Public Lecture Slides (12.19.2016) Michiko Yusa: Affirmation via Negation

Affirmation via Negation
Zen, Philosophy of Life, Sexual
Desire, & Infinite Love
Michiko Yusa (yusa@wwu.edu)

To be delivered at the
Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS)
Temple University Japan Campus
December 19, 2016
7:30 p.m. –

outline
1. what kind of philosophical contribution can “Zen”
philosophy make?
2. choice of three thinkers: liberate women from
“feminist” confinement
Nishida’s thought gives philosophical underpinning, but
concrete examples clarify Nishida’s recondite thought
3. the nature of “break-through” (kenshō) and its
relationship to the kind of philosophy one engages
4. “sexual desire” and life
5. towards a philosophical vision of conflict resolution

1. “Zen philosophy”: an apologia
Please spare me (for now . . . )
I beg you not to shower on me 30 or 60
beatings with your benevolent teaching
stuff
Until I finish this presentation . . .

2. The three philosophers
Roughly of the contemporaries
Practiced Zen and attained kenshō
related to the “Kamakura Zen” directly
or indirectly

Nishida Kitarō
(1870-1945)
D. T. Suzuki
(1870-1966)
Hiratsuka Raichō
(1886-1971)
西田幾多郎鈴木大拙平塚らいてう

Nishida in 1943 D. T. Suzuki
in the 1960s
Raichō in 1970

Kamakura Zen dharma lineage
Imakita
Kōsen
Shaku
Sōen
Shaku
Sōkatsu
Gotō
Zuigan
Sasaki
Shigetsu
Hiratsuka
Raichō
(Young
Nishida)
Suzuki
Daisetz

2.1 kataphatic vs. apophatic
discourse
κατα φημι
(kataphemi) = to
bring X down [to
earth]
to speak about X
e.g., “God is Love.”
απο φημι
(apophemi)= to deny
 to refrain from
speaking about X
e.g., “We do not
know what God
is. . . . God
transcends being.”
(John Scotus
Eriugena, 9th cent)

The assumption of speaking (about
something)
To speak is to affirm
To speak is to
confirm
To speak is to
engage, make clear
one’s stance
To speak is to limit
the unlimited /un-
limitable (Pseudo
Dionysius of
Areopagite)
To speak is to put X
within what we
‘know’

Daodejing 『道徳経』 1.1
道可道非常道
名可名非常名
無名万物之始
有名万物之母
“The Way” that can be
talked about is not the
everlasting “way”
The name that can be
named is not the
everlasting name
the “nameless” is the
beginning of all things
The “named” is the
mother of all things

The “power” of word
“Do you take this
woman/man to
be your
wife/husband?”
“Yes.”
This “yes” is an
existential
affirmation
<epistemological apophatism>
「知る者、語らず、語る者知らず」
“The one who knows remains
silent; the one who talks does
not know.” (cf. Daodejing
section 56)
<ontological apophatism>
「色即是空、空即是色」
“phenomena are empty (of its
self-nature) empty is the
phenomena”

Absolutely nothing = Absolutely being
絶対無＝絶対有
“I called “the One” of Plotinus (which is
“absolutely being”) as “absolutely nothing”
(zettai mu), because being qua eternal life that
embraces all beings within it cannot be
objectified as being.”
Nishida’s letter to Miyake Gōichi, 9/25/1938.
NKZ 19.47-48.

My observation on the apophatic
style of discourse
To speak “negatively” about X is not the same
as to negate X.
Rather, it is to speak about X, without
compromising its ontological-epistemological
status or reality.
It is not to negate the ontological status of X,
but to delve deeper into the “uncharted”
ontological realm.

