Dependent origination and the dual-nature of the Japanese Aesthetic

·期刊原文

Dependent origination and the dual-nature of the Japanese Aesthetic

by Railey, Jennifer McMaho

Asian Philosophy

Vol. 7 No. 2 Jul.1997 Pp.123-133

Copyright by Asian Philosophy

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ABSTRACT As most commentators on Japanese aesthetics agree, the Japanese
aesthetic is pervaded by a profound affirmation of things in their suchness
or original uniqueness, and at the same time is tinged with an element of
sadness or melancholy. While the responses of affirmation and melancholy
seem rather subjective and may--at first glance--appear inconsistent with
Buddhist notions like anatman, or non-see and the Buddhist demand for
non-attachment, I shad argue that a more careful reading of certain
Buddhist doctrines, specifically the doctrine of dependent origination or
pratitya-samutpada, reveals that the basic tenets of Buddhism are not only
consistent with these sorts of subjective responses, but in fact serve to
help explain the dual nature of the Japanese aesthetic. Accordingly, I
shall suggest that given the undeniable influence Buddhism has had on
Japanese culture, it seems likely that the doctrine of dependent
origination is not only compatible with, but also contributed to the
formation of what we regard as the Japanese aesthetic.

In Zen and Japanese Culture, Suzuki states that the Japanese aesthetic is
characterized by "imbalance, asymmetry, the `one-corner,' poverty, sabi or
wabi, aloneness and cognate ideas". [1] According to Suzuki, the Japanese
aesthetic is pervaded by a profound recognition and acknowledgement of the
beauty of things in their suchness, or tathata, [2] and at the same time is
tinged with an element of sadness or melancholy. While there is significant
scholarly debate concerning Suzuki's conception of the Japanese aesthetic,
I shall not address these concerns in this paper. [3] Instead, I shall
focus on articulating the principal features of Suzuki's Japanese
aesthetic, examining the compatibility of certain Buddhist ideas with this
aesthetic and showing how the work of Yasunari Kawabata, a prominent figure
in contemporary Japanese literature, supports Suzuki's conception of the
Japanese aesthetic as having both affirmative and melancholy aspects. While
the responses of affirmation and melancholy that Suzuki identifies as
central to the Japanese aesthetic seem rather subjective, and may--at first
glance-appear to be inconsistent with Buddhist notions like anatman, or
non-self, and the Buddhist demand for non-attachment, I shall argue that a
more careful reading of certain Buddhist doctrines, specifically the
doctrine of dependent origination, or pratitya-samutpada, reveals that the
basic tenets of Buddhism are not only consistent with these sorts of
subjective responses, but in fact help to explain the dual-nature of
Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic.

First, what is Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic? Unlike Western aesthetics which
often focus on the impression of the aesthetic object on the individual
subject, Suzuki maintains that the Japanese aesthetic focuses on the
apprehension of the aesthetic object in its own right. To achieve this end,
the Japanese aesthetic minimizes the significance of the subjective
impression, seeking "a perfect identification between the subject and
object" [4] which, due to the removal of subjective projections, allows for
the revelation of the aesthetic object in its suchness. Moreover, Suzuki
asserts that where the Western tradition often regards aesthetic experience
as something that takes place apart from ordinary life, the Japanese
aesthetic does not tend to isolate aesthetic experience in this manner.
Rather, because the Japanese aesthetic embraces the everyday, it readily
acknowledges the aesthetic significance of common or seemingly
insignificant objects. In my view, the work of Japanese novelist Yasunari
Kawabata confirms Suzuki's insight. For example, in his novel The Sound of
the Mountain, the main character Shingo notices a flower, "a broken thistle
under the window. The flower had fallen, but the stem, bent from its base,
was still a fresh green". [5] Here, a broken flower which many would pluck
from its position and discard is seen as worthy of aesthetic attention. As
Suzuki states, the Japanese aesthetic recognizes that, "[a]ll things come
out of an unknown abyss of mystery and through every one of them we can
have a peep into the abyss". [6] He maintains that because the Japanese
orientation regards everything as having the potential to give us "a
glimpse of the Unfathomable", [7] it has an all-encompassing character.
Unlike Western aesthetics which oftentimes compartmentalize aesthetic
experience, seeing it as something we have when we go to a museum or a play
or otherwise distance ourselves from practical life-Suzuki asserts that the
Japanese do not limit aesthetic experience in this way. For the Japanese,
everything has an aesthetic component. As such, the Japanese aesthetic
calls for what we might term an aestheticization of experience.

