing theories within the tradition of analytical philosophy - but rather with probing the assumptions underlying such conceptions and their implications. What are the contributions and implications of the most prevalent theories of personal identity? In particular, I am interested in the criticism, which has been advanced to varying degrees by Richard G. Swinburne (1984), Roderick M. Chisholm (1976), and especially by Paul Ricoeur (1992), that the discourse on the criteria of personal identity within analytical philosophy tends to overlook the subjective dimension characteristic of the formation of personal identity.3 Who is the "I" who announces his/her identity in stories and curriculum vitae? What is the significance of the subjective function, which John Searle (1992) labels first-person-ontology, for the construction of

4 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY personal identity and for the discussion of its criteria? More specifically, I am interested in the description and examination of the existential sense of continuity and constancy and the concomitant construction of personal identity in narratives and philosophical theory. Contrary to the claims ofSwinburne and Chisholm, however, I believe that such a criticism does not necessitate the notion of personal identity and an underlying and unchanging Ego.

The Concept of Personal Identity

The concept of personal identity arose arguably within the European intellectual tradition. It has its etymological roots in the colloquial Greek term prosopon and its Latin equivalent persona, signifying "the mask worn in comedy or tragedy" or "the character an actor plays ­ dramatis personae." (Chadwick 1981, 193). As early as the sixth century, Boethius (480-524 C.E.), a Latin philosopher and Christian theologian, formulated the concept of personal identity as a synthesis of the Aristotelian concept of substance and the notion of an eternal soul, which early Christian theology had inherited from Neoplatonist philosophy. In the context of the early Christian debates on Christology,4 Boethius developed his now famous definition of persona as "individual substance of rational nature" (Lat.: naturae rationabilis individua substantia) (193). The foremost function of this formula was to express that Jesus the Christ, despite his dual nature ­ divine and human - was unified and one in numero. Nevertheless, the formula additionally identified the "incommunicable quality of the individual within the human species" (194) which functions as the self-identical and individual essence of the human being. Boethius' definition of the concept "persona" radically differs from its original meaning "mask" in that it, now, denoted that which persisted over time, despite changes and transformations that might occur in its attributes and accidents,S be they physical or psychological in character. It is important to note that Boethius' usage of "persona" implies unity, endurance, and, most importantly, rationality, thus distinguishing the essence of Mensch-sein not only from the mask that can be arbitrarily and deliberately utilized or discarded by any given actor, but also from inanimate, insensible, and irrational entities. However, it was not until the notion of the individual had developed in the thought of the Italian Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the European Enlightenment that the conception of personal

5 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED identity as an individual-over-time became the subject of general philosophical debate, involving eminent thinkers such as Gottfried W Leibniz, John Locke, Hume, Joseph Butler, and .6 By then, the synthesis of Aristotelian and Neoplatonist thought within the Christian theological tradition had given rise to the notion of an individual and enduring core, which clearly demarcates and identifies an individual, human person. During the periods of the Enlight­ enment and , this notion of the individual person-over­ time was adopted as the general theory of Mensch-sein, underlying most philosophical, psychological, and ethical systems in the West. For all these theories (with the exception of the theories of Hume, Parfit, and some cognitive scientists), the notion of a real, enduring, and conscious agent, namely personal identity, functions as a necessary condition, addressing the issues of ethical responsibility and accountability as well as the continuity of experience. Today, personal identity is defined as persistence-over-time, suggesting that there is one enduring individual which persists through a multitude of different and separate moments in time and which possesses a multitude of experiences. In some sense, the theory of personal identity emerges from the attempt to explain and conceptualize the sense of continuity characteristic of the existential predicament of the experiential "I." Awakening to itself, the experiential "I," that is, the self-conscious agent, finds itself thrown, as Martin Heidegger would say,' into a particular situation and context of historicity. To give an example, every morning I wake up knowing who I am, who my relatives, colleagues, and friends are, what my social function and professional responsibility is, etc. In short, I experience myself continuous and identical with a past self; at the same time, this identity is being reinforced by the community in which I find myself, by the people who meet me, recognize me, and, in some sense create who-I-am in their stories, expectations, and prejudices. The lack of such an experience ofidentity and the shortage or even negative reinforcement of an assumed identity would create a comical or haunting scenario as exploited in novels such as Joy Fielding's See Jane Run. This everyday experience ofcontinuity and assumption of identity translates into the contention that the person P exists at, and persists through, diachronically diverse moments such as tb t2t t3, t4, etc. For the sake of clarity, I would like to identify up at tl" as P 1 and "P at tz" as Pz. Any theory of personal identity inquires into the following questions: What is it that continues from tl to t2? What warrants the

6 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY attribution of two experiences P 1 and P2 to one "person" P? What privileges the relationship between P 1 and P2 over the relationship between P 1 and, for example, Ch in the understanding of personal identity? Why is it possible for me to claim identity with the person who graduated from Temple University in 1996 (P2) but not with the person who won the election for the American presidency in the same year (~), or with the person who authored the Tao te Ching more than 2000 years ago (R3)? The colloquial usage of the term "person" is highly ambiguous, signifying both the diachronic person-over-time such as P and individual persons-at-the-moment such as P1 and P2. The notion of the person-over-time designates a set of diachronically separate experiences such as being born at t 1, entering high school at t2, and attending college at t3 , if and only if at any given time to one diachronical, personal unity corresponds to one and only one person­ at-the-moment. The term "person-at-the-moment," on the contrary, signifies one particular experience of a given person-over-time. Assuming the differentiation between person-over-time and person­ at-the-moment, Noonan distinguishes between diachronic identity and synchronic identity: the former addresses the relationship between two diachronically disparate person-stages, P 1 and P2, while the latter investigates the relationship between one person-stage, P3 , and the diachronic stream of experiences called "person," namely P (Noonan 1989, 104-5). Diachronic identity is expressed in statements of the form "the person who wrote Steppenwolf (P1) and the person who wrote Siddhartha (P2) are identical," synchronic identity in statements such as "Hermann Hesse (P) is identical to the author of

Steppenwolf (P1)." In addition, personal identity does not only require such a diachronic identity relationship between the two persons-at­ the-moment P 1 and P2 and a synchronic identity relationship between the atemporal person P and person stage P 1 but, to be more specific, their exclusive identity in that, at any given time to, P is synchronically identical to but one person-stage Po and that person­ stage Plat tl is diachronically identical with but one Po at any given time to. Personal identity thus defined is a clear-cut matter ofyes-or-no - tertium non datur. Thus, the theory of personal identity investigates three central questions: How is it possible to identify a person (myself and others) as an individual human being? How is it possible to distinguish between two individual persons? What guarantees the constancy and identity of an individual person over time? These questions are

7 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED designed to identify the fundamental characteristics of an individual and to isolate that which makes an individual human being unique. In this sense, the theory of personal identity defines continuity of experience solely as the persistence and preservation ofone individual person. As mentioned before, such an enterprise is of utmost importance since its practical implications cover a wide range of problems that include memory, recognition (how is it that I recognize an individual human being whom I have met before?), ethical responsibility and accountability (what are the conceptual conditions to make an individual human being accountable for what slhe has done ten years ago?), and legal problems such as the attribution of property (who is the referent of possessive pronouns?). In short, all these dilemmas hinge on the fundamental question "What are the criteria which identify a human individual-over-time beyond ?" At the same time, these questions map out the complexity of the issue, which is reflected in the breadth of approaches to personal identity and the emerging interdisciplinary character of the discourse on personal identity. Recognition evokes the social aspect of human existence, while the delineation of human individuals involves the considerations of communicability of mental content in interpersonal interaction and the exchangeability of human organs in transplants as well as the clarification and definition of "content" and "delineation." In addition, concepts such as "identity," "substance," and "continuity" have metaphysical and, for the most part, logical implications. Most of all, however, it has to be examined how the various theories of personal identity reflect the human experience of identity and difference, endurance and transformation. Finally, and this point is often overlooked within the discourse on personal identity, the quest for personal identity suggests two methodologies, a first-person­ approach and a third-person-approach: The former inquires "How do I define myself?" and "How can I identify what is intrinsically me?" while the latter defines and recognizes an other's personal identity from the outside.

Three Theories of Personal Identity

Introduction

Traditional responses to the problem of personal identity have varied significantly in the past three hundred years. The prevalent theories of

8 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY personal identity can be roughly divided into three groups: First, there are the essentialist theories, which, following Leibniz' principium identitatis indiscernibilitium, conceive of personal identity as an unchanging constant in the flux oftime reflective of Boethius' naturae rationabilis individua substantia. With the challenge to, and the undermining of, the essentialist paradigm, which began (in the European philosophical tradition) with Hume, a rethinking of the notion of personal identity has become necessary. The post-Humean philosopher concerned with the question of personal identity finds her/himself in the dilemma ofeither subscribing to the mysterious, as well as questionable, concept of a substance or forsaking the ethically crucial and seemingly empirical, self-evident notion of personal identity. Faced with this alternative, the criteriologist8 establishes personal identity by identifying the necessary and sufficient criteria that constitute personal identity. This approach discloses two possible solutions, namely, the attribution of personal identity to bodily continuity or to psychological continuity. Such an alternative, however, warrants two immediate observations. First, this dichotomy obviously arises from and is reminiscent of the mind-body dualism, which has received its ultimate philosophical expression in the European philosophical tradition by Rene Descartes, and, thus, reflects the Cartesian legacy. I believe that this revival ofthe Cartesian dichotomy reveals some of the fundamental issues and metaphysical assumptions involved in the criteriological controversy. Second, the discussion of the physical and the psychological criteria raises the question whether these approaches actually substitute the notion of substance with a bodily or a psychological continuity or whether they simply substantialize the human body or the psychological complex involving memory and consciousness. On first· sight, this question might appear to be splitting hairs, but, as will become clear in the course of the present chapter, it uncovers the most fundamental concern of the philosophical quest for personal identity.

Personal identity qua substance

The essentialist approach conceives of personal identity as a substance,9 that is, an underlying, unchanging unity, which has a certain set of attributes subject to change, and which is different from the physical body, memory, and consciousness. The latter phenomena comprise the transient attributes of Mensch-sein, while personal

9 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED identity constitute its unchanging core and essence. Thus defined, personal identity is the very principle which enables me to identify myself with various stages (person-stages, if you will) in my life and with the infant in my photo-album and a believer in transmigration with a previous existence. In this sense, the essentialist conception of personal identity echoes the everyday notion of a person as someone who has a beginning, namely, birth, persists through change, despite the changes in her/his life and the general transient nature of the phenomenal world, corresponds to one, unique person-at-the­ moment at any given time to, and dies at the end of her/his life. To explore the tension between the sense of continuity and constancy, which is so important to the conventional world constructed by the human community, and the obvious physical and psychological changes human individuals undergo during a life span, the defenders of the essentialist hypothesis employ thought experiments such as Heraclitus' river and "Theseus' ship." Leibniz, one of the first champions of the essentialist understanding of personal identity, uses these thought experiments to exemplify the concept of personal identity as substance. Heraclitus' river, to Leibniz, remains the same, one river, despite the constant flux of water particles which comprise the river. While the flux of water merely indicates a change in the river's attribute, that is, the water, the essence of the river, that is, what establishes the river as such, remains constant and unchanging. By the same token, Leibniz attributes the identity of Theseus' ship,10 which, on its many journeys, was repaired and slowly replaced piece by piece until nothing of the original material was left, to its unchangeable and invisible essence reflected in the continuity of its form and appearance (this statement raises interesting questions which will be discussed later). Leibniz contends that it is the same ship which leaves the first and enters the last port of the journey, since its substance survives all material substitution, which Leibniz interprets as a mere change in attributes. Swinburne (1 984) and Baruch A. Brody (1980) support Leibniz' position with the more up-to-date example of body swapping, in which two persons change their bodies so that body A is bestowed on person B and vice versa. The very nomenclature and construction of "body-swapping" already implies a priority of personal identity - whatever this is - over the human body. However, the essentialists also denounce the identification ofpersonal identity with consciousness, memory, or, in the terminology of criteriologists, with psychological continuity. Traditionally, essentialists

10 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY have challenged the Lockian and Neo-Lockian position, which attributes personal identity to memory or any psychological continuity, with what can be called "the argument from amnesia." The prototype of this argument has become known as Reid's paradox of the brave officer. Imagine, Reid argues, an officer who remembers his first campaign when he took "a standard from the enemy" (Reid 1975b, 114) but doesn't remember being flogged in high school; however, at the time of his first campaign, he still remembered the flogging incident. From this analogy, Reid concludes the insufficiency of the memory criterion, which, in his example, would render two persons - the officer who was flogged and took the standard, on the one hand, and the officer who took the standard and became general in his later days, on the other - where there is only one. Therefore, Reid argues, the identity ofthis brave officer cannot depend on his memory. Personal identity, thus, as defined by the essentialists, cannot depend on any transient phenomena such as attributes, but only on an unchanging core. To elucidate this contention, Leibniz11 introduces the second earth example, which compares favorably with the criteriological thought experiments in ingenuity and provocative potential. In his New Essays (1916), Leibniz imagines that there is a second earth, which resembles our earth down to the minutest detail, in the sense that for each person A here, there exists a person N. on the second earth, who possesses seemingly the same body, memory, and consciousness as person A does. However, this seeming identity is an illusion since a self-identical substance cannot be two in numero. Leibniz contends that these two persons A and N. - and obviously they are two persons in numero - are distinct only in substance, and it is only god who can identify this difference in substance. In this sense, personal identity is defined as the underlying substance, which endures bodily changes, amnesia, and causes the present "I" to identify with past and future experiences. But what then constitutes this substance, which endures change over time yet is imperceptible? Following Aristotle's distinction between substance, the unchanging core, and attributes, which comprise what "the intellect perceives of the substance, as if constituting its essence" (Spinoza 1958, 94), Brody differentiates between essential and non-essential properties (Brody 1980, 151). While the former provide the necessary criteria for personal identity, the sine qua non of personal identity, so to speak, the latter are not necessary to identify an individual person. The strength of the argument from substance is that it renders personal identity

11 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED independent from all phenomena which are subject to change and, subsequently, from the transience characteristic of the phenomenal world, and guarantees personal identity not only given the change of time but also for each possible world: The notion ofsubstance secures the identity of the person Al at the present with the person Az in any possible future or past, regardless of the scenarios imagined ­ technically possible or not - in which individuals duplicate or merge; it identifies and demarcates an unchanging, individual core of personal identity vis-a.-vis its transient properties such as body, memories, feelings, occupation, and relationships. As mentioned above, the essentialists argue that this personal-identity-qua­ substance survives body-swapping, complete amnesia and, particu­ larly, changes in emotions and relationships. This is so, Brody argues, because it is possible to identify the personal identity of an individual if the individual in question possesses essential properties. However, the crux of this definition is that it cannot explain what the term "essential properties" signifies; on the contrary, it simply shifts the focus from the concept of substance to the notion of essential properties. Thus conceived, essentialism does not clarify the following questions: What is a substance? What are essential properties? What does it mean "to have a property essentially"? What defines my personal identity if it is neither my body nor my memory and consciousness and even less my social relationships? And again, what is this substance which enables me to claim identity with the infant in the picture in my hand? Geoffrey Maddell is as straightforward as one can be in his evaluation of the concept "substance" when he identifies it as a mysterious concept which denotes "something-we-know-not­ what" (Maddell 1969, 135). In the final analysis, essentialism is inconclusive since it is based on a circular argument: Substance is defined as that which essentially comprises personal identity; that­ which-persists-over-time, namely, personal identity, is identified as that-which-persists-over-time, namely, substance. Thus, it seems that the essentialist renames rather than explains the phenomenon of personal-identity-over-time. Ultimately, it is possible to contend that the notion of substance is empty, that is, it does not possess any real referent. Hume, who was the first European philosopher to hold this position, levels his criticism of essentialism from an empirical point of view. Examining perception, he observes that there is no such thing as a substance separate from perceptions and that nothing can be perceived that "will serve to distinguish substance from accident"

12 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY (Noonan 1989, 86). In his famous refutation of selfhood, Hume contends that ... when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound-sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after the dissolution ofmy body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If anyone upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can no longer reason with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me. (Hume 1975,162) Hume concludes from his empiricist claim that the concept Mensch­ sein signifies nothing but a "bundle of perceptions" (Casey 1974, 8) and that, subsequently, the concept of substance as the principle of continuity and individuality is absolutely meaningless. The term "substance" denotes what Noonan refers to as "bare individuals" (Noonan 1989, 85), that is, individuals devoid of attributes and non­ essential properties. The point Hume is trying to make is that, being devoid ofattributes, personal identity neither is perceptible nor asserts any influence on the phenomena of human existence. Therefore, personal identity is either non-existent or existing yet completely irrelevant to human experience; concepts such as "individual," "person," and even "continuity" are a mere product of human imagination. The problems inherent in identifying personal identity as a "bare individual" can also be illustrated by bracketing12 all non­ essential properties. The most dispensable properties seem to comprise replaceable or assumed attributes: a person appears to remain the same regardless of changes in occupation, relationship partners, or emotions. In a second step, the human body, then, memory and consciousness and, finally a person's behavior and habits would be bracketed piece by piece to unravel what comprises the

13 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED essence of an individual person. But once all transient properties are bracketed, there are no essential properties to be found, since all phenomena of personhood are transient; this means that the notion of substance is existentially empty. Or, to put it differently, there is nothing which survives a procedure consisting ofboth body-swapping and complete amnesia. As Leibniz observes, "Suppose that some individual could suddenly become King of China on condition, however, of forgetting what he had been, as though being born again, would it not amount to the same practically, or as far as the effects could be perceived, as if the individual were annihilated and a king of China were the same instant created in his place? The individual would have no reason to desire this" (Leibniz 1902a, 58). If this is the case, the terminology of personal identity is highly questionable and misleading. It is for these reasons that Parfit (1 984) refers to the notion of substance as a further fact which does not have any experiential correlate. Thus, it seems that the term "substance," like personal identity, denotes the ineffable principle13 of permanent individuality - a constancy principle, so to speak - and the attempt at an explanans of our everyday claim to personal identity-over-time, to which the essentialist theories attribute an ontological quality. At this point, a few remarks regarding Leibniz' conception of the individual are in order. Leibniz' metaphysics ofa personal identity qua essence in his controversial Monadology (1902b) has been frequently overlooked in the discussion on personal identity or criticized due to, I assume, its counter-intuitive description of individuals as "windowless monads"14 which contain and reflect the entire cosmos as microcosms. Despite the admittedly almost grotesque scenario of human beings as independent and self-sufficient islands, Leibniz' Monadology is unique in its radical commitment to personal identity as an individual substance both logically and metaphysically with all its consequences. In his Monadology, Leibniz argues that there are two principles of reasoning and two corresponding truths: the law of contradiction determines whether a statement is necessary or impossible, while the logic of sufficient reason reveals what is compossible, that is, contingent on the circumstances, or only possible but neither necessary nor plausible given a certain context. The law of contradiction implies, according to Leibniz, that only tautologies, that is, truth claims of the form A =A, are necessary because its opposite, A = -A, would constitute a contradiction, and thus gives rise to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles: Leibniz insists that, in analogy to the logical tautology, the concept of substance as a self-sufficient system

14 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY presupposes its causal independence from other substances; its attributes and modes are determined solely by itself and not by external influences. Any two monads, to Leibniz, are distinct and completely independent, because they have absolutely nothing in common, neither attributes nor modes. Leibniz applies the principle of the identity of indiscernibles to the principles of selfhood and alterity in a uniquely radical way: The selfis the selfand the other is the other; any similarity, causal interdependence, connectedness, or even communication between them is absolutely inconceivable. Ultimately, Leibniz has to rely on the notions of "god" and "pre-established harmony" to construct a feasible theory ofthe selfqua social self based on the notion of substance or to simply bridge the abyss between the immaterial substance and the physical body. But this is beside the point. It seems to me that Leibniz' concept of the monad qua individual substance explicates the logical and ontological ramifica­ tions of the notion of personal identity as a causally independent and self-sufficient system and, therefore, has to be taken seriously by every proponent of personal identity in one way or another.

Personal identity qua bodily continuity

Contrary to the position held by essentialism, which contends that personal identity is guaranteed by an ineffable substance or, what P. F. Strawson labels an "unanalysable subject," which has "mind­ predicates" and "body-predicates" (Williams 1973, 70), proposes that persons actually comprise psychological bodies. Bernard Williams, one of the major representatives ofthe physicalist approach to personal identity, defines persons, in contrast to inanimate matter and, I assume, to what Boethius would identify as insensible and irrational substances, as complex, thinking bodies. It is interesting, that, even though Williams identifies his position as "the third corner ofthe triangle" (70), proposing an alternative to both essentialism and Descartes' dualism of a mind that possesses a body, he also rejects a reductionist in that he distinguishes the person qua thinking body from a "dead body." As I will point out later in this section, however, this definition raises some fundamental questions about the nature of "thinking bodies." At this point it is important to note that the physicalist position is motivated by two fundamental considerations, namely, the phenomenon of recognition and a strict adherence to the identity principle. 15 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED The physicalist understanding of personal identity is supported by the central features of the conventional understanding of personal identity. First of all, everyday recognition seems to rely entirely on the body - individual human beings recognize each other, be it friends or colleagues, predominantly by their physical appearance, their looks, or the sound of their voices. By the same token, forensics (in the legal sense of the term) grounds its discovery and identification of persons exclusively on physical evidence such as fingerprints, hair, gene probes, etc. Gretchen Weirob, a fictional character in Perry's A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality (1978), takes this argument one step further to discredit the belief in afterlife based on an essentialist theory of personal identity. How, she asks, would it be possible for her soul to recognize the immaterial soul of a friend? What use would be a continuous but isolated existence devoid of all the attributes (to her, exclusively body-predicates) that characterized her pre-death existence. In a similar vein, Williams argues further (as Weirob would do) that personality traits of an individual cannot be conceived of as independent of an intrinsic somaticity because all the expressions of personality, such as the sound of one's voice, characteristic facial expressions, gestures, and one's bodily postures in general, necessitate a physical basis. Sense perception, human interaction, and, as some philosophers argue, consciousness and memory - all elements which fundamentally constitute and color our sense of identity - require some somatic foundation. Williams utilizes this sentiment to counter the body-swapping argument - which he elsewhere refers to as mind-swapping to emphasize his point - by challenging the notion that it is possible to maintain one's characteristic personality such as one's own way of smiling, walking, and sitting, in a new body. What would be "swapped" if everything that makes up my personality, such as laughing, biking, and my idiosyncratic gestures, cannot be included in my "new body"? Could I still be myself even if I could not express my personality and characteristics? The strongest appeal of the body criterion of personal identity, to Williams, is that it displays the one-one relation necessary for a logically correct identity-relationship; this means that, as formulated in the dictum one-body-one-person, at any given time, one psychological body corresponds to one and only one personal identity and vice versa. Explicitly rejecting thought experiments that clearly violate the spatio-temporal continuity requirement, Williams argues that bodily continuity always preserves the one-one relation and,

16 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY subsequently, personal identity; the case of "amoeba-like" fission destroys personal identity: "If this happened, it must of course follow ... that it would not be reasonable to say that either of the resultant men was identical with the original one" (Williams 1973, 23). Consequently, human individuals cannot dissociate into or host a number of persons and personalities; fission, if possible, destroys identity, while the phenomena ofpsychological multiplicity is a case of multiple individuations in the original meaning of the term persona, mask, and not a case of multiple personalities or even identities. Williams contends that MPD alters simply manifest various individuations of one personality because by sharing a common body, they display a common identity, which is disclosed in the possibility that these alters integrate in order to re-establish one whole personality. 15 Personal identity, however, is warranted by the spatio­ temporal continuity of the human body qua thinking body. Despite its plausibility and practical appeal, the physicalist theory of personal identity rests on the rather volatile working assumption that a psychological body and, subsequently, personhood, can be clearly defined and demarcated. One of the key problems of the physicalist premise lies in the fundamental question of what comprises the essence of a psychological body. Does the concept "psychological body" denote the whole body of an individual human being - whatever this is - or does it identify a specific, privileged element? The answer to this question is not as easy as it may seem. On the one hand, it seems to be obvious and commonsensical that a soldier who has lost an arm in battle is still to be considered a full person, but what would be the verdict in the case ofa brain transplant, if we permit its technological possibility? Will the post-surgical survivor be the continuant of the donor or of the recipient? Some writers attempt to solve this problem by identifying the brain as the essence which constitutes personhood and, thus, functions as pars pro toto, so to speak. However, even the belief that the brain constitutes personal identity does not solve the present problem but simply substitutes the quest for the essential part of the brain for the quest for the essential part ofthe body and begs the related question ofwhat the essential core of the brain is. In a similar vein, the physicalist is hardpressed to find a solution to the so-called sorites problem: I think most of us will agree that if we were to take one cell from a human body, the remainder still would be the same person/body. However, if one were to keep subtracting cells from a specific body, we would reach the point when there is only one human cell remaining; this

17 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED single cell, however, we would not call a human body. The question of when the human body ceases to exist thus arises. Ultimately, both versions of the search for the essence of a psychological body (qualitative and quantitative) reflect the same basic dilemma: While any body is divisible, personal identity is not. These considerations bring forth the central problem: Can bodily continuity warrant personal identity? Does the causal continuity of my present body with the body of the infant in the picture justify an identity proposition between the infant (I call my previous self) and me? After all, it would be difficult to contend that our bodies are identical. This problem of bodily continuity gets an even more interesting twist in the light of the aforementioned case of brain transplant and brain tissue transplant. In her 1996 article "The Brain and I: Neurodevelopment and Personal Identity," Mary B. Mahowald remarks that brain transplant will raise ethical - and, I might add, metaphysical - questions "if the amount of brain tissue retrieved were so great that its placement in the recipient might alter the recipient's cognition or self-awareness" or "if the tissue were transplanted into the cortex or another part of the brain responsible for cognition and self-awareness" (Mahowald 1996, 56). Raanan Gillon also raises the question of brain tissue transplant but concludes (without providing any evidence or convincing arguments) that "even the major change of whole brain transplantation ... can be seen ... not to entail a fundamental change in identity so much as an apparent change in identity" (Gillon 1996, 131). It is neither my task here to unpack the connotations and implications ofthe notion "apparent identity" nor to satisfactorily determine the identity of the recipient of such a transplant; but I would like to simply note that the very question illuminates the volatility of the definition of personal identity qua bodily continuity, since bodily continuity does not qualify as personal identity in the sense of Leibniz' principium identitatis indiscernibilium. And given the possibility of transplants, especially brain transplants, it will be also difficult to claim true causal independence of the individual body.

Personal identity qua psychological continuity

The so-called "neo-Lockian" (Brennan 1988) criteriologists expand Locke's account of personal identity qua memory to "experience­ memory" (Noonan 1989, 12), consciousness, habits, and attitudes and

18 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY define personal identity as psychological continuity. In general, adherents of the psychological criterion attribute personal identity to both memory and what Perry calls "ego-project" (Perry 1976, 84), that is, the interest of the experiential "I" to continue its own existence. Perry specifically emphasizes the desire ofthe "I" to survive as an indication of "the importance of being identical" (67-91). Personal identity is warranted and expressed by the memory of a past experience and the extension and execution of present intentions by a succeeding existence "who is identical to me"; it is this identification with a future continuant that makes the present action meaningful. In making memory the criterion of personal identity, Locke, as well as the neo-Lockians, attribute, albeit unspokenly, the crucial decision about personal identity to the subject of memory. Thus, the reliance on the psychological criterion seems to mark a shift from a third­ person-ontology of recognition to a first-person-ontology. The modification "seems" indicates, as I will show in the next sections, that the attempt of the adherents to the psychological criterion to construct a first-person-criteriology does not succeed. The criteriol­ ogist includes the moment of subjectivity into the discourse on personal identity by imagining how fictitious experimentees would react to extreme cases such as fusion, fission, body-swapping, or brain transplants. Assuming a technology which enables such futuristic procedures, the criteriologist ponders whether it would be rational for a patient to desire a partial or a complete brain transplant or whether such an operation would obliterate her/his psychological continuity and, consequently, personal identity. However, since many treatments of the psychological criterion interpret changes in memory or psychological continuity as alterations of the brain, the intentions and memories of the experimentees seem to be, at least partially, subordinated to quantitative or physicalist considerations. At any rate, the psychological criterion appeals to criteriologists because it bases personal identity on an intrinsic criterion,16 that is, on a causality within the stream of consciousness "of a person" independent of any external causality and, thus, seemingly independent offurther facts. So what does it mean to talk about psychological continuity? To explain the psychological criterion, Parfit distinguishes between psychological connectedness, which he defines as "the holding of particular direct psychological connections," and psychological continuity, which comprises a sequence of "overlapping chains of strong connectedness" (Parfit 1984, 206). Parfit italicizes "strong," since he conceives of connectedness as varying in degree, in the sense

19 PERSOKAL IDENTITY REVISITED that a person P is more strongly connected to the experience s/he had yesterday than to the experiences which occurred over a year ago. Thus, P1 is continuous with P 12 if and only if there is an uninterrupted chain of strong psychological connections, namely, P1-PZ,PZ-P3, P3-P4 •.• P11-P1Z · Ifthe continuity is interrupted, it is, to Parfit, not meaningful to apply the terminology ofpersonal identity. For example, a complete eradication and/or discontinuity of all memories and consciousness, which signifies the complete rupture of a psychological continuity, consequently results in the loss of personal identity. Personal identity - in so far as it is meaningful to talk about personal identity - is warranted and testified to by a series of overlapping strong psychological connections. Having made his case for a theory of Mensch-sein based on psychological continuity, Parfit contends that personal identity might not be a necessary concept but, on the contrary, comprises a further fact, that is, a fact in addition to psychological continuity. Ironically, he finds two unlikely allies in his claim that psychological continuity does not warrant personal identity: Reid's previously mentioned paradox of the brave officer and Butler's circularity objection share Parfit's position in that they challenge the belief that a separate personal identity can be established from psychological continuity. In his discussion of the paradox, Reid questions the notion that psychological continuity necessarily corresponds to personal identity by contrasting the transitory nature of psychological continuity with the necessary permanence of personal identity. Reid's objection is as simple as it is ingenious since it, ultimately, argues that while personal identity is always one-and-the-same, consciousness is not; on the contrary, consciousness - in his case, memory - changes over time. In Parfit's words, personal identity is a matter of all-or-nothing while psychological continuity is a matter of degree,17 containing weak and strong psychological connections. Of course, Reid and Parfit draw opposite conclusions from the same observation but that is a different story. In a similar vein, Butler's circularity objection targets the belief that memory can warrant a personal identity separate from psychological continuity. Butler contends that memory presupposes the notion of an enduring person and, consequently, the very fact it is supposed to explain. The contention that P2 remembers having the experience E1 at t1 implies the identity of P1 and Pz. To avoid this circularity, some criteriologists such as Sydney Shoemaker and Noonan have devised a notion of psychological continuity devoid of

20 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY an accompanying personal identity, which they call "quasi-memory." For example, Shoemaker (1971) develops his notion of "quasi­ memory" as a form of memory which does not presuppose personal identity by applying it to the fission case. Because fission or reduplication would destroy personal identity, Shoemaker believes he has demonstrated a form of memory devoid of personal identity and thus circumvented Butler's circularity objection. Noonan, on the other hand, envisions a world in which persons have the ability of third-person-memories, thus arguing that it is possible to remember an without necessitating a first-person-perspective. What both arguments prove, however, if anything, is that memory does not necessitate personal identity. This is the very reason why the essentialists postulate an ineffable and unchanging substance in the first place. The psychological criterion, on the other hand, ultimately suggests that the notion of personal identity is dispensable, since the continuity of experience is upheld by an uninterrupted and, as Parfit maintains, impersonal chain of strong psychological connections. The main issue raised by both the bodily and the psychological criterion is whether a continuity of whatever kind can warrant personal identity - after all, the notion ofidentity has logical, not only ontological, implications. Locke seemed to have anticipated this dilemma in his essay "Of Identity and Diversity" (1975) in which he observes that it is possible and conceivable for one substance to have different personal identities (a preview of the MPD phenomenon?) and vice versa. As both Williams and Parfit consistently argue, personal identity necessitates a one-one relation, continuity allows for a one-many relation. That means that the notion of continuity, be it physical, psychological or, as Parfit adds, "combined" (Parfit 1984, 236), that is, psychophysical, allows for duplication and multi­ plication, whereas the principle of identity does not. Parfit's notion of the "combined spectrum" further addresses, albeit indirectly, the problematic separation of the physical and psychological criteria, which has inherited from Cartesian dualism. Even though this does not constitute Parfit's main interest, his notion of the "combined spectrum" avoids the mind-body dualism, which overlooks that "the body is not simply a mass of physical 'stuff,' and 'bodily' criteria have an essential psychological component" (Hamilton 1995, 332). In addition, there are two further fundamental differences between continuity and identity: While continuity not only allows for but, actually suggests change and causal interdependency and interaction between two seemingly independent

21 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED systems, personal identity necessitates causal independence in the sense of Leibniz' monads and permanence. While the concept of "substance" is problematic as a criterion of personal identity because it is an existentially empty concept, the theories of bodily and psychological continuity fail to disclose a clear criterion for personal identity because continuity does not necessitate personal identity. This observation seems to echo the contentions of Nagasena, Hume, and Parfit that personal identity is nothing but a convenient fiction. The following section discusses Parfit's of personal identity and his stratification of psycho-physical continuity as indeterminate and potentially causally interdependent.

The Concept of Personal Identity Revealed as a Convenient Fiction Personal identity as further fact

To explicate his notion that personal identity comprises a further fact independent of the stream of conscious experiences, Parfit uses the example of fission, a futuristic version of Williams' reduplication experiment. Imagine that a person P splits into two persons PI and Pz. Both end products, PI and Pz, are worth being recognized as continuants of P, since they both inherit all the memories and psychological traits of the original person P (of course, the equivalent argument can be made for the physical and the combined continuity). If personal identity is to be defined as psychological continuity, both continuants have to be conceived of as identical to the original P, which, of course, violates the definition of personal identity as a temporal singularity. The criteriological debate offers four solutions to the question of which of the two continuants is to be considered the continuation of pre-fission P: (1) One group of criteriologists, most notably Williams and Noonan, claim that personal identity cannot be dependent on external factors such as the survival of a second continuant; Noonan terms this postulate the "only x and y" principle (in our case that would be rather the "only P and PI" principle). Now, the criteriologist faces the dilemma that the two (logically) possible positions, the preference of one continuant over the other and the belief that pre-fission P is terminated at the time of the fission, necessitate a further fact which distinguishes the pre-fission situation from the post-fission scenario, namely, the existence of Pz; however, to 22 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY base either position on the existence of the other continuant contradicts the very principle at issue. Ultimately, the "only x and y principle" is an attempt to reintroduce personal identity without the further fact of an unchanging substance; ironically, however, the very principle constitutes a further fact. (2) A second solution, suggested by R. Nozick's closest continuer theory,18 proposes that, in the case of branching continuities, the continuant which is most closely related to the pre-fission original is the true continuant and the heir of the original person P (Noonan 1989, 233-54). However, the closest continuer theory cannot solve the dilemma of fission, which presents both continuants as equally closely related to the original person and, thus, renders the preference of one continuant over the other as arbitrary as well as meaningless. (3) A third position is presented by David K. Lewis' multiple occupancy thesis, postulating that both continuants are the continuation of two pre-fission originals which occupied the body referred to as person P without the knowledge of the observer. Even though this position seem to have some logical legitimacy, in the final analysis it does not make sense. According to the multiple occupancy thesis, the real number of persons present at any time can be identified only sub specie aeternitatis, that is, from the perspective of someone who can overlook all past and future fissions and fusions. Such a belief, thus, carries no practical significance. (4) The only plausible solution to the enigma of fission is to assume, with Parfit, that P survives in both P 1 and P2 and that both continuants are equally heirs to P's personal legacy, maintaining her/ his memories, intentions, and interests. When pressed for an identity count, Parfit maintains that the case of fission concedes three distinct persons P, P t, and P2, since an attribution oftwo person-stages to one person Po at anyone time to would violate the principle of identity. Nevertheless, the fission experiment illustrates that personal identity is an artificial construct: What is terminated in the event of fission is merely the name P- or the ineffable substance and the "only x and y principle" - but not the memories, intentions, and attitudes nor the body it designates, which continue/survive in both P t and Pz. Since no further fact can be identified in addition to P's physical and psychological attributes, it is meaningless and completely irrelevant to the physical and psychological continuity/survival to contend that P dies at the time ofthe fission. It is for this reason that Parfit rejects the notion that personal identity comprises "what matters." It is important to note, that, Parfit's position is not that surprising - at least not for the criteriologist; he basically dismisses the notion of

23 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED substance as well as any neo-essentialist attempt to reintroduce it through the backdoor and thus continues Hume's tradition and legacy. His main point is that the conventional and colloquial label "person" signifies a psycho-physical continuity and not a logical or even ontological identity relation. This continuity is a matter ofdegree and will raise interesting ethical issues in the light ofcertain science-fiction scenarios, not-so-futuristic technological achievements such as brain tissue transplant, and medical discoveries such as the MPD phenomenon. For this reason, I believe, his rethinking of the notion of personal identity is extremely fruitful, if not necessary.

The indeterminacy of personal identity

Parfit's revision of the present understanding of Mensch-sein is characterized by his criticism of the causal independence of personal identity and his subsequent contention that the construct "personal identity" implies artificial boundaries between various synchronically and diachronically diverse person-stages. The hypothetical cases of branching, fission, and fusion, which Parfit examined in their extreme form as early as 1971 in his "Personal Identity," constitute cases of causal interdependence which challenge the customary and tradition­ ally conceived boundaries between seemingly independent systems (commonly called persons), as do, to varying degrees, transplants (especially brain tissue transplants) and even social interaction and conventions. To further disclose the difficulty ofdemarcating personal identities, Parfit adopts and employs a modified version of Williams's "mad surgeon"19 which is somewhat reminiscent ofthe sorites problem. Following the prototype of Williams' thought experiment, Parfit asks his readers to imagine a scenario in which one person's physical as well as psychological make-up is gradually replaced by that of another person. The final result of the operation presents the reader with the complete substitution of a new person for the original one - a person transplant, so to speak. At which point of this procedure, Parfit asks the reader, does the original person cease to exist and the new person emerge in his/her place? To Parfit, the impossibility of identifying a watershed refutes the all-or-nothing principle indicative of personal identity in favor of the notion that Mensch-sein is indeterminate and a matter of degree; this means that with the exception of the beginning and the final stages of the operation, it is impossible to determine the identity of the person on the operating table.

24 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY Parfit's indeterminacy thesis has interesting and ethically challen­ ging implications. Given Parfit's conception of Mensch-sein, it is impossible to clearly demarcate whether a life form can be considered human or not. Imagine that a human brain is gradually replaced with an artificial implant which can simulate the functions of the brain. At what point in the procedure is it feasible to proclaim the death of the human being and the birth of the android? A further problem is whether androids in general are to be conceived ofas human beings. A more relevant yet related issue, which Mahowald raises in the context of transplants but which is also applicable to the problems of abortion and euthanasia, addresses the questions when an individual personal identity is formed and when it ceases to exist. In addition, Parfit's conception of Mensch-sein implies the impossibility of strictly distinguishing between two individuals. In the cases of intersecting psychological continuities, such as fusion, and, according to Mahowald, transplantation of a significant amount of brain tissue, the surviving continuant appropriates psychological traits of all his/her predeces­ sors,20 a fact which makes it quite difficult to determine the personal identity of the continuant. Does s/he inherit the identity of either, both, or neither of the pre-fusion participants? Regardless of the responses to these questions, these considerations demonstrate that Parfit's notion of indeterminacy challenges the belief in to such a degree that one could argue that science fiction technology of fission, fusion, and memory transplant leaves no room for the concept of individuality. To Parfit, the notion of impersonal continuities supersedes the notion of the clearly defined individual human being.

Personal identity is not Uwhat matters"

Parfit's credo that Uidentity is not what matters" is reflected in his rejection of personal identity in favor of the person-at-the-moment, which he refers to as "event." Having analyzed the personal identity P as a chain ofstrongly connected events P 1-P2-P3-P4, Parfit concludes that P serves as a convenient but artificial superstructure, while individual person-stages or Uevents" P b P2, P3, and P4 comprise "what matters." His thought experiments disclose that the experi­ mentees are not concerned with the perseverance of an "ineffable me­ ness" (Perry 1976, 84) but with the survival of their experiences, intentions, and memories. To illustrate his claim, Parfit imagines a scenario in which an individual is duplicated only to be told that he will

25 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED die after the duplication process and that the replica will take over "his" place in life. Confronted with this dilemma, Parfit's experi­ mentee is primarily concerned that his wife be loved, his children be cared for, and his book be finished (Parfit 1984, 201), whereas the survival of his me-ness seems trivial and secondary. It does not matter to P2 whether P1 and P4 are "identical," but rather that her/his experiences will continue to be remembered and her/his concerns will be expressed in future "events" such as P3 and, possibly, P4• It is important to note that Parfit's rejection of personal identity indicates a radical shift in his focus from the survival of an "ineffable" substance to the survival of intentions, memories, and experiences, from permanence of selfhood to a continuity of psychological material, and, ultimately, from an experiencing subject to mental content. Parfit's devaluation of personal-identity-over-time in favor of the person-at-the-moment carries two immediate consequences. First, following Hume's allegory of the commonwealth, Parfit compares persons to nations, which are an arbitrary grouping of its citizens. He conceives of "personal identity" as an umbrella category, which groups together and classifies "events" more or less arbitrarily. Second, and more importantly, Parfit's conception of personal identity seems to entail a depersonalization of Mensch-sein which is indicated in his notion of the impersonal event, which designates the person-at­ the-moment. To be sure, Parfit uses the language of impersonality primarily to substitute psycho-physical continuity for the notion ofan enduring Cartesian Ego (Parfit 1984, 223-28) because of his belief that personal identity comprises an artificial, legal notion, the delineation of which is rather arbitrary. In this sense, Parfit's notion of impersonality indicates that Mensch-sein as psycho-physical continuity is not limited by the arbitrary boundaries of personhood but comprises an indeterminate yet open system, due to its capacity to branch into and intersect with other continuities. Consequently, my intentions, memories, and experience, in short, the my consciousness of myself, comprises merely one stage on such an impersonal continuum. Likewise, in Parfit's scheme of things, my body is not a center of intentions and habitualizations as in the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Dagen's Zen as well as much of Mahayana Buddhism, but rather comprises one stage of a causal continuity. However, Parfit seems to have overlooked that the sense of mine-ness does not necessitate the notion of an enduring Ego but can also be identified as the subjective sense of a person-at-the-moment, the experiential "I," which experiences, remembers, and has

26 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY intentions. It is this inability or refusal to deal with the problem of subjective agency which Ricoeur targets and identifies as the major deficiency of Parfit's theory of survival. Ricoeur argues that the concept of survival necessitates the notion of an agent who is afraid and who wonders whether "I am going to die or survive" (Ricoeur 1992, 136) and expresses his profound inability to understand how we can "ask ourselves about what matters ifwe could not ask to whom the thing mattered or not" (137). In his words: As for me, the one who is teletransported, something is always happening to me; I am afraid, I believe, I doubt, I wonder if I am going to die or survive - in short, I am worried about myself. In this respect, the shift in the discussion from the problem of memory to the problems of survival marks the appearance on the stage of a dimension of historicality which, it would seem, is quite difficult to describe in impersonal terms. (136) It is impossible to discuss survival of persons or even of experiences and intentions without considering the subjective voice of those who survive and the historical factuality which is inextricably intertwined with the subjective agent. After all, the subject is neither isolated nor ahistorical. In his criticism of Parfit's notion of survival, Ricoeur evokes a host of themes, which echo the phenomenological back­ ground of his philosophy. What is important for the present discussion, however, is that Parfit's stratification of survival not only dismisses subjective agency but further discloses a deprivation of the sense of "mine-ness" and, subsequently, a "neutralization of one's own body," as is explicated by the impersonal tone of Parfit's nomenclature of choice, "event" (Parfit 1984, 132). In a similar vein but to a lesser degree, Andy Hamilton observes in his discussion of mental content that "[i]nformation is not an 'impersonal' notion." And he adds a few lines later, with an almost phenomenological twist, "information is only information for someone" (Hamilton 1995, 341). Ricoeur identifies as the cause for this dispossession of intentionality and body in the criteriological approach the failure to distinguish between selfhood, "ipse-identity", and sameness, "idem-identity," and, ultimately, the neglect of the subjective dimension of Mensch-sein. Such neglect and prejudice, however, is, as I will discuss in the subsequent section, especially problematic, if not costly, in the philosophical discussion of the phenomena of personhood, selfhood, and mind.

27 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED Interestingly enough, however, Parfit cannot define survival without some form of intentionality and self-reference but relies on a feature I refer to as "Parfitian intentionality" throughout his work. Despite his denial of personal identity, Parfit displays a remarkable interest in the concerns and intentions of the pre-fission "I" to such a degree that it is possible to conclude that the notion of care and concern for whoever survives the fission experiment is one of the central features of survival. Parfit contends that the pre-fission "I" has a clear and defined interest in the survival of her/his ideas, affections, and intentions, while the survival of the mine-ness is indeterminate and generally irrelevant. This Parfitian intentionality differs from the intentionality conceived of by phenomenologists in that the former is disclosed by thought experiments rather than by a phenomenological epoche and, subsequently, conceived of by a third-person-ontology as impersonal intentionality. The term "impersonal intentionality" designates the feelings and desires of any individual facing the reduplication experiment regardless of her/his "personal" history. At any rate, Parfit's repeated emphasis on the concerns, desires, and intentions of the pre-fission "I" raises some serious questions: If there is no enduring person, that is, if, as Parfit has shown, the concept of personal identity does not hold, the question arises - just as it does in the case of Hume's "I" which does not find any self - what the "I" of the pre-fission original is? Is it reflected in the "I's" of the survivors? What interest does the pre-fission "I" have in the survival of her/his intentions and desires? These questions indicate the necessity of including the subjective dimension of Mensch-sein into the discourse on personal identity. It seems to me that in his effort to eliminate the notion of an enduring Cartesian Ego, Parfit throws out the baby with the bathwater. Contrary to common belief, a philosophy which takes the experiential "I" as its starting point does not necessitate the essentialist conception of personal-identity-over-time qua enduring subject but rather critiques it as a construction and convenient fiction of the subjective cogito.

The Construction of Personal Identity

Personal identity and intentionality

As I have mentioned above, the methodological strategy which maneuvers the criteriologist into a situation in which the only

28 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY defensible position is reflects what Searle identifies as the "persistent objectifying tendency in contemporary philosophy, science, and intellectual life generally," (Searle 1994, 16) which objectifies selfhood and disregards any kind of first-person-ontology.21 A third­ person-ontology, so goes the materialist myth, is sufficient to clarify and illuminate the phenomena of Mensch-sein, that is, in the case of personal identity, the experience ofcontinuity and the privileged access to one set of memories, experiences, and intentions. However, a philosophy that is based on a third-Person-ontology merely intends its object of knowledge and discounts the subjective, active, and intending dimension of Mensch-sein. At this point, I would like to illustrate the claim that criteriologists employ a third-person-ontology and, subsequently, intend personal identity in their image. For example, Williams' arguments from recognition and from the public's responses to MPD patients strongly indicate that his concept of person presupposes a third-person-ontology and, therefore, implies the object-character of personal identity.22 To choose recognition as the tool to identify personal identity entails a limitation of one's investigation to objects of sense perception and representation. In a similar vein, despite their reliance on an intrinsic criterion, most neo-Lockian writers define memory as a causal chain and thus, tend to objectify memory as an external, observable process. This tendency is also disclosed in thought experiments, as Ricoeur (1992), and, to a lesser degree, Helen Morris Cartwright23 (1993) indicate, which render the intentions, experiences, and memories of the experimentees as the object of the author who designs thought experiments and which, subsequently, depersonalize and construct personal identity. Finally, the criteriological strategy is founded on a third-person-ontology, which neglects the subjective dimension ofMensch-sein, which Ricoeur refers to as selfhood, and thus depersonalizes the human body and whatever becomes the bearer of personal identity by depriving it of its intentionality and mine-ness in order to subsume personal identity under an "order ofcriteriology" (Ricoeur 1992, 129). In the process of establishing and applying this "order of criteriology," the author disowns the subject of her/his body, intentionality, dreams, in short of her/his mine-ness, and, at the same time, seizes possession of the other's uniqueness and personality; what remains is Parfit's impersonal event. While, according to Ricoeur, "[o]ne can legitimately term a criterion a test of the truth of assertions concerning sameness," he inquires whether selfhood does not come instead "within the province of attestation?" (129). Thus, the person conceived of by the

29 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED criteriological approach is constructed and, therefore, dispossessed of her/his subjective agency and becomes a project of the writer. Although argues in his "Paralogisms" (Kant 1992, 2: A340-A404) that any representation, image, or concept of personal identity is posited in consciousness, (2: A363), it is Edmund Husserl and the phenomenological tradition which identify these representations and concepts as intentional objects: The image, the concept, the knowledge I have of myself or of others comprise objects of my intentional activity. The self constructs and constitutes itself in its self-presentation, such as behavior, activities, and what Ricoeur calls "narrative identity". At the same time, it also constructs the identity ofothers and personal identity in general. To distinguish between my own and an other's image of myself, I take my cues from the Sartrean distinction between being-for­ itself (Fr.: etre-pour-soi) and being-for-others (Fr.: etre-pour-autrui). In this sense personal-identity-for-the-self, in this sense, designates what-I­ intend-myself-to-be, namely my self-project and my self-image. Personal-identity-for-the-other, on the other hand, signifies the perception, conception, and, ultimately, construction of my personal identity by an outside observer and, subsequently, comprises an object of her/his intentionality. This modality of beingjor-others illustrates the objectification and alienation inherent in the construction of personal identity as a third-person-ontology. Being-an-object-for-the-other, the self is degraded from a subjective agent to an instrument, as Jean-Paul Sartre maintains, "toward a being-a-tool-among-tools, toward a being-a­ sense-organ-apprehended-by-sense-organs" (Sartre 1956, 462). Devoid of its subjective and intentional character, the self sinks into the phenomenal world of objects. This dispossession of personal identity by the criteriological approach is reflected by the employment of thought experiments. Using these scenarios or puzzle cases, the writer speculates on the expectations and identification of the people that s/he imagines undergoing these experiments, and, thus, intends personal identity as person-for-the-other, that is, as object ofher/his intention. In thought experiments, the criteriologist constructs scenarios and, thus, presents the world as s/he intends it to be, anticipating the end results of the experiment and, consequently, the explanans of the issue at stake. For example, by determining that the fission experiment results in the creation oftwo identical continuants, the criteriologist already projects that "P survives in both P 1 and P2 alike" regardless of the voice ofthe continuants. Predetermining the outcome of the experiment and accessing the thoughts and intentions of her/his experimentees, the

30 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY criteriologist assumes the perspective sub specie aeternitatis. It is not my intention to criticize or question the validity of thought experiments but basically to point out their methodological presuppositions which disclose a third-person-ontology: all the players in these experiments constitute objects of the writer's intentionality, dispossessed of their own voice to identify themselves. It is due to this third-person-ontology employed in the criteriological approach that the writers face the paradoxical situation of excluding subjective agency, on the one side, and "investigating" the intentions ofthe pre-experiment "I's" and their continuants, on the other. These considerations disclose two methodologies of investigating personal identity: (1) a first-person­ ontology attributes the authorship of personal identity to the phenomenological and subjective "I" and defines personal identity via introspection as what-I-am-for-myself; (2) a third-person-ontology assumes the position of an outside observer who defines personal identity via a criteriology as what-I-am-for-others. The very notion of is necessarily intended by an audience. Regardless of whether personal-identity-for-the-other consists in a social construct, an abstract concept, the alienated victim in the Sartrean sense, or simply the object of a discourse, it comprises the intended object of a visible or invisible audience. The approach identified as first-person­ ontology focuses on personal-identity-for-the-self, that is, personal identity as it is defined by the phenomenological "I," whereas the approach identified as third-person-ontology stresses personal-identity­ for-the-other, that is, personal identity the way it is intended by the onlooking public. I prefer the terminology of for-the-self and for-the­ other over the traditional taxonomy because it indicates the intentional dimension inherent in the exclusive positions categorized as first­ person-ontology and third-person-ontology: a first-person-ontology reveals what the "I" intends itself to be, whereas a third-person­ ontology denotes what the public observers, who function as audience, intend the "I" to be. Given these considerations, it is important for a theory of personal identity to take into consideration both personal­ identity-for-the-self and personal-identity-for-the-other: Personal identity is what I-am-for-myself as well as what-I-am-for-others.

The emergence of two selves

Examining personal identity as a construct and representc~.tion of consciousness, Kant contrasts the self-qua-representation and the

31 PERSONAL IDENTITY REVISITED subjective function of the self. He vehemently rejects the identifica­ tion of the self-qua-object and the self-qua-subject as "formal error." The self-qua-subject and the self-qua-object belong to two completely separate realms - the noumenal and the phenomenal realm respectively - each following its own rationale. While the representation of the self comprises an object of the phenomenal world and thus possesses properties, the only knowable property of the self-qua-subject is its existence - the "manner in which I exist" (Ger.: "die Art wie ich existiere") (Kant 1992, 2: B420) is indeterminate. As the subject of experience the self-qua-subject cannot be predicated or conceived of like a phenomenon; it exists yet escapes objectification and predication. The concept of personal identity creates the illusion that the subjective function comprises a persistent object. Kant attributes the mistaken objectification and thingification of the self-qua-subject to its unwarranted identification with the self-qua-object. In his refutation of the first paralogism on the persistence of the subject, Kant explicates the fundamental problem of the "Paralogisms" clearly: It follows that the conclusion of reason of the transcendental psychology discloses only a seemingly new insight ... We have no knowledge of what underlies the subject and all thoughts as substratum apart from this logical significance of the I. (A350) The self-qua-subject is empirical in so far as it comprises the fundament of Kant's theory of experience, but it is not an object of experience itself: Its existence is necessary, its properties unknowable. The logical subject, that is, the object ofjudgment, cannot be equated with the subjective unity of consciousness: the former is predicated while the latter is not, the former is persistent while the latter is not. It is equally unwarranted to apply the properties of the subjective experience such as subjectivity, simplicity, and identity to the self­ qua-representation. The realm of representations and concepts, to Kant, does not yield any knowledge about the noumenal self-qua­ subject. The theory of the person-over-time, however, is a product of practical reason; in other words, it is due to the demands and the implications of the universal moral law - which Kant not only takes for granted but also attributes considerable argumentative power to in his Critique of Practical Reason - and the notion of accountability, which such a law necessitates, that it is meaningful to presuppose a self-qua-person-over-time.

32 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY Summary

As this brief overview of the controversy on personal identity reveals, the major flaw in the notion of personal identity lies in its essentialist conception as individual-over-time. In other words, any talk ofpersonal identity presupposes an essentialist model in one way or another. Being designed to respond to the question "what warrants identity-over­ time?" the notion of personal identity simultaneously functions as the question and the answer of the same problem, thus establishing a circular argument: It answers the question "What warrants identity­ over-time?" by proposing an "identity-over-time." In addition, this identity-over-time is, as even essentialists are ready to admit, ineffable and, ultimately transcendent. Besides involving a circular argumenta­ tion, which is devoid of any explanatory power, the notion of personal identity necessitates afurther fact, that is, an entity which is neither given in experience nor influences what is given in experience in any possible way. By exposing personal identity as a convenient illusion, Parfit has demonstrated the futility of the essentialist approach. Alternatively, Parfit suggests that Mensch-sein does not comprise an identity-over-time and that it is not a matter ofall-or-nothing. Ultimately, Parfit proposes a retreat from the assumption ofan underlying enduring substance, which· serves as a secondary category, and an acknowledgement ofthe person­ at-the-moment as the primary category of Mensch-sein. Further reflections, which were inspired by Kant's "Paralogisms" and phenomenological considerations, have disclosed the dichotomy between the self-qua-subject and the self-qua-object, the distinction between personal-identity-for-the-other and personal-identity-for-the­ self, and the necessity of including the subjective voice into the discourse on personal identity. At this point, it is important to emphasize that the personal-identity-for-the-self does not constitute the self-qua-subject but, at best, the self-qua-object constructed by the self-qua-subject. Given the loss ofpersonal identity, which is upheld by a reductionism ala Parfit and by the Buddhist intellectual tradition, it is necessary to investigate the phenomena that are fundamental to the various theories ofpersonal identity and Dagen's account thereof. These are selfhood, which constructs personal-identity-for-the-self; alterity, which constitutes, in the phenomenological sense of the term, personal­ identity-for-the-other; and, last but not least, continuity, the alpha and omega of the search for personal identity. Finally, I believe that an understanding of the continuity of experience must entail an examination of the underlying metaphysical structure of time.

33 PART TWO Zen Buddhism and Phenomenology on Self-Awareness ------t CHAPTER TWO ------Selthood

Introduction

Outline of Part Two

Having introduced the philosophical problematic of personal identity in Part One, in Part Two, I will dialogue the positions of Dagen and Nishida, as two representatives and exponents of Zen Buddhist philosophy, with major proponents of the phenomenological move­ ment on the conceptions fundamental to the discourse on personal identity: selfhood, otherness, and continuity; the latter notion will necessitate a fourth chapter which briefly deals with the philosophy of time underlying the various positions on continuity ofexperience. The basic goal of these chapters is twofold. First, they will facilitate a comparative dialogue on notions fundamental to a philosophy of personhood. Second, they will explore the conceptual foundations of such a philosophy in the light of the loss of an enduring self and the rejection of the concept of personal identity so pervasive in both Buddhist philosophy and, to an increasing extent, in the intellectual atmosphere of the late twentieth century. As I have indicated in the "Introduction" of this work, the philosophy of the phenomenologists and existentialists in the twentieth century seems to be especially appropriate for this enterprise, since they share, to some degree, the methodological and conceptual concerns of a Zen philosophy. In addition and more importantly, I believe that such a dialogue will develop a terminological model which not only relates the major concepts of Zen Buddhism such as "no-self" (Jap.: muga) and "enlightenment" (Jap.: satori) to the philosophical discourse ofthe late twentieth century (and, probably, the beginning of the twenty-first

37 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY OX SELF-AWARENESS century), but also provides a hermeneutical schema to help understand and evaluate the merits and difficulties inherent in the individual theories of self-awareness and personhood and categorize the various elements and levels of self-awareness. To facilitate such a dialogue, each individual chapter will first introduce a specific philosophical problematic (of selfhood, otherness, continuity, or temporality); it will then present a phenomenology of the particular topic which is not restricted to one individual thinker (such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty) but which maps out, instead, the fundamental issues and concepts of such a phenomenology; and finally, it will introduce the positions of Dagen and Nishida against the background of the Buddhist tradition. The discussion of continuity constitutes the only exception to this scheme since the importance of this discussion to early Buddhist discourse warrants a separate treatment. Thus, Part Two will outline the conceptual framework for a theory of personhood and human experience in the light of selflessness.

The problem of seljhood

The topic of selfhood comprises at the same time one of the most central and one of the most controversial issues concerning personal identity. After all, it is the experiential "I" which reflects about what­ it-is, regardless ofwhether it is an individual "I" constructing her/his own personal identity or whether it is a philosophical "I" reflecting about Mensch-sein in general; in either case, the experiential "I" functions as the author of its theory of identity. In addition, it is this reflective, self-aware "I" of the author, theorist, or the critical individual which constructs a theory of personal identity. Even Locke and Hume utilize, albeit implicitly, the notion "self-awareness" in their theories of personal identity - Locke by locating it at the center of the conception of personal identity when he defines "person" as a "thinking intelligent being" characterized by "consciousness," "reflection," and "reason" which "can consider itself as itself" (Locke 1975, 39), and Hume by exploring the "I" which he cannot find separate from perceptions. Similarly, any ethical theory of personhood necessitates some notion of self-consciousness, which addresses the awareness of oneself as an agent, without which notions such as "responsibility" and "accountability" would be rather meaningless (that is why the notion of selfhood is crucial for the discussion of personal identity). 38 SELFHOOD On the other hand, there is probably no phenomenon of human experience which has been as elusive to philosophical discourse in recent years as the notion ofselfhood. In categories often similar to the one encountered in the discussion of personal identity, the self was identified as the indubitable ground ofphilosophy by Descartes. Since then, it has been substantialized by Leibniz,l absolutized by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, reduced to matter by David M. Armstrong, discarded by contemporary , , and cognitive science, and partially resurrected as subjective consciousness by Searle.2 The fundamental reason for this controversy lies in the philosopher's choice of methodology: While a first-person-ontology presupposes the notion ofselfhood, a third-person-ontology implicitly - and sometimes not so implicitly - denies it. To put it differently, a first-person-ontology subjectivizes the discourse on selfhood due to its reliance on purely subjective modes of knowledge such as introspection. Selfhood, thus defined, is seemingly self-evident and only accessible to the individual self itself, which allegedly possesses a privileged access to all things related to selfhood, and, by default, to any theory of selfhood as well. Following the notion of privileged access, it is only I who can determine the how's and what's of my existence, or so I think; subsequently, every theory of selfhood has to be equally subjective. A third-person-ontology, on the other hand, throws out the baby with the bathwater in that it not only questions the exclusiveness of a first-person-ontology but also denies selfhood qua subjectivity itself. Jackendoff expresses this dilemma from the perspective of cognitive science when he observes that consciousness, despite the fact that "consciousness is not good for anything," is "too important for one's life - too much fun - to conceive of it as useless" (Jackendoff qtd. in Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, 128). It is for this reason that Francesco J. Varela, E. Thompson, and E. Rosch (1991) turn to phenomenology and Buddhism to provide a philosophical theory of human experience which can reconcile the "objective," or, to use a better term, public knowledge of science (established by its criterion of repeatability and verifiability) with human experience, which is characterized by its rather "subjective" (and in some sense irrepeatable) quality. Both phenomenologists and Buddhists try to overcome this methodological dilemma by developing, with varying success, a philosophical approach which includes both a first-person-ontology and a third-person-ontology. Finally, some terminological clarifications seem to be necessary. Recently, the discourse on selfhood has encompassed disciplines as 39 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS diverse as cognitive science, psychology, clinical medicine, philosophy, and religious studies. In addition, the term Hself" has become a buzzword, pervading everyday discourse as well as pop culture, a fact which has added to the multiplicity of its usage. Consequently, the term Hself" has been employed to signify a wide range of meanings, stretching from the self-conscious cogito, on one side of the spectrum, to Jung's Self qua unus mundus, which denotes the mystical union of individual and cosmos, on the other. To avoid misunderstandings, I will use the term Hself," if not indicated otherwise, to signify the self­ reflective, subjective agency, following Ricoeur's notion of selfhood, while the term Hcogito" denotes the self-conscious and intentional act in the phenomenological sense of the word; Hconsciousness" signifies that field of human experience which is represented to the self­ conscious function of the cogito, while the concept Hego," in the Freudian-Jungian definition of the term, designates the personifica­ tion thereof.

Cogito and Self-Consciousness: a Phenomenology of the Self

The conception of the cogito

As is well-known, the cogito became a philosophical entity with Descartes whose declared project it was to find an indubitable ground of philosophy and of human knowledge. In his and the Meditations (1968), Descartes introduces the cogito as a thinking thing (Lat.: res cogitans) which completely presents itself and, subsequently, is infallible, incorrigible (Searle 1992, 145), and reflexive. While Descartes greatly contributed to philosophical discourse when he thematized self-consciousness and formulated the self-reflective and self-conscious HI" as the methodological starting point of the philosophical enterprise,3 I think his formulation reveals three fundamental weaknesses: First, he reifies the experiential HI" as thinking thing; second, he equates the cogito and the self; and third, he fails to distinguish between the cogito as Hconsciousness of" and self-consciousness as "consciousness of itself." I believe it is these three shortcomings of Descartes' theory of the cogito which gave rise to the criticisms advanced by alternative conceptions of consciousness and mind and to the revisions of the cogito within post-Cartesian philosophies, especially in the light of the Kantian turn. Each of these points bears further elaboration. 40 SELFHOOD First, while Descartes proceeded to substantialize the cogito, later, especially post-Kantian, philosophers chose a more careful route and conceived of the cogito as an epistemic function rather than a thing­ itself (Ger.: Ding-an-sich), which had been problematized by Kant himself. Kant's critique of a purely metaphysical approach to the notion of selfhood and his concern for epistemological questions significantly altered the succeeding philosophies of selfhood; in addition, even though his notion of the transcendental ego seems to evoke some kind of substantial self, his critique made the naive reification of the experiential "I" at least problematic, if not, impossible. Subsequently, diverging from Descartes' definition of the cogito as thinking thing, Kant conceived of the cogito as transcendental unity of apperception, Husserl reinterpreted it as transcendental ego and as noetic act, and Merleau-Ponty, as embodied intentionality. In addition, Heidegger re-defined the cogito as "Dasein," that is, as authentic modality of Mensch-sein, which has become aware of its own authenticity qua being-unto-death (Ger.: Sein zum Tode) , and Sartre refers to it as the existential project. What is of interest here is neither the plurality of conceptions of the cogito nor their fundamental disagreements and controversies but the general shift from the definition of the experiential "I" as enduring substance to its conception as an epistemic and existential modality and individual awareness. This shift is not without ontological ramifications and reflects a transition from a philosophy primarily concerned with metaphysics to one with epistemological and existential concerns. Second, the fallacy of Descartes' identification ofthe cogito with the self, which has been slowly reversed by his successors, can be best illustrated with the rather controversial attributes of the cogito such as incorrigibility and privileged access. While the traditional definitions of the cogito as possessing incorrigibility apply to the cogito qua self­ consciousness, they do not necessarily pertain to the selfas a whole; in other words, as important as the cogito qua self-consciousness is to the function and the conception of personhood and selfhood, it, by no means, encompasses all dimensions of Mensch-sein but rather constitutes but one aspect thereof. Self-consciousness is incorrigible as far as it pertains to itself and not to the self (this does not mean that the "I" is always right but rather that the "I" is always, in its limited way, unified and holistically itself); self-consciousness has privileged access to itself but not to all ofthe self. Searle argues against the notion ofthe incorrigibility ofconsciousness by considering the case ofJimmy and Sally, in which Sally believes that she is in love with Jimmy and

41 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS thus agrees to marry him, but later notices what friends had told her before, namely, that her "love" "was in fact only a form ofinfatuation" (Searle 1992, 145). However, while Sally's I-function (cogito) was seemingly wrong about Sally qua whole person, it might well have been right about the cogito's awareness and evaluation thereof. At the very moment when Sally made her decision to marry Jimmy, Sally's "I" was in love with Jimmy, even though a consideration of her unconscious content and past feelings would have revealed this feeling to be mere infatuation. Sartre addresses a similar problem when he cites the example ofPaul who exclaims, in the heat ofan argument with Peter, "I hate you" but later explains, "I do not detest you, I said that in anger" (Sartre 1990, 64). Sartre concludes that the mistaken identification ofa momentary feeling-event to denote essential attributes of myself lies in the tendency of the unreflected consciousness to generalize an instantaneous experience and to constitute "hatred as a transcendent object" (64). This results in an over-inflation of the notion of cogito, which is overrated and whose semantic breadth has been over­ extended; as he says repeatedly in his Transcendence of the Ego, "the cogito affirms too much" (53). By the same token, unity is a fundamental characteristic of the cogito - a disunified self­ consciousness would create a pathological situation of many "I's," as in the case of MPD - but not necessarily of the self itself. It is important to note that there is not only a variety of philosophies of the cogito but, as every developmental psychologist, regardless of herIhis persuasion, can attest to, there is also a variety of different awarenesses which range from mere representation, on the one hand, to a transparent selfless awareness as signified by the Buddhist descriptions of the experience of samiidhi (Jap.: sanmai) andlor enlightenment (Jap.: satori), on the other. The cogito qua self­ conscious self is thus neither identical to mere representation - a topic of interest especially to cognitive science and AI theory - nor necessary to human consciousness, as can be illustrated with examples from early child psychology as well as from experiences of a lack of self-consciousness of otherwise self-conscious persons. In his Rediscovery ofthe Mind, Searle cites, as an example of a consciousness devoid of self-consciousness, the instance of "sitting in a restaurant and eating steak," during which "I might be conscious that the steak tastes good" (Searle 1992, 142), and Thomas P. Kasulis illustrates the notion of pre-reflective experience with the case of a person who, exhausted after mowing the lawn, "leans his arm on the lawnmower and rests. For a moment or two, his eyes gaze downward and he thinks

42 SELFHOOD and feels nothing specific whatsoever" (Kasulis 1981, 75). Sartre addresses this phenomenon when he observes in The Transcendence of the Ego that just because the cogito "must be able to accompany all our representations, ... does it in fact accompany them?" (Sartre 1990, 34). The experiential "I" thus emerges not as the substance and transcendental ground of human existence but, as C. G. Jung emphasizes over and over again, as one player - the loudest, one might add - among many. In a similar vein, Buddhists argue that the so-called self (Skrt.: atman), which seems closer to the ego and/or the cogito in English, emerges as a product from the interplay of the five skandhas (Skrt.: pafica skandha', Jap.: go un), literally, "five constituents." The problems and inconsistencies that arise in the theories of Descartes, Kant, and Husserl are thus not to be attributed to their conceptions themselves but to the tendency to mistake the cogito or the transcendental ego for the self. Finally, while it was a great achievement of Descartes to have included the notion of reflexivity into philosophical discourse, his identification of consciousness-of and self-consciousness is rather questionable. Again, it is important to note that reflexivity does not constitute a feature of the general notion of consciousness but rather of the particular instance of self-consciousness in which consciousness becomes aware of itself as perceiving the objects of the phenomenal world, thinking thoughts, projecting a theory of who-it-is qua who-l­ am, and, in the special case of a philosopher, developing a consistent system of thought. Self-consciousness is not merely a "consciousness of" but a consciousness conscious of itself. Such a self-consciousness might not be necessary for the learning and performance of certain kinds of behavior and representation of knowledge or images, but it does constitute a necessary condition for the sense and a theory of personal identity. Reflexivity is a necessary feature of self-conscious­ ness, which not only represents an object but, by definition, itself. While it is often argued that self-consciousness presents itself in a clear and self-evident way, self-consciousness as the particular instance of a consciousness which reflects on itself paradoxically escapes the cognition of consciousness and, subsequently, escapes conscious reflections characteristic of philosophical discourse, thus causing some of the basic problems of any egological philosophy of the self-conscious "I." In order to explore the questions "What is the cogito?" "What, ifanything, does a philosophy ofthe cogito contribute towards a theory of selfhood?" "Does the cogito facilitate self­ awareness?" it will be thus necessary to examine the two aspects ofthe

43 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENOMENOLOGY Ol\: SELF-AWARENESS concept Hcogito," namely, the cogito qua consciousness-of and the cogito qua self-consciousness, separately.