2.2 Affirmation and negation of life
 Affirmation of life must be mediated by the moment of
negation, the radical turnabout of the ego-
consciousness toward its deeper root.
(1) religious practice (shugyō) is to transform one’s
base instinct into compassion (religious, DTS)
(2) negation and affirmation are built-in-realities of life
(contemplative, ontological, Nishida)
(3) One must affirm life in order to improve the
conditions of the poor and the underprivileged; to raise
them out of “negative” conditions of life (social,
philosophy of engagement, Raichō)

2.3 “life” in Japanese & other languages
 Greek: ζοη zoe (Life) & βιος bios (life)
Japanese
 Inochi 命、いのち, Seimei 生命
 Jinsei 人生, shōgai 生涯, isshō 一生,
 seikatsu 生活
 Greek: ψυχη psyche (spirit) & πνευμα pneuma
(breath)
Japanese
 Ki 気, iki 息, tamashii 魂, rei 霊、tamano-o
玉の緒

Life = the image of “river”
“The flow of the river is ceaseless and its water
is never the same.
The bubbles that float in the pools, now
vanishing, now forming, are not of long
duration:
so in the world are man and his dwellings.”
- Kamo no Chōmei 鴨長明,
Hōjōki 方丈記 (An Account of my Hut, 1212)

3. What is kenshō 見性?
Thomas Merton:
The Zen experience is first of all a liberation from the
notion of “I” and of “mind”; yet it is not annihilation and
pure consciousness. . .
It is a kind of super-consciousness in which one
experiences reality not indirectly or mediately but
directly, and in which, clinging to no experience and to
no awareness as such, one is simply “aware.”
Mystics and Zen Masters (1961), 236-7.

3.1 Kenshō experience: affective (Raichō)
 1906 July (several months into her practice)
 She was suddenly seized by an extraordinary
experience of “tears as large as hailstones”
streaming down her face.
 These tears were the outburst of her experience of
having “broken free” of her “finite self” and reaching a
“state of pure awareness.” Her “whole being
exploded in a flood of tears.”
 The master’s teishō: “Upon this lump of reddish flesh
sits a true man with no rank. Constantly he goes in
and out of the gates of your face”  Raichō “got it”

The real person of no fixed rank (mui no
shinjin) <Rinzairoku 臨済録＞
“The true source of the Buddha is none other than the
person who is actually listening to this talk.
Look at the person—the true man without rank—without
shape or form, yet who truly exists. If you are able to
discern this, you are no different from the Buddha.
Do not ever release your grip on this. Everything that
meets your eyes is this. There is no one among you
who cannot attain enlightenment. . . .
“Upon this lump of reddish flesh sits a true man with no
rank. Constantly he goes in and out of the gates of your
face. If there is anyone here who does not know this for
a fact, look, look!”

3.2 Kenshō experience: poetic-intuitive (D.
T. Suzuki)
 1896, December (in his 6th year of zazen) at Engakuji,
Kamakura (under Master Shaku Sōen).
 He was to leave for LaSalle, Illinois the following
February to work with Paul Carus at the Open Court.
“I had just finished my evening zazen and went out of
the zendō to return to my apartment in Kigen’in. It was a
brightly moonlit night. As I descended the stone steps
near the temple gate, suddenly I forgot myself. Ney, it
was not that I forgot myself completely.

“The bright moonlight cast the shadow of tall
trees on the ground like a painting.
There, I found myself inside the painting, and
there was no distinction between the trees and
me.
Trees were I, I the trees.
This sensation pierced me through so vividly.
It was crystal clear to me: “This is my original
face!”

“Even after I returned to my room, my mind was limpidly
clear and there was not a cloud therein. I was filled with
the sensation of joy.
“Tonight, as I was reading Professor [William] James’s
Gifford Lectures [The Varieties of Religious Experience,
1902)], I felt as if he was describing my own kenshō
experience, and it brought back my memory of it. I feel
as if my mind is cleansed for the first time in a long
time.”
(9/23/1902, DTS to NK)

3.3 a philosopher’s kenshō (Nishida)
During the summer practice of 1903 (7th year
of practice) under Master Kōshū at Daitokuji,
the master acknowledged that Nishida
passed his kōan.
“I was not elated, nor was satisfied with my
understanding of Zen.”
He wrote to his teacher, Master Setsumon
about this.
Setsumon responded: “Trust what took place.
Do not doubt [the validity of] Zen teaching
and continue with your zazen practice.”

A postscript to NK from DTS
“the more intellectual a man is, the
more mental efforts are needed to
overcome the mind in order to reach the
attitude as required by the dhyāna
(zazen) practice. Inasmuch as dhyāna
practice is a sort of mysticism, it must
be of great difficulty for a mind of
predominantly intellectual turn. . . .”

