In Memoriam: Keiji Nishitani (1900-1990)

Author(s): Eiko Kawamura-Hanoka

Source: Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 12 (1992), pp. 241-245
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
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 IN MEMORIAM

KeijiNishitani
(1900-1990)

It was in March1960, as a freshmanat Kyoto University,that I first met Profes-

sor Keiji Nishitani. I had gone to him to discussthe possibility of studying reli-
gious philosophy under his guidance as I had been intensely moved by his work
God and Absolute Nothingness at that time. I remember this first meeting
with him at Kyoto Universityas if it were just yesterday.At that time he came
into the office noiselessly and was moreoverdressedin a brown European-style
suit. This was a piece of good luck for me because I had in fact decided to take
my leave from him without saying anything about my wish to study in his semi-
nar, for I had heard that there were no girl students in his seminar and that
almost all his students were sons of Buddhist priests. Nishitani's European
clothes encouraged me greatly because I had felt sure that if he had been
dressedin aJapanesekimono he would have been of a traditionalcharacterthat
would have been unwilling to take a female student in his class. Even though I
was to see him in traditionalJapanese clothes many times thereafter, I have
alwaysbeen thankful that I saw him that first time dressedin an Europeansuit.
On meeting him, I let forth a barrageof questions I had about religious phi-
losophy. Owing to my youth, however, I could not speak directly to him about
how profoundly his own religious philosophy had affected me; instead, I told
him how much the writings of D. T. Suzuki had gripped me. After listen-
ing carefully to everything that I had said, Nishitani replied, "Yourproblem
and your consciousness of it are the same as Kierkegaard's.You should re-
searchKierkegaardthoroughly."Then he spoke about my studying under him.
How kind he was! And how quickly these last thirty yearshave flown by. Except
for the eight years I studied abroad in Germany, he was always there to
guide me.
On 3 September 1991, I was present at his funeral at Ushizu in IshikawaPre-
fecture where he was born. I had come to Ushizu by bus the day before from
Unoke, the birthplaceof the philosopher Nishida, where I and other members
of a society for the study of Nishida's philosophy-of which Nishitani was the
leader-had participatedin an internationalsymposium. The sea, mountains,
rivers,and fields I saw from our bus were so beautiful, deep, wide, and mysteri-
ous that I could not help but get a better and more profound understandingof
my teacher'sphilosophy of religion.
As we discussedphilosophy, being joggled by the bus on the mountain, we
would turn a corner, and the sea would come into view, only to be replaced
moments later by the mountains. A landscape of mountains and the sea were
seen by turns. The sea was not the light and calm Pacific Ocean but the wild
Buddhist-ChristianStudies 12 (1992). ? by Universityof HawaiiPress.All rights reserved.

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242 IN MEMORIAM

,. ~~~~~~~4

ProfessorHans Waldenfels, ProfessorKeiji Nishitani, and Eiko Kawamuraa

few years before the death of ProfessorNishitani. Photo courtesy of Eiko
Kawamura.

and somehow bottomless Sea ofjapan, and the mountains and their paths were
sometimes steep, sometimes flat, and sometimes connected to other mountains
and paths by narrowbridgesthat our bus could barelydrive through.
These landscapes reminded me of the philosophy of Nishitani because it is
one unified with the nature of mountains, rivers,fields, and seas. His philoso-
phy must surely have been motivated by the rich landscapes of the home in
which he was brought up in his infancy.It is verynaturalthat Nishitani particu-
larly liked Bi-yan-lu, the theme of which is mainly the nature of places such as
mountains, rivers, plants, and valleys. Seeing the beautiful rich nature of his
home, we could understand why we sometimes heard him criticize Nishida's