Cogito as intentional act

The key to this twofold aspect of the cogito lies in Husserl's definition of consciousness as Hconsciousness of." Following Franz Brentano's notion of intentionality, Husserl argued that conscious experience can thus be analyzed into an intentional act, 4 noesis, and an intentional object, noema. In its rudimentary form, this dualism can be traced to Descartes' dualism of res cogitans and as the two fundamental substances that constitute the world; contrary to Descartes, however, Husserl rejects an ontological dualism and redefines the cogito as noesis, as intentional act (not as substance), and as its object, noema, not the physical world but the world of meaning which is simultaneously experienced and constructed by the cogito. As J. N. Mohanty explains, "Intentionality is not mere directedness to the world, but interpretive of the world. It not only has its own content, it confers meaning on its object, so that its object is presented as having this meaning for it" (Mohanty 1989, 109). Thus defined, the notion of intentionality addresses four major characteristics of the experiential "I": (1) the experiential HI" finds itself as noesis, that is, an intentional act (2) vis-a.-vis the objective world it experiences, that is, the world of phenomena. At the same, time, however, it does not remain·in isolation from the world it encounters, but, on the contrary, (3) is directed to and connected with the world of phenomena by what Merleau-Ponty calls the intentional arc (Fr.: l'arc intentionel), by means of which (4) it bestows the world of phenomena with meaning; in the language of phenomenology, it constitutes the world of phenomena. It is this experiential HI" which wakes up to its ownfacticity, its existence, andfactuality, its historicity, defining itself through a set of relations, functions (social and professional), beliefs (mundane, such as "team handball is the greatest sport ever," and profound, such as religious and political beliefs), stories, and character. It is this experiential "I" which defines itself in what Sartre calls an existential "project." Phenomenology thus distinguishes between the world of phenomena, that is, the world which is constructed by the experiential HI" and the transcendental realm which is beyond grasp and the constitutive power of the noesis. Even though such an interpretation of the cogito seems to imply

44 SELFHOOD , this is not the case, as I will show below. What it does, however, is to challenge the belief that our consciousness provides reliable, self-evident, and incorrigible information about the self. Rather than absolutizing the cognition and experience of the individual cogito, phenomenology clearly identifies the world of phenomena as constituted; human consciousness does not encounter an "objective" world but constructs objects, relations of meaning (Ger.: Sinnzusammenhaenge), and also so-called objectivity. By the same token, phenomenology problematizes, explicitly or not, the notion of self-consciousness. As intentional act, the cogito constructs itself as its own object. Subsequently, consciousness is incapable of knowing itselfqua noetic act, since in the attempt to reflect on itself, it necessarily objectifies itself and deprives itself of its basic characteristic, namely, its constitutive agency. Therefore, self­ consciousness eludes the intentional consciousness and, thus, the self-reflective person who constructs her/his own identity and the philosopher engaged in the pursuit of a theory of personal identity. As indicated in the preceding chapter, Kant already anticipated this problem when he argued that the cogito and the representation of the self belong to two different realms - the noumenal and the phenomenal realms - and, subsequently, follow different rationales. The representation of the self is an object of perception and, conceptua­ lized, an abstraction ofconsciousness - it designates what the image of myself I or an observer have; in other words, the representation of the self is a phenomenon. On the other side, the cogito (Ger.: ich denke) denotes the transcendental unity of apperception, that is, the logically necessary structure of perception and any unity of consciousness such as value judgments and mathematics. It denotes mere consciousness (Ger.: blosses Bewusstsein) as subject, as noumenon, and as substance in the narrow sense that it is "the ultimate subject matter which is never an attribute." (Aristotle 1952, 100). Due to the noumenal character of the cogito, the only property of the cogito, which, as a result of the "Transcendental Deduction" (Kant 1956, 1: Bl16-B169; A96-A130), is knowable, is its facticity, the cogito necessarily exists; however, the how of its existence, that is, "die Art wie ich existiere," (2: B420) is indeterminate. Kant further attributes the mistaken objectification and thingification of the cogito to the unwarranted identification of the cogito with the self-qua-representation-of-person. It is this elusiveness of the self-consciousness which motivates Kant and Husserl to relegate the cogito, albeit in different ways, to the transcendental realm which is simultaneously the ground of self-consciousness and beyond

45 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS the realm of consciousness. The key to the formulation of self­ consciousness can be found in Sartre's The Transcendence oj the Ego (1990) and Being and Nothingness (1 956).

Self-consciousness

Sartre agrees with Kant's contention that consciousness posits and, subsequently, objectifies and alienates itself and that the cogito, subsequently, constantly escapes itself. The reason for this, he argues, lies in the non-positionalS character of self-consciousness which reflects on itself, while regular consciousness, which is a consciousness of something, posits and confronts the phenomenal object. In his Being and Nothingness, Sartre draws the logical conclusion ofthis observation and contends that self-consciousness qua non-positional consciousness necessitates the absolutely elusive and impossible unity between consciousness (what Sartre calls being-jor-itself) and itself (Sartre's being-in-itself, Fr.: etre-en-soi). In other words, there is an infinite abyss between the existence of consciousness (being-in-itselj) and consciousness of existence (being-jor-itself). Since self-consciousness necessitates a non-positional mode of engagement, positional consciousness cannot know itself and is forever condemned to haunt itself and be haunted by itself. Despite this somewhat discouraging verdict, however, Sartre paradoxically suggests that the self-conscious cogito comprises the very existence of consciousness (his being-in­ itself). As Sartre puts it, self-consciousness is "the only mode of existence which is possible for a consciousness of something" (Sartre 1956, 14). In his account of self-consciousness, Sartre raises the fundamental issue concerning the modality of self-consciousness and its relationship to the positional attitude of consciousness. This issue was problematized in the epistemological debate between the school of Hinduism and the Yogacara Sautrantika school of Mahayana Buddhism as early as the fifth century C.E. (Matilal 1986, 148-60). Within the discourse of western philosophy, some philosophers of mind as well as some cognitive scientists adopt a position akin to the one held by the Nyaya, postulating that self-consciousness is qualitatively not different from regular consciousness; it differs from, for example, representational consciousness only in that its object is a representational or reflective act rather than a representation. Such an understanding of self-consciousness obviously defeats the reflexivity hypothesis, but, at the same time, seems liable to fall into an infinite

46 SELFHOOD regress ofconsciousnesses, one reflecting on an other. On the contrary, the phenomenologists and philosophers in the Kantian tradition contend, reminiscent of the Buddhist position, that regardless of whether self-consciousness is actually possible or not, it must differ qualitatively from everyday consciousness. Self-awareness, thus defined as non-positional awareness fundamentally differs from thetic consciousness on two accounts: it transcends the individualistic conception of the cogito and the binary structure of the phenomenal world. I define the phenomenal world as the juxtaposition of the constituting cogito and the world of phenomena it constructs. First, in addition to his postulate of non-positional consciousness, Sartre follows Heidegger's suit to thematize the worldliness of the cogito. Sartre also includes in the notion of the being-in-itself, which was conceived of to denote self-consciousness, the facticity of the human body and the existence of the other, thus, emphasizing that there is a world beyond the reach of the phenomenal world. In some sense being-in-itself encompasses the pre-reflectively and pre­ consciously given environment to which the self-conscious experi­ ential "I" awakens, containing its social relation, its historical factuality, and most importantly, its somatic existence. Ironically, however, consciousness is never able to be conscious of itself and its own social, historical, and physical givenness; it can only objectify its existential predicament. It chases its own elusive self (qua self­ consciousness), incapable of defining or theorizing its own (personal) identity, always on the search for itself and its own existence, which is, simultaneously, most intimate and most distant to itself. In a similar sense, Heidegger, who, contrary to Sartre, believed that an escape from this inauthenticity and a real lived authenticity was possible, asserted the position that self-consciousness is thrown into a worldliness in which it encounters other consciousnesses and an inanimate world which is, to use Sartre's terminology, pre-reflectively given. Heidegger uses his neologisms "being-in-the-world" (Ger.: in-der- Welt-Sein), "being-alongside" (Ger.: Sein-bei), and "being­ present-at-hand" (Ger.: Vorhanden-Sein) to explicate that the existential predicament of the self-conscious cogito, which he re­ defines as Dasein, is not one of solipsistic isolation but of worldliness and intersubjectivity. The self-conscious experiential "I" thus neither awakens to a world which only s/he inhabits nor discovers that the phenomenal objects and persons which appear in her/his perceptual field are merely constituted by her/his own intentionality, but realizes her/his own historical, social, and somatic predicament. What 47 ZEN BUDDHISNI AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS appears to be the construction of my thetic intentionality actually points beyond itself toward a non-positional realm of somaticity and worldliness. It is important to note here that the study of the cogito qua self-consciousness, ultimately, does not result in a pure egology of the cogito in which interpersonality or transcendence (to the consciousness) is either bracketed or constructed by the cogito for­ itself; instead it suggests that the facticity of the cogito necessitates worldliness and intersubjectivity and, subsequently, that self­ consciousness comprises not only a consciousness of the ego but also of the socio-historical predicament and, as Sartre would say, existence of self-consciousness itself. Second, while the phenomenal world indicative of the cogito is characterized by a binary structure, the world of self-awareness seems to disclose, in Merleau-Ponty's terms, "the co-existence of sentient and sensible" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 221) and a common ground underlying both polarities rather than the dominant function of the ego-pole characteristic of Husserl's phenomenology. In fact, Merleau­ Ponty advocates the "return to the world ofactual experience which is prior to the objective (and one might add, constructed) world" qua "the system self-other-things" (57). The methodological starting point of Merleau-Ponty's revision of the phenomenological agenda is his return to the "primacy of perception" which precedes the constitution of the phenomenal world. The phenomena which appear within the perceptual field are not merely constructed; however, Merleau-Ponty also rejects the opposite extreme of an ala Locke's tabula rasa, in which the world of phenomena is completely a product of the incoming sense data. Merleau-Ponty skillfully explains the interconnectedness between, and the inseparability of, action and perception, subjectivity and objectivity, activity and passivity. "Sensations," Merleau-Ponty explains, "are then far from being reducible to a certain state or quale. ... It has long been known that sensations have a 'motor accompaniment' ... and that the 'perceptual side' and the 'motor side' of behavior are in communication with each other" (209-10). Sense experience thus conceived comprises neither the act of projection of an active cogito onto a passive world nor the impression of incoming sense data onto a passive mind but emerges in the interaction between perceiver and the perceived and constitutes "literally a form of communion" (212). This re-evaluation of sense experience releases perceiver and perceived from the static abstrac­ tions of the epistemological debate between idealism and empiricism (which Merleau-Ponty refers to as intellectualism and empiricism), 48 SELFHOOD which dichotomizes and freezes the subject and object of sense experience on two opposing sides of the cognitive event, and de­ centers6 traditional conceptions of sense perception. Ideologically, Merleau-Ponty undercuts the claims of both intellectualism and empiricism that sense-experience is determined by either the perceiver or the perceived and strives towards, what Bernhard Waldenfels terms, a "third dimension" (Waldenfels 1983, 148); in practice, Merleau-Ponty liberates sense perception from the clutches of a constituting ego and, equally, from a seemingly completely transcendent, independent, and objective . Ultimately, Merleau­ Ponty replaces the transcendental ground of thetic consciousness with an existential ambiguity of, as YUASA Yasuo remarks, "subjectivity and objectivity" (Yuasa 1987, 195). However, and this is a problem central to the phenomenological enterprise (as to any egological endeavor in general), it is extremely problematic to talk about non-positional awareness and pre-reflective consciousness and to contend that self-awareness transcends itself, defies or transcends the intentional form of engagement, and thus is beyond the conscious field of the experiential "I" striving to define itselfand the philosopher working on a theory ofselfhood and personal identity. (To clearly demarcate non-positional self-consciousness from positional consciousness, I will hereafter use the term self-awareness to denote the non-positional modality which reflects on itself.) If self­ awareness transcends the phenomenal field, how can we know or even talk about it? This paradoxical predicament explains the reluctance of phenomenologists to talk about the unconscious and to advance positive explanations or even phenomenological descriptions of this non-thetic realm beyond self-reflexive statements and identity propositions such as the tacit cogito is "the presence of oneself to oneself" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 404) and, even more clearly in Sartre, being-in-itself is "what it is" (Sartre 1956, 28). Ultimately, this predicament reveals the reason why the notions of selfhood and personal identity have been as elusive as philosophers have discovered in recent years.

The dual self

In his Phenomenology of Perception (1962), Merleau-Ponty not only addresses but conceptualizes the two levels of awareness discussed above, consciousness-of and self-awareness. Examining cases from

49 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENO~1ENOLOGYO~ SELF-AWARENESS clinical psychology, most prevalently, the famous case of Schneider, a patient who suffered from, among other illnesses, apraxia (coordina­ tion disorder) and agnosia (incapability of recognition), Merleau­ Ponty differentiates between an abstract and a concrete form of engagement of the patient with his ambiance, which roughly correspond to intellectual and practical knowledge, respectively. The former one necessitates an abstraction of information from real experience and its application to an imagined scenario in the form of an intellectual exercise, while the latter involves concrete involvement in the activity at hand. While Schneider seemed incapable of pointing (Ger.: zeigen) to a specified body part, e.g., his nose, he was perfectly capable of grasping (Ger.: greifen) it. Merleau-Ponty adds that "[a] patient of the kind discussed above, when stung by Cl: mosquito, does not need to look for the place where he has been stung" (Merleau­ Ponty 1962, 105). By the same token, he was incapable of explaining the direction to his own house but had no trouble finding it. Merleau­ Ponty attributes this incapability of the patient to execute intellectual activities to a severance ofthe intentional arc which is necessary for the construction of worlds of meaning. Merleau-Ponty concludes that such a repeated performance habitualizes lived acts such as walking­ to-my-house, the study of a language, or the cultivation of oneself in sitting meditation, which enable me to "take my place, through the medium of my body as the potential source of a certain number of familiar actions, in my environment without, moreover, envisaging my body or my surroundings as objects in the Kantian sense." This concrete form of engagement is "reducible to a sort of co-existence with that place ... even though it cannot be conveyed by a description" (105). In short, the patient was incapable of constituting an abstract world; however, the repeated performance of walking-to-his-house had manifested a lived world independent of the intentionality of thetic consciousness, which enabled him to execute routine tasks without any problem. Hence, the lived world is manifested as habit-body (Fr.: Ie corps habituel) (82) by means of repeated performances and habitualizations, which extend the self's scope in that they incorporate what appears external to oneself into a person's lived space and time. In concrete engagement, the sensori-motor-circuit ofthe human body, also referred to as "actual body" (Fr.: Ie corps actuel) and as "habit-body" (Fr.: le corps habituel) (82), subsequently, enacts lived space manifested by the habit-body, on the one hand, while abstract engagement characteristic of the phenomenal world, on the other, necessitates what Merleau-Ponty calls a "'motor project' (Ger.: Bewegungsentwurf)

50 SELFHOOD (110) and thus thetic intentionality. Merleau-Ponty's terminology indicates that the actual body functions as a system of action and perception not in a vacuum but relies, existentially, on the feedback systems of the habit-body, which comprises the potential, skills, and abilities of the individual human body. Merleau-Ponty's twofold conception of the human body carries two significant implications for my examination of selfhood in phenomenology and Dagen's Zen Buddhism: First, Merleau-Ponty suggests, albeit implicitly, that the pre-reflective dimension of self­ awareness can be accessed by means ofconcrete forms of engagement such as habitualization and enactment. Second, and more important for the present discussion of the cogito, Merleau-Ponty's body scheme (Fr.: le scheme corporeal) discloses a second pre-reflective and, in some sense, pre-personal lived world "anterior to the ideas of subject and object" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 219), where the unity of mind and body "is enacted at every instant in the movement of existence" (89), which has to be clearly demarcated from the world of phenomena constructed by the cogito. This pre-objectively and pre-reflectively given lived world is enacted as action-perception and not constituted by thetic intentionality of the cogito which constructs the abstract world by means of withdrawal and isolation from the lived world of sense experience. Hence, the lived world of sense perception is not constituted but manifested by action-perception which, abandoning the subjectivity of the cogito, 7 transcends the dichotomies of subjectivity and objectivity, inside and outside, mind and body. I use the term "to manifest" to contrast the positional activity of creating the lived world from the thetic constitution characteristic ofthe phenomenal world; "manifesting" thus denotes the reflective and pre­ reflective aspects of the self in toto. At any rate, as anticipated in the thought of Sartre and Heidegger, the lived world disclosed by action­ perception transcends the boundaries of the self-conscious and individual cogito, "because it always contains something more than what is actually given" (16). While thetic intentionality, which constitutes the world of phenomena qua object, necessarily objectifies my body as well as the bodies of others, the lived world is characterized by the "co-existence" of a multiplicity of lived bodies - also bodies-in-action - (or is it even possible to talk about one transindividual lived body?), which "co-inhabit" "an interworld in which I accord as much place to others as to myself" (357) and where bodies synchronize with each other.8 In the lived world, self and others are participants rather than observer and observed. This difference 51 ZEN BUDDHIS~" AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS becomes most apparent in his delineation of the lived body from the phenomenal and objectified body conceived of "as a chemical structure or an agglomeration of tissues, [which] is formed by a process of impoverishment, from a primordial body-for-us, the body of human experience or the perceived body" (351).

Summary

The seemingly insoluble predicament of the elusiveness of self­ awareness is the crux of the egological approach and has prompted critics of the standpoint of the cogito, which constructs the abstract world qua the world of objects by means of its thetic intentionality, to discredit phenomenology as idealism. Such a generalized objection is not only unjustified, since, as the preceding paragraph has demonstrated, it overlooks the description of the cogito qua being-in­ the-world, but also conceals the important phenomenological insight that the phenomenal world, which is often taken for granted and at face-value, does not constitute the objectively given world but is constituted by myself for-myself. As NAGATOMO Shigenori (1990) has pointed out, the weakness of the egological approach lies in the unilateral conception ofthe intentional act by means ofwhich the self­ conscious cogito attends to its ambiance. 9 Nagatomo argues that it is the one-sided description of thetic intentionality and of the definition ofthe cogito as ego-pole that gives rise to the egological interpretations ofthe phenomenology ofthe cogito and to the difficulties in describing non-positional self-awareness (the later phenomenologists frequently point towards but never formulate a theory of non-positional awareness) and its implicit extension of the self to transcend the individuality and the consciousness of the cogito. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception attempts to under­ cut this one-sidedness of the cogito, which constructs the world of phenomenal objects, by grounding the self-conscious cogito, on the one hand, in an existential ambiguity of action-perception that attempts to mediate the dichotomy of subjectivity and objectivity characteristic of the phenomenal world and, on the other, in a pre-reflective somaticity, which precedes the constitution ofthis very phenomenal world. Merleau­ Ponty's body scheme pushes the egological approach to its utmost limits in that he incorporates a non-positional, somatic, and potentially transindividual10 realm into his phenomenology of the somatic cogito. However, he falls short of his own goals when he seems to relegate the

52 SELFHOOD lived world back into the realm of the phenomenal world in comments such as "this interworld is still a project of mine" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 357) and in his definition of the subject-object dialogue as "the drawing together, by the subject, ofthe meanings diffused through the object, and by the subject's intentions" (132). Nagatomo (1990) argues that even though Merleau-Ponty strives towards a non-dual world view of co-existence and even though he provides ample opportunity to develop a bilateral inter-activity between the lived body and the world inhabited, Merleau-Ponty still adheres to a unilateral inter­ pretation ofthe intentional arc. This shortcoming, ultimately, reveals as fundamental features of the lived world its unified character and the positional attitude of its author, the self. Subsequently, the central question remains of how to conceive of non-positional awareness and how to contextualize the intentional act of the cogito as being-alongside other cogitos or as being-in-the-world. In this context, I utilize the terminologies of positionality and existential ambiguity to extend the semantic breadth of the concept of intentionality; I take the term "positionality" to denote intentionality in the widest possible sense, including somatic and even unconscious forms of intentionality, while "existential ambiguity" designates a form of intentionality in which both polarities of the intentional arc influence each other.

"To Study the Self is to Forget the Self" - Selfhood in Dagen No-self in Buddhism

The Buddhist doctrine of no-self (Skrt.: anatman, lap.: muga) is probably the single most important and universally accepted doctrine within the otherwise rather diverse Buddhist tradition; even controversial Buddhist scholars such as HAKAMAYA Noriaki and MATSUMOTO Shiro recognize the concept of no-self as intrinsi­ cally Buddhist. However, it has been notoriously misunderstood and misinterpreted by some western scholars.11 Buddhism traditionally advances three arguments in support of the concept of no-self: (1) As I will discuss in more detail in chapter 4, Buddhism utilizes this doctrine to reject the prevalent Hindu belief in an eternal soul in favor of the conception of impermanence (Skrt.: anitya, lap.: mujo) and to propose a middle path philosophy which rejects both eternalism and annihilationism. Gotama's well-attested silence in response to the

53 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS questions of "a certain Parivrajaka (Wanderer) named Vacchagotta" concerning the existence or non-existence of the eternal self (Rahula 1959, 62) has traditionally been interpreted as an expression of the Middle Way, equally rejecting the extreme positions ofeternalism and annihilationism: Human experience is neither eternally continuous (eternalism) nor absolutely discontinuous. Like Parfit, Gotama and his successors maintain that in addition to the experiential constituents nothing "can be found."12 (2) Instead of an enduring subject, which synthesizes and controls the various constituents of human experience, Buddhism posits the interplay of five psycho-physical elements, traditionally known as the five skandhas (Jap.: go un). None of these elements is enduring over time or predominant among the skandhas themselves; rather, human experience emerges in the interplay between all five components. Gotama's denial of the supremacy of the "I"-function over the other physical and psychological functions, as cited by Collins, seems to echo Jung's rejection of the hegemony of the ego and his emphasis of the affective complexes. 13 To Gotama, it is not the experiential "I" who is in control over body, feelings, disposition, etc., but rather it is subjected to the interplay of all components. Thus, Buddhism shatters the egological conception that it is the experiential "I" which originates consciousness, feeling, pain, etc.; instead, it substitutes a non-linear complex structure as the explanatory model of human experience for that of an individual, enduring agency. (3) Finally, the notion of no-self is warranted by the fundamental underlying the phenomenal world, that is, co-dependent origination (Skrt.: pratftya samutpiida). Experiencer and experience are dynamically related (Skrt.: pratftya) and, subsequently, no agent, no self exists apart from human experience. Buddhism generally rejects the notion of a substance by means of the argument from causation, which has been perfected by the founder of Madhyamika Buddhism, Nagarjuna, contending that which is caused by an external and separate cause cannot be self-sufficient and independent, but is existentially correlative. While Nagarjuna seemed, for the most part, content to propose the existential emptiness (Skrt.: silnyatii) selflessness of the self - which can be paraphrased as "the essence of the self is not to possess an essence" -later Mahayana Buddhism, especially Yogacara Buddhism, proceeded to construct a theory of selfless selfbood. In his famous "Trirpsika" ("Thirty Verses"), Vasubandhu, the main proponent of Indian Yogacara thought, presents a two-layered conception of Mensch-sein: he contrasts everyday awareness, which is characterized

54 SELFHOOD by the correlativity of the constructing self (Skrt.: atman) and constructed world (Skrt.: dharma) (Kochumuttom 1982, 128), and non-positional awareness, which he refers to as "no-mind" (Skrt.: acitta, Jap.: mushin). Such a phenomenological interpretation is supported by the intentional character of the karmic activities (Skrt.: saf?1Skara, Jap.: gyo) and the other four of the five skandhas, as the location of the twelvefold chain of co-dependent origination illustrates (Boisvert 1995, 131), by the importance of karma as "the circuit of intentionality" for the Yogacara system (Lusthaus 1989, 180-86), and by the central function ofthe grasper (Skrt.: grahaka)-grasped (Skrt.: grahya) duality in Vasubandhu's philosophy (Kochumuttom 1982, 3-5). This everyday awareness Vasubandhu contrasts with "supramundane knowledge" (Skrt.: jnana lokottara) , which is "devoid of mind" (Skrt.: acitta) and "object" (Skrt.: alabama) (Vasubandhu qtd. in Lusthaus 1989, 273), or, in Kochumuttom's words, which "operates without depending on the subject-object distinction" (Kochumuttom 1982, 160). To support this interpretation, Kochumuttom cites Sthiramati contending that "grasp­ ability and grasperhood, which in fact are non-existent, are simply imagined to exist where there is discrimination" (Sthiramati qtd. in Kochumuttom 1982, 154). While Vasubandhu's "Trirpsika" has engendered scholarly controversies in the past and the present, as is demonstrated in the various interpretations ofhis theory of "three self­ natures" (Skrt.: trisvabhava) represented by Sthiramati, Hsiian-tsang, and Paramartha, I believe the juxtaposition of everyday awareness, which is characterized by a binary structure and the intentionality of karmic activities, with what Nagatomo calls "samadhic awareness," which reveals a non-dual structure and signifies non-positional awareness, is well-demonstrated not only in Yogacara Buddhism but in Mahayana Buddhism in general.

Introduction to Dogen

In the light of the Buddhist rejection of an essentialist theory of everyday awareness qua selfor personal identity, the question remains: What does it mean to describe the experiential "I" as dynamically related (Skrt.: pratftya samutpada) to its object, as the Mahayana Buddhist tradition does? What does it mean to talk about selfhood after Buddhist philosophers had dissociated the unity of the self into the five skandhas, undermined and dissolved the notions ofself-nature (Skrt.: svabhava), the active self qua "grasper" (Skrt.: grahaka), and

55 ZEN BUDDHISN[ AND PHENOtvfENOLOGY 00: SELF-AWARENESS the world of phenomena qua what is "grasped" (Skrt.: griihya) in the dialectics of co-dependent origination and an existential ambiguity, and after Vasubandhu's ingenious but controversial phenomenology ofthe no-mind (Skrt.: acitta)? The quest for Dagen's response is the more difficult since Dagen's agenda, as mentioned before, is predominantly soteriological rather than conceptual. An analysis of the conceptual structure of his thought must keep in mind that Dagen's conceptual explorations and innovations are motivated by soteriological con­ siderations and have to be read against the background of a Buddhist soteriology, which is primarily concerned with extinguishing karma and discl~sing the experience of enlightenment and realization of verification (Jap.: sho) to the reader. Given this agenda, it is the more striking, if not puzzling, that, for example, in his "Shabagenza Genjakaan," which because of its clarity and conceptual consistency will serve me as one of the major sources of his thought, Dagen never once mentions the concept of no-self, which constitutes one of the conceptual foundations of Buddhism and is almost programmatic of Buddhist soteriology, but frequently talks about the self (Jap.: jiko) instead. Not only that, he even declares "the study of the self" as the pinnacle of Buddhism. Nevertheless, the interpretation of this data as evidence for a reinstatement of a pre-Buddhist eternal self would constitute a serious and obvious mistake, since Dagen asserts in two of his three main fascicles "Shabagenza Bendawa" (Dagen 1993, 1: 23-74) and "Shabagenza Genjakaan" (1:91-104) that the so-called "Senika heresy" (Jap.: sennigedo), which believes in an essentialist theory of the self, completely misses the mark. On the other hand, however, Dagen's contention that "to study the Buddha-way is to study the self" also justifies an exploration of Dagen's notion of self­ awareness, which he himself hails as the cornerstone of the Buddhist enterprise. For this reason, I will employ his oft-quoted passage from the Genjakaan which thematizes "the study of the self" as the guideline for the present exploration. The fascicle "Shabagenza Genjakaan," which Dagen probably wrote in 1233 (Heine 1991, 11 7), is named after one of Dagen's most central concepts "genjakaan," literally, "presencing-the-kaan," but also translated as "presencing things-as-they-are" (Shaner 1985, 145) and "manifest[ing] absolute reality" (Abe and Waddell 1972, 138), a concept I will discuss in more detail in chapter 7. What is important at the present point is that, upon his return to Japan, Dagen had written the fascicle "Fukanzazengi" (Dagen 1970, 2: 3-5) to announce his method of sitting meditation (Jap.: zazen) and sitting-only

56 SELFHOOD (Jap.: shikantaza) as the single practice14 towards the Buddhist goal of satori, and the fascicle "Shabagenza Bendawa" to root this practice in the lineage of Zen Buddhist patriarchs, posthumously tracing the practice of zazen back to the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gotama. In his "Shabagenza Genjakaan," Dagen presented the conceptual outline of his own brand of Zen and a Buddhological neologism, whose origin is the center of a considerable Buddhological debate, shinjin datsuraku ("casting off body and mind"),15 the phrase which propelled and verified Dagen's experience of enlightenment while practicing under his master Juching (Jap.: Nyojo). This phrase is of utmost importance since in the passage which identifies the Buddhist endeavor as the "study ofthe self," Dagen introduces shinjin datsuraku as his notion of self-awareness, which lies at the bottom of the everyday notion of self and, simultaneously transcends, somewhat reminiscent of the theories of the cogito as well as Jung's notion of the self, the dichotomies of self and other, body and mind. The two key concepts disclosing Dagen's notion of self-awareness qua studying the self are "self" and "shinjin datsuraku," which roughly identify and juxtapose the standpoints of the unenlightened and of enlightenment. This profound juxtaposition of two existential modalities is a pervasive feature in Dagen's writings; in an earlier paragraph in the "Shabagenza Genjakaan, Dagen demarcates the epistemic attitudes of delusion (Jap.: mayoi) and satori and in his "Shabagenza Sansuikya" (1993, 1: 405-34) ("The Mountains and Water Sutra"), Dagen symbolizes these two epistemic attitudes with the phrases "people outside the mountains" (Jap.: sangenin) and "people inside the mountains" (Jap.: sannainin), which he contrasts as follows: People inside the mountains do not experience and do not know; inside the mountains flowers blossom. People outside the mountains do not experience; people who don't have the eyes to see the mountains do not experience, do not know, do not see, and do not hear. (1: 407) To better understand these two existential and epistemic modalities, I would like to closely examine Dagen's conception of self-awareness qua shinjin datsuraku as follows: To study the buddha-way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad dharmas; to be actualized by myriad dharmas is to cast off body and mind of self and other. (1: 95)

57 ZEN BUDDHISM Al'\D PHENOMENOLOGY 0:\ SELF-AWARENESS

This passage can be divided into five segments: (1) "to study the self," (2) "to forget the self," (3) "to be actualized by myriad dharmas," (4) "to cast off body and mind," and (5) "to cast off body and mind of self and other." Or in different words, this passage thematizes the topics of (1) self-awareness, (2) selflessness, (3) the cosmic dimension of the self, (4) the transcendence of the mind-body dichotomy, (5) the transcendence of the self-other dichotomy. The first four topics I will address in this chapter, the fifth one in chapter 3.

Dagen's ((self" as positional act

Following the example of leading Mahayana Buddhist philosophers such as Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu, Dagen uses the term "jiko" in its threefold meaning to denote a temporary awareness event and the noetic polarity within the existential ambiguity of self and other (Jap.: tako) and self and myriad dharmas (Jap.: mambo), which Tamaki renders, in his translation of the "Shabagenza Genjakaan" into contemporary Japanese, as "environment" (Jap.: kankyo). Finally, the term "jiko" implies the self-reflexive nature inherent in self-awareness as the self studying itself in the sense that "I am aware ofmyself as I." Consequently, in one sense, "to study the self" implies that the experiential "I" signifies the self-reflective awareness, as postulated by the Yogacara-Sautrantika Buddhist logician Diilnaga, which accom­ panies all my perceptions and thoughts. However, it cannot be emphasized enough that the experiential "I" designates the subjective activity vis-a.-vis its object, in the sense of Husserl's distinction between noesis and noema, and not an enduring subject engaging in activities in past, present, and future. As mentioned before, Dagen repeatedly denounces the notion of an enduring essence as, for example, in the paragraph succeeding the one discussing self­ awareness, in which Dagen talks about the "misjudgment that the nature of the mind itself is permanent" (Dagen 1993, 1: 96). Finally, this very self is set to disappear in the second line "to forget the self," which is reminiscent of the eight of the ox-herding pictures subtitled "[t]he ox and the self forgotten" (Odin 1996, 95). The self forgotten is the self which experiences itself as an individual and self-identical "I" in clear demarcation to the other and the environment it encounters; it is the self which experiences itself almost as an observer, located "outside" the world, "outside the mountains" so to speak, like an

58 SELFHOOD observing but uninvolved bystander, which is the subject of self­ awareness. The epistemic modality of this self qua self-awareness is "studying the self" which is immediately juxtaposed with what can be construed as its opposite, namely "forgetting the self" (Jap.: jiko 0 wasureru). It is interesting that Dagen's use of " narau" (to study) in the phrase "to study the self" significantly differs from the terms "sankyii" (to investigate), "sangaku" (to contemplate), and "manabu" (to study) semantically as well as formally. Not only does the nomenclature "narau" have the connotation of scholastic learning and practice, but more importantly, it is immediately followed by its negation, namely "forgetting" (Jap.: wasureru). The other terminol­ ogies, on the contrary, tend to be self-sufficient and not in need of complementation or negation. Throughout his work, Dagen's exhortations to study usually indicate an urgency to become insightful, if not enlightened, about a specific subject matter and reflect his observation that "Buddhas are enlightened about delusion, while sentient beings are deluded about enlightenment" (Dagen 1993, 1: 94). At any rate, in the light of the self as that which stands out against an other and the environment, the phrase "to study the self" can be understood as designating the positional attitude of everyday awareness. Dagen's description of the buddha-way further indicates, albeit implicitly, the elusiveness of the self-conscious self and thus implies the methodological problems inherent in the very structure of the "self-conscious subject studying itself." Given the positional character of everyday awareness, the self that is being studied is, at best, the self-qua-object. Since the self, by definition, displays a non­ objectifiable character, it cannot study itself qua object (Husserl's noema) of the intentional act of knowing. The object of the self's knowledge comprises, at best, an image of the self, which, as Kant observes, is not necessarily identical to the self-qua-subject, that is, to the self which does the studying. In the case that self-qua-subject and self-qua-object do not coincide, it is impossible for the self to study itself. This existential predicament of self-consciousness, reminiscent of Sartre's being-for-itself, which is incapable of grasping its own existence, is also echoed in the above-quoted passage from the "Shabagenza Sansuikya." "People outside of the mountains" are characterized by an existential isolation and alienation from their environment and, ultimately, from themselves. Dagen indicates this predicament with phrases such as "not experiencing and not knowing" (Jap.: fushin fuchi) and "not seeing and not hearing"

59 ZEN BUDDHIS11 AND PHENO~'1ENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS (Jap.: fugen fubun) (Dagen 1993, 1: 407). Dagen reinforces this contention in his fascicle "Shabagenza Genjakaan," where he observes that "it is delusion to practice-actualize myriad dharmas by applying ourselves to the dharmas;16 it is enlightenment to practice-actualize the self when dharmas approach (the self)" (1: 94). In both cases, Dagen recognizes a lack of connection between the "person" and the "mountains," between the "self" and the "dharmas." Dagen attributes this existential alienation of the self to the separation between the epistemic subject and object. It is because subject and object are separate that "knowing," "experiencing," "seeing," and "hearing" cannot occur. Given the individual nature of both subject and object, a coming-together of both poles noesis and noema, a "finding the dharmas," so to speak, is impossible; as a consequence, the dharmas escape. Again, if subject and object comprise causally independent individuals, a connection between them cannot be established. In addition to this existential alienation of the self from its environment, the self experiences an existential alienation from itself, in Dagen's words "ifyou doubt that mountains walk, you also doubt that you walk" (1: 407). Dagen maintains that "the person outside the mountains," incapable of understanding the mountains, is also incapable of knowing her/himself; alienation from the world is accompanied by self-alienation. In this quote, the term "doubting," literally, "the arising of doubt" (Jap.: gichaku), symbolizes the existential alienation the self experiences from the world it lives in as well as from itself. As mentioned before, the problem of self-consciousness constitutes a dilemma of far-reaching consequences, pronouncing the ineffability of the self-qua-subject and, concomitantly, the inherently subjective and evasive dimension of Mensch-sein. Dagen's terminology of "the mind that cannot be grasped" (Jap.: shinfukatoku) reiterates the ever-evasive character of the self. The conception of "the mind that cannot be grasped" echoes in some sense the elusiveness of Sartre's being-in-itself, which permanently escapes the grasp of its own positional awareness. The positional attitude ofeveryday awareness does not allow, as Sartre has explained in his Being and Nothingness almost ad nauseam, for self­ consciousness which escapes itself. It is for this reason that Dagen exhorts the practitioner to "forget the self," that is, to transform her/ his existential modality of engagement in the act of "forgetting the self." This opposition of "studying" and "forgetting" further underlines my suspicion that the label "self" designates primarily an awareness event characteristic of everyday-awareness, which is 60 SELFHOOD devoid of self-awareness, exhibiting all the signs of Sartre's self­ alienated and self-elusive self, which is transcendent to itself. The experiential "I" is thus not indicative of a permanent self, as suggested by Descartes and thinkers of the essentialist and neo­ essentialist theories of personal identity, or, albeit in a different way, by proponents of transcendental subjectivity - even though, as mentioned above, the concept of transcendental subjectivity does not necessitate a sense of permanence or constancy; on the contrary, the experiential HI" constructs the notion of the permanent self in its positional attitude to its ambiance. More than once, Dagen suggests that it is this positional attitude of engagement which produces rather than simply encounters permanence. In a central passage in his "Shabagenza Genjakaan," Dagen elaborates on the epistemological implications of the positional attitude: If a person, who rides in a boat, looks at the shore turning herl his eyes back, slhe misjudges the shore to be moving. If slhe directs the eyes to the boat, slhe knows that the boat progresses. Likewise, if someone discriminates and affirms the myriad dharmas while being deluded about body and mind, slhe misjudges herlhis mind and nature to be permanent. (Dagen 1993,1:96) Here Dagen cites three primary characteristics of the delusion of permanence: First, the self differentiates between itself and the world, symbolized in Dagen's writings as "mountains" or "shoreline"; second, the subject conceives of itself as separate from the world and from itself in that it assumes an outside perspective to examine or study the "shoreline," the "mountains," and, ultimately, oneself; third, on the basis of this mistaken differentiation and assumption of methodological objectivity, the self applies the principle of separate­ ness and permanence to itself. Translated into the language of phenomenology, this means that positional awareness, which is directed towards an object and, thus, constructs a third-person­ ontology, creates the appearance of an enduring and dissociated self qua body and mind in the experiential field of the observer. This misjudgment that one's mind possesses permanent nature is not necessary but characteristic for the positional attitude of everyday awareness. In the case of self-consciousness, the positional attitude falls prey to this misjudgment in so far as it focuses on the objectification and concomitant externalization of the self instead of the constituting modality, the self, itself. Dagen seems to contend that

61 ZEN BUDDHIS1vl AND PHENOMENOLOGY Ot\: SELF-AWARENESS the main fallacy in the everyday attitude lies in the assumption that one can study oneself as an other. In contrast to such an attitude which posits the world as its object, Dagen suggests that an authentic, as opposed to alienating, understanding of the self requires an introspective approach, devoid of external distractions. Contrary to Heidegger, however, Dagen defines authenticity as an existential modality devoid of positionality. It is only an epistemic modality, which collapses the distinction of subject and object in self-awareness, that discloses the self as-it-is. Ultimately, Dagen's meditation attempts to engender a reorientation of the self's epistemic attitude in order not to posit the self qua phenomenal self, but to presence (Jap.: genjo suru) the self as-it-is. Thus, the process of self-cultivation, then, comprises the habitualization of a selfless attitude. So what are the implications of Dagen's "to study is to forget"? What are the implications for the notion of self, previously defined as the subject of the positional attitude? And, what kind of study does Dagen have in mind? The paradox inherent in the phrase "to study the self is to forget the self" signifies the necessity of transcending the dichotomy between the self-qua-subject and the self-qua-object, since the non-positional attitude of studying qua forgetting implies the collapse of the subject-object structure of awareness. The self in the phrase "to study the self" transcends the epistemic modalities referred to, as the subsequent sentence "to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad dharmas" indicates. When Dagen contends that "to study the self is to forget the self," he essentially indicates the ever-evasive character of the self qua self. As everyday awareness, the self engages its environment through positional acts, establishing, in Merleau-Ponty's terminology, an intentional arc between itself-qua­ subject and the world-qua-object. When the self turns to itself, performing the study of the self, that is, when, as Dagen puts it, the self "directs the eyes to the boat," it is confronted with itself-as-it-is and, subsequently, the face of the self appears. The term "appears" signifies the arising of the image of the self, the self-qua-object, in the experiential field of the self. This is the very mechanism Jung refers to as projection and transference. The mistaken self-isolation of the self from the world not only engenders an alienation of the self from the world, a dichotomization of the self into self-qua-subject and the self­ qua-object, and a construction of the self as permanent but also an inability to discern reality-as-it-is from the world-for-myself, that is, the world which I construct as my world. Jung contends that, in its most extreme form, this inability can assume the pathological

62 SELFHOOD condition which is unable to distinguish self and world, thoughts and objects, subjectivity and objectivity.!7 At this point, it has to be remarked that Dagen's evocation of the myriad dharmas at the bottom of the self does not exemplify such a pathological condition but rather a transcendence of the subjectivity and individuality of the cogito, as it can be found in Merleau-Ponty's observation that "universality and the world lie at the core of individuality and the subject" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 406) and in Jung's identification of the collective unconscious as the matrix of human subjectivity, indivi­ duality, and consciousness. At any rate, this appearance of the face of the self qua phenomenal object to itself bears, to Dagen, a twofold consequence: First, since, as discussed before, the self-qua-object does not coincide with the self as subjective function, Dagen concludes that it is exactly this self qua positionality which obstructs self-awareness; in other words, positional self-awareness, that is, self­ consciousness, is not possible. The second significance of this phrase is that, to Dagen, the face of the self appears in the image of the object, the noema. The positional attitude splits the self into, at least, two elements, the subject and the object and, thus, the self loses its unitary character; in other words, by attending to itself qua object, the self dissociates. However, the case of dissociation presents another instance of the ever-evasive character of the self, which, if trapped in the positionality of everyday awareness, is incapable of grasping hold of itself and, simultaneously, disintegrates into various disparate aspects. i8 Ultimately, the phrase "forgetting the self" entails a triple loss, namely, the loss of the self qua epistemological object, the loss of the self qua epistemological subject, and the loss of the experience of an independent self. It suggests a transcending of the self's positional attitude and proposes a non-positional form of engagement with the world.

Self-awareness in Dogen

What then is the significance of self-awareness? Literally, Dagen's suggestion to attain self-awareness is "to forget the self." The most apparent meaning ofthis phrase is the transformation ofthe positional attitude responsible for the alienation of the self from the world-qua­ object and from itself. The abandonment of the positional attitude, which Buddhism traditionally conceives of as no-self, Dagen equates with the realization (Jap.: sho) of myriad dharmas (Jap.: mambo), that

63 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENOME~OLOGYOX SELF-AWARENESS is, the world of objects, and "this mind" with naturalistic objects such as "mountains, rivers, earth, sun, moon, stars" (Dagen 1994, 3: 329) and "walls, tiles, and pebbles" (3: 330). Elsewhere, Dagen defines the human body in mystical terminology as "undivided in self and other, the entire world of the ten directions," and as "the four elements and the five skandhas" (3: 339). These definitions are symptomatic of a particular category of phrases in Dagen's work, which propose the identity ofthe body with the mind or the totality ofthe cosmos. Thus, Dagen maintains that "to study the self ... is to manifest myriad dharmas," that birth-and-death (Jap.: shoji) "presences exhaustively the great earth and empty space" (3: 401), that "presencing presences exhaustively earth, world, time, and dharmas" (1: 248), and that "one mind comprises all dharmas and all dharmas comprise one mind" (1: 143). Dagen further identifies the mind with "walls, tiles, and pebbles" (3: 330) and with "mountains, rivers, the great earth, sun, moon, and stars" (1: 143). On first sight, these assertions sound strangely solipsistic or, at least monistic, suggesting either an inclusion of all of reality within the mind of one individual or an undifferentiated oneness of everything. However, against the back­ ground of Dagen's notions of no-self and of existential ambiguity, neither a monistic nor a solipsistic interpretation of these identity assertions seems to be tenable. Since Dagen rejects the essentialist understanding of the human body and of physical nature, it seems quite clear that he does not promote an essentialist either. What, then, is the significance of Dagen's equation of the individual human body and the "entire world of ten directions" as well as the myriad dharmas? Discussing some of these phrases, Nagatomo (1992) observes that this inclusion suggests neither a naive realism nor a but serves to indicate a non-positional and, at the same time, transcendent form of awareness. In the experience of satori, the experiential "I" finds itself no longer posited against its surrounding in the modality ofthe "people outside ofthe mountains," but it is rather that with the eradication of the self, the world of phenomena qua external world and, concomitantly, the dichotomies and binary structures characteristic of the phenomenal world disappear; as Dagen says, "You should know that at the time when someone attains the mind, all of heaven collapses and the entire earth explodes"19 (Dagen 1993, 1: 143) In other words, the event of self­ awareness, which is devoid of the essence of a self or of the world, expresses "exhaustively the great earth and empty space" as well as "earth, world, time, and dharmas." However, this does not entail a 64 SELFHOOD rejection of a reality independent of the self's positionality but a criticism of the reification and objectification of the world of phenomena and, thus, implies a rethinking of the concept "world." The term "world" in the phrase "the human body comprises the entire world of the ten directions" does not signify the world as I experience it, that is, the world-qua-object; the myriad dharmas which "manifest the self" do not comprise the objects of the phenomenal field but manifest the actual world. The world-I­ experience is out there and separate from myself only insofar as it comprises the world-qua-object which I constitute and construct for­ myself. The actual world, which differs from the world of phenomena in that it is not constituted but actualized, neither appears, to use Heideggerian terminology, as being-present-at-hand (Ger.: Vorhanden­ sein), that is, as a phenomenal object, nor functions as being-alongside­ with (Ger.: Miteinandersein) in the lived world. In this sense, Heidegger's being-in-the-world becomes a being-(the)-world, not in the sense of expanding the subject to engulf everything else, but rather in the sense of dissolving the subject in favor of Merleau­ Ponty's co-existence, Nagatomo's co-habitation, the traditional Buddhist conception of co-dependent origination. Dagen indicates that this non-ordinary and non-positional structure of awareness, which Nagatomo labels "total or exhaustive transparency" (Nagatomo 1992, 158) is characterized by a breakdown ofthe subject-object structure of positionality; in Dagen's words, "to realize myriad dharmas is to cast off body and mind as well as body and mind of the other" (Dagen 1993, 1: 95). In their analysis of shinjin datsuraku, that is, Dagen's description of transformed awareness, Steven Heine (1991) and David E. Shaner (1985) suggest that this phrase indicates a transcending of the binary structure of everyday awareness. 20 In practical terms, self-awareness comprises the assimilation of subject and object central to the structure of positional awareness, which Nagatomo refers to as "attunement." However, the attunement ofsubject and object does not merely signify the assimilation ofan external other, in the sense ofthe Freudian notion of internalization, but, existentially speaking, it integrates the dichotomies of everyday awareness in that it transcends the binary structure itself. The phrase "manifesting myriad dharmas" does indicate an appropriation of external material, but it signifies the transcendence of the underlying structure of experience and, concomitantly, the transformation of everyday awareness itself. Being devoid of thetic positionality, self, other, body, and mind are not

65 ZEN BUDDHIS~\'l AND PHEN01\1ENOLOGY Oi'\ SELF-AW ARENESS constituted for-myself but are presenced as-they-are. By the same token, the transformation of everyday experience discloses myriad dharmas such as "mountains, rivers, earth, sun, moon, and stars" and "walls, tiles, and pebbles" unobstructed by positionality. Implying the non­ duality of subject and object, in which body and mind, self and other are "cast off," Dagen's conception of self-awareness displays a paradoxical structure, which bears witness to what, from the perspective of positional awareness, appears as the transcendental character of the self-reflective self, indicating that self-awareness is located outside of the field ofeveryday awareness. Nagatomo sums up the commentaries on Dagen's shinjin datsuraku by emphasizing that "Dagen's experience of casting off body and mind refers to a region deeper than the empirical ego, and hence the transformation ... must alter the nature of the region in which the ego functions" (Nagatomo 1992, 144). Dagen's concept ofthe no-self thematizes a region prior to everyday awareness as the central and formative aspect of Mensch-sein, a region, which, to everyday awareness, is transcendent, and which is outside of its experience, and the exploration of which requires a negation, a forgetting of the positional and conscious aspects and functionality of the self. The phrase "to transcend the positional attitude," however, indicates the loss of the subject, that is, the subject vis-a.-vis the object, in the transformational process. Self­ awareness, in which "body and mind are cast off" transforms the subjective function of the self and discloses the experience of selflessness. The loss indicated by this "forgetting," however, does not express a loss in the sense of an impoverished experience or existence but rather a transcendence of the limiting relativity between subject and object, that is, a transcendence of the existential ambiguity indicative ofthe human predicament, referred to as "suffering" (Skrt.: du~kha) by Buddhists and as "alienation" by existential psychology. In positive terms, the phrase "forgetting the self" describes the activity that engages human existence in its fullness. Such a non­ positional modality is beautifully exemplified in the above-quoted passage from Dagen's "Shabagenza Sansuikya": "People inside the mountains do not experience and do not know; inside the mountains flowers blossom. People outside the mountains do not experience; people who don't have the eyes to see the mountains do not experience, do not know, do not see, and do not hear." While "people outside" do not understand the mountains because they lack the correct "eyes to see the mountains," people inside the mountains do not understand the mountains; instead, "flowers blossom" (Dagen 66 SELFHOOD 1993, 1: 407). Philosophically speaking, the "not understanding" indicative ofthe people "outside ofthe mountains" is grounded in the binary structure of everyday awareness, separating subject and object of experience. As long as the world is experienced as being-present­ at-hand, the subject finds itself engulfed in the alienation experienced by Sartre's being-for-itself in its encounter with its body and its environment. The dissolution of the binary structure of everyday experience "inside the mountains," on the other hand, signifies the simultaneous loss of subject and object on the plane of non-positional awareness where life lives itself; in the words of Dagen's "Shabagenza Zazengi" (Dagen 1993, 4: 331-36) "there is exhaling and inhaling" (4: 334). In the individual event, be it "exhaling and inhaling" or "flowers blossoming," the interconnectedness of life finds its expression. In this sense, the bodymind21 of the individual practitioner expresses the air, the mountains, the rivers, the fences, the cosmos in the activity of sitting meditation. The elements of this list such as "mountains" and "rivers" do not signify phenomenal objects, that is, objects ofmy constitution, but individual events indicative ofthe actual world. Individual events thus comprise the microcosm, which reflects and actualizes (Jap.: sho suru) the macrocosm of life. However, this event is not comparable with Leibniz' monad, which signifies an individual-over-time, but comprises a transtemporal experience devoid of essential nature. Here, a last comment concerning shinjin datsuraku is in order: shinjin datsuraku, as Heine ingeniously observes, does not indicate a final absolute concept but discloses the paradox and tautalogy characteristic of self-awareness in that "casting off," ultimately, implies a "casting off" of "casting off" and thus, as Heine remarks"even casting off, if objectified, must itself be cast offthrough the creative dissolution of casting off. The continuous practice of datsuraku is a never-ending struggle to realize what it is by terminating itself" (Heine 1991, 14).

Somaticity and self-awareness

Finally, contrary to possible misinterpretation, the term "shinjin datsuraku" does not entail a disembodied existence - existence of what, one would have to ask - but, as indicated, Dagen's doctrine of mind-body oneness (Jap.: shinjin ichinyo), an existential transcendence of the mind-body duality expressed in Shaner's conception of the bodymind. The key to Dagen's non-dualism, which comprises the

67 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY 01\ SELF-AWARENESS fundamental core of many interpretations of Dagen, is his conception of zazen as living body, that is, the human body engaged in a mutual interplay with its environment, the living ambiance. It is important to note, here, that Dagen employs the term "zazen" in the twofold meaning to signify the practice of sitting meditation and to indicate a specific existential modality; hereafter, I will use the Japanese term to indicate the latter connotation. Several indications in Dagen's texts underscore this interpretation of zazen as the living body. To Dagen, the fundamental activity of zazen is breathing; in Dagen's own words, "there should be exhaling and inhaling" (Dagen 1994, 4: 334). Rendered into philosophical terminology, this phrase translates into "having attuned22 body and mind, there is exhaling and inhaling." What is the significance of such a contention? First of all, this observation echoes Dagen's contention that "to realize myriad dharmas is to cast off body and mind as well as body and mind of the other." In the light of the notion "shinjin datsuraku," the phrase "there is exhaling and inhaling" first of all signifies the lack of a subject. Given the existential attitude of zazen, breathing, as any other activity, is not performed by a subject, but it simply occurs. Second, the above-mentioned passage reflects Dagen's emphasis on the living body. The human body, which comprises the existential attitude of zazen, must be the concrete, living body, which is characterized by the life-giving activity of breathing. It is further distinguished from the dead object-body (Nagatomo 1992, 80) by exhibiting an animated interaction with its environment. Elsewhere, Dagen reiterates the same assessment of "the human body in practice," utilizing different terminology: To study the way with your body is to study in your body, it is to study the way of this red chunk of flesh. The body emerges from the study of the way; whatever emerges from the study of the way is the human body. (Dagen 1994, 3: 336) Here, Dagen apparently speaks oftwo kinds of bodies, "the red chunk of flesh" prior to the process of transformation, that is the body-qua­ object, and the "true human body" (Nagatomo 1992, 162-67), which signifies the living body beyond the dichotomies of body and mind, subject and object. Contrasting these two passages, it is possible to add the further observation that the discerning difference between the "red chunk of flesh" and the living body is the life-giving function of breathing, which underlies the human body as well as "whatever that emerges from the study of the way." Further, the living body functions 68 SELFHOOD as the philosophical third term which transcends the epistemic dichotomies of subject and object, self and other, individual and environment. In his fascicle "Shabagenza Shinjin Gakuda" (Dagen 1994,3: 323-46), Dagen contends that "the human body is undivided in self and other, the entire world ofthe ten directions" (3: 339). With these expressions Dagen contends that the human body comprises not only the union point23 of the self-qua-subject and the self-qua-object, but, furthermore, as Nishida contends, the basho ("place") where self and other, individual (Jap.: kobutsu) and environment (Jap.: kankyo) encounter each other. No other bodily function illustrates the third term character of the living body as vividly as does the activity of breathing. In addition to being the fundamental life function, breathing establishes a circuit of interaction between the individual human body and its ambiance, a circuit of interdependence, which becomes most apparent when this circuit is destroyed in the case of atmospheric pollution. Yuasa terms this relationship "a passive-active circuit of relationship," connecting individual and "life-space" (Yuasa 1987, 122), while Nagatomo refers to it as "bilaterality between the meditator and the natural world" (Nagatomo 1992, 148-49). Both terminologies address the fundamental body-mind-oneness, which is cultivated and realized in the non-positional attitude indicative of sitting meditation. Abe supports this claim when he contends that Dagen's Weltanschauung is existentially "non-substantial" (Abe 1992, 57). After the loss of the enduring subject, Dagen encounters the evasive character ofthe so-called objective world. He thus replaces the substantial notions of subject and object with a bilateral conception of the living body, echoing the Buddhist theory of co-dependent origination.

Nishida on Selfhood

Introduction

An investigation of Nishida's conception of selfhood can be a very perplexing enterprise since not only is the notion of self-awareness (Jap.: jikaku) arguably the most important theme (but not concept) in Nishida's work, he also developed a complex and multilayered notion of selfhood containing different modalities such as thinking (Jap.: shisei), will (Jap.: ishi), intuition (Jap.: chokkan), desire (Jap.: yokkyu), love (Jap.: ai) to describe the self, respectively, as thinking self (Jap.: chiteki jiko),

69 ZEN BUDDHIS1v1 AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS the willing self(Jap.: ishiteki jiko), and the intelligible self (Jap.: eichiteki jiko) and employing descriptive categories such as religious self (Jap.: shukyoteki jiko), historical self (Jap.: rekishiteki jiko), and social self (Jap.: shakaiteki jiko). Faced with such a variety of terminologies, the reader has to work through the various complexities of Nishida's philosophy and also separate different models and terminology clusters Nishida develops to respond to certain conceptual problems. What is important to Nishida, however, despite the manifold terminologies, is his juxtaposition of everyday awareness, which is characterized by a binary and relative (Jap.: tairitsu) structure, and what Nishida calls "non-relative contradictory self identity" (Jap.: zettai mujunteki jiko doitsu). On the one side, there is the self qua desiring (Jap.: yokkyuteki)24 self, which finds itself thrown into world opposite of things, others, and the environment and which transcends itself and reaches out to incorporate the clashing opposites of individual (Jap.: kojin) and environment (Jap.: kankyo), subjectivity (Jap.: shukan) and objectivity (Jap.: kyakkan); on the other, the self manifests itself as the unifying activity (Jap.: toitsu sayo) qua acting­ intuition25 (Jap.: koiteki chokkan), which transcends the unilateral positionality of the desiring self in order to incorporate the existential ambiguity between self and world and to cast off the binary structure of the phenomenal world. Nishida employs the term Hzettai," commonly translated as "absolute," to contrast the relative realm given in experience, in which the appearances oppose and determine each other, with an underlying undetermined (Jap.: mugentei), dimension. As the Chinese characters indicate, ("zetsu" signifies "beyond words," "cut off," and "eradicate" while "tai" connotes "opposites" and "antonyms"), the concept "zettai," literally "devoid of opposition," designates exactly this non-relative realm. In some sense the term "absolute" stemming from the Latin verb "absolvere" ("to liberate") discloses a similar meaning; on the other hand, it is loaded with additional connotations. Sometimes, Nishida labels this dimension "non-opposing" (Jap.: mutairitsu). In short, Nishida stratifies the notion of a twofold self.

The dual self

Nishida's concept of the self in many ways reflects the conceptual structure of Dagen's twofold analysis of the self qua positional awareness and shinjin datsuraku qua non-positional awareness, while,

70 SELFHOOD at the same time, employing a language surprisingly close to the language of phenomenology. One of his primary essays dealing with the notion of selfhood, "I and the World" ("Watakushi to Sekai") (Nishida 1988, 7: 85-172), even commences with the Cartesian doubt and the certainty of the cogito: "Even though it is possible to doubt the existence of all physical things, we cannot doubt that the 'I' exists, Even if we doubt the 'I,' the 'I' must be that which " (7: 85). Nishida continues with the un-Cartesian statement that "in the I, existence and knowledge are one" (a comment Descartes would have reserved for god, but not for the cogito, even though a thinking thing, if existent, would necessarily think) only to arrive at the Cartesian dubito ergo sum, "that which doubts possesses the meaning ofthe 'I'" (7: 85). This, however, is the end ofNishida's similarities with Descartes - the title of this essay, "I and the World," does not imply a dualism; his exposition of the experiential "I" sounds rather phenomenological when he defines everyday awareness as desire (Jap.: yokkyl1), self (Jap.: jiko), and "I" (Jap.: watakushi). Nishida clearly demarcates Descartes' cogito qua knowing self (Jap.: chiteki jiko) from the positional modality of desire. While thought merely constructs an abstract world (Jap.: chl1shoteki sekai), which differs from the phenomenal world in that it is devoid of subjectivity and selfhood, the self qua desiring self opposes the environment, perceives things, works on things, and mutually interacts with the world in mutual opposition Gap.: sogo tairitsu) and mutual determination (Jap.: sogo gentei). While the knowing self constructs and, subsequently, manipulates the abstract world, the desiring selfencounters the resistance (Jap.: teiko) ofthe external world and, thus, discloses the abstract world as a mere product of the knowing self's imagination. However, Nishida continues, in thought "a thing, which resists my somatic self, does not resist the knowing self. On the contrary, the object is inside the knowing self" (7: 111); and, "the objects of knowledge are not objects of desire" (7: 122). Desire necessitates an outside towards which the self extends itself and transcends itself. In a world devoid of resistance and limitation, the self would solipsistically envelope everything within itself and thus lose its identity in the undifferentiated mass of everything. In other words, the purely intellectual self gives rise to solipsism, while desire gives rise to the binary structure of everyday experience which constitutes the phenomenal world. At the same time, Nishida argues, "desire" displays an inherently paradoxical character in that it points beyond itself. To be an individual, the self has to be determined (Ger.: bestimmt, Jap.: gentei shite) by a

71 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY Oi\: SELF-AWARENESS resistance from outside. In other words, there has to be mutual relationship between self and environment, subjectivity and objectivity, inside and outside. Nishida maintains that Hfor desire to form [itself] the inside has to be the outside and the outside has to be the inside" (Nishida 1988, 7: 99). And elsewhere, "that which opposes the self as environmental determination possesses the meaning of determining the I-self directly and I see myself by losing myself in action" (7: 133-34). Ironically, however, this mutual determination of self and environment necessary for the self to function as desiring self, which simultaneously affirms and transcends itself, necessarily negates itself and loses itself in the non-positional engagement with its ambiance. Ultimately, the loss of the self qua "forgetting the self" indicates the transcendence of desire; as Nishida observes, "To die to oneself is to negate one's desire. But to die to one's desire is to live in the true self. To become an acting individual, the individual must die and live through its death" (6: 291). Desire is by its very nature paradoxical in character in that it "extinguishes upon its fulfillment and its fulfillment gives birth to new desire. Desire must exist dialectically" (6: 270). Nishida further explains that "in order to complete itself, desire has to extinguish itself. While desire is born in order to die, it necessarily dies in order to be born" (6: 408). Ultimately, Nishida argues, desire points beyond itself and discloses a non-positional and selfless modality of engagement which does not degrade its ambiance to "a tool of the self" which is "opposed to the self" (Nishida 1988, 6: 422) but which emphasizes the mutuality (Jap.: sogo) ofthe relationship between selfand ambiance. To describe such a mutual opposition between self and environment as the engagement between the experiential "I" and its ambiance in the lived world,26 Nishida, like Merleau-Ponty, proposes the interconnectedness of action and perception, which he refers to as acting-intuition (Jap.: koiteki chokkan), comprising the activity of acting directed towards the world, as well as the passivity of experiencing. He also identifies this form of existential engagement, comprising the "unity of acting and seeing" (9: 176), with the human body (Jap.: shintai) that is the living body. However, contrary to Merleau-Ponty, Nishida insists on the non-positional character of the body's engagement qua inter-activity and inter-somaticity in the sense of Nagatomo's co-habitation and describes the relationship between self and ambiance as non-relative contradictory self-identity. Following the lines of Dagen's thought, Nishida postulates self-awareness as a non-positional awareness which displays the, ultimately, social, historical, and religious character ofthe

72 SELFHOOD self, which, in Dagen's terms, forgets itself and thus, strictly speaking, is a selfless self. What is of importance here is that Nishida not only further explores the philosophical ramifications of Dagen's shinjin datsuraku, which he paraphrases as the non-relative contradictory self­ identity, but also applies Dagen's soteriology of the no-self to the discourse on the self qua mundane self. Nevertheless, Nishida does concede, especially in his last work, that the non-positional modality ofself-awareness is most ofall the expression ofthe religious self, be it the self of the mystic encounter with god, the self of sitting meditation, or the self which encounters Dostoevsky's "vanishing point" (9: 55) and whose absolute despair Nishida interprets surprisingly enough as religious experience. This equation of self­ awareness with the standpoint of the religious self might be already anticipated in Nishida's equation of knowledge and existence in the experiential "I"; but this is a different issue.

Non-positional awareness

In his highly complex and convoluted essay "The Non-Relative Contradictory Self-Identity" ("Zettai Mujunteki Jiko Daitsu") (Nishida 1988, 9: 147-222) on his notion of the non-relative contradictory self-identity, Nishida summarizes his conception of the human body in one precise statement, contending that "the human body comprises the non-relative contradictory identity between seeing and working" (9: 176). In one sense, Nishida's terminology of "seeing and working" and acting-intuition denotes the "body's ambiguity" (Yuasa 1987, 50), in the sense of Merleau-Ponty's action-perception, in that the somatic selffinds itself in a pre-reflective field of somaticity. The phrases "acting-intuition" and "seeing and working" serve Nishida to articulate this binary relationship between the epistemo­ logical subject and its object. However, Nishida maintains the existentially non-positional character of acting-intuition. He utilizes the term "non-relative contradictory self-identity" in order to describe this non-positional attitude of the living body underlying the binary structure of everyday experience. The human body Nishida refers to is the living body, which engages itself through acting-intuition with its ambiance, rather than Dagen's "red chunk offlesh" or what Nagatomo calls, following Ichikawa, "object-body" (Nagatomo 1992, 2-26). Nishida suggests an extension ofthe living body beyond the boundaries ofthe individual body qua "the red chunk offlesh," to expand into and

73 ZEN BUDDHISlvf Al'JD PHEN011ENOLOGY OX SELF-AWARENESS to manifest the lived world inhabited by the somatic self However, since the lived world still exhibits the positional modality of experience, Nishida further contends that this living body qua acting-intuition discloses the actual world,27 in which all dichotomies ofeveryday experience collapse. Nishida describes this actual world as "the world which unites subjectivity and objectivity" (shukyaku goitsuteki sekai) (7: 264), as "the world, in which individuals mutually interact," as "the world, in which individuals mutually determine each other" (9: 147), as "the world of non-relative nothingness" beyond being and non-being, and as "the world of determination devoid of a determining agent" (9: 148). These expressions reveal Nishida's insistence that the non-positional existential attitude constitutes the most fundamental form of Mensch-sein. Again, the "world" Nishida is concerned with comprises neither the world of phenomenal objects nor the lived world, in which the somatic self freely interacts with its ambiance, but the actual world prior to its own differentiation into the dichotomies of subject (Jap.: shutai) and object (Jap.: kakutai), mind and body -like Dagen, Nishida adheres to the doctrine of "oneness of body and mind" (shinjin ichinyo) (5: 156) - and even that of self and ambiance. The living body comprises the actual world as the place in which all experiential constituents intermingle. Nishida summarizes the mediating function of the living body qua actual world when he maintains that "things and 'I' mutually determine each other by taking the (living) body as mediation" (7: 113). Nishida clearly demarcates the positional function of desire from the non-positional modality of action-intuition in that the former qua the experiential "I" implies the reification and objectification of the notion of selfhood while the latter discloses an existential selflessness. Nishida explains that Acting-intuition encompasses the object self-contradictorily. When progressing from the created to the creating as the self­ contradictory self-identity of the many and one, the world is acting-intuition and the individual is desiring. (Nishida 1988, 9: 156) And When we talk about "working," we proceed from the individual subject. However, we don't work from the outside of the world, but at that time we have to be precisely in the world. "Working" must be "to be worked." (9: 165)

74 SELFHOOD The actual world is thus to be distinguished from the lived world in two ways, namely, in that it transcends the positional modality of the lived body and in that it performs a process of transpersonalization, which Nagatomo (1992) characterizes as the transition from the "I" to the "Who". I choose the term "transpersonalization" to distinguish this transition of "I" to "Who" from a process of depersonalization from "I" to "It." Elsewhere, Nishida explains that "[t]he more the self advances the more it encounters working without a working subject" (Nishida 1988, 3: 362). The more the self studies itself, the more it forgets itself. Self-awareness is thus synonymous with selflessness. At the same time, the loss ofsubjectivity engenders a loss ofobjectivity in the sense of the objectivity which is posited as phenomenal objectivity and as the noematic pole by the constituting self. This correlativity of subjectivity and objectivity explains why many meditation manuals encourage the practitioner to minimize the external sense stimuli: It is not that the goal of meditation is self-isolation but the calming of the self qua subjectivity through the reduction of "objective" sense stimuli. In the modality ofaction-intuition qua non-relative contradictory self-identity, there is neither agent nor acted-upon, neither subjectivity nor objectivity, neither inside nor outside to be found. The living body ­ not the lived body - manifests the transindividual body qua actual world and comprises "the world, in which individuals mutually interact" and "the world, in which individuals mutually determine each other"; the body's engagement with its ambiance constitutes the place in which life evolves. Nishida shifts the focus of his philosophical project from the notions ofagency and environment to the living body/actual world as the place28 in which individual phenomena are determined, individual agents interact, and "life itself" (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, 217) evolves.