Is it possible for a kenshō experience
slowly to brew and mature?
July 3, 1927: “Spent a quiet afternoon,
alone, when a burst of jubilant
experience of ‘rebirth’ came over me.”
Nishida’s diary
This is another type of kenshō. (?)

My reflection
Kenshō experience seems to be closely tied
with one’s comprehension of “what life is.”
“Life” in the deepest sense of the word  that
which sustains our existence on earth, as well
as what runs through our body and animates
it.
The importance of “breath”
Breathing in and breathing out (= life)

4.1 Raichō on “life” as “(my) true face”
“In my youth, . . . I agonized over the question of
religion and took up zazen for some time.
Zen speaks of ‘one’s original face before one’s parents
were born.’
It refers to the reality of the self as this unceasing
life.
It refers to one’s coming to know the true nature of
humanity that is divine—be it called God or Buddha. . . .
Probably you are familiar that Christ said: “I am before
Abraham was born.” (John 8:58)
This, too, speaks of the same intuition.

Inochi いのち
“We must acknowledge that human beings, just as trees
and plants, insects, birds and animals, were born of this
great life (inochi) that permeates this universe and
gives rise to all beings and nurtures them all.
Without this life, nothing comes into being.
Religious people call this great life God—the great life
that gives birth to all things—and maintain that God has
created human beings, and that human beings are
God's children.

“Just as this great life (inochi) that has given birth to you
as a human being, permeates this universe; it also
permeates you from within, although you may think that
"you" are your own making.
I suppose this all-permeating presence of life is the
reason why sometimes it is said that the spirit of God
dwells in each person.
Yes, human beings originally reside in this confluence
of inner and outer flows of great life that plentifully fills
the universe.
You are embraced by God in the bosom of God; but
God too is embraced by you and resides in your bosom.

“You may think perchance that your young beautiful
body is “you.”
But in fact, you already know that your body is just an
“organ” created and animated by life (inochi).
And this life is actually the real “you.”
Your organ may be young, beautiful, and looks very
healthy right now. But soon in time, you will begin to
have wrinkles on your face, just as they cover my face.

“Your jet-black hair will soon be mixed with grey streaks.
Your eyesight will begin to dull, your mind will lose its
sharpness, your limbs will start to become a little stiff,
and whatever you will be doing, you will easily tire.
However much you take good care of your body, it will
not last for more than 90 or 100 years.
This is because your body is but an organ and is not the
same as this enduring life.

“Know Thyself,” (1947)
HRC 7.19-20
“On the other hand, this life that is actually your real self
lives on without fatigue or old age or death,
regardless of what happens to your organ.
It was there even before your body came into being
from the womb of your mother; and even after your
body perishes and only bones remain, life will continue
to go on.
Life freely creates another body and gives birth to it.
“You” are this eternal life.”

• 無限生成らいてう
infinite generation
「無限生成」らいてう

4. Instinct & sexual desire
Three thinkers approach this vital issue from
different angles
 Raichō in terms of the sanctity of life, and as
embodied in female body;
 Daisetz in terms of the preeminence of “impulse” or
“desire” that creates the universe;
 Nishida in terms of the self as being in the historical
world as its constitutive element. Desire arises in the
individual by reflecting the world, and in this process
the individual further gives shape to the world.

4. [Sexual] desire & life (inochi or seimei)
 Raichō: her self-development also meant a sexual
awakening to her womanhood; her understanding of
romantic love (ren’ai) was aided by the Swedish
thinker Ellen Key (1849-1926).
 DTS: sexual desire (seiyoku) is connected with the
primary instinct of the preservation of species; it is
also the source of creative human culture but also the
source of aggression.
 Nishida: analyzes desires (yokkyū) to arise as the
individual “reflects” the outside world on its self-
consciousness; the world is reciprocally given shape
by the individual’s action elicited by desire. The
historical world moves on in the manner of “from that
which is created to that which creates.”