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 IN MEMORIAM 243

philosophy, which does not deal with nature but rather sees it as historical
nature.
Nishitani's philosophy is called the philosophy of emptiness. He himself
began his philosophy with the problem of evil and nihil. With regard to this
problem he wrote varioustheses about Schelling, and his onlyJapanese transla-
tion of a foreign philosophicalwork is that of Schelling'sPhilosophische Unter-
suchungen iiber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1927). After that he
researchedfundamental subjectivity through the study of Nietzsche and Eck-
ehardt and wrote God and Absolute Nothingness and Nihilism from an inter-
national standpoint but with special referenceto the differences between East
and West, namely, from the standpoint of emptiness. In 1961 he wrote his
main work, Religion and Nothingness (Shukyo to wa nani ka?) in which his
philosophy was firmlyestablishedas the philosophy of emptiness.
The philosophy of emptiness in Nishitani includes in itself the logic of emp-
tiness, which contains both "the logic of the place of absolute nothingness" of
his teacher Kitaro Nishida and "the logic of species" and the philosophy of
metanoetics of Hajime Tanabe, who was both a disciple and a critic of Nishi-
da's. Nishitani's philosophy also debated "the principle of negation," which
was imposed on posterity by Tanabe through the elucidation of freedom, evil,
and the issue of nihilism brought about by the extreme development of natural
science in modern times.
The philosophy of emptiness consists in emptiness as absolute openness
where all is as it is and at the same time as it should be. It encloses the domains
of philosophy, before philosophy, and after philosophy, including topics that
were excluded as outside the realmsof philosophy by traditionalEuropeanphi-
losophers since ancient Greek philosophy in that Nishitani inquires anew into
what philosophy is.
We often hear criticismfrom a speculative position that emptiness concerns
the world of experience or religious experience but is not a sphere of philoso-
phy. However,we must see through this and understandthat Nishitani's defini-
tion of religion is real self-awarenessof realityand that the philosophy of emp-
tiness, founded on our own religious experience, is established on reborn
thinking, namely, on the thinking of nonthinking. This is exactly the philoso-
phy that the philosophersafter Hegel look for.
Nishitani stayed in Marburg, Germany, for two years from 1937 and
researchedphilosophy under Heidegger. The confrontation of the philosophy
of emptiness with Heidegger'sphilosophy tacitly shown in Nishitani's Religion
and Nothingness-although both philosophers criticize philosophy as tradi-
tional European metaphysics itself in that they return to its beginning-is
based on Nishitani's deep understandingof Heidegger'sphilosophy.
Nishitani gave many lecturesin Americaand Europe and was a guest profes-
sor at Hamburg Universityin 1964 and at Temple Universityin 1969. He was,
moreover,given the Goethe gold medal prize by the Goethe Institute of Ger-
many.

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244 IN MEMORIAM

Calligraphy by ProfessorNishitani. Haiku on left was given to the author in April of 1986. It
means, "In the depths of frostysky/ /A sound of an airplane."Signed with the name Boro Sanmin
(mountaineer who forgot the way). Verse on right was given to the author in October of 1986. It
means, "The moon falls from heaven/ /But it doesn't leave heaven." Signed with the name Keisei
(the voice of the valley).

Nishitani's philosophy of emptiness was first introduced to the world in 1976

through ProfessorHans Waldenfel's Absolute Nothingness (the Japanese edi-
tion was translatedby Y. Matsuyamaand E. Kawamurain 1986). We now also
have an English and a German translation of Religion and Nothingness (the
English translation is by J. v. Bragt [1982] and the German by D. Fischer-
Barnicol[1982]).
A symposium focusing on Religion and Nothingness was held at Smith and
Amherst Colleges, in April 1984, with the support of the Japan Foundation.
Essaysfrom this symposiumand a few treatisesintroducingNishitani's thinking
were published as a book with the title The ReligiousPhilosophy ofKeiji Nishi-
tani (edited by T. Unno) in the autumn of 1990. As I gave him a brand new
copy of this book, which I had just received from ProfessorUnno by air mail,
Nishitani was verypleased and modestly said, "If this book were a recordof the
worksof Daisetsu Suzuki I would understand, but of my work!This is veryflat-
tering indeed." That was the last time I met ProfessorNishitani, and I shall
neverforget that scene at his home.
Nishitani retiredfrom Kyoto Universityunder the age-limit rule in 1963 and
subsequentlyheld a position at Otani University,where he was the main editor
of the university'sEnglish academicmagazine The EasternBuddhist. He made
great efforts to understand both the East and the West with regardto religion,
philosophy, and the philosophy of religion, efforts evinced by the fact that he
was also an adviser of the "Kyoto Seminar for Religious Philosophy" at the
Institute for Zen Studies.

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 IN MEMORIAM 245

I often had the opportunity to walk with Nishitani-for example, in Ham-

burg, where I was researchingsystematictheology under the guidance of Pro-
fessor H. Thielicke at Hamburg Universityand Nishitani had stopped over on
his way backfrom Munich, where he had gone to collect his Goethe prize. Such
opportunities also afforded themselves at Yoshida Mountain, where his home
was, at ArashiyamaMountain, where our Kyoto Seminarfor Religious Philoso-
phy was held, and at RakusaiNew-town, where I live. My abiding memory of
our walksis of Nishitani's love for nature-the mountains, rivers,and seas. He
came to our Eighth InternationalZen Symposium in Arashiyamaonly at the
end to greet the participantsand afterwardstayed about an hour in the garden
of the hotel where our symposiumwas held and on the banksof the Hozu River
in the neighborhood, walking and standing, contemplating what he saw, with
a great serenity.He looked unwilling to leave. Perhapsat that moment he saw,
not only the garden of the hotel and the riverand mountains in front of him,
but at the same time those of his birthplace in Ushizu, of the Schwarzwald,
where he researchedin Germany,and those of YoshidaMountain, at the foot of
which he lived until his last day in this world. That figure of contemplation is
also a memory that will remainwith me forever.

Eiko Kawamura-Hanoka
Universityof OsakaPrefecture

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