Self-awareness and internal negation

It is this self-reflexive realm of the actual world where Hlife lives itself" which, as Nishida says, expresses (Jap.: hyogen) self-awareness in the sense that the "self sees itself" (Nishida 1988, 7: 88). Ironically, however, this self-awareness transcends the individual, subjective, and self-conscious character traditionally attributed to self-awareness in that "the reality of the self-aware self... implies that it sees objectivity inside and not outside the self" (6: 413). On the contrary, Nishida clearly demarcates it from the binary realm

75 ZEN BCDDHIS~1 AND PHENOMENOLOGY OX SELF-AWARENESS characteristic of the phenomenal world where subject and object and self and the world encounter each other, and subjectivity and objectivity oppose each other. This is a realm beyond the mutual opposition ofconstructed or encountered dichotomies. It is rather that The seer and the seen, that is, subjectivity and objectivity, differ from the non-relative, they are not the universal which entails subject and object. When the seer sees inside itself, the self sees the non-relative other inside and, at the same time, it must be the non-relative other qua self. (6: 386) Self-awareness, in this sense, transcends selfhood, individuality, and subjectivity; at the bottom of the experiential "I," one can find, as already anticipated by the phenomenologies of Sartre and Merleau­ Ponty, universality, worldliness, pre-conscious existence, and, as I will discuss in the subsequent chapter, intersubjectivity. The key to this realm lies in Nishida's conception of zettai and his conception of the non-relative contradictory self-identity. Even though the rendition "absolute" seems appropriate in that Nishida squarely identifies "zettai" with god, the phrase "non-relative" clearly demarcates the non-positional realm of Mensch-sein from the relative structure of the phenomenal world, where individuals mutually oppose and mutually determine each other; the same can be said for the world and the interaction among individuals. To describe the infinite abyss between the relative structure of the phenomenal world and the non-dual structure of the actual world, Nishida employs the notion of "nothingness" (Jap.: mu). In some sense, Nishida's "mu" functions in analogy to Sartre's "nothingness" (Fr.: Ie neant) in that it marks and explains the step from what is pre­ reflectively given to the self-conscious project to understand and shape what-I-am. However, this form of negation remains in the relative realm of the phenomenal world in that it merely, to use Heidegger's term, ek-statically negates and opposes its own existence, juxtaposing my project qua what-I-am-not with myself qua what-I-am. Nishida argues that such a negation is not sufficient in that it dichotomizes the self into the self qua existence and the self qua consciousness and, subsequently, renders self-awareness, as Sartre realized, infinitely elusive. To explain the sense of "I," "me," and "mine," such a "relative negation" (Nishitani 1982, 35) is not enough; self-awareness not only negates myself in an upsurge ofek-stasis but negates the lived world, which functions as basho ("place") of everyday awareness in general. Nishida explains that

76 SELFHOOD

Nothingness does not simply oppose the self. That which opposes the selfmust negate the self. That which negates the self must to a certain degree have the same foundation as the self. That which is not at all related to the self cannot negate the self. (Nishida 1988, 11: 397) Nishida argues thus that self-awareness qua the self-reflexive and non-positional modality of the self, which expresses the self itself, must oppose and negate the juxtaposition of self and not-self in the Sartrean sense of what-it-is-not. An awareness arising from such a relative negation is unable to attain self-awareness because it continuously transcends itself and, subsequently, cannot but constitute itself qua object. But such an objectivity or its negation is not actual but merely posited. As long as desire affirms or negates, it cannot but posit an external phenomenal world. By the same token, a limitless inflation and expansion of the willing self (Jap.: ishiteki jiko) in the world ofself-awareness (]ap.: jikakuteki sekai), Nishida's version of the lived world, results in an infinite solipsism but not in an internal negation necessary for self-awareness. The crux of these conceptual constructions is that self-awareness constitutes an epistemic identity which is reflexive and, ultimately, self-contradictory. In short, the problem with theorizing self-awareness lies in the simple fact that self-awareness necessitates a self-contradictory concept, and many philosophers are rather reluctant in resorting to the paradox. Thus, Sartre concludes self-awareness is absolutely elusive. Nishida, on the other hand, describes self-awareness as that which is non-relative and, subsequently, self-contradictory. As long as the self stands besides itself, it cannot know itself, but rather dissociates itself, as lung discovered and formulated in his theory of selfhood. In the case of self-awareness, however, existence and knowledge, subjectivity and objectivity collapse and disclose a non-relative and non-positional epistemic attitude. In Nishida's words: when the non-relative opposes nothing, it is truly non-relative. Opposing non-relative nothing, it is non-relative. There is nothing which opposes the self objectively from the outside. To say that the self opposes non-relative nothing means that it opposes itself as self-contradiction. It is contradictory self­ identity. (Nishida 1988, 11: 397) I think what Nishida attempts to say in passages like this one and cryptic phrases such as "The non-relative must contain non-relative

77 ZEN BUDDHISM AKD PHENO}v1ENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS self-negation in itself" (11: 397) can be summarized as follows: First, the self-aware self transcends the boundaries of individual consciousness to include non-conscious regions, intersubjectivity, and the actual world. Second, the self is not determined by a substance or by its own project but rather by its activity, by what it does. It does not matter if I tell everyone that I am a tennis player; if I never play tennis, de facto I am not a tennis player. Third, the activity of playing tennis not only expresses who I am but also the environment in which I am, the historical and social context of my activity, etc. I realize that I cannot understand myself as an isolated individual but that my present state of mind, body, psyche, in short, my self, is partially determined by my intentions, knowledge of the world, feelings, unconscious memories, thoughts, etc. and partially by the historical, social, an economic environment I live in. Philosophically, this notion of expression necessitates what Nishida refers to as non-relative negation in that it simultaneously affirms and negates who-I-am. Ultimately, Nishida is able to conceive ofself-awareness, which eludes Sartre's being-Jor-itself because he collapses the infinite abyss between existence (Sartre's being-in-itself) and awareness thereof (being-Jor­ itself). In short, Nishida's self-awareness is self-identical not identical, self-contradictory not merely affirmative or negative, and dialectical (Jap.: benshohoteki) rather than linear (Jap.: chokusen) or circular (Jap.: enkan). Nishida generally offers two illustrations of his conception of self­ awareness, the religious self (Jap.: shilkyoteki jiko) and the historical self (Jap.: rekishiteki jiko), although these illustrations tend to remain rather abstract and vague. At any rate, selfless self-awareness discloses two fundamental features, namely, the radical negation of the self and the expansion of the self to include the actual world. The inquiry into one's own self Nishida describes in Zen fashion as death and, in the language of Dostoevsky, as "vanishing point." This is not the meaning-bestowing death of Heidegger's being-towards-death, the awareness of which enables authentic living, but the systematic and radical destruction of the sense of individual identity. In his last essay "The Logic of Topos and the Religious World View" ("Bashoteki Ronri to Shukyateki Sekaikan") (Nishida 1988, 11: 371-464), Nishida compares this fundamental experience of selflessness with the religious experience of different religious figures such as Dagen, Shinran, and St. Paul, whose "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2: 20) Nishida utilizes to illustrate the event of expression. It is this event of expression in the face of non-relative, read absolute,

78 SELFHOOD annihilation and the discovery "of the deep contradiction at the bottom of our selves" (Nishida 1988, 11: 393) which gives rise to the religious enterprise. Said differently, religions deal with the encounter of the self with its own paradoxical predicament in that "[i]n religions this self-expression ofthe non-relative is thought ofas revelation, self­ formation as the will ofgod" (11: 403). Ofcourse, Nishida conceives of god neither as the transcendent other of theism (Jap.: yilshinron) nor as mere nature or an underlying oneness as is suggested by the diverse systems ofpantheism (Jap.: hanshinron).29 In the fourth and last part of his Inquiry into the Good ("Zen no Kenkyu") (1: 3-200), Nishida defines god as the unifying activity qua non-relative other. At the same time, the religious self cannot but be historical and social in its actions. Ultimately, Nishida proposes that the transcendent and the immanent constitute a contradictory self-identity, the non-relative. Individual events of acting-intuition reflect (Jap.: utsuru) the actual world in themselves in their expressive acts. While Nishida's discussion of the historical world remains very vague, it does indicate that self-awareness is not exhausted in the knowledge of the self but points beyond itself. Accordingly, Nishida refines the notion ofexpression in his discussion of alterity and temporality.

Conclusion

In contrast to a philosophy based on the notion of self-consciousness, Nishida suggests a dialectical philosophy of selflessness and subjectlessness.3o At the heart of this conception is the correlation of subject (Jap.: shutai) and environment (Jap.: kankyo) which mutually determine each other in that the "subject is absorbed by the environment" while "the environment envelopes the subject" (Nishida 1988, 9: 177). Ultimately, subject and environment constitute the two antitheses, which make up the framework of the dialectical process (Jap.: benshoho teki hatten) called life. This process is constituted by internal negation in that the actual world "transcends itself from within itself" (9: 185) as opposed to "outside itself" as given in the ek-stasis of the self-conscious cogito. This transindividual conception of the actual world does not cancel human activity but, quite literally, puts it in perspective: Nishida declares that human activity participates in the dialectic inter-activity with its ambiance qua acting-intuition in that it comprises "one polarity of the self­ forming of the world qua non-relative contradictory self-identity"

79 ZEN BUDDHIS1-1 AND PHENOMENOLOGY OK SELF-AWARENESS (emphasis mine) (9: 173). However, Nishida's conception of self­ awareness does not stop here, but, as indicated in the descriptions "transindividual" and "progression," discloses a social and a temporal dimension, which I will explore in chapters 3, 4, and 5. An examination of Nishida's notions of otherness, continuity, and temporality will further clarify his conception of self-awareness as expression and as non-relative negation. For now, it suffices to note that both subject and environment comprise two polarities constitutive and expressive of a greater system. The self's activity comprises a necessary part of the dialectical process of evolution, which can be paraphrased, following Nishida's terminology, as the self-determination of the actual world. It is Nishida's intention to demonstrate a logical necessity between the self's engagement with its ambiance and the conception of self and environment as two polarities of the self­ expression of the actual world. In this sense, Nishida conceives of the actual world as the non-relative contradictory self-identity.

Summary

This comparative exploration of Dagen's notion of selfhood has contextualized Dagen's notion of no-self in the philosophical discourse on selfhood. As anticipated by the French phenomenologists Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Dagen not only challenges the notion of a merely self-conscious and positional self but furthermore emphasizes the somatic and non-positional character ofthe self. While Dagen and Sartre seem to agree on the continuous elusiveness of self­ consciousness, Merleau-Ponty and Dagen concur not only on the somaticity of the experiential "I" but also on the notion that the very somatic self engenders a lived world through habitualization and cultivation of routine performances. Both further agree that there is universality and the world at the bottom of the self; however, Dagen definitely takes this notion to undermine any individualistic and egological understanding of the self. The discussion of Nishida's notion of self provided further terminological clues as to how to formulate a Dagenese theory of selfhood. Especially helpful are the notion of the lived world and expression. The former one clarifies Dagen's identification of the body-and-mind (Jap: shinjin) with "mountains, rivers, earth, sun, moon, stars" and "walls, tiles, and pebbles" while the latter term reflects Dagen's notion of presencing which I will discuss in more depth in chapter 7. The contrast of 80 SELFHOOD Dagen's conception of selfhood with an egological theory of the self further suggests how Dagen's thought would challenge and re-cast the prevailing theory of selfhood to develop a theory of selfless selfhood, which includes and thematizes the social, non-positional and transindividual aspect of Mensch-sein. Table 1 summarizes the terminology developed in this chapter to map out the various theories of self-awareness. I added a fourth layer, the abstract world to signify the abstract (Jap.: chusho) world of knowledge, which portrays the world objectively and seemingly independent of a subjective and individual knower; I will describe this world in more detail in chapters 5 and 6. It also has to be noted that the conceptual systems of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty do not fit neatly in this table: While Sartre's being­ for-itself clearly qualifies as a description of the author of the phenomenal world and Merleau-Ponty's habit-body illustrates the author of the lived world, the somaticity and worldliness Sartre attributes to the being-in-itself points beyond the pure definition ofthe phenomenal world, while the pre-reflectiveness of the tacit cogito indicates a world ontologically prior to the lived world; Merleau-Ponty's

Table 1: The Modalities of Selfhood

phenomenological abstract phenomenal lived actual realms world world world world

author pretense of cogito self objectivity modality of epi- conscIousness awareness samadhic awareness phenomenon awareness of causal processes structure of causality intentionality positionality non- awareness positionality modality of static intentional act unifying event engagement activity phenomenological being-for-itself habit-body concepts

Dagen's people outside the mountains people shinjin classification inside the datsuraku mountains

Nishida's relative opposition contradictory classification self-identity

81 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY 01'\ SELF-AWARENESS egologically conceived somatic cogito, on the other hand, seems to disclose characteristics of both the lived and the phenomenal worlds. Nishida's terminology has further brought to the forefront the crux of the conception of self-awareness, namely, its reflexivity or, at least, circularity, which as Ricoeur dared to say, is necessary for the conception of self-awareness and thus leads to the above-mentioned choice between leaving self-awareness unexplained or embracing the paradox. Dagen, following the Zen Buddhist tradition, chose the latter option. This decision gives way to a theory of selfhood which accommodates the pairs of opposites characteristic of the human experience and the perennial philosophical controversies, juxtaposing the notions of individuality and universality, subjectivity and objectivity, endurance and transition, body and mind, etc. In addition, these paradoxical descriptions of Mench-sein simultaneously indicate that selfhood is not merely rational in nature and that it escapes the everyday consciousness in that it does not appear in the phenomenal field. Dagen's paradoxical descriptions of satori thus comprise the experiential equivalent to Nishida's principles of irrationality (Jap.: higorisei) and contradiction (Jap.: mujun). The paradoxical language characteristic of Mahayana Buddhism indicates that the actual world transcends the positional structure of reflection and formal logic indicative of the phenomenal world. The actual world does not appear as a member of the phenomenal world or the lived world; instead, it is manifested in the event where "things and'!, mutually determine each other by taking the (living) body as mediation," that is, "the world, in which individuals mutually interact" and "the world, in which individuals mutually determine each other." However, as the following chapter will demonstrate, the embracing of the paradox also has methodological ramifications in that it is able to accommodate both a first-person and a third-person ontology. Be that as it may, the discussions of both Nishida and Dagen have also revealed that self­ awareness is not exhausted in selfhood, even in selfless selfhood, but necessitates the aspects of otherness and temporality: Describing self­ awareness, Dagen not only observes the "casting off" ofthe positional modalities of the phenomenal and lived worlds, but also addresses the notion of otherness; Nishida, too, identifies non-positional awareness as the encounter of the non-relative other (Jap.: zettai hoka), thus including the moment of otherness into his theory of self-awareness. An investigation of otherness will thus elucidate the Zen notion of self-awareness as non-relative negation and as expression.

82 ---oItCHAPTER THREE t....--- Otherness

Introduction

The discussions of the previous chapter have indicated that self­ awareness cannot be merely understood in terms of selfhood but, paradoxically, necessitates a notion of otherness, be it reflected in an impersonal conception ofthe existence-of-consciousness qua being-in­ itself or, more apparently, in the description of the self's existential predicament as being-in-the-world qua Mit-sein. By the same token, Dagen's shinjin datsuraku and Nishida's non-relative other suggest that the notion of otherness as one pole of the self-other polarity is truly central to a theory of self-awareness. Otherness qua recognition further plays a fundamental role in the formulation of one's particular narrative identity or a theory of personal identity in general. Despite its self-constitution, the experiential "I" cannot escape encountering the inevitable other as an independent, subjective agent (not as phenomenal object), who either confirms or rejects the self's own narrative identity. In the intersubjective encounter, the self's narrative identity is challenged and modified in that the intersubjective encounter adds some sense of an outside perspective, namely a third-person-ontology, to the self's own identity. I experience that the other intends my identity, which, in the worst case scenario described by Sartre as gaze, results in the objectification and alienation of the self. In this case, the selfis dispossessed ofthe freedom to constitute its own narrative identity. The cases of mistaken or assumed identities, in which a conflict occurs between the narrative identities constituted by the experiential "I" and by the observing public, illustrate the intersubjective character of one's narrative identity and the constitution thereof. The term "observing public" signifies a collectivity of others,

83 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY 0;": SELF-AW ARENESS which functions to establish a communal consensus and, subse­ quently, the communal standard of what is considered to be "objectively" real, including the self's personal identity. Thus, any theory of Mensch-sein results from intersubjectivity, or, more appropriately, interpersonality, involving the encounter of self and other. Selfhood and alterity are psychologically (Jessica Benjamin) and dialectically (G. W Hegel) interdependent concepts, evoking an existential interpersonality in the sense of Martin Buber's dialogic and Nishida's mutual determination (sogo gentei) between two individuals. Consequently, any theory of Mensch-sein cannot solely be treated as referring to an autonomous individual, comprising a windowless, closed, and, ultimately, self-contained system such as Leibniz' monad; instead, human experience has to be considered in the light of the intersubjective encounter, confronting the experiential "I" with the specific other as well as otherness in general. Despite its importance, however, the notion of otherness never played the central role in philosophy one would expect until this century, and even in the philosophies discussed in the first section ofthe last chapter, otherness seems to be an attribute of selfhood rather than a concept of equal standing. Within the western philosophical tradition, it is only with the emergence of phenomenology, especially the phenomenologies of Sartre and Emmanuel Levinasm, and the dialogicism ofMartin Buber and Gabriel Marcel, on the one side, and American , on the other, that the importance of the phenomenon of alterity has been recognized, although Hegel had already laid the ground work for an other-based theory of Mensch-sein. Even though Buddhism never had the methodological problems inherent in an egological theory or a third-person-ontology of alterity, there also exists a lack of viable theories reflecting on the relationship between self and other. While Dagen has a strong, albeit implicit, notion of intersubjectivity, it was only Nishida who made the I-and-Thou relationship the fundament of his theory of self-awareness. The reason for this reluctance to theorize alterity lies in the pervasive egological tendency of Cartesian and post-Cartesian philosophy in France and Germany to conceive of persons as self­ conscious individuals. Analytical philosophy, which overwhelmingly employs a third-person-ontology to explore metaphysics, either rejects the notion of selfhood altogether or identifies "consciousness" or even "self-consciousness" as basic criteria of selfhood; in either case, however, the notion of other minds becomes highly problematic. The problems of the egological approach are best illustrated by 84 OTHERNESS Husserl's Cartesian Meditations (1960), which addresses the question of intersubjectivity in the fifth meditation, when he envisions a "transcendental we" as an "intersubjective community" to ground the facticity of the other in his transcendental philosophy; at the same time, he cannot help centering the world around the subjective pole of mineness. Husserl concedes that his "transcendental we" is constituted "purely within me" and that transcendental intersubjectivity exists "for me" (Husserl 1960, 130). To Husserl, even the alienation by the other, the experience of being-for-the-other, is constituted by the cogito and does not yield any knowledge of the other by itself. The cogito accesses the other only as other-qua-object and gains the knowledge of the others' intentionality only through empathy. In the act of introspection I realize that my intentionality is expressed in certain kinds of bodily movement; subsequently, I assume that the analogical movement which I observe in the other indicates the other's intentionality. However, this construction by inference does not alleviate the fundamental problem posed by the thetic structure of consciousness. Criticizing Husserl's failure to conceive of the other in its own right and not only as an other-qua-object, both Sartre and Levinas postulate that the facticity of the other precedes the for-itself to modify the phenomenological approach so as to include alterity in their theory. Levinas correctly points out that the facticity of alterity necessitates an encounter with the other prior to the cogito. However, the mere postulate of pre-reflective facticity of otherness does not solve the incapability of an egology to thematize alterity or even intersubjectivity. At this point, it is of utmost importance to clearly demarcate the terminology of alterity and intersubjectivity. In brief, the former signifies the facticity of otherness, the fact that there exists a self-conscious other, who opposes me, objectifies me, and is objectified by me. Intersubjectivity, on the contrary, denotes the knowledge not of the other's existence but of its subjectivity, that is, its thoughts, feelings, self-understanding, project, etc. Both concepts, however, equally elude the standpoint of the cogito. While intersubjectivity clearly constitutes a difficult problem, which also runs counter to everyday experiences (at least, to my experiences), even the facticity of otherness is not as self-evident as it may seem. If self-consciousness, namely, the self's knowledge of its own existence qua being-in-itself, ultimately escapes its grasp, it seems even more difficult to grasp the existence of the other. Sartre, who discusses the encounter and facticity of the other from the perspective of an egological standpoint, discovers this existential elusiveness of the

85 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHEN011ENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS other from the cogito. In the famous "Third Part" of his Being and Nothingness (1956), Sartre argues that neither intersubjectivity nor a simple being-with can possibly be conceived from the perspective of the cogito. In short, an encounter oftwo thetic consciousnesses renders one out of three possible results: (1) I objectify the other; (2) the other objectifies me; (3) we are both objectified by our submersion into the impersonal mass Heidegger calls the "they" (Ger.: das Man) and Sartre calls the "we-subject," that is, "the psychological experience realized by a historic man immersed in a working universe and in a society of a definite economic type" (Manimala 1991, 111). Alternatives (1) and (2) share the same structure and mechanism and only differ in a shift in balance and power. Objectified by the other's gaze, "I experience a subtle alienation of all my possibilities, which are now associated with objects of the world (of the other), far from me in the midst of the world," because "with the other's look the 'situation' escapes me" (Sartre 1956, 354-55); thus depersonalized, I degenerate to be a depersonalized instrument present-at-hand for the other. The alternatives presented to me in my encounter with the other are equally unpleasant and, what is more, inconclusive for an egological theory of otherness: There is the possibility of my objectification of the other for-myself as my project, on the one side, and the de-personalization and degradation ofboth ofus into the "we­ subject," in which "we lose our real individuality, for the project which we are precisely is the project which others are" (548), on the other. It is interesting that the potential loss of one's own subjectivity in an impersonal mass seems to be a salient feature of theories of selfhood which postulate a pre-reflective facticity of otherness authored by thinkers as diverse as Sartre, Heidegger and Jung. Michael Theunissen refers to these processes of objectification alternately as "depotentiation" and "alter-ation" (Theunissen 1977, 231). Subsequently, none of the three alternatives of encountering the other reveals the facticity of otherness. Even though the experiential "I" encounters the facticity of the other in the gaze which objectifies and dispossesses the experiential "I" of its own agency and project, it is impossible for the other to encounter the self qua subjectivity and vice versa; regardless of whether the "I" is located in an everyday encounter, in a sado-masochistic relationship, or in the "we-subject," the knowledge of the other evades the experiential "I" as does self­ knowledge. Ultimately, this predicament is already anticipated in the definition of the cogito as thetic consciousness, as discussed in H usserl's fifth meditation. The crux of this existential (and paradoxical)

86 OTHERNESS predicament, I believe, lies in the unilateral modality of thetic consciousness which cannot but objectify the world it encounters. As Sartre says so poignantly, "The essence of the relations between consciousnesses is not Mit-sein, it is conflict" (Sartre 1956, 555). The very modality ofthe consciousness is ek-stasis which"either transcends the other or allow(s) oneselfto be transcended by the other" (555). The conception of such an encounter demands a new paradigm, which allows for the emergence ofthe intentionality ofthe cogito as well as of the other. Such a paradigm has been suggested in a much more radical way by the dialogism ofBuber and Nishida's dialectics ofnothingness. Contemporary psychology, predominantly the works of Jessica Benjamin and, albeit in a completely different way, Jung, equally emphasizes the necessity for an interpersonal psychology. To paraphrase Jackendoff's verdict on consciousness quoted in chapter 2, the intersubjective encounter is "too important for one's life - (even though not always) too much fun - to conceive of it as useless." In this chapter, I will, once again, not attempt to detail alterity which emerged within the phenomenological and the psychoanalytical traditions, since I do not think I could add to the already existing works on this subject; instead, I will develop a theory of otherness which focuses on the central issues pertaining to the concept of alterity, the facticity of otherness, the conceptual shift from an individual to a relational paradigm of selfhood, and a brief discussion of the possibility and conditions of intersubjectivity. Particular emphasis will be given to lung's conception of transcendence because I believe that this notion will help to disentangle Dagen's implicit notion of psychic interwovenness. In a second step, I will develop Dagen's notion of otherness and intersubjectivity against the background of a Buddhist theory of alterity and intersubjectivity, which I will relate back to the discourse on intersubjectivity via the terminology of Nishida.

Alterity and Intersubjectivity

Existential ambiguity of self and other

The facticity of otherness which Sartre describes, appropriately enough, in highly ambiguous terms, demands a radical de-centering of the conception of selfhood. In the light of alterity, it is highly problematic to conceive of Mensch-sein as fundamentally individual; it

87 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS seems to be more appropriate to describe the self as existentially relational. When I define myself, I do this not in a vacuum but in a given context of relationships. The cogito awakens to a context of personal historicity which discloses the existentially relational nature of the individual self-consciousness. More poignantly, interhuman relationships comprise the pre-reflective matrix of all human activity, knowledge, consciousness, and feelings, which the individual human being cannot escape. In her writings, Joan Riviere, a student of Freud, anticipates the basic claim of feminist psychology that Mensch-sein is, by nature, relational when she identifies the concept of the individual as "convenient fiction" (Riviere 1991,316): Wherever I go, I cannot escape my existentially relational character -I cannot avoid encountering others; I can proclaim my independence, but, in the final analysis, I cannot escape the facticity of the other. In this sense, the other is the facet vis-a-vis which the cogito finds itself and which the cogito cannot escape. This other is omnipresent to the cogito ­ Sartre explains that "the Other is present everywhere, below me, above me, in the neighboring rooms and I continue to feel profoundly the being-for-other" (Sartre 1956, 370); it is not a construct of consciousness in the sense that I imagine what others might think of me, as Sartre would say, as being-for-itself-as-being-for-others, but it is an existential feature which precedes my conscious constitution of the phenomenal world. Without otherness, selfhood is unthinkable. While Sartre and Buber agree on the omnipresence of the other, Buber concludes that the encounter of self and other does not result in an eternal conflict between two thetic individual consciousnesses but rather reveals the existentially relational character of the self, which always is a self-qua-other. The existential comportment (Ger.: Haltung), as Buber explains, of Mensch-sein is relational and not individualistic; Mensch-sein is always a directed towards. At the basis of Mensch-sein there does not exist an individual who reaches-out to the other but an existential relatedness in the form of a primordial togetherness in which the "I" finds itself vis-a-vis an equal other. Mensch-sein is not grounded in the "I", but, as Buber said, "in the beginning there is relationship" (Buber 1984, 22). This relatedness also comprises the context in which the cogito conceives of itself as an individual through the process which the Freudian tradition refers to as differentiation. But while Freud envisioned the independent and isolated individual as the goal of psychological development and maturity, feminist psychologists have argued that this process of differentiation provides the human

88 OTHERNESS individual with a delicate dilemma: On the one hand, I strive for independence and autonomy to determine my own actions, to make decisions, and to project my own life, but, on the other hand, I can only be independent if the other, most notably parents but, later, also friends and colleagues, recognizes me as an independent individual (Benjamin 1988) - the self has to be manifested vis-a-vis an other, which is not merely subsumed under the "I's" intentionality, but precedes it. The mere constitution of the "I" as for-itself does not suffice to constitute an independent "I," but that the "I" has to be constituted vis-a-vis an equivalent other "I," which is equally an "I" to itself. Benjamin locates the constitution of the "I" on the plane of intersubjectivity where self and other encounter each other in the common need of the other's recognition of one's own independence. .In her words, '1\ person comes to feel that 'I am the doer who does, I am the author of my acts,' by being with another person who recognizes her acts, her feelings, her intentions, her existence, her independence" (Benjamin 1988, 21). Even in relationships ofapparent inequality, that is, cases of extreme alienation such as sado­ masochism, Benjamin detects the necessity of some sense of recognition; in the sense that even the sadist who attempts to annihilate her/his partner needs the partner's recognition qua her/his survival to achieve a sense of recognition, since the sadist experiences recognition only when the other survives. Benjamin does not tire of pointing out that an individualistic conception of Mensch-sein, which implies the illusory omnipotence of the cogito, fails to grasp the necessarily dialogic situation in which the child matures in playful interaction with others. The developmental process of individuation­ differentiation, as any process of identity formation, necessitates the facticity of the other or, as Nancy Chodorow observes, it "must precisely involve two selves, two presences, two subjects" (Chodorow 1989, 103); in the language of phenomenology, it must involve the encounter of two for-itselves. The feminist psychologist claims that the encounter between two subjects cannot center on simply one of the two subjects, but it takes place in the encounter of self and other. Benjamin takes this observation further and contends that the very sense of "selfness" is only possible in contradistinction to a sense of otherness. Reflecting Hegel's dialectic of identity and difference2 and his discussion of the master-slave relationship, Benjamin argues that the sense of I-ness, by definition, is relative to the sense of alterity in that the one cannot be conceived of without the other and, as the above-cited psychological findings illustrate, the "I" cannot

89 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY Oi'\ SELF-AWARENESS experience itself without experiencing an other. By the same token, the understanding of identity qua the sense of selfness displays the inherent dilemma that identity and difference, sameness and otherness, affirmation and negation are inextricably intertwined. This means that in order to realize myself as a unique individual, I have to experience my limitation and my negation, that is, the existence of otherness, in the face of an independent other. The sense of selfness necessitates the experience of an other; however, this otherness, which is so important to the affirmation of the cogito, by definition, limits the cogito and negates her/him to a certain degree. The other, at the same time, in order to realize her/himself as a unique individual, has to experience her/his limitation and negation in the face of me in so far as I am an independent other from her/his perspective. This negation and limitation of the self is reminiscent of the existential moment of dispossession, de-personalization, alter­ ation, etc. of the self described in Sartre's phenomenology of the other. The facticity of otherness invokes a negativity in the sense that postulating an other vis-a.-vis the cogito brings out the limitations as well as the negation of the cogito. In the encounter with the other I realize myself within my limitations, I experience my physical limitations as well as the limitation of my intentions. However, despite their negative connotations, the concepts "limitation" and "negation" do not signify the complete destruction of the individual consciousness but rather its necessary condition. Without the negation by the other, the experiential "I" would experience itself as an independent yet isolated self, existing only for-itself, locked in its private world. It is the negation by the other that rescues the self from its solipsism, disclosing a world transcendent to its own will. From a psychological perspective, the individual, devoid of the boundaries and the delineation of its will, dissolves into the undifferentiated and boundless oneness of Freud's "oceanic feeling" (Freud 1972, 65) and Jung's participation mystique. 3 In this sense, the subjective function thus develops only in the face of an opposing subjectivity. It is a dialectical principle that like must always be opposed by like; that is, in analogy to the individual phenomenal object which displays its individuality in-relation-to other phenomenal objects, the positional self exhibits its individuality only in-relation­ to other positional selves. Ultimately, selfhood necessitates what Benjamin calls "paradox of mutual recognition" and what Hegel calls "contradiction" (Ger.: Widerspruch) and "being-in-and-for­ itself" (Ger.: an-und-fur-sich-sein) in the sense that in-order-to-

90 OTHERNESS affirm-myself-I-have-to-negate-myself (to affirm the other), reminis­ cent of Hegel's dialectical insight that self and other "acknowledge themselves as mutually acknowledging" (Hegel 1970, 147) and Sartre's observation that "I see myself because somebody sees me" (Sartre 1956, 349). Benjamin explains that "[t]he need for recognition entails this fundamental paradox: At the very moment of realizing our own independence, we are dependent upon another to recognize it. At the very moment we come to understand the meaning of'!, myself,' we are forced to see the limitations of that self. At the moment when we understand that separate minds can share the same state, we also realize that these minds can disagree" (Benjamin 1988, 33). Thus the self is not an isolated self, but existentially in-relationship. The facticity of otherness thus calls into the foreground the same concepts which were necessitated by the notion of self-awareness, namely, the negation of the thetic modality of self-consciousness and the paradoxical nature of self-awareness. It is important to note that Hegel, Sartre, and Benjamin agree that sadism cannot force intersubjectivity. That does not mean that it is impossible to dehumanize, objectify, and psychologically destroy human beings but rather that intersubjectivity cannot be posited. Thus, the very encounter of two agents, self and other, who mutually resist objectification by the other, discloses a pre-reflective interactive world which functions as backdrop against which I define myself reaching­ out towards what-I-am-not to realize what-I-am. Buber, one of the foremost advocates of intersubjectivity and founder of dialogic philosophy, distinguishes between two realms, the I-It, the world of objects, which roughly corresponds with the world of phenomenal objects constituted by the cogito, and the I-Thou, the immediate realm of the interpersonal encounter, which, in the sense of Levinas' face of alterity, precedes the world constituted by the cogito existentially and ontologically. The former description reflects the realm of objects, perceptions, desires, concepts, including the concept of the other, and knowledge, while the latter invokes the vision ofa world characterized by authenticity and unmediated presence, thus echoing the terminology of oneness indicative of the mystical experience. Generally, Buber's poetic description of the I-Thou sounds astonish­ ingly familiar, mirroring experiences of interpersonal encounter and, at the same time, strangely other-worldly. This is so because as Michael Theunissen observes, Buber conceptualizes the Thou-world by means of the via negativa, reminiscent of the negative theology, as that which is opposite to the phenomenal world, where "I" and "It"

91 ZEN BUDDHIS~I AND PHENO~1ENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS oppose each other, and as that which the It-world is not. However, while self and other encounter each other in the lived world of embodied positionality, "I" and "Thou" transcend this modality of engagement and mutually co-exist in the non-positional actual world. Buber seems to reject the interpretation of the I-Thou as mystical experience insofar as he insists that "I" and "Thou" are inseparable yet separate. Thus, Buber seems to suggest that the language available to the philosopher is indicative of the phenomenal world, whereas the Thou-world, which reveals itself through the pre-reflective I-Thou, can only by apprehended as "coincidentia oppositorum" (Buber 1984, 83). From the standpoint of the phenomenal world, the "It" of the It­ world represents a "something" (Ger.: etwas) (8), one "entity among many entities" (9), whereas, from the same perspective, the "Thou" designates a mere "nothing" (Ger.: kein etwas) (8): The "Thou" does not exist on the plane of objects - it "has no representational function" (Theunissen 1977, 317). Buber's further descriptions of the Thou-world as "space- and timeless presence" (Buber 1984, 18), as lacking coordinates, as "primordial experience," (25), as "wordless prefiguration of saying 'Thou'" (31), and as a priori facticity clearly identify the Thou-world as a transcendent realm which precedes intentionality ontologically and thus designates the fundamental matrix of Mensch-sein: The I-Thou designates a world devoid of the characteristics of the phenomenal world, that is, a world in which the limitations of time, space, and objectification are suspended and the rupture between reality and consciousness, which is established by the for-itself, points towards what lies beyond the boundaries of knowledge and, ultimately, is substituted by the immediacy of presence. Mensch-sein is located in the Thou-world, which constitutes spaceless space, that is, a spatiality which is beyond concepts and description. At the same time, the encounter of the other also painfully reveals the aloofness of the actual world, which escapes the thetic consciousness of the self-defining "I" and the theorizing philosopher. Buber seems to be at least partially aware of the epistemological difficulties of his enterprise since he admits that the intersubjective realm of the 1-Thou, in the final analysis, is unknowable. Even though he refers to the I-Thou as basic word (Ger.: Grundwort), Buber makes it very clear that the Grundwort 1-Thou is not a matter of linguistic discourse; indeed, as Theunissen observes, Buber postulates a "sublinguistic" (Theunissen 1977, 303) language, in other words, silence, as the ground of language. The notion of the sublinguistic language underscores the elusive character

92 OTHERNESS of the intersubjective world, which functions as the ground of the phenomenal world. However, despite his recourse to the via negativa and the conception of a "non-articulate" (Theunissen 1977, 304) language, Buber cannot hide the fact that he attempts to articulate the "non-articulate." His dilemma is that the only way he can approach the matrix of Mensch-sein is by means ofthe via negativa, thus raising the question whether the I-Thou is an empty concept or whether it is simply outside the range of human knowledge. Despite the conceptual difficulties, the notion ofthe other, which is manifested together-with and in-opposition-to the self, radically challenges the individualism of any egological theory of selfhood be it Freudian psychoanalysis or phenomenology, which focuses on the consciousness as center ofpersonal identity, on the one side, and raises' the question as to how we can ground alterity in the human experience, on the other. From the perspective of the cogito, the facticity of alterity presents an enigma: Constituted by the cogito, the other is a mere object of consciousness. Being outside of the consciousness it is also beyond the limits of human knowledge; as Buber observes, the "Thou" is unknowable. However, faced with the facticity of otherness, the theorist forsakes the standpoint of the cogito and assumes the standpoint of interrelatedness, thereby proposing a transindividual conception of selfhood. Selfhood thus understood is not only the projection of a cogito but also includes the idea that the cogito is embedded in a context of relationships. In the sense that the cogito is thrown into this underlying matrix of relationships, this perspective reflects Heidegger's notion of Geworfenheit; however, in the sense that the context of relationships continues its constituting character, constituting the "I" vis-a-vis the other and throwing the HI" into a continuously reciprocal relationship with the other, the relational conception of selfhood departs from a merely egological one. Thus, the facticity of otherness urges a rethinking of the philosophical paradigm from a spatial perspective as it is done by Buber's dialogicism, on the one hand, and by the theorists who postulate the mutual constitution of an "I" vis-a-vis a "Thou," on the other. Neither of these approaches, however, has addressed the topic of intersubjectivity qua knowing the other's subjectivity. In the next section, I will briefly introduce lung's controversial notions of psychic entanglement and psychic synchronization because I believe they will aid an understanding of Dagen's notion of intersubjectivity.

93 ZEN BUDDHIS~I AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS Excursion: Psychic synchronization and psychic entanglement in lung

In his extensive but controversial system ofanalytical psychology, lung develops two notions which address the problem of intersubjectivity, transference and, albeit implicitly, psychic synchronization and unity. 4 While the former signifies the rather problematic condition of involuntary psychic entanglement between two individuals, lung introduces the latter concept to describe a mystical unity, which defies the laws of logic and causality and necessitates an underlying reality such as the unus mundus or the collective unconscious to account for it. Both instances, however, suggest a high degree of psychic interwoven­ ness in the sense that one person has access, deliberate or not, regardless of spatial distance, to the psychic life, consisting of thoughts, images, dreams, feelings, etc. of another person. While the phenomenon of transference, which was discovered by Freud, is, at least, somewhat accepted by the scientific community, lung's psychological mysticism is mostly employed in the field ofparapsychology and, in a few cases, as a hermeneutical tool in the field of religious studies. However, in this section, I am not so much interested in a verification or falsification of this notion but rather in its conceptual conditions and ramifications. In order to develop the conceptual implications of lung's conception of alterity, I will examine lung's depiction of the therapeutic setting, which is characterized by the transference-counter-transference complex and, in the "ideal" case, by synchronization, as a prototype for interhuman relationships in general. My interest in these phenomena is strictly conceptual rather than therapeutic or soteriological. Following Freud, who defined as transference the appropriation of a patient's psychic content by the therapist and as counter-transference the reverse appropriation of the therapist's psychic content by the patient, lung acknowledges the deep significance of the phenomenon of transference; unlike Freud, however, he believes that this psychic phenomenon has not only pragmatic, that is, therapeutical, but also conceptual implications. To lung, transference is most of all an instance of psychic entanglement of therapist and patient in clinical practice. He explains that during transference the therapist "literally 'takes over' the suffering of his patients" (lung 1969, 16: 172); he describes transferences as "demonic forces lurking in the darkness" (182), which "twine themselves invisibly round ... patient and doctor" like the "tentacles of an octopus" (179-80). lung further likens the psychic system of a "person" to a chemical substance "which, when it affects another person, enters into reciprocal reaction 94 OTHERNESS with another psychic system" (179-80). In short, Jung interprets the therapeutic relationship as a model of inter-psychic relationships and argues that the therapeutic situation and, subsequently, every inter-psychic encounter, defies the individualistic conception of the human psyche. The (seemingly unmotivated) interaction between two allegedly closed psychic systems in the transference-counter-transference complex reveals that the human psyche constitutes an existentially open system which continuously interacts with other psyches qua open systems. These interactions and transferences presuppose an underlying and, as Carl Meier observes, transcendent third factor, which allows the identification ofthe other with the selfand vice versa. In the subsequent discussion, I will subsume the transference-counter-transference complex under the term "transference," since the distinction between transference and counter-transference is relevant only for the therapeutic setting, while both features disclose a similar conceptual structure and thus equally apply to the phenomenon of transference and to the interpersonal encounter in general. In order to explain the transference of unconscious material from the self to a separate other, Jung postulates the existence of a "common ground," which he refers to as "mutual unconscious" (Jung 1969, 16: 176) and "non-individual psyche" (169). In other words, Jung postulates a psychic dimension which transcends the boundaries and limitations of the individual. He reasoned that if self and other were two completely separate psychic systems in the sense of independent monads, a transference of psychic material from the one to the other would be impossible. On the contrary, the psychic entanglement between two individuals necessitates that the psyches of self and other interact with and affect each other; self and other share certain unconscious content. Or, put differently, the human psyche transcends the boundaries of the individual self to include material which is also attributed to an other. By the same token, Jung contends that an "ideal understanding (ofthe other) would result in each party's unthinkingly going along with the other" (Jung 1969, 10: 273) and, ultimately in the submersion of the self into the other in a state of oneness. Other-awareness thus defined "would require the virtual identification of two different individuals" (273). In his highly controversial The Practice of Psychotherapy (16: 163-338), Jung further illustrated the therapeutic process and, more generally the process towards self-awareness with the alchemical symbolism of the conjugal union which gives birth to the "unity in the form of the res simplex" (306-7) symbolizing the "inner unity" which is "expressed

95 ZEN BCDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS most forcibly by the mystics in the idea of the unio mystica" (314). Thus, Jung did not limit this common ground to the entanglement of two individuals; he goes one step further and posited the universal character of this "non-individual psyche." In Jung's words, it is "innate in every individual" and, at the same time, "can neither be modified nor possessed" (169) by the individual person; it is beyond "mine" and "yours." As such, it signifies a fundamental dimension of the psyche which is common to all human beings and beyond the will of the individual. In this later work, most prominently, his Mysterium Conjunctionis, Jung identifies the "psychic totality" with the, albeit ideal and unattainable, unus mundus, the mystical oneness ofthe world transcending the dichotomies ofconscious and unconscious, body and mind, individual and world. Jung thus suggests two kinds of interpersonal encounters: First, Jung argues that the encounter between two everyday awarenesses is accompanied and, at least partially, characterized by a psychic entanglement of self and other. Second, once the individual disintegration into consciousness and the unconscious is overcome, other-awareness is possible in the form of a synchronization and "going along" between two seemingly separate individuals. However, such a synchronization and identification of two separate individuals which either dissolves their respective individualities or submerges the individuality ofthe one within the other cannot really be characterized as the intersubjective encounter of "I" and "Thou." By definition, intersubjectivity necessitates at least some kind of individuality. At the same time, Jung's notion ofpsychic entanglement cannot be equated with Buber's I-It. At best, one could argue that lung's notion of transference thematizes the shadow-side of everyday awareness, Buber's I-It, and reminds the everyday self of its dispossessed and forgotten aspects. However, such an argument would require a clearer delineation of the concepts and does not pertain to the present discussion. Both modalities of interpersonality, psychic entanglement and synchronization qua "going along," disclose the non-individual nature of the unconscious qua collective unconscious and identify other­ awareness as a case of identification between two individual psyches. Despite obvious similarities, Jung's collective unconscious does not coincide with Nishida's actual world. While both realms transcend consciousness and individuality, the actual world is non-dual rather than monistic. A non-dual interpretation of alterity differs from a monistic one in that the former does not negate individuality despite

96 OTHERNESS its postulate of a non-individual dimension of human existence. I will discuss this dialectic in the succeeding sections. Furthermore, the actual world discloses a self-awareness, albeit selfless, and thus transcends the unconscious. Thus, Jung's notion of Self qua unus mundus differs from Nishida's description of the actual world which is clearly not mystical. Nevertheless, Jung's discussion illustrates that a self-centered model of alterity, that is, a model which is dominated by one positional modality of existence, subsuming, in whichever way, other "selves," renders a non-individual mystical unity, where, in Dagen's words, "there is not one person who meets another" (Dagen 1993, 1: 427). This unity, which, in some sense, reflects the structure of lived world, however, does not disclose an intersubjectivity akin to Buber's I-Thou or Benjamin's mutual recognition.

"To Cast off Self and Other" - Alterity in Dogen Alterity in early Buddhism

Albeit rarely thematized or even mentioned by Buddhist texts as well as by contemporary scholars of Buddhism, the notion of alterity has some purport to Buddhism. 5 The rejection of individualism and the pervasive concept of selflessness gives rise not only to a communalism of the sangha which, as Varghese]. Manimala (1991) has argued, is based on the notion of intersubjectivity, but also to the contemplation ofparanormal capabilities and the Mahayana Buddhism conception of universal salvation, as embodied by the bodhisattva ideal discussed by Mahayana Buddhist scriptures such as the Lotus Siltra (Skrt.: Saddharma-Pu1J.4arfka Siltra) and the Maha-prajfiiipiiramitii Siltras and by the "original vow Gap.: hongan) ofAmida Buddha to save all of humanity. Mahayana Buddhism labels bodhisattva a being who postpones her/his nirvii1J.a in order to guide others. These bodhisattvas are sometimes described as having paranormal capabil­ ities. For example, the Paficavimsatisiihasrika Siltra explains that the bodhisattva "wisely knows, as it really is, the thought of other beings and persons" (Conze 1975, 80) as well as, "as it really is, the decease and rebirth ofbeings in the six places ofrebirth - in the universe in all ten directions, in all the world systems" (82). In general, however, the bodhisattva ideal can be interpreted as a rejection of the notion of individual enlightenment in favor of universal enlightenment. It goes without saying that a rejection of the notion of an individual self

97 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARE~ESS renders the notion of individual salvation highly problematic. Mahayana Buddhist concepts such as "buddha-nature" (Jap.: bussho) and "original enlightenment" (Jap.: hongaku) support such a non­ individual interpretation of personhood and enlightenment. The ten ox-herding pictures in Zen Buddhism portray the encounter of student and master, according to Steve Odin, as an embodiment ofthe I-Thou principle. An explicit account of the problematic of alterity and intersubjectivity in the phenomenological sense of the word, however, is limited to the discussion of the problem of other minds in the treatises of Vasubandhu and Dharmakirti. In his Virr'satikii, Vasubandhu introduces two kind of modalities, one which is characterized by the "mutual influence" of "representa­ tions of consciousness" (Vasubandhu qtd. in Kochumuttom 1982, 189), the other is embodied by the knowledge of the Buddhas, who "know other minds" "just as one's knowledge of one's own mind" as "unreal" (Vasubandhu qtd. in Kochumuttom 1982, 194). Thomas A. Kochumuttom interprets verse 18 of the Virr'satikii, "the representa­ tions of consciousness are determined by mutual influence of one [individual] on another" (189), to imply that "there are different individuals inter-acting and influencing each other" (Kochumuttom 1982, 190), while verse 21 renders a non-dual modality of awareness beyond the grasper-grasped dichotomy. In the Virrtsatikii, Vasubandhu identifies these two forms ofexistential modalities as knowledge (Skrt.: jiiiina) and non-knowledge (Skrt.: ajiiiina) respectively, thus indicating an objectifying and a non-objectifying modality of awareness reminiscent of Buber's distinction of the I-It and I-Thou. Kochumuttom's interpretation is not only supported by Thomas Wood, who disagrees with Kochumuttom on almost all other accounts, but is also in accordance with the general Buddhist conception of the selfnot as an individual substance but as an individual awareness event which is dialectically and mutually correlated to other individual awareness events in the sense of the Buddhist notion of co-dependent origination. In his Sarrttiiniintara-siddhi, Dharmakirti, whose main interest is to prove the existence ofother minds (Skrt.: para-citta) in the light of the doctrine of mind-only (Skrt.: cittamiitra), similarly contrasts the everyday mind which objectifies its content with the mind of the Buddha beyond "the subject-object distinction" (Dharmakirti 1991, 217) which "directly grasp(s) another person's mind through his representations" (218). Both Vasubandhu and Dharmakirti thus imply two fundamental modalities of human awareness, everyday awareness which posits the other, and a

98 OTHERNESS non-positional awareness which transcends the distinction between self and other. Their description of alterity and intersubjectivity, however, remains sketchy. While Dagen inherits the twofold analysis of human experience, his notion of Hcasting off body and mind of self and other" introduces a new dimension into the discourse on alterity.

Dogen and otherness

As discussed in the preceding chapter, Dagen includes the notion of otherness, albeit in an untraditional way, in his account of self­ awareness: HTo study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad dharmas; to be actualized by myriad dharmas is to cast off body and mind of self and other." Applying my exegesis of shinjin datsuraku from chapter 2, it is possible to conclude that Dagen conceives self and other to be correlative, that this dichotomy of self and other is cast off in the experience of satori, and that the non-thetic experience of shinjin datsuraku transcends the individuality of the self. A similar notion is reflected in Dagen's fascicle HShabagenza Tashintsu" (Dagen 1994, 5: 403-434), where he relates the practices of moving-other-minds (Jap.: tashintsu) and moving-other-bodies (Jap.: tashintsu) to moving-one's-own-mind" (Jap.: jishintsu) and moving-one's-own-body" (Jap.: jishintsu), and in his HShabagenza Sansuikya," where he observes that Hin the mountains ... there is not one person who meets another" (1993, 1: 427). At the same time, Hcasting off body and mind of self and other" also implies two instances of "casting off body and mind," namely, Hself and other." Thus, Dagen's terminology seems to distinguish Ilcasting offbody and mind ofselfand other" significantly from Jung's synchronization of two consciousnesses or Buber's I-Thou. At any rate, the formula Hcasting off body and mind of self and other" demonstrates, that, although Dagen does not address the subject of alterity as such, the moment of otherness is fundamental to his conception of self-awareness (one could say, as important as the discussion of the somaticity of the self). I believe that, despite the general agreement among scholars (either explicitly or by omission) that otherness and the conception of the social selfO or the moment of alterity is rather underdeveloped in Zen, an understanding of Dagen's notion of otherness is pivotal to his conception of selfhood, or better, no-selfhood. Dagen's implicit discussion of otherness is twofold: First, to describe the experience of satori as a breakdown of the self-

99 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENO~1ENOLOGYOX SELF-AWARENESS other relationship is to suggest that alterity plays a crucial role in the definition of self-awareness and, subsequently, in the experience ofthe "I" in the first place. Second, the relationship between master and disciple plays a central role in Dagen's theory ofactualization qua self­ awareness. In this discussion, I will regard the student-master relationship as a prototype of interhuman relationships. Throughout his Shobogenzo and his Fukanzazengi Dagen repeatedly beseeches the practitioners to search for the right master. In the fascicle "Shabagenza Bendawa" (Dagen 1993, 1: 23-74) he suggests that studying under a master is one of the three key ingredients to practicing the Buddha-way when he maintains that "after you have met (the master) and understood (the teaching)7 ... practice sitting correct and cast off body and mind" (1: 32). In the same paragraph, Dagen elevates practicing under a master over traditional practices such as the nembutsu, incense burning (Jap.: shoko) , and Siltra readings (Jape : kankin). Dagen reiterates the necessity of studying under a master in the essay "Gakuda Yajinshu" when he contends that "the practice of Buddha's teaching is always done by receiving the essential instructions of an instructor ... not by having ideas or not having ideas" (Tanahashi 1985, 34). In the same essay, he goes so far as to compare the practitioner to a piece of wood and the master to a craftsman working on it. The last statement, however, has to be read in its textual context, which consists of Dagen's polemic against the notion that a good practitioner does not require any master at all or that any master might do. In response, Dagen compares a practitioner without a master to a piece of wood which does not display its beauty if it has not been refined. Here, Dagen seems to, once again, criticize the belief that practice is not necessary since every person is bestowed with original enlightenment. Dagen characterizes the true master as someone who is neither steeped in her/his own thinking nor concerned with her/his own theories; in the language of phenomenology, the true master displays a non-positional rather than a positional attitude. A suitable master is someone who has "cast off body and mind as well as body and mind of the other," and, subsequently, transcended the everyday dichotomies of subject-object and self-other. In addition, Dagen's own personal quest for enlightenment was shaped by his relentless search for the "right master." He spent thirteen years under a number of eminent masters such as the Tendai master Ryokan and the Rinzai Zen masters Yosai and Myazen before he was ready to entrust his quest for enlightenment to the Chinese Ts'ao-tung (Jap.: Sata) Zen

100 OTHERNESS master Ju-ching (Jap.: Nyoja) I believe that his insistence on the right master illustrates Dogen's fundamental conviction that self-awareness and, for that matter, the process of enlightenment, necessitates a self­ aware other, that is, an enlightened meditation master. In other words, the Buddha-way requires practice, and practice requires the true master. In this section, I will explore Dogen's description of the student-teacher relationship as the prototype ofthe self-other relation­ ship through a close reading of two passages from his Shobogenzo.

The moment of alterity

In his "Shobogenzo Sansuikya" (1993, 1: 405-434), which outlines the general process of meditation in poetic and nature imagery, Dagen addresses the modus vivendi of the teacher-disciple relationship rather explicitly, and not, as he generally does, implicitly, in comments that underline the necessity of studying under a master or in his recollection of anecdotes which often narrate an encounter between a Zen master and a student of the Buddha-way. It is in this fascicle that he juxtaposes the positional attitude of "people outside of the mountains" (Jap.: sangenin) to its antithesis paraphrased as "people inside the mountains" (Jap.: sannainin). Having declared earlier in the fascicle that "in the mountains ... there is not one person who meets another," it comes as somewhat of a surprise when he relates the following anecdote not only to address the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal, which can be read to imply that enlightenment actually requires the dharma-transmission (Jap.: buppo no shoden) from .~aster to disciple, but also to thematize, more profoundly, the topics of alterity and intersubjectivity. Dagen narrates: In ancient times, there was the master Tokujo who having left the mountains went into the middle of the river Katei and produced a saint [Kassan]. Isn't this catching a fish, fishing a person, fishing the water, and fishing oneself. "The person sees Tokuja" means that there is Tokujo, while "Tokuja touches the person" means that there is the person. (1: 431) In some sense, this passage and the fascicle "Shobogenzo Sansuikyo" in general reflect the overall structure of the ten ox-herding pictures.8 The eighth of these pictures shows an empty circle, displaying complete transparency, usually interpreted as a symbol and embodiment of nothingness, which corresponds to Dagen's "in

101 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOlvlENOLOGY Oi'\ SELF-AWARENESS the mountains." The tenth picture, on the contrary, shows an old hermit mingling with people, the equivalent to Dagen's Tokuja. Both fascicle and pictures seem to further suggest that the doctrine of no-self implies an existential correlativity of self and other. In addition however, I believe that this passage, despite its brevity, reveals the fundamental structure of alterity and intersubjectivity. Even though this passage seems rather cryptic upon a first reading, a closer look reveals two possible interpretations, namely, the correlativity of self and other and a non-positional modality of engagement. I believe that Dagen's observation that '''[t]he person sees Tokuja' means that there is Tokuja, while 'Tokuja touches the person' means that there is the person" implies more than the truism that the notion of a "master" necessitates a "disciple" and vice versa. Dagen touches here at the existential correlativity of opposites in the phenomenal world. The correlativity between Tokuja and Kassan reveals two possible interpretations, namely, the correlativity between self and other and the correlativity between everyday-life awareness, personified as person, and a transformed state of awareness, which is embodied in Tokuja. Either case, however, illustrates the necessity of opposites to be posited or manifested in juxtaposition to each other. Thus the relationship between student and master echoes the Buddhist notion ofco-dependent origination (Skrt.: pratftya samutpada). This correlativity is reflected in the juxtaposition of "the people outside the mountains" vis-a.-vis the mountains, self and dharmas (Jap.: ho), delusion (Jap.: mayoi) and enlightenment (Jap.: satori), practice (Jap.: shu) and verification (Jap.: sho), sentient beings (Jap.: shujo) and all buddhas (Jap.: shobutsu). Even though it is true that Dagen's observations are sometimes strangely trivial and in some sense analytic ("to become a teacher" is defined as "producing a student"), Dagen aims at some deeper truth, namely, that without an other, there cannot be any self. The point Dagen wants to drive home is that samadhic self-awareness, by definition, presumes other­ awareness. Dagen does not further elaborate this point in the case of everyday awareness, since his primary concern is the transforma­ tion and not the development of everyday awareness. Maintaining the necessity of otherness for self-awareness, however, Dagen describes and defines the existential predicament of the experiential "I" as existential ambiguity rather than as an independent system of self­ sufficiency as it is suggested by the essentialist paradigm. It is important here to note Dagen's line of argument. He starts by postulating the existential correlativity ofself and other. However, this

102 OTHERNESS correlativity does not have to be understood as a relationship in which two individuals engage, but rather, as Buber has argued, the correlativity of self and other precedes their individuality; in other words, self and other are posited against each other in the abstract world as objects of a thetic theorizing consciousness or in the phenomenal world as objects of each other's intentionality. Dagen maintains that self and other determine themselves in what Benjamin calls a relationship of mutual recognition, that means, that self and other are existentially interdependent. The conception of the self as being-in-relationship illustrates the Buddhist contention that human existence is non-substantial. Such a self does not exist prior to or independent from an other, it cannot be considered an unchanging individual but should be rather conceived of as the momentary subject of an experience. To paraphrase a famous quotation by Nishida, it is not that there is a relationship because there are self and other, but there are self and other because there is a relationship (Nishida 1988, 1: 4). It is on the basis oftheir interaction that self and other emerge as momentary and seemingly individual awareness events. Dagen thus reverses the ontological and temporal priority of individual and correlativity, in psychological terms autonomy/ isolation and dependence/intimacy, and, subsequently, inverts the underlying conceptual framework. 9

The paradox of alterity

A second passage discussing the moment of alterity can be found in Dagen's fascicle "Shabagenza Katta" (Dagen 1994, 4: 5-24). Here, Dagen explains that "[t]he phrase 'master and student practice together' means that there is the weaving vines [Jap.: katto] of the Buddha-ancestors" (4: 16). Thomas P. Kasulis translates the term "katta," literally "complications" or "vines," as "intertwinings" and "(verbal) entanglements" (Kasulis 1985, 92). Dagen elaborates on this psychic interwovenness of master and disciple when he exhorts the practitioner, "You should know that there is 'You are attaining me,' 'I am attaining you,' 'attaining me and you,' and 'attaining you and me'" (Dagen 1994, 4: 15). Dagen's wording clearly suggests that the master can experience the psychic states ofthe disciple from the perspective of the disciple and vice versa. As a matter offact, the fascicle "Shabagenza Katt6" is full of contentions that suggest an intimate relationship between, if not the oneness of, master and disciple. In describing this

103 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHEN01vlENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS intimacy Dagen cites the first patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma, who reportedly said to his disciples, when he verified their attainment of enlightenment, "you attain my skin," "you attain my flesh," "you attain my bones/' and "you attain my marrow" (4: 10). However, at the same time, Dagen asserts the independence and individuality of disciple and master. In the sentence "you attain me," the selfhood of the discipIe as well as the otherness of the master remain, in Dagen's terminology, "unobstructed." In the case ofpsychic correspondence, the self "follows" the other and the borderline between the individuals blurs to such a degree that they become undiffer­ entiatedly one (as in the experience of mystical oneness). But Dagen maintains that in the encounter of self and other, both retain their individuality, even though "the self attains the other" and "the other attains the self." Even though the self experiences the psychic state of the other from the other's perspective, it does so without abandoning itself to the psyche of the other or without being absorbed by the psychic complexes of the other: Self and other are not one. These allusions to the individuality of self and other seem to run counter to the Buddhist doctrine of no-self and to his observation in "Shabagenza Sansuikyo" that "in the mountains ... there is not one person who meets another." If Zen Buddhism denies the substance and, subsequently, the individuality of self, what is the significance of the notions of I and you, self and other? How can Dagen claim that '''[t]he person sees Tokuja' means that there is Tokujo, while 'Tokuja touches the person' means that there is the person" [emphasis mine]? A Buddhist reading would interpret Dagen's katto as the Middle Path, which rejects the extremes of identity and difference: Master and disciple are correlative yet independent, they are identical yet different. Dagen's notion of psychic interwovenness implies a non­ individual psyche which transcends the boundaries of the individual self; the phenomenon of psychic interwovenness in which "the self attains the other" and vice versa necessitates such a non-individual dimension of human existence. At the same time, Dagen does not substitute a universal oneness or anon-individual and collective psyche ala lung's collective unconscious for the notion ofthe individual self. On the contrary, Dagen contends that master and disciple actually encounter each other as individuals; such an encounter would not be possible in a realm of psychic oneness. He rather believes that the notions of psychic correspondence, mystical oneness, and synchroniza­ tion are insufficient to describe the fundamental structure of the master-disciple relationship and, more generally, the interpersonal

104 OTHERNESS encounter of self and other. In the final analysis, Dagen suggests that even though master and disciple share as common ground a non­ individual and mutual psyche, they do not lose their individual characters. Thus, psychic interwovenness simultaneously presupposes individual and non-individual psychic elements. At this point, a note of precaution is in order: When applied to Dagen's conceptual framework, I utilize the phrase "non-individual psyche" not in the sense of the Jungian synonyms "collective unconscious" and "archetypes" but rather to signify that which, in Jung's words, is "innate in every individual" and which "can neither be modified nor possessed" by the individual (Jung 1969,16: 176). By claiming not only that an individual self can experience psychic states of the other without compromising its unique selfhood, Dagen calls into question, as I have indicated before, any dualistic and individualistic conceptual framework. If it is possible for the self "to attain the other" without dissolving its own individuality, the traditional conception of the self as a self-contained system does not apply. The concept of an individual self implies the conceptual delineation of self and other, inside and outside, consciousness and the unconscious, and of the individual and non-individual dimensions of the human psyche. However, phenomena such as katt6 (and even transference), which allow the self to experience the psychic states of the other from the perspective ofthe other and yet preserve the individuality ofthe other, necessarily defy these conceptual dichotomies.

Intersubjectivity

Given the non-individual conception of the psyche, which contains the psychic material of the other, the question arises "Why does everyday awareness conceive of itself as a separate and isolated self?" Or framed differently, how can Dagen claim that '''[t]he person sees Tokuja' means that there is Tokuja, while 'Tokuja touches the person' means that there is the person" if "in the mountains ... there is not one person who meets another"? A Jungian reading of this passage would emphasize that the self-conscious self transfers her/his own unconsciously repressed and dispossessed psychic material qua shadow onto the other. Since the master is completely self-aware, however, this transference would not result in a psychic entanglement qua transference-counter-transference complex; rather, the master would completely reflect the transferred psychic content to the

105 ZEi\ BUDDHIS~'1 AND PHEN01\.lENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS disciple, who, then, could encounter herself/him in the face of the other. Such an interpretation would also motivate Dagen's remark "Isn't this catching a fish, fishing a person, fishing the water, and fishing oneself." However, I think even this interpretation misses some of the nuances included in the text. In order to understand this rather cryptic paragraph better, I suggest taking another look at its textual and conceptual context. In the preceding paragraph, Dagen establishes that "in the mountains ... there is not one person who meets another." In his introduction of Tokuja, Dagen explains that he "left the mountain" (Jap.: san 0 hanarete) and "produced a saint" (Jap.: kensho 0 eta), to which TAMAKI Kashira adds, "who was later called the saint Kassan" (Tamaki 1993, 1: 432). The intention of Dagen, besides establishing the bodhisattva ideal, I think, is twofold. First, there is the problem how an enlightened person is able to encounter individual persons, since "in the mountains ... there is not one person who meets another." In other words, how is it possible that an awareness transcending the binary structure of self and other encounters and is encountered by an individual? Second, in order to coherently establish a non-dualist world view, Dagen has to reconcile the two opposites of thejuxtaposition ofeveryday awareness qua "sentient beings" "outside ofthe mountains" and samadhic awareness qua "buddhas" "inside the mountains." To unpack the enigmatic statement '''The person sees Tokuja' means that there is Tokuja, while 'Tokuja touches the person' means that there is encountering the person," I think it is further important to recall Dagen's differentiation between everyday and samadhic awareness when he explains that "people outside the mountains do not experience; people who don't have the eyes to see the mountains do not experience, do not know, do not see, and do not hear." "People inside the mountains," on the contrary, "do not experience and do not know; inside the mountains flowers blossom" (Dagen 1993, 1: 407). Elsewhere he argues that "it is delusion to practice-actualize myriad dharmas by applying oneself to the dharmas," whereas "to practice-actualize the self when dharmas approach" signifies enlightenment. Throughout the course of "Shabogenzo Sansuikyo," and the "Shobogenzo Genjokoan" for that matter, Dogen thus juxtaposes the epistemic attitude of everyday awareness, which is prevented by its own positional attitude "to know" the dharmas, the mountains, the self, and the other, with the positional awareness, which does not "know" in the conventional sense but which manifests the self, the dharmas, the mountains qua "flowers blossoming," and, one could add, the encounter of self and other.

106 OTHERNESS In this sense, it is possible to say that everyday awareness, which is locked into its positional and binary structure, constitutes the other in its own image. to Dagen contends that "it is delusion to practice­ actualize myriad dharmas by applying ourselves to the dharmas." Once again, I would like to rehearse the implications of defining the self as "subject" (Jap.: shutai). There are two dimensions to the character ofa subject. First, it is symptomatic ofthe binary experience of the world, which renders a world dissociated into pairs ofopposites such as subject-object, self-other, inside-outside, etc. Second, and more importantly, however, it signifies a self-conscious and intentional attitude: It is the subject which experiences, knows, and acts upon the world, whereas the world is conceived of as passive, waiting to be discovered. In this case, the outside world and the external other are relegated into passivity by the self. The self-centered selfmisconstrues itself, as discussed in the previous chapter, and the other as permanent and absolute entities and, at the same time, constructs the other in its own image. This self-centeredness then prevents the self from experiencing the psychic state of the other from the perspective of the other. Thus, while the self assumes to encounter the other, it merely encounters its own construction and psychic projections, that is, ultimately, it encounters itself. Subsequently, the self does not know the other. The self-centered self does not experience the psychic state of the other from the other's own perspective but constructs its own image of the other from and through its own desires and experiences. Thus the other becomes a fabrication rather than something that can be encountered. These considerations echo Jung's observation that the self-centeredness ofthe "I" and the concomitant psychic entanglement changes the other "into the replica of one's own unknown face." In order to "attain the other," the self has to, in Dagen's words, "forget the self," "cast off body and mind of self and other," and thus "verify myriad dharmas." Furthermore, in the face of samadhic awareness, self and other are simply presenced as-they-are; "'[t]he person sees Tokuja' means that there is Tokujo, while 'Tokuja touches the person' means that there is the person" [emphasis mine]. "Inside the mountains flowers blossom" without obstruction by the self's intentionality. Contrary to everyday awareness, which is characterized by self­ centeredness, Dagen's self-awareness is characterized by selflessness. This selfless self-awareness transcends the dichotomies of subjectivity and objectivity, selfhood and otherness. It even transcends the categories of body and mind and defies the categories of "conscious" or "unconscious," "inside" or "outside." Selfless self-awareness

107 ZEN BUDDHIS~'l Ai\D PHEi\OMEi\OLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS neither constructs otherness nor superimposes its desires and expectations onto the other; on the contrary it reveals self and other for what they are, namely impermanent and correlative awareness events. This selfless self-awareness can be illustrated with the cultivation of physical or artistic skills. A cultivated piano player, for example, does not self-consciously move her hand in search of the right keys but, rather, seems to play without thinking, 11 that is, unself­ consciously (Nagatomo 1992, 230). The interaction between individuals cultivates what Merleau-Ponty calls a habit-body. In the case of ballroom dancing as well as martial arts such as T'ai Ch'i, cultivated practitioners do not perceive of each other self-consciously as the object ofeach other's intentions and expectations but as separate yet interconnected expressions of the same movement. By the same token, individuals who often work together in groups on similar projects or in similar situations such as in team sports are said to develop a "sense" for each other. In either case, the self is not self­ consciously aware ofthe other as one is in the presence ofa stranger, to use Sartre's example of the gaze; on the contrary, selfless awareness of the other is pre-reflective and unself-conscious. Dagen refers to this cultivation of intersubjectivity as "moving other bodies" and "minds" and "moving one's own body" and "mind" in order "to cast off body and mind of self and other." Dagen contends that this selfless, non­ positional self-awareness, which reveals the self as a momentary awareness event, is not merely an intellectual form ofawareness but has to be cultivated through the practice of seated meditation. It is only then that the selftransforms its existential attitude towards the world to such a degree that it ceases to superimpose its desires and expectations onto the other. It is only then that the disciple "attains the master." Ultimately, Dagen suggests a radical rethinking and reversal of the individualistic conception of self. For the self is not an enduring individual which "has" experiences and psychic states, but constitutes an experience or, more appropriately, an awareness event. Central to Dagen's conception of the self as an awareness event is his logic of presencing (Jap.: genjo), which I will discuss in more detail in chapter 7. In the context of his theory of meditation, Dagen introduces this logic in order to argue the non-dualism of enlightenment and practice. By analogy, psychic states such as emotions, thoughts, etc., can be conceived of as expressions of a non-individual psyche, which contains the psychic content of self and other alike. However, defined as such, the non-individual psyche does not comprise a collective psychic structure or collective psychic imagery but the interactivity of

108 OTHERNESS what Jung calls affective complexes, which are conventionally attributed to separate individuals such as self and other. Dagen's underlying beliefthat self and other are identical yet different suggests that they are two separate, individual expressions of the same psychic content. By the same token, the self is simultaneously individual and non-individual insofar as it is an individual manifestation of non-individual content. When Dagen identifies the "casting off body and mind of self and other," which signifies the dissolution of the self-other dichotomy, with the "verification of myriad dharmas" (Dagen 1993, 1: 95), he similarly implies that the self as a momentary awareness event expresses itself, the other, myriad dharmas, and, thus, the non-individual psyche. Thus defined, however, the self cannot but, in the language of psychology, experience the psychic state of the other from the perspective of the other. In his few and scattered comments, Dagen hints at the fundamental connectedness of alterity, intersubjectivity, and samadhic awareness. He distinguishes between two forms of alterity, everyday awareness, which does not know the other but construes it as an object, and samadhic awareness which presences the other as-it-is. The incapability of the self of knowing the other is caused by the inherent self-centered attitude of everyday awareness and an attitude which focuses on the self-conscious function of the "I." Such an attitude is not only detrimental to the attainment of self-awareness, but it also further tends to isolate the self from the world and, at the same time, superimposes the self's own "face" onto the other. Paradoxically, it is in my conception of myself as a separate entity that I conceive of the other as but a reflection of myself. However, while Jung maintains that the self-centered attitude ofthe self-conscious function motivates an unconscious transference of the dispossessed material of the self onto the other, Dagen believes that the self-centered self merely mistakes the other's psychic state for its own, while de facto nothing is transferred from the one to the other. The difference lies in the topographical metapsychology of Jung which portrays self and other as containers reminiscent of Freud's room-analogy, while Dagen conceives of self and other as correlated but momentary awareness events which express each other. It is possible to take these reflections a little bit further and to speculate about a psychology of constitution: Entangled in its own positionality, everyday awareness constructs an image ofnon-positional awareness as the anthropomorphic other, as that what-I-am-not; it constructs enlightenment qua the Buddha personified as an individual

109 ZEN BUDDHISlvl AND PHENOlvIEI\:OLOGY Oi\ SELF-AWARENESS vis-a.-vis itself. At the same time, everyday awareness projects and transfers what-it-is on the other, in the process of which the other is transformed into the face of the self. The practitioner begins to see her/his own existence in the face of what appears to be an other. Or, from the opposite perspective, the master reflects the face of the self back onto the practitioner by means of her/his verbal or non-verbal instruction of, and responsiveness to, the disciple in the encounter during dokusan. Contrary to the phenomenon of psychic entanglement the phenomenon of katto implies the capability of the self to identify the psychic state of the other as a psychic state external to the self and to experience the psychic state of the other without losing its individuality. This belief, however, presumes an understanding of self-awareness which radically challenges the notion of self and other as two independent systems; subsequently, Dagen contends that self and other are merely manifestations of a non-individual activity and, ultimately, comprise but individual awareness events. To Dagen, the authentic mode of existence comprises a non-positional attitude, which does not distinguish between subject qua subject and object qua object, but which discloses things-as-they-are. This logic of presencing enables Dagen to contend that "there is not a single person meeting another single person" (Dagen 1993, 1: 427) and, as Kasulis remarks, "there is no self or other" (Kasulis 1981: 92), while upholding the individuality of self and other as indicated in the encounter of Tokuja and Kassan. Thus, Dagen points towards a paradoxical conception of self-awareness qua other-awareness which can be conceived only as non-thetic awareness.

I and Thou in Nishida

One of the most central, as well as the most intriguing concepts of Nishida Kitara's philosophical system is that of the dialectical (Jap.: benshohoteki) and/or contradictory (Jap.: mujunteki) self (Jap.: jiko).12 While his earlier works identify the self as "the unity between subjectivity and objectivity" and between "that which sees and that which is seen," the later Nishida prefers the dialectical terminology of I-and-Thou (Jap.: watakushi to nanji), which he also identifies as affirmation-qua-negation (Jap.: kotei soku hitei), to conceptualize selfhood. As it has been frequently mentioned by commentators such as Odin and TAKEDA Ryusei the language of I-and-Thou identifies the self as an existentially social, religious, and historical

110 OTHERNESS being, that is, as zoon politikon and as homo religiosus. Odin's recent observation that, according to Nishida, '''I' and 'Thou' are correlative aspects of the social self in such a way that the individual and society are accorded equal status" (Odin 1996, 334) satisfactorily clarifies the inherently and paradoxically social character of the individual. However, the question remains, why does Nishida consistently utilize highly paradoxical expressions to designate the social self? What are the implications of a philosophy that defines the self as affirmation­ qua-negation or as continuity of discontinuity? And what is the significance of the contention "that the individual and society are accorded equal status"? It is my thesis that Nishida's I-and-Thou theorizes a conception of selfhood qua otherness, which is already latent in Dagen's anecdotes of Tokuja and Kassan and in his riddle of "You should know that there is 'You are attaining me,' 'I am attaining you,' 'attaining me and you,' and 'attaining you and me.'" In this process, Nishida further develops the notions "expression," "non­ relative negation," and "non-thetic awareness," which were crucial to his exposition on self-awareness; furthermore, his preliminary reflections on the subject of alterity are astonishingly similar to the discourse on alterity as developed by Hegel, Sartre, and Benjamin.