4.1 Raichō on sexual desire
“Zen does not deny sexuality, and no one
practices zazen in order to get rid of physical
desires;
many Zen priests remain uncompromisingly
celibate, but they have chosen that way of life
entirely on their own, after having fist affirmed
the reality of sexual desire.”
Autobiography (tr. Craig), 133

婆子焼庵 “bashi shōan”

Kōan: “an old woman burning down
the hut”
There was an old woman who supported a hermit. For
twenty years she always had a girl of sixteen or
seventeen years old to take to the hermit his food and
wait on him. One day she told the girl to give the monk
a close hug and ask, “What do you feel now?”
The hermit responded, “An old tree on a cold cliff;
midwinter—no warmth.”
The girl went back and gold this to the old woman.
The woman said, “for twenty years I have supported
this vulgar good-for-nothing!” So saying, she threw the
monk out and burned down the hermitage.
-Shūmon kattō-shū, case 162

Why did the old woman burn down the
hut?
Now, how are we to go about this kōan?
First thing we learn from this kōan is that Zen
practice does not aim at negating humanity,
including sexual desire.
A zen practitioner is not expected to become
an insensible withered tree branch.
How should the monk have reponded to the
girl’s hug?
Did not the hermit-monk feel a surge of
warmth?

My reflection
“It demonstrates that the spiritual practice
should aim at increasing one’s full humanity by
purifying and elevating the base instinct into
warm friendliness and compassion.
Why did the old woman throw the hermit out of
the hut and set it on fire?
The point here seems to me that the old woman
herself is “I,” as much as the withered poor mink
is “I.”

I must acknowledge the danger of wring
practice and also must set fire on “my”
confortable hut, if “I” am becoming an old
deadbeat monk with no human feelings left in
me.
“I” as the old woman is not afraid of burdening
down the hut. Thanks to this old woman, “I” can
go back into the world and treat others kindly
with human warmth.
“Burning down the hut” means getting rid of any
residue of “my dichotomous thinking” of purity
and impurity. The fire has to scorch the idea of
sexual desire to be “base.”

“Now this kōan makes better sense: for the old woman
(who is I), the hermit’s practice was inauthentic,
consisted only of self-denial and repression of vital
human nature, instead of working through it and to
transform it.
The monk (who is also I) may have failed to cultivate his
compassion and wisdom, but now “I” am thrown out of
my complacent comfort zone, and become aware that
“I” am thrown out of my complacent comfort zone, and
become aware that “I” must avoid falling into the pitfall
[of dichotomous conceptual thinking] that I myself have
created.
How does zazen liberate a person from sexual desire?

Dramatis personae
The hermit monk
[The girl, a messenger, conveyer]
The old woman
 “I” manifest and am manifested in all of these
figures; “I” deny the sensation of warmth, “I”
negate my sexuality; “I” lie or “I” withier; “I” burn
down the hut considering that kind of practice
inauthentic; in the end “I” embrace humanity.

< D T Suzuki jumps in >
How does zazen liberate a person from sexual desire?
The key to the answer seems to be located in this very
possibility of embracing it and working through it toward
transforming and channeling the sexual energy into
what may approximate compassion.
With this kind of practice, one will reach the state which
Suzuki described as follows—
if a person has no "hang-up," there no "peg" to
"hang" one's "hang-up's."
That is the state of utter freedom.
(Yusa, 27)

Raichō on romantic love
 “Romantic love became something solemn and
significant that I had to look at with completely
different eyes. I had to think long and hard about
what it t means to live as a woman and what value
there is for a woman to live a life of love. . . .
 In the process I came to see the need to liberate
women not only as human persons but also as
sexed women. This was a totally new philosophical
problem for me.
“The conflict of life as an individual and as a gender” (August 1915),
HRC 2.40-41, JPS 1125.

Raichō’s contribution: an
aggiornamento of meditation-hall Zen
“In Raichō the traditional Zen teaching came to be
blended with the philosophical outlook that affirmed
romantic love, marriage, pregnancy, and motherhood.
Perhaps unwittingly, Raichō opened a way for aspiring
young contemporary Japanese women to embrace new
possibilities of combining romantic love, spiritual life,
and a career that may insure economic independence
as much as circumstantially possible.
In this way, she took Zen teaching into the “arena” of
emancipation of women.”
(Yusa pp. 29-30)

4.2 D. T. Suzuki on sexual desire
1907, May 21, DTS was courting Beatrice
Lane
“Thank you for your kind advice concerning my possible
marriage with the American woman. . .
We have talked about interracial marriage from various
angles, that is, socially, biologically, economically, as
well as from the individual standpoint.
I have lately paid a great deal of attention to sexual life.
I have thought of it sociologically as it influences our
civilization. One of the great differences that divide the
East from the West is our sexual life. . . .”

