II. Retrieving Reciprocity from the Standpoint of Hayathology
The purpose of Nishida's latest philosophy was, as he wrote to Daisetsu Suzuki in 1945, to explicate the paradoxical structure of human personality from the standpoint of Wisdom Sutras (prajnya paramita) , and to integrate it with the actual historical world on the basis of the logic of Topos. As Suzuki explicated in "the Fundamental Thoughts in Lin Chi" , "the true person with no title" played a central role in Lin Chi Zen, and the inter-personal relation between a Zen master and his disciples was undoubtedly essential to the understanding of a Zen dialogue. The structure of the "true person" was described by Suzuki as "the self-transcending individual " who is on account of not being himself. This structure of self-transcendence was expressed in terms of the non-dual but non-identical relation which was called "soku hi " In Wisdom Sutras. Nishida was keenly aware of the fact that the logic of "soku hi" could not easily be conceptualized within the stock of philosophical terminology then available to him .
Western philosophy had a long tradition of ontology which asked the meaning of Being in the ultimate sense, but its conceptual framework was insufficient to the understanding of the philosophical core of Mahayana Buddhism where nothingness rather than Being was emphasized. The development of Nishida's philosophy can be considered as the "documents of great struggle" with the fundamental problems of Nothingness. He aimed at constructing the truly universal philosophy beyond the contrasted differences between East and West rather than characterizing a provincial concept of "Oriental Nothingness". The origin of Western metaphysics, especially the problematic of Plato and Aristotle, attracted his attention because it suggested to him how the priority of Being (Form) to Nothingness (the Formless)was established in Western philosophy. In Plato's Timaeus, he discovered a key concept of Topos (chora) as the missing link which might be helpful to the understanding of Nothingness. The paradoxical unity between a being (rupa) and emptiness (sunyata) in Wisdom Sutras can be expressed by the complementarity between an entity and its topos. The relativity of being and nothingness, however, signifies the absolute field of totality which includes every kind of opposition. This absolute field of totality was called by Nishida "the Topos of Absolute Nothingness." In his work, "From the Actor to the Seer", three kinds of Topos were discussed, i.e. the topos of relative being (physical topos as the space-time continuum) , the topos of relative nothingness (the field of consciousness) , and the Topos of Absolute Nothingness.(11)
These three kinds of topos are known consecutively through trans-descendence.(12) One finds oneself first in the topos of relative being, interacting with other entities in one's environment. Next one knows oneself as the experiencing subject which can not be an object in the topos of relative being. In order to know oneself as the transcendental subject, one has to trans-descend the depth of the first topos.
The transcendental subject, in the Kantian sense, can not reach the core of religious experience. One has to trans-descend again the depth of the second topos through radically abolishing the dichotomy of subject and object. In Nishida's logic of Topos, the metaphysical ultimate was Absolute Nothingness, which is indirectly characterized as the universal which is always a predicate, and never a subject. We may compare Nishida with Aristotle concerning the metaphysical problems. In the Aristotelian tradition, metaphysics was closely related with ontology, i.e. the study of being which, though said in many ways, has the central focal meaning in the concept of substance (ousia) . Asking the relation of the Platonic Forms to the fluent world, Aristotle ended his metaphysics by finding the unmoved mover, the substance as Absolute Being.
Nishida's approach to metaphysics may be characterized as sunyatology, i.e. the study of nothingness which, no less equivocal than being, has the central focal meaning in the concept of topos. Asking the non-dual but non-identical relation between an entity and its topos, Nishida continued his metaphysical inquiry through the procedure of trans-descending until he found the total process of inquiry had been grounded in the topos of Absolute Nothingness. As the explicans of religious experience in Zen Buddhism, Nishida's approach to metaphysics was successful and illuminating. Nishida, however, wanted to have his philosophy of Topos accepted not only as applicable to a special religious experience but also as available to the explicans of the general structure of reality.
Neither was he satisfied with the standpoint of "contemplation" of the Absolute, as his disciple Tanabe misunderstood him, because contemplation and practice are inseparable m his concept of "action intuition". The problem of practice in the historical world gradually became a center of Nishida's concern. How is it possible to deduce the historical world and human practice from the standpoint of Absolute Nothingness?
This problem was a leitmotif in the later development of Nishida's philosophy.
Hisamatsu also tackled this problem, and furthered Nishida's philosophy toward a more existential and historical direction. Hisamatsu grasped nothingness as subjectivity as well as topos. The negative receptivity of nothingness as topos was complemented by creative activity of nothingness as subjectivity. (13)
As Takizawa contrasted what Hisamatsu called Formless Self as Absolute Subjectivity with God in the primordial Fact in his anthropo-theology, his polemic against Hisamatsu showed a tension between Christianity and Buddhism concerning the ultimate reality. The dialogue between them was succeeded by many scholars in Japan, and it was the problematic of irreversibility that they have mainly discussed. In the first section of this paper I asked a question concerning the compatibility between a Christian's concept of God and a Buddhistic awakening to pratitya samutpada and Nothingness. The problem of irreversibility must be considered in this broader perspective. The standpoint which I adopt may be called hayathology i.e. the theology of Becommg. (14) "Haya" is the Hebrew word which means becoming.