The interaction of I and Thou

First of all and most obviously, Nishida's I-and-Thou signifies the existentially interactive and relational character of the social self as a self-in-relationship. As Nishida himself observes, "the 'I' exists as an 'I' in that it recognizes the Thou as Thou" (Nishida 1988, 7: 85) and, more drastically, that "without a Thou there is no 'I'" (7: 86). These kinds of observations, however, do not identify the interactive character of the self as the tendency of an isolated individual to enter into relationships, which, conversely, influence and possibly trans­ form the individual; instead they imply an existential relatedness between individual selves. The encounter of "I" and "Thou" thus transcends the individuality ofthe selfin the sense that the individual and relational domains of human existence co-exist and, in fact, are inextricably intertwined. In short, Nishida suggests that individuality necessitates co-existence and vice versa. Nishida argues that the individual self displays its individuality only paradoxically through affirmation-qua-negation insofar as it is existentially in-relationship­ with an independent other. Contrary to twentieth century European

111 ZEN BUDDHIStv1 AND PHENOMEl\OLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS phenomenology, Nishida not only defines the self, which he alternately refers to as working thing (Jap.: hataraku mono) and as desiring thing (Jap: hossuru mono), as an intentional act but further argues that the very intentionality ofthe self necessitates the existence of a desiring other, which autonomously and dynamically opposes, resists, and negates the self. Ifthe self's desire was not opposed by the intentionality ofan other, the selfwould extend infinitely, engulfall of reality, and, ultimately, fall into an infinite solipsism. Without the negation by the other, the self would experience itself as an independent yet isolated individual, existing only for-itself, locked in its private world. He thus anticipates the psychoanalytical insight that the individual, devoid of boundaries and the delineation by an independent intentionality, as mentioned above, dissolves into the undifferentiated and boundless oneness of Freud's "oceanic feeling" (Freud 1972, 65) and Jung's participation mystique. As discussed above, real resistance to the desiring self can be only offered by an independent other, who can freely make me the object of her/his desire. Above, I have illustrated the autonomous intentionality, which, beyond my own will, objectifies me and alienates me from myself, with Sartre's famous example of the objectifying gaze of the other. Contrary to Sartre and reminiscent of Hegel, however, Nishida believes that the concepts "limitation" and "negation" do not signify the complete destruction of the individual self, in the sense of Sartre's being-for-the-other, but rather its necessary condition. It is this negation by the other that rescues the selffrom its solipsism, disclosing a world transcendent to its own will. Freud refers to this autonomous will of the other, which breaks down the narcissistic feeling of omnipotence and prepares the individual to embrace the existence of the external world, as the reality principle. 13 Thus, following the dialectical principle that like must always be opposed by like, Nishida's desiring self develops and displays its individuality only in-relation-to other individual desiring selves. In Nishida's words, only "being opposed to a Thou the I exists as an I" (Nishida 1988, 7: 92). To describe this existential predicament of the self, which constitutes itself only in the face of an other, Nishida employs paradoxical expressions such as his infamous affirmation-qua­ negation. The psychological truth behind this dialectical formula is that the consciousness of the self originates and develops only in relationship to another consciousness. Again, this observation is reminiscent of G. W Hegel's dialectic and Benjamin's paradox of mutual recognition. The terminology of the I-and-Thou thus signifies

112 OTHERNESS the paradoxical predicament of human existence that the existence of the self's independent consciousness simultaneously necessitates its own negation. It is only in my dependency on an autonomous other, which, conversely, recognizes my autonomy, that I can assert my own individuality. It is only when such an autonomous other negates the innermost desire ofthe selfthat the desiring self "recognizes the Thou as Thou" (Nishida 1988, 7: 86) and, subsequently, can be recognized as an "I." It is in this sense that "the 'I' exists as an 'I' in that it recognizes the Thou as Thou," that "without a Thou there is no 'I.'" However, and here is the point where Nishida's thought radically departs from phenomenological and psychological accounts of alterity and intersubjectivity, Nishida deduces from this paradoxical notion of self-awareness qua other-awareness not only that the self is existentially in-relationship and that this relationship precedes the construction of the independent individual self, but, more fundamen­ tally that the self radically dissolves its selfness. The only "western" equivalents ofthis radical dissolution (and disillusion?) ofthe self I am familiar with is, in some sense, Hegel's dialectical Aufhebung ("sublation") of the self and Buber's dialogical I-Thou. However, neither of these concepts emphasizes the aspect of nihility the way Nishida does and, subsequently, arrives at a slightly dissimilar notion of self-awareness qua otherness, or in Nishida's case, samadhic awareness.

The disappearance of the self

Secondly, Nishida argues, the I-and-Thou, which juxtaposes self and other in a paradox of mutual recognition, radically negates the standpoint of the self-conscious "I." At the foundation of Nishida's argument lies the here often-repeated insight that thetic self­ consciousness neither knows itself nor the other; it cannot even posit itself, because if constituted, it would be reduced to an object in a phenomenal field while its manifestation in the lived world necessitates a pre-reflective modality. Nishida explains that As perceiving self or desiring self, we cannot be a personal self ... From the standpoint of the desiring self and the perceiving self, we cannot see the other inside the self, but we see the self inside the other. But when we simply see the self inside the other, we are not a self. (Nishida 1988, 6: 411)

113 ZEN BUDDHISM Ai'\D PHENOMENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS To unpack Nishida's contention, I would like to carefully review what it means to be a desiring self, that is, a thetic self, and how such a thetic self relates to the other. The self-conscious selfconceives of itself as an independent subject separate from the other. It relates to the other in two ways, as the object of its own thetic desire and as the object of the other's positionality. It is in this sense that "we simply see the self inside the other," that is, that the other becomes the hook and mirror of my reflections. Such a relationality, however, is existentially inauthentic. Authentic self-awareness, subsequently, transcends the subjectivity of the self, collapses the dichotomy bet\veen self and other, without, however, as Dagen argued, sacrificing individuality, and, subsequently, transforms the thetic modality of the self; as Nishida observes, "[i]dentity with oneself does not simply denote a mutuality in the sense that the relationship to oneself constitutes a relationship to an other. Therein the individual does not exist" (Nishida 1988, 7: 55-56). Self-identity of the self knowing itself requires nothing short of non-relative self-identity which includes the "universal" and "the predicative dimension" within the self (7: 56). "The fact that the I knows the Thou and vice versa has to be thought ofas intuition," which "implies that the non-relative other hides at the bottom of the self and that the self moves towards the other for the bottom of the self" (6: 391). This quotation not only suggests the collapse of the binary dichotomies, which the present discussion of alterity has found to be rather detrimental to the conception of intersubjectivity, but also Dagen's inclusion of the non-individual psyche within the self. Furthermore, like Dagen, Nishida suggests "Self and other are not one but one sees the non-relative other at the bottom of the self" (6: 391). This non-relative other (Jap.: zettai no ta) provides the radical negation of the self demanded by the very notion of self-awareness: "As that which is opposed to the I, the Thou must be the non-relative other" (6: 415). A relative negation in the sense of an external other, which opposes the self in a relationship of mutual determination (Jap.: saga gentei), ironically does not negate but rather reinforces the self qua separate and isolated self; in other words, the very notion of the relative other reinforces the self's sense of individuality and isolation. 14 Nishida argues that the mutual interplay and the mutual determination of "I" and "Thou" necessitates a transcendent region inside the self, which the self encounters as non­ relative negation (Jap.: zettai hitei). While the negation by an external other reaffirms the differentiated world of self-conscious self and, at the same time, the complete separation of "the world of the I" and

114 OTHERNESS "the world of the Thou," the dialectical encounter of "I" and "Thou" necessitates an internal negation, which collapses the dichotomization of the world of interaction into immanence and transcendence and, subsequently, the fundamental structure of the self-conscious self. Nishida identifies this transcendent region inside the self, which simultaneously affirms and negates the self, as non-relative other. The non-relative other functions as affirmation-qua-negation in that it simultaneously destroys and creates the self; to quote Nishida, "when the non-relative other kills the I, it gives birth to the I" (6: 401). So how does the enigmatic concept of the non-relative other have to be conceived of? Nishida's enigmatic observations concerning the non-relative other do not merely postulate a transcendent region but rather reject the dualism between a transcendent and an immanent realm in general. Following the Mahayana Buddhist insight that "sarpsara is nirvat:la," in his terminology, "the I-and-Thou comprises the non-relative other" (Nishida 1988, 6: 381), Nishida contends that even though the non-relative other displays transcendent qualities in that it is absolutely different from and inaccessible to the self­ conscious self, the non-relative other does not comprise a merely transcendent reality. On the contrary, the transcendent non-relative other possesses an immanent quality insofar as it is included within and most intimate to the self itself. In this sense, Nishida can say, "The self includes the non-relative other within itself. The self includes non-relative negation within itself" (6: 381) and "[w]hen the self sees the non-relative other inside the self, the self becomes the non-relative other" (6: 387). However, Nishida equally rejects a boundless and undifferentiated monism of the self; the non-relative other neither signifies a mystical unity, wherein everyday awareness and numinosum coincide, nor does it imply that the self solipsistically contains the world inside and thus extends infinitely. Nishida rather argues that the very existence of the everyday self paradoxically necessitates the transcendence and negation of the self-conscious self and the world it engenders and, ultimately, a non-dualism of transcendence and immanence. It is this paradox of immanence-qua­ transcendence of the self-qua-other which Nishida's concept of the non-relative other is designed to explain or, at least, signify. In his mature philosophy of religion, Nishida argued that the non-relative other could be limited to neither self-power (Jap: jiriki), indicating that the non-relative other is foundational to the self, nor other-power (Jap: tariki),15 which symbolizes the negative aspect of the non-relative other. Analogically, samadhic awareness paradoxically necessitates self

115 ZEN BUDDHIS~vl AND PHENO~1ENOLOGY Oi\ SELF-AWARENESS and other, inside and outside in the sense that "I and Thou must be absolutely independent and separated. But by recognizing the Thou the I recognizes itself. Recognizing the I the Thou becomes a Thou. We encounter each other in non-relative negation" (7: 266). Subsequently, the non-relative other signifies the foundation of the 1­ Thou which precedes the positionality of the self and entails individual and non-individual elements. It may be tempting to compare Nishida's conception of the non-relative other to, for example, lung's psychology, which not only conceives of the self as complex oppositorum, that is, as the paradoxical synthesis of individual self-consciousness and collective unconscious, but further utilizes religious symbolism to describe this unity as "a rare and shattering experience" and as gazing "into the face of absolute evil" (]ung 1958, 9). Contrary to lung, however, Nishida rejects the proposition that the self's relationship to both the relative other and the "psychic totality," as lung dubs the union of individual and the absolute other, is predominantly unconscious. Nishida further rejects the notion of intersubjectivity as either a relationship of unconscious psychic entanglement between two individual selves, which psychology calls transference, or as unconscious synchroniza­ tion between two individual consciousnesses. Even though Nishida's conception of the non-relative other challenges, like lung's collective unconscious, the individualistic and egological paradigm, he does not contend that the self is unaware of the non-relative other; instead he asserts that the everyday self "becomes itself" precisely when it transcends the standpoint of everyday awareness in a dialectical relationship of mutual determination in which "I" and "Thou" recognize each other as individuals by negating each other's individuality. These considerations underline my thesis that Nishida's paradoxical language of the non-relative other denotes an epistemic attitude which simultaneously transcends the intentionality and the individuality ofthe desiring self. However, non-thetic awareness cannot be the awareness of an individual in the sense of a unilateral self­ awareness but, on the contrary, entails the existential ambiguity between self and other, affirmation and negation, being and nothingness. In other words, an understanding of this samadhic awareness qua non­ thetic awareness must be informed by a theory of alterity and, subsequently, will also provide a key towards a theory of other­ awareness and intersubjectivity, which, as Vasubandhu and Dagen have claimed all along, radically transcends the juxtaposition of self and other and concomitantly, self-awareness and other-awareness.

116 OTHERNESS Like Dagen, Nishida distinguishes between two existential modalities ofexistence, desire, which posits itself vis-a.-vis an other and non-thetic awareness he refers to as love (Jap.: ai).

Non-thetic Awareness

In his essays, "The Dialectic of Self-Love and Other-Love" ("Jiai to Taai Oyobi Benshaha) (Nishida 1988, 6: 260-99), "I and Thou" ("Watakushi to Nanji") (6: 341-427) and "The Logic of Topos and the Religious World View," Nishida himself supports my interpreta­ tion of affirmation-qua-negation as non-thetic modality of existence when he introduces the concept of love (Jap.: ai), in the sense ofagape but not eros, as the modality of affirmation-qua-negation which transcends desire. In these essays, Nishida explains that '''true love' means that we affirm ourselves by negating ourselves and live in the other by dying to ourselves" (6: 288). As affirmation-qua-negation, love has to be distinguished from thetic desire, which affirms the self by negating the other. Nishida argues that desire, or positionality for that matter, dispossesses the other of its subjective and autonomous agency by constructing it as an object which is posited for-the-self. However, by the same token, the self-conscious selfconstructs itself as an object of its own intentionality devoid of any subjectivity. As the object of its distinctive and differentiating intentionality, the self-qua­ noema comprises a representation and shadow of itself, which, as I have argued, is not necessarily identical to the epistemic subject. Love, on the contrary, signifies a modality which establishes the self in the face ofthe non-relative other. Nishida explains in words reminiscent of Buber's distinction between I-It and I-Thou, that "it is impossible to love a thing. Even though a thing can become the object of desire, it cannot be the object of love"; "we desire things and love persons" (6: 272-3). Already the very first sense of self-awareness and other­ awareness necessitates a dialectical affirmation-qua-negation, in which the desiring self perishes and the true self (Jap.: shin no jiko) emerges. Nishida's notion of self-negation and his religious symbolism of god's kenosis and human self-sacrifice signify the radical transformation of the self-conscious modality of intentionality and the bifurcated world it engenders. However, despite Nishida's plentiful use of religious language and symbolism, it should not be forgotten that his goal is to theorize self-awareness. True love manifests self-awareness, selfless self-awareness to be sure, but

117 ZEN BUDDHIS1\1 A~D PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS self-awareness nevertheless: "When one discovers the self by negating the self, true love exists" (6: 273), and "True love implies that we affirm ourselves by negating ourselves and live in the other by dying to ourselves" (6: 288). Thus defined, love cannot but reveal the existentially paradoxical nature of self-awareness which has accom­ panied us from the first discussion of self-consciousness via Dagen's "to study the self is to forget the self" to the I-and-Thou qua non­ relative other: "To love the self signifies losing the self you ought to love" (6: 288-89). Furthermore, Nishida contends that self-awareness and other-awareness, in his terminology, self-love (Jap.: jiai) and other-love (Jap.: taai) are inextricably linked and dialectically necessitate each other. In this sense, the terminology of non-relative other and self-negation points, ultimately, towards an epistemic modality which neither objectifies nor can be objectified. While the I-and-Thou transcends the intentional structure of the desiring self, which divides the world into two disconnected hemi­ spheres of self and other, inside and outside, it affirms the self as a non-thetic modality ofawareness. Following Kasulis' "phenomenology of zazen," I conceive of Nishida's affirmation-qua-negation as a non­ thetic awareness which "neither affirms nor negates" and has as its content the "pure presence ofthings as they are" (Kasulis 1981, 73). It describes a modality of engagement in which the self neither steps outside itself in an act of what I call methodological retreat to "objectively" construct reality nor projects itself unconsciously onto the other in an act of psychic entanglement. Instead, "I" and "Thou" relate to each other, to use Kasulis' translation of Dagen's "hishirya," without-thinking through what Nishida calls direct response (Jap.: choku ni oto). It is in this sense that "[t]rue love does not mean to love someone for the sake of profit but to love someone for the sake of the person" (Nishida 1988, 6: 421). As mentioned before, this modality can be exemplified by the spontaneous response of the Zen master to the disciple during dokusan or by cultivated practitioners of ballroom dancing as well as martial arts such as T'ai Ch'i, for example, who experience moments in which they do not perceive of each other self­ consciously as the object of each other's intentions and expectations but as separate yet interconnected expressions of the same movement. Ultimately, it is these instances, in which "I" and "Thou" unself­ consciously encounter each other, which Nishida calls paradoxically affirmation-qua-negation. It is only when "I" and "Thou" do not mutually objectify each other but relate to each other non-thetically without-thinking that "the I recognizes the Thou as Thou" and "the

118 OTHERNESS Thou recognizes the I as I." However, Nishida goes one step further to claim that this non-thetic modality has not only a horizontal dimension, namely the existential correlativity and the horizontal relationship between self and other but also that both self and other fundamentally express not only their own selfhood but their very relatedness qua I-and-Thou, including the otherness of the other. This vertical relationship of self and non-relative other qua I-and­ Thou, Nishida calls expression.

The modality of expression

Nishida refers to this non-thetic interaction of "I" and "Thou," in which I and Thou encounter each other unself-consciously, as expression (Jap.: hyogen). In analogy to Kasulis' description of non­ thetic awareness, Nishida characterizes expression as the modality which neither affirms nor negates its content but manifests the "I," the "Thou", and the world as-it-is. Nishida explains that The world of expression is neither the world of objectivity, the world of objects, nor the world of subjectivity, consciousness. Again, the world of expression is neither the world of the I nor the world of the Thou, but the world of the I and Thou. The world of expression is the world of objects, of understanding. Understanding necessitates the I and Thou. The content of expression is the object ofunderstanding. (Nishida 1988, 7: 267) Nishida seems to argue that while the thetic self posits the other, the world, and even itself as an "objective," external reality and thus dichotomizes reality into a set of binaries characteristic of everyday awareness such as inside and outside, subjectivity and objectivity, expression transcends these dichotomies. It neither externalizes its content as a transcendent other in order to empty itself towards this transcendence in desire nor posits the other for-itself. This means that the expressive relationship of "I" and "Thou" is devoid of objectifying agency and objectified content; it neither externalizes nor objectifies but rather actualizes otherwise abstract content. Nishida's language of expression clearly differentiates between the noematic and abstract content of intentionality, such as ideas and representation, and the concrete historical world characteristic of expression. At the same time, however, Nishida contends that the I-and-Thou itself cannot be objectified, that is, it cannot become the

119 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY O?\ SELF-AWARENESS object of intellectual speculation or of desire. Nishida not only identifies the historical world as expression, that is, as the realm beyond the dichotomy between subjectivity and objectivity, but further proposes that while the world, in which the I-and-Thou expresses itself, does not display the bifurcated structure of self­ consciousness, it nevertheless functions as its basis. Thus described, expression is the fundamental existential and epistemic modality in the sense that knowledge and existence are one indicative of the actual world. This world is characterized by intersubjectivity in the sense that "[t]he I understands the Thou by expressing the Thou" (7: 127) and "[e]xpression signifies, as I always say, that the other is in the self and the self is in the other" (11: 178) and self-awareness in the sense that"[t]he I has to be thought as an individual which determines itself and, simultaneously, expresses itself at the bottom of the world it shares with the Thou" (7: 127). I think it is safe to say that, to Nishida, intersubjectivity marks the horizontal and self-awareness the vertical axis of the actual world. However it is important to note that here the term "self-awareness" does not refer to the self-awareness or the self-determination (Jap.: jiko gentei) of the self, but rather to the self-awareness and self-determination of the non-relative other. Throughout his work, Nishida attempted to root the abstract conception of the non-relative other in the concrete world of the religious and the socio-historical self. It was important to highlight that, almost in analogy to Hegel's Phenomenologie des Geistes (1986), the dialectical relationship of self and other qua expression of the non-relative other was not a phenomenon only accessible to the mystics. On the contrary, he insisted that the logic of his non-relative contradictory self-identity describes the fundamental structure of the historical world. In this sense, the individual awareness event referred to as self, which finds itself thrown into the lived world vis-a-vis an other who constantly threatens to alienate it, is actually the expression, or, as Nishida says, "the self-forming points" (Nishida 1988, 11: 442) ofthe historical world. Odin's observation that '''I' and 'Thou' are co­ relative aspects of the social self in such a way that the individual and society are accorded equal status" implies that the creative self is radically individual insofar as it comprises a unique awareness event, which finds itself in-relationship with other awareness events; at the same time, however, the expressive self is radically social insofar as it expresses communal content. Unfortunately, however, Nishida never elucidates the concrete character of this self-determination of the historical world in the individual awareness event. He clearly defines,

120 OTHERNESS nonetheless, and this is the strength of his model of the self­ determination of the historical world, the ever-dynamic and ever creative character of this self-determination when he explains that "[e]xpressive action moves from subjectivity to objectivity and vice versa" and "[t]he term creative activity cannot but denote that the world which is the contradictory identity of the many and the one expresses itself within itself" (11: 400). The creative process of self­ determination will be discussed in the subsequent chapter on continuity. Ultimately, Nishida redefines the individual self as an expressive awareness event which is paradoxically individual-yet­ social and identical-yet-different when he contends that "the I has to be thought as an individual which determines itself and, simultaneously, expresses itself at the bottom of the world it shares with the Thou" (7: 12). It is exactly this dialectic ofindividuality and universality, self and other, affirmation and negation, which motivates Nishida to use the concept "non-relative contradictory self-identity."

Summary

This somewhat painstaking investigation of the notion of alterity and the systems developed to explain the facticity of the other reveals a surprising continuity in the theories of Sartre, Benjamin, Buber, Vasubandhu, Dagen, and Nishida, which differ not so much in their evaluation of the problems at stake but rather in their willingness to depart from the egological stance. Jung's theory of transference and psychic synchronization not only helps to explicate Dagen's implicit theory of alterity and intersubjectivity but also seems to support the suspicion discussed in the previous chapter that a self-centered positional realm, what I call the lived world, does not render alterity but subsumes it into the oneness of the self. At any rate, there seems to be an agreement that the facticity of otherness is not easily reconcilable with the egological paradigm but seems to necessitate a conceptual paradox. As in the case of the cogito, the facticity of the other escapes the grasp of thetic consciousness which posits the other as its object and thus retreats in what Buber calls the sublinguistic and what Sartre identifies as the pre-reflective realm. This is not to suggest that these realms are identical, but with regards to the problem of alterity, they function equally to indicate that the autonomy of the other eludes the cogito. Buber and especially Dagen and Nishida

121 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENONfENOLOGY O;\' SELF-AWARENESS Table 2: The Modalities of Otherness phenomenological abstract phenomenal lived actual realms world world world world author pretense of cogito self I-and-Thou objectivity modality of epi- consciousness awareness samadhic awareness phenomenon awareness of causal processes structure of causality intentionality positionality non- awareness positionality modality of static intentional act activity event engagement modality of posited other phenomenal other I-and-Thou otherness other subsumed under the desire of self phenomenological being-for-itself habit-body concepts Dagen's people outside the mountains people shinjin classification inside the datsuraku mountains Nishida's relative opposition unifying contradictory classification activity self-identity

conclude that the facticity of otherness, in analogy to the facticity of selfhood, requires the non-thetic realm of the actual world where the self qua awareness event expresses the socio-historic interaction of I and Thou. Table 2 systemmatizes the various conceptions of alterity. While Dagen definitely lacks a mature theory of alterity, Nishida seems to develop the seeds planted in Dagen's sporadic references to alterity and intersubjectivity. Nishida brilliantly argues that the fact of the interactivity and intersubjectivity between individuals, which is described by the paradoxical language of affirmation-qua-negation, necessitates a dimension of human existence which is beyond the grasp of self-conscious knowledge. The many conceptual paradoxes within Nishida's philosophy affirmation-and-negation, subjectivity­ and-objectivity, immanence-and-transcendence, identity-and-difference, 122 OTHERNESS and individual-and-social seem to cumulate in and to be elevated in Nishida's conception of expression as samadhic awareness. Self­ awareness, thus conceived, is dialectically bound to other-awareness and self-love to other-love. In chapters 6 and 7, I will briefly reflect on the immense epistemological and ethical implications of such a conception of self-awareness. At the same time, Nishida's conception of contradictory self-identity reveals that the dynamic nature of samadhic awareness not only entails the moments of selfhood and otherness but also of continuity.

123 ------It CHAPTER FOUR t1t----- Continuity of Experience

Introduction

The final ofthe three key elements ofpersonal identity is the notion of the continuity of experience without which the concept of personal identity would lose its grounding. The notion of continuity reflects the assumption that the "I" of human experience is not without a history: It finds itself in the context of past experiences, which the experiential "I" encounters in memories as well as in any given situation. When I wake up in the morning, I do not find myself undetermined in a field of snow without any traces, reminiscent of Locke's tabula rasa, but rather thrown into a situation, a family, an occupation, a living situation, contracts, expectations, promises, that is, into a context of identity: Everything I encounter, be it the workload on my desk, the letters on the table, or the greetings of colleagues at work, constitutes not only a socially but also a historically determined identity, a historical factuality, which I cannot escape. When I encounter a colleague, my identity is not merely manifested vis-a.-vis her/him in the present but also vis-a.-vis my history in the sense that what I said and did yesterday matters to our relationship today. Every move I make becomes a token of, and witness to, my own continuity. This experience of continuity seems to necessitate a constancy principle, such as the Aristotelian substance and Boethius' persona, or the objective criterion of personal identity, be it Williams' physical continuity or the neo-Lockian psychological continuity, indicating that despite changes, individuals persist over time until they are confronted with an essential change, namely, death. However, chapter 1 has illustrated the elusive nature of such a constancy principle, and

124 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE it seems that Parfit's laconic "personal identity is not what matters" provides the most appropriate response to the conundrum of personal identity. In a similar sense, Buddhism claims that while the notion of an individual agent is conventionally true, an examination of human experience does not warrant the assumption of a further fact or, as Collins phrases it, the "needless superimposition of a 'person' on top of the impersonal elements" (Collins 1982, 180). Consequently, the Buddhist philosophers assert, like Parfit, that personal identity is indeterminate and indeed a metaphysically meaningless concept. In a similar vein, Dagen systematically refutes the notion of an enduring self or personal identity. As I have demonstrated in the preceding chapters, Dagen contends that the experiential "I" does not comprise or signify an independent agency; instead, it is existentially related to an other and its environment and, subsequently, discloses the actual world qua inter-activity between self and its ambiance. Having rejected the essentialist notion ofpersonal identity, how is it possible to account for the continuity ofexperience? How can I explain my own continuity and historicity which I encounter every day as the basic predicament of my own existence and which I appropriate, theorize, and, ultimately, negate in my acts of self-projection? These questions thematize one of the perennial problems within Buddhism, that of reconciling the conflicting notions of no-self and continuity of experience. In this chapter, I will investigate Dagen's account of continuity against the background of the early Buddhist debates on how to account for continuity in the light of selflessness. It will also be interesting to examine the ramifications of "samadhic awareness" for the conception of continuity. At any rate, I will commence this chapter with some general reflections on the nature of continuity.

The Notion of Continuity

In contrast to the pursuit of personal identity, an exploration of the continuity of experience shifts the emphasis from the search for an identifiable substance to the examination of the existential connection between two diachronically diverse persons-at-the-moment. The fundamental difference is the dismissal of the notion of a diachronic identity. The subject of the discourse thus shifts from the question "Why are Pl at tl and P2 at t2 identical?" to "Why are P1 at tl and P2 at t 2 continuous?" and "What is the connection between P1 at tl and P2 at t2?" In other words, given the flux of time, as reflected in the 125 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENO:t\.1ENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS dictum that "you cannot step twice into the same river" (Brennan 1988, 5) or the Buddhist verdict that life is impermanent (Skrt.: anitya), how can we justify a privileged connection between P 1 and P2? Why do I remember going to a high school in Stuttgart and not attending a high school in Calcutta? Why can I, for the most part, distinguish between my memories and the memories of my family members which I have listened to so often? Why am I inclined to identify with my memories but not with those of others, even though they might be more glamorous (wishful-thinking excluded)? The last two questions already point out borderline cases as discussed by Shoemaker's "quasi-memory"l or Freud's repressions (Freud 1966, 25). As interesting as these cases are, I would like to focus here on everyday situations without, however, excluding these fascinating exceptions. While it is still possible to contend that "P1 at t 1 and P2 at t2 are continuous because both P 1 and P2 are synchronically identical to P," the essentialist hypothesis is not necessary to explain the continuity of experience. On the contrary, in this light, personal identity constitutes only one among many possible explanantes. Having rejected the notion of an enduring personal identity, Parfit suggests that survival of psychological content is warranted by the Relation R, which he defines as "psychological connectedness and/or continuity, with the right kind of cause" (Parfit 1984, 215) while early Buddhism argues that personal continuity is engendered by karma, what Tetley calls Relation K (Collins 1997, 476). While these conceptions ofcontinuity coincide in their emphasis on the continuity of experiences, they fundamentally differ in two major respects.2 First, Parfit's conception of the Relation R differs from the Buddhist notion of karma in that the former is defined causally, despite Parfit's interest in the intentionality of his experimentees, while Buddhism attributes the Relation K to some form ofpositionality and thus seems to rather correspond with the notion ofcontinuity developed by Sartre or Merleau-Ponty. Second, and, more importantly, they differ in their conception of continuity per se. It has to be noted that Buddhist thinkers do not advance the stereotypical teleological conception of continuity, according to which the present moment and, subsequently, the present person-at-the-moment is defined solely by a distant future telos. Rather, they seem to substitute an existential model of continuity for the traditional linear ontology characteristic of both the causal-mechanical (or archeological) and the teleological approach. This existential approach of early Buddhism, Sartre, and Merleau­ Ponty seems to be concerned with the present soteriological and

126 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE existential predicament of the person-of-the-moment and its ambivalence between the givenness of the past and the openness of the future rather than with cosmological concerns.3 Parfit shows little interest beyond the imminent survival of the person-at-the-moment and the ethical questions arising from it; however, a purely causal definition of the Relation R would have far-reaching metaphysical ramifications which his Reasons and Persons does not discuss. Ultimately, it is difficult to discern what Parfit means when he identifies the condition for continuity as "the right kind of cause" which "could be any cause" (Parfit 1984, 215). Is his continuity/ connectedness causal-mechanical in the sense that P 2 's psychological state is directly caused4 by that of P1? Does it require a spatio­ temporal continuity? Does lung's synchronicity qualify as "the right kind of cause"? Does Leibniz' god qualify, in the case that he supplants memories not souls. It is clear that Parfit's phrase "any cause" signifies the mechanism or the spatio-temporal continuity, which uphold psychological connectedness in the sense that I cannot arbitrarily be continuous with anybody. In some sense, even the teletransporter example suggests a spatio-temporal continuity. However, does it imply a causal-mechanical continuity? Does it allow for an intentionality ala Sartre? I don't think this is the place to second­ guess Parfit's notion of continuity qua Relation R or to revisit the discussions concerning causality and intentionality, free will and . Rather, I think that the main difference between Parfit's and Sartre's conceptions of continuity does not lie necessarily in the mechanism ofcontinuity - even though Parfit tends towards the notion of a causal continuity and Sartre towards the notion of an intentional continuity - but in their conception of continuity itself. In short, I believe that Parfit's conception of the continuity of experience seems to privilege the notion of continuity over the existential standpoint of the individual experiential "I" facing a teletransport, brain-splitting, or simply death-and-rebirth. This distinction between the linear and the existential conceptions of continuity is pivotal because it determines many of the discrepancies between Parfit's reductionism and existentialism, including Dagen's Zen Buddhism (insofar as it is appropriate to subsume it under the category of existentialism). While Parfit clearly privileges the notion of a linear continuity of the Relation R over the person-at-the-moment, existentialism assumes the reversed perspective. In order to develop an existentialist conception of continuity, I would like to briefly revisit Sartre's theory of the self-conscious cogito qua being-for-itself. As it is well-known,

127 ZEN BUDDHIS1tl AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS Sartre conceives of the self-conscious cogito as the consciousness-at­ the-moment which creates itself in its activity. Thus, it encounters its own historical factuality, that is, the sum of all its skills, relationships, memories, and experiences as its past existence (qua being-in-itself) and its future existence as the opportunity of the "in-itself which is not (yet)" (Sartre 1956, 182). 5 Sartre takes the present consciousness out of the abstract linearity of the continuity past-present-future to highlight the creative act ofthe present awareness, which projects itself negatively in juxtaposition to what-it-is qua the sum of its past actions, relationships, etc. and affirmatively as a what-it-is-not-yet in the future. For example, by swimming across the channel I negate my present identity of not-having-yet-swum-across-the-channel to affirm my new identity as having-swum-across-the-channel. Merleau-Ponty takes Sartre's conception one step further to collapse the continuity past-present-future not only into a continuity past-future, mediated by the negativity of consciousness, but, more radically, into the present person-at-the-moment, which Merleau-Ponty refers to, ironically, as an impersonal event. This means that my present activity of swimming across the channel simultaneously negates my past identity and creates my future identity. I will discuss the differences between Sartre's and Merleau-Ponty's accounts, as well the implications of these considerations for a philosophy of time, in chapter 5; for now it will suffice to understand how these considerations affect the existentialist conception of continuity. I believe that the fundamental ramifications of such an existentialist approach are threefold: First, we learn from Sartre that an existentialist conception of continuity melts the linear continuity PI-P2-P3-P4-PS-P6-P7 into the horizon of the experiential "I's" self-defining project; it reduces the matter of the privileged connection between P t -P7to a relationship between two terms, namely, PI and P7 (the horizon and the person-at-the-moment). In the foreground of the existentialist discourse stands the present person-at-the-moment qua experiential "I," which either relates retroactively to its past qua what­ it-is in an act of negation and self-formation or proactively to its future as what-it-is-not in an act of affirmation.6 Thus, a given person-at-the-moment P 4 does not find itself in a linear continuity of facing past events, Pt-Pz-P3, on the one side, and future events, PS-P6-P7, on the other, but rather the embodiment of all its past events in its own factuality and all future events as the factuality ofthe future selfit projects. In other words, past and future are not dimensions on a timeline but rather individual points of references towards

128 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE which the present person-at-the-moment qua experiential "I" stretches itself in an existential ek-stasis, while the linear continuity of experiences P1-P2-P3-P4-PS-P6-P7 disappears. Therefore, it is possible to appropriately symbolize the historicity of the present person-at-the-moment not as an continuity but as ~(P1-P2-P3) < - >P4 and as P4< - >~(PS-P6-P7)' Second, as Merleau-Ponty indicates, the privileged connection between P1 and P4 is a matter of the present and, in some sense, timeless awareness event, devoid of any temporal duration, and not of a temporal relationship between two or more events linking past, present, and future; it is in this sense that Merleau-Ponty defines time "as the transition from one present to another" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 426). Nevertheless, Merleau­ Ponty's conception of temporality retains the moment of ek-stasis. In this sense, ~(P1-P2-P3) provides the backdrop against which P4 ek­ statically reaches out toward ~(PS-P6-P7)' Finally, it is in the present where "my being and my consciousness are one" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 424) and, subsequently, where self-awareness occurs. As long as consciousness encounters its own existence as its past, as in the case of Sartre's being-for-itself, self-consciousness remains, as I have demon­ strated in chapter 2, rather elusive. In order to theorize such an existentialist notion of continuity, I would like to rehearse the existential predicament of the experiential "I" which awakens to certain historicity and proceeds to define itself. In addition to its basic experience as an agent vis-a.-vis the world, the experiential "I" also experiences a certain givenness, which presents the experiential "I" with a context of historicity from the outside (in the Sartrean sense) and thus intrudes on its individual freedom. The experiential "I" does not find itself in a field of white snow devoid of determinations, free to project itself arbitrarily, ex nihilo so to speak, but, on the contrary, the very existence of the experiential HI" implies the givenness of a particular context. Awakening to itself, the experiential "I" finds itself thrown, in the sense of Heidegger's Geworfenheit, into a particular context of historicity, which defines its place in life and, ultimately, bestows meaning to its existence. Every object that appears, every other the experiential "I" encounters, is pregnant with historicity, reflecting and suggesting a continuity of experience. The correspondence on my desk, the notebook next to my phone, the job that awaits my appearance at eight 0' clock, they all manifest the contingency of my present existence. The experiential "I" realizes that it has awakened to a particular historical and cultural situation, which irrevocably defines its own status quo. When

129 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS I introduce myself to others and thus define myself, I am similarly bound by given facts, which determine and manipulate my own image of myself. The facts which I appropriate to construct my identity are contingent on my cultural context and the context of my personal historicity. Thus, my personal project is restricted not only by the other's intentionality, which limits my freedom, but also by the specific context of historicity, which I cannot escape. The experiential "I" cannot define itself arbitrarily but has to accommodate certain givens (Sartre's being-in-itself) either by negation or by affirmation. These givens I may accept or attempt to change with the whole weight of my activity - either reflectively or unconsciously, regardless of whether I am aware of this choice or not. Encountering its factuality, the experiential "I" is forced to negotiate what-it-is and what-it­ intends-to-be, its existence and its project (Sartre's in-itself and for-itself). Personal identity emerges as the self-definition of the self- conscious, experiential "I," who struggles to accommodate its own historicity. It is in the face of its own context that the experiential "I" encounters its own continuity. My memories of past experiences, my ability to play the guitar, the phone call of a family friend, my name and profession - all these givens, which determine the way I am and the way I define and conceive of myself, point towards "previous" experiences and, thus, evoke an experience of continuity. My present experience seems to be contingent on a "past." "Past" and "future" as well as "previous" and "subsequent" are written in quotation marks to indicate that the existentialist approach does not really assume or privilege a linearity, but the sum of the "previous" experiences manifest what-I-am while the sum of the "subsequent" experiences reflect my opportunity, what-I-am-not. When the experiential "I" awakens to its own self-conscious existence, it finds itself thrown into its own context, which comprises an accumulation of "previous" and "subsequent" activities and experi­ ences. It is necessary, at this point, to insert a cautionary note: As tempting as it may be, the concept "context" does not designate the spatio-temporal coordinates of an event. Contrary to the traditional conception of the context as the spatio-temporal structure of the event, in my usage, "context" does not signify the place or time I experience, which would comprise the phenomenal world as it is constituted for me qua object, but rather consists ofthe accumulation ofexperiences which engender the contingency of the experiential "I." Thus defined, my context does not belong to the abstract world I construct but to the phenomenal and the lived worlds. The experiential "I" does not choose,

130 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE constitute, or construct its own predicament, but it awakens to it. Ultimately, the experiential "I" is subjected to its own factuality and contingency. It is its existential predicament to be contingent on an "outside" (external to its intentionality and positionality), an "outside" which comprises "previous" and "subsequent" events. However, the relationship between the experiential "I" to its context is bilateral, in some sense: On the one side, the awakening, experiential "I" encounters its own factuality qua context in its memories, skills, knowledge, and, ultimately, in its habit-formation, which is engendered by its predecessors, that is, by the preceding persons-at-the-moment. In his discussion on freedom of choice and intentionality, Merleau­ Ponty admonishes his readers that "we must recognize a sort of sedimentation ofour life" and that "my habitual being in the world is at each moment equally (equal to choice) precarious" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 441). Activities, even walking and speaking, cannot be voluntarily performed ad hoc but do require a certain skill, which is provided through habit-formation. The experiential "I" inherits its existential predicament from the "previous" positional activities and experiences. In the Schneider case, the patient could find a certain address simply because he had walked that particular route thousands of times before. For the same reason, I am capable ofplaying the guitar and, at the same time, incapable of playing the trombone, simply because I have habitualized the skill of "playing the guitar" but not the skill of "playing the trombone." Manifesting the contingency of the experiential "I," the habitualizations transcend personal intentions in the sense that my present incapability of "playing the trombone" is beyond my present intentions to play this instrument. Similarly, while it is quite obvious that my present skill of "playing the guitar" is contingent on "previo\ls" instances thereof, the intermediate moments seem irrelevant to my "playing the guitar." On the contrary, given a strictly linear conception of the continuity of experience, it might be difficult to explain how moments devoid of "playing the guitar" can transmit this skill. At any rate, the present situation does not arise arbitrarily but is a direct result of "past" actions. At the same time, however, the predicament of the experiential "I" is determined by "subsequent" experiences, which beckon the experiential "I" to act. In fact, the experiential "I" experiences itself as the creative activity which transforms its own factuality and, in its activity, anticipates "subsequent" experiences. 7 This is what Sartre means when he theorizes the negativity of the present awareness event. Thus the existential predicament of the experiential "I" paradoxically necessi-

131 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS tates an activity of the self, in the sense of Sartre's necessary freedom, identifying the event as the place where freedom and determination inescapably coincide. Faced with its own contingency, the experiential "I" inherits the possibility of transforming its own existential predicament towards the "future," anticipating and engendering "subsequent" activities without, however, implying a temporal sequence. As Nishida would say, the experiential "I" not only encounters infinite determination from the "past" but also infinite possibilities in the "future." The phenomenologies ofSartre and Merleau-Ponty have inspired a theory ofcontinuity which releases the experiential "I" from the linear continuity ofexperiences to analyze the existential situation ofthe "I." I will discuss the underlying philosophy of time which enables such an approach in the subsequent chapter. For now, it suffices to note that the existentialist approach does not locate the person-at-the­ moment on an infinite continuity of awareness events but rather face­ to-face with its historicity, on the one side, and its opportunity, on the other. The resulting conception of continuity is twofold: First, the experiential "I" does not encounter the community of its preceding and succeeding persons-at-the-moment as an open-ended (instead of infinite) continuity of causal connections but as the context of its present activity of self-formation and self-projection. As I will discuss in the next chapter, it finds itself in lived and not in constructed time. Second, its relationship to its context is ambivalent in that it simultaneously affirms (is determined by) and negates, that is, transforms, its context. I believe that such a conception of continuity, which is markedly different from Parfit's continuity, will not only aid the understanding of Dagen's conception of continuity but will also clarify the discrepancies between Parfit's dictum that "personal identity is not what matters" and Dagen's theory of no-self.

No-Self and Continuity in Early Buddhism

As discussed in chapter 2, the Buddhist doctrine of no-self vehemently denies the notion of a unified and permanent self. While chapter 2 discussed the disintegration ofthe self into the five skandhas, this section concerns the Buddhist challenge to the notion of permanence. While it is generally accepted among scholars that Siddhartha Gotama conceived of the no-self as the third alternative, refuting both the eternalist conception of the self as an unchanging

132 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE substance and the annihilationist denial of the self, there is less of an agreement as to what such a Middle Way conception entails. The controversy is not a recent one but can be traced back to the very beginnings of Buddhism. Early Buddhist thinkers were as perplexed about Gotama's silence on the nature of the self as present-day scholars and came up with a variety of solutions, ranging from the notion of an underlying further fact, the notion of person (Skrt.: pudgala), upheld by the so-called Pudgalavadins, to the conceptions of the selfless continuity of impermanent events of the Sautrantikas and the continuity of eternal events (frozen in time, so to speak) of the Sarvastivadins. All these views were radically called into question by Mahayana thinkers such as Nagarjuna and, by implication, even Dagen. More recent (mostly western) scholarship divides into a group of scholars such as C. A. F. Rhys Davids, Christmas Humphreys (Collins 1982, 7-9), and Joaquin Perez-Remon who insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that the concept ofno-self applies only to the five skandhas or generally the phenomenal but not the true self, whereas Walpola Rahula (1974) and Steven Collins (1982) emphatically insist that the notion of the no-self, which comprises one of the three marks of existence (Skrt.: trilak~a1J,a), nonetheless, actually pertains to the essentialist view of the self and, subsequently, entails existential selflessness and impermanence. Peter Harvey (1995) suggests something of a Middle Way when he grants the selflessness of the self (Skrt.: iitman) and the "life-principle" (Skrt.: jfva) but attributes self-like characteristics such as permanence and ineffability to the concept of nirvii1J,a. In th"is section, I will abstain from negotiating the respective arguments but rather focus on the fundamental issues at stake, namely, the notion of impermanence, the notion of continuity qua karma, and the collapse of the notion of continuity in the philosophy of Nagarjuna, to provide a conceptual context for Dagen's discussion of continuity.

Impermanence and permanence

As a comparative philosopher reliant on translations and the interpretations of my colleagues in Buddhology, I nevertheless feel that the controversy on the endurance of the self, which Buddhist scriptures overwhelmingly deny, is a non-issue. Given the three marks of existence, namely, no-self (Skrt.: aniitman), impermanence (Skrt.: anitya), and suffering (Skrt.: du~kha), even the notion of a further fact

133 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS in addition to the five skandhas, such as an iitman, a pudgala, or a life-principle, jrva, must be, as Harvey points out, impermanent. Buddhism clearly assumes an existentialist stance in that it characterizes the human predicament qua sarrtSiira, the realm of death-and-rebirth, as existentially impermanent and in that it prioritizes the here-and-now, that is, existence, over essence; furthermore, Buddhists reject the notion of essence altogether. References to the conventional self and colloquial expressions using personal pronouns or the term "self" might indicate conceptual difficulties involved in the conception of selflessness in the face of our experience of continuity but do not reverse the Buddhist dictum of no-self. The Buddhist tradition utilises the distinction between conventional truth (Skrt.: sarrtvytti satya) and ultimate truth (Skrt.: paramiirtha satya) to explain these difficulties. To illustrate these two realms of discourse, Collins distinguishes between two epistemic and soteriological modalities of existence, which he refers to as the "[hu]man-in-the-world" and the "world­ renouncer" (Collins 1982, 65). These two categories reflect the difference in experience indicative of the unenlightened layperson and, as Collins puts it, the religious virtuoso respectively. To the unenlightened, who is uninterested in or, due to practical restrictions, incapable of attaining enlightenment, and who struggles with the ethical and soteriological ramifications of daily life, "talk of 'persons' who are reborn will simply and directly relate to their religious feeling and ideas" (165). In other words, concepts such as individual and person function as explanantes, which make sense of everyday experience and aspirations by bestowing meaning to the daily activity and ethical responsibility of the religious adherent. The layperson experiences herself/him as individual and person, who "confronts real others" (157), suffers death-and-rebirth, accumulates and extin­ guishes karma, lives in a web of social and religious responsibilities, and yearns for liberation from the causal chain. To everyday awareness, Collins explains, the concept "person" bestows a name, a societal function, meaning, and individuality. It is to such an everyday awareness that human existence appears to be an individual and personal existence, while the transformed awareness of the enlightened arhat sees beyond the delusion of permanency and realizes that the self "cannot be found" (1 i8). Collins thus observes the contingency ofthe "views ofthe self" on the adherents' existential attitude. Insofar as both realms, person-in-the world and world­ renouncer, designate the Weltanschauung and experiential field of

134 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE different awarenesses, I believe, it is possible to compare them to the phenomenal world and the actual world discussed above. In this sense, individuality and person designate the appearance of human existence to everyday awareness, while the transformed awareness realizes that Mensch-sein is existentially selfless. I use the term "realize" to designate a cognitive and actional modality of existence. While the appearance of the person is characteristic of the experiential field given in everyday awareness, the standpoint of transformed awareness concedes that "a person is not found." The notion of an individual agent, to Buddhism, is conventionally true, while, to the contrary, an examination of the experiential constituents does not warrant the assumption of a further fact or, as Collins phrases it, the Hneedless superimposition of a 'person' on top of the impersonal elements" (180). Consequently, the Buddhist philosopher asserts, very much in analogy to Parfit, that personal identity is indeterminate and indeed a meaningless concept. The notion of permanence enters the Buddhist discourse only in the conceptual disguise of the closest Buddhist equivalent to an Hultimate," namely nirviitJa (Pali: nibbiina), tathiigata (literally "thus gone," it signifies the Buddha) and, in Mahayana Buddhism, the notion of tathiigatagarbha (literally, Htathiigata-womb," usually referred to as "buddha-nature"). Since the notion of tathiigatagarbha is not only restricted to Mahayana Buddhism but also not directly relevant to the present issue and since the term "tathagata" signifies the Buddha having "entered"/"attained" nirvatJa, I will focus here on the concept of nirviitJa to explore the relationship between impermanence and permanence in early Buddhism. As Harvey has noted, the concept ofnirviitJa plays an interesting role in the Buddhist considerations about impermanence and continuity. Signifying the extinction of desire (Pali: tantJa; Skrt.: tr~nii), karma, and subse­ quently, suffering, it is timeless, the "stopping of becoming" (Harvey 1995, 193), "unborn and unconstructed" (190), H'unsupported' state free of constructing activities" (202), Hperfect wisdom" (193), and Hnon-manifested infinite discernment as the groundlessness of sentiency and body" (199). Walpola Rahula further elucidates the Pali conception of nirviitJa as the antithesis of sarrtsiira when he paraphrases nirvdtJa as the HAbsolute Truth or Ultimate Reality," as HTatJhakkhaya 'Extinction of Thirst,' AsaT[lkhata 'Uncompounded,' 'Unconditioned,' Viraga 'Absence of desire'" as freedom, and as non­ duality, (Rahula 1974,35-36), thus juxtaposing nirviitJa with saT[lsiira. Thus defined, nirviitJa clearly opposes saT[lsiira as its absolute other; it

135 ZEN BUDDHIS}..1 AND PHENO}..·IENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS is everything sarrtsara is not. However, Harvey argues, and I think correctly, that nirviit).a (and, by implication, sarrtsara as well) does not signify a realm which is populated by the enlightened arhats but rather is a transformed modality of awareness which transcends everyday awareness. Most interestingly, however, Harvey argues that nirvat).a shares "many of the qualities of a self as it is said to be permanent, happy, undisintegrating, not hollow, an essence and not dependent on an other" (Harvey 1995, 224-25). In his conclusion Harvey is even more explicit: Such a person having let go of all the personality-factors, is 'deep, immeasurable, hard to fathom as is the great ocean.' He cannot be pinned down in any way, as he has no focuses of attachment or I-identity. He or she cannot be angered, for example, for nothing is 'owned' and so there is no need for an angry 'defence' of 'I-mine.' (250)

However, Harvey does not imply that nirvii1Ja functions as an essential self which underlies the flux of change, since, as he remarks at the end of his in-depth investigation of the Buddhist notion of selfless discernment, "[a]ll views are not Self" (251). This ambiguous notion of nirviit).a qua self and nirva1Ja qua not-self reflects the ambiguity of the conception of nirviit).a itself, especially if conceived vis-a.-vis the linear conception of time qua continuity of experience. If nirviit).a is conceived of as a future point of the timeline which the practitioner reaches "at one time," the very conception of nirviit).a as "timeless," "unborn," and "non-dual" collapses. If, on the other hand, nirvii1Ja is conceived of as "timeless," "unborn," and "non-dual" and, subse­ quently, absolutely transcendent, it not only is of little relevance to the problem of continuity of experience but also raises interesting conceptual and soteriological issues, namely, "How can the realm of non-duality be conceived of as opposed to the realm of duality?" and "How is it possible to bridge the infinite abyss between the realms of sarrtSiira and nirvii1Ja?" I believe the key to this problem lies in a reframing ofthe problem ofcontinuity, analogous to the transition from a criteriological to a phenomenological approach to continuity. The question is not so much "What warrants the continuity ofexperience?" but rather "What engenders the continuity in the first place?" The Buddhist answer to this is, in short, that continuity is engendered by karma and discontinued by nirvll1Ja, which is "timeless," "unborn," and "non-dual." Ultimately, such a conception will necessitate a rethinking of the conceptions of continuity and temporality.

136 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE Impermanence and continuity

Early Buddhists, for the most part, seem to agree that, the continuity of experience is generated by the working of karma (literally, action). However, karma has to be understood not as a further fact in addition to the five skandhas but as the efficacy of the five skandhas themselves. In his detailed study of The Five Aggregates (1995), Mathieu Boisvert demonstrates how the cooperation of the five skandhas engenders the twelvefold chain of death and rebirth. Boisvert identifies safTlskiira, which he translates as "karmic activities" (Boisvert 1995, 131), as the fundamental root of this twelvefold analysis of continuity qua the process of death-and-rebirth. SafTlSkiira is "a synonym for volition and refers here to the dynamism and momentum usually associated with kamma"8 (96), the Pali expression for karma. Elsewhere, he refers to safTlskiira as "the initiating action (mental, vocal, or physical), and the karmic force that will yield an effect" and as "the energy which is responsible for sustaining life" (103). Collins identifies safTlskiira as "the activity which constructs temporal reality" (Collins 1982, 202). While all five skandhas play a decisive role in the formation of the twelvefold chain of co-dependent origination and, subsequently, the cycle of death-and-rebirth, it is saf1lskiira qua karmic activity that fundamentally engenders and perpetuates the infinite cycle of becoming, death, and rebirth. Boisvert and Collins suggest that saf1lskiira not only designates the second link ofthe twelvefold chain of co-dependent origination, also referred to as the wheel of life, but also the eighth, ninth, and tenth links, craving (Skrt.: tY$nii), clinging (Skrt: upiidiina), and becoming (Skrt.: bhava) which directly cause birth, rebirth, old age, and death. 9 Buddhist texts illustrate this connection between past and present awareness event by appropriating what Collins refers to as vegetation imagery, utilizing symbolism taken from agriculture such as seed (Pali: bfja), fruit (Pali: phala), root (Pali: mula), and ripening (Pali: vipiika). Past events function in analogy to seeds which ripen into the fruit ofsucceeding events. In this sense, the law of karma establishes some kind of selfless causal dependence and continuity which explains the factuality and contextualization of the present activity. Karma, thus conceived, is the fundamental drive behind the continuity of experiences, whose discontinuity and termination is indicated by the concept of nirvii1).a. However, despite the language of causality and conditionality, the law ofkarma does not necessitate a linear continuity reaching from the past to the future. In analogy to the language ofconditionality, the term

137 ZEN BUDDHIS~l AND PHEN01\1ENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS the "law of karma" indicates that the present activity engenders the future in that it constructs the facticity and factuality of my future self. However, unlike the stringent causal-mechanical interpretation, it does not presuppose a linear continuity which is driven from the past into the future nor is it exhaustively determined by prior actions. First of all, Collins' and Boisvert's interpretation of the twelvefold chain of co-dependent origination suggest a rather circular continuity of experience consisting of three members Epast (ignorance and karmic activities), Epresent (consciousness, name-and-form, the six senses, sense contact, feeling, desire, grasping, and becoming), and Efuture (birth, old age, and death), instead of an infinite continuity ofevents. 10 Collins' particular interpretation of the twelvefold chain of co-dependent origination echoes, in some sense, Sartre's existential predicament of the being-Jor-itself which is caught between the past and the future beings-in-itself qua what-it-is and what-it-is-not(-yet) when he identifies not only ignorance and sarrtskiira (links one and two, signifying the past) but also desire, grasping, and becoming (links eight, nine, and ten, which function as condition for the future) as "karmic process" (Collins 1982, 204). Obviously, this interpreta­ tion is not a necessary one. However, it is supported by the twofold function the notion of karma possesses in the religious philosophy of Buddhism in that it (1) retrospectively explains the present status quo and the context of the present activity and, at the same time, (2) establishes and urges ethical and soteriological responsibility, prospectively. In other words, the law of karma is designed to explain the context of the experiential "1," its historicity and its factuality, while at the same time implying an existential openness. Defined as such, the concept of karma thus incorporates, as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan has argued in An Idealist View oj Life, the deterministic aspect of a purely causal-mechanistic model and the moment of freedom endowed by an exclusively teleological approach and marks, as Dan Lusthaus observes, "a double causal flow; the future flowing toward (and through) the present into the past, and the past pushing through the present into the future" (Lusthaus 1989, 180). This collision of causality and freedom, however, ruptures the linear continuity qua temporality and suggests not only, as Collins remarks, that "temporal reality (is) thus constructed" (Collins 1982, 202) but also that the notion of karma functions as context of the momentary awareness event. While a linear interpretation ofthe twelvefold chain ofco-dependent origination and the law of karma is not only possible but evidenced in

138 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE the Buddhist literature, I believe that the notion of karma equally supports a phenomenological interpretation ofcontinuity as the context which functions as the background and factuality of the present but momentary awareness event. Buddhism does not portray the existential predicament of the momentary awareness event as a multiplicity and continuity of individual events but rather lumped together as karmic residue, which functions, just as Sartre's being-in­ itself and Merleau-Ponty's habit-body, as that which is pre-reflectively given to the self. However, in contrast to Sartre, Buddhism conceives of the context created by karmic activities as habit-formation, which manifests the contingency and the background ofthe present awareness event. In his TritrJ,5fka, Vasubandhu attributes the continuity of experience and, ultimately, the existence of safllsara to the formation and working of the habit-energy (Skrt.: vasana) 11 which is produced as the fruit ofkarmic activity. Similarly, Lusthaus defines "karmic habits" as "autonomous, unthinking repetition of an action - repeatedly performing a conditional action" (Lusthaus 1989, 170). In the final analysis, it is these habit-formations which engender, in analogy to Merleau-Ponty's discussion of memory and perception in the Schneider case, the lived world and its respective experiential constituents and, thus, contextualize "subsequent" activities. By the same token, however, the present awareness event is not completely subjected and subjugated to its context, which is determined by previous karmic activity, but negates this determination, not unlike Sartre's being-for-itself, by projecting what-it-is-not in order to liberate itself in an act of negation towards the future. In this sense, karmic activity shakes off its determination, the karmic retribution of "former" activities, and lives, in an existential act of negation, positing

itself vis-a.-vis its H past," thus setting up the context of "subsequent" activities and producing the sense ofcontinuity. In this sense, Lusthaus can remark: Karmic actions, whether cognitive in the broad sense or strictly mental, therefore are always intentional, and the karmic dilemma is a dilemma of intentionality. 'Intentional' implies 'desire', intending or desiring something. (Lusthaus 1989, 168) The present awareness event we call self is thus not simply subjected to a given conditionality and a limitless continuity but, as Sartre developed so brilliantly, is condemned or, more positively, invited to creatively transform her/his given predicament. Even though the experiential "I" does not choose its predicament but finds itself thrown

139 ZEN BlJDDHIS1't AXD PHENO~1ENOLOGY01\ SELF-AWARENESS into its own factuality, the existential predicament of the experiential "I" also displays the potentiality of freedom in that the experiential "I" freely transforms the material given as context in its own activity, in order to attain liberation from the confines of the world of sa1?1sdra. Ultimately, this transformative character, which the samsaric activity possesses in analogy to Sartre's being-for-itself, this capability of the present self to interfere with its own factuality, comprises the soteriological and ethical sine qua non, without which religious practice is absolutely meaningless. This conception of the continuity of experience as the formative context, which determines the present experiential "I," has far­ reaching ethical ramifications. Even though the overall tenor of this discussion is rather metaphysical and phenomenological in character, a few reflections on the ethical impact of the notion of karma are necessary. Insofar as the past activity is formative of the present activity, the experiential "I," by implication, cannot avoid ethical responsibility with regard to the past activity. Contrary to common objections to the Buddhist notion of karma, the law of karma not only preserves the ethical responsibility of past activity insofar as this activity is formative of the experiential "I" but also extends it beyond the boundaries of the individual to one's culture and, ultimately, to humankind,12 or, as Lusthaus remarks, "karma is intersubjective" (Lusthaus 1989, 167). This means that my existential predicament qua karmic residue or being-in-itself not only contains the efficacy of my former actions but is horizontally interlinked with the existential predicament of the others. To use an example from the famous discussion between the Buddhist saint Nagasena and the Greek king Menander, having stolen the mango from a farmer, I am responsible for the farmer's loss not because I am the same person who stole the mango (even if my conventional language indicates this) nor that the mango is still the same fruit for that matter, but because my "having the mango" is causally interrelated to the farmer's "lack of the mango." In a similar sense, Arvind Sharma (1997) cites the case of passive smoke to exemplify the intrinsically social nature of karma. Taking this reasoning seriously, it is possible to see that the ethical responsibility emerging from the law of karma surpasses the responsibility of an essentialist individualism in that it interconnects my existential predicament with the existential predicament of others and the environment. This ethical responsibility inherent in the law of karma is twofold, entailing "bearing the consequences" (which are given) and to compensate for the consequences in whichever way

140 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE possible and appropriate. By the same token, the law of karma demands the present activity to be responsible and considerate. Since activities are not self-contained but transcend their own boundaries, effecting future continuants, to borrow a term from the criteriologists, they must be "appropriate" and "germane." I note "appropriate" and "germane" in quotation marks to indicate that these phrases need further elaboration as to what it means to act "appropriately." In the Buddhist soteriological context, "acting appropriately" signifies that the present activity has to endeavor to eradicate and neutralize all karma so as to attain the existential attitude ofan arhat, who, rendered in the language of vegetation imagery, is seedless, not producing any further karma and, subsequently, any further continuants.

The collapse of continuity

Before I proceed to examine Dagen's notion ofcontinuity, I would like to briefly consider Nagarjuna's position on this issue. As one might guess from my previous discussions of his thought, Nagarjuna radically defies any notion of continuity. The very rejection of continuity itself is not that revolutionary since the concept of nirv(1).a is defined as the cessation of karmic activities. What changes the situation in Nagarjuna's case, however, is his collapse of sarpsara and nirv(1).a: "sarpsara (that is, the empirical life-death cycle) is nothing essentially different from nirv(1).a. Nirv(1).a is nothing essentially different from sarpsara" (Nagarjuna 1970, 158), and, subsequently, he denies the continuity of experience within the realm of sa1?1Sara as well. Following his general argument, Nagarjuna is denying, most of all, the conceptualization of continuity and action-and-effect (Skrt.: karmaphala); what makes his thought so interesting for the present enterprise is that he functions, in some loose sense, as the link, historically and conceptually, between the early Buddhist theories of continuity and Dagen's religious thought. To set the stage for Dagen's religious thought, I will present Nagarjuna's arguments against causality and action-and-effect. In his famous refutation ofcausality, executed in the first chapter of his Mulamadhyamikakarika, Nagarjuna employs the Buddhist method of the (also referred to as the Catuskoti). Examining the relationship between cause and effect, Nagarjuna lists four possible scenarios: (1) cause and effect are identical, (2) cause and effect are different, (3) cause and effect are identical and different, and (4) cause

141 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENO~fENOLOGYO~ SELF-AWARENESS and effect are neither identical nor different. None of these options, however, is satisfactory since (1) implies an unchanging identity devoid of causality, (2) suggests an absolute discontinuity, again, devoid of causality but rather subject to chance, (3) contains a contradiction, while (4) denies any causal relations to begin with. In the first case, the causal relationship of E 1 -- > E2 is replaced by an identity relation in the sense of E 1 -- > E 1. The second case, on the contrary, which is devoid of any connection between cause and effect, cannot explain causality either since it replaces causal necessity with acausal arbitrariness and, subsequently, defies any kind of causal lawfulness and regularity. At the most, it gives rise to a continuity of the form -Es-E2-E7-EI-E4-' In addition, the same argument proves devastating for the notion of a continuity established by positionality: The notion of an unchanging identity in the first case does not leave any room for the thetic awareness which freely and creatively projects what-it-is-not by negating what-it-is. The irregularity of chance, on the other hand, renders the creativity of thetic awareness meaningless and, ultimately, inefficient. Nagarjuna, subsequently, concludes that the notion of linear causality is not viable. In his chapter on the "Examination of Action and its Effect" ("Karmaphala Parlk~a"), Nagarjuna advances two arguments to undermine the notion of a causal continuity: (1) The first argument is based on the incompatibility ofthe notions ofendurance and change, (2) the second argument is based on his refutation of "self-nature." Since I have discussed Nagarjuna's arguments against the notion ofself­ nature already in chapter 2, I will focus here on the question whether the notions of permanence and causality are reconcilable. Gotama himself seemed to have doubted this possibility and consequently rejected the Hindu notion ofa permanent self (Skrt.: atman) in favor of a radical and pervasive sense ofimpermanence. However, this move did not completely erase the problem; it resurfaced in the disagreement between the Sautrantikas and the Sarvastivadins on whether the notion of a causal continuity can be conceived without any sense of permanence. The Sarvastivadins seemed to think that the cause has to be present to engender the effect and, subsequently, ended up re-inventing permanence qua the permanence of individual awareness events. The Sautrantikas rejected such an argument and settled for a disjuncted continuity. Nagarjuna expressed this impasse as follows: If harman (karmic activity or agent) endures at any time in the maturing process, then it will be of the nature of permanent

142 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE

endurance. But if it cease to be how could anything ceased (or spent) give rise to an effect? (Nagarjuna 1970, 106) In short, he reiterates his argument from causality maintaining that permanence does not cause change simply because it is permanent, and the cessation of a cause does not engender change because a non-existent entity cannot cause something which exists. Ultimately, he is pointing out the dialectic of permanence and change in that the notion of permanence is defined vis-a.-vis change and vice versa. His conclusion to this dilemma is to postulate emptiness (Skrt.: silnyata) as the "imperishable continuing action" which is "not uccheda (interruption), sarrtSara and not sasvata (constancy)" (109). On first sight Nagarjuna's notion of emptiness looks like nirva1J.a as the transcendent selflike, permanent awareness; however, the context of Nagarjuna's argument clarifies that emptiness defies the dichotomies of constancy and change, cause and effect, action (Skrt.: karma) and fruit (Skrt.: phala), and, ultimately, sarrtSara and nirva1J.a. So how does the notion of silnyata inform the problem of continuity? I believe that there are two possible answers to this question. First, Nagarjuna argues that the actuality of the awareness event and its context defies the construction of thetic consciousness which places itself in the phenomenal world; continuity in this sense is unobjectifiable and ineffable. In a different sense, and this interpretation is warranted implicitly rather than by textual evidence or commentators, Nagarjuna's rejection of causal continuity does not constitute a dismissal of the sense of continuity but rather of the conceptual paradigm underlying the linear conception ofcontinuity of experience. As a good Buddhist, Nagarjuna does not dispose of the notion of karma per se (it has been frequently argued that Nagarjuna encourages his reader to religious practice); instead, he disapproves of the binary interpretation of Buddhist doctrine which juxtaposes sarrtSara and nirva1J.a as two different following two different regularities, causality and acausality, and which implies, when read against the background of a linear conception of continuity, the absurdity that nirva1J.a succeeds sarrtsara or that sarrtSara causes the "unborn" realm of nirva1J.a. This sentiment is cemented in his philosophy of time. For now it suffices to note that Nagarjuna (and with him Mahayana Buddhism) had grown weary of a linear conception of causality (which Buddhism had long replaced with correlativity of co-dependent origination [Skrt.: pratftya samutpada]) and seems to urge a non-linear interpretation of karma, the roots of

143 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMEi'\OLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS which can already be found in early Buddhist conceptions of karma and continuity. Roughly, one thousand years after Nagarjuna, Dagen examined the notion of cause-and-effect and interpreted it in a radically non-linear manner.

From Dharma-Position to Dharma-Position­ Continuity in Dagen

Despite, or perhaps because of, its well-known focus on the present and its rejection of a personal-identity-over-time, Buddhism, especially Dagen's Zen Buddhism, displays an unexpected interest in the problem of continuity, regardless of whether it is discussed in the context of a philosophy of causality or temporality. Contrary to traditional Buddhist philosophy, which defines and examines continuity as the three times (Jap.: sanji) or as the threefold passage from the past via the present to the future, or from origination via the passage to cessation, Dagen seems to be more interested in the continuity of experience qua the continuity from one dharma-position (Jap.: hoi) to another, delineated as before-and-after (Jap.: sengo) and cause-and-effect (Jap.: inga). Continuity ofexperience, Dagen seems to assert, is defined by two diachronically diverse dharma-positions rather than three points in time. As the subsequent chapter will further elaborate, it is Dagen's belief that, given that the definition of the continuity of time as before-and-after, the present moment is reduced ad infinitum until it ultimately disappears. In order to articulate a "Dagenese" theory of continuity of experience, I will examine a central passage in the "Shabagenza Genjakaan" in this section. In this passage, Dagen takes on two familiar (to the Buddhist philosopher) issues of causality and of birth-and-death (Jap.: shoji), which can be extended to the general issue of generation-and-extinction (Jap.: shometsu). Traditionally, Buddhist writers seem to utilize phrases such as birth-and-death and generation-and-extinction to indicate the endless cycle of transmigration or the general impermanence of reality; in the fascicles "Shabagenza Zenki" (Dagen 1994, 3: 397-404) and "Shabagenza Shaji" (6: 385-94), however, Dagen's usage of birth­ and-death conspicuously parallels his descriptions of temporal continuity as cause-and-effect and before-and-after. In this section I will investigate Dagen's analysis of the relationship between temporally diverse events such as firewood Gap.: maki) and ashes (Jap.: hai), birth-and-death, cause-and-effect, and before-and-after,

144 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE Dagen's notion that one dharma-position contains all dharma-positions throughout "exhaustive time," Dagen's conception of kyoryaku ("passage"), and the implications ofthese conceptions to the Buddhist interpretation of karma. I believe that these investigations will provide a sufficiently coherent picture of Dagen's conception of continuity and, subsequently, his conception of identity-over-time. In his "Shabagenza Genjakaan," Dagen returns to Nagarjuna's discussion ofcausality by revisiting the perennial problem offirewood and ashes. However, while he certainly agrees with Nagarjuna's refutation of causal continuity, he, furthermore, rejects a mere denial of causality. Dagen explains: Having become ashes, firewood cannot return to be firewood again. However, you should not believe that ashes comprise the after and that firewood comprises the before. 13 However, even though firewood dwells in the dharma-position of firewood, and . possesses before and after,14 firewood cuts offl 5 before-and­ after. Ashes exist in the dharma-position of ashes, and possess before and after. Firewood, which becomes ashes, cannot return to become firewood again and a person, who has died, does not return to life . .. Birth comprises one point in time and death comprises one point in time; so do, for example, winter and spring. Do not consider winter to become spring or contend that spring becomes summer. (Dagen 1993, 1: 96) Dagen commences his analysis of causality with the everyday observation that a cause precedes its effect and thus seemingly asserts a linear sequence of events. In agreement with the everyday conception of time qua the continuity of experience, Dagen contends that "past" events are gone and cannot be revisited. As I indicated earlier I use the terms "past" and "future" without quotation marks in order to denote the everyday understanding of past and future as independent time periods distinct from the present, while the use of quotation marks indicates the existentialist interpretation of "past" and "future" as the "I's" historicity and opportunity. Dagen locates, as I will argue later, "past" and "future" in the present. At any rate, it is impossible for a person to repeat or relive "past" experiences in the same way in which "firewood, which becomes ashes, cannot return to become firewood again" and "a person, who has died, does not return to life." Experiences are unique and irrepeatable; every event that occurred has irrevocably occurred. Even though some interpreters suggest the contrary,16 it is important to note that Dagen does not

145 ZEN BUDDHIS:t\-1 AND PHENOMENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS proclaim the reversibility of "previous" events but their existential irreversibility and irrepeatability. This contention is important enough to Dagen to be placed at the very beginning and the very end of his redefinition of continuity so as to prevent any misinterpretation of his ideas. Having made this observation, however, Dagen continues to maintain that this irrepeatability of experiences does not necessitate a continuity of experience in the form of a before and an after. On the contrary, despite his assertion of the irrepeatability of experiences, Dagen proceeds to systematically subvert the belief in the continuity ofexperience. At first glance this position seems rather puzzling, since the contention that the experience E2 implies the irreversible cessation of E 1 and that the experience E3, likewise, suggests the irrevocable termination of E2 seems to obviously assert the linear continuity of E1, E b and E3. Contrary to the belief in the continuity of experience, however, Dagen rejects the notion that "ashes comprise the after and that firewood comprises the before" in the subsequent statement; in other words, every dharma-position is devoid of before and after. Elsewhere, he contends that "when there is birth, there is nothing other than birth; when there is death, there is nothing other than death" (Dagen 1993, 6: 389-90). Here, Dagen reiterates the Buddhist and existentialist belief that at any moment only the present experience exists, past and future, before and after are, ultimately, non-existent. In the dharma-position of firewood, there is only firewood; in the experience of playing the piano, there is only playing the piano. At the very moment of a music performance, the announcing of the performer is irrevocably gone and the silence after the applause does not yet exist. In other words, Dagen believes that every dharma-position is self-contained; insofar as the present dharma­ position is neither preceded by a before nor succeeded by an after, it "cuts off before and after." Dagen repudiates the belief that the present dharma-position depends on previous dharma-positions; fire­ wood and ashes do not comprise a continuous sequence of events; instead, "firewood cuts off before and after." While this conception seems to be counter-intuitive at first (and, in fact, it simultaneously marks the strong point and the weak point of Dagen's conception of continuity), Dagen's reliance on the present dharma-position not only evades the perennial and unanswerable issue of a first cause qua the beginningless beginning and the concomitant infinite regress (Hegel's bad infinity) inherent in the linear conception of continuity but also successfully addresses the problem of free will and determination.