Nishida’s response
“I would like to hear your thoughts on sexual life. As you
say, the Western view may differ greatly in this regard
from the Japanese. . .
Lafcadio Hearn said that the Japanese appreciate the
beauty of nature as it is, but the Westerners tend to see
nature’s beauty through the feminine beauty embodied
in women.
He also maintained that because the Japanese do not
have a strong sexual passion, great profound literature
has not been produced.
Is it an overstatement to say that in the West sexuality
occupies the essential part of the culture, while in the
East it is nature?

D. T. Suzuki on “thirst” (trishnā)
“[Mahayana] Buddhist philosophy considers trishnā or
tanhā, or "thirst," the first principle of making things
come into existence.
In the beginning there is trishnā. It wills to have a form
in order to express itself, which means to assert
itself. . . .
[W]hen it asserts itself it takes form.
As trishnā is inexhaustible, the forms it takes are
infinitely varied. Trishnā wants to see and we have
eyes; it wants to hear and we have ears; it wants to
jump and we have the deer, the rabbit, and other
animals of this order;

“it wants to fly and we have birds of all kinds; it wants to
swim and we have fish wherever there are waters; it
wants to bloom and we have flowers; it wants to shine
and we have stars; . . .
Trishnā is the creator of the universe.
Being the creator, trishnā is the principle of
individuation. It creates a world of infinite diversity.”
Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (1957) 106-107.

Trishnā’s “turning upon itself”
“The later Buddhist realized that trishnā was what
constituted human nature—in fact, everything and
everything that at all comes into existence;
that to deny trishnā was committing suicide; to escape
from trishnā was the height of contradiction or a deed of
absolute impossibility; and that the very thing that
makes us wish to deny or to escape from trishnā
was trishnā itself.
Therefore, all that we could do for ourselves, or rather
all that trishnā could do for itself, was to make it turn to
itself, to purify itself from all its encumbrances and
defilements, by means of transcendent knowledge
(prajñā).

“The later Buddhists then let trishnā work on in its own
way without being impeded by anything else.
Trishnā or "thirst" or "craving" then comes to be known
as mahākarunā, or "absolute compassion," which they
consider the essence of Buddhahood and
Bodhisattvahood.”
Ibid, 111.

In short
"The Buddhist training consists in transforming
trishnā (tanhā) into karunā, ego-centered love
into something universal, eros into agape."
Ibid., 63.
-karunā (jihi 慈悲）

What is then sexual desire?
“It is precisely because of this physical body, despised
and trampled [by some religious purists], that human
beings have the opportunity to give birth to beautiful
things.
Consider, for instance, puppy love between young ones,
or the feeling of oneness shared by a seasoned aged
couple.
These are the kinds of experiences reserved only for
human beings.

“Romantic love by definition has a physical foundation,
but for the young ones in love, this physical foundation
is not within their purview. Theirs is a beautiful dream-
like world.
Again, the emotional bonding that grows in time
between wife and husband is characterized by
incomparable sense of inseparability so much so that
when one of the partners dies the other often soon
follows.
This is why they say “the lotus flower, even though
growing out of the mud, blooms beautifully.”

“Religion and Sexual Desire” (1948)
“But actually, what is “beautiful” does not have its
existence in the emotion (kanjō) of beautiful but in what
gives rise to that emotion.
A beautiful thing does not come into being by having
something dirty as its source.
A beautiful thing has something beautiful at its depth
and simply reflects its beauty.
A thing considered “dirty” gets purified by reflecting its
source within it.
A thing becomes “dirty” only when severed from this
source.”

4.3 Nishida on sexual life
“If I were a Zen monk or a Catholic priest, I suppose
celibacy would be important, but for me, it is not so.
Although I certainly have a deep-seated longing for a
religious life, a merely formal religious life that denies
humanity is not something that I would embrace. I don't
even think that such is the ideal human existence.
What I mean by "nothing" (mu) is more like the warm
heart that Shinran possessed, which acknowledges
everyone's freedom and embraces every sinner
(although I don't know whether Shinran actually phrased
it in this way).