According to Suzuki, the two essential elements of the Japanese aesthetic
are sabi and wabi. He indicates that the preoccupation with imbalance, with
asymmetry and the "one-corner" style derive from sabi and wabi. According
to Suzuki, sabi--which literally means loneliness or solitude--"consists in
rustic unpretentiousness and archaic imperfection". [8] Wabi, in turn,
signifies an aloofness or poverty. [9] Both these elements combine to
engender a sense of poignancy, a realization of the uniqueness and
ephemerality of beauty as well as a resigned sadness at its loss. Again,
the work of Kawabata lends support to Suzuki's conception of the Japanese
aesthetic insofar as Shingo, the main character in Kawabata's The Sound of
the Mountain, illustrates this sense of poignancy when he states, "[a]
single acacia in the row had scattered its flowers on the sidewalk ... the
flowers had been delicate ones, pale yellow tinged with green. Even had
there not been the single tree shedding its flowers, the fact of the row of
flowering trees would no doubt have left an impression". [10] Here, when
the main character stops and takes notice of the falling blossoms, we see
that in so doing he is acknowledging the transiency of beauty. Similarly,
in an earlier chapter, upon encountering a plum tree late in the season
Shingo states, "[t]he white blossoms were past their prime. In the warm
sunlight they were beginning to look dirty". [11] Regarding the flowers, he
indicates that the smell of such flowers is "the smell of disappointment".
[12] Here, Shingo's disappointment seems to lie in the loss of beauty to
time, the loss of the pure white blossoms, the inevitable passing of life.
Importantly, this poignant appreciation of imperfection and transiency is
not confined to the natural realm but applies equally to humans. Again, in
The Sound of the Mountain, Shingo says he experiences "vague feelings of
despondency" [13] after he, an elderly man, passes two young prostitutes on
the street. Here, it seems Shingo is experiencing not only some regret
about his own aging but also a certain sadness at the youth that is being
wasted. Later, when Shingo returns home and his daughter-in-law Kikuko
shows him a scar on her forehead, we see illustrated what Suzuki recognizes
as the Japanese appreciation of imperfection for, as Kawabata writes, "the
scar, whenever [Shingo] chanced to glimpse it afterwards somehow drew him
to her". [14] Likewise, in another Kawabata novel, Snow Country, the main
character remarks about his lover that her "indefinable air of loneliness
only made her more seductive". [15] Here again, what might be considered an
imperfection is regarded as attractive, as aesthetically appealing.