146 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE In juxtaposing the two contentions that a dharma-position "possesses before and after" and, at the same time, "cuts off before­ and-after," Dagen, ultimately asserts the paradoxical structure of individual dharma-positions. An explanation of Dagen's contention that every individual dharma-position, albeit without either pre­ decessors or successors, nevertheless implies a "before" and "after" must begin with his rejection of preceding and subsequent events. In rejecting the notion of the continuity of experience, Dagen does not necessarily repudiate the notion of "previous" and "subsequent" events, but he locates the very existence of "past" and "future" within the present and, thus, identifies the present experience as the starting point of his inquiry. The of Dagen's philosophy is not a past arche or future telos, but the present awareness event, which comprises all-there-is. The past arche or a future telos are not given as the determinants ofthe present event; on the contrary, "previous" and "subsequent" experiences are only given insofar as they are located within the dharma-position of the present. Faithful to his existentialist approach, Dagen contends that the present dharma-position is given while previous and subsequent experiences qua independent and external entities comprise further facts and, thus, secondary categories. "Previous" experiences are given to the experiential "I" in memories of "past" events, in skills and other habit-formations, and, moreover, in the general sense of historicity and factuality, which is characteristic of the predicament of the experiential "I." By the same token, "future" events are present in the form ofanticipations. I use the term "anticipations" to designate not only self-conscious intentions such as Sartre's projections but a more holistic generation of "subsequent" experiences. The "future" is contained in the present dharma-position insofar as the present serves as a necessary condition for what-is-to­ come. In some sense, Dagen's transition from the notion of a fragmented continuity qua before and after to the notion of a context qua before-and-after explicates the distinction between Sartre's being­ for-itself, which is caught between the preceding and the subsequent beings-in-itself, and a radical collapse of the continuity of experience within the present, which is anticipated but not executed in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. In this sense, before-and-after and past­ and-future comprise the context of the present dharma-position; or, to put it differently, every activity expresses all "past" and "future" experiences. In this sense, the performance of a piano player manifests all her/his "past" practices and all her/his "future" performances. What is usually regarded as personal identity can thus be understood

147 ZEN BUDDHIS~'l AND PHEN01vfENOLOGY Oi\: SELF-AWARENESS as the pre-reflective accumulation of personal material such as affectivity, intentions, memories, etc. in the sense of karmic residue or Merleau-Ponty's habit body, which comprises the non-substantive context ofthe present dharma-position, containing "past" and "future" experiences. The phrase "accumulation of experiences" does not imply that these experiences are collected and stored in some meta­ psychological storehouse in the sense of Freud's unconscious or Vasubandhu's alaya-vijndna but rather indicates a particular set of events which function as the necessary condition of the present experience. Thus, Dagen's interpretation of before-and-after qua context subverts the notion of the continuity of experience by contending its dependence on the individual dharma-position, which presences (Jap.: arawareru) and, at the same time, engenders its before­ and-after qua context. In addition, before-and-after does not comprise a continuity of experience because before-and-after and the individual dharma-position occur simultaneously. Therefore, the notion of the "continuity of experience" cannot function as the underlying matrix of human experience. Dagen utilizes the term "before-and-after" not only to denote the "previous" and "subsequent" experiences of one individual person but also to extend the significance of the before-and-after beyond the experiences of one individual person to incorporate, according to the Buddhist faith, the experiences of previous and subsequent incarnations and, ultimately, "exhaustive times" (Jap.: jinji) and "exhaustive worlds" (Jap.: jinkai). At a first glance, this means that every individual dharma-position is located in the context of historicity in toto. Every individual activity such as playing the piano necessitates and engenders not only personal but intrinsically transpersonal experiences and events. Playing the piano, a musician is influenced not only by her/his own experiences, but s/he learns from the experiences of others as well. In this sense, a particular piano performance is influenced by the "previous" practice of the performer as well as the recent invention of a new improvisation pattern by another musician; an individual performance expresses not only the unique situation of the performer but also a particular historical and cultural background and, ultimately, Mensch -sein in general. On a deeper level, however, Dagen's contention that the individual dharma-position contains "exhaustive times" implies the transcendence of personal content and agency. What does it mean that the before-and-after contained in and expressed by the present experience does not only consist of my "previous" and "subsequent"

148 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE experiences but of "past" and "future" in general? Taking the individual dharma-position as his starting point, Dagen contends that all "previous" and "subsequent" events, personal or transpersonal, express themselves in the present dharma-position. This means that "exhaustive times" do not influence the present dharma-position from the outside but from the inside. Ultimately, Dagen believes that "exhaustive times" exist only insofar as they are presenced in and by the individual dharma-position; "exhaustive times" are present at every moment. Elsewhere, Dagen asserts this belief when he observes that "birth comprises the presencing-of-the-total-working (Jap.: zenkigen) and death comprises the presencing-of-the-total­ working" (Dagen 1994, 3: 398). Dagen illustrates this mechanism when he likens the expression of the context to "a person at night using the hand behind the back to search the pillow" (3: 401). At a first glance, this unconscious act of "searching" reflects the many "past" occasions in which this individual person adjusted the pillow in a similar manner; on a deeper level, however, it illustrates the unself-conscious and, ultimately, selfless activity of "adjusting the pillow." Another example is Kasulis' reference to a person taking a break from mowing the lawn who "thinks and feels nothing specific whatsoever" (Kasulis 1981, 75), in which the timelessness of "exhaustive time" is expressed. For now it will suffice to note that Dagen proposes a non-dualism between the present dharma-position and "exhaustive time." To define before-and-after as the context of the present dharma­ position rather than the continuity of experience has two immediate consequences, namely, (1) individual dharma-positions are self­ contained and (2) time qua continuity of experience is discontinuous. (1) As discussed above, Dagen ultimately shifts the focus of the philosophical discourse from the continuity of experience defined as before-and-after and cause-and-effect to the notion of the individual dharma-position because every dharma-position contains "exhaustive times." He rejects the notion of an external before-and-after because "firewood is the dharma-stage of firewood" and "when one speaks of birth, there is nothing at all apart from birth." This means that the existence of the present dharma-position presupposes neither an external arche nor an external telos. It is self-contained insofar as it contains its own context qua "exhaustive times" without, however, denying the existence ofother self-contained dharma-positions. At first glance the conception of the dharma-positions as self-contained seems to reflect Leibniz' monads, which also contain, in Dagen's terminology,

149 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENO~1ENOLOGYOi\' SELF-AWARENESS "exhaustive times" and "exhaustive worlds." In analogy to Leibniz, Dagen conceives of an infinite amount of dharma-positions, which completely and seemingly self-sufficiently presence total-working, when he observes that "prior to the present presencing-of-the-total­ working there was a prior presencing-of-the-total-working; although there was a prior presencing-of-the-total-working, it does not obstruct the presencing-of-the-total-working of the now" (Dagen 1994, 3: 401). However, contrary to Leibniz' monad, which comprises an unchanging substance over time and, thus, discloses an essentially temporal character, Dagen's dharma-position comprises one individual experience rather than one individual substance and, consequently, is non-substantial, transtemporal - it "cuts off before and after" - and, as discussed in the preceding chapter, transpersonal. (2) At the same time, the identity assertions, which collapse the totality of "exhaustive times" within the moment of an individual event or dharma-position, indicate an existential sense of discontinuity. Time does not flow from the past via the present into the future but from one dharma-position qua present, containing "exhaustive times," to another qua present. In other words, Dagen substitutes his notion of total-working (Jap.: zenki) which is "invariably and fully manifested right here-and-now" (Heine 1985, 130), for the linear continuity of experience, ranging from the past to the future. In order to articulate this existential discontinuity of experience, Dagen introduces, elsewhere, the concept of kyoryaku. The difficulty of interpreting this concept is reflected in the disagreement among translators and commentators as to what the term "kyaryaku" signifies: Rendering "kyaryaku" as "passageless-passage" (Abe 1992, 74), Abe inserts a high degree of interpretation into his translation, while Kim and Heine translate more conservatively as "continuity" and "passage" respectively. Nevertheless, Abe's transla­ tion is by no means inadequate or misleading. Dagen utilizes the notion of Hpassage," denoting "continuity" (Kim 1987, 152) and Hcontinuous passage ... extending throughout all times" (Heine 1985, 127), to express his inversion of the continuous paradigm and to propose that human experience is characterized by discontinuity as well. In one of his most famous quotations, Dagen contends: In existence-time there is the virtue of passage: it passes from today to tomorrow, from today to yesterday, from yesterday to today, from today to today, from tomorrow to tomorrow. (Dagen 1993, 1: 275)

150 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE The reversal of the continuity of time "from today to yesterday" stands in apparent opposition to Dagen's earlier observation that "a person who has died does not return to life." Even though this passage addresses Dagen's conception of time qua existence-time (Jap.: uji), which I will discuss in detail in the following chapter, I believe its logic of reversal is applicable to the sequence of dharma-positions as well. However, if Dagen rejects the irreversibility and irrepeatability of events, what, then, is the meaning of Dagen's obvious inversion of the linearity of experience? To solve this conundrum, I would like to, once again, contrast the notion of the continuity of experience and Dagen's inversion ofthe before-and-after. The notion ofthe continuity of experience, regardless of whether it is conceived of as the Buddhist linear continuity of karmic connections or as Parfit's strong psychological connections, implies a linear sequence from the "past" via the "present" into the "future," in which the "past" engenders the "present," which, in turn, produces the "future." Dagen, on the contrary, taking the present dharma-position as his starting point, collapses the sequential character of "past," "present," and "future," which he synchronizes in the individual dharma-position of the present. How is such an interpretation possible? Given the standpoint of the present, kyoryaku, including "yesterday," "today," and "tomorrow," comprises the context17 rather than the temporal framework of the present dharma-position. Since, as I have argued earlier, a diachronically disparate event such as "yesterday" or "tomorrow" functions as context of the present dharma-position if and only if it is expressed therein, it is meaningless to superimpose a sequential structure over the events comprising the context. This conclusion is reminiscent of Merleau-Ponty's contention that "past" and "future" are manifested in the present. Instead, the present thetic awareness constitutes the "past" and the "future" as the narrative context of its present predicament in order to construct its own narrative identity. Again, the momentary activity of the self manifests the totality of habitualizations and anticipations, notwithstanding their temporal sequence. Therefore, by inverting the passage "from yesterday to today" into "from today to yesterday," Dagen replaces the passage from the past to the future with what Nishida terms, as I will discuss below, the passage from the present to the present (Jap.: genzai kara genzai e). The inversion of the temporal continuity of experience signifies not so much a rejection of the notion of the irrepeatability and uniqueness of "past" events but rather the collapsing of the continuity of experience in one

151 ZEN BUDDHIS1-v1 AND PHE~O~1ENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS individual dharma-position, which manifests "exhaustive times" as its context. In addition, Dagen rejects the notion that the present event is caused by its context qua "previous" experiences and, then, engenders a transformed context of "subsequent" experiences. To the contrary, event and context mutually interpenetrate and determine each other. In the very moment of this dharma-position, the event is not merely engendered by its context qua before-and­ after, but, simultaneously, engenders its very own context qua before-and-after. The manifestation of the context by the event has to be understood as a dynamic whole, in which the various components mutually influence each other, rather than a linear process from E 1 via E2 to E3 . Ultimately, it is this unilateral and horizontal18 directionality Dagen inverts and rejects, thus attributing the construction and experience of a continuity of experiences to the positional modality of the self, while "samadhic awareness" qua non-thetic awareness transcends this, revealing the sense ofcontinuity bestowed by the context as the experience of continuity rather than a continuity of experience. At the very moment in which the present dharma-position occurs, Hprevious" and "subsequent" events do not exist as independent and separate moments but only insofar as they are manifested in the present dharma-position. In his analysis of the relationship between two diachronically diverse dharma-positions, Dagen discloses a fundamental disconti­ nuity underlying the continuity of experience. This discontinuity undercuts the traditional theory of continuity of experience as it is established by the law of karma and, simultaneously, favors a phenomenological interpretation of the experience of continuity rather than an objectivist one. It is this notion of a radical discontinuity, verbalized by Nagarjuna and Sartre, albeit in different ways, which also provides a solution for the perennial soteriological dilemma of how the uncaused state of enlightenment can be attained from the causal standpoint of sa1?lsara. In the final analysis, the attainment of satori is only possible if the continuity of experience is undermined by a fundamental discontinuity, which Dagen, elsewhere, refers to as the "transmission of non-transmission" Gap.: fuden no den). Thus, with regard to a theory of Mensch-sein, Dagen abandons the project to prove the linearity of the continuity of experience; instead, he contends, assuming the existentialist starting point, that "previous" and "subsequent" experiences exist if and only if they are manifested in the present dharma-position. In all that, however, Dagen, like Nagarjuna, does not abandon the religious belief in karma as the

152 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE force that creates the experience of continuity. On the contrary, in his fascicle "Shabagenza Sanjiga" ("The Karma of the Three Times") (Dagen 1994,6: 21-56), Dagen strongly admonishes the reader not to forget the efficacy of karma despite the enlightenment of the buddhas. It is for this reason that Dagen's examination of continuity encourages, as Nishida has done, a rethinking of the notion of continuity which replaces the traditional notion of continuity as the process from the past into the future to the notion of continuity as the process from the present to the present.

From the Present to the Present - Continuity in Nishida

In analogy to the philosophies of phenomenology and Buddhism, Nishida maintains that thetic awareness, which identifies itself as "I, me, mine," emerges not only from the dialectical encounter of "I" and "Thou" but also from an equally dialectical encounter of the self with its former self. In his essay "I and Thou," Nishida explicitly compares the interaction of "the 'I' of yesterday and the 'I' of today" with that of the "I" and "Thou" in that "the 'I' of yesterday and the 'I' of today" constitute a dialectical relationship of affirmation-qua­ negation, form a non-relative contradictory self-identity, and "exist in the world of expression" (Nishida 1988, 6: 343). However, while "I" and "Thou" encounter each other as two mutually opposing activities, '''I' of today" discovers "the 'I' of yesterday" as its own factuality. Nishida argues that the experiential "I" emerges as the negation of its own pre-reflectively given (Jap.: ataerareta mono) historicity, which encompasses all "previous" experience, memories, skills, relationships qua habit-formations, or, to use Buddhist terminology, karmic residue. Negating its "past," the experiential "I" of the present is faced with unlimited possibilities to define and project itself as what­ it-is-not: "The 'I' of yesterday is independent; the 'I' of today is independent; the 'I' of yesterday is an individual; the 'I' of today is an individual; at any moment at any time we are free individuals" (7: 86). I can define myself ek-statically, as Heidegger would say, in complete juxtaposition to my former selves and rewrite my narrative identity. At the same time, however, Nishida resists the temptation to proclaim an infinite rupture between the '''I' of yesterday" and the '''I' of today" and, subsequently, unlimited freedom of the self by asserting some kind of continuity between the "past" and the "present" in that the self cannot but, in addition to negating, equally affirm the "previous"

153 ZEN BUDDHIS~'l AND PHENO~1Ei\()LOGYO~ SELF-AWARENESS awareness event. In analogy to the general Buddhist theory of karma before him and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception, Nishida situates the present awareness squarely at the collision point of causal necessity and unlimited opportunity, between "past" and "future." My freedom is limited by my factuality but my necessity is negated by my opportunities. In short, Nishida argues that the self is simultaneously continuous and discontinuous; in Nishida's words, "personal unity must possess the meaning of the self-identity of those who non-relatively oppose each other and of the continuity of discontinuity" (Jap.: hirenzoku no renzoku) (7: 86). Defining the relationship between the "'I' of yesterday" and the "'I' of today," Nishida seems to equate the logical structure of the temporal and the spatial I-Thou relationship. However, while Nishida describes the relationship between "I" and "Thou" as an equal symmetry and correlativity, his description of the relationship between the '''I' of yesterday" and the '''I' of today," despite his usage of the same dialectical vocabulary of affirmation-qua-negation, continuity of discontinuity, and non-relative contradictory self-identity, discloses some asymmetric dimensions when he defines it as the process from the created to the creating (Jap.: tsukurareta mono kara tsukuru mono e). It is this dialectic between an asymmetric and a symmetric terminology which gives Nishida's conception of continuity qua continuity of discontinuity its unique flair.

From the created to the creating

The '''I' of today" encounters the "'I' of yesterday as its own factuality, in the same sense in which Sartre's being-for-itself encounters its own existence and factuality in the being-in-itself. In analogy to Sartre, Nishida explains that the experiential "I" qua '''I' of today" discovers its own existence as "physically" (Nishida 1988, 9: 180) as well as "historically and individually" given (9: 187). However, the existential predicament ofthe experiential "I" which is personified in the "'I' ofyesterday" is not limited to individual content, but, while it is "individually" given to the experiential "I," it incorporates, as I have discussed in the preceding chapters, the intersubjectivity of the "I" and "Thou" and the existential communality of the historical and social context. In addition, the '''I' of yesterday" embodies the identity which the experiential "I" constructed in its interactivity with the personal other and the impersonal mass. Furthermore, it is this

154 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE objectively given body incorporating the historicity, social place, and identity of the experiential "I", which, as Sartre observed with resignation, lies open to be objectified and alienated by the individual other and by the impersonal they, which thus de-personalizes and disenfranchises the very existence and, subsequently, the very possibility of the experiential "L" At any rate, the 'HI' of today" does not constitute an independent individual but a being-in-the­ world. This existential givenness contains the objectivity (Jap.: kyakkan) and determination of the experiential "I" which juxtaposes its very existence in its subjective activity and the existential ek-stasis of its own creative activity; as Nishida explains "we transcend that which is given as that which is formed" (9: 179). Upon first reading, Nishida's from the created to the creating is so thoroughly Sartrean that it is possible to paraphrase this description as from the object to the subject and from the being-in-itself to the being-for­ itself. And, again in analogy to Sartre, Nishida contends that that which is objectively given to the experiential "I," in the sense that it cannot escape its own historicity and determination, not only creates the experiential "I," its relationships, and historicity, but, further­ more, is also subjected to the creativity of the experiential "I" whose activity cannot but transform its own givenness to engender the objectively given predicament of the "'I' of tomorrow": "In the historical world, there is nothing which is simply given. That which is given is created and, in self-negation, creates the creating. That which is created has passed and has entered nothingness" (Nishida 1988, 9: 159-60). Nishida thus recognizes the metaphysical necessity, the ethical responsibility, and the soteriological exigency to act and, subsequently, to transform one's own predicament. However, while an interpretation offrom the created to the creating as from the being-in­ itselfto the being-for-itselfillustrates Nishida's description ofthe 'HI' of yesterday" as the created and the '''I' of today" as the creating, it also suggests, as discussed previously, that self-awareness and other­ awareness are impossible because existence and awareness are separated by an infinite abyss of negation. Without a movement from the past to the present, from existence to awareness, the self is locked into the immobility of abstraction. Nishida addresses the static juxtaposition of subjectivity qua 'HI' oftoday" and objectivity qua '''I' of yesterday" by defining the creative activity as affirmation-qua­ negation. The difference between Sartre's from being-in-itself to being-for­ itself and Nishida's from the created to the creating is twofold: First,

155 ZEN BUDDHIS1v1 A0JD PHENO~fENOLOGYOi\: SELF-AWARENESS and this concerns the problem of time, which I will discuss in the subsequent chapter, Sartre defines the past qua being-in-itself as what­ is, thus emphasizing the linear continuity of experiences over and against the present activity of being-for-itself which disappears into nothingness. Nishida, on the contrary, contends that "that which is created has passed and has entered nothingness" and, subsequently prioritizes the instance of the present over and above the continuity from the past to the future. As will become more evident below, this seemingly minor distinction has far-reaching implications: Even though both Nishida and Sartre contrast the opposition between past and the future with the present, Nishida gives priority to the present qua contradictory self-identity of past-and-future, while Sartre's "instantaneous present" "without dimension" qua (relative) nothing­ ness infinitely chases its own existence into the past. Second, and this is more important for the present discussion, while Sartre juxtaposes being-for-itself and being-in-itself as two external dimensions of the same self, in the sense that the being-for-itself ek-statically creates what-it-is-not vis-a.-vis what-it-is and, subsequently, externalizes itself, Nishida rejects such an external negation of the created by the creating and suggests that "[n]egating itself, the created creates the creating" (Nishida 1988, 9: 160). Later, he argues in the same essay that "dialectical formation does not negate the given from the outside but transcends the self from the inside itself while that which is given contradicts itself" (189). In other words, Nishida replaces the relative negation by an externalized/otherized consciousness with the internal negation qua affirmation-qua-negation by the non-relative other. Nishida thus applies his logic of contradictory self-identity, which he employed in this account of self-awareness and other-awareness, to the problem of continuity. A mere juxtaposition of "the'!' of yesterday and the 'I' of today" and the created and the creating, implies a static conception of the self, while a dynamic conception requires a transcendence of the dichotomies of affirmation and negation, inside and outside, existence and consciousness. If consciousness is absolutely separated from its own existence, it would not exist; by the same token, existence would not know itself- a claim which is difficult to uphold, especially for a philosopher but equally for every self-conscious individual who constructs herIhis narrative identity and/or world view. When I define myself as what-I-am-not, I do not negate anything but myself; at the same time, I do not create an external, separate other but myself. Even if everyday experience is suffocated by alienation, it does not render meaningless the facticity of

156 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE continuity from the created to the creating, which is realized in every creative act, regardless of whether I improve my piano skills or whether I construct my "life history" in a curriculum vitae; yet this continuity "must be the continuity of non-relative rupture" (9: 11). In short, Nishida argues that every theory of Mensch-sein which strives to accommodate existence and awareness thereof, consistency and change, causal givenness and freedom of choice, subjectivity and objectivity, and affirmation and negation, that is, every theory of Mensch-sein which proposes an organic relationship between the self­ conscious experiential "I" and its context of historicity cannot but imply the non-relative contradictory self-identity (of created and creating). It is important to note, however, that this non-relative contradictory self-identity "is contained neither in that which is created nor in that which creates" (9: 12). The notion of the contradictory identity expresses Nishida's refusal to prioritize either existence or the consciousness thereof but rather suggests a middle path. It is in this sense that Nishida defines the process from the created to the creating not as Sartre does, as an external continuity from the past to the future, but, almost in analogy to Merleau-Ponty's "from one present to another," as internal continuity from the present to the present (Jap.: genzai kara genzai e).19

From the present to the present

Nishida consequently argues from the mutual correlativity between the "'I' of yesterday" and the "'I' of today," affirmation and negation, existence and consciousness, objectivity and subjectivity and, as I will show in the next chapter, from his underlying philosophy of time, for the primacy of the present over the continuity of experiences. His essay "The Non-Relative Contradictory Self-Identity" provides overwhelming evidence of Nishida's collapse of the temporal continuity into the present: "The present is the place where past and future are one in mutual determination" (Nishida 1988, 9: 150); and "[p]ast and future oppose each other as the contradictory self­ identity of the present and time is formed" (149). While the terms "past" and "future" have clear temporal implications, which will be discussed in the subsequent chapter, they also signify the "previous" and the "subsequent" selves respectively in the sense of Dagen's before-and-after. As contradictory self-identity of past-and-future, the non-thetic awareness of the present is capable of providing what

157 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS Sartre's being-for-itself in its eternal search for itself could not: self­ awareness. I believe it is justified to identify the contradictory self­ identity of past-and-future, which does not posit past and future but manifests "past" and "future" in the present, as non-thetic awareness. In the present activity which, albeit contradictorily, unites and, simultaneously, negates, "past" and "future," the '''I' of yesterday" and the '''I' oftomorrow," self-awareness occurs. To put it differently, as contradictory self-identity the non-thetic awareness event of the present does not dissociate, as in the case of Sartre's being-for-itself, into existence and consciousness, givenness and project, but comprises a unified expression which simultaneously manifests what-it-is and what-it-is-not. Contrasting "memory" (Jap.: kioku) as retroactive modality and "anticipation," literally "premonition," (Jap.: yokan) (Nishida 1988, 6: 182) as proactive modality, Nishida employs the term "expression" to signify the non-dual and, by implication, non­ thetic modality of the self qua samadhic awareness which bridges the infinite abyss between being-in-itself and being-for-itself and thus accounts for self-awareness, on the one side, and a non-dualistic theory of selfhood, on the other. At the same time, however, Nishida's concept of expression does not designate an isolated, self-sufficient, and static awareness moment but the dynamic actual world which expresses and determines itself from the present to the present. As Nishida observes, "The world ofcontradictory self-identity must be a world where the present always determines itself... If we simply think the present to be a point on a continuous line as moment, there is no present and, subsequently, no time" (Nishida 1988, 9: 148-49). "Time," or what we retrospectively construct to be the linear progression "from the past to the future," "is located in the present" (6: 183). Nishida stratifies "expression" as a dialectical concept which transcends the dichotomy of "past" and "future" in that it progresses from the created to the creating, on the one side, and the dualism between a linear continuity and a radical discontinuity in that it manifests a continuity of discontinuity, on the other. As contradictory self-identity of past-and-future, that is, as non-thetic modality of existence, expression thus not only unites existence and awareness in self-awareness, "I" and "Thou" in intersubjectivity, but also "past" and "future" as the continuity of discontinuity from the present to the present, indicating that self-awareness is not only reflexive and intersubjective but also existentially creative. Conceived of as contradictory self-identity of past-and-future, the notion ofexpression functions not only as description ofself-awareness

158 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE but also as a third term which mediates the tension between the teleological and the causal paradigm, which is, as I have demonstrated above, central to the notion of continuity of experience. In general, it is Nishida's contention that dualistic theories of the self which posit subjectivity vis-a.-vis objectivity or implicit dualisms20 which prioritize one aspect of a conceptual dichotomy over the other produce, at best, a static and, at worst, an incomplete picture of the self;21 Nishida would argue that this dualistic theory of selfhood is played out in the mind-body controversy and the criteriological debate over whether personal identity is warranted by the physical or the psychological criterion. In this sense, Nishida introduces the concept of "expression" to designate the existential modality which is neither subjected to nor completely unaffected by the determination from the past. Nishida observes that the "world of contradictory self­ identity" "is not a world which is determined from the past through cause and effect, that is, it is not the one of the many; again, it is not the world which is teleologically determined from the future, that means, it is not the many ofthe one" (Nishida 1988, 9: 148-49). What is of interest here is that Nishida not only postulates a modality which collapses the dichotomy between a causal mechanism and an exclusive teleology, but he also further explicates the dominant paradigm of the mechanistic and teleological interpretations, which provides the background for a "logic ofexpression." While the deterministic world view prioritizes the past over the future and objectivity over subjectivity, a teleological world view inverts the prioritization. It is more difficult to explain Nishida's juxtaposition ofthe many (]ap.: oi) and the one (]ap.: itsu). In short, Nishida identifies the universal as one and the infinity ofparticulars as the many_ Given this interpretation, a causal-mechanism favors the particulars over the universal, the many over the one, while a teleological approach, conversely, upholds the priority of oneness to plurality. Nishida's key point here is that the dichotomization of objectivity, causality, particularity, on the one side, and subjectivity, teleology, and universality, on the other, is absurd since such an explicit or implicit dualism polarizes the world of experience. Ultimately, so Nishida seems to argue, this polarization of objectivity and subjectivity is rooted in the linear conception of continuity. A dynamic world view in which the creative activity of the self paradoxically unites the objectivity and necessity of the "past" with the subjectivity and the opportunity of the "future" necessitates the concept of the contradictory self-identity of past-and-future which collapses the linear continuity of time qua from the present to the

159 ZEN BUDDHISlvl A~D PHEN01tIENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS present in the present. By locating "past" and "future" in the present, Nishida allows the self to encounter its own facticity and to appropriate, as Sartre would say, its own givenness in its transforming activity. It does not bestow the individual with infinite freedom since it is limited by the determining efficacy of what-it-is and by the "resistance" of others, but, at the same time, my freedom does not drown in this givenness but determines itself in a process from objectivity to subjectivity, from causality to teleology, that is, from the created to the creating. Finally, it will be necessary to determine what Nishida refers to when he talks about the continuity of discontinuity qua from the present to the present: Does he apply the notions of internal negation and of the continuity of discontinuity to an individual self or a universal?22 Amid all the talk about the creative activity qua from the created to the creating and from the present to the present, it has to be kept in mind that Nishida does not focus on the continuity, albeit as continuity of discontinuity, of an individual self but of the present itself (Jap.: genzai jishin). Nishida thus extends the notion of the self-contradictory identity of past-and-future and subjectivity and objectivity from the individual to what he calls the self-determination of the present (Jap.: genzai no jiko gentei) (Nishida 1988, 9: 152) and the self-determination of the universal (7: 236). In his later works, Nishida identifies this universal as the historical world (Jap.: rekishiteki sekai),23 thus, ultimately, identifying the actual world as historical world. Creative activity does not engender a separate future self but the "subsequent" self-transformation of the historical world. The self-determination of the present can be thus understood as the historical world or as Dagen's "exhaustive times" and "exhaustive worlds," expressing and transforming itself. In some sense, this reasoning also applies to the expressive act of the individual in that the self does not stretch itself along a linear temporality but creates its "future" created by negating its "past" created. Nevertheless, Nishida clearly defines the self-determination of the present as the self-determination of the universal. Nishida follows his logic ofthe contradictory self-identity through to its radical consequences. Following Dagen's dialectic of "possessing before and after" and "cutting off before and after," Nishida collapses "past" and "future" in the dynamic self-determination of the present without, however, locking the self into a symmetry between the '''I' of yesterday" and the '''I' of today." Describing the continuity of the self asymmetrically as progression from the created to the creating and from

160 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE the present to the present, Nishida defies Odin's criticism that he sacrifices the freedom of the self for a geometric temporal symmetry and, contrary to Odin's contention, rejects the notion that time is repeatable when he argues that "time cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment" (Nishida 1988, 6: 183, 234, 240) thus echoing Dagen's "[f]irewood, which becomes ashes, cannot return to become firewood again and a person, who has died, does not return to life." When the creating becomes created, it does not "return" to a "previous" state of existence, but it negates itself in order to continuously transform itself qua discontinuity. In his discussion of the temporal dimension of self-awareness, where existence and consciousness unite in a contradictory self-identity, Nishida illustrates again that self-awareness constitutes an inherently paradoxical concept and argues that the very idea of self-awareness and of transformation, in which a person (while staying the same) changes, necessitates a radical continuity of discontinuity which results in the collapse ofthe linear continuity between the "'I' ofyesterday" and the '''I' of today." Nishida replaces this continuity with the self­ determination of the present which transforms itself. This self­ transformation can be illustrated with a sphere which implodes and constitutes a new sphere or any geometrical figure. Again, the difference from Sartre's model is that while Nishida's selfprojects itself ek-statically, it does not posit itself vis-a.-vis its past self but incorporates its own negation; the unilinear externalization and juxtaposition of existence and consciousness is constructed by thetic awareness, whereas Nishida's self-determination ofthe present expresses itself as-it-is. Besides illustrating the problems with a purely linear model, Nishida's model of continuity demonstrates that the problems of self-awareness, freedom, and determinism are unsolvable given a linear model of continuity. The difficulty lies in the fact that continuity is not indispensable but, ultimately, as Nishida acknowl­ edges, cannot be sacrificed. Thus, Nishida describes the expressive relationship between the "'I' of yesterday" and the '''I' of today" as contradictory self-identity of past-and-future and as the continuity of discontinuity qua the progression from the present to the present.

Summary

This chapter has clearly indicated that the differences in the various conceptions of selflessness, such as the more obvious differences

161 ZEN BUDDHISM Ai\D PHENO~1Ei\OLOGY01\: SELF-AWARENESS between Parfit, Sartre, and Dagen, to mention three extreme cases, but also between the seemingly similar conceptions of Parfit and Gotama, lie in the variant interpretations of the continuity of experience. It is important to note that none of the various rejections of linear continuity (discussed here), from Sartre's non-linear connection between two temporally separated moments, existence and consciousness thereof, to Dagen's collapse of continuity in the present dharma-position, which simultaneously "possesses" and "cuts off "before-and-after," imply the reversibility or repeatability of events; Dagen and Nishida literally "cut off" the infinite "past" and "future" but do not freeze temporality; rather, they suggest what Nishida calls a continuity from the present to the present. Dagen and Nishida propose a mode of continuity which does not require a separate existence of the "past" as the necessary condition for the present; such a conception would eternalize the continuity of events and engender something like the Sarvastivada model of eternal momentary events. Dagen's and Nishida's reliance on the present results from their radical existentialism and has far-reaching hermeneutical ramifications: Zen Buddhism contends that only the present exists, the past has already passed, the future is not yet. Consequently, it seems rather impossible to build a philosophical system of interpretation on a non-existent and infinitely elusive beginning as suggested by the causal-mechanical approach or on an equally elusive and non-existent telos. Conceptually, the fundamental impetus for Dagen's and Nishida's collapse of the linear continuity of experiences into the present lies in their unwillingness to settle for either the causal-mechanical or the teleological model. While Dagen was mainly motivated by the soteriological concern to bridge the infinite abyss between sarr-siira and nirviitJa, Nishida sought out a solution to the perennial controversy between determinism and libetarianism, which also, to some degree, influenced the debate between Merleau-Ponty and Sartre (even though Merleau-Ponty's position is closer to that of Zen Buddhism than that of determinism). The only solution to this problem is, according to Nishida, to counterbalance the linear model with a circular model of temporality without, however, falling into a new form of dualism. Ultimately, however, Nishida argues, the model developed by Dagen implies that the moment of self-awareness necessitates the contradictory self­ identity of past-and-future in the present qua from the present to the present. He thus substitutes the notion of a contradictory self-identity for the conception of the identity-over-time.

162 CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE At the same time, this discussion has shown, albeit indirectly, that the notions of linear continuity and continuity of discontinuity correspond to the dominant paradigm of selfhood applied by the various philosophies. This notion becomes clearest in the philosophy of early Buddhism which juxtaposes the conception of continuity upheld by the person-in-the world while the world-renouncer conceives of an existential selflessness. Defined as that which completely transcends the temporality of the phenomenal world, the notion of nirva1J,a functions not unlike non-thetic awareness. Nishida's distinc­ tion between thetic consciousness qua relative negation and non-thetic awareness qua non-relative negation furthermore clarifies the mechan­ ism involved in the construction ofcontinuity and the expression ofthe self qua the self-determination of the present. However, this issue reflects the underlying philosophies of temporality and, subsequently, necessitates a brief examination of the philosophy of time in order to complete this discussion on Dagen's view of personal identity in the context ofa larger discourse in comparative philosophy. I will limit the discussion on the philosophy oftime to the aspects which are of direct relevance to the notion of continuity of experience.

163 CHAPTER FIVE t....---- Temporality

Introduction

The collapse ofthe continuity ofexperience into the present awareness event and the subsequent shift of focus from the continuity of experience to the experience of continuity raises a few interesting conceptual questions: First, there is the question concerning the ontological status of this "present" which encompasses "past" and "future." What is the present into which the continuity of experience folds? Where is it located? Buddhists and phenomenologists alike, I think, would respond that the "present" is this very moment in which the experiential "I" qua individual self defining itself or qua self-reflective philosopher self-consciously awakens to her/his ex­ istence (this would imply, of course, that there are an infinite amount of presents). The question concerning its metaphysical location implies a deeper pursuit of the beginning (methodologically and ontologically) and, subsequently, suggests an infinite regress. In addition, I do not think that the question of repeatability and reversibility is an issue because "[f]irewood, which becomes ashes, cannot return to become firewood again and a person, who has died, does not return to life." As the previous chapter has shown, Nishida's circular notion of time does not entail the possibility of repeating time but rather a creative transformation of one's own "past" existence qua being-in-itself, karmic residue, or created toward a new created and, most fundamentally, a radical criticism of the notion of an objective and objectively linear time. Finally, an evaluation of the arguments negotiating the linear or circular conceptions of temporality seems to be rather trivial, on the one side, and irrelevant for the present discussion, on the other. In this context, it will suffice to note that

164 TEMPORALITY Sartre and Nishida both emphasize the paradoxical nature of time in that the "past has already passed," "the future is not yet," and the present if "simply conceived of as a point on a continuous line, like a moment, ... does not exist and neither does time" (Nishida 1988, 9: 149). Or, as Sartre observes, "the past is no longer, the future is not yet; as for the instantaneous present, everyone knows it does not exist at all but is the limit of an infinite division, like a point without a dimension" (Sartre 1956, 159). In the light of this predicament, phenomenologists and Buddhists prefer an existential approach starting with the self-reflective "I" and examine the epistemological status of the two primary experiences of continuity as linear temporality and as present. It seems to be the agreement of most phenomenologists and some Buddhists that the linear conception of time is constructed by thetic consciousness which steps outside of its own existential predicament and, subsequently, assumes a standpoint outside of time. It is these two modalities of experiencing continuity and, subsequently, time, which have moved into the forefront of a theory of selfhood and selflessness. Of course, it can be objected, as it has, that even such an existential approach has its metaphysical presuppositions and is not as presuppositionless as assumed by Husserl and Nishida (Buddhists such as Nagarjuna and Dagen did not care too much about this, admittedly recent, problematic). This is not the place to negotiate the question of methodological primacy, to sort out whether the chicken preceded the egg; instead, since the project is to explore Dagen's notion of time, it seems to be most appropriate to follow his rather existential approach. It is the goal of this chapter to briefly explore the "experience of temporality" in the thought of representatives of phenomenology and Buddhism in order to fully extract Dagen's theory of selfhood within a comparative discourse.

A Phenomenology of Time

As I have mentioned before, the impression given by the title "phenomenology of time" that there is indeed one phenomenology of time is rather misleading. The various phenomenologists differ in their conception of time as well as in their evaluation of the importance of time in the wider frame of their philosophical systems. The two major ideas which the various phenomenologists introduced to the discourse on the philosophy of time were Husserl's notion of lived time and Heidegger's distinction between the authentic

165 ZEN BuDDHISM A~D PHEN011El'JOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS experience of time and an inauthentic experience of time. While Heidegger's distinction has proven successful in understanding Dagen's conception of time, as attested by Heine (1985), Abe (1992, 107-144), and Joan Stambaugh (1990), my attempt to sketch a phenomenology of time will again draw mostly on Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, whose ideas have proven particularly helpful in the preceding chapters. The starting point of such a phenomenology constitutes the question, How does the self experience time? Heidegger's distinction between authentic and inauthentic experience of time certainly provides a helpful tool for the present discussion; however, his concern with the existential attitude of the self, his Dasein (as Sorge and Entschlossenheit), rather than the connection between diachronically diverse events makes his system less applicable to the present problem than Merleau-Ponty's conception of time. 1 In addition, it seems to me that a phenomenology of time renders three categories of experiences of time, namely abstract time, phenomenal time, and lived time, which can function as a conceptual framework for examining Dagen's philosophy oftime. While the term "abstract time" designates the linear temporality constructed by thetic consciousness, "phenomenal time" denotes the time encountered by the experiential "I," which awakens to its own temporality, facing its past as its factuality and its future as its possibilities, and "lived time" designates the time experienced by the somatic cogito, which manifests its "past" and "future" in its active engagement with its ambiance.

Abstract time

Phenomenologists generally seem to agree that the conventional conception ofobjective time as something real and substantive outside of and separate to our existence is ultimately inauthentic. Regardless of whether it is conceived causal-mechanically as an infinite stream "from the past towards the present and the future" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 411) or teleologically from the future towards the present and the past, the conception of time as something separate and, even more fundamentally, as "something" objectifies and thingifies time. On the contrary, time is, so say the phenomenologists, neither a substance nor a container in which things and people or even events are placed; it is neither a thing coming first towards and, then, going past the experiential "I," nor does it comprise an infinite succession of thing­ events which run past the astonished "I" like cars speeding past a

166 TEMPORALITY hitchhiker on the side ofa busy highway. The linear conception oftime, as hinted at above, is fraught with paradoxes in that it requires two points ofreference (such as past and present, or past and future), while experience discloses only the present to be real (as past is already past and the future is not yet) and reduces the present, which is ever-present, to "a point without a dimension." More importantly, time constitutes not a static unchanging object or the static coordinate system which organizes our experiences, like an ontologized version of Kant's conception of time, as an a priori form of experience. Instead, time is a dynamic event; in the words ofthe now almost classical Heideggerian dictum, "temporality temporalizes itself."z The implications of this cryptic phrase are twofold: First, the existence of the experiential "I" and time are not separate but inextricably intertwined in the sense that the activity of the experiential "I" is existentially temporal and time is existentially observer-relative; second, time or, rather, the various experiences of time are a product of the temporal activity of the experiential "I." In this sense, the conception of time as external and separate from human existence is constructed by thetic consciousness, abstracted from the inauthentic experience of temporality qua temporality in order to make sense of its own existence and to provide a meaningful context of historicity to its present activity. Ultimately, that is to say that the various conceptions of time are correlative to and reflective of the respective existential modalities of awareness. In order to self-reflectively theorize its own predicament "objectively" from the "outside," the experiential "I" performs what I call a methodological retreat, by means of which it pretends to "step out" of its own experience. The quotation marks of "objectively" indicate that it is impossible for the experiential "I" to separate itself from its own existential and historical predicament or to assume an "objective" and "neutral" god-like third-person-ontology; the experiential "I" cannot but be located in its own unique context of personal historicity. By assuming such an "outside" position, the experiential "I" freezes its own experiences to usurp the authority of the perspective sub specie aeternitatis and to pretend to describe the world-out-there as-it-is. As Merleau-Ponty observes, the assumption of a continuity of experience not only presupposes any kind of observer but an enduring observer. The notion of "time" as that which flows from the past to the future, presupposes an observer who, simultaneously, is able to access, in a privileged manner so to speak, past and future events. In other words, the observation of the temporal continuity t1-tZ-t3-t4 presupposes at least one continuous

167 ZEN BUDDHIS~'l AND PHENO~IEi'.:OLOGYO~ SELF-AWARENESS observer Pl-P2-P3-P4 or an enduring observer P, who "compares the successive views"; however, the very notion of a continuous or enduring observer implies the very temporal framework which is to be proven. In analogy to the reasoning of Butler's circularity objection discussed in chapter 1,3 it is impossible to locate an observer at a "past" event, without, first, presupposing or, in the language of phenomenology, constituting, in the retrospective act Husserl calls retention, its existence. Thus, silently assuming the role of an outside observer, thetic consciousness creates the absurd situation in that it assumes a position transcendent to temporality in order to theorize its own temporal historicity; it assumes its own atemporality qua "objective" observer to prove its temporality. Methodologically, this paradox raises the interesting conundrum of the temporality of the very notion of temporality4 and, applied to the contemporary discourse on historicity, of the historicity of the very notion of historicity; however, this constitutes a different problem. For now it suffices to note, however, that in the process of a methodological retreat the experiential HI" not only constitutes abstract time as an external, permanent object or container, but further constitutes itself as a seemingly permanent subject. Ultimately, and reminiscent of Dagen's observation that "if someone discriminates and affirms the myriad dharmas while being deluded about body and mind, s/he misjudges her/his mind and nature to be permanent," thetic consciousness constructs and postulates its own permanence and substantiality vis­ a-vis the substantiality of a seemingly observer-independent linear temporality by applying a methodological retreat. In the final analysis, the abstract continuity of experiences displays five fundamental characteristics: (1) it is constructed as a seemingly observer-independent external continuity; (2) it is constructed by the thetic act of projection, which in turn (3) constitutes itself as a permanent subject; (4) it is constructed as one abstract continuity of experience, which (5) is analyzable into three parts, namely past, present, and future, while the enduring and, subsequently, atemporal, objective author of this linear temporality is seemingly not present. Such a conception of abstract time implies that any given experiential "I" regardless of its historicity can assume the role of the abstract observer. This construction of an "objective" linear temporal continuity has direct implications for a theory of personal identity. This conception ofabstract time provides the metaphysical framework ofany third-person-ontology ofpersonal identity or lack thereof. That means that, assuming the seemingly "neutral" position sub specie

168 TEMPORALITY aeternitatis of the methodological retreat, the experiential "I" formulates a narrative identity. 5 This mechanism is best exemplified by Leibniz' "second earth" argument in which he confesses that only god could distinguish between two persons who possess identical bodies, behavior, memories, etc, because only god can discern human personal identities qua substance. Similarly, a narrative identity requires an "outside" observer who overlooks past, present qua posited present, and future. Generally, this notion of narrative identity assumes either one of two possible expressions, namely, the essentialist substance in the sense of the Leibnizian monad, which passes through the three stages of time, past, present, and future, or the Parfitian continuity of experience as exemplified by the experimentees of his puzzle cases, which extends from what-it-was via what-it-is towards what-it-will-be. In either case, however (regardless of whether or not the author presumes the existence of an enduring further fact and regardless of whether this continuity is conceived of as causal-mechanistic or teleological), the experiential "I" constructs a seemingly external and "objectively" conceivable continuity of experience as what-it-intends-to-be within the temporal context of what-it-intends-to have-been and what-it-intends-to-be. In formulating its own narrative identity, the author envisions herIhis past, present, and future by means ofretrospectively and prospectively projected images. It is in this sense, to cite Collins' case, that to the unenlightened person-in-the-world, who struggles with the ethical and soteriological ramifications of daily life, concepts such as the person­ over-time and continuity ofexperience function as explanantes, which make sense of everyday experience and aspirations by bestowing meaning on the daily activity and ethical responsibility on everyday awareness. In other words, the phenomenological analysis of time discloses the notion of abstract time as the underlying framework of the essentialist notion of personal identity as well as the conception of personhood as a continuity of sufficiently connected person-stages. Graph 1 illustrates the conception of abstract time:

Graph 1: Abstract Time

Past ------. Present ------. Future

x Observer

169 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENO~lEl\:OLOGYOi\: SELF-AWARENESS Despite its seeming feasibility and obvious attractiveness, it is the existential and methodological conundrum of a self that assumes an allegedly atemporal stance to theorize its own temporality which problematizes the notion ofabstract time and, subsequently, as chapter 4 has demonstrated, the continuity of experience. The conception ofthe abstract continuity of experience qua past, present, and future selves exclusively assumes the standpoint of a third-person-ontology which is achieved by means of a methodological retreat. In order to theorize itself in terms ofsuch an abstract continuity, the experiential "I" has to separate itself not only from its past and future but paradoxically also from its present. Thus, the experiential "I" constitutes its narrative identity within a world outside of its own experience, comprising merely an image and a reflection of itself - a world of constituted objectivity for-itself; it projects its own past, present, and future as an external continuity of experience. In doing so, the experiential "I" dissociates itself from its own experience and, subsequently, freezes its creative activity in order to construct its own static narrative identity for itself. In this sense, the conception of an abstract continuity of experience reflects the abstract shadow of the creative activity of the self but does not comprise the self's activity itself; it substitutes the static, abstract, and determinable self-qua-object for the indetermin­ able and lived creativity of the present activity. Heidegger critiques such a position for its refusal to face the facticity of temporality and volatility of life qua being-towards-death and thus does not fulfill its potentiality-for-being-a-whole, while Sartre argues that such a human being falls short of her/his existential and social responsibility and, ultimately, lives in what Sartre calls bad faith (Fr.: mauvaise foi) which "is indeed a lie to oneself" (Sartre 1956, 87-89). Both Heidegger and Sartre argue, albeit in their own terminologies and with different agendas, that the notion of abstract time distracts from the existential predicament and the existential urgency to act ek-statically. Ultimately, phenomenologists, with the possible exception of Husserl, reject the notion of abstract time on existential rather than ontological grounds, arguing that the very notion of abstract time assumes the atemporality ofthe self, whose very predicament is radically temporal.

Phenomenal time

Contrary to the notion of abstract time, which presupposes the methodological retreat ofthe experiential "I," phenomenal time is posited

170 TEMPORALITY by the experiential "I" who acknowledges its own temporality. While thetic consciousness assumes a supposedly "objective" standpoint to construct abstract time, it realizes its own temporality and historicity and correspondingly appropriates6 its rightful place in the present. The experiential "I" cannot deny its existential predicament of being thrown into the present, to which it awakes. However, thrown into the present, it is irrevocably confronted with its own past (its own existence) and its own future qua future being-in-itself and what-it-is­ not-yet. As Sartre illustrates so eloquently, the experiential "I" simultaneously encounters what-it-is as its own past, while its own potentiality and freedom appear as the self's own future "as the project of its possibilities" (Sartre 1956, 185). The experiential "I" experiences time, qua past and future, which slhe respectively awaits7 and recollects, as an external object or the external framework of human activity. However, such an awareness still posits time as an external object or as passing. Although the experiential "I" acknowl­ edges its position in the present, it is its existential predicament to encounter and constitute itself as an externalized projection. In the same sense in which past and future seem to lie outside ofthe present, the experiential "I" experiences itself as two external selves, the past and the future self. These are created in an existential act of ek-stasis in which the experiential "I" negates its own existence in order to project itself and to escape objectification by the others, as in the case of Sartre's being-for-itself or in the resoluteness of Heidegger's Dasein, which embraces the future existentially as being-towards-death. Thus, everyday awareness simultaneously externalizes itself as self-qua­ object and dichotomizes this image of itself as what-it-is and what-it­ will-be. Sartre expresses the existential alienation of the experiential "I," which finds itself dispossessed of its own being, "having cut the bridges" to what-it-is while "not-yet" having reached what-it-will-be. It thus finds itself suspended between two dissociated halves of its own self qua past in-itselfand future in-itselfwhile "the Present is not" (Sartre 1956, 179). The self-reflective experiential "I" thus faces an interesting conundrum in that it finds itself thrown into the present which "is not" and thus constitutes not so much a present but, in the Sartrean sense, a presence to its own past which "is no longer" and future which "is not yet" and, subsequently paradoxically manifests itself as "presence to the past" and as "presence to the future."8 Sartre's haunting account of the for-itself which is suspended between past and future seems to adequately describe the alienation the ordinary person experiences. In analogy to its differentiation of the

171 ZEN BCDDHIS~1 AXD PHENO~1E~OLOGYOi\ SELF-AWARENESS self into body and mind, the ordinary person qua positional awareness, to employ Dagen's terminology, "misjudges" time as past and future and personal identity as what-it-is and what-it-is-not. The notion of phenomenal time displays an inherent paradoxical structure, which manifests itself in the temporal ambiguity of the experiential "I" and the contradictory nature ofconcepts such as past, present, and future. The temporal ambiguity of the experiential "I" is eloquently expressed in Sartre's description of the for-itself, which simultaneously comprises the presence to the past in-itself and the presence to the future project of the for-itself This existential torn­ apart-ness (Ger.: Zerrissenheit) , between what-it-is and what-it-will­ be-but-is-not-yet, leaves the experiential "I" suspended in despair and nothingness, reminiscent of David Levin's "repetition compulsion" and "anxiety," which can only be distracted by inauthentic, to use Heidegger's phrase, "idle talk" of "nostalgia" and "futural illusion" (Levin 1978, 79-82). It is in this torn-apart-ness, between a past, which is already-gone, and a future, which is not-yet-arrived, that the experiential "I" inhabits the "instantaneous present," which "does not exist at all but is the limit of an infinite division, like a point without dimension." This torn-apart-ness further discloses the contradictory nature of the temporal structure in that past and future both do not exist and, simultaneously, constitute a "presence to the present"; or as Nishida observes, "in the present the past has passed and, simul­ taneously, not yet passed, while the future has not yet come and, at the same time, resides in the present" (Nishida 1988, 9: 148). Contrary to Nishida's observation, however, the temporal ambivalence of the experiential "I," which finds itself torn-apart between the demands of the past and the future, becomes very apparent in Sartre's description of the being-jor-itself not as the present which "does not exist at all" but as presence to the past or the future; thus defined the experiential "I" is existentially homeless and deprived, defined externally rather than internally, a nothingness relative to its own existence and opportunity but without a true place (in the Nishidan sense).

Graph 2: Phenomenal time

Phenomenal time past self ~ Present ~ future self Appropriation Projection

172 TEMPORALITY The crux of the linear conception of time lies in the externalization oftime; authentic experience oftime, on the contrary, originates inside (of the present). Time does not comprise an external object or an external framework of experience but an intimate building block of experience itself and, subsequently, of the self itself. "Temporality temporalizes itself": Even inauthentic experience of time, which appears to be an external continuity of experience, is, ultimately, internal; it comprises my own experience of time and is constituted by the positional attitude of the cogito. If time was outside of my experience, displaying the noumenal character of a thing-itself (Ger.: Ding-an-sich), I could not experience it; my experience of time necessitates that time is expressed within my activity. The term "to temporalize" indicates that time existentially emerges from the expressive activity. An activity does not occur in time, but in its occurrence an activity generates/temporalizes time. It is this inseparability of time from existence and the locating of temporality within the confines ofthe present and not as some transcendental given that discloses the experience of time qua lived time. A conception of time which externalizes time still postulates the dichotomy between existence and temporality; this dichotomy phenomenologists, especially Heidegger, seek to overcome.

Lived time

Contrary to phenomenal time, which is constituted as an external continuity from the past to the future, lived time9 is established by the creative activity ofthe self, which expresses "past" habitualizations and "futural" anticipations. It is not, as it seems from the standpoint ofthe disengaged cogito, that past and future eternally escape their apprehension by the self, but, from the standpoint of the engaged self, "past" and "future" unyieldingly intrude onto the present activity. In the light of a metaphysic of the present, Sartre's twofold definition ofthe being-for-itselfas presence to its past and the presence to its future is transformed into the notion of the activity, which functions as the presence ofthe past, that is, the presence ofwhat-the­ self-is, and the presence of the future, that is, the presence of what­ the-self-is-not. "Past" and "future" are no longer experienced as a static outside but are included in the present activity. Contrary to phenomenal time, where the individual awareness event opposes its past and future, the selfoflived time engage "past" and "future" in the

173 ZEN BUDDHIS1v1 AND PHE0JO~IENOLOGY00J SELF-AWARENESS present in the sense that "this table bears traces of my past life ... But these traces in themselves do not refer to the past, they are present" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 413). A few pages later Merleau-Ponty continues to explain that "[t]he past, therefore, is not the past, nor the future the future" (421). "Past" and "future" are already contained in my existential predicament in the sense that "I am already at the impending present" and that "I am myself time" moving from "one present to the next" (421). The phrase Htemporality temporalizes itself" ultimately implies that my engagement with my ambiance simultaneously manifests a "past" and a "future." This points towards an intrinsic correlation between temporality and spatiality, which, however, has to be discussed separately. Walking down the street of a town unknown to me, I manifest the "past" events of walking, orienting myself, reading books and maps about this area etc. as well as my return to this place tomorrow. By the same token, Schneider is capable of finding a familiar address because of the many "previous" times he walked this route while, at the same time, his present walking prefigures "subsequent" instances of this activity. It is not that my activities are located in time - such a notion implies an untenable dualism - but they express "temporality temporalizing itself" or, in Nishida's terminology, the "self-determination of temporality tempor­ alizing itself." Merleau-Ponty's conception of temporality differs from the notion of lived time in its pure form. Lived time collapses the continuity of from the past via the present to the future as well as the opposition between present and past-and-future in the present. Containing past­ and-future, lived time discloses an internal unity as well as an inherent atemporality. Thus defined, a complete unity of past-and-future in the present would lack change and, subsequently, temporality, as argued by Odin (1982) and illustrated by the of Parmenides1o, who characterizes the One as unchanging, and of classical Brahmanism, which envisions the ultimate reality brahman as a permanent and unchanging oneness. In his attempt to reconcile the oneness of the present with the flux of temporality and the ek-static aspect of the positionality characteristic of the self, Merleau-Ponty de facto attempts to reconcile the notions of lived time and phenomenal time rather than to depict lived time in its pure modality. However, while Merleau-Ponty collapses existence and temporality, his concept of time falls short of such a reconciliation, which, as Nishida's discussion of temporality will reveal, necessitates the assumption of a non-positional modality of engagement and a paradoxical conception

174 TEMPORALITY of the present as simultaneously temporal and atemporal. At any rate, the conception of lived time displays three fundamental characteristics: First, lived time does not comprise an externalized projection of the self's narrative identity but is manifested and lived in the activity ofthe self. Second, contrary to the threefold structure of abstract time and the twofold structure of phenomenal time qua past-and-future, lived time discloses an internal unity in that the present unifies past-and­ future. Third, in contrast to phenomenal time qua past and future, the temporal dimensions of lived time, lived past and lived future, are not constituted as external entities but are manifested in the present. Graph 3 will illustrate such a conception of lived time. Before I proceed to discuss a Zen Buddhist conception of temporality, however, I would like to briefly discuss the fundamental problem Merleau-Ponty faced when he attempted to reconcile a temporality of the present with the experience oftemporal continuity, on the one side, and the givenness of the existential predicament of the self with the possibility of free will, on the other.

Graph 3: Lived Time

Lived Time:

past-and-future

present

Temporality and the problem offree will

To unpack the difficulties in conceiving of a notion of time which accommodates some sense of causality and of teleology, let me briefly recount the existential predicament ofthe experiential "I." Waking up to itself, the experiential "I" finds itself existentially pre-determined in its own existence: It cannot choose its environment, physicality, psychological make-up, or personal historicity, but is subjected to an unyielding conditionality, in the light of which every thought, every activity seems to inevitably follow from external conditions. However, the awakening experiential "I" encounters not only a conditionality which is engendered by the "past" selves, but, more generally, a social

175 ZEN BUDDHIS1\1 A0:D PHEN01\'lEl'\OLOGY 0:'\ SELF-AWARENESS and historical conditionality. The self's context qua "past" self is existentially co-manifested and co-habitualized by the public, to which the self belongs. The co-constitution of the self comprises already the projections of individual others as well as of the public consensus, including public knowledge and expectations of what-the-self-is by the we-subject. By the same token, the habitualizations the experiential "I" encounters as its context are not engendered by an isolated self but are co-habitualized by a community of agents: The experiential "I" inherits a personal and a social legacy alike. The present activity seems to be conditioned by forces over which it does not have control; the self's activities do not posit what-it-is; or, to be more exact, what-it-is is paradoxically predetermined by a past other. Ultimately, the experiential "I" apprehends its situation as one of an existential impotency and disempowerment, which bestows the control of its life to impersonal, causal contingencies. A self which experiences its activity solely as determined by the past ultimately succumbs to its own historicity and factuality, losing its sense of agency. On the other hand, the experiential "I" encounters an infinite horizon of unlimited opportunities. Confronted with the presence of the future, in the light of which the past appears to be non-existent, the experiential "I" apprehends itself as a creative and transformative force, which, unobstructed by external contingencies, engenders and shapes itself as what-it-will-be. Again, the future, envisioned by the self, does not only comprise my own subsequent self but encompasses a broader vision displaying utopian dimensions. Ultimately, however, the face of the future creates the illusion ofthe omnipotent self, which can determine its own physicality through exercises and cosmetic surgery, which can control its fate through empowerment seminars, self-help groups, as well as magical and/or secular rituals designed to shape the future according to its intentions. Lacking a sense of reality in the form of its own socio-historical contingency, in the face of the future, the self defines itself by its seemingly unlimited possibilities. In the present activity, these two irreconcilable modes of existence, Jung would say psychological attitudes, oppose each other. This opposition engenders an existential and seemingly interminable conflict within the self, which is reflected in the perennial controversies in western philosophies and theologies, negotiating the positions of determinism and human autonomy. Existentially, this conflict plays itself out in the incompatibility of the two existential modalities, namely surrender to one's past and anticipation, and, thus, displays a struggle between the self qua "past" contingencies and the

176 TEMPORALITY self qua "futural" opportunities for what Jung would call the dominant attitude. Everyday awareness seems to harmonize these two modalities insofar as every activity simultaneously manifests its contingencies and its opportunities. However, this seeming collabora­ tion of surrender and anticipation cannot conceal the fact that, in the final analysis, both modalities, if conceived linearly, are mutually incompatible. In the face of this dilemma, Sartre suggests a teleological continuity, which gives rise to his famous theory of radical freedom and responsibility, despite his notion offactuality as indicated by his being-in-itself Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, prioritizes the present in order to accommodate both the givenness of historical, social, and somatic conditions of the self and its potential to free choices and responsibility; however, he was then compelled to reconcile an atemporal present and a temporal sequence of presents. A solution to either problem, reconciliation of determinism and free will or a reconciliation between a temporal flow and an atemporal, unified present, ultimately, seems to necessitate the non-dual structure of Nishida's self-determination of the present and contradictory self­ identity. To remedy this dilemma Dagen and Nishida suggest a fourth dimension oftime, actual time, which discloses the expressive modality of the present as a bilateral self-identity, without, however, sacrificing the asymmetric character of the continuity from the created to the creating.

Existence-Time - Time in Dagen Time in early Buddhism

Even though the concept "time" occupies an important place in Buddhist thought, early Buddhism conceives oftime predominantly, as Alexander von Rospatt (1995), Braj M. Sinha (1983), and Hari Shankar Prasad (1991) have illustrated, as a linear continuity ofmoment-events. Nagarjuna's dialectical rejection oftime qua past, present, and future in the ninteenth chapter of his Mulamadhyamikakarikas, "Kalaparfk$a," reveals "the mutual dependence ofall mental constructs" (McWilliams 1979, 56) behind the conventional conceptions of time but not the mutual dependence between grasper and grasped as do the phenomenological analyses of time by Merleau-Ponty, Dagen, and Nishida. The Hua-Yen conception oftime as the "total non-obstructed

177 ZEN BUDDHIS~l A~D PHEN01,,1Et\OLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS interpenetration and unhindered mutual containment with its under­ lying symmetrical infrastructure" (Odin 1982, 77-78) similarly emphasizes the temporal structure rather than its constitution and the act of temporalizing which occupies a central place in the philosophies of time of the phenomenologists and Zen Buddhists such as Dagen and Nishida. Therefore, I will directly proceed to Dagen's twofold conception ofthe human experience oftime without discussing the major Buddhist conceptions of time prior to Dagen.

Time in Dogen

Undermining the notion of a linear continuity of experience, Dagen not only questions the conception of personal identity as person-over­ time, but, more fundamentally, subverts the underlying assumptions of linear temporality. In contrast to early Buddhist philosophy and the reductionist philosophy of Parfit, Dagen extends the rejection of an enduring substance to entail a critique of endurance and the continuity of experience in general. Dagen underlines his rejection of linear continuity with a redefinition of the conception of time, which includes and accounts for the notion of discontinuity, or to use Nishida's terminology, the continuity of discontinuity. In doing so, Dagen questions the enterprise of investigating the continuity of experience without an examination of the underlying temporal presuppositions. Since the philosophical treatment of time is absolutely fundamental to Dagen's conceptual and soteriological enterprise, Dagen does not shy away from the difficulties of formulating a philosophy of time. While the passages discussed in the previous chapter dealt with the diachronic continuity of experience, that is, the relationship between two or more external dharma-positions, and, subsequently, with the continuity ofexperience as a diachronic sequence of events qua the presencing-of-total-working in the present dharma-position, Dagen's fascicle "Shabagenza Uji" (Dagen, 1993, 1: 267-86) investigates Dagen's description of the experience of continuity, that is, the relationship between the experiential "I" and individual dharma-positions and, thus, explores the existential dimensions and ramifications of a philosophy of time. In this fascicle, Dagen differentiates between two experiences of time, inauthentic experience of time, indicative of everyday awareness, and authentic experience of time, corresponding to the non-positional awareness attained in the experience of satori. Following Heidegger's

178 TEMPORALITY terminology, Heine employs the term "derivative time" to signify the experience "of the average man who feels subjugated by 'time flies' and clings without reflection to the very source of the problem" (Heine 1985, 144). I utilize the terminology of authentic and inauthentic experience of time to indicate Dagen's pre-occupation with a phenomenology of time rather than an ontology of time (even though, as Heine observes, an ontology of time is certainly implied) and to capture Dagen's distinction between the experience of time by the enlightened and the unenlightened respectively, on the one side, and to distinguish it from my fourfold classification of abstract, existential, lived, and actual time. However, it has to be noted that Heidegger's and Dagen's notions of authenticity differ significantly: While Heidegger conceives of the "primarily futural" (Heidegger 1962, 337) and ek-static reaching-out-towards (which Heidegger calls "anticipation") as authentic understanding, Dagen, as chapter 4 has shown, conceives of the dharma-position which reaches out towards the future as inauthentic. In analogy to Heidegger, Dagen would characterize the static and suspended modality of "awaiting" and "making present," which, contrary to Dagen's presencing, neither projects nor expresses itself, as inauthentic; at the same time, however, he would argue, as Nishida does, that an external negation of the present towards the future does not bestow authenticity; only the internal negation of the present by the present towards the present guarantees authenticity.

Inauthentic experience of time

Dagen attributes the experience of time as inauthentic to the standpoint of everyday awareness, which he paraphrases as the standpoint of the ordinary person (Jap.: bompu). As discussed earlier, everyday awareness experiences itself as an enduring substance, opposed by an external phenomenal world symbolized alternatively as mountains or as the shoreline of a river which the self observes from a distance. By the same token, everyday awareness experiences time as an external reality, symbolized as rivers Gap.: kawa) and mountains (Jap.: yama), which is something completely disconnected from the self. Any particular time such as tomorrow comprises an external reality which I anticipate, experience, and, then, remember. It is important to note, however, that Dagen does not thematize or theorize the temporal structure in toto, but rather individual time-moments,

179 ZEN BUDDHIS~-1 A~D PHENONIE~OLOGY 0)\ SELF-AWARENESS thus evoking a rather atomistic conception of time, characteristic of early Buddhism. In the passages discussed in the previous chapter, Dagen refers to these individual time-moments as dharma-positions. To Dagen, the notion of linear time seems to be, at best, secondary to the relationship between the experiential "I" and the externalized dharma-positions such as before and after. The linear sequence oftime emerges from the conception of many diachronically diverse time periods such as "the times of ancient and modern times," which appear to occur "one after another" (Dagen 1993, 1: 275). The experiential "I" experiences the individual time-moment as a phenomenal object, which "passes" (Jap.: suguru) and "flies away" (Jap.: hiko) through "hundred thousand worlds" or "one billion ages" (1: 280). Such an understanding reifies and objectifies the individual moments of time and, simultaneously, presupposes a world of static substances like a haunted house, through which the observer drives in a cart yet remains detached from the individual stations, or an escalator or a conveyer belt, which transports unmoving substances through an unmoving world. Dagen underlines this conception of phenomenal time11 as object when he employs spatial allegories to illustrate the inauthentic experience of time by comparing the "passage of time" to the experience of "passing a river-and­ mountain." "Having passed," the experiential "I" thinks that "now, even though mountain-and-river exist, I inhabit a jewelled palace and a vermillion mansion. Mountain and river and I are like heaven and earth" (1: 273). Dagen, however, vehemently rejects this escalator model of time. On the contrary, he maintains that "exhaustive worlds" are neither "unmoving" (Jap.: fudoten) nor "unproceeding and unreceding" (Jap.: fushintai) (1: 279) but comprise a dynamic whole; as Buddhists have been asserting since the time of Gotama, the actual world is a world of change and impermanence (Skrt.: anitya; Jap.: mujo). It is not that individual time-moments pass me or that I pass along the infinite sequence of time-moments, but, to employ the terminology introduced in chapter 4, that the passage of time qua individual time-moments t1, t2t (~, etc. is contained in the present dharma­ position. Dagen's contention that inauthentic experience of time is as distant as "heaven and earth" not only suggests that everyday awareness posits time as a phenomenal object but, ultimately, signifies an existential alienation, which is grounded in the inauthentic experience of time as externalized experience. The dichotomy between the experiential "I" and inauthentic experience of time

180 TEMPORALITY discloses a lack of intimacy between experiencer and time qua before or after. It further dissociates the one passage of time into many separate elements. The inauthentic experience of time is grounded in the positional structure of everyday awareness, which posits the individual dharma­ position outside of itself. However, such a differentiation between the knower qua experiential "I" and the known qua external dharma­ position obstructs an experience of the dharma-position-as-it-is. In Dagen's words, "if you conceive of time as going-and-coming,12 you cannot penetrate existence-time in its dwelling place" (Dagen 1993, 1: 278). If time is conceived of as an external substance, which is anticipated, experienced, and remembered as a phenomenal object, an understanding, in the sense that knower and known are unified, is, by implication, impossible. This means that time qua individual dharma­ position constantly evades the knowing subject. The existential ramifications of this conception, however, are rather significant. The projection of a future dharma-position does not comprise an empty temporal framework, which has to be filled with content, but the future self. Since Dagen conceives of individual dharma-positions not as abstract entities but, more concretely, as what Nishida terms the "I of tomorrow" and the "I of yesterday," not being able to grasp time implies an existential inability of the self to know itself. Confronted with the unbridgable separation from time qua individual moments, everyday awareness finds itself constantly chasing itself qua its future and past selves in the vain effort to understand itself. This alienation from itself corresponds to the general impossibility of describing the present event, since even if the dharma-position [of uji] could be comprehended, who could preserve such an attainment in words? And even if someone was able to preserve this attainment in words, s/he could not help struggling to make present her/his original face. (1: 278) This passage resonates Dagen's observation that "people outside the mountains" "do not know, do not see, and do not hear," while "people inside the mountains" do not know the mountains because "inside the mountains flowers blossom" (1: 407). The positional standpoint, in which everyday awareness and the objects of knowledge are separated, distracts from and obstructs an authentic experience of time, which "makes present her/his original face." Authentic experience of time, on the other hand, does not disclose an individual knower. The

181 ZEN BUDDHISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY ON SELF-AWARENESS dissociation of subjectivity and objectivity is truly temporal as the examination of the relationship between the "past" and "present" has shown. As discussed in the previous chapter, externalizing one's "past" qua one's existence, ultimately, prevents self-awareness and, subsequently, authenticity. The crux in this case is, once again, the existential predicament of the positional attitude, which, in the act of constitution and positionality, obstructs the individual dharma-position and, ultimately, distracts the self from itself. In addition to reiterating the epistemological doctrine of Dagen, this passage further underlines the inextricable connection between time and self-awareness. In the same way in which self-awareness necessitates the incorporation ofthe externalizations of the self-qua-object, the authentic experience of time presumes the inclusion of externalized dharma-positions qua before-and-after into the dharma-position inhabited by the experiential "I." Dagen underlines the above-cited observation, that "past" and "future" exist only insofar as they are present, when he contends that even the passage of time qua past-and-future occurs in the "now." Elsewhere, Dagen juxtaposes the notion of phenomenal time qua korai ("going-and coming") and the notion of the immediate now (1: 274) or the "immediate now of existence-time" (1: 273) in order to indicate that time neither passes from the past into the future nor simply "goes­ and-comes" (Jap.: korai) , thus underlining the absoluteness of the present.