“While I appreciate Eastern culture as profound and
precious, I cannot deny my longing for Western culture,
which is a great development of rich and free humanity.
Just as I derive pleasure from Sesshū's paintings, or
poetry in Chinese, so I cannot help but be moved by the
paintings of Rembrandt or the poetry of Goethe.
Instead of deriding the old Goethe who fell in love with
young Ulrike von Levetzow and desired to marry her, I
am touched by the greatness of his humanity.”
-N’s letter to the Watsujis, January 4, 1930

N’s dialectical world
-In this dialectical world, "desire" (yokkyū) is "the
demand of the self to fashion itself, i.e., to construct
itself" (jiko-keisei) as an individual-in-the-world reflecting
the external world inwardly.
-Moreover, the desire of the individual to fashion itself is
contradictorily the desire of the world to form itself.
-We can make sense of this statement of Nishida by
referring to Raichō,
who desired to establish herself as an independent
authentic self in the world, while she was reflecting in
her consciousness the predominantly androcentric
social milieu of her time.
(Yusa, 49)

Nishida: the three kinds of body &
accompanying consciousness
1. As a biological body, consciousness is instinctive
(hon'nō-teki);
2. as a historical body, consciousness is mainly sensory
(chikaku-teki),
3. but consciousness becomes self-conscious (jikaku-
teki) when the body finds itself being in the world, with
which the body stands in the absolutely contradictorily
self-identical relationship—i.e., it is radically interacting.
 In the recognition that without the body "I" cannot be,
"I" become truly self-aware on the extreme edge of
the recognition of this fact.
(Yusa 49-50)

“To become a thing” (mono to naru)
[In this radically mutual connectedness of the world and
the individual], for an individual to "see" is to "work," and
to "work" is to "see."
To "see" means that the individual negates oneself and
enters into the world as a “whole," which, however,
[contradictorily] signifies that the individual becomes a
thing (mono to naru).
By "that which creates,” it is signified that the individual
works as one among the many [world constituting]
individuals, by negating its being a whole.

Seeing and action
To see = self “denies” itself; for a whole
[being] to become a thing
To work = self affirms itself; for a whole
[being] to become one of the many [beings];
the individual “negates” the world
But the individual ultimately comes into being
in accordance with the “law” of generation
and degeneration (jiko shōmetsu); i.e., the
world “negates” the individual

Nishida: “I am” one and the many at
the same time
“An individual possesses desires by reflecting the world
within itself.
An individual is cognitive and constructive qua individual
in the absolutely contradictorily self-identical world.
The more the individual consciously defines oneself as
an individual, the more one works as a constitutive
element of the world—in a contradictorily self-identical
way.
That is, the individual thinks, having become a thing,
and it works, having become a thing.

Nishida
Hence, in the movement of "from that which is created
to that which creates," the world is imbued with
consciousness, and it is rational in its self-formation.
Reason (risei) is not something that simply resides in
the head of an individual but is thoroughly objective.
Reason is the world-constructing power. In this sense,
reason is thoroughly historical.”
- Nihon bunka no mondai, 12.324-5.
- Quoted in Yusa, 50-51.

the Self as the embodied historical life
In a nutshell, each of us as the "embodier" of historical
life gives shape to the world in our praxis (action) and
poiesis (thing-production), which transforms both the
world and the self.
To put it differently, each self, being self-conscious,
determines itself in place and time, which has the
signification of an "event" (or an occurrence)
determining itself from the perspective of the world.
When the individual self-expresses itself via action, it
"negates" the world. Thus, the world arises with the
"self-affirmation of the self."

-And yet, the self originally comes into being in
accordance with the "law" of appearance and
disappearance (jiko shōmetsu—meaning, all things
perish; no self abides forever). So, the world ultimately
"negates" the self in this sense.
-Herein, we cannot help but detect the fundamental
Buddhist intuition of dependent co-origination
(pratītyasamutpāda) of all things and the radical
temporality of all things (anityā), as there is no eternally
abiding self-substance (ātman).

