ALTHOUGH Nishitani uses Buddhism and Christianity as a means of investigating the nature of religion in general, his Japanese background is obviously steeped in the former. This should not lead us to imagine that he has embarked upon a promulgating quest to convert Westerners to Buddhism, however, as his chief interest lies in forming a philosophical analysis based on a study of comparative religion. His attitude towards religion may be said to involve

“both our becoming aware of reality, and, at the same time, the reality realising itself in our awareness.”

The sudden realisation that one has stumbled across a beautiful landscape, for example, can strike at the very heart of our being and thus awaken something that lies deep within us. That which, ordinarily, we tend to take for granted, becomes actualised when it is viewed from a radical new perspective.

One famous Zen story involves a Chinese master by the name of Xiangyan (820-898), who was sweeping the temple grounds with a broom when a stone flew into the air and struck a nearby bamboo. He was immediately enlightened. The hollow sound of the bamboo entered the mind of Xiangyan and he, in turn, entered the bamboo and saw reality in a new light.

Operating, as most people do, within the field of self-consciousness, means relying solely on one’s reason and sense perception. However, if one is detached from a more authentic mode of being we are perceiving nothing but a series of mental constructs in which an object that has been rendered meaningless is presented to the subject as something tangible. As we have seen, nihilism shatters this illusion into a thousand pieces and yet seems to offer nothing but sadness, loneliness, depression and suicide. Ironically, it is at this point that nihilism becomes the basis for the self becoming aware of itself from the limits of self-existence and opens up an entire world of possibilities. This, for Nishitani, is Śūnyatā:

“True emptiness is nothing less than what reaches awareness in all of us as our absolute self-nature.”

Making the transition from consciousness to nihilism and finally to emptiness, changes the fundamental nature of everything around us.