Authentic experience of time

As indicated by Dagen's observation that "since at any time there is only this very time,13 existence-time (Jap.: uji) comprises all exhaustive times" (Dagen 1994, 1: 272), authentic experience of time is existentially rooted in the exclusiveness of the immediate now. Tamaki underlines Dagen's primacy of the present dimension of Mensch-sein when he translates the term "immediate now" (Jap.: nikon) following the terminology of Nishida, as "eternal now" (Jap.: eien no ima), signifying that instead of eternally pursuing the evasive present, the experiential "I" never escapes it-the present is eternal. In Dagen's own terminology, "all-there-is is existence-time" (Jap.: uji). As I discussed in the preceding chapter, even though events occur "prior" to the dharma-position "firewood," in the very moment in which firewood burns there is no before and after, there is only the "burning of firewood"; therefore Dagen claims that firewood "possesses a

182 TE~1PORALITY before-and-after, firewood cuts off before-and-after." All "previous" and "subsequent" events are contained within the immediate now in that it comprises the selfless and transparent presencing of "exhaustive times," a presencing devoid of any positional arc14 qua retroaction or anticipation which engenders before and after, past and future. As prefigured in his discussion of the individual dharma-position, in the immediate now every single event and time is presenced as-it-is; or in Nishida's terminology, in the immediate now the historical world expresses and determines itself. Given the ontological priority of the immediate now, the temporal horizon qua past-and-future functions as the context of the immediate now rather than signifying ontologically separate individual entities. Thus, Dagen radically inverts the notion of time as a pre-experiential continuity; it is not that the event is located in time, but time is located in the event. This transtemporal character of the immediate now is expressed by Dagen in cryptic passages, equating the immediate now and "exhaustive time" (Jap.: jinji) and identifying the passage of time (Jap.: kyoryaku) as passage from "today to tomorrow, from today to yesterday," (Dagen 1994, 1: 275) etc. In other words, the momentary event, called immediate now or existence-time, ultimately, manifests "exhaustive times" and total­ working. Again, as discussed in the preceding chapter, this manifestation of "exhaustive times" does not entail a mystical experience (it does not exclude it either), but most fundamentally, implies that every "past" or "future" event (if relevant) is manifested in the present as the self-determination of the historical world. The existential significance of authentic experience of time is reflected in Dagen's interpretation of the traditional phrase "a certain time" (Jap.: aru toki) as "existence-time." This phrase itself already suggests a fundamental connection between the temporal and existential dimensions of Mensch-sein, which Dagen reinforces by repeatedly maintaining that "time should be in me; since I already exist, time should not pass" (1: 273) and that "dependent on being­ time, there is my existence-time" (1: 275). The former utterance can be read on two levels: On the one hand, this quotation indicates that inauthentic experience of time is in me, that is, it is constituted for me, while on a different level this phrase signifies the existential dimension of time qua lived time, in the sense that time is not external to but manifested in human experience. Time, Dagen asserts, is not something abstract, projected by one or many cogitos nor does it comprise the external static framework of an enduring substance, but it is existentially expressed, actualized, and lived in the activity of the

183 ZEN BCDDHISNf Ai\D PHENOlvIEi\:OLOGY OX SELF-AWARENESS self; that is, the self-less self which presences myriad dharmas qua its socio-historical predicament. Time comprises existence, existence comprises time. In Dagen's terminology "even rats are time and tigers are time, even beings are time and buddhas are time" (1: 277), and, as he observes somewhat nonchalantly, "entering mud, entering water is likewise time" (1: 276). The claim that existence is time, existence­ time, so to speak, ultimately suggest that every human activity qua the self-determination of the present temporalizes time and, subsequently its own temporality. The fundamental unification of time and existence rejects and undermines any question concerning an ontological priority of temporality versus existence and thus asserts not only the "total convergence of ontological truth and under­ standing and existential injunction" (Heine 1985, 125) but further suggest a non-thetic modality of existence which does not project past and future as its own horizon of meaning but expresses temporality as its own determination and existence.

The immediate now

The fundamental distinction between the notion of the continuity of experience and the immediate now is that the former assumes a separation between or, at least, the separability of existence and time, while the latter transparently discloses that "within me there has to be time; since I already exist, time should not pass" (Dagen 1993, 1: 273).15 In contrast to inauthentic experience of time, which Dagen compares to the experience of an individual who "passes mountains and rivers," authentic experience of time is characterized by an internal relationship between the (selfless) self and time in the sense that time functions as the internal negation of self and vice versa. In short, time temporalizes itself as the internal self-negation of the self quafrom the present to the present. As mentioned before, Dagen rejects the notion that time is external to the activity of the self but maintains, instead, that activities such as "entering the mud, entering the water" comprise and express authentic experience of time. In analogy to Nishida's conception of self-awareness as the internal contradictory self-identity, Dagen repudiates the notion of an external relationship between or even opposition of self and time and collapses this distinction in the selfless dharma-position of the present. As indicated earlier, the unity of self and time further implies the unification between the positing self and the posited self qua future

184 TEMPORALITY self: The "future" the self encounters in the immediate now is nothing else but the "subsequent" self. Uniting all "previous" and "subsequent" selves, the experience of "exhaustive times" in the present, ultimately, discloses self-awareness and, subsequently, necessitates a contradictory self-identity of existence and awareness. Abe's conception of the vertical dimension of time supports this interpretation of Dagen's existence-time, which "involves the complete negation of the egocentric self, that is, casting off of body and mind" (Abe 1992, 100). Time is expressed in the activity of the self, which, through internal negation, does not posit separate past or future events but which engenders itself as its own expressions. In other words, Dagen substitutes the notion that existen~e-time "constitutes a nonobjectifiable subjectivity" (86) for the conception of an objective time. Coupled with his rejection of inauthentic time qua continuity of experience is, once again, Dagen's admonition to transform the positional attitude, responsible for the construction of substance as well as past and future, in favor of the non-positional attitude of without-thinking. To Dagen, inauthentic experience of time does not only entail a problematic philosophy of time but, more importantly, signifies an inherently alienated state of awareness. Thus, a transformation of the inauthentic experience of time has primarily existential and soteriological implications. The problem inherent in the inauthentic experience of time lies in the separation between the experienced time-moments and the experiencing self, which it assumes. Ultimately, inauthentic experience of time reflects a dissociation of self-qua-experiencer and self-qua-experienced; it is therefore symptomatic of the self's inauthentic experience of itself and, thus, displays a lack of self-awareness. As discussed in chapter 2, the synthesis of subject and object in the expressive activity comprises a necessary condition of self-awareness; however, in the case of inauthentic experience of time, this condition is not fulfilled. To the contrary, the subsequent and previous selves are as distant from the present expressive activity as is "heaven from earth." The existential predicament of alienation and du~kha is engendered by the positional attitude of the self; the latter dissociates the acting self and the expressed self, which is anticipated as the "future" telos of my present activity. In order to rectify this predicament, Dagen advocates the transformation of the existential attitude which causes alienation, namely positional awareness. As Dagen explains "you should study that unless one does not exert16 oneself, there is neither the presencing

185 ZEN BUDDHIS11 AND PHENOMEi\OLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS of one dharma and one thing nor the passage" (Dagen 1993, 1: 278). Dagen's thorough repudiation of the binary structure of inauthentic experience of time and its replacement with the notion of presencing "exhaustive times" resonate his subversion of the positional structure of everyday awareness, which he associates with the observation that the myriad dharmas are presenced. In analogy to the "casting off body and mind," the "casting off" of past-and-future has equal soteriological implications in that it synthesizes the dissociated self within the transtemporal present. The authentic experience of time qua "exhaustive times" and total-working ultimately reflects the non-positional state of self-awareness in which all "previous" and "subsequent" selves are presenced as-they-are. This self-awareness comprises a transtemporal realm which presences what everyday awareness dissociates from itself and projects into "past" and "future." Dagen's criticism of linear temporality from the standpoint of the present ultimately encourages the transformation of everyday awareness in order to realize the experience of satori. As he says, "there has never been anyone who, while taking time to be going-and­ coming, has penetrated to see it as existence-time, dwelling in its dharma-position" (1: 278). In his fascicle "Sh6b6genz6 Uji," Dagen thus proposes and executes a redefinition of time and, subsequently, of the continuity of experience in the light of the immediate now, which, in analogy to the phenomenology of time and continuity developed, can be adequately called actual time. The fascicle "Shabagenza Uji" discloses three points of contention, which distinguish Dagen's account of the inauthentic and authentic experiences of time, namely, the methodo­ logical standpoint assumed in each conception oftime, the relationship between self and time, and the experience of self-awareness in the light of each experience of time. Contrary to a causal-mechanistic philosophy, which commences with the past arche, or a teleological approach, which inserts in the future telos a meaning-bestowing point of reference, Dagen utilizes the immediate now of the present experience as his point de depart. Dagen chooses the immediate now as his methodological starting point, not to assert the infallibility of immediacy but because the immediate now comprises all-there-is; in Dagen's words, "when there is birth, there is nothing other than birth" (Dagen 1993, 6: 389). While the notion of the continuity of experience presumes an external point of reference such as a previous arche or a subsequent telos, the latter enterprise does not necessitate any further fact. In this sense, Dagen eradicates the notion of linear

186 TEMPORALITY time, continuity of experience, and, subsequently, the notion that continuity is "what matters" by examining the phenomenological structure of the experience of time as what is given in experience. Second, while Dagen describes the time experienced inauthentically as an external entity, and, subsequently, reveals a dichotomy between the self and its own image, time experienced authentically, on the contrary, is temporalized by the present activity of the self as the self­ determination of the present and, therefore, displays the unity of existence and time. Third, as discussed above, while the inauthentic experience of time coincides with the inauthentic experience of the self qua self-alienation, the authentic experience of time implies the paradoxical unity of subjectivity and objectivity and, subsequently, self-awareness. Thus defined, Dagen's notion of existence-time expands the phenomenological classification of abstract, phenomenal, and lived time by suggesting the concept of actual time which finally transcends the dichotomies between past and present, existence and awareness, and thus coincides with the non-thetic modality of expression. In the last section, I will examine Nishida's conception of the eternal now to enable a stratification of actual time qua contradictory self-identity.

The Non-Relative Present - Nishida on Time

Introduction

In his stratification of actual time Nishida introduces a threefold model of time, inlcuding a linear (Jap.: chokusenteki), a circular (Jap.: enkanteki), and a dialectical (Jap.: benshohoteki) model of time qua the "self-determination of the eternal now" (Jap.: eien no ima no jiko gentei) (Nishida 1988, 6: 181). The difficulty in extracting Nishida's model lies in the comparatively unsystematic development of his thought in general and his philosophy of time in particular. The most systematic discussion of time can be found in his two essays "The Self-Determination of the Eternal Now" ("Eien no Ima no Jiko Gentei") (6: 181-232) and "The Temporal and the Atemporal" ("Jikanteki Naru Mono Oyobi Hijikanteki Naru Mono") (6: 233-59), but even there his treatment of time sometimes puzzles more than it clarifies because his writing style seems to reflect a stream of consciousness approach rather than that of a systematic treatment and, what is more important, is highly perspectival. Especially in

187 ZEN BUDDHISt\.'1 AND PHEN01v[ENOLOGY 0:\ SELF-AWARENESS discussions in which he introduces a multilayered hermeneutical model as in the above fascicles or, most notably, in his "The World of Intelligibility"17 ("Eichiteki Sekai") (5: 123-85), Nishida not only tends to switch the epistemic standpoint but also investigates various topics and standpoints themselves from different epistemic angles. Nevertheless, I believe that his threefold model of time as linear time, circular time, and eternal present is not only well-documented in his . writing but also corresponds to and reflects his overall philosophy, especially his notion of the triple universals as the universal of judgment (Jap.: handanteki ippansha), the universal of self-awareness (Jap.: jikakuteki ippansha), and the universal of intelligibility (Jap.: eichiteki ippansha). In his article "The Temporal and the Atemporal," Nishida explicitly correlates the linear conception of time with the universal of judgment, the circular conception of time with the universal of self-awareness, and the dialectical conception of time qua eternal present with what he calls the universal ofactivity (Jap.: koiteki ippansha).

Linear time and circular time

Nishida identifies the linear conception of time qua historical continuity "which cannot return to what was before an individual moment" (Nishida 1988, 9: 159) as "objectively expressed" (Jap.: kyakkanteki ni hyogen shita) (6: 250) and "noematically determined" (Jap.: noemateki gentei) (6: 196). The term "history" in this context has to be understood as history conceived of as a linear sequence and not as the historical world which determines itself in the self­ determination of the present. Ultimately this terminological tension points towards the existential conundrum that our construction of history in textbooks and speeches is ultimately historically determined; but this question has to wait for another treatment. The conceptual ramifications of Nishida's contention that the linear model of time constitutes the noematic determination of the eternal present is twofold: On one level it reiterates the phenomenological insight that the linear model of time is constructed by thetic consciousness as our world of knowledge and our narrative identity. On a deeper level, however, it reflects Nishida's belief that every action externalizes and objectifies itself. The noematic aspect of temporality and the present is manifested in the given, the created, to which the experiential "I" awakens and which it, conversely,

188 TEMPORALITY transforms in its own activity. It is in this sense that I am constantly confronted with the objectivity of time which presents itself in the given, in what Heidegger calls my facticity and in the linearity of time qua the impossibility to "return to what was prior to each moment" (6: 183). From a different perspective, the self-determination of the present which progresses from the present to the present and thus contradictorily unites subjectivity and objectivity does not dissolve subjectivity and objectivity once and for all, but, on the contrary, it expresses itself in the dialectic of subjectivity and objectivity characteristic of the existential and epistemological predicament of the experiential "I." In this sense, a dancer transforms what is given objectively, namely, the historical situation, skills, and memories; but while her/his dance transforms the given qua habitualizations, it does not erase this objective given and can be objectified by myself and the others. In Nishida's system, "linearity" becomes a symbol to designate the objective, the created, the given dimension of the eternal present, its conditionality and irreversibility so to speak, without, however, irrevocably subjecting the creativity of the self-determining present to the forces of the "past" because this objectivity of the linearity of time is counterbalanced by the creativity of the subjective act, the noetic dimension of the self-determination of the present. In some sense, Nishida's conception of linear temporality qua noematic determination of the eternal present can be understood to theorize the sequence of Sartre's being-in-itself which is interrupted by the infinite rupture of the transformative being-for-itself negating what-it-is towards what-it-is-not. By the same token, the concept "circular time" designates the temporal dimension of the noetic determination (Jap.: noeshisuteki gentei) of the eternal present which collapses the linearity of the noematic determination of the present. The main function of circular time is to function as the counter-pole to the linear continuity from the past to the future rather than to suggest some strange sense of deja vu a la Hollywood productions such as Groundhog Day, in which the character of a movie is hopelessly locked into and wakes up to the same situation every day, his actions negated by the "circular" mechanism which forces the character into an endless day, rendering them, ultimately, inconsequential. It seems to be Nishida's main argument that because linearity originates in the "past" and is causally determined by the "past," the facticity of human freedom necessitates a new model of temporality; "that which is creative must come from the future; in short it does not come from the past"

189 ZEN BUDDHIS~1 AND PHENO~1ENOLOGY OK SELF-AWARENESS (Nishida 1988, 9: 158-59). As in the preceding discussions, "past" and "future" do not denote past and future events but the temporalization of the self's conditionality qua "previous" experiences as what is objectively given and of the self's creative opportunity qua "succeeding" experiences as what-it-is not. It is in this sense that Nishida contends that "time revives itself forever" (6: 204). Again, I believe that the conceptual ramifications of Nishida's contention that the circular model of time constitutes the noetic determination of the eternal present is twofold: First, the circular model of time symbolizes the freedom and creativity of the self which is not (completely) subjected to its conditionality but can project itself towards what-it-is­ not and thus escape the predetermination from the past. In addition, however, and this seems to be more important to Nishida, the self­ determination of the present itself determines itself noetically in that it creatively transforms itself. As the progression from the created to the creating, the self-determination of the present negates its own conditionality in that its own expression is not causally produced by the past but produces itself and in this process engenders what we call "past" and "future." The self-determination of the present is not subjected to the temporality which, to paraphrase Merleau-Ponty, "flows from the past towards the present" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 411), but, conversely, the atemporal eternal present temporalizes time; in Nishida's words, "non-relative present originates and th~ eternal present exists, which extracts infinite past and infinite future always anew from each moment; time can be thought to emerge as the self­ determination of the eternal now" (Nishida 1988, 6: 188). The circular model of time not only introduces the notion of freedom of the individual self into the discussion of temporality, but, more significantly, also symbolizes Nishida's belief that history is not pre-determined by the past, that it evolves and temporalizes time in the dynamic present qua progression from the created to the creating. Nishida believes that history evolves and time emerges because in every moment history transforms itself in the dialectic of affirmation­ qua-negation. Thus defined, temporality is radically symmetrical and asymmetrical, at the same time. It is symmetrical insofar as the present depends on neither the past nor the future but engenders both temporal modalities in the self-determination of the present; it is asymmetrical in that the progression from the created to the creating necessitates an imbalance between the noematic and the noetic aspects of the self-determination of the present; or as Nishida says, "the noetic aspect encompasses noematic aspect"

190 TEMPORALITY

(Jap.: "noeshisumen ga noemamen 0 tsutsmu" and "noeshisu ga noema o tsutsumu") (6: 213 and 238); elsewhere Nishida remarks that the noema sinks into the noesis (6: 244). The active self creatively transforms its objectively given body, memory and habitualizations and thus can be said to contain the noematic aspect of its activity in the same sense in which the objective world, constructed by the reflective self-consciousness, can be said to be contained in the reflective self-consciousness. The self-determination of the present functions analogically.

The problem of repeatability

However, the contention that the "noetic aspect encompasses the noematic aspect," in conjunction with comments such as "time must be that which can repeat" (Nishida 1988, 6: 183), the above-quoted "time revives itself forever," and Hin the world of pure duration which cannot return to what was prior to an individual moment the present cannot exist" (9: 159), raises the suspicion that Nishida after all might suggest the repeatability of individual moments. Because this is a complex and controversial issue, I would like to present two of Nishida's more detailed comments on the subject: Time must be an infinite flow; however, it must be an eternal flow, in which the direction cannot change absolutely [to make this sentence more readable, I translate "zettai ni" as "absolutely" in this context]; time cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment; when the infinite destination of time is thought to be encompassed in some sense; time must be that which can repeat. (6: 183) In a more cryptic passage later in the same essay, Nishida explains Time revives itself forever; our every moment is death and, at the same time, life; time does not simply revive every moment but also possesses the meaning of enveloping time as circular determination; it changes the past; one can say, as did Plato, that the moment is outside of time; it is paradoxical but the future determines the past. (6: 204) In short, Nishida contrasts the noematic aspect of the self­ determination of the present qua "time cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment" with the noetic aspect of the self-

191 ZEN BUDDHIS}v'l Ai\:D PHENOtv1ENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS determination of the present qua "if a pure duration which cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment is thought, no truly free inner life can exist" (6: 245). As perplexing as this scenario seems on first sight, I believe that Nishida provides, albeit implicitly, two related hermeneutical keys which can unlock this seeming conceptual impasse. First, linearity and circularity disclose two aspects ofthe self­ determination ofthe present. In the essay "The Self-Determination of the Eternal Present," from which most of the above quotations are taken, Nishida introduces the linearity of time as the noematic aspect of the eternal present. He thus does not eradicate the notion of a linearity of time qua moment-by-moment but rather the notion that time constitutes a static container, which is filled with the flux of historical events. On the contrary, time is created in the present activity qua the movement from the present to the present and from the created to the creating. These individual moments, however, are not repeatable in the sense that "time cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment (6:234, 240)." Given that Nishida clearly states that "time must be an eternal flow" and that "time cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment," I think that "time" in the phrases "time must be that which can repeat" and "time changes the past" designates the present activity of the self which transforms the "past" qua created toward a new created. The self-determination of the present occurs "anew in each moment." Second, in his later essay "The Non-Relative Contradictory Self­ Identity," Nishida explicitly identifies "the phrase 'from the future to the past''' with "teleological action" (9: 161) and "the phrase 'from the past to the future'" with the causal-mechanical model. However, he concludes, "neither in the mechanical world which progresses from the past to the future nor in the teleological world which progresses from the future to the past does objective expression occur" (9: 170). The self-determination of the present constitutes a linear sequence in that individual moments cannot be reversed, and it is circular in that it is not pre-determined by an external past. Furthermore, the self­ determination of the present transcends both, the plane of noematic determination and the plane of noetic determination. The world of expression qua the self-determination of the present transcends even the noetic negation of the noematic determination and discloses a world in which conditionality and teleology are not irreconcilable but comprise different aspects of one reality. This is the world of the eternal now (Jap.: eien no ima).

192 TEMPORALITY Dialectical time

One of the most fundamental and outstanding features of Nishida's conception of temporality is its twofold dialectical structure: As the underlying structure of temporality, the eternal now, which he alternately identifies as non-relative now (Jap.: zettai ima) and non­ relative present (Jap.: zettai genzai), not only transcends the dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity, but more fundamentally between a symmetric and an asymmetric conception of time in general. Nishida maintains that, despite the asymmetric relationship between noema and noesis which "envelops the noematic aspect" (Nishida 1988, 6: 238), the noema "is not lost" (5: 159). Nishida explains that Even though, in artistic intuition, the noema of consciousness sinks into the noesis of intelligibility, the noema of intelligibility is not lost; to the contrary, the juxtaposition is retained in that the noesis is bound to the noema. (5: 159) Here, Nishida not only upholds the symmetric relationship qua mutual negation (Jap.: sogo gentei) and mutual relation (Jap.: sogo hitei) between noesis and noema but, furthermore, distinguishes between the "noema of consciousness" which "sinks into the noesis" and the "noema of intelligibility" which exists in a relationship of mutual opposition with the "noesis of intelligibility." As I mentioned before and will elaborate in chapter 6, he thus distinguishes between three layers ofhuman experience which he identifies as universal ofjudgment (Jap.: handanteki ippansha), universal ofself-awareness (Jap.: jigakuteki ippansha), and universal of intelligibility (Jap.: eichiteki ippansha). For the present purpose it suffices to note that Nishida maintains that the "world of self-awareness" (Jap.: jikakuteki sekai) in which "the noesis envelops the noema" is ultimately transcended by a deeper and more fundamental "world of intelligibility" (Jap.: eichiteki sekai) or activity (Jap.: koi) where noema and noesis mutually oppose each other. Nishida indicates the perspectival and relative nature of the realm in which "the noesis envelops noema" by employing modifications such as "if we look from the standpoint in which noesis envelops noema" (6: 238) or "when the noematic aspect is enveloped by the noetic aspect" (6: 239). Ultimately, Nishida argues, even subjectivity qua noesis "cannot envelop the self-determination of the eternal now" (6: 254), because (i) in the active universal subjectivity (qua noesis) and objectivity (qua noema) oppose each other, (ii) "intelligible noesis

193 ZEN BUDDHIS}v'l AND PHENO:tvIENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS and intelligible noesis exist in a balance" (5: 164), and (iii) "as the self-determination of nothingness, temporality and atemporality are one" (6: 258). In short, the linearity of history constitutes the noematic aspect (Jap.: noemamen) of the self-determination of the non-relative present as non-relative time (Jap.: zettai toki) and non-relative nothingness (Jap.: zettai mu) while the circular atemporality constitutes its noetic aspect (Jap.: noeshisumen). At the same time, however, and this constitutes the second pole of Nishida's dialectic, he refuses to dissolve the primacy of the noetic aspect over the noematic aspect in a simple mutuality but, instead, implies a dialectic between a symmetric and an asymmetric interpretation of the relationship between noesis and noema. Again, contrasting these seemingly irreconcilable contentions, Nishida does not simply contradict himself but negotiates various levels of philosophical discourse in order to describe the conundrum of actual time. In some sense, he seems to say that the causal­ mechanistic approach contributes to the philosophical discourse concerning the conception of time the insight that experiences cannot be reversed, that every moment is unique, and that time "cannot return to what was prior to an individual moment," while a teleological approach accounts for freedom and creativity. In Kasulis' words, "[a]ny assertion or distinction only highlights one aspect of a situation and, in so doing, casts into shadows an equally important, though incompatible, aspect" (Kasulis 1981, 22). At the same time, both approaches tend to overlook the primacy of the present which, ultimately, gives rise to time, insofar as the present thetic consciousness constructs abstract time, and the present somatic cogito manifests lived time, while the eternal present expresses actual time. This problem lies in the seemingly all-pervasive dichotomy of subjectivity and objectivity, which is so fundamental that it is possible to conclude that the non-relative present expresses itself in the dichotomy of subjectivity and objectivity: "When the world of the subject-object unity negates itself, the worlds of subjectivity and objectivity oppose each other, individual determination and universal determination oppose each other, and linear and circular determination oppose each other" (Nishida 1988, 7: 264). It is for this reason that Nishida is seemingly unable to disentangle himself from paradoxical expressions such as non-relative present, non-relative time, and non-relative nothingness as well as affirmation-qua-negation, continuity of discon­ tinuity, and, it is possible to add, the symmetry of asymmetry. These paradoxes seem to disappear only when the philosopher restricts the

194 TEMPORALITY phlIosophical discourse to one episteme (causal-mechanical or teleological), which, however, falls short of describing the human predicament in toto and of capturing the paradoxical nature of even the simplest concepts. Being heir to the conceptual iconoclasm of Nagarjuna and Hegel's dialectical logic, Nishida contends the contradictory nature of the conceptual superstructure when he observes that "the past is past in that it denies itself and progresses towards the future; the future is future in that it denies itself and becomes the past" (9: 205). And more generally, "time contradicts itself inside itself" (6: 185). The reason for the paradoxical nature of these concepts lies in the one-sided stratification of the abstract world which contains concepts such as "symmetric," "asymmetric," "continuity," "discontinuity," etc.; however, "the extreme points of time do not unite noematically" (7: 142). The very problem of employing conceptual categories such as "symmetric" and "asym­ metric," "continuity" and "discontinuity" is that these categories objectify the unobjectifiable. Nishida addresses the realm ofthe actual world, nevertheless, to point out the inevitable holes in our otherwise necessary discourse on the abstract world. Having said this, I think that the ramifications of Nishida's dialectical conception ofactual time are threefold: Actual time, and, I think Nishida's writings demonstrate this point quite convincingly, (1) cannot be conceptualized but is expressed (2) in the dialectic of the abstract world which is constructed for-a-self (or a community of selves) and the lived world as the noematic and noetic determinations of (3) the eternal present. Since conclusions (1) and (2) open up the discussion on the constitution of truth and discourse, which I will briefly discuss in chapter 6, I will focus on the notion ofthe eternal present in the remaining pages ofthis section.

Eternal present

Nishida refers to actual time variously as eternal present, non-relative present, non-relative now, and eternal now. A first glance already reveals two obvious features of these synonymous concepts, namely their paradoxical character, which has been discussed already, and the underlying sentiment that human existence is consistently caught in the present, which is conceived ofand experienced vis-a.-vis itself, and never ventures outside into the past or future. Besides underscoring the paradoxical character of the non-relative present, the modifications

195 ZEN BUDDHIS1\l AND PHE~01\-lENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS "eternal" and "non-relative" function to clearly delineate actual time from the time conceived in the abstract world or manifested in the lived world. Actual time follows different rules: The non-relative present does not encounter an external past qua what-it-is or an external future qua what-it-is-not but only itself as its own negation, true to Nishida's own dictum that "when the non-relative opposes nothing, it is truly non-relative. Opposing non-relative nothing, it is non-relative" (Nishida 1988, 11: 397). The non-relative present negates and externalizes itself in the opposition of the created and the creating, "past" and "future," or, to use Sartre's terminology, being-in-itself and being-for-itself in the same sense in which the cogito, which is located in the lived world, negates and externalizes itself by constructing a narrative identity along the linear continuity of abstract time. In some sense, even this very narrative identity expresses the non-relative present. The modifications "eternal" and "non-relative" indicate that the concept "non-relative present" designates the infinite rupture which destroys the linearity from the past to the future and, at the same time, signifies the progression which decenters the circularity of the noetic determination of the present. In short, the conception of the non-relative present indicates the ineffable creativity which is at the bottom of the various worlds that color the human experience. It gives rise, alike, to the atemporality of the subjective act and the temporality of its objective content in both the lived and the abstract worlds (the phenomenal world, wherein the cogito opposes the abstract world, discloses the dual structure of the abstract and the subjectivity of the lived worlds). At the same time, it is in this infinite abyss between subjectivity and objectivity, atemporality and temporality, that Nishida discovers the religious dimension of human existence when he uses such religious symbolism as the Christian symbols of the "fulfilment of time" (6: 181), "eternal life" (Jap.: eien naru seimei) (6: 145), and the phrase "to touch eternity" (Jap.: eien ni fureru) (9: 167) to describe the "eternal now." At the same time, however, Nishida does not utilize these terminologies to designate a radical transcendence but rather a transcendence-in­ immanence and immanence-in transcendence (Nishitani 1991, 176). "Eternity" does not designate an atemporal existence alongside the temporal continuity, nor does it signify an infinite continuity, but rather it locates human existence squarely in the historical world ­ not the history which is constructed linearly, but the historical world which determines itself infinitely. It is important to note that, despite all the religious symbolism and allegories Nishida utilizes to describe

196 TEMPORALITY the non-relative present, he, ultimately, identifies history and cultural and intellectual achievement as the self-determination of the non­ relative present. 18 Nishida thus applies his logic of the contradictory self-identity to the philosophy oftime: While thetic consciousness constructs a linear sequence of temporality and creative activity disrupts this continuity, the non-relative present expresses its objectivity as its IIpast" and its subjectivity as its IIfuture." The non-relative present, on the contrary, expresses itself, as Dagen would say, "without obstruction." The non­ relative present functions as the transtemporal ground from which temporality and atemporality emerge in mutual opposition, as do symmetric and asymmetric temporality. However, it is important to note that the non-relative present does not comprise a realm in addition to the realm of experience, but, on the contrary, it is the content and structure ofthe interplay of objectivity qua what-is-given and subjectivity qua what-is-not. Nishida does not conceive of the non-relative, often translated as the "absolute," as something permanent, self-like, and completely transcendent as the early Buddhist conception of nirviifJa but, on the contrary, as ever­ changing, self-negating, and presenced in the relative opposition of subjectivity and objectivity. The attribute "eternal" does not imply lack of temporality or eternal subsistence but indicates that the present is not constituted or manifested vis-a.-vis a "past" or a "future," but "past" and "future" exist only insofar as they are expressed in the present. Nishida thus defines actual time as the modality which is not posited by thetic consciousness or an embodied cogito but is expressed by a non-positional modality of existence which is radically historical.

Summary

Nishida addresses the dilemma of temporality by postulating that actual time qua non-relative present comprises the dialectic between the phenomenal world as its noematic aspect and the lived world as its noetic aspect. Thus conceived, Nishida interprets phenomenal time, in analogy to Sartre, as a sequence of experiences; however, contrary to Sartre, he attributes to this sequence a rather causal character. Free will and subjectivity are introduced through the lived world which negates the sequence character of the phenomenal world in the sense of Sartre's negation of being-in-itself by being-for-itself. Thus,

197 ZEN BUDDHISivl AND PHENOMENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS Nishida seems to locate Sartre's conception of time squarely between the two extremes of abstract time and lived time. In other words, insofar as Sartre's temporality emphasizes the sequence-character of linear temporality, it reflects abstract time, and insofar as it emphasizes the negation of the self's factuality it reflects lived time. In contrast to Sartre's existentialism, however, Nishida seems to argue that a sequential conception of time is always causal in nature insofar as it determines the present from the past. The moment of subjectivity and freedom emphasized by teleological philosophies discloses a non-linear temporality in that it not only negates the givenness of the present but ruptures and ultimately, collapses and negates the linearity of temporality itself. This also implies that the aspect of atemporality is necessary to conceive of temporality and the negation of a linear continuity to establish some sense of a sequence. Thus, Nishida employs his contradictory philosophy of temporality for three reasons: First, he develops a conception of time which accommodates both conditionality and teleology. Second, his conception of time further accommodates both the linear temporal character of time and its circular, atemporal character. Third, this conception of time Nishida needs in order to account for not only free will but also the atemporality of the religious experience. In this sense, the lived world functions to explain the infinite abyss in the linear sequence of time engendered by the conception of freedom and, at the same time, the temporal oneness of the mystical experience. The conception of actual time, then, functions to conceive of a space-time characterized by givenness and responsi­ bility, as upheld by the Buddhist doctrine of karma, and to allow for the descriptions of the Zen experience of satori, which temporalize the atemporal experience in the sense of a transcendence-qua­ immanence and vice versa. Thus defined, the Zen Buddhist notion of immediate now and non-relative present should not be mistaken for a merely atemporal oneness, which melts all individual time­ moments into an undifferentiated oneness, but rather as the dialectic of linear temporality and mystical atemporality. These considerations disclose a fourfold model of time, which is illustrated in Table 3. Among those four temporal modalities, abstract time stands out in that it is constructed by an experiential "I" which assumes the standpoint of an abstract observer and, subsequently, denies its own temporality and historicity. The other three modalities describe an experiential "I" which has "returned" to the present and thus accepted its own temporality. By returning to the present, the

198 TEMPORALITY Table 3: The Fourfold Model of Time

abstract phenomenal lived actual time time time time standpoint outside of experiential lived body non-relative of self itself "I" present relationship externalizes externalizes temporalizes temporalizes between self time time time time and time nature of static static dynamic dynamic world view relationship splits itself splits itself unity of past- contradictory to itself into self-qua- into "past" and-future self-identity subject and and "future" self-qua- self object modalities past, future, past and unified dialectical of time and present future present present inauthentic experience of time authentic experience of time

temporal continuity from an arche to a telos necessarily collapses in the experiential "I" which is limited to the standpoint of the present, while "past" and "future" intrude into the present seemingly from the outside. The temporal modalities of phenomenal time, lived time, and actual time describe different modalities of the present and were formulated in response to different philosophical dilemmas. While the cogito characteristic of the experience of phenomenal time encounters past and future as external other, the lived experience characteristic of the lived world temporalizes and unifies the past-and-future inside the present. However, Nishida would claim that, even though the lived body reunites existence and temporality, it fails to overcome the dichotomy between the noematic and noetic aspects oftemporality. It is this transcendence qua self-determination of the non-relative present which echoes Dagen's existence-time, expressing "exhaustive worlds," "exhaustive times," and presencing total working. Chapter 7 will explore the notion of personhood rendered by such a conception of temporality.

199 ZEN BUDDHIS1\-! A~D PHE~O~vlENOLOGY O~ SELF-AWARENESS Temporality and Personal Identity

The comparative analysis of selfhood, alterity, continuity, and temporality has not only revealed consistencies between a phenom­ enological approach, Dagen's Zen Buddhism, and Nishida's philosophy, but has also disclosed the conceptual framework of a Zen Buddhist conception of personal identity or, better, lack thereof vis-a.-vis the discourse of comparative philosophy. Generally, Dagen introduces two fundamental existential standpoints which can be translated into the language of phenomenology as thetic and non-thetic awareness. While phenomenologists generally seem to present different modalities of thetic awareness such as Sartre's being-for-itself and Merleau-Ponty's lived body, they seem to agree on the existence of non-thetic awareness such as Sartre's being-in-itself and Merleau­ Ponty's tacit cogito without, however, further exploring, due to epistemological considerations, the structure of such a non-thetic modality of awareness. On the contrary, Dagen, albeit poetically rather than systematically, and Nishida conceive of such a non-thetic awareness as the fundamental modality of existence. Such a concept enables Dagen to conceive of and Nishida to stratify a self-reflexive notion of self-awareness, an expressive model of intersubjectivity and a radically dialectical interpretation of temporality, and, subsequently, of the continuity of experience qua experience of continuity. Table 4 systematizes the various modalities of existence and their implications for a theory ofself-awareness, otherness, and temporality, respectively. My examination has further demonstated the importance of the notion of temporality for the discourse on personal identity in general but also on selfhood in particular. Sartre's account of the being-for­ itself clearly illustrates that self-awareness is existentially temporal and that a linear model of time, which condemns the present awareness event to infinitely chase its own existence, renders self­ awareness highly problematic. Zen, which is fundamentally concerned with self-awareness, albeit not with the self-awareness of an individual or enduring self, but rather of a momentary intersubjective awareness event, consequently, collapses the linear temporality underlying the continuity of experience in the self-determination of the present. This event defies all ontological categorization and dichotomization and expresses itself in the historical world where the subjectivity of the individual awareness events and history in toto expresses itself in objectively manifested art, morality, and knowledge. In the light of such a temporality, personal identity is neither enduring nor

200 TEMPORALITY Table 4: The Modalities of Self-Awareness phenomeno- abstract phenomenal lived actual logical realms world world world world author pretense of cogito (somatic) self I-and-Thou objectivity modality of epi- conSCIousness awareness samadhic awareness phenomenon awareness of causal processes structure of causality intentionality positionality non- awareness positionality modality of static intentional activity event engagement act modality of posited other phenomenal other I-and-Thou otherness other subsumed under desire of self modality of abstract time phenomenal lived time actual time temporality time phenomenol. being-for- habit-body concepts itself Dagen's people outside the mountains people inside shinjin classification the datsuraku mountains Nishida's relative opposition contradictory classification self-identity

substantial, but is dialectically expressed in narrative identity and in habitualizations which are permanently transformed in the dialogic of intersubjectivity and the dialectic of what-it-is and what-it-is-not. The self thus creatively negotiates its own conditionality and possibility without, however, substantiating its individuality on the one side, and losing its individuality, on the other. The individual awareness event is individual in its momentary expression but not by virtue of privileged access or independent ontological existence. The experiential "I" comprises the I of the I-and-Thou and the creating of the progression from the created to the creating.

201 PART THREE tl~- Zen Conceptions of Identity ------4_ tt------A Zen Phenomenology of Experience

Introduction

Having dialogued Zen Buddhist ideas on selfhood and temporality with their twentieth century phenomenological counterparts in Part Two, I would like to dedicate the remaining chapters to develop a Zen alternative to the notion ofpersonal identity. To be sure, Zen Buddhism never explicitly explores the questions "What is a person? What is a human being?" (King 1991, 137) per se; even Nishida never directly asks the questions characteristic of the Euro-American quest for the self, such as the question ofpersonal identity and the articulation ofthe mind-body problem. However, as Sally B. King observes, "the question of the human being is the question par excellence with which the Buddhist tradition as a whole struggles" (King 1991, 137). As it has become clear over the preceding four chapters, Zen Buddhism does have a vested, albeit predominantly soteriological and, in Nishida's case, epistemological, interest in the issues ofselfhood and temporality. Furthermore, Nishida's terminology of the continuity of discontinuity and "mind-body-oneness" seems, at times, to reflect the conceptual problematic framed as the problem of personal identity and the mind­ body problem. For this reason, it is justified to explore the conceptual ramifications of the Zen Buddhist concept of presencing for the philosophical stratification of an alternative model of personhood. The preceding discussions of the Zen conception of selfhood, alterity, continuity, and time has crystallized a pervasive theme concerning a Zen notion of personhood: the postulate of a non­ positional modality of self-awareness, which Dagen refers to as presencing (Jap.: genjo), shinjin datsuraku, and the immediate now, just to name a few, and Nishida describes in different terms such as

205 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDENTITY contradictory self-identity, non-relative now, expression, etc. Structurally, all these concepts are conceived as middle-term concepts to develop a non-dual fundament to ground and accommodate the binary structure of the phenomenal world. The overriding conceptual concern of such a non-dualism lies in the Zen Buddhist rejection of the conceptual and soteriological ramifications that come with dualism, which postulates a complete rupture and an existential alienation between self and world, self and other, and self and itself, on the one side, and monism, which dissolves everything in an unchanging oneness, on the other. Based on this non-dual paradigm Dagen and Nishida suggest a conception ofpersonhood which negotiates the dichotomies that make up the phenomenal world, such as universal-individual, self-other, past and future, and temporality and atemporality. However, while the preceding discussion contrasted the non­ positional awareness of presencing with the positional attitude of everyday awareness and thus implied a dualism between these two existential modalities, Dagen and Nishida developed a fourfold model of human experience. The passage most explicit for Dagen's fourfold epistemological model can be found in the opening paragraph of his "Shabagenza Genjakaan." Dagen observes: When all dharmas become the buddha-dharma, there is illusion and enlightenment, there is practice, there is birth and there is death, there are buddhas and there are sentient beings. When all dharmas and the self are without a self, there is neither illusion nor enlightenment, neither buddhas nor sentient beings, neither birth nor death. Because the buddha-way originally transcends abundance and lack, 1 there are generation and extinction, illusion and enlightenment, beings and buddhas. However, even if we describe2 it this way, flowers fall amidst loathing and weed flourishes in the middle of disgust.3 (Dagen 1993, 1: 94) In the first three lines of this paragraph, Dagen introduces a three­ step-process which comprises a sequence of metaphysical claims expressing an affirmation ("there are buddhas and sentient beings"), a negation ("there are neither buddhas nor sentient beings"), and what seems to be a return to affirmation ("beings and buddhas"). NISHITANI Keiji sheds further light on this interpretation when he maintains that the first three lines outline "three stages" (Jap.: sandan), representing the standpoint of "self-nature" (Jap.: jisho), the "lack of self-nature" (Jap.: jisho 0 motte inai), and "the standpoint which transcends being and not-being" (Jap.: umu 0 koeta tachiba) (Nishitani

206 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE 1989, 20-23). In this reading, the third standpoint does not merely repeat the affirmative attitude of the "standpoint of self-nature" but marks a concrete development insofar as the third stage transcends the dichotomy generated by the preceding two metaphysical positions (of affirmation and negation). Nishitani's contention that the affirmation of the third step differs significantly from the affirmation of the first step is supported by Zen commentators such D. T. Suzuki, who refers to the second form ofaffirmation as "higher affirmation" (Suzuki 1964, 66), and by the text itself. I prefer the wording of "dialectical affirmation" over the term "higher affirmation" to describe the "standpoint which transcends being and not-being" because it includes the transcendence of the dichotomy between affirmation and negation. Heine traces this threefold structure also in the above­ cited passages on the "study of the self" and in Dogen's discussion of the relationship between firewood and ashes (Heine 1991,126). In the above-cited paragraph, each of these metaphysical statements seems to be anticipated and contextualized by an introductory phrase which explicates its condition. To examine and contrast the two kinds of affirmations, I have rewritten the paragraph in a form that emphasizes the introductory phrases which function as context markers: "When all dharmas become the buddha-dharma," there is affirmation; "[w]hen all dharmas and the self are without a self," there is negation; "[b]ecause the buddha-way originally transcends abundance and lack," there is dialectical affirmation. Or as Tamaki translates/interprets, "[o]riginally, the Buddha-way surpasses the world of being-and-non-being" (Tamaki 1993, 1: 94). The third prolegomenon differs from the preceding ones in two significant ways:4 First, while the first two signify a temporary situation as indicated by "when" (Jap.: jisetsu), the third addresses the "true condition" of things. I use quotation marks to indicate that Dogen's "moto yori," which is reminiscent of Buddhist concepts such as the "original mind" (Jap.: honshin) and "original enlightenment" (Jap.: hongaku), lacks ontological connotations, as this chapter will amply demonstrate. Second, and more importantly, while the former two prolegomena seem to imply an ontological commitment to affirmation ("dharmas exist") and negation (selflessness) respectively, the third avoids ontological language altogether, as Tamaki skillfully explicates in his translation of the "Shobogenzo Genjokoan" into contemporary Japanese, and indicates a discourse which transcends ontological and dualistic categories. Nishitani describes this "stand­ point which transcends being and not-being" alternatively as "being-

207 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDENTITY and-non-being-mutually-identical" (Jap.: umusosoku) (Nishitani 1989, 32) and evoking the paradoxical language of the Heart Sutra as "being-qua-non-being" (Jap.: usokumu) (Nishitani 1989, 35). The latter expression seems to be also supported by an interpretation of the present paragraph as a developmental model, which distinguishes the naive affirmation indicative of a first epistemic attitude from the dialectical affirmation which emerges from negation, in the sense of a dialectical movement, exhibiting a more complex episteme. Even though predominantly driven by epistemological rather than soteriological concerns, Nishida's threefold theory of basho (place), which he developed to investigate and clarify the structure of human knowledge, clearly reflects Dagen's phenomenology discussed above.s In his quest to formulate a comprehensive theory ofknowledge, Nishida developed a threefold system ofuniversals the universal ofjudgment, the universal of self-awareness, and the universal of intelligibility, which he also referred to as topoi (Jap.: basho) , comprising what Yuasa and Nagatomo have appropriately called the "basho vis-a.-vis being," the "basho vis-a.-vis relative non-being," and the "basho vis-a.-vis absolute non-being" (Nagatomo 1989, 146-61). The theory of the threefold basho not only comprises one of the central features of Nishida's philosophical system but, furthermore, constitutes a philosophical formulation and application of Dagen's threefold model of affirmation, negation, and dialectical affirmation. As Wargo (1972), Yuasa (1987), and Nagatomo (1989) have shown, this theory of basho suggests three layers of the human experience which culminates in the mature expression of his conception of self-awareness qua contradictory self­ identity and can be interpreted epistemologically and psychologically. In this chapter, I will introduce Dagen's phenomenology ofexperience and Nishida's theory of basho against the background of Mahayana Buddhist thought in order to demonstrate that these models reflect my categorization of abstract, phenomenal, lived, and actual worlds and provide the conceptual foundation for a Zen theory of personhood. Chapter 7 will discuss Dagen's postulate of impermanence, which is introduced in the fourth line of the opening paragraph of "Shabagenza Genjakaan," and its implications for a theory of personal identity.

A Mahayana Buddhist Phenomenology of Experience

Dagen's fourfold schema of affirmation, negation, higher affirmation, and impermanence has a long history within the Buddhist tradition

208 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE and is closely tied to the conceptual difficulties concerning the conception of transcendence. As mentioned earlier, the first Buddhist formulation of nirv(1).a as the non-dual realm of transcendence and, subsequently, as existentially separate from the immanence ofsarrtsara was highly problematic. This dichotomy between sarrtsara qua immanence and nirv(1).a qua transcendence is reflected in the social and soteriological distinction between the "person-in-the-world" and the "world-renouncer," which, as Collins (1982) has demonstrated so vividly, pervades the soteriological and ethical discourse of the early Buddhist Siltras and Nikayas. It is also reflected in Dagen's conceptual distinction between the epistemic attitude ofthe "ordinary person" (Jap.: bompu) and the "samadhic awareness" characteristic of satori. Mahayana Buddhism developed multiple strategies to combat this problem, the most successful and intriguing one consisting in the collapse of sarrtsara and nirv(1).a (Nagarjuna 1970, 158) and, subsequently, immanence and transcendence. Conceptually, this collapse was underscored by the conception ofsilnyata which signifies the lack of self-nature (Skrt.: svabhava) of all existence, including nirv(1).a and sarrtsara. At the same time, Mahayana Buddhism seemed to have initiated a shift from metaphysics to epistemology (again, this is not to say that Buddhists prior to the emergence of Mahayana were exclusively interested in metaphysics, while Mahayana thinkers deal exclusively with epistemology). This is apparent in the onslaught of epistemological discussions that occurred with the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism, as exemplified by Madhyamika dialectic, the more psychological or even phenomenological discourse of Yogacara, and the epistemological and logical treatises of the Yogacara­ Sautrantika schools. Having destroyed a naive belief in the signifying capacity of concepts and having designated a shift from ontology to epistemology, Madhyamika thinkers employed a hermeneutical dialectical device called the "twofold truth" in order to explain the epistemological dilemma inherent in the notion of silnyata, namely, the conventional truth (Skrt.: samvrti satya),6 the epistemic modality characteristic of sarrtsara, and the ultimate truth (Skrt.: paramartha satya) characteristic of nirv(1).a. In short, the term "conventional truth" comprises language and human cognition, while the concept "ultimate truth" signifies the emptiness and insufficiency of conceptual language. However, the very conception of ultimate truth itself requires the language of "conventional truth." If commentators were ever tempted to interpret silnyata as a transcendent realm, Madhyamika thinkers

209 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE~TITY put a halt to it by arguing, as the Chinese Madhyamika philosopher Chi-Tsang (549-623 C.E.) does, that the beliefs that the truth comprises either one or two "substance[s]" are "untenable": "If Common Truth is common and Higher Truth is not common, then Higher Truth and Common Truth are different" while, at the same time, "If you say that each has its own substance, then their mutual identity is destroyed" (Chi-Tsang 1960, 299-300). Ultimately, this dialectic implies an existential correlativity (ontologically and epistemologically) of immanence and transcendence. The doctrinal system of T'ien T'ai Buddhism (Jap.: Tendai) , founded by Chih-i (538-97 C.E.) on the two pillars, the Lotus Sutra and Nagarjuna's philosophy, expands Nagarjuna's "twofold truth" to include the dialectical principle between immanence and transcen­ dence as a third truth. T'ien T'ai Buddhism thus advocates a "system of three truths" (Chin.: san-ti) or "three discernments" (Chin.: san­ kuan) (Donner and Stevenson 1993, 9), which includes the "truth of emptiness" (Chin.: k'ung), "truth of provisionality" (Chin.: chia), and "truth of the middle" (Chin.: chung). In his monumental Mo-Ho Chih-Kuan, Chih-i describes the "truth of emptiness" as the fundamental Buddhist insight that, in Dagen's words, "all dharmas and the self are without a self." Having studied the causes and conditions of all dharmas, the practitioner realizes that reality is devoid of self-nature, and all phenomena that appear to possess substance are actually empty. Since "in emptiness there is not even [a mark of] oneness to be found; how then could there be two" (Chih-i 1993, 159); thus, Chih-i describes emptiness as non-dual. In other words, one could say that since all dharmas are empty, emptiness signifies the common nature of reality; however, according to Chih-i, this common nature of the multiple appearances within the phenomenal world signifies their lack of an ontological substance. On further meditation, the practitioner then realizes that "the Innumer­ able" (159) phenomena exist; they do not exist as eternal essences but as momentary appearances. Thus, Chih-i juxtaposes non-dual emptiness with the "vast plurality of forms" (159). The dialectic between emptiness and provisional plurality is also reflected in the Tien T'ai practice of chi-kuan (concentration and insight): Con­ centration (Chin.: chih) discloses the "[o]ne Mind whose nature admits no differentiation. Those who hold this view can stop the flow of false ideas" (Hui-ssu 1960, 316); on the other hand, insight (Chin.: kuan) realizes that appearances are simply appearances. T'ien T'ai philosophy generally refers to the relationship between emptiness and

210 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE the provisional plurality of dharmas as the One-in-All, All-in-One principle (de Bary 1960, 311). The correlativity of the many and the one, Chih-i terms "the unobstructed" (Chih-i 1993, 161). While it is tempting to interpret the oneness of emptiness, or, at least, the "absolute truth" (Donner and Stevenson 1993, 12) of the correlativity of the One-in-All, as an ontological substance or a metaphysical essence in the sense of Spinoza's substance T'ien T'ai rhetoric prevents the very attempt of such an interpretation. It argues that the oneness of emptiness is devoid of "[a mark of] oneness" because it is correlative to the provisional plurality of the phenomenal world and, subsequently, according to Buddhist logic, non-substantial. Second, "Chih-i disabuses the middle of any hint of ontological integrity and characterizes it as utterly decentered" (Donner and Stevenson 1993, 13). To make sure that neither of the truths can be reified or absolutized, Chih-i applies each truth to the relationship of the three truths with each other and concludes that "[a]ll three [statements] are empty because . .. discursive thought is cut off ... provisional because they are names only ... middle because they are ultimate reality" (Chih-i 1993, 178). All three truths are dialectically and trialectically correlated and interwoven; the truth of the middle functions as non-reifiable limit function. Ultimately, the One-in-All principle of T'ien Tai Buddhism anticipates Nishida's self-determina­ tion of the universal in that it not only correlates immanence and transcendence but further balances the juxtaposition of immanence and transcendence with the non-dual principle of transcendence-qua­ immanence and immanence-qua-transcendence, without, however, losing the asymmetry of the primacy of the One. Fa-tsang (643-712 C.E.), considered to be the intellectual system­ atizer of Hua-Yen (Jap.: Kegon) Buddhism, took the T'ien T'ai system one step further and proposed the four dharmadhatu (dharma-realms) as (1) the "world of the mutually exclusive particulars" (Chin.: shi), (2) the "all embracing universal reality" (Chin.: Ii), (3) the "unhindered interfusion of universal with particular" (Chin.: li-shi-wu-ai), and (4) the "unhindered interfusion of particular with particular" (Chin.: shi-shi-wu-ai) (Odin 1982, 19); these stages are sometimes character­ ized as "one in one," "all in one," "one in all," and "all in all" (25). The latter rendition clearly relates Fa-tsang's thought to the philosophy of T'ien T'ai Buddhism. While T'ien T'ai Buddhism introduced the asymmetrical non-dual principle of transcendence-qua-immanence, Hua-Yen identifies the structure of immanence not merely as the relativity of grasper (Skrt.: griihaka) and grasped (Skrt.: griihya), as

211 ZEN CONCEPTIOi\S OF IDEXTITY upheld by Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu, but more fundamentally as the symmetric relativity of what Nishida terms I-and-Thou. Applied to the logic of self-determination, Fa-tsang seems to argue that the expression of the universal within the individual awareness event necessitates a relationship between at least two individuals. Fa-tsang balances the asymmetry of the T'ien T'ai principle All-in-One with the symmetry of the "unhindered interfusion of particular with particular." It is this symmetry which re-surfaces in Nishida's application of the principle of "unhindered interfusion" to his twofold analysis of the foundations of human knowledge and the historical world as the dialectical relationship of "I and Thou". Zen Buddhism, finally, adopts from T'ien T'ai Buddhism, albeit not without changing its sequence, the threefold structure of affirmation, negation, and non-dualism, while it borrows from Hua­ Yen Buddhism the insight that the transcendent universal correlates to the symmetry of mutual determination characteristic of immanence. This combination results in the three stages of affirmation/dualism, negation/monism, and dialectical affirmation/non-dualism which are reflected in Zen Buddhism and popularized by the famous aphorism attributed to the Chinese Zen master Ch'ing-yuan Wei-hsin (Jap.: SEIGEN Ishin): Thirty years ago, before I began the study of Zen, I said "mountains are mountains, waters are waters." After I got an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, I said, "Mountains are not mountains, waters are not waters." But now, having attained the abode offinal rest [that is, Awakening], I say "Mountains are really mountains, waters are really waters" (qtd. in Abe 1985b, 4). Structually, such a Mahayana phenomenology of experience reveals three fundamental features: (1) These aphorisms and poems discussed in the section actually describe the individual stages characteristic and constitutive of the spiritual and epistemic process toward attainment and the epistemic modality they reflect. (2) Buddhist thinkers commonly pair the categories of dualism and affirmation, monism and negation, and non-dualism and dialectical affirmation, to describe three fundamental epistemic modalities characteristic of everyday awareness, ofthe practitioner's insight, and ofsamadhic awareness. (3) Mahayana Buddhist thinkers tend to collapse the rigid dichotomy between transcendence and immanence in order to develop such a phenomenology of samadhic awareness.

212 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE The Abstract World

Both Dagen and Nishida identify as characteristic of everyday awareness a first realm of experience which is characterized by a binary structure and an affirming, if not, naive world view, which takes appearances at face value. The first line of Dagen's hermeneutical model, "there is illusion and enlightenment, there is practice, there is birth and death, there are buddhas and sentient beings," describes the world view of an unenlightened being, which is Dagen's synonym for everyday awareness. Thus, Dagen and Nishida suggest that the cogito constructs a world consisting of individual, seemingly real objects, which have an essence or self-nature, are clearly identifiable, and possess attributes. Dagen characterizes the standpoint ofeveryday awareness as overly simplistic and concretistic: everyday awareness believes that things are what they appear to be. To everyday awareness, the words "illusion," "enlightenment," "prac­ tice," "buddhas," "sentient beings," "birth," and "death," designate identifiable, individual, real objects. This description of everyday awareness is reminiscent of Chih-i's contention that the beginner interprets even the symbolic language of siltras literally and strives to identify, for example, the "marks" and "apparitions" of Buddha in the world of sa1?1siira (Chih-i 1993, 124-26). Similarily, Nishida argues that the world of judgment is a world in which the knowing self constructs "real objects." In my terminology I distinguish two kinds of experiences of everyday awareness, namely, the cogito which pretends to retreat from the world to "objectively" see the world but actually constructs an abstract world as its object and the cogito which externalizes itself in an existential ek-stasis and then experiences the phenomenal world as the "objectively" given (Sartre's being-in-itself), which limits me from the outside and which consciousness attempts to shake off in the act ofnegation. While Nishida clearly identifies the realm of affirmation and duality as the abstract world, his world of judgment, it is possible to interpret Dagen's description of this realm as both, the abstract world and the phenomenal world. Nishida is more specific than Dagen in his description of the abstract world. In short, the abstract world is characterized by an asymmetric and a symmetric dichotomy, the dichotomy between the universal and the particular, and the dichotomy between two particulars. Investigating the epistemic foundation of the particulars which constitute the human world of experience and knowledge such as trees, selves, and refrigerators, Nishida muses that any particular

213 ZEN CONCEPTIOKS OF IDE0:TITY

(Jap.: tokushu) has to be constituted in an epistemic field which he refers to alternatively as the world ofjudgment (Jap.: handan no sekai) and the universal ofjudgment (Jap.: handan no ippansha). It is only vis­ a-vis the background of the universal which dialectically affirms and negates the particular itself that a particular can be conceived of. For example, the logical judgment in the form of a subsumptive judgment, a predicative judgment, or a syllogism constitutes a particular in the field of knowledge by placing it into a meaning­ bestowing universal. To know that "this is a book," the particular of perception "this" has to be identified with and located in the "universal" of bookness. In a similar sense, predicate logic such as the predication of "this book is green" functions to determine a particular book by means of the attribute "greenness." Nishida maintains that a particular phenomenon has to be located in a topos (Jap.: basho) ofsuch a predication, which bestows meaning onto the particular object. The subject of knowledge identifies a particular object of experience vis-a­ vis other particular objects by conferring a universal, be it the species "tulip," the predication "white," or the spatio-temporal context "in the foyer of the department yesterday," to a particular object. The totality ofthe universals which determine the particular objects of experience, in this case "the white flower which was in the foyer yesterday is a tulip," constitutes the world constructed by knowledge. Human knowledge thus defined requires the determination (Jap.: gentei; Ger.: Bestimmung) of a particular by a universal. Nishida argues that to be known, that is, to exist in my field of knowledge, a particular has to be grounded in and be determined by a universal. Without this meaning­ bestowing act of locating the particular in a universal, the particular will lose its determination qua particular and retreat unrecognizably from my field of knowledge. It is for this reason that Nishida identifies the universal ofjudgment as "basho of being." It presents the particular object of our knowledge as unmitigated object, which is characterized by existence and is thus attributed ontological value. In addition, Nishida argues that a particular object of knowledge has to be simultaneously affirmed and negated by another particular to maintain its intrinsic character as a particular. A particular object is thus not only determined vis-a-vis its background, but, as Hegel's dialectic of the limit (Ger.: Grenze) indicates, also vis-a-vis what-it-is­ not. Here, "what-it-is-not" can be conceived of either as abstract negation by its outline or as concrete negation by another particular object, in the sense that a particular object constitutes this and not that. For example, a particular sound becomes uniquely particular 214 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE only in relationship and opposition to other sounds as well as to other sense perceptions such as sight. To appear to everyday awareness, a particular object has to be what-it-is in relation to what-it-is-not. Ultimately, Nishida argues that particular objects and concepts cannot be conceived of as isolated individuals. They are always determined in relation-to and opposed-by (Jap.: ni tairitsu) other particular objects and concepts, that is, they presuppose a mutual relationship (Nishida's sogo kankei) and a mutual determination (Nishida's sogo gentei) among themselves. In other words, any particular object is necessarily embedded in the correlativity of affirmation qua what-it-is and negation qua what-it-is-not.7 Nishida thus postulates, following Hegel's logic of contradiction and Nagarjuna's dialectic of correlativ­ ity, that ideas not only do not exist independently, but, more fundamentally, are posited in a field of knowledge vis-a-vis their opposites. Identity is thus defined vis-a-vis difference, the idea of goodness vis-a-vis the idea ofevil, and the idea ofbeing vis-a-vis non­ being. Thus conceived, the abstract world of particular objects reveals a twofold binary structure, juxtaposing the universal and particular dimension of reality, as well as two individual particulars in the dialectical relationship of affirmation and negation. At this point, it is important to note that the particulars, whose mutual opposition is constitutive of the abstract world do not interact but are posited as a static opposition by the constitutive act of the desiring self. In this sense, Dagen and Nishida thus suggest two fundamental characteristics of the abstract world. First, as discussed in length, the abstract world discloses a twofold structure ofirreconcilable opposites. All the phenomena the experiential "I" encounters can be understood and evaluated by means of the binary framework of yes-or-no, plus­ or-minus: things either do exist or do not exist; truth statements are either true or false; axiologies evaluate occurrences as either good or bad. Human knowledge seems to presuppose and employ a dualistic structure, which is manifest in dual categories such as particular-and­ universal and subject-and-predicate, as well as in the general tendency to employ dualistic classifications. In Parfit's terminology, personal identity qua self-qua-object is a matter of all-or-nothing. Second, everyday awareness constructs the abstract world as a world of objects devoid of subjectivity. Even the image or idea of subjectivity appears as self-qua-object. In constituting an "external world" the experiential "I" withdraws its subjective function in a methodological retreat in order to create a seemingly "objective world." However, this methodological retreat is illusory since, despite its claim of objectivity,

215 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi\TITY the very abstract world cannot but be constituted vis-a-vis the subjective agency of the self, thus reminding the self not only of the subjective nature of its construct but, furthermore, of its own correlative existence within the phenomenal world.

Graph 4: The Structure of the Abstract World

mutual opposition particular ..-.... particular

abstract world

The Phenomenal World

At the same time, the dualistic terminology, by means ofwhich Dagen and Nishida describe the abstract world, also discloses the existential predicament of the phenomenal world, where the self constructs and encounters the seemingly external world. Zen Buddhism argues that the abstract world, as the world of "objective" knowledge, and also, as Nishida explains, the noematic content of historical and moral activity or artistic creativity, mutually opposes the subjectivity of the noetic act. As we have seen in chapter 2, Dagen and Nishida juxtapose self (Jap.: jiko) or desire (Jap.: yokkyu) and environment (Jap. kankyo). Everyday awareness experiences itself as an enduring and indepen­ dent entity, colloquially refered to as "self," which is to be distinguished from the phenomenal world. In his fascicle "Shabagenza Sansuikya," which is dedicated to exploring the relationship between the self and its environment, Dagen paraphrases, as I have mentioned before, everyday awareness as the "people outside the mountains" (Jap.: sangenin), signifying a differentiation between self and environment. In this fascicle, Dagen utilizes the phrase "mountains" as an allegory to symbolize the world-as-it-is-experienced. He similarly identifies the standpoint of the ordinary person as the positional attitude of everyday awareness, which intends and plans (Jap.: shuko suru) "not to do evil" (Jap.: shoahumakusa), thus, projecting what-is-not-yet into the future and creating a future separate from the present. Zen Buddhism thus argues that the individual polarities of human experience such as self and world, self and other, individual and universal are mutually dependent on each other (Skrt.: pratftya

216 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE samutpada). Regardless of whether the self defines itself in-relation-to the dharmas or the "person outside the mountains" vis-a.-vis the mountains, everyday awareness displays an existential relatedness reflecting the interdependence of subject and object. Everyday awareness occupies one pole, which Husserl would call the ego pole, of its dualistically structured experience. Or, to put it differently, the self comprises the subjective dimension of experience, in the language of epistemology, the knower, which is necessarily related to its object. The existential-soteriological ramifications of this Zen analysis of everyday awareness is fourfold. (1) Starting with the obvious, Dagen and Nishida argue that the external opposition of self qua knower and world qua known implies the existential epistemic limitation of everyday awareness. Epistemologically, the self who "discriminates and affirms the myriad dharmas" and who studies "the dharmas while applying itselfto the dharmas" "does not know, does not see, and does not hear." (2) This inability "to know" explicates the existential alienation the selfexperiences from the world it lives in as well as from itself and thus connects self-alienation to the alienation from one's environment and vice versa. Ethically, the selfwho "intends" not to do evil does not presence the "non-production of evil" (Jap.: shoakuma­ kusa); soteriologically, the self who practices to attain enlightenment does not attain enlightenment.8 In his fascicle "Shabagenza Zazenshin" (1994, 2: 391-428), Dagen illustrates this paradoxical predicament of intentionality with the oft-cited exchange between the Chinese Zen masters Nan-yueh and Ta-chi: When the Ch'an master Ta-chi of Chiang-hsi was studying with the Ch'an master Ta-hui of Nan-yueh, after intimately receiving the mind seal, he always sat in meditation. Once Nan-yueh went to Ta-chi and said, "Worthy one, what are you figuring to do, sitting in meditation?" ... Chiang-hsi said, "I am figuring to make a Buddha." ... At this point, Nan-yueh took up a tile and began to rub it on a stone. At length, Ta-chi asked, "Master, what are you doing?" ... Nan-yueh said, "I am polishing this to make a mirror." ... Ta-chi said, "How can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile?" ... Nan-yueh replied, "How can you make a Buddha by sitting in meditation." (qtd. in Bielefeldt 1985, 191-93) Elsewhere, Dagen cynically compares the attitude which posits the "non-production of evil" and the attainment of enlightenment in a distant and external future with the attempt of "going to the south by travelling up north" (Dagen 1993, 1: 253), thus indicating its

217 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi':TITY meaninglessness. Concerning this binary structure of the phenomenal world Dagen consistently argues that thetic positionality, symbolized as "people outside ofthe mountains," which externalizes itself as self-qua object or as self-qua-past, is ultimately inauthentic. It has to be noted in this context that Dagen does not doubt the value of the phenomenal world for human existence; as a matter of fact, it can be argued that sentience is the starting point and, subsequently, the necessary condition for enlightenment. In addition, as the discussion of firewood has shown, Dagen asserts the givenness, uniqueness, and irrepeatability of events. However, he argues clearly that the standpoint which produces the abstract world is a fictional one and, moreover, remains soteriologically wanting. However, (3) the external opposition between self and world is not inherent in the nature of things but is, on the contrary, an existential characteristic ofeveryday awareness. Regardless of whether the self pretends to retreat from the lived world in order to construct a seemingly objective conception of the world qua abstract world or whether it faces the "objectivity" of the given world, the seemingly infinite abyss between world and self is constituted by thetic consciousness. Existentially self and world mutually determine each other. (4) Finally, and this is important for the conception of personal identity, this constitution of the abstract and the phenomenal world is always radically temporal.

Graph 5: The Structure of the Phenomenal World

desire abstract world ~ cogito

phenomenal world

The Lived World

Introduction

Zen Buddhism contrasts the standpoint of everyday awareness, which substantializes self and world, with the Weltanschauung of the practitioner, who postulates the emptiness (Skrt.: sunyatii; Jap.: ku) of all phenomena by claiming that "there is- neither illusion nor enlightenment, neither buddhas nor sentient beings, neither birth nor

218 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE death." Dagen's description of the lived world echoes the writings of Buddhist thinkers who traditionally argued in favor of the emptiness of the phenomenal world based on the notion of pratftya samutpiida, that is, the correlativity ofphenomena, and the assertion of meditation masters such as Chih-i and Ch'ing yuan Wei-shin that this oneness of emptiness reflects the mind of the practitioner. Nishida, on the other hand, argues that the abstract world is Henveloped" in the lived world insofar as the willing self (Jap.: ishikiteki jiko) posits the abstract world as its object. By the same token, the willing self (Nishida 1988, 5: 125-149)9 includes the binary structure of the phenomenal world as its noetic and noematic aspect within itself and thus reveals its monistic structure as subject-object-unity (Jap.: shukyakuteki toitsu). At the same time, due to its subjectivity, self-consciousness does not appear in the abstract world, which is constituted by the self as its noematic object. In contrast to the affirmative dualism of the abstract world, the lived world is characterized by a negational and monistic structure. Nishida defines the world of subjective will and self-awareness, his world of self-awareness (Jap.: jikakuteki sekai), as antithesis to the phenomenal world insofar as the lived world discloses a monistic and negative structure. This implies that the practice of meditation as well as any kind of activity transcends the dualism between self and world. However, while Nishida seems to attribute this world of oneness and negation more generally to the subjective activity of the self, which functions as the actional unity of the subject-object polarity characteristic of the phenomenal world, Dagen's phenomenology of experience has to be read in the context of his meditation theory, in the sense that in meditation the phenomena of the phenomenal world dis-appear. In other words, while Dagen presents a phenomenology of experience to outline an existential Hepistemological reorientation" (Nagatomo 1992, 103) in the process of meditation, Nishida applies the epistemic structure of the ~~practitioner's mind" to the activity of the willing self.