History-making: “from the created to the
creating”
Nishida upholds that this is the radically objective
picture of the world (i.e., "one"), of which the individuals
(i.e., "many") are its constitutive elements. This is the
dynamic form in which the historical world is constantly
shaped.
(Yusa, 51-52)
Cf. Nishida Kitarō, "Butsuri no sekai"
[The world of physics] (1943), NKZ 11.9.

-What is the relationship of the body to eternal life?
If the body were absolutely being, Nishida would argue
that it makes no sense that it grows old, and eventually
decays.
-If it were mere "nothing," then it could not come into
being. The body, then, is a "relative being" partaking
something of eternal life.
-Life force is absolutely-being-and-non-being, in that we
cannot objectify it. Nishida finds this mode of being can
be seen in the structure of time (toki): each "moment"
comes into being and disappears in the next, but the
"absolute present" or "eternal now," which determined
itself as the moment, never ceases to be.
History-making: the place of the body

-He finds the same insight expressed by Heraclitus's
view of "logos," which is in constant flux and yet
remains "constant."
-Individuated lives are thus the independent "moments"
of the "absolute present," and of the "eternal life."
-But in a religious consciousness, each individuated life,
each moment, is eternal as the self-determination of the
eternal life, the eternal now.
-We must leave behind such concepts as relative and
absolute in the end.
(Yusa, 53)

concousion
At this time, one thing emerges to conclude this essay.
Raichō, Suzuki, and Nishida all talked about the
importance of love (ai) (or compassion, daihi,
mahākarunā) alongside insight or reason (prajñā).
For Raichō, the life of romantic love unfolded into her
life of altruistic love, which became the source of her
energy to dedicate herself to the cause of women's
movement.
For Suzuki "eternal life (eien no inochi) was possible
only where there is infinite love (mugen no ai).”

D. T. Suzuki’s open letter to Gabriel
Marcel
published in the Yomiuri Newspaper, April
28, 1963.
“‘Mugen no ai’ o shinjite, satori aru
shūdan-shin o” 「無限の愛」を信じて、悟りある集団
心を [Having faith in "Eternal love": Give rise
to the communal spirit sustained by
awakening]

DTS: while "life" harbors the tendency to self-
destruct as it individuates, love curbs that
drive and rescues life from self-destruction.
A cautionary remark: this faith in infinite love
(mahākarunā) has to be back by the
sustained practice of prayer, perseverance,
and self-exertion, which constitute the
bodhisattva path.

“love” according to Nishida
For Nishida love is nothing instinctive
("what is instinctive is not love but a
selfish greed") but is that which enables
and sustains the essential reciprocal
relationship between individual persons,
between the "I" and "Thou."

Social ethical responsibility
-It appears it is here [when we speak of love] that the
human responsibility comes in, as life is not a given or
something "eternal" in itself, but we are radically related
to it, although it is the ground of our being (in a
"contradictorily self-identical way," Nishida would say).
-Just as we may neglect the health of the earth, we
could play havoc on life.
-If Daisetz is right in holding that love curbs raw instincts,
we will have to speak the language of love, friendliness,
and gentleness.

That is, if we want to see this world and humanity
rehabilitate in such a way that the virtues—such as
justice, equity, consideration for fellow beings, and
magnanimity—can reclaim their place.
Daisetz and Nishida found in the following poem of Zen
Master Shidō Munan a viable hint to give shape to a
new social principle.

Shidō Munan’s poem
ikinagara
shinin to narite
narihatete
kokoro no mama ni
suru waza zo yoki
While alive, I become a dead man
I die [to my ego] through and through
Thus I act following my heart
Aren't these actions wonderful?

For Suzuki
Infinite love is possible when we “die while alive”
(ikinagara ni shinu) and return to life as dynamic actors,
not as ghosts.
He finds genuine "peace" in this experience of "dying
and returning to life."
He illustrates this point with the same insight from the
New Testament: "I died to the old Adam and live in
Christ," while he also ponders the meaning of Christ
having died on the cross before he was resurrected.

My open-ended conclusion
Affirmation via negation, then, constitutes
the vital key to the survival of beings and the
hope for any chance for peace.
(Yusa, 56)

Zen philosophy of peace
Gràcies i pau

Public Lecture Slides (12.19.2016) Michiko Yusa: Affirmation via Negation

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Public Lecture Slides (12.19.2016) Michiko Yusa: Affirmation via Negation

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