Nietzsche and Zen
Nietzsche on Buddhism
- Life-denying nihilism
- European Buddhism
- I could be the Buddha
of Europe…
- Buddhism and
Christianity
Central Teachings of the Pali Canon
The Heart Sūtra
Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva doing
deep prajñāpāramitā
Perceived the emptiness of all five
conditions,
And was freed of pain.
O Śāriputra , form is no other than
emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form,
Form is precisely emptiness,
Emptiness precisely form.
•
There is not the slightest difference
between samsāra and nirvāna
(Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXV 19)
• Mahayana Buddhism
• The ultimate truth (paramartha
satya) cannot be taught, but must be
directly realized.
• Upaya: skillful means employed by
the teacher.
• The bodhisattva vow
"All living beings should be led by me to final nirvāṇa in the
realm of nirvāṇa which leaves nothing behind. But after
having led living beings thus to final nirvāṇa, there is no living
being whatsoever who has been led to final nirvāṇa."
“New struggles.—After Buddha
was dead, his shadow was
still shown for centuries in
a cave—a tremendous,
gruesome shadow. God is
dead; but given the way of
men, there may still be
caves for thousands of
years in which his shadow
will be shown.—And
we—we still have to
vanquish his shadow, too.”
The Gay Science §108
Main Thought! […] the individuum himself is a
fallacy. Everything which happens in us is in
itself something else which we do not know.
[...] ‘the individuum’ is merely a sum of
conscious feelings and judgments and
misconceptions, a belief, a piece of the true life
system or many pieces thought together and
spun together, a unity that doesn’t hold
together. We are buds on one tree, - what do we
know of what can become of us in the interest
of the one tree? But we have a consciousness
as though we would and should be all, a
phantasy of “I” and all “not I”. Stop feeling like
such a phantastic ego! Learn gradually to
discard the supposed individuum! Discover the
fallacies of the ego! Recognise the ego as
misconception! The opposite is not to be
understood as altruism! This would be love of
other supposed individuals! No! Beyond “me”
and “you”! Feel cosmically! (KSA 9,11[7])
Amor fati: that is my innermost
nature. [And as far as my long period
of illness is concerned, do I not owe it
infinitely more than I owe my
health?] I owe it a higher health, [one
that
becomes
stronger
from
everything that does not kill it!] – I
also owe my philosophy to it. Only
the great pain is the ultimate liberator
of the spirit, as the teacher of the
great suspicion […] Only the great
pain […] forces us philosophers to
descend into our ultimate depths and
to disabuse ourselves of all trusting,
of
everything
good-natured,
concealing, mild, mediocre, in which
we have perhaps placed our humanity
up until now […] [and] out of the
abyss of the great suspicion one
returns newly born (NCW, Epilogue,
Sections 1 and 2)
Such a liberated spirit stands
with a joyful and trusting
fatalism in the midst of
everything, in the faith that only
the individual thing is to be
rejected, that in the totality of
life, everything is redeemed and
affirmed — he doesn’t say no
anymore […] But such a faith is
the highest of all possible faiths:
I have baptized it with the name
of Dionysus. — (TI 9,49).
The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism
“it is in such ideas as amorfati and
the Dionysian as the overcoming
of nihilism that Nietzsche came
closest to Buddhism, and
especially to Mahāyāna.”
hints that there is a standpoint in Mahāyāna
that goes even further than Nietzsche
KeijiNishitani (1900-1990)
Religion and Nothingness
reveals this to be the standpoint of śūnyatā
Standpoint of the self
Standpoint of nihility
Standpoint of Śūnyatā
Śūnyatā is the point at which we become manifest in our
own suchness as concrete human beings, as
individuals with both body and personality. And at
the same time, it is the point at which everything
around us becomes manifest in its own suchness.
Religion and Nothingness, 90
Nishitani finds in Nietzsche’s
notebooks the reflection that it
follows from amorfati that “every
action of a person has an infinitely
great influence on everything that
is to come.”
“Every action of the self in this
context is influenced by all things
and in turn influences all things.
All things become the fate of the
self, and the self becomes the fate
of all things. At such a
fundamental level the world
moves at one with the self, and the
self moves at one with the world”
The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, 50
The three transformations of
the spirit
The camel
The lion
The child
Thirty years ago, before I practiced
Zen, I saw that mountains are
mountains and rivers are rivers.
However, after having achieved
intimate knowledge and having
gotten a way in, I saw that
mountains are not mountains and
rivers are not rivers. But now that I
have found rest, as before I see
mountains are mountains and rivers
are rivers.
Zen Master Qingyuan
Compendium of the Five Lamps,
1252
Nietzsche and Linji as lions
Bodhi and nirvāna are hitching posts for donkeys
There’s no Buddha, no Dharma, no practice, no enlightenment
There is no Buddha to be sought, no Way to be carried out, no Dharma to be gained
If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha
The going-under
of the lion
Living nihilism through to the
end.
Both “I” and “will” are an
illusion.
The temptation of nihilism.
The transformation into the child
To learn the Buddha Way is to learn one’s
self. To learn one’s self is to forget one’s
self. To forget one’s self is to be
confirmed by all dharmas. To be
confirmed by all dharma’s is to cast off
one’s body and mind and the bodies and
minds of others as well. (Shōbōgenzō,
Genjokoan)
DōgenZenji (1200-1253)
The emptiness of emptiness
Back to the marketplace
Hui-neng cutting the bamboo.
Liang K’ai, early 13th century.
There is nothing besides the
whole. That nobody is held
responsible any longer, that the
mode of being may not be traced
back to a causa prima, that the
world does not form a unity
either as a sensorium or as
“spirit” – that alone is the great
liberation: with this alone is the
innocence of becoming restored.
The concept of “God” was until
now the greatest objection to
existence. We deny God, we
deny responsibility in God: only
thereby do we redeem the world
(TI)
Actually, I would much
rather be a Basel professor
than God, but I have not
ventured to carry my private
egoism so far as to desist
from creating the world on
his account. You see, one
must make sacrifices,
however one may be living,
and wherever. . . .
Letter to Jacob Burckhardt, 6 January, 1889