Lived world as epistemic reorientation

How can such an epistemological re-orientation qua negation of the intentional act be achieved? What does it mean to collapse the subject­ object dichotomy and, concomitantly, its dualistic structure? How is the monistic and negative structure of the phrase Hwhen all dharmas and the self are without a self, there is neither illusion nor enlightenment,

219 ZEN CO~CEPTIONS OF IDE:\:TITY neither buddhas nor sentient beings, neither birth nor death" reflected in the practice of meditation? Is Dagen's phenomenology limited to minimizing perceptual stimuli in the meditation hall in order to eliminate external influences as well as mental activities, in the expectation that it is possible to deprive one's consciousness of its intentional object and, following Husserl's definition of consciousness, of its function as subject qua consciousness of? On the one hand, Dagen's instructions that meditation practice requires an environment devoid of any unnecessary external and internal stimuli can be interpreted as a suspension of doxa, in the sense of Husserl's phenomenological epoche; on the other hand, however, given the descriptions of Dagen and Husser!, these two kinds of epoche seem to differ in their result. The failure of the effort to intentionally shut out external sense stimuli or to intentionally bracket external phenomena lies in the basic dilemma that these efforts still constitute the very thetic intentionality which prevents everyday awareness from attaining awakening. The intention10 to become enlightened qua intentional act prevents the attainment of enlightenment. Having described the ideal environment and the physical posture most appropriate for meditation, Dagen explains that "[h]aving thus prepared body and mind, there should be exhaling and inhaling. Solidly sit in samadhi. 11 Think ofnot­ thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Without-thinking." (Dagen 1993, 4: 334). Meditation constitutes not only an intellectual but mostly the somatic or somatically aware activity of "exhaling and inhaling," "sitting in samadhi," and "not-thinking by means of without-thinking." Dagen's appropriation of the famous Zen k6an of "thinking about not-thinking without-thinking" has been more than satisfactorily explained by Kasulis; for the present purpose it suffices to note that the epistemological re-orientation engendered by meditation has to be, as Nagatomo noted, thoroughly somatic. As Nagatomo (1992) argues convincingly, the existential reorienta­ tion of the epistemic modality of thetic consciousness requires the process he terms attunement qua the process of habitualization and sedimentation. In other words, meditation engenders a fundamental transformation of the existential attitude of the cogito which experiences and defines itself vis-a.-vis a seeming external world; translated in my terminology, the static and disembodied cogito of the phenomenal world is negated and transcended by the activity of the embodied self characteristic of the lived world. If conceived as mere intellectual function, the cogito, best described by Sartre's being-for­ itself, statically opposes the world of phenomenal objects. Constituted

220 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE vis-a.-vis the phenomenal world of objects, the cogito conceives of its somaticity as its existence (Sartre's being-in-itself) which is given to it as its past; the body thus conceived by the cogito becomes, at its best, an object, as Heidegger would say ready-to-hand (Ger.: zuhanden) as a tool in the service ofthe being-for-itselfand, in the worst case scenario, dispossessed as a mere object for-the-other, regardless of whether it is an individual other or the collective man. The self indicative of the lived world, on the contrary, is not only bestowed with intellect but also with somaticity and affectivity.12 Defining "affectivity" as "a source ofanimation for the person" (Nagatomo 1992, 206), Nagatomo clearly differentiates the lived body from an objectified "red chunk of flesh." Contrary to the objectified body, the lived body exhibits an affective connectedness between self and its ambiance This somatic affectivity connects the self with the seemingly external world and constitutes the matrix of their interaction and rapport, ultimately, bridging the gap between self and world through the unifying activity (Jap.: toitsu sayo) of the self. Based on the notion of the lived body qua somatic affectivity, Nagatomo describes meditation qua attunement as the process of "de-tensionality" in which the self-conscious cogito "forgets" its self-conscious attitude and "whereby attending unself­ consciously becomes an essential characterization of the person" (Nagatomo 1992, 235). In the sedimentation of repeated actional structures, the self undergoes a process of de-personalization and de­ centering in which the individual consciousness slowly retreats into the background in the twofold sense that I am no longer the self­ conscious author of my activity and that theory and praxis, intellectual knowledge and experience, begin to coincide. The self­ conscious hunt for self-awareness, which was doomed to failure by its very structure in the sense that "it is delusion to practice-actualize myriad dharmas by applying ourselves to the dharmas" gives way to an existential modality which is not dominated by the individual cogito but which is rather selfless in the sense that "it is enlightenment to practice-actualize the self when dharmas approach (the self)" (Dagen 1993, 1: 94). While Nagatomo conceives of "de-tensionality," which transcends the "tensionality" between what ICHIKAWA Hiroshi calls the subject-body and the object-body (Nagatomo 1992, 1-56), I believe Nishida applies this mechanism to the process of transcending the "tensionality" between the subject-self and the object-world in everyday life. Through repeated actions, the self cultivates its relatedness to the world in the process of"de-tensionality" rather than its seeming separation and thus manifests the lived world as

221 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE~TITY a negation of the phenomenal world and the thetic modality of the cogito. In the activity of the self qua negation of the phenomenal and the abstract worlds, "there is neither illusion nor enlightenment, neither buddhas nor sentient beings, neither birth nor death."

Lived world as activity

While Nishida's exposition of the world of self-awareness (Jap.: jikakuteki sekai) qua lived world is in complete accord with the conception of meditation as epistemic re-orientation, Nishida seems to apply the basic structure of meditation practice to everyday activities qua unifying activities (Jap.: toitsu sayo).13 Thus conceived, any activity transforms the static opposition and tensionality between self and environment and thus functions, to some degree, as "de-tensionality." By the same token, every activity takes the lived body rather than the body qua "red chunk of flesh" as its foundation. Everyday consciousness is unaware of this actional unity because, as Shaner explains, following Kasulis' discussion of "thinking" (Jap.: shiryo) as the existential modality of everyday awareness, everyday awareness superimposes a multiplicity ofthetic acts (Shaner 1985, 48), which posit an existential dichotomy between self and object onto the actional unity of self-awareness, which unites subject and object within itself. When the self steps out of the confines of its static and solipsistic isolation vis-a-vis the phenomenal world, it existentially encounters the multifarious world of otherness in the place of their common somaticity. Through habitualization and sedimentation of its engage­ ment with the world, the self slowly assimilates and incorporates what appears to be external. The practice of any skill, such as playing the piano or riding a bicycle, illustrates how in the process of self­ cultivation what-appears-to-be-external reluctantly enters my lived world which it begins to inhabit after being incorporated into my activity. Prior to the commencement of my practice, I experience the bicycle as a foreign object, which limits my freedom and, consequently, my self-projection. While practicing, I get used to the bicycle, which becomes a "part of my body" to the degree that I can unthinkingly control the bicycle as I control my body. In the process of self­ cultivation qua attunement, Heidegger's ready-to-hand loses its tool­ character and becomes an extension of the lived body, in the sense of a present-with. Learning to ride a bicycle, the practitioner, at first, comprehends the modus operandi of riding a bicycle with her/his

222 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE mind, that is, the practitioner attains the theoretical knowledge, theoria, of biking. In a second step, the body and the bicycle "follows" the instructions, first awkwardly, then, attempting to keep balance and to attune self and bicycle over and over again, gaining familiarity, until praxis and theory coincide in the very act of biking, when the practitioner rides herIhis bicycle, quite literally, "without thinking." An examination of any instance of somatic learning, that is, any kind of learning which involves the self as a psycho-physical whole, discloses a similar process, regardless of whether one engages in sport disciplines, martial arts, playing a musical instrument, or acquiring a simple everyday function such as walking to the grocery store. In the final analysis, in its everyday activity, the selfextends beyond its own boundaries to integrate the so-called external objects into what Nagatomo phrases "lived body space" (Nagatomo 1989, 157) and, elsewhere, the "intercorporeal world" (Nagatomo 1992, 99). Like Sartre, Dagen and Nishida hold that the human body discloses the key to the world ofotherness, the world which transcends individuality and opens an entrance to interpersonality; unlike Sartre, however, Dagen and Nishida do not conceive of the human body as the mere object of objectification and alienation by the other and myself, that is, as something which clumsily stands between me and my freedom, but, on the contrary, as the gateway which discloses the "intercorporeal world," where the self encounters the other and the individual encounters the world. Existentially, this means that the living body neither comprises my positional agency qua subject-body nor the object qua object-body but the place where "all dharmas intermingle." Structurally, this means that Dagen juxtaposes the lived world and the phenomenal world. The spectrum of the lived world can range from the individual self, which hesitantly interacts with its surrounding, to the cosmic self, in which any individuality is extinguished and in which the self has become identical to "mountains, rivers, earth, sun, moon, stars" (Dagen 1994, 3: 329) as well as "walls, tiles, and pebbles" (3: 330).

Graph 6: The Lived World

phenomenal world ...---.. somatic cogito

willing self

Lived World

223 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi'\TITY Summary

Dagen and Nishida thus contrast the dualistic structure of the phenomenal world, in which the intellectual cogito statically opposes a seemingly external world, with the monism of the lived world, where the opposites ofsubjectivity and objectivity unite in the dynamic oneness of the lived body. Therefore, from the standpoint ofthe phenomenal world, the lived world appears to be utterly transcendent. However, while the lived world (regardless of whether it constitutes the little self or lung's selfqua unus mundus) reveals the oneness ofsubjectivity and objectivity, it does not disclose either a non-dual or a non-positional structure; on the contrary, as Kasulis has pointed out, the modality which negates the intellectual cogito of the phenomenal world is thoroughly positional (Kasulis 1981, 73). First, the unifying activity of the lived world posits the phenomenal world as its opposite and thus implies a dichotomy of immanence and transcendence; second, the lived world does not include its own negation, in the sense ofNishida's contradictory self-identity, but rather encompasses the world within itself, thus positing itself as the (mystical) cosmic self. Interpreted in relation to the phenomenal world, however, the lived world functions as the transcendent ground of and, subsequently, gives rise to the dichotomy of the subjective cogito and the objectivity of the constructed world. Structurally, the world of self-awareness is best illustrated with the various systems of idealism which locate the so-called objective world in the experiential realm of subjectivity. And reminiscent of any idealist system, Nishida's world ofself-awareness, in analogy to Dagen's "[w]hen all dharmas and the self are without a self," is susceptible to falling into oneness and undifferentiatedness. Nishida enforces the comparisons of the lived world with idealism when he identifies the willing self Gap.: ishiteki jiko) as the predominant existential modality characteristic ofthe world ofself-awareness. He argues that the world of self-awareness is manifested by the lived body which dialectically expands itself by integrating the objects of its desire (perceptual objects, intellectual objects, emotive objects, etc.) and the world it engages into the realm of its activity. Dagen goes one step further and identifies the self with "mountains, rivers, suns, and stars." In this sense, the rhetoric ofthe world ofself-awareness seems to imply that no reality exists outside the experience of the willing self. Epistemologi­ cally speaking, however, the universal of self-awareness explicates the truism that human knowledge does not exist independent from and external to human cognition and discloses the Yogacara dictum of

224 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE consciousness-only (Skrt.: Vjiiana-matra). It is important to repeat, however, that neither Nishida nor Yogacara Buddhism locates the public, that is, intersubjective, world in the consciousness of the individual - that would constitute an assertion of extreme naivite; instead, they place the abstract world of human knowledge, which is constructed as a seemingly objective external realm, in the field of consciousness. Given their overall philosophical project, any idealistic tendencies in the works of Vasubandhu and Nishida should, at the most, be interpreted as epistemological idealism; the category Hontological idealism," on the contrary, does not apply. In addition, and this distinguishes Nishida's universal ofself-awareness fundamen­ tally from at least some European forms of idealism, the world ofself­ awareness does not exist in a vacuum but constitutes as graph 7 illustrates, the noetic activity which juxtaposes its noematic content, which Nishida identifies as Hthe true" (Jap.: shin), Hthe beautiful" (Jap.: bi), and Hthe good" (Jap.: zen) (Nishida 1988, 3: 350).

The Actual World

Non-positional awareness

Finally, Dagen and Nishida introduce as third layer of awareness the notion of non-positional awareness in its twofold function as dialectical principle, which reconciles the dualistic structure of the phenomenal world and the monistic structure of the lived world, and as self-awareness, which is unobstructed by the alienation and objectification of the positional modality of the self. In his fascicle "Shab6genz6 Shoakumakusa" (1993, 1: 243-66), Dagen distinguishes everyday awareness which "intends not to do evil" (Jap.: shoakuma­ kusa) from his own interpretation of Hnon-production of evil" Gap.: shoakumakusa) as a non-positional attitude with a terminology reminiscent of his concept Huji" discussed in the previous chapter. In analogy to the immediately present existence-time, Hnon-produc­ tion" is depicted as timeless present and as a non-positional attitude: While the ordinary person intends and appropriates good and evil, from the standpoint of Hnon-production," Hall evil" is Hdevoid of a before-and-after," Hwithout sustenance or beginning" (Dagen 1993, 1: 256), and Hdevoid of causation" (251), its causes being Hunborn, impermanent, unconcealed, and independent,14 cast off" (249). Hidden behind the flood of Buddhist terminology is Dagen's own

225 ZEi': CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi'\TITY understanding of the present event as a causally and temporally independent instant. Ultimately, Dagen identifies the ethics of "non­ production" with the existential modality of presencing (Jap.: genjo). The transformed, ethical attitude of "non-production" or presencing reflects a standpoint devoid of causal and temporal connections and givenness. "Past" and "future" as well as "cause" and "effect" comprise the explanantes constituted by the intent of the ordinary person; however, once this intent is purified, the religious term for "transformed," the sense of before and after, cause and effect, and, subsequently, continuity is "cast off." Actions and identity are not to be projected as one's possibilities but to be presenced in the immediate now. Once the binary structure of past and future characteristic of the positional attitude of desire (which condemns Sartre's being-for-itself to a state of permanent dispossession) is overcome, self-awareness emerges and the self presences what-it-is. In this sense, Dagen employs the term presencing to identify the non-thetic modality of self­ awareness, which does not construct an abstract self-qua-object nor externalizes the self as past self or future self but in which existence and awareness coincide actionally as well as temporally. Similarly, the term "enlightenment" does not signify a future state of attainment or an ontological realm into which enlightened beings are reborn. Enlightenment is the simultaneous expression of my existence, my possibilities, and, ultimately, of "reality-as-it-is." This non-thetic modality of self-awareness can be illustrated with the example of a musical performance, during which the self­ conscious awareness of myself as an agent retreats and thus discloses the selfless activity of playing piano; rather than being an act of the musician, the music plays itself through the presence of the musician. The very event of playing music is devoid of any projecting positionality. By the same token, pre-reflective awareness is devoid of any noematic content (Kasulis 1981, 75): Contrary to everyday awareness, which is occupied with individual noematic objects such as "the letter I received this morning," samadhic awareness is beyond objectification. However, that does not mean that samadhic awareness is devoid of any content. Samadhic awareness does not comprise an unconscious but in Nagatomo's words an "unself-conscious aware­ ness" (Nagatomo 1992, 230), that is, an awareness devoid of thetic poitionality. As Dagen observes, "there are generation and extinction, illusion and enlightenment, beings and buddhas." It is not I who act but my self-conscious "I" expresses the actual world acting through me. Kasulis identifies the content of samadhic awareness as

226 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE an unobjectified presence" (Kasulis 1981, 75), while Nagatomo paraphrases this modality as "a crystal-clear realization which locates the ontic status of an object within the complex, causal matrix of conditioned generation-extinction" (Nagatomo 1992, 248) and as lucid "transparency" (Nagatomo 1989, 172). Both expressions suggest the transparency and selflessness of samadhic awareness. Dagen and Nishida identify presencing not only as the non-thetic modality of self-awareness but also as the most fundamental modality of existence. This interpretation explains the urgency with which Dagen admonishes the practitioner to perform continuous practice even after the attainment of satori, comparable in its urgency only to Sartre's observation that humans are condemned to act. It also sheds some light on Dagen's cryptic announcements postulating the "oneness of practice and realization" (Jap.: shusho itto) (Dagen 1993, 1: 47) in the sense that practice is the practice of realization and realization is the realization of practice. However, what distinguishes Dagen's admonition from Sartre's observation is that the latter is motivated by the realization ofan inherent lack ofthe experiential "I," which is directed towards an external, "futural" realm, while, in the light of Dagen's metaphysics of the present, the lack of the experiential "I" comprises the fullness of the present. In this light, every activity and experience has to be conceived of as a presencing of some kind; it is the manner ofexpression which distinguishes different existential modalities as particular instances of presencing. Nishida develops this conception in his very first chapter of Inquiry into the Good, in which he argues that every existential modality, be it the intentional act of "thinking" (Jap.: shii), the positional act of "willing" (Jap.: ishi) , or the non-positional act of "intellectual intuition" (Jap.: chiteki chokkan), constitutes a form ofthe non-thetic modality of "pure experience" (Jap.: junsui keiken) (Nishida 1988, 1: 9-45). The thetic modality ofprojecting, for example, presences a lack or nothingness and hence a dualism in that it empties itself into the future; 15 it presences a dualism and alienation by otherizing and, subsequently, dichotomizing itself. The disembodied and disengaged cogito presences an existential isolation inherent in its solipsistic modality, while the positional attitude of the self presences its existential dissociation into the self locked into the contingencies of its "past" and the self lured by the infinite opportunities of the "future." By the same token, even the existence ofthe self-reflective "I," which presumes the non-dual unity of noesis' and noema, necessitates and mirrors the paradoxical structure ofpresencing: the existential ambiguity between self and other, subject

227 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE::\TITY and object, and the existential torn-apart-ness of the experiential "I." The experiential "I," which finds itself caught between what-it-is and what-it-is-not, cannot but disclose the paradoxical structure of self-awareness as the underlying matrix of everyday awareness. Self­ awareness qua the paradoxical unity of noesis and noema, however, is presenced only in the unobstructed "creative intuition" (Jap.: sozoteki chokkan) qua non-production, in which the self "sees itself" (Nishida 1988,6: 386). In addition, the experiential "I" paradoxically discloses its universal character in that it always defines itself vis-a.-vis, and, by default, cannot escape, the so-called external world. One could continue this description further to develop a psychology of presencing; but for now it suffices to note that being devoid of the distraction and obstruction engendered by thetic positionality, which takes the experiential "I" outside of itself to constitute an "objective" reality, the underlying modality of presencing functions as a mirror in which each existential modality reveals itself.

The dialectic of the actual world

In addition, however, Nishida conceives of the non-dual structure of the actual world as the ultimate dialectical principle, which, as anticipated by Dagen's shinjin datsuraku, accommodates not only the juxtaposition of (1) noesis and noema and (2) self and other but, more fundamentally, (3) the opposition between an asymmetric and a symmetric interpretation of the activity. As I have indicated in chapter 4, even though the lived world encompasses the phenomenal world as its noematic content, Nishida argues that the "juxtaposition" and "balance" between noesis and noema remains. In order to be rescued from its solipsism of subjectivity, the willing self has to encounter external objectivity. Furthermore, the very conception of the noesis qua the lived world necessitates its opposite and, subsequently, a mutual opposition (Jap.: sogoteki tairitsu) of noesis and noema. While the lived world is characterized by the precedence of the noesis over the noema, Nishida postulates a third world qua the dialectic of noesis and noema, which he calls somewhat misleadingly the world of intelligibility (Jap.: eichiteki sekai).16 This world follows neither binary logic nor "sinks into the noesis" (Nishida 1988, 5: 159); on the contrary, the world of intelligibility discloses the existential correlativity of noesis and noema, or, to be exact, the dialectic between the symmetry between noesis and

228 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE noema and the asymmetry where the "noesis envelops the noema." This dialectic reflects Husserl's description of the transcendental ego as simultaneously self-contained and absolute in that it "no longer has a horizon that could lead beyond the sphere of his transcendental being and thus relativize him" (Husserl, 73) and relational in that "it is solely in relation to intentional objectivities" (65). Ultimately, Nishida distinguishes between three different levels of relationships between noesis and noema, (1) the static but symmetric opposition in the phenomenal world, (2) the asymmetric precedence ofthe noesis over the noema in the lived world, and (3) the dialectic ofthe symmetric and the asymmetric relationships characteristic ofthe world ofintelligibility, which I call the actual world. Displaying a non-dualism of noesis and noema, the actual world defies both the binary structure characteristic ofthe phenomenal and, for that matter, the abstract world, and the logic of lived positionality characteristic of the lived world. Nishida fundamentally argues that the monism of subjectivity characteristic of the lived world cannot account for knowledge because it lacks the moment of objectivity. At this point, Nishida's argument seems to reflect the opening sentiment of Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy (1995), in which Russell argues that the fundamental problem of epistemology is that human knowledge is existentially subjective; at the same time, however, subjectivity cannot establish public knowledge and a public discourse on knowledge. Among the two standard responses traditionally given to this question within the European philosophic traditions are Kant's dictum that public knowledge is rooted in a common cognitive structure; to use the famous illustration of Kant's a priori forms, we all see the same reality not because there is only one reality to be seen but because we all wear the same glasses (Steinitz 1994, 54-55). Russell, on the other hand, grounds public knowledge on the equally unprovable assumption that there exists an objective, external reality. However, Nishida rejects both alternatives; instead, he argues that the world ofself-awareness is located in the actual world, which comprises of the dialectic between noesis and noema. In some sense, he seems to argue for the validity of both Kant's pre-experiential "forms of apperception" and Russell's insistence on a public reality outside the individual human mind. By the same token, I believe that the third sentence in Dagen's opening paragraph of his "Genjakaan" similarly implies the dialectic of levels one and two, dualism and monism, affirmation and negation. A close reading of this paragraph reveals that the third line does not

229 ZEN COl'CEPTIO:NS OF IDE:t\TITY designate the same epistemic plane as the preceding two lines. I rather believe that lines one and two, which are introduced by a temporal clause articulating their basic condition, namely "[w]hen all dharmas become the buddha-dharma" and "[w]hen all dharmas and the self are without a self" designate particular perspectives, while the third line signifies the "true nature" of reality. The quotation mark indicate that the term "true nature" does not indicate a Aristotelian substance but rather what-reality-is. I think that such a reading justifies the conclusion that, in the above-cited words of Kasulis, each of the former two lines "highlights one aspect to the exclusion ofothers" and that neither "characterization ... captures ... reality" (Kasulis 1981, 25-26). Thus the third line truly represents the standpoint of "being­ and-non-being" and of "paradoxical identity-in-difference that reveals the middle path unbound by, yet giving rise to, all polarities" (Heine 1991, 127).

Graph 7: Symmetrical Model of the Three Bashos

opposition phenomenal world +----+ lived world qua qua noema noesIs

To introduce the intersubjective dimension into his theory of knowledge, Nishida argues that, as discussed in chapter 3, limited to the positional modality of desire devoid of true (Jap.: shin ni) objectivity and resistance qua negation, the self would lose its individuality and, paradoxically, its desire, and, since it is defined as a desire, itself in an undifferentiated oneness. As we have discussed in chapter 3, the liberation from this all-encompassing oneness comes in the form ofexternal limitation by an equal other, who does not simply surrender to the desire of the experiential "I" in analogy to an inanimate object. The desiring self finds such an equal partner/ opponent in another positional self. The encounter between I and Thou, however, negates desire and transcends the standpoint of the individual self. It is only in this transcendence of the transcendence and the infamous Buddhist "emptiness of emptiness," that the self encounters the other and, subsequently, itself. Nishida explains that "[t]o die to oneself is to negate one's desire. But to die to one's desire is

230 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE to live in the true self" (Nishida 1988, 6: 291) and, elsewhere, "true love sees the I within the non-relative other. This means that the I dies to itself and is born in the Thou" (6: 421). This paradoxical definition of the selfless self qua I-and-Thou carries three basic ramifications: (1) Nishida conceives of the intersubjective encounter between I and Thou as the internal negation of the I-and-Thou. In other words, he conceives of the intersubjective encounter as the self­ determination ofthe universal qua I-and-Thou which expresses itselfin the symmetry of two correlative individual awareness events "I" and "Thou." (2) Consequently, the intersubjectivity between "I" and "Thou" encompasses the individual awareness events, including the abstract worlds they construct. (3) Nishida conceives ofthe universal of intelligibility to respond to Russell's problem concerning the condition of public knowledge by locating intersubjective "objectivity" within the realm of self-awareness. However, while the conception of the I-and-Thou clearly introduces the dimension of intersubjectivity, it fails, as graph 8 illustrates, to account for the aspect of objectivity other than the individually constituted objectivity which has been exposed to be constituted for-the-self and thus cannot warrant public knowledge. Even though he develops the notion of intersubjective noematic content, qua the true (Jap.: shin), the good (Jap.: zen), and the beautiful (Jap.: bi), namely the Platonic triad of knowledge, morality, and art, Nishida has difficulties including the notion of "publicity" in his asymmetric phenomenology of human experience. This is so because he defines the I-and-Thou, as contradictory self-identity, wherein the "I" and "Thou" mutually encounter and negate each

Graph 8: Asymmetrical Model of the Three Bashos

mutual opposition I mutual opposition I particular - particular particular - particular I I abstract world qua noema LOVE abstract world qua noema

willing self qua noesis willing self qua noesis lived world of self-awareness lived world of self-awareness

I-and-Thou

231 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEXTITY other. Only a dialectic between intersubjectivity and public objectivity can solve Russell's problem satisfactorily. The next chapter will show that Nishida addresses the problem of publicity by combining his temporal framework, which includes both the symmetric and asymmetric dimensions of time with his threefold model of self­ awareness.

The Question of Impermanence

Having discussed the three metaphysical assertions as descriptions of three epistemes which map out the process of meditation, Dagen's observation that "even if we describe it this way, flowers fall amidst loathing and weed flourishes in the middle of disgust" seems like a beautiful but, nevertheless, conceptually awkward afterthought. As poetic aphorism, this observation markedly differs from the three preceding statements which assumed the form of metaphysical assertions. Despite the dissent among translators and commentators17 regarding the most appropriate interpretation of this aphorism, overall, scholars seem to agree that, in one way or another, this line constitutes a poetic expression of the experience and doctrine of impermanence. Nishitani develops this theme when he interprets "flowers fall amidst loathing and weed flourishes in the middle of disgust" to further indicate that "the world of defilements is buddhahood in that it constitutes the standpoint ofthe self-awareness of the buddha-dharma" (Nishitani 1989, 25). He interprets the terms "aijaku" (loathing) and "kiken" (disgust) to symbolize "defilements" (Skrt.: klesa, Jap.: bonno) and mental obstacles characteristic of karmic bondage. Nishitani contends that this passage identifies "the basic standpoint of Buddhism" as "defilements-qua-buddhahood" (Jap.: bonno soku bodai) (25). This contention raises a host of interesting ethical, soteriological, and metaphysical questions which, unfortu­ nately, exceeds the framework of the present work. At any rate, Nishitani thus interprets Dagen to contextualize the manifestation of buddhahood or buddha-nature, for that matter, in the temporal world of human emotions and karmic bondage. In a later reading of the same passage, Nishitani emphasizes the temporal dimension of the discourse on "genja" even more strongly when he explicitly links the poetic aphorism "flowers fall amidst loathing and weed flourishes in the middle of disgust" to Dagen's discussion of continuity qua before­ and-after and birth-and-death (Nishitani 1989, 102).

232 A ZEN PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE This interpretation is validated by Dagen's fourfold modification and reinterpretation of the notion of buddha-nature18 (Jap.: bussho) elaborated in the fascicle "Shabagenza Bussha." Designed to undercut potential essentialist interpretations ofand to de-ontologize the concept "buddha-nature,"19 Dagen's re-interpretation of "buddha-nature" exhibits a fourfold structure of buddha-nature qua "being-buddha­ nature" (Jap.: ubussho), "non-being-buddha-nature" (Jap.: mubussho), "emptiness-buddha-nature" (Jap.: kubussho), and "impermanence­ buddha-nature" (Jap.: mujobussho). This conceptual schema not only parallels the first three stages explicating affirmation, negation, and dialectical affirmation or emptiness, but also identifies the fourth stage as the impermanent world of affectivity and human experience. This seems to me ofutmost importance since it seems that Dagen introduces temporality, so to speak, as a fourth dimension (after affirmation, negation, and dialectical affirmation) of his discussion of buddha­ nature. However, this does not imply that Dagen introduces a fourth existential modality but rather that he emphasizes the temporal aspect of samadhic awareness. The importance of temporality to the thought of Dagen and Nishida is underscored by the relatively extensive treatment of the topic of continuity in Dagen's fascicles "Shabagenza Zenki," "Shabagenza Shoji," and, most importantly,"Shabagenza Genjakaan," while he dedicates one of his central fascicles, namely, "Shabagenza Uji," to the topic oftime. In addition one ofthe central concepts ofhis thought, "genja," clearly implies the importance of temporality, or should I say, temporality of atemporality, to his conceptual frame­ work. Finally, it is the fascicle "Shabagenza Genjakaan" which introduces Dagen's discussion of continuity qua before-and-after. In his article "Dagen on Buddha-nature" (Abe 1992, 35-76), Abe further argues that the notion of "impermanence-buddha-nature" also functions to de-ontologize the notion of buddha-nature and successfully undercuts any possibility of interpreting buddha-nature, even as "emptiness-buddha-nature," to signify an underlying, permanent essence but rather proposes the middle way between eternalism and annihilationism. In this sense, I believe, Dagen's employment of this aphorism "flowers fall amidst loathing and weed flourishes in the middle of disgust" discloses a twofold significance in that it (1) de-ontologizes the subject matter of the metaphysical discourse - in Dagen's case, these are the notions of buddhahood and buddha-nature - and (2) introduces the notion of temporality into his discourse on "genjakaan," that is, "presencing the koan." Nishida

233 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE~TITY echoes this importance of impermanence when he supplements his theory of basho with a philosophy of temporality. In Nishida's case, the philosophy of temporality, as expressed in his concepts of the continuity of discontinuity and the eternal now, becomes a pervasive feature of his mature philosophy. The exploration of temporality as the fourth aspect of a Zen the phenomenology of experience is paramount for developing a Zen alternative to the notion of personal identity.

234 ------It CHAPTER SEVEN tll----- Personhood as Presencing

Introduction

In this last chapter, I would like to explore the temporal dimension of the non-thetic modality of presencing and to examine the ramification ofthe Zen dictum ofimpermanence for the notion ofpersonal identity. Among all the concepts Nishida and Dagen employ to describe the non-dual paradigm (with varying degrees of success, I might add), I have chosen the term "presencing" because it combines the dynamic self-revealing aspect of Nishida's expression with the temporal or, better, atemporally temporal dimension of Nishida's non-relative present. It thus not only brings out the fundamental temporal dimension of personhood, but, furthermore, addresses the twofold predicament of synchronic identity and diachronic identity, which it replaces with the conception of synchronic and diachronic non­ duality. In this chapter, I will thus develop the notion of presencing as the dialectic between the universal and individual dimensions of human existence from the philosophical texts of Dagen and Nishida, applying this dialectic to the notions of impermanence and temporality as well as to the problem of personal identity.

The Concept of Presencing

Dagen's stratification of presencing

As mentioned before, I borrow the term "presencing" from Dagen's religious thought. Within the framework of Dagen's writings the concepts presencing, literally "becoming-present" (Jap.: genjo) and 235 ZE~ CONCEPTIONS OF IDE:\TITY "presencing the kaan" (Jap.: genji5ki5an) occupy an undisputed and central role. The latter term seems to designate the most general application of presencing, including all particular instances of presencing, as is reflected in the translation ofgenji5ki5an as "presencing things-as-they-are" (Shaner 1985, 145) and "manifest[ing] absolute reality" (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 139). Among the concepts to which Dagen dedicates complete fascicles, the term "genjakaan" stands out in that it hardly appears as a technical term, either in the fascicle with the same name or in the other writings of Dagen. 1 In some passages, Dagen creatively plays with the expressions "genja" and "kaan" to devise phrases such as "the kaan of presencing," "the presencing of performance is this kaan," and "the genjakaan of performance" (Dagen 1993, 1: 256). More frequently, Dagen utilizes the abbreviated verb forms of "to presence" (Jap.: genji5 suru, gen zuru, and arawareru) which, however, lack the suffix "kaan" and with it some of its important connotations. The difficulty with Dagen's choice of characters is reflected in the responses of translators and commentators, who, while being in agreement concerning its meaning and philosophical significance, seem to struggle with the appropriate interpretation of Dagen's usage of the term "kaan." In the Rinzai tradition of Zen Buddhism, ki5an practice functions to transcend "the limits of logical dualism" (Suzuki 1964, 109). Dagen's general emphasis on "sitting only" as the necessary and sufficient practice of the Buddha-dharma, his break with the Rinzai school during his journey through China, and his sporadic polemic against the Rinzai school and its emphasis on ki5an practice2 indicate that Dagen distinguishes his approach from that of Rinzai Zen, at least in some form or the other. Regardless of Dagen's exact stance on the issue of ki5an practice, however, Dagen utilizes the term "genjakaan" to identify presencing as the practice which overcomes and casts off the limitation of a dualistic world view, which the ki5ans were designed to eradicate. The term "genjakaan," according to my understanding, implies that the practice of presencing is the solution to the most fundamental ki5an constituted by the existential ambiguity inherent in everyday experience, that is, the presencing of the "individuality of things and their absolute equality, the sameness of things' differences, the difference of things' sameness" (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 130). Dagen developed the concept of presencing to solve his own personal, existential dilemma. Having entered Mount Hiei at age twelve, the young Dagen began to wonder, while studying and confronting the doctrines of Tendai (Chin.: T'ien T'ai) Buddhism,3

236 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING about the central soteriological conundrum of Buddhism, which is outlined by the concepts "original enlightenment" (Jap.: hongaku) and "acquired enlightenment" (Jap.: shikaku). If all sentient beings are, as the Nirvar:ta Siltra contends, equipped with buddha-nature (Jap.: bussh6), why is the rigor ofBuddhist self-cultivation necessary? On the other hand, ifenlightenment is something to be acquired by one's own power in the realm of sa1?1slIra, how is it possible to attain enlightenment which Buddhism consistently describes as uncreated (Skrt.: asarrtSkrta, Jap.: mui), unborn (Jap.: mush6), and undefiled (Skrt.: anlIsrava, Jap.: muro)? On his journey to China, Dagen discovered a simple but ingenious solution to his problem: Attainment (Jap.: sh6) and practice (Jap.: shu) are one activity. This he conceptualized in his fascicle "Shabagenza Bendawa" as the "oneness-of-practice-and­ realization" (Jap.: shusho ichinyo). Practice, correct practice, that is, presences enlightenment; enlightenment presences practice. Similarly, buddha-nature is not "something" possessed by sentient beings nor does it signify their essence (soteriologically or ontologically), but, enlightenment is the momentary event in which buddha-nature (Jap.: bussho) and all buddhas and ancestors (Jap.: busso) are presenced. In his "Shabagenza Genjakaan," Dagen narrates an encounter between the Zen master Pao-ch'e and his disciple to illustrate this mechanism: As Zen master Pao-ch'e of Maku shan was fanning himself, a monk came up and said: "The nature of the wind is constancy. There is no place it does not reach. Why do you still use a fan?" Pao-ch'e answered: "You only know the nature of the wind is constancy. You do not know yet the meaning ofit reaching every place." The monk said: "What is the meaning of 'there is no place to reach'?" The master only fanned himself. (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 139-40) It is not enough that the disciple knows "the nature of the wind" or that the nature of the wind is constancy, if it is not presenced in the action of fanning one's self. In the same sense, enlightenment qua awakening has to be practiced in the immediate now; otherwise it degenerates to a potentiality. It is important to note that Dagen does not conceive of buddha-nature as potentiality which awaits to be actualized but comprises actualization itself, which in an inauthentic state of existence retrogresses to potentiality; or, to put it differently, in Dagen's philosophical system the conceptual dichotomy between potentiality and actuality indicates inauthenticity, while the non­ dualism of presencing denotes authenticity.

237 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDENTITY The role of the universal

Dagen thus defines presencing as the dialectic between an individual awareness event and its universal dimension, namely buddha-nature. Nishida, who similarly argues the necessity of a universal dimension, as indicated by his threefold theory of bashos/universals/worlds and his terminology of the non-relative, provides an explanation of this conception of the universal and its philosophical implications. As discussed in the preceding chapter, Nishida argues that knowledge presupposes the notion of a universal, which asymmetrically envelopes the particular. Structurally, Nishida needs the conceptual priority of the universal for two reasons. First, the very attempt to ground the opposition of two opposites, be it knower-known, self and other etc., requires an underlying, common ground which non-relatively unites the opposition of the respective particular items. As Wargo argues following HISAMATSU Shinichi's description of nothingness, such a common ground, Nishida's universal, is of a different class than the pair of opposites; it is no-thing in relation to it but dialectically affirms and negates the particular poles of the juxtaposition as well as the juxtaposition itself. 4 By the same token, Nishida uses the concept "universal" to develop his logic of internal negation. As discussed in Part Two, the external opposition between knower and known, self and other, individual and environment, and "past" and "future" necessarily leads to an impasse in that the perceiver as an external negation of the object of perception is unable to cognize the object. By the same token, as external negation of thetic consciousness, the self is unable to conceive ofthe facticity of the other and even more so to cognize the other in the mutual act of intersubjectivity; as external negation of the '''I' of yesterday," the "'I' of today" is unable to remember her/his "previous" experiences. Thus, to accommodate knowledge, memory, and interactions between persons as well as between the self and its environment, Nishida introduces the notion of the universal, which encompasses the opposites of knower and known, self and other, and "'I' of yesterday" and the '''I' of today." He terms this universal alternatively the "place" (Jap.: basho) where knower and known, self and other, and the "'I' of yesterday" and the '''I' of today" dialectically and mutually interact with each other. It is this priority of the universal which gives Nishida's philosophy the appearance of an absolutist system. Nishida identifies this universal with the relativity of the opposites only in the sense that "the true universal transcends being-and-non-

238 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING being and must envelope them inside, that is, it must contain the contradiction within itself" (Nishida 1988, 4: 262). Nishida thus defines the place in which the correlatives of knower and known, self and other, and even individual and universal encounter each other as the transcendent realm which is devoid of opposition. Nishida's terminology of the "true universal" (Jap.: shin no ippansha), "logic of basho" (Jap.: basho no ronri), and, most of all, "zettai issha" (11: 448) and "zettaiyu" (447), which are frequently understood and translated as "Absolute One" and "Absolute Being" (Yusa 1987, 2: 108) respectively, quite often raises objections of being absolutistic and even monistic. However, despite frequent expressions which lend themselves to such an interpretation, Nishida's concept of basho qua contradictory self-identity does not constitute a cosmic identity-over­ time such as Spinoza's substance or the Upanishadic brahman but rather discloses a conceptual structure which is thoroughly non-dual. Unlike, for example, the Hindu brahman, this universal is not eternal in the sense of being everlasting or unchanging but in the sense that it defies the dual classification of temporal and atemporal. 5 For this reason, Nishida terms the atemporal present "eternal." Similarly, the adjective "self-identical" does not imply permanence but rather self­ negation. Non-relative oneness is foremost non-relative in the sense of "the unity ofopposites where one is many and many is one" (Nishida: 1988, 7: 45). Non-relative oneness thus defined transcends being-and­ non-being. Nishida explains that [t]hat which is identical in itself is not merely one but must be the many as one and the one as many. For this reason, self­ identity has to be thought of, in analogy to, for example, our self-awareness, as that which implies that what changes does not change, and to that which does not change while changing. Therefore when we think that the universal determines in itself, this must imply that it is identical in itself. The universal must possess the meaning not to change while changing; it must possess the meaning of the many as one; in this sense the individual can be thought to be a universal, while the universal determines the individual and vice versa. (7: 32-33) Nishida employs his terminology of self-contradiction to indicate that the non-relative neither designates a substance nor an enduring container. It dialectically comprises change and changelessness. This world is an unchanging one in that it is not superceded by a diachronically diverse, external world; at the same time, it is

239 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi\:TITY changing/different in that it creatively transforms itself. In short, the moments of changelessness and identity indicate that no separate outside world which is completely disconnected exists, while the moments of change and difference signify the creative and transformative dimension of the non-relative. Odin rightly argues that nothing "new can truly emerge into existence ... if all events ... are already contained in each moment of experience" (Odin 1982, 72); however, Nishida does not propose such an all-encompassing static oneness. Odin's objection assumes an underlying conception of the moment of experience as a closed container; Nishida, on the contrary, conceives of time as the dynamic present which dialectically changes and does not change at the same time. Despite the religious symbolism he employs to describe the dialectical universal, Nishida identifies, as I have mentioned before, this actual world as the socio-historical world of human existence which is not temporally linear but creative and transformative. In this sense, Nishida defines the historical world, which comprises "the world in which individuals mutually interact" (Nishida 1988, 9: 147), as "transcendence-qua-immanence and immanence-qua-transcendence" (11: 442). Nishida describes the historical world as transcendent insofar as it coincides neither with the abstract world of linear temporality nor with the circular temporality of the lived world; nevertheless, it does not exist apart from the world of human intersubjectivity or even subjective activity but is "eternally immanent" (11: 433). Again, Nishida does not dissolve the realms of transcendence and immanence into an "Absolute One" but rather upholds the dialectical tension between one and many and changelessness and transformation out of which life emerges. At the same time, Nishida interprets the two progressions from the transcendent to the immanent and from the immanent to the transcendent, which Christianity symbolizes as kenosis and ascension respectively, as the aspects of creativity qua self­ determination of the universal.

Synchronic Non-Duality

The dialectic of presencing in Dagen

Defining presencing as the anchor concept of his ontological and temporal non-dualism, Dagen substitutes a synchronic non-duality for a synchronic identity and a diachronic non-duality for a

240 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING diachronic identity. To illustrate Dagen's dynamic non-dualism, I would like to quote a passage from the fascicle "Shabagenza Zenki," which discusses the relationship between "birth" and "death" as two independent instances of presencing-total-working, each of which completely presences total-working without "obstructing" the other. Dagen explains the structure of presencing-total-working in somewhat cryptic language: The principle that birth is presencing-of-total-working concerns neither the origin nor the end. Even though it is the great earth and empty space, it neither obstructs birth-qua-presencing-of­ total-working nor death-qua-presencing-of-total-working. When death is presencing-of-total-working it becomes the great earth and empty space and it neither obstructs death-qua­ presencing-of-total-working or birth-qua-presencing-of-total­ working. The great earth and the empty space exist exhaustively in birth and death ... However, this does not mean that there is one great earth and one empty space exhaustively worked within birth and within death. Although they are not one, they are not different; although they are not different, they are not identical; although they are not identical, they are not many. In birth there are numerous dharmas presencing-total-working, in death there are numerous dharmas presencing-total-working. The presen­ cing-of-total-working exists neither in birth nor in death. Within presencing-of-total-working there is birth and death. (Dagen 1994, 3: 401) In this passage, Dagen deals with four fundamental issues: (1) What is the nature of the relationship between total-working and the individual awareness event which functions as its expression? (2) What is the relationship between an individual awareness event and the "past" and "future" events it presences? (3) What is the relationship between individual awareness events qua individual instances of presencing-total-working? (4) What is the relationship between the various total-workings expressed by different awareness events? Before I attempt to disentangle the various strands of this text and to interpret this passage, I would like to briefly translate Dagen's terminology into less cryptic language in order to adequately apply it to the problem of Mensch-sein. Dagen's presencing-of-total-working clearly refers to the religious experience of satori, in which the individual event qua microcosm reflects the macrocosm within itself. 6 I believe that this mechanism of presencing-total-working also applies

241 ZEN CONCEPTIO~S OF IDEi\TITY to rather mundane problems, such as the problem of personal ide~tity. To demonstrate the applicability of Dagen's examination of presencing-of-total-working to the conceptions of personal identity and Mensch-sein, I suggest interpreting "birth" and "death" as two diachronically diverse events, E1 and E2 , and presencing-of-total­ working as the content, C 1 and C 2, expressed therein. This content can range from simple thoughts to what we commonly refer to as an individual person, or, in the case of satori, to "exhaustive worlds" and "exhaustive times." I symbolize this content as "c" rather than "P," person, since according to Dagen, this content contains personal and transpersonal elements. Dagen contends that (1) C 1 simultaneously is and is not expressed in the individual event E}, (2) that any C contains all individual events, and, by implication, (3) that the relationship between E1 and E2 displays a non-dual character as well; and finally, (4) that the relationship between C 1 and C 2 is non-dual in character. By postulating the non-dual character of the relationship between content C and event E as well as of the relationship between two diachronically diverse events, E 1 and E 2 , Dagen substitutes a synchronic non-duality for a synchronic identity and a diachronic non-duality for a diachronic identity. The notion of synchronic non-duality explicates that context and event are mutually dependent insofar as they cannot exist separate from each other. A person-at-the­ moment does not exist in a vacuum devoid of a temporal horizon or personal content. At the same time, a person or personal content cannot exist if it is not expressed in an experience qua person-at-the­ moment. The more urgent question for the present discussion, however, concerns the diachronic non-duality: What is the significance of stating the non-duality between two diachronically diverse events and their contents? Given that Dagen rejects the notion that presencing is a matter of yes-or-no and, subsequently, asserts that total-working is neither substantial nor unchanging, how does non-dualism or, what Nishida would call contradictory self-identity, have to be conceived? What are the structural implications of Dagen's substitution of the notion of a selfless, transtemporal, dynamic, ever-changing expression-of-all­ experiences for a self-centered, static, unchanging personal identity? (1) Dagen replaces the notion of a synchronic identity with the

observation that C 1 simultaneously is and is not expressed in the individual event E 1; as Dagen says, even though "the presencing-of­ total-working exists neither in birth nor in death," "birth is the presencing-of-total-working." While a cynic might argue that Dagen

242 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING simply contradicts himself, I believe that the question here is not so much whether Dagen uses a contradiction but why he uses it. Dagen seems to say here that even though the individual awareness event E 1 expresses total-working, the individual awareness event neither possesses nor exhausts the totality of total-working. For example, my act ofdrinking a cup of tea encompasses neither the totality of my existence nor the totality of "exhaustive worlds" and "times". At the same time, the individual awareness event does not dissolve into the totality of total-working, but retains its (momentary) individuality qua individual awareness event in the face of the total-working it expresses as well as other instances of presencing-total-working. While an essentialist approach would resolve this dilemma in favor of either an individual or a universal substance, thus forsaking at least one of the two aspects, individuality and universality, Dagen suggests that the non-dual (yet contradictory) relationship between individual aware­ ness event and its universal content combines the seemingly irreconcilable aspects of individuality and universality or sociality. My act of writing on the typewriter completely presences who-I-am as a person, as a socio-historical entity, in the sense that what I do is historically determined and could not have happened anywhere else, and as a being, without however, diminishing or, as Dagen would say, obstructing, the presencing-of who-I-am in my "past" activity of playing the piano. Dagen thus stratifies a conception of the self (qua awareness event) which celebrates the uniqueness and irrevocability of the individual experience, without, however, rejecting a common ground between cognizer and cognized, self and other, individual and society. However, he left it up to later thinkers such as Nishida to detail the structure and implication of such a non-duality between individual and context. (2) Given Dagen's conception of continuity of experiences and temporality, he cannot but conceive of total-working as containing all awareness events: "within presencing-of-total-working there is birth and death." For example, my present activity of playing the piano manifests all "prior" and anticipates all "subsequent" practices. Every awareness event, be it "prior" or "subsequent," which has any relevance, or connection, to the present event must be contained therein. As external "past" which has already passed, my "previous" piano practices would be without consequence for my recital today. In other words, all "previous" events of importance for the present moment constitute the context qua habit-body which is expressed therein. This is the fundamental objective of the Mahayana Buddhist

243 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE~TITY critique of both the causal-mechanical and the teleological concep­ tions of continuity of experiences as well as Nishida's dialectic of linear and circular (a/)temporality. If two diachronically diverse events E1 and E2 are truly separate, they are absolutely unconnected; if they are identical, they constitute one point-instant devoid of any continuity, even the continuity of discontinuity. (3) To claim the non­ duality between the individual awareness events E1 and E2, however, implies that while the "past" qua "prior" practices are expressed in the present awareness event, E1 and E2 are not identically one but different, in that it was the "prior" practice that conditioned my performance "today". Anticipating Nishida's logic of internal negation, Dagen seems to argue that while external events mutually exclude each other, related events, on the contrary, disclose an internal connection qua presencing.

(4) This non-duality between two diachronically diverse events E 1 and E2 is reflected in the non-dual relationship between the contents C 1 and C 2 they express; in Dagen's words, "[a]lthough they are not one, they are not different; although they are not different, they are not identical; although they are not identical, they are not many." The crux of a linear conception of continuity is that the conception of subsequent but separate events begs the question of their connected­ ness. Two thousand years ago, Buddhist philosophy had already suggested four possible solutions to this problem: The Pudgalavadins postulated, in a sense which Leibniz would reiterate later, that the continuity between diachronically diverse and separate events E 1 and E2 is warranted by an enduring substance, the person (Skrt.: pudgala). True to Gotama's rejection of an enduring self, the Sarvastivadins sought to reconcile the contradictory notions that two diachronically diverse events E1 and Ez were simultaneously connected and separate by postulating overlapping awareness events with the unpleasant consequence that these individual moments assumed an eternal character.7 The Sautrantikas, on the contrary, sacrificed the notion of causality to maintain a clear-cut separation between E 1 and E2 . It is on this conceptual background that Nagarjuna collapsed the continuity of E 1 and E2 and Dagen proposed the non-duality between E 1 and E2 . However, this non-dualism, requires the non-dualism of C 1 and C 2 . Were C 1 and C 2 identical, Dagen's conception would return to some kind of essentialism - an objection which has been frequently leveled against Mahayana Buddhist schools that adhere to the buddha-nature doctrine. However, according to Dagen's logic of zenkigen, C 1 and Cz are not identical. On a cosmic scale this means that there is no

244 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING unchanging universal essence a la the Hindu brahman or Spinoza's substance, but that the world itself evolves in constant change. On a personal level, this implies, that there is no personal identity because every individual experience existentially transforms who-I-am so that I cannot return to what I was ten years ago. Finally, this total-working does not constitute a further fact but consists of the continuity of my "preceding" and "subsequent" experiences qua habit-body and "future" opportunities.

The dialectic of presencing in Nishida

Similarly, Nishida applies his logic of the non-relative which explores the notion of internal negation to the dialectical progression of the historical world as the self-determination of the universal (Jap.: benshohoteki ippansha) (Nishida 1988, 7: 15). He argues that since an external negation would engender two separate realms, the universal must express itself by negating itself in the sense that the historical world negates itself in the momentary awareness event in order to determine itself as dynamic progression of history. "Dialectical progression," Nishida explains, "does not negate what is given from the outside but progressively transcends itself in that the given itself contradicts itself" (9: 189) Elsewhere he explains that "what I have called basho must possess the meaning of determining itself qua basho and the universal must possess the meaning of determining itself qua universal; the present determines itself qua present and the world determines itself qua world" (7: 57-58). Once again, Nishida is extremely careful to avoid any terminology that could suggest a metaphysical or an epistemological dualism. Reality unfolds in the dialectical relationship between individual acts and their common ground. History thus conceived constitutes neither a container in which events occur in a sequence nor a transcendent entity which is radically atemporal: History evolves dialectically not only in that it is expressed in individual experiences but also in that individual events create the history they express. So how does Nishida describe the relationship between universal and individual in the self­ determination of the universal? The individual is determined by the universal and, at the same time, must be thought to determine the universal; the self which determines the universal has to be thought of as the true

245 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE}.JTITY

individual. A thing cannot be thought to be determined in relation to others but the self must possess the meaning of determining itself. That which is determined by others is not the self. It has to be thought in its extreme as a windowless monad (7: 236). Nishida describes this self-determination of the universal as a dialectic between universal and the individual. Altogether, the self-determination ofthe universal is characterized by four relationships ofdetermination: (1) the universal determines the individual, (2) the individual determines the universal, (3) the self-determination of the individual, and (4) the self-determination of the universal itself. While this quote focuses on the relationship between the individual and the universal, it is important not to forget that Nishida conceives of the '''I' of today" vis-a.-vis the '''I' ofyesterday" and ofthe "I" vis-a.-vis not an other but a "Thou." (1) "The universal determines the individual." To unpack this statement, I would like to first reiterate Nishida's usage of the terms "universal" and "individual." Even though Nishida borrows this terminology from his epistemological considerations about the foundations and conditions of human knowledge, in the course of his philosophical development Nishida also employs these terms to designate what he calls the "logical structure of the world of the present" (Nishida 1988, 7: 217). In the context ofthe above quote, the term "individual" serves to designate the acting self, which I have alternatively called the "individual awareness event," while the term "universal" signifies the totality of the historical world. In my terminology, the term "universal" refers to the context in the widest sense of the word, including my historical condition as well as the possibilities of my actions. Thus, to say that the universal determines the individual means that my historical and social situation forms who-I-am; my present awareness of myself and the world expresses this situation. I cannot conceive who-I-am independent of my historical conditionality. In this sense, my working on the computer right now expresses not only my interconnection with the ozone layer, which is still thick enough to protect me from ultravoilet radiation and with my publisher who gives me a reason to work etc., but also with all the scientific and technological discoveries that went into the making ofmy laptop and with all the eminent thinkers whose writings I was fortunate enough to have read. In Nishida's words, my working on the computer expresses the historical world.

246 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING

(2) However, Nishida believes that the relationship between universal and individual is not one-sided, because if it were, the individual awareness event would constitute, as Baron D'Holbach believed, a "cog in the universe" or a wheel in Leibniz' "pre-established harmony." On the one hand, Nishida argues, the self-aware individual awakens to a historical and psychological givenness which it cannot choose but which determines what-the-individual-is. On the other hand, however, the individual, to be exact, the co-existence and interconnectedness of the individuals, negates the universal as the creative expression ofthe universal. This moment of negation has to be understood in analogy to Sartre's beingjor-itself, which negates what-it­ is (Sartre's being-in-itselj) towards what-it-is-not. In the same sense, Nishida argues the individual simultaneously expresses and transforms its givenness and, subsequently, creatively transforms the historical world as the universal it expresses, thus progressing from the created to the creating. Nishida shares with Sartre a radical sense of individual responsibility. At the same time, Nishida's notion of the fourfold determination ofthe universal differs from Sartre's being-in-itseljon two accounts: First, Nishida conceives of the individual self not merely as the relative negation of its own existence qua being-in-itselj, but as the non-relative negation (Jap.: zettai hitei) of the universal by means of which the historical world determines itself. Second, because my existential predicament is co-conditioned by the interrelated "pre­ vious" experiences ofothers and thus discloses my social existence qua being-in-the-world, my own self-negation not only has implications for my "future" but, due to the existential selflessness of the individual awareness event and the concomitant interrelatedness of individuals, also has social ramifications. In the same sense in which my individual activity manifests both my and the universally as well as objectively given factuality, it anticipates both my personal opportunity as well as the opportunity of the historical world. Every activity thus comprises an internal negation of the universal because it already incorporates "exhaustive times" and "exhaustive worlds." In this sense, even seemingly trivial actions like Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, have the potential to dramatically alter "the course of history." Nishida thus attributes to the individual the dignity and the responsibility of a co-creator. (3) Nishida thus builds up an intricate web of dialectical interconnections (spatial and temporal), which, consequently enough, culminate in his, albeit conceptually highly problematic, expression of the self-determination of the individual. Nishida uses Leibniz'

247 ZEN CO}.;CEPTIONS OF IDENTITY terminology of the monad not to suggest an essentialist or even a temporally linear model, or to deny the facticity of otherness, but to indicate that "[t]hat which is determined by others is not the self" (Nishida 1988, 7: 236) and that "our self is a self-contradictory existence. It reflects the world itself and at the same time, possesses itself in the non-relative other" (11: 379). Nishida is fascinated by Leibniz' terminology because of its use of the microcosm-macrocosm metaphor. It is Leibniz' contention that the individual substance qua monad reflects the totality of the universe within itself. Similarly, Nishida argues that the individual awareness event expresses "exhaustive times" and "worlds" and that the self discovers the universal qua non-relative other (Jap.: zettai ta) inside (6: 386). However, these statements have to be understood in clear contra­ distinction to Leibniz' monadology. Nishida does not import the connotations of a determinism a la Leibniz' "pre-established harmony" or the conception of an isolated individual (in this sense, his choice of the term monad is rather misleading, if not inappropriate). On the contrary, Nishida's self is a momentary awareness event which arises in mutual determination (Jap.: sogo gentei) and mutual correlativity (Jap.: sotairitsu) with other individual awareness events. The main and, as I see it, sole point in his comparison of his "self" to Leibniz' monads lies in Nishida's logic of self-negation. While an external negation creates separate realms and a dualistic world view, activity is always internally negative. As individual awareness, which creatively transforms its interpersonal factuality, the individual awareness event reflects the actual world inside. Ultimately, Nishida employs the term "monad" to develop a "perspectivist model of the self" (Odin 1996, 345) insofar as every individual manifests one expression (among many) of the historical world. 8 (4) In this sense, every activity, every awareness event manifests the self-determination of the universal in that it expresses and empties the unity of the world in the act of co-transformation and co-creation.

Diachronic Non-Duality

The non-dual structure of impermanence

The fundamental issue, which I have been trying to highlight in the preceding chapter is Nishida's seemingly contradictory contentions that the non-relative and groundless ground of self-awareness

248 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING (ultimately, self-awareness is, to Nishida, the yardstick of epistemol­ ogy and religion) expresses itself simultaneously in the dialectic of noema and noesis and in the dialogic of I-and-Thou. At the same time, it is problematic to conceive ofthe coincidence ofthese two modalities of expression because Nishida argues emphatically that the inter­ subjective encounter of self and other requires the juxtaposition oftwo positional selves; this contention is supported by the structure of Nishida's asymmetric model of basho which juxtaposes two static objects on the most superficial level, subsumes a static object under the encompassing activity of the self's desire on the intermediate level, while the most profound level discloses the conflict oftwo thetic consciousnesses as the expression of the transcendental I-Thou. The suggestion that Nishida's I-and-Thou already contains a transformed notion ofnoema is equally difficult because Nishida defines the I-and­ Thou as a self-determining universal which is not opposed by something external. At the same time, however, I believe that Nishida's conception of the self-determination of the present, which negates itself symmetrically as the continuity from the present to the present and asymmetrically from the created to the creating, holds the key to this conundrum. It does not aid the clarity of Nishida's text that he employs his dialectical method very consistently in that he turns his dialectic in almost postmodern fashion purposefully on itself. To unpack the complexity of Nishida's conception of self­ awareness, I suggest to examine Nishida's self-determination of the present in three steps. (1) Since Nishida refers to the first aspect of his self-determination of the present as the progression from the created to the creating, I will briefly revisit Nishida's conception of the continuity of the self. Nishida develops his conception "from the created to the creating," which explicates the asymmetry and temporality of the self, in analogy to Sartre's being-for-itself, as an external negation. The experiential "I" rejects what-it-is (this is what Nishida calls the created) in order to define itself anew in a free act of creating towards the future. The term "created" thus signifies all the aspects that determine my present existence to which I self-consciously awaken such as my body, my historical predicament, the web of relationships that define my social situation, etc. However, while the "past" "objectively" determines what-I-am, I define myself, in contrast, as a subjective agent which defies the determination from the "past," negates what-I-am, that is, the objectivity of my existence which is dispossessed by myself and others alike, and creatively projects what-

249 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE~TITY I-want to be but what-I-am-not into the future. Thus defined, my subjective function dissociates, as graph 9 illustrates, my existence (which is "objectively" given) qua created and my consciousness (who subjectively acts) qua creating along a temporal continuity.

Graph 9: From the Created to the Creating (1) created qua existence (being-jor-itself) ------+ creating qua consciousness

(2) However, Nishida argues that an external negation qua ek-stasis is never dynamic but must be inherently static. The proposition that my subject-body and my object-body are separated in and by time is completely untenable. How can my activity be in a different time zone than my existence? How can I act, ifwhat-I-am is in the "past"? As an acting subject, I include that which is objectively given to me and objectified by others and myself alike into my own actions. In other words, when I act I cannot be disengaged from my possibility and my historicity (this was Merleau-Ponty's criticism of Sartre). The activity of the self thus paradoxically unites what-I-am and what-I-am-not, "past" and "future." In his essays on time, Nishida argues, as I have discussed in chapter 5, that the temporality of the self, which he calls the noematic dimension of presencing, designates the linear and objective aspect of history qua "time cannot return to what was prior to the individual moment." This means that the unifying activity of the self implies the irrepeatability of events and the historical nature of the world. Nishida basically contends that the activity of the self engenders art, knowledge, and historical facts which can be "objectively" cognized even though they are not separate from the lived world of the self. As graph 10 indicates, Nishida thus juxtaposes the phenomenal world, which constitutes the "objectively" given reality the self encounters, and the lived world, which includes this "objectively" given reality in its actions.

Graph 10: From the Created to the Creating (2)

phenomenal world (created -----. creating) t self qua lived world (created -and- creating)

250 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING (3) Third, Nishida suggests that a presencing determines itself in, as graph 11 illustrates, the dialectic between the lived world and the phenomenal world. In a dialectic reminiscent of Hegel's definition of identity and difference, Nishida implies a definition of the phenomenal world as the opposition between the phenomenal world and the lived world and the lived world as the unity of the lived world and the phenomenal world. It is pivotal to read Nishida's dialectic of the noematic and the noetic determination of presencing on two levels: From the perspective of the static cogito self and world, subject and object are existentially separated and subsequently alienated from each other; the self of the lived world, on the other hand, constitutes the unity of subject and object, self and world. The phenomenal world thus signifies the static encounter of self and world, while the lived world signifies the active engagement between self and world. This dichotomy between the phenomenal world, which is characterized as dualistic, static, temporally linear, and immanent, and the lived world, which is characterized as monistic, dynamic, atemporally circular, and transcendent, corresponds to Dagen's distinction between the "people outside the mountains" and "inside the mountains." While Dagen's allegory of the "people outside the mountains" symbolizes the phenomenal world, where the cogito encounters its givenness as that which limits and determines its own subjectivity, the image of "people inside the mountains" serves as a freeze frame of the lived world, where the self creatively engages the allegedly external world. "Cogito" and "self" do not describe two different agents but one agent viewed from two different standpoints, the standpoint of external negation and the standpoint of internal negation. The self characteristic of the lived world is different from the phenomenal world (it is nothing in relationship to the phenomenal world) and therefore conceives of itself as that which statically opposes the world as disembodied subject. This conception, however, constitutes an abstraction of the lived self. The "real" self which actively interacts with the world is bestowed with affectivity and somaticity and, subsequently, is intimately linked with the world. Unable to give a monolithic or coherent picture of presencing, Nishida describes its two basic aspects to account for its temporality and irreversibility as well as to pay tribute to the truism that the active self is incapable ofescaping the present. Thus when Nishida contends that the non-relative present expresses itself in the dialectic of noema and noesis, he ultimately suggests that the binary phenomenal world, which is "objectively" given to the experiential "I," is an intrinsically

251 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE~TITY Graph 11: From the Created to the Creating (3)

phenomenal phenomenal world world

phenomenal lived I and 1 world ~ world '\7 I self qua lived self qua lived world world

static world where subject and object, self and other, "future" and "past" oppose each other. Any unifying activity such as the emergence of the experiential "I" escapes the binary structure of the phenomenal world and, ultimately, the phenomenal world itself; that means, it becomes transcendent from the perspective of the phenomenal world. At the same time, however, this activity is only effectively real or relevant, when it expresses itself"objectively," or as Nishida would say, noematically as the "future" given. When I pick up my guitar, the very act of picking up my guitar escapes the binary structure of this world insofar as its actional unity transcends the dichotomization and external negation characteristic ofthe phenomenal world. However, my activity of picking up the guitar is only effectively real or relevant insofar as it expresses itself as the transformation of the "previous state" within the phenomenal world - the guitar is now in my hands. This transformed situation can now be known and objectified, while the unity of my action cannot. It is this abyss brought about by an actional unity which ruptures the correlative structure of the phenomenal world and the lived world.

Presencing qua from the created to the creating

Zen Buddhism fundamentally defines the human person as a process of habitualization and self-cultivation. Every activity constitutes, as Nagatomo (1992) explains, a process of sedimentation. This means that through repeated activity a person creates itself. Or, as Kasulis remarks, "Experience has a cumulative effect" (Kasulis 1981, 139). Dagen's and Nishida's conception of personhood as diachronic

252 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING non-duality signifies this logic of cultivation, in which all "past" events are contained qua habitualization and all "future" events qua anticipation. This process of sedimentation necessitates the twofold movement of transcendence-qua-immanence, the involvement of the "objectively" given into the activity of the self, and immanence-qua­ transcendence by means of which the activity of the self expresses itself in the phenomenal world. Zen Buddhism contends that a person is simultaneously what-s/he-does and what-s/he-has done. While both aspects are momentary, they are also irrevocable. My activity now will be reflected in all activities to come, albeit in transformed form. Following the words of Nishida and Dagen, it is possible to paraphrase the Zen Buddhist conception of personhood as the belief that a person "must possess the meaning not to change while changing; it must possess the meaning of the many as one"; in regard to the relationship between the person today and the person tomorrow, Zen Buddhism contends that "although they are not one, they are not different; although they are not different, they are not identical; although they are not identical, they are not many." Elsewhere Nishida explains What I call self-identity cannot be described as the one is one; it changes and does not change at the same time; becoming the many, it is simultaneously one. Continuity must have this meaning; it must possess the meaning of being many while being one. What is simply one is not called continuity; what is simply many is not called continuity. (Nishida 1988, 8: 7) Thus defined, Zen Buddhism conceives ofpersonhood simultaneously as self-cultivation and as indeterminate. This non-dualistic conception ofpersonhood which is characteristic of Zen Buddhist rhetoric rejects the definition of personal identity as substance or as a succession of person-stages. Nishida argues that both ofthese conceptions reify the noematic dimension ofpersonhood. Instead, Dagen and Nishida conceive of personhood as a creative activity, which cultivates itself. Depending on herIhis activity, a person can cultivate herlhimself as an alienated modality, which constantly transcends itself towards the future or as an unself­ conscious modality which presences-total-working. While the former habitualizes a separation of self-consciousness and existence, the latter cultivates their oneness. What is important for this present discussion, however, is that Nishida's terminology of self-determination and Dagen's terminology of presencing ultimately point toward a 253 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDE0:TITY conception of person as cultivation (which constitutes the unity of Merleau-Ponty's habit-body and somatic cogito), which "must possess the meaning not to change while changing; it must possess the meaning of the many as one." This conception of the person as cultivation is reflected in the Japanese arts, which emphasize the process over the product. In calligraphy, haiku poetry, and ikebana, the end product is important only insofar as it reflects the spiritual stage of the practitioner; an attachment to the product, however, would be counterproductive to the process of cultivation and freeze the process of cultivation at a particular stage; it is for this reason that Tibetan monks and nuns destroy the mandalas they construct laboriously. Once completed, the mandala has served its purpose and is given to the elements. To identify a particular noematic expression as personal identity or essence of personhood runs counter to the very notion of person qua cultivation. Secondly, Zen Buddhism claims that presencing is completely indeterminate. It is the creative activity of life which reveals itself in the subjectivity of the activity itself and the objectivity of its noematic expression. However, to identify either the noetic or the noematic dimension of presencing as personal identity is to mistake a slide show about a visit to a foreign country for the visit itself. Or, as Nishida says in Zen fashion, it is comparable to "walking eastward by walking westward" (Nishida 1988, 6: 426). Ultimately, every discourse on the self-determination of presencing objectifies the activity of the self­ determination ofpresencing vis-a.-vis an observer. Describing presencing in a complex analysis of its noetic and noematic aspects, Nishida seems to imply that presencing itself is indeterminate; as soon as I extract myself from the present in order to observe the moment of presencing, I assume a specific standpoint, noematic or noetic, which will determine my conception of time as either objective, linear, historical, or as subjective, circular, and creative. When I withdraw myself from the present in a presumed methodological retreat the moment of presencing appears "objectively" as a continuity of events; however, when I engage my environment, I am automatically drawn into the process Nagatomo has called "de-tensionality" in which the temporal framework of my actions seems to collapse and "time" seems "to stand still" as in the religious experience. Even the everyday self can experience a sense of temporal circularity or atemporality when I "lose myself" in an intensive activity which demands all my concentration to the point that I become single­ minded - in phenomenological language, when the multiplicity of my

254 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING intentionalities9 are negated by the directionality of my action - to such an extent that HI lose track of the time." Regaining the self­ reflective mode of thetic consciousness after being engrossed in playing the guitar, I am surprised that thirty minutes have passed during what seems a short moment. An attachment to either one standpoint will ultimately lead to an ontological prejudice and the reification of presencing in the form of either idealism or realism. Depending on my standpoint, the self inhabits the lived world in its activity or occupies the phenomenal world in its encounter with its existential givenness; actual time, however, is ultimately elusive and indeterminate.

Identity and Non-duality

How does the Zen conception of person as presencing or as the self­ determination of the contradictory self-identity compare to the prototype of all essentialist theories of personal identity, Leibniz' monadology, or to Leibniz' antithesis, Parfit's selfless continuity? This question is the more interesting when we consider that Nishida frequently forces this comparison himself. While the Zen Buddhist conception of personhood as presencing shares with the essentialist theory of personal identity the characteristics of ineffability and sameness, it also discloses commonalities with Parfit's conception of persons as selfless (and possibly branching) continuities. The question whether Nishida adds the notion of contradictory self-identity as further fact and Dagen the concept of presencing-total-working is somewhat more difficult to answer since any response would depend on the standpoint of the philosopher. The Zen Buddhist notion of personhood as presencing seems to propose a middle path not only between the essentialist and the reductionist paradigm but also between a temporal (linear) and atemporal (circular) paradigm. However, it is important to note that while Leibniz and Parfit seem to share a linear conception of time and the underlying assumption that personal identity must be ontologically real or unreal, Zen Buddhism rejects both presuppositions. Zen Buddhism conceives of non-duality as the middle path which escapes the metaphysical discourse but whose aspects can be theorized and ontologized. At the same time it develops a multilayered phenomenology of experience which suggests three realms of non-duality and, at the same time, proposes a hermeneutical model which can facilitate an interpretation

255 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi\TITY of and a comparison between the various philosophies of personal identity. Conceiving of personhood as an ineffable and indeterminate activity which "must possess the meaning not to change while changing" and which expresses itself in the dialectic of the created and the creating, Zen Buddhism not only proposes an inclusive model of personhood but also explains the irreconcilable differences between the essentialist and the reductionist paradigms. The differences between these systems simply lie in the disparate standpoints from which they were constructed. The essentialist, Nishida would argue, theorizes the noetic dimension of presencing and objectifies its ineffable, changeless, and atemporal aspect as substance while the reductionist observes the noematic dimension of presencing and objectifies its temporal, impermanent aspect as selfless continuity of impersonal events. In this sense, essentialism and reductionism as well as the conceptions of personal identity as continuity or discontinuity emphasize and theorize one aspect while each method, due to the exclusive and perspectival nature of the methodology, excludes the other. Analogously, Nishida conceives of the concept of "god," which he defines as that which is transcendently immanent and immanently transcendent (Nishida 1988, 11: 442), as the objectification' of the non-dual creativity of human existence. While Zen Buddhism claims the religious standpoint in which the self faces "the non-relative other inside" (7: 92) as its own, it unswervingly resists any temptation of reifying and ontologizing it as either a transcendent other or a pantheistic immanence. Nevertheless, assuming such a religious standpoint, Zen Buddhism claims that a person constitutes the modality of presencing which cultivates itself in the dialectic of "I and Thou."

Postscript: Presencing is "What Matters"

In this section I would like to take a giant leap to return to chapter 1 and speculate how a theory of personhood qua presencing would deal with Parfit's contention that survival is "what matters." Such an endeavor is fraught with methodological problems in that Parfit's reductionism differs from the Zen Buddhism of Dagen and Nishida in methodology, scope, and metaphysical presuppositions. However, such an experiment can be extremely useful in that it brings out, in addition to the structural differences which I have indicated over the

256 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING past six chapters, the practical implications of each theory and illustrates an application of the Zen principle of presencing to more mundane (as opposed to soteriological) issues. The structural differences between Parfit and Zen Buddhism lie most of all in their disparate methodological approaches; while Parfit assumes the standpoint of a third-person ontology, Dagen and Nishida commence their investigations with the existential predicament of the experi­ ential "I." Due to these methodological differences, their systems assume two vastly different metaphysical structures, which are most apparent in the linear temporality underlying Parfit's thought and the dialectical conception of time characteristic of Dagen's and Nishida's Zen Buddhism. As a final preparatory comment, it has to be noted, however, that Parfit rarely answers the question "what matters?" positively, but mostly negatively, rejecting personal identity as a possible answer; the conclusion "survival is 'what matters'" seems to be implied in his argument. In this section, I will demonstrate that, from a Zen perspective, "presencing is 'what matters.'" I believe Parfit's notion of "what matters" is best illustrated with his example of the teletransporter. Parfit imagines a futuristic method of travelling, which scans and destroys my "brain and body," "transmits this information" to my destination, where it creates "a brain and body exactly like mine" (Parfit 1984, 199). In a second step, Parfit imagines a case in which, due to technical problems, the "original" "survives" the scanning process for a couple of minutes, and it is introduced, via telecommunications, to its successor. Parfit sketches the final thoughts of the "original" as follows: My Replica assures me that he will take up my life where I leave off. He loves my wife, and together they will care for my children. He will finish the book that I am writing. Besides having all my drafts, he has all of my intentions. All these facts console me a little. Dying when I know I shall have a Replica is not quite as bad as simply dying. (Parfit 1984, 201) In this paragraph Parfit identifies "what matters" as the survival not of what Perry calls "ineffable me-ness" but rather of a mitigated me­ ness. In the latter case, me-ness is not defined as an ineffable sense of identity - Perry's theory of personal identity - or as a narratively constructed identity but as the intentionality of a momentary experiential "I." To Parfit's experimentee, "what matters" comprises his concerns, and his own conception and projection of "what matters" (in the above case "what matters" consists of "loving his wife,"

257 ZEN CONCEPTIO~S OF IDE0:TITY caring for his children" and "completing his book") will be actualized in a subsequent time. What is at stake here, however, is the projection of one particular moment of presencing, the demand of the present, into a subsequent, hence different, time. The experi­ mentee identifies "loving his wife," "caring for his children," and "completing his book" as the most urgent demands ofthe present, that is "what matters," and, subsequently, projects these very demands into a different and succeeding time slot, assuming that the future will still require the same obligations and functions as the present does; the experimentee's concern comprises the futurizations of the present demand. In contrast, I would like to argue that "what matters" is exhausted in the demand of the present (which the experimentee extends into the "future" by means of projection). Ultimately, it must be important to Parfit's experimentee that "his children are cared for" and that "his book is completed." In order to contrast Parfitian survival and Dagen's notion of presencing, I will treat Parfitian intentionality as the intentional project of his experimentees. Thus defined, Parfitian intentionality signifies an actional modality in which I perform something in-order-to constitute a futural self. In analogy to Perry, who links the notion of personal identity with what he calls "ego-project," Parfit substitutes the "survival of intentionalities" for personal identity as "what matters." In short, the significance of what Perry calls "ineffable me-ness" and Parfit's survival lies in the continuity of my projections and desires.1o A present-oriented, non-positional attitude, on the contrary, prioritizes the demand of the present over the survival of me-ness and the continuity ofexperience. The phrase"demand ofthe present" signifies that the self performs the activity demanded by any given context rather than that which reflects the projections of a momentary "I" which is co-determined in interactions with others. It thus transcends the concerns of the individual experiential "I" and its "plans" for its own "future," which it locates "in the greater picture," and emerges from the inter-activity between self and other, self and ambiance devoid of individuality. A theory of personhood that maintains that "presencing is what matters" thus truly liberates oneself from oneself in that it, in Parfit's words, "removes the glass wall between me and others. And as I have said, I care less about my death" (Parfit 1984, 282). The demand of the present is frequently portrayed in Zen stories, which admonish the practitioner to perform the activity demanded by a particular situation without any individual attachment to the outcome qua subsequent event itself:

258 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING

Once a monk made a request of Joshu. "I have just entered the monastery," he said. "Please give me instructions, Master." Joshu said, "Have you had breakfast?" "Yes, I have," replied the monk. "Then," said Joshu, "wash your bowls." The monk had an insight. (Shibayama 1974, 69) I believe that essentialism, Parfit's reductionism, and Dagen's Zen Buddhism display different degrees of the process of decentralization, which is disclosed in the process of self-cultivation. I use the term "decentralization" to indicate a gradually decreasing importance ofthe self as the center of human activity. Essentialism, which maintains the belief in personal-identity-over-time, identifies "what matters" as the survival of an "ineffable me-ness" (Perry's theory could be termed a pragmatic essentialism), namely, the inconceivable substance. It is this notion of me-ness as a further fact which is projected as abstract personal identity. Parfit, on the contrary, emphasizes the survival ofmy concerns, which lessens the separation between me and other people,ll by emptying my projections of this "ineffable me-ness." It is not important that I execute my intentions or fulfill my obligations but that my intentions are executed and my obligations are met. Parfit's notion of survival displays an existential selflessness insofar as he rejects the conception of an enduring agent, which he replaces by the fulfillment ofcertain functions such as "loving his wife," "caring for his children," and "completing his book." At this point, it is important to note that these functions will not be performed by an arbitrary substitute but by the "copy," which has my body, my memories, and my intentions and, subsequently, satisfies a specific set of conditions. Yet, despite these strict conditions for substituting the original, Parfit's notion ofsurvival clearly demarcates a transition from an essentialist towards a selfless paradigm of "what matters." Dagen's Zen Buddhism, however, disagrees with Parfit insofar as it identifies "what matters" not as my projection of the demand ofthe present but as the demand ofthe present itself. Dagen's authentically selfless self unself-consciously attends to the demand of the present, simultaneously presencing the inevitable necessity and the infinite openness ofthe immediate now, in the sense of the Zen saying "When you are hungry, eat; when you are thirsty, drink." From a Zen perspective, the problem with Parfit's argument is not that he repudiates the belief in an "ineffable me-ness" but that he fails to transcend the mitigated me-ness, which projects and, subsequently, postpones the demand of the present into the future. Therefore, I propose that presencing comprises "what matters."

259 ZEN CONCEPTIONS OF IDEi\TITY At the end of this chapter, I would like to repeat a caution I have stated earlier. In short, Dagen's notion of selfless presencing does not present an invitation to irresponsibility, but, on the contrary, extends the responsibility and accountability of the individual to encompass "exhaustive worlds" and "exhaustive times," as it is manifested in the vow of Amida Buddha and the bodhisattva ideal. Why is this so? To begin with, the above-stated contention, that it is not that I execute my intentions or fulfill my obligations but that my intentions are executed and my obligations are met, does not comprise an abdication of ethical responsibility but a phenomenological description of the present event. Likewise, Dagen's observations that "all evil" is "unborn," "undefiled," and "non-production" are not supposed to play down an existent hazard or trivialize evil but rather to disclose the existential predicament of presencing, which is devoid of binaries. As I mentioned before, Dagen is not interested in the projection of an ethical, "futural" ought but in a description of the immediate now. The statement that "it is not that I execute my intentions or fulfill my obligations but that my intentions are executed and my obligations are met" describes the predicament of existential selflessness. Human experience is not appropriated by a pre-existing person-over-time, but, on the contrary, the enduring person-over-time is constructed as abstract personal identity and as explanans ofan ethical ought. Dagen, however, believes that this construction does not comprise a necessary condition for responsibility; on the contrary, responsibility is engendered by an unself-conscious attending to the demand of the present. In this context, Kasulis remarks that "to be Dagen's primordial person is to be essentially no person, while simultaneously being the personal act appropriate to the occasion" (Kasulis 1981, 1S4). The experiential "I" discovers in its process of self-awakening that it does not emerge as an isolated existence but that it is existentially embedded in the trans-subjective infrastructure of the cosmos, which is expressed in the present event. It uncovers that its environment, as well as the numerous relationships in which it stands, simultaneously comprise its own contingencies and possibilities. Thich Nhat Hanh exemplifies this predicament when he cites all the "non-individual" elements such as water, sun, clouds, human labor, etc, that constitute paper (Hanh 1987, 45-46). According to this reasoning, every sweat shirt I wear, every sip of tea I drink, every breath I breathe connects me with people around the globe and, ultimately, with the cosmos. Subsequently, the experiential "I" qua momentary awareness event shares with its environment and with all 260 PERSONHOOD AS PRESENCING other beings a common inheritance of the "past" and common responsibility for the "future"; that is, the experiential "I" is co­ accountable to the "present" and co-responsible for its "future" and for the "future" of the world - there is no escape from this responsibility. Furthermore, this responsibility is not something brought to us from the outside, but it is the fundamental expression ofwho we are. The investment in an isolated existence is delusion, the realization of the interconnectedness is awakening. As an expression of the present, the experiential "I" cannot but be bound by the demand ofthe present as the promise to selflessly and unself-consciously act in correspondence with the trans-subjective present.

261 ------It NOTES _1)0----

Introduction

The rejection of personal identity receives unenlisted support by the denial of a conscious agent advanced by various philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists such as Jackendoff, Minsky, and Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, as well as from psychologists who deal with MPD (multiple personality disorder), group processes, and transpersonal phenomena. 2 As I will explain below, I use the term "Mensch-sein" to address the problem of personal identity without presupposing an unchanging person-over-time. 3 Among the Japanese Buddhist schools, there are two major schools ofZen Buddhism, Rinzai Zen, focusing on koan practice, and S6t6 Zen, with its emphasis on sitting meditation, which is summarized in the conception of "sitting-only" (Jap.: shikantaza). The former tradition was introduced to Japan by Eisai (1141-1215 C.E.), at the beginning of the Kamakura period, and to the west by D.T. Suzuki and SOYEN Shakie in the first half of the twentieth century. 4 My rendition of the fourth sentence is inspired by Abe and Waddell who translate the original "shikamo kaku no gotoku nari to iedomo, hana wa aijaku ni ochiri, kusa wa kikan ni ofuru no minari" as "[i]n spite of this, flowers fall always amid our grudging, and weeds flourish in our charging" (Abe and Waddell 1972, 133). 5 While Carter (1980) and Abe (1990, "Introduction") argue that Nishida's philosophy constitutes a sketch for a Zen philosophy, Faure (1993) seems to be rather reluctant to commit to such a position. 6 The phenomenological movement has set itself a similar agenda as can be found in Husserl's criticism of contemporary science and philosophy and his search for a "new science" and a "first philosophy." Merleau-Ponty conceives of his "phenomenology of perception" more explicitly as a middle path between empiricism and idealism. Both, however, seem to agree to some extent with the Mahayana Buddhist insight that subject and object of knowledge, noesis and noema, are irreducible.

262 NOTES 7 Nishida cites St. Paul's famous line contending that "it is not that I live but Christ lives in me" (Nishida 1988, 11: 428). 8 Wilkes (1 988) suggests probing the conception of personal identity with clinical cases rather than thought experiments. 9 Merleau-Ponty responds to the existentialist rhetoric that "existence precedes essences" with his insight that "phenomenology is also a philosophy which puts essences back into existence, and does not expect to arrive at an understanding of man and the world from any starting point other than that of their facticity" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, vii).

Chapter One

Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991) point out that the notion of the selfless mind as postulated by cognitive science stands in tension with human experience. 2 Mahowald (1 996) and Gillon (1 996) have both raised this issue. 3 Searle leveled a similar criticism against the mainstream contemporary philosophy of mind (Searle 1994, 1-64). 4 Christian theologians appropriated the colloquial term persona to translate from Greek into Latin the christological formula ofChalcedon (451 C.E.), which attributed "two natures [Lat.: natura] and one person [Lat.: persona]" to Christ. 5 Geddes and Wallace remark that "Boethius uses the term substance in the definition primarily to exclude accidents" (Geddes and Wallace 1967, 166). 6 The blossoming dominance of the individualist paradigm finds its expressions in Martin Luther's sola fide, Descartes' cogito, and the renditions of the right ofthe individual in the political movements during this time period. 7 As Martin Srajek has pointed out to me, Heidegger does not suggest that Dasein awakens to an essence in the Neo-platonic sense but rather privileges the experiential "I" over any persisting essence, in the sense that existence precedes essence. 8 I borrow the term "criteriology" from Ricoeur's Oneself as Another (Ricoeur 1992, 129). 9 It has to be noted that even though essentialists utilize the Aristotelian notion of substance to construct personal identity, Aristotle himself hesitates to apply the concept of substance explicitly to the phenomena of Mensch-sein; in his Metaphysics he primarily uses this concept to develop an ontology ofparticulars. In De Anima, which is frequently referred to as his psychology, Aristotle conceives of the individual human being in terms ofthe interrelated concepts ofform and matter rather than in terms of substance and attributes. 10 This thought experiment was inspired by an Athenian legend mentioned in Plato's Phaedo. 11 As far as the memory criterion is concerned, Noonan detects two positions in Leibniz. While the later Leibniz ofthe New Essays refutes the

263 NOTES notion that memory functions as necessary criterion for personal identity, the Leibniz of the Discourse on Metaphysics clearly seems to advocate the memory criterion. 12 Husserl introduces the idea of "bracketing" to lay bare the essences of the phenomena themselves. Contrary to essentialism, however, Husserl locates the essences in the conscious act. 13 Strawson's definition of personal identity as an "unanalysable subject" of "mind-predicates" and "body-predicates" (Williams 1973, 70) also emphasizes the ineffability and evasiveness of the concept "substance." 14 Leibniz explains that "the monads have no windows through which anything may come in or go out" (Leibniz 1902, 252). 15 Lizza (1993) advances a similar evaluation of MPD while Radden (1995) and Braude (1 991) seem to give more credence to the phenomenon of multiplicity. 16 Noonan (1989) uses the terminology of the intrinsic causality to describe the "only x and y" principle. I use the term "intrinsic criterion" to underline that the psychological criterion suggests that personal identity is dependent on an inner sense of identity rather than on the verdict of the public. 17 Parfit explains that "identity is all-or-nothing, what matters has degrees" (Parfit 1976, 98). 18 For a discussion of Nozick's closest continuer theory, see Noonan (1989, 232-54). 19 Williams originally conceived of this thought experiment to undermine the psychological criterion (Williams 1973, 51-3); however, Parfit successfully argues that this puzzling case not only challenges the psychological criterion but the general belief that personal identity is determinate (Parfit 1984, 229-43). 20 Given the definition of mental content, even everyday interaction and exchange of information could constitute an intersection of psychological continuities. I will address the phenomenon of psychological inter­ connectedness in my discussion of alterity in chapter 3. 21 Searle blames the metaphysical prejudice that "reality is objective" (Searle 1994, 16) for this shortcoming in contemporary philosophy. 22 At the end of his "The Self and the Future" (Williams 1973, 46-63), Williams advances the stunning claim that his thought experiment imagines the possible expectations of the persons on whom the experiment is to be conducted prior to the experiment and, thus, constitute a "first-person approach." However, a first-person-ontology in my understanding would consider the question how the experimentees prior to and after the experiment define themselves, that is, what their personal identity is. This is, of course, impossible since it is only a thought experiment. 23 Cartwright identifies the various versions of the fission experiments as Parfit's "story" and remarks that "[t]he resulting person-suppose it is the result of transforming not Parfit but you-ought to be able to tell" (Cartwright 1993, 266), thus implying that Parfit's thought experiments neglect the voice ofthe very person whose identity his thought experiment is designed to solve.

264 NOTES Chapter Two

Ironically enough, even though Descartes is often credited (or discredited) for formulating the concept of the enduring Ego, frequently dubbed the "Cartesian Ego," it was Leibniz who substantialized individual consciousness qua monad, while Descartes merely substantialized thought which he referred to as res cogitans. 2 To be sure, Searle does not reinstate the substantialized version of the Cartesian Ego or any other essentialist form ofselfhood; he even contends that consciousness is possible without the hypothesis of self-conscious­ ness. However, Searle strongly argues in favor of"a serious examination of consciousness on its own terms" (Searle 1994, xi) and not as an epiphenomenon of neurophysiological processes. In addition, he main­ tains that intentionality and subjectivity are important features of consciousness (130-32). 3 Even Russell, who seems to disagree with Descartes, for the most part, conceded that Descartes provided "a solid basis from which to begin our pursuit of knowledge" (Russell 1959, 19). 4 Brentano defined "psychical phenomena by saying that they are such phenomena as contain objects in themselves by way of intention" (Spiegelberg 1982, 36). However, while Brentano believed that real things functioned as objects of intentionality, Husserl argued that the object-polarity of intentionality was inhabited by meaning which is constituted in the intentional act; he referred to this intended meaning as noema. 5 Sartre explains that "[i]nsofar as my reflecting consciousness is consciousness of itself, it is non-positional consciousness" (Sartre 1990, 44-45) and "we now understand why the first consciousness of consciousness is not positional; it is because it is one with the consciousness of which it is consciousness" (Sartre 1956, 13-14). 6 The term "de-centering" was coined by postmodern discourse to indicate the impossibility of locating a center of the subject-object interaction in either pole, thus designating an existential ambiguity between both terms. Retroactively, this term has also been employed to characterize the deconstruction of contemporary conceptions of self, metaphysics, and language by early Buddhism, Nagarjuna, and Zen Buddhism (see Odin 1995). 7 Merleau-Ponty observes that in sense experience "I abandon myself to it (the sky I contemplate) and plunge into this mystery, it 'thinks itself within me', I am the sky itself as it is drawn together and unified and as it begins to exist for itself" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 214). 8 Merleau-Ponty mentions that "my body synchronizes with" the sensible (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 214); however, he does not address the problem of intersubjectivity directly in his Phenomenology of Perception. 9 Nagatomo (1992) coins the term "to attend" and "ambiance" to stratify a theory of bodily attunement based on Dagen's theory ofmeditation which is devoid of the egological connotations and ramifications inherent in the terminology of phenomenology.

265 NOTES 10 Merleau-Ponty contends that "[b]oth universality and the world lie at the core of individuality and the subject and this will never be understood as long as the world is made into an object. It is understood immediately if the world is the field of our experience" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 406). 11 In his introduction, Collins (1982) cites with disbelief almost obstinate misinterpretations of the Buddhist text by noted scholars. Despite rather glaring evidence in the textual and doctrinal tradition of Buddhism, there are scholars such as C. A. F. Rhys David, Christmas Humphries, etc., who read the notion of a true self into the teaching of Gotama. 12 In his later discussion of personal identity, Collins contends, citing freely from the Milindapanha, that "a person is not found" (Collins 1982, 178). 13 Even though lung maintains that the ego has to maintain some sort of control over the other subpersonalities, he argues against the domination of, for example, the autonomous complex by the ego. 14 After the syncretism of the Heian Buddhist schools of Tendai and Shingon, Kamakura Buddhism gave rise to three single practice schools of Buddhism: Pure Land Buddhism (lap.: ]odoshil) , especially Shinran's True Pure Land Buddhism (Jap.: ]odoshinshii), which advocated the single practice of nembutsu, an invocation of Amida Buddha; Nichiren Buddhism (lap.: Nichirenshil) , which championed the single practice of chanting the name of the Lotus Siltra (lap.: namu myoho renge kyo); and Dagen's Sata Zen with its focus on "sitting-only." 15 For an etymological discussion of the phrase and its buddhological context, I refer to Steven Heine's intriguing "Dagen Casts Off 'What': An Analysis ofShinjin Datsuraku" published in A Dream Within a Dream (1991). 16 The literal translation of "jiko 0 hakobite" is "to carry the self." 17 lung contends the ego cuts itself off from reality in its rejection of displeasing psychological material, which he refers to as the shadow, and withdraws into its own world. This isolationist and solipsistic tendency of the ego is amplified by the autonomous function of the unconscious, which conceals the appearance of the external world to the consciousness with a veil of illusions. What appears to ego-consciousness as an external object takes on personal and individual qualities and characteristics reflecting the suppressed "sub-personalities" (Redfearn 1983, 99) of the self. The objects of the external world lose their transcendent character and become the mirror image and reflection of the self; as lung observes, transferences Clchange the world into the replica of one's own unknown face" (lung 1958, 8). By dissociating itself into what-it-is and what-it-is­ not, the ego commences to dissolve its ties with the external world. A first reading of this phenomenon might claim that the self-idealization of the ego engenders a weakening or a total lack of the reality-principle. 18 In his own language, lung supports the notion that the self-conscious attitude, ultimately, engenders the dissociation of the self. In order to constitute itself as what-it-wants-to-be, the self-conscious function of the ego identifies and represses unwanted memories and images and, thus, creates what-it-does-not-want-to-be. This dispossessed material com­ prises all the negative emotions and memories, as well as unwanted and unethical thoughts and desires of the self; in short, it consists of

266 NOTES everything the ego does not want to identify with. However, this disagreeable repressed material does not simply disappear but takes on a life ofits own. Jung refers to this existential predicament ofthe ego, which always and inevitably finds itself in opposition to the unconscious and the autonomous positionality of the shadow, as sentiment d' incompletude (Jung 1969, 3: 84). 19 My translation was inspired by Kim (1985, 109). 20 Shaner explains that '"[clasting off,' interpreted phenomenologically, is parallel to the neutralization of thetic positings, e.g., 'accepting good' and 'rejecting evil'" (Shaner 1985, 134). 21 Shaner coins this term to indicate the mind-body-oneness in Dagen's writings. 22 Nagatomo (1992) coins the term attunement to describe the transforma­ tion of the mind-body dualism during zazen. 23 In one of his earlier works, "The Union Point of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful" ("Shinzenbi no Gaitten") (Nishida 1988, 3: 350-92), Nishida defines "person" (Jap.: jinkaku) as union point (Jap.: goitten) ofthe opposites, most predominantly, of the epistemic subject and object. 24 Though seemingly close in its meaning, Nishida reserves, as I will discuss in chapter 6, the term willing self (Jap.: ishitekijiko) to signify the unifying activity (Jap.: toitsu sayo) indicative of the lived world. 25 Dilworth and Schinzinger (1970) translate "kaiteki chokkan" as "action­ intuition"; I follow Nagatomo's translation (1989, 155). 26 As I will discuss in chapter 6, Nishida develops the notion of the lived world qua world ofself-awareness (Jap.: jikakuteki sekai) manifested by the unifying activity (Jap.: toitsu sayo) of the willing self (Jap.: ishiteki jiko). 27 Nishida utilizes modifications such as "true" (Jap.: shin), "concrete" (Jap.: gudaiteki), and "present" (Jap.: genjitsu) to distinguish terminology designating the actual world from that signifying the phenomenal world. 28 In his essay "Basho" Nishida clearly distinguishes his notion of basho from physical space (Jap.: busturiteki kukan) when he argues that "the connection between physical space and physical space cannot be physical space but must be the basho in which physical space is located" (Nishida 1988, 4: 209). 29 In his later work, Nishida employs Hermann Siebeck's classification of religion of "moral religions" (Jap.: dotokushukyo) and "salvatory religions" (Jap.: kyilsaishukyo) as well as the Japanese Buddhist categories of "religion of self-power" (Jap.: jiriki no shukyo) and "religion of other­ power" (Jap.: tariki no shukyo) to develop and introduce his own conception of religion. As Takeda remarks in his book Shinran ]odokyo to Nishida Tetsugaku (1991), Nishida interprets "moral religions" as "religions of self-power," which encourage their adherents to find the divine inside, while "salvatory religions" generally define the absolute as a transcendent other. Interestingly enough, however, Nishida refrains from establishing a hierarchy of religions by ranking one model of religion over the other but rather argues that "true religion" defies this dichotomy of self-power and other-power and contains both dimensions of the divine, immanence and transcendence, insofar as it addresses the transcendence within.

267 NOTES 30 Matsudo coins the term "epistemological subjectlessness" (Ger.: epistemo­ logische Selbstlosigkeit) to characterize Nishida's thought (Matsudo 1990, 44).

Chapter Three

The phrase "the face of the other" has become paradigmatic for the philosophy of Levinas. For an account of his basic thought I refer to Levinas (1989). 2 In his Wissenschaft Der Logik (1986), Hegel investigates the mechanics of conscious reflection and observes that the term "identity," by definition, is relative to the term "difference" in such a way that the very term "identity" implies "difference" and vice versa. Even if we were to define identity as the oneness A for which A =A and A "# -A, its negation - the notion of difference - is nonetheless crucial for the definition ofidentity in so far as identity is that which difference is not, namely that which is different from difference. In other words, there is no identity without difference and no difference without identity. Hegel defines identity as difference. Identity, to Hegel, is the "difference which is identical with itself" (Hegel 1986 b, 2: 40). 3 I do not claim that these two concepts designate identical subject matter; however, they both signify a pre-individual and pre-conscious mode of existence. 4 This section contains excerpts from my article "The Face of the Other: Psychic Interwovenness in Dagen and Jung" (1998). 5 This section also contains excerpts from my article "The Face of the Other: Psychic Interwovenness in Dagen and Jung" (1998). 6 Even though Steve Odin develops a Zen notion of the social self, his presentation rests largely on the work of twentieth century philosophers such as Watsuji and Nishida and only almost randomly on Veda's interpretation of the so-called ten oxherding pictures - a pedagogical device within Zen Buddhism. 7 The parentheses contain clarifications added to the text by Tamaki's translation, which reads "from the beginning of your practice under the master ... you should only practice zazen and drop off body and mind" (Tamaki 1993,1: 33). 8 I rely on the version of the ten ox-herding pictures presented in Odin (1996, 94-95). 9 It is interesting that psychological theories favoring an individual model contrast dependence and autonomy (see Freud) and those advancing a model of relatedness contrast relatedness and isolation (Gilligan 1982). The crux of these dichotomies is indicated in Erik Homburger Erikson's model, which, while favoring autonomy, recognizes intimacy as an expression of maturity, and remedied in the later work of Gilligan (1988) who strives for a model which balances and reconciles both intimacy and independence as two aspects of maturity. 10 Dagen thus reiterates the basic Buddhist and psychological insight that individuals construct their world, including their concept of Buddha,

268 NOTES according to the degree oftheir mental and psychological maturity. Chih­ i, the founder ofT'ien T'ai (Jap.: Tendai) Buddhism, is even more candid, when he identifies the tendency to personalize Buddha as naive realism, characteristic of the delusion of unenlightened people. 11 Kasulis translates Dagen's description of non-positional awareness "hishirya" as "without-thinking" (1981, 73). 12 This section is grounded in a paper I gave at the fourth annual meeting of the 1. A. A. P. R. at Hsi Lai University in Los Angeles in August 1997. 13 Freud refers to the manifestation of the autonomous will of the other, which breaks down the narcissistic feeling of omnipotence and prepares the individual to embrace the existence of the external world, as the "reality principle." To Freud, the ontogenetic development of conscious­ ness begins with the first experience ofotherness in the pre-oedipal phase, when the child realizes that the source of pleasure, mainly nutrition and warmth, is independent from her/him, and gets its boost in the oedipal phase, the time in which the father appears in the child's psychic life as the embodiment and symbol ofotherness. However, due to his reliance on the egological paradigm, Freud is unable to transcend the conception of the isolated independent self and thus does not reflect any paradigm shift. Ultimately, in the Freudian system, the other cannot but limit and threaten the self. 14 Takeda argues the same point when he contends that H[i]f the non-relative other is outside, we do not work" (Takeda 1991, 199). 15 Nishida borrowed the terminology of self-power and other-power from the religious polemic of Shinran, the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism (Jap.: ]odoshinshu).

Chapter Four

Shoemaker (1970) introduces the notion of "quasi memory" by citing cases when stories told to us about our childhood assume the place of "real" memories. 2 There is, however, a third marked difference between Parfit's Relation R and the Buddhist notion of karma. As Collins has argued, Buddhists assume a diverse social context and, subsequently, a different social construct of personhood. More appropriately, "Parfit's views of personal identity (rather, survival) are curiously disconnected from any social context" (Collins 1997, 482). 3 While it is generally accepted that Buddhism tended to avoid cosmological issues concerning arche and telos, there were schools, such as the Sarvastivada and the Sautrantika, which proposed a linear conception of the continuity of experience to address both the experience ofcontinuity in this life and the problem oftheorizing a selfless process of reincarnation. However, ultimately, it seems more importance was given to the notion of karma and its existential and soteriological implications. 4 In "Personal Identity," Parfit contends that H[c]onnectedness requires direct relations" (Parfit 1971, 21).

269 NOTES 5 The momentary consciousness of the moment, however, the "[f]or-itself does not have being" because "the Present is not" (Sartre 1956, 179). 6 In some sense, this conception of continuity allows us to examine a privileged connection P 1-P7 without having to account for the person­ stages in-between. Examples of this are cases of amnesia, Parfit's "sleeping pill," which causes "retrograde amnesia" (Parfit 1984, 287) and Merleau-Ponty's habit-body. 7 I use the term "to anticipate" not in the sense of a passive "awaiting" of what-is-to-come but of an active modality in the sense of Heidegger's resoluteness (Ger.: Entschlossenheit). 8 To be exact, Boisvert uses these words to explain the Pali term "abhisailkharassa" which, as he indicates in a footnote, is interchangeable with "sailkhara" (Skrt.: sarrr-skiira). 9 My source for the discussion on co-dependent origination is Boisvert (1995, 131). 10 lowe the translation of the twelve members of the chain, with the exception of sarrr-skara (karmic activities) and tr~nii (desire), to Collins (1982,204). 11 This translation is warranted by Wood (1991, 53). 12 Collins cites one monk, who maintains that a thief is not responsible for the "past" theft ofa mango since slhe is not identical with the person who took the mango in the first place (Collins 1997, 185-87). Regardless ofthe identity relation or lack thereof, since the consequences of the deed are formative of the present experience of the thief, slhe, at least, shares in the responsibility and is obliged to compensate for the consequences of the act. 13 My translation of "nochi" as "after" and "saki" as "before" is inspired by Abe and Waddell (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 136). 14 lowe this expression to Abe and Waddell (1972b, 116). 15 I borrow this translation from Tamaki who renders "saidan" as "tachikiru" (Tamaki 1993-4, 1: 97). 16 In his discussion of kyoryaku, Abe maintains that, to Dagen, the direction of continuity and of the "passageless passage" is "reversible" (Abe 1992, 74 and 101). 17 Heine also interprets "kyaryaku" to function as the context ofevents when he says that "kyoryaku suggests the entire context and background of events of man and universe in which 'life lives through me because of life'" and that "kyoryaku encompasses all personal, social, and natural history, conditioning and recollection as well as all futural projection, outlook and striving that both make possible and are contained within the concrete circumstances invariably and fully manifested right here-and­ now" (Heine 1985, 130). Similarly, Shaner paraphrases "kyaryaku" as the "expanded periphery" and observes "the entire expanded horizon, presenting dharma (things as-experienced) to consciousness, occurs right now and fills the 'range' of our periphery" (Shaner 1985, 151-52). 18 In his discussion of Dagen's philosophy of time, Abe identifies the notion of continuity as "horizontal dimension of time," which he contrasts with the "vertical dimension" (Abe 1992, 99). Abe claims that the opening of the vertical dimension "occurs by cutting through the horizontal

270 NOTES dimension of time in terms of the concentrated meditative practice of zazen. This cutting through involves the complete negation of the egocentric self, that is, casting off of body and mind" (100). 19 As a matter of fact, Robert Schinzinger translates Nishida's "genzai kara genzai e" (Nishida 1988, 9: 150) as "from one present to another present" (Schinzinger 1958, 166). 20 Searle argues that materialism constitutes a form of "conceptual dualism" which "consists in the view that in some important sense 'physical' implies 'non-mental' and 'mental' implies 'non-physical'" (Searle 1994, 26). 21 Ultimately, so it seems to me, Nishida struggles with the paradox explicated by the Godel sentence that theories are either complete or consistent. Nishida, as Wargo (1972) has demonstrated, strives towards a holistic and complete system of explanation, while sacrificing specific answers to particular issues. On the other hand, there are many specialized theories incapable of providing an overall framework of explanation. 22 Especially in his epistemological discussions, Nishida develops an asymmetric relationship between universal and individual which shifts the balance in favor ofthe universal. For example, he identifies his famous "logic of place" (Jap: basho no ronri) as a "logic of the predicate" (Jap.: jutsugoteki na ronri) (Nishida 1988, 7: 5-84). 23 It is important to point out that Nishida changes his conception ofhistory throughout his work. While he defines history Gap.: rekishiki) as the noematic determination of the eternal now (Jap.: eien no ima) in his essay "The Self-determination of the Eternal Now" (1988, 6: 181-232), he identifies history in his later work as the self-determination ofthe universal. Huh argues that this transition ensues when Nishida "abolishes the once sharply held dichotomy between homo interior and homo exterior" (Huh 1990, 344).

Chapter Five

Heine has convincingly demonstrated that both Heidegger and Dagen conceive ofauthentic time qua "primordial time" as non-substantial, non­ anthropocentric, and devoid of a differentiation between existence and consciousness (Heine 1985, 107). Their main conceptual difference, however, lies in Heidegger's separation of the "present from past and future" (Heine 1985, 145) while the "central thrust ofDagen's approach is to remove any separation between past, present, and future" (139). 2 Thus, Heidegger can, for example, say that "[t]emporality has different possibilities and different ways of temporalizing itself (emphasis of the author)" (Heidegger 1962, 304). 3 As I have mentioned above, Butler contends that memory is insufficient to warrant personal-identity-over-time on the ground that the memory of a "past" experience presupposes the past existence of the experiential "I" who was there to experience it in the first place and, subsequently, implies the very personal identity it attempts to establish.

271 NOTES

4 This sentiment is reflected in Merleau-Ponty's observation that "[t]ime presupposes a view of time" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 411). 5 In a similar vein, history in its function of understanding of the "past" comprises the narrative identity of a cultural group, nation, and, ultimately humankind. 6 In his chapter on "Freedom and Responsibility," Sartre argues that the present awareness event (his being-for-itself) has to assume the situation given to him. Writing during the Second World War, during which he served in the French Resistance, he exemplifies his notion of appropriating a given situation as follows: "The war is mine because by the sole fact that it arises in a situation which I cause to be and that I can discover it there only by engaging myself for or against it, I can no longer distinguish at present the choice which I make of myself with the choice I make of the war. To live this war is to choose myself through it and to choose it through my choice of myself" (Sartre 1956, 709). 7 Heidegger conceives of "awaiting" as "inauthentic future" (Heidegger 1962, 337) because of the inherent passivity involved in this attitude which is seemingly unwilling to transcend the static present. 8 Sartre explains that "the Future is'!' inasmuch as I await myself as presence to a being beyond being" (Sartre 1956, 184). 9 While I borrow this term from Husserl, lowe its stratification mainly to Merleau-Ponty. 10 Based on "a logical inference from a purely existential axiom" (Kirk and Raven 1957, 173), Parmenides argues "being" as the One that is eternal, indivisible, and motionless (Guthrie 1965, 26-49). 11 This conception of time has some similarities with Sartre's existential time in that the self finds itself always on the move, inbetween "past" and "future," with the present ever-escaping; however, Dagen does not examine the phenomenology of "past" and "future" in the detail Sartre does. 12 The term "korai," which Dagen uses to describe inauthentic time, is highly ambiguous. While the literal translation of "korai" is going-and­ coming (Waddell, Heine, and Kim), Tamaki's rendition of "korai" as "flowing from the past into the future" (Tamaki 1993, 1: 271) indicates the possibility of interpreting "korai" as a contraction of "kakomirai," past-and-future. Even though Waddell translates "korai" as "coming and going" (Waddell 1979, 116-29), he, elsewhere, renders Dagen's phrase "koraigen" (Dagen 1993, 1: 35) as "past, future, and present" (Abe and Waddell 1971, 14). On the other hand, single occurrences of "ko" and "rai" such as in "Zenki" (Dagen 1994, 3: 398) can hardly be translated as "past" or "future." Dagen employs this kind of contraction elsewhere when he refers to "sentient beings (shujo) and all buddhas (shobutsu) as "jabutsu." The literal translation of "korai" as "going-and-coming" conflicts with the directionality inherent in Buddhist expressions such as generation-and-extinction, reminiscent of the continuity expressed as before-and-after and cause-and-effect; and it is this directionality Dagen inverts by claiming that the passage "passes from today to yesterday." In fact his conception ofpassage, which he introduces in this fascicle, thrives

272 NOTES on the assumption that inauthentic time comprises a linear continuity "from the past into the future." After all, time that is gone is called "past"; time which is to come is called "future." In addition, the traditional Buddhist conception of time as "three periods of time" (sanji) is conspicuously absent from the fascicle "Uji" which presents Dagen's "philosophy of time." Therefore, I believe that the ambiguity inherent in the term "korai" reflects the two main arguments Dagen advances in "Uji," namely, his critique of the notion that time qua "flows from the past into the future" and his rejection of the notion that time qua going­ and-coming "leaps and soars" (hiko) and "passes" (suguru). 13 Tamaki renders this phrase as "shikashi izure ni shite mo, masashiku sono yo na toki bakari de aru, sonzai soku jikan wa subete no toki ni ikiwattate iru" (Tamaki 1993, 1: 273). 14 I employ the term "positional arc" to include the unconscious dimension of Mensch-sein excluded by Merleau-Ponty's "intentional arc." 15 I borrow the notion of time as a relationship from Merleau-Ponty, who claims that time "arises from my relation to things" (Merleau-Ponty 1962,412). 16 "To exert" is Waddell's translation of "jinryoku" (Waddell 1979, 124), literally "exhaustive effort." 17 lowe the rendition of "eichiteki" as "intelligible" to Schinzinger. 18 Despite his overall de-anthropocentric approach, Nishida's philosophy exhibits traces of anthropocentricsm especially in passages in which he distinguishes humans and animals and in passages which define human beings as "contradictory identity" and as "the crown of creation", such as "[h]uman beings are the contradictory existence of freedom and necessity" (Nishida 1988, 9: 9). Elsewhere, he states rather blatantly that "[h]uman beings constitute the climax of creation" (50).

Chapter Six

1 Abe and Waddell (1972b, 133) translate "ken" as "lack." 2 In Japanese language, the phrase "X to iu," whose literal meaning is "we say X" or "it means X" is often used to simply denote "X is." In this sense, Abe and Waddell translate this phrase as "in spite of this" (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 133), and Tamaki renders this phrase into "sore wa so de arinagara" denoting "while it is this way" (Tamaki 1993, 1: 95). However, I believe that Dagen's overall epistemological agenda not only justifies but encourages the literal translation of "to iu" in this particular case. 3 My rendition of the fourth sentence is inspired by Abe and Waddell who translate the original as "[i]n spite of this, flowers fall always amid our grudging, and weeds flourish in our charging" (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 133). 4 NISHIDORI Minoru also emphasizes the importance of the shift from "when" .to "because" to an interpretation of the third line (Heine 1991, 121).

273 NOTES 5 Wargo argues that Nishida's mature theory of knowledge attempts not only to explain the relationship between knower and known but also to address what Wargo calls the "completeness problem (Wargo 1972, 204); that is, the question "How can we have knowledge of the foundation of knowledge?" 6 The term "samv~ti" literally denotes "veil"; however, it is used to identify the "mundane world" and the "mundane truth" (Skrt.: vyavahiira) (Ramanan 1966, 402 and 408). 7 Contrary to Leibniz' logic of non-contradiction that only a tautology in the sense of X=X discloses self-identity and necessary existence Nishida defines identity as self-identity which necessitates and encloses the interplay of affirmation and negation, presence and absence. Ever since Aristotle, European philosophers have defined particular substances exclusively as beings devoid of and incompatible with non-being; the logic of non-contradiction is a hallmark of Aristotelian logic. Contrary to this definition, dialectical philosophers delineate the "essence" of particular objects as inherently paradoxical. I write"essence" in quotation marks since dialectical philosophy redefines the notion of substance in the Aristotelian sense. To identify the "essence" of a particular as affirmation­ qua-negation (Nishida's kotei soku hitei) or as contradiction (Hegel's Widerspruch) is to assert that the particular, which is given in my field of knowledge, does not exist independently without ground but is given in my field of knowledge vis-a-vis other particular objects. 8 In his fascicle "Zazengi," Dagen admonishes "not to plan to create a buddha" (1994, 4: 332). 9 In his essay "I and Thou" and his later work such as Tetsugaku no Kompon Mondai, Nishida employs the term desire (Jap.: yokkyu) to denote the dichotomizing agency of everyday awareness in contradistinction to the non-positional modality of love aap.: ai), while he employs the term willing self (Jap.: ishiteki jiko) to denote the unifying activity (Jap.: toitsu sayo) in his "Zen no Kenkyu," his "Geijutsu to Datoku" (1988, 3: 239-546), and his "Eichiteki Sekai." However, insofar as "desire" tends to swallow its object and insofar as "the world of self-awareness" is opposed to the abstract world, the difference between these two modalities seems to be not that clear-cut and, for the most part, a matter of emphasis and perspective. lOIn his fascicle "Shabagenza Shoakumakusa," Dagen distinguishes between two interpretations of the Buddhist doctrine of shoakumakusa (literally, "do not evil"). He identifies the standpoint of the "ordinary person" as the positional attitude of everyday awareness, which "intends" (Jap.: koi suru) and "plans" (Jap.: shuko) "not to do evil" and the standpoint of the enlightened as the "non-production of eviL" Dagen cynically compares this attitude with the attempt of "going to the south by travelling up north" (Dagen 1993, 1: 253). 11 Tanahashi translates this as "sit solidly in samadhi" (Tanahashi 1985, 30), and Tamaki renders this sentence as "enter into zazen-samadhi like mountains stand" (Tamaki 1994, 4: 335). 12 Nagatomo (1989) argues that and demonstrates how Dagen's Zen Buddhism recognizes affectivity as a pivotal dimension ofhuman existence.

274 NOTES 13 This section follows Nishida's account ofthe world ofself-awareness Gap.: jikakuteki sekai) 14 The latter two present Kasulis' choice of words in an unpublished translation of "Shoakumakusa." 15 This interpretation is supported by both Heidegger and Sartre: Heidegger's existential analysis (Ger.: Daseinsanalyse) discloses that H[i]n Dasein there is undeniably a constant 'lack of totality' which finds an end with death" (Heidegger 1962, 242) and, subsequently, cannot but exist qua being-towards-death. Sartre's account of the experiential "I's" temporality echoes Heidegger's "lack," but even the general tone of his Being and Nothingness reflects the motif of an existential deficiency. 16 I term Nishida's nomenclature ofthe "world of intelligibility" misleading, since it is neither "intelligible" in the sense of "intellectual" (the Japanese words for "intellectual" and "intelligible" both contain the character"chi" signifying intellectual knowledge), nor is it a self in the sense of either an individual or a cosmic self. In this context it has to be kept in mind that Nishida defines self not as an individual enduring self but rather an individual awareness event which is grounded in non-individual content. 17 For a discussion of these interpretive differences, I refer to Heine's "Multiple Dimensions of Impermanence in Dagen's Genjakaan" (Heine 1991, 115-33). 18 Originally, the term buddha-nature and its functional synonyms "buddha-womb" (Skrt.: tathagatagarbha) and "original enlightenment" Gap: hongaku) were introduced in order to explain the possibility of unenlightened beings who are trapped in the cycle of causality and, subsequently, death-and-rebirth characteristic of sarrtsara to attain liberation from this human predicament and its effect, suffering (Jap.: ku). However, critics ofthe conception ofbuddha-nature have argued that the notion of buddha-nature effectively annihilates the notions of impermanence and selflessness so crucial to the teaching of Siddhartha Gotama and that it de facto re-introduces an essentialism in Buddhist disguise. Recently, this objection has been advanced by the proponents of Critical Buddhism who reject the "theory of original enlightenment" (Jap.: hongaku shiso) as unbuddhist. 19 Dagen rephrases a well-known quotation from the Nirva1J.a Satra, from "all sentient beings without exception have the buddha-nature: Tathagata [Buddha] abides forever without change" to "all is sentient being, whole­ being (all beings) is the Buddha-nature; Tathagata is permanent non-being, being, and change" (Abe 1992, 35), to advance what Abe terms a "de-anthropocentric" conception of Mensch-sein (42), which includes a recasting of the self as discussed in chapter 2. By reading the beginning of this line as "all is sentient beings" instead of "all sentient beings," Dagen shifts the focus from the plurality of individuals "all sentient beings" to the collectivity of humanity, "all is sentient beings," which, in the second phrase, he extends to all life and to all entities qua "whole being" (Jap.: shitsuu). In his article "Dagen on Buddha-nature" (Abe 1992, 35-76), Abe demonstrates that the Buddhist world view extends the definition of the individual human being beyond the individual person to incorporate "human beings" qua birth-and-death,

275 NOTES animated beings qua generation-and-extinction, and "whole being," including inanimate objects, qua being-and-non-being.

Chapter Seven

Abe and Waddell underline my observation when they say that "[t]he term genjok6an ... appears twice in the work itself, towards the end, and is encountered here and there elsewhere in Shob6genzo" (Abe and Waddell 1972b, 130). 2 Based on textual evidence from "Shabagenza Sansuikya," Kim argues that Dagen refrains from using ki5ans because they are "incomprehensible utterances" (Kim 1985, 5). Nevertheless, Dagen himself edited at least one collection of kaans himself. 3 For biographical details I refer to Kodera (1980). 4 Hisamatsu argues that the universal relates to the particulars as "nothing" insofar as it constitutes "not-a-single-thing" (Hisamatsu qtd. in Wargo 1972, 156). 5 Or, as King argues, the dichotomy between empty (Skrt.: sunya) and not­ empty (Skrt.: asunya) (King 1991, 107-11). 6 Like Leibniz, Dagen proposes the existence of an individual microcosm, which reflects the totality of the macrocosm within itself. Unlike Leibniz, however, Dagen defines as microcosm not the Leibnizian monad qua enduring substance, but the individual event itself, which necessitates the existence of other events qua other instances of presencing-total-working. Even though Leibniz acknowledges the existence of other monads, they are not necessary to his system - only the monadic form of an identical substance is. As a matter of fact, Leibniz' ontology can be interpreted as a practical solipsism insofar as for the individual self the others exist only in its world. The interdependence of two individual events causes the collapse ofthe logic ofnon-contradiction, which comprises the foundation of Leibniz' ontology. A further distinction between both thinkers is that, to Dagen, the two events of birth and death do not express "one exhaustive earth" but "although they are not one, they are not different; although they are not different, they are not identical; although they are not identical, they are not many" (Dagen 1994, 3: 401). 7 If E1 and E2 are each unified and, nevertheless overlap, E1 necessarily exists for the whole tenure of E2's existence. However, since Ez and E3 overlap and E2 subsequently persists for the tenure of E3 so does E1 and so on ad infinitum. 8 Nishida himselfargues that "[t]he world where individuals truly determine each other must be a world of Leibniz monads. The monads reflect the world and, at the same time, they constitute one perspectival stance of the world" (Nishida 1988, 9: 155). Again, it goes without saying that Nishida's phrase "the world where individuals truly determine each other" is irreconcilable with Leibniz' conception of the monads as windowless. 9 Shaner describes everyday awareness as a "mode of experiencing" which is characterized by "many overlapping noetic vectors towards multiplicity

276 NOTES ofnoematic foci"; the modality ofconcentration and meditational practice comprises "only one specific noetic vector directed towards a single privileged noematic focus" (Shaner 1985, 48). 10 Contrary to Perry's ethics of me-ness, Parfit advances an ethic of selfless survival. Parfit contends that his view engenders a "liberation from the self." He explains: "When I changed my views, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others" (Parfit 1984, 281). 11 See Endnote 10.

277 GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TERMS _11---

arawareru J!t>tL~ to presence asu no watakushi 8)J 8 (J) 'k the "I" of tomorrow ataerareta mono 4;tGnt~~(J) the given basho ilpJi place basho no ronri iIpJi (J).II logic of place benshohoteki hatten #H~1i~~11 dialectical process bi ~ beautiful bompu R~ ordinary person bussho iAtt buddha-nature chiteki j iko ~D!J'j ~ C intellectual self chiteki chokkan ~D !J'j iIi!f8 intellectual intuition chokkan ilwB intuition chiishoteki sekai tm~!J'j m~ abstract world datsuraku casting off dokusan dokusan eichiteki ippansha il~D ~ -fiJi~ universal of intelligibility eichiteki jiko il~D~ ~C intelligible self eien no genzai ;kit (J) JJlH eternal present elen no Ima ;kit (J) ~ eternal now fuden no den ~i~ (J) iii transmission of non-transmission fudoten /f'l1Jti unmoving fugen fubun /f'Jl~rIIJ not seeing and not hearing fushin fuchi /f':W:~~ not experiencing and not knowing

278 GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TERMS fushintai =t:ili!\ unproceeding and unreceding fushiryo =t:m_ not-thinking geninteki mt ~ tfJ causal genjitsu JJl~ present genjo JJlf.i1 presencing genjo suru JJlf.i1 9 ~ to presence genjokoan JJlf.i1~~ presencing the koan genzai kara genzai e JJlr£1J\ bJJl~" from the present to the present gichaku 1I¥ arising of doubt go _ karma goitten union point gudaiteki concrete hai ~ ashes handanteki ippansha *'JllitfJ-fN~ universal of judgment higorisei ~~~II1t irrationality hijikanteki 8 ~rB'~ atemporality hiko m~ flyaway hirenzoku no renzoku ~~iirc(J)iirc continuity of discontinuity hishiryo ~~m_ without-thinking hito A person ho ;~ dharma hodo ;~ii dharma-way hoi ;~m. dharma-position hongaku *1: original enlightenment hyogen flJJl expression inga cause-and-effect ippan soku kobutsu universal-qua-individual ishiki conSCIousness ishiteki jiko willing self issai shujo all sentient beings jikaku 81: self-awareness jikakuteki ippansha 8I:tfJ-fN~ universal of self-awareness jikken ~JJl presencing reality jiko 8c self jikodoitsu 8c(6J- self-identity jikogentei 82~R~ self-determination jikohitei 82~;iE self-negation

279 GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TER~vlS jinji Jg~ exhaustive times jinkai /g~ exhaustive worlds jinkaku A*3 person jinkakuteki toitsu A~~~- personal unity jiriki B:tJ self-power jisho ~tt self-nature jisso ~"6 real jobutsu ~iA sentient beings and buddhas kankin t& siitra readings kankyo JliI environment kankyo sekai Jli.ltit~ environment-world keiken ft_ expenence keishiki H~it form ~ ki :xl, Ki-Energy kino no watakushi ftF 8 (J)~A the "I" of yesterday koan ~3( koan practice kobutsu iII~ individual (thing) koiteki chokkan ~"1~~~!r8 acting intuition kojin iliA individual (person) kokoro ,(,\ mind, heart korai ~* going-and-coming kotei soku hitei ~)ElUJ~~ affirmation-qua-negation ku 1S suffering !to kii .::I:. emptiness kiibussho ~iAtt emptiness-buddha-nature kyakkan ~U objectivity Kyo no watakushi ~8 (J)~A the "I" of today kyoryaku fte passage maki it firewood makusa -~ non-performance mambo n;! myriad dharmas mappo *;! end of the law mayoi ~~\ delusion mokuteki ~ teleological mu nothingness mubussho _iAt1 not-buddha-nature muga -Mtt no-self mugentei _~I;iE undetermined mujisho Mett no-self-nature 280 GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TERMS mUJo 111m impermanence mujobussho _miA~ impermanence-buddha-nature mUJun ~JI contradiction muro ~;jj undefiled musho ~!£ unborn mutairitsu g~;frr non-relative, unopposed mutairitsuteki _~;flLatJ non-relative nanji ;~ Thou nenbutsu ~iA nembutsu ni tairitsu r:Mrr opposed-by ni tai shite r:~;f lJ-C in-opposition-to ningen ArB' person rekishi teki genzai JIIi! atJ JJlif historical present ritsu cannon of regulations ryokai -7M- understanding sandan =Ji three stages sanchunin LlJ~A people inside the mountain sangenin LlJ~~A people outside the mountain sanJl =~ three times satori 1'8') enlightenment sayo i'Fm action sekai "tl!~ world sekai no jikogentei ti!~(7) ~ c~ijE self-determination of the world sengo Mil before-and-after shi JE death shii ~tI thinking shikaku Mil: acquired enlightenment shikantaza R~t1~ sitting-only shiki 1! form shin Ii true shinfukatoku IL\=t:iiJi3 the mind that cannot be grasped in a phrase shinjin datsuraku ~/L\JBt~ casting off body and mind shinjin ichinyo ~/L\-~ll body-mind oneness shintai !ti* body shirareta mono ~ll';tLt~ ~O) known shiru mono ~[]~ t>(7) knower shiryo ,1[\- thinking

281 GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TER~lS shitsuryo _*4 matter shitsuu ~~ whole being sho ~ birth sho IiI realization sho suru 1iI9Q to actualize shoaku R~ all evil shoakumakusa R~_fF non-performance of all evil shobutsu Mik all buddhas shoji ~~ birth and death shoko m~ incense burning shometsu ~j! generation-and-extinction shugyo i~~=r self-cultivation shl1jo ~~ sentient beings shuko 8JCJ to intend shukyaku goitsuteki ~~~-~1!t~ the world which unites subjectivity sekai and objectivity shusho i~iiE practice and realization shusho itto _IiI -~ oneness of practice and realization shutai ~1* subject shl1zen ~. all good shl1zenbugyo _1f_~T performance of good sogentei ~~N~9Q to co-determine each other sogokankei *D1iMiJ reciprocal relationship sogogentei *r:l1i~I~ mutual determination sogohitei *r:lB::a~ mutual negation suguru 9<~~~ to pass

tai ~~ relative taiken i*_ lived experience tairitsuteki ~~rr~ relative tairitsuteki mu ~~1l~1i relative nothingness tako ftl!c other tariki ftI!:tJ other-power

ubussho 1fik11 being-buddha-nature UJI 1f~ being-time watakushi '1 yokkyl1teki jiko W:*~l3c desiring self

282 GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TERMS zazen ~~. sitting meditation zazennln ~~A practitioner of zazen zenki ~­ total-working zenkigen ~_Jjl presencing-of-total-working zetsu ~ cut off zettai ~~;f non-relative zettai genzai ~~;fJlft non-relative present zettai hitei ~~a:iE non-relative negation zettai ima ~~;f~ non-relative now zettai mu ~~­ non-relative nothingness zettai mujunteki t@~;f~Ji~ non-relative contradictory jiko doitsu 8ctaJ­ self-identity zettai no hoka *f!MOJitf! non-relative other

283 KEY TO TEXTS BY DOGEN AND NISHIDA

Dogen's 8hobogenzo (8BZ)

Bendowa: SBZ 1: 23-74 Bussho: SBZ 2: 203-315 Butsukojoji: SBZ 2: 429-58 Genjokoan: SBZ 1: 91-104 Katto: SBZ 4: 5-24 Sansuikyo: SBZ 1: 404-34 Shinfukatoku: SBZ 2: 73-86 Shinjingakudo: SBZ 3: 313-46 Shoakumakusa: SBZ 1: 243-66 Shoji: SBZ 6: 385-94 Tashintsii: SBZ 5: 403-34 Uji: SBZ 1: 267-87 Zazengi: SBZ 4: 331-36 Zazenshin: SBZ 2: 391-428 Zenki: SBZ 3: 397-404

Nishida Kitaro Zenshii (NKZ)

An Inquiry into the Good: Zen no Kenkyu NKZ 1: 3-200 Continuity and Self-Identity of the World: Sekai no Jiko Doitsu to Renzoku NKZ 8: 7-106 From Acting to Seeing: Hataraku Mono kara Miru Mono e NKZ vol. 4 Human Existence: Ningenteki Sonzai NKZ 9: 9-65 I and Thou: Watakushi to Nanji NKZ 6: 341-427

284 KEY TO TEXTS BY DOGEN AND NISHIDA I and the World: Watakushi to Sekai NKZ 7: 85-172 The Dialectic of Self-Love and Other-Love: Jiai to Taai Oyobi Benshoho NKZ 6: 260-99 The Fundamental Problem of Philosophy: Tetsgaku no Kompon Mondai NKZ vol. 7 The Logic of Topos and the Religious World View: Bashoteki Ronri to Shakyoteki Sekaikan NKZ 7: 371-464 The Non-Relative Contradictory Self-Identity: Zettai Mujunteki Jiko Doitsu NKZ 9: 147-222 The Self-Determination of the Eternal Now: Eien no Ima no Jiko Gentei NKZ 6: 181-232 The Temporal and the Atemporal: Jikanteki Naru Mono Oyobi Hijikanteki Naru Mono NKZ 6: 233-59 The Unifying Point of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful: Shinzenbi no Goitten NKZ 3: 350-91 The World of Intelligibility: Eichiteki Sekai NKZ 5: 123-85

285 ------1_ WORKS CITED tll-----

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293 -----It INDEX tll-----

Abe, Masao xx, 56,69, 150, 166, Benjamin, Jessica 84, 89-91, 103, 185, 212, 233, 236-237, 270, 111-112,121 272-273, 275-276 Boisvert, Mathieu 55, 137-138, 270 abstract time 166, 168-171, 175, Brennan, Andrew 4, 18 179,187,194,196,198-199 Brody, Baruch A. 10-12 abstract world 71,81,103,195-196, Buber, Martin 84,87-88,91-93,96, 208,213,215-216,218-219,222, 98-99, 103, 113, 121 225, 231, 240, 274 buddha-nature xiii, 98, 135, actual world 65, 67, 74-76, 78-80, 232-233, 237-238, 244, 275 82,92,96-97, 120, 122, 125, 135, Buddhism xi-xx, 4, 26, 33, 37-39, 160, 180, 186, 195, 201, 208, 42-43, 46-47, 51, 53-61, 63, 225-226, 228-229, 240, 248, 267 65-66, 69, 82, 84, 97-98, actual time 177, 179, 186-187, 103-104,109,115,124-127, 194-199,201,255 132-141, 143-146,153-154, All-in-one 211-212 162-165, 175, 177-178, 180, Aristotle 11, 124, 263, 274 197-198,200,205-206,208-212, Armstrong, David 39 216, 218, 225, 230, 232, 236-238, attunement 65, 220-223, 265 243-244, 252-257, 259, 262-263, 265-269, 272, 274-275 basho xx, 69,76,208,214,230-231, bussho see: buddha-nature 234, 238-239, 245, 249, 267, Butler, Joseph 6, 20-21, 168, 271 271 being-for-itself 30,46,59,67,78,81, Carter, Robert E. 262 88, 122, 127, 129, 138-140, 147, Cartwright, Helen Morris. 29, 264 154-156,171-173,189,196-197, Chadwick, Henry 5 200-201, 220-221, 247, 249-250, Chih-i. xiii, 210-211, 213, 219, 269 272 chi-kuan 210 being-in-itself 46-47, 49, 60, 78, 81, Chisholm, Roderick 1\t1. 4, 5 83, 85, 128, 130, 139-140, Chi Tsang 210 154-156, 164, 171, 177, 189, Chodorow, Nancy 89 196-197,200,213,221,247 circular time 164, 188-189 being-towards-death 78, 170-171, cogito xvi, 28, 40-49, 51-53, 57, 63, 275 71, 79, 81-82, 85-91, 93,

294 INDEX 121-122, 127, 173, 183, 196-197, eternal present 188-190, 192, 195 199-201,213,218,220-224,227, etre-en-soi see: being-in-itself 251, 263 etre-pour-soi see: being-for-itself co-dependent origination 54-56, 65, 69, 102, 137-138 Fa-tsang 211-212 Collins, Steven 54, 125-126, Faure, Bernard 262 133-135, 137-138, 169, 209, 262, Freud, Sigmund 40, 65, 88, 90, 266, 269- 270 93-94,109,112,126,148, continuity of discontinuity xvii, 111, 268-269 154,160-161,163,178,194,205, 234-244, 251, 254 genjo suru see: presencing contradictory self-identity xvii, 74, genzai no jiko gentei see: self­ 77, 81, 123, 156-162, 177, 185, determination of the present 239, 242, 255 Gillon, Raanan 18, 263 Conze, Edward, 97 Gotama 40, 53-54, 57, 88, 90, 94, criteriology 29, 31, 263 112,132-133,142,162,180,215, 244, 266, 268-269 Dharmakirti 98 grahaka see: grasper Descartes, Rene xvi, 9, 15, 39-41, grahya see: grasped 43-44, 61, 71, 263, 265 grasped 56, 60, 98, 177, 211 de-tensionality 221-222, 254 grasper 55, 98, 177, 211 dharma-position 144-152, 162, 178-183, 186 Hanh, Thich Nhat 260 Dilworth, David A. xx, 267 Hamilton, Andy 21,27 Dinnaga 58 Harvey, Peter 133-136 Dogen, Kigen. xi-xx, 4, 26, 33, 37, Hegel, Georg Wilhem Friedrich xv, 38, 51, 53, 55-70, 72-74, 78, 84, 89-91, 111-113, 120, 146, 80-84, 93, 97, 99-111, 114, 195,214-215,251,268- 274 116-118, 121-122, 125, 127, Heidegger, Martin xviii, 6, 41, 47, 132-133, 141, 144-153, 157, 51, 62, 65, 76, 78, 86, 93, 129, 160-163,165-166,168,172, 153,165-167,170-173,178-179, 177-187,197,199-201,205-210, 189, 221-222, 263, 270-272, 275 213, 216-221, 223-229, 232-233, Heine, Steven 56, 65, 67, 150, 166, 235-238, 240-244, 251-253, 179, 184, 207, 266, 270-273, 275 255-260, 263, 266-276 Hinduism 46, 53, 142, 239, 245 dualism 9, 15, 21, 25, 44, 71, 115, historical world 79, 119, 120-121, 158-159, 162, 174,206,212,219, 155,160,183,188,196,200,212, 227, 236, 245, 271 240, 245-248 hizenroku no renzoku see: continuity eien no ima see: eternal now of discontinuity eien no genzai see: eternal present hoi see: dharma-position emptiness xiii-xiv, 54, 143, 209-211, Huh, Woo Sung 271 218-219,230,233 Hui-ssu 210 enlightenment xiii-xiv, 6, 37, 42, Hume, David xi, xviii, 4, 6, 9,12-13, 56-57,59-60,97-98,100-102,104, 22, 24, 26, 28, 38 106,108-109,134,152,206-207, Husserl, Edmund xvi, xviii, xix, 30, 213,217,222,226,237,275 41, 43-45, 48, 58-59, 85, 165, eternal now 187, 190, 192-193, 168,170,217,220,229,264-265, 195-196,234,271 272

295 INDEX ippansha no jiko gentei see: self­ Mahayana 26, 46, 54-55, 58, 82, determination of the universal 97-98,101,115,133,135,143, 208- 209, 212, 243-244, 262 Jackendoff, Ray 3-4, 39 Mahowald, Mary B 18, 25, 263 jiko gentei see: self-determination Manimala, Varghese J. 86, 97 Jodoshinshu (True Pure Land Matilal, Bimal Krishna 46, 48 Buddhism) 266, 269 Mensch-sein xii-xiv, xviii, xx, 5-6, Jung, Carl Gustav 40, 43, 54, 57, 9, 13, 20, 24-26, 28-29, 33, 38, 62-63, 77, 86-87, 90, 93-97, 99, 41, 54, 60, 66, 74, 76, 81, 84, 104-105, 107, 109, 112, 116, 121, 87-89,92-93, 135, 148, 152, 157, 127,176-177,224,266,268 182-183, 241-242, 262-263, 273, 275 Kant, Immanuel 30-33, 41, 43, Merleau-Ponty, Maurice xviii-xx, 45-47, 50, 59, 167, 229 26, 38, 41, 44, 48-53, 62-63, 65, karma 55-56, 126, 133-145, 72-73, 76, 80-81, 108, 126-129, 151-154,198,269 131-132,139,147-148,151,154, Kasulis, Thomas P. 42-43, 103, 110, 157, 162, 166-167, 174-175, 177, 118-119, 149, 194, 220, 222, 224, 190,200,250,254,262-263, 226-227, 230, 252, 260, 269, 275 265-266, 270-273 Kegon (Chi.: Hua-Yen) 177, methodological retreat 118,167-168, 211-212 170, 215, 254 koan xiii, 56, 220, 233, 236, 262, 276 Minsky, Marvin 3-4, 262 Kochumuttom, Thomas A. 55, 98 Mohanty, J. N. 44 monad 14-15, 22,67, 84, 95, Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm xviii, 6, 149-150, 169, 246, 248, 255, 264, 9-11, 14-15, 18, 22, 39, 67, 84, 265, 276 127, 149-150, 169, 244, 247-248, monism xvii, 64, 115, 174,206, 212, 255, 264-265, 274, 276 224, 229 Levinas, Emmanuel 84-85,91, 268 mutual determination 71-72, 84, Ii 211 114, 116, 157,212,215,248 li-shi-wu-ai see: unhindered mysticism 94, 198, 183 interfusion of universal with particular Nagarjuna xiii, 54, 58, 133, 141-145, linear time 164,180,186-188,192, 152, 165, 177, 195, 209-210, 212, 198 215, 244, 265 lived time 165-166, 173-175, 179, Nagatomo, Shigenori. 52-53, 55, 183,187,194,198-199,201 64-66, 68-69, 72, 75, 108, 208, lived world 50-51,53,65,72,74-77, 219-221,223,226-227,254, 80-82, 91-92, 97, 113, 120-121, 265-267, 274 130,139,195-199,208,218-225, nirvaJ)a 115, 133,135-137, 141, 143, 230-231, 250-252, 255, 267 162-163, 209, 237, 275 Locke, John xviii, 6, 18-19, 21, 29, Nishida, Kitaro xi-xii, xiv-xvii, 38, 48, 124 xix-xx, 4, 37-38, 69-84, 87, Lotus Sutra (Saddharma-PUI).Qarlka 96-97, 103, 110-123, 132, 151, Sutra) 97, 210, 266 153-165, 172, 174, 177-179, Lusthaus, Dan 55, 138-140 181-184, 187-201,205-206, 208, 211-217,219,221-225,227-235, Maddell, Geoffrey 12 238-240, 242-257, 263, 267-269, Madhyamika 54, 209-210 271, 274-276

296 INDEX Nishitani, Keiji. 1982 xvi-xvii, 76, personal identity xi-xiv, xvii-xx, 196,206-208,232 3-33, 37-39, 43, 45, 49, 55-61, noema 44, 58-60, 63, 75, 117, 119, 124-126, 130, 132, 135, 147, 158, 188, 190-195, 197, 199, 216, 219, 163, 172, 178,200,205,208,215, 225-231, 249-254, 256, 265, 276 218, 234-235, 242, 245, 253-260, noemateki gentei see: noematic 262-264, 266, 271 determination phenomenal time 166, 170, 172-175, noematic determination 188-189, 180,182,187,197,199 192,251,271 phenomenal world 10, 12, 30, 32, noesis 44, 58,60, 188, 191, 193-194, 43-44, 47-48, 50-55, 64, 70-71, 227-231, 249, 254, 256, 276 76-77, 81-82, 88, 91-93, noeshisuteki gentei see: noetic 102-103, 130, 135, 143, 163, 179, determination 196-197,201,206,208,210-211, noetic determination 189-190, 192, 216, 218-225, 228-230, 250-253, 195, 251 255, 267 non-dualism xvii-xix, 67, 108, 115, pratItya samutpada see: co­ 149, 206, 212, 237, 239-244, 253, dependent origination 255-256 presencing xix-xx, 56, 64, 80, 108, non-relative xvi, 70, 74, 76-79, 110,178-179,183-184,186,197, 82-83, 157, 194, 196, 231, 199,205-206,226-228,233, 238-239, 245, 248, 269 235-238, 240-245, 250-260 non-relative contradictory self­ presencing-of-total-working identity xvi-xvii, 70, 72-73, 149-150, 178, 241-243, 255, 276 75-76, 80, 120-121, 153-154, psychological criterion 19, 264 157, 192 non-relative negation 78, 80, 82, Radden, Jennifer 264 114-116, 163, 247 Rahula, Walpola 54, 133, 135 non-relative nothingness 194-195 Reid, Thomas 6, 11, 20 non-relative now 193, 195, 206 Ricoeur, Paul xviii, 4, 27, 29-30, 40, non-relative other 76, 79, 82, 156, 82, 263 231, 248, 251, 256 Rinzai (Zen) xiii, 100, 236, 262 non-relative present xvii, 187, 190, Riviere, Joan 88 193-199,235,251 Russell, Bertrand 229, 231-232, 265 Noonan, Harold W 4, 7, 13, 18, 21-23, 263-264 sarpsara 115, 134-136, 139-141, Nyaya 46 143, 162, 209, 213, 234, 237, 275 Sartre, Jean-Paul xviii-xx, 30, Odin, Steve 58, 98, 110-111, 120, 41-44, 46-49, 51, 59-61, 67, 161, 174, 178,211,240,248,265, 76-78, 80-81, 83- 88, 90-91, 268 108, 111-112, 121, 126-130, 132, only x and y principle 22-23, 264 138-140, 147, 152, 154-158, 160-162, 165-166, 170-173, 177, Parfit, Derek xi, xviii, 3-4, 6, 14, 189,196-198,200,213,220-221, 19-29,33,54,125-127,132,151, 223, 226-227, 247, 249-250, 265, 162,169,178,215,255-259,264, 270, 272, 275 269-270 Sarvastivada 133, 142, 162, 244, 269 Perez-Remon, Joaquin 133 satori see: enlightenment xiii, xv, Perry, John 4, 16, 19, 25, 257-259, xvii, 37, 42, 57, 64, 82, 99, 102, 277 152,178,186,198,227,241-242

297 INDEX Sautrantika 133, 142, 209, 244, 269 Tamaki, K6shiro 58, 106, 182, 207, Schinzinger, Robert xx, 267, 271 268, 270, 272-274 Searle, John 4, 29, 39, 40-42, Tendai (Chi.: T'ien T'ai) xii, 100, 263-265, 271 182, 210-212, 236, 266, 268, 269 Sein-zum-Tode see: being-unto-death Theseus' ship 10 self-determination 80, 120-121, Theunissen, Michael 86, 91-93 160-161,163,174,183-184,192, transcendental ego 41, 43 194,212,246-247,253-255 self-determination of the eternal now unhindered interfusion 211-212 190, 194, 271 self-determination of the non­ Vasubandhu 54-56, 58,98, 116, 121, relative other 197, 199 139, 148, 212, 225 self-determination of the present Varela, Francesco J. 39, 75, 262-263 160-161,163,177,187-192,200, 249, 251 Waddell, Norman A. 56, 236-237, self-determination of the universal 262, 270, 272-273, 276 160,211,231,240,245-246,248, Wargo, Robert J. J. Xvii, 208, 238, 271 271, 274, 276 self-nature 55, 142, 206-207, Williams, Bernard 15-17, 21-22, 24, 209-210, 213 29, 124, 238, 264, 274 Shaner, David Edward xix, 61, 65, 67, 222, 236, 267, 270, 276-277 Yogacara 54-55, 209, 224-225 Sharma, Arvind 140 Yogacara Sautrantika 46, 58, 209 shi 211 Yuasa, Yasuo 49, 69, 73, 208 shinjin datsuraku xv, 5,7, 57,65-68, Yusa, Michiko xx, 239 70, 81, 83, 99, 122. 201, 205, 228 Shinran xvii, 78, 266-267, 269 zazen xii-xiii, 56, 68, 118, 213, 268, shi-shi-wu-ai see: unhindered 271, 274 interfusion of particular with Zen xii, xiv-xv, xvii-xx, 4, 26, 37, particular 51, 57, 78-79, 82, 98-101, 104, Shoemaker, Sydney 20-21, 126, 269 118, 127, 144, 162, 175, 198,200, sogo gentei see: mutual 205-208,212,216- 218, 220, 225, determination 231, 234-237, 252-257, 259, 262, somatic cogito 52, 82, 166, 194, 223, 265-266, 268, 274 254 zenkigen see: presencing-of-total­ Soto (Zen) xii-xiii, 100, 262, 266 working Spinoza, Baruch (Benedikt) 11, 239, zettai mujunteki jiko doitsu see: non- 245 relative contradictory self-identity St. Paul xvii, 78, 263 zettai see: non-relative Strawson, P. F. 15, 264 zettai hitei see: non-relative negation sunyata see: emptiness zettai ta see: non-relative other survival 22-23, 25-28, 89, 126-127, zettai genzai see: non-relative present 256-259, 269, 277 zettai ima see: non-relative now Suzuki D. T. 207, 236, 262 zettai ta no jiko gentei see: self- determination of the non-relative Takeda, Ryusei 110, 267, 269 other

298