Sadness and melancholy are not however the only, or the primary elements of
Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic. As I suggested earlier, Suzuki's aesthetic has
a sort of dual-nature, a nature which combines affirmation and mourning.
Suzuki maintains that for the Japanese, melancholy is but an aspect of a
larger experience, an experience of existential affirmation. While there is
a requisite sadness which accompanies the recognition of the ephemerality
of beauty, there is also a profound acknowledgement of that beauty, and of
the power of the moment in which that beauty exists. Because the Japanese
recognize that beauty is fleeting, that beauty is not an enduring quality
but rather something that is revealed anew in the suchness of things,
Suzuki maintains that the Japanese aesthetic compels attention to, and
affirmation of, detail. In The Sound of the Mountain, we see this
illustrated when Shingo's attention is, at one point, captured by the
vision of girls in bright kimonos. He states, "[b]ehind them two or three
young cherries were in full bloom. Defeated by the powerful colors of the
girls kimonos, they seemed pale and wan. The sun was shining on the green
of the tall trees beyond". [16] Here, while we still hear a tinge of
sadness in the defeat of the cherry trees, the overall tone is one of
affirmation, a sense of the rightness of things. Similarly, later in the
novel when Shingo goes to the train station to go to work he indicates,
"without warning there were red flowers outside the train window, equinox
lilies all along the railway filling, so near they seemed to quiver as the
train passed ... Just coming into bloom, they were a fresh, clear red. It
was the sort of morning when flowers made one feel the quiet of autumn
meadows". [17] As in the previous example, the tone here is positive,
indicating a lucid apprehension of the situation in its suchness as well as
a subjective response to that apprehension. This affirmative tone is also
present in another Kawabata novel Snow Country. In the first scene the main
character, Shimamura, is struck by an experience he has gazing through the
window of a train. There the images of the landscape at dusk are being
reflected in the face of a young girl seated next to the window. Kawabata
states, "[t]he figures and the background were unrelated and yet the
figures, transparent and intangible, and the background dim in the
gathering darkness, melted together ... when a light shown out in the
mountains in the center of the girl's face, Shimamura felt his chest rise
at the inexpressible beauty of it". [18] Perhaps this quote best captures
Suzuki's notion of the Japanese aesthetic. Here, we see how beauty resides
in ephemerality, that this event is poignant in its momentariness, in the
flashing of light and shadow across a girl's face, in the moment where the
aesthetic object exists not separate, but "in its original unity with
ourselves". [19]

Given Buddhism's undeniable influence on Japanese culture, the question
remains how one can reconcile the subjective responses of joy and
melancholy which Suzuki sees as characteristic of the Japanese aesthetic
with Buddhist doctrines which deny the subject. In my view, the
reconciliation lies in coming to an understanding of the doctrine of
dependent origination, a doctrine which incorporates the more fundamental
insights of impermanence and emptiness, a doctrine which, when properly
understood, not only reveals that the notion of anatman is consistent with
the above-mentioned sorts of subjective responses, but also helps explain
the dual-nature of Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic.

The basic doctrines of Buddhism are (1) impermanence, or anicca, (2)
no-self, or anatman, (3) emptiness, or sunyata, and (4) dependent
origination, or pratityasamutpada. The doctrine of impermanence states that
things in the world are constantly in flux and therefore lack inherent
essence. The doctrine of no-self states that like empirical phenomena, the
subject also lacks an absolute or inherent essence or identity. According
to Buddhism, when one analyzes one's condition honestly, one cannot find a
self. The substances which combine to form one's physical body are
continually being replaced so that one's physical composition is not the
same from one day to the next. Likewise, the thoughts and ideas with which
one identifies are constantly, and often radically, modified to the extent
that sometimes one cannot believe one remains the same person. From the
Buddhist perspective, the notion of an enduring identity, a Cartesian sort
of ego, is an illusion. According to Buddhism, everything is empty, or
sunya. As Garma C. C. Chang states, the doctrine of emptiness suggests that
"although things in the phenomenal world appear to be real and substantial
outside, they are actually tenuous and empty ... as a philosophical term,
sunyata denotes the absence of any kind of self or selfhood". [20] Here,
emptiness is not nihilistic because, according to Buddhism, emptiness is
not construed as utter non-being. Emptiness is not an entity standing in
opposition to form, rather it is an idea meant to illustrate form's lack of
essence. Ultimately, emptiness reveals that, instead of possessing distinct
essences, things emerge as a result of conditions, that is, they arise
dependently. According to Stephen Batchelor in his introduction to Echoes
of Voidness, emptiness and dependent origination are the flip sides of the
same coin, and "a genuine understanding of voidness, far from undermining
reality, is the only way one can gain correct knowledge of the way in which
empirical phenomena do exist and function. In the final analysis, these two
truths--the ultimate truth of voidness and the conventional truth of
empirical phenomena--do not contradict but rather complement one another.
Phenomena are able to function effectively in causal interrelationships
precisely because by their nature they are void of any inherent
self-existence. Conversely, the fact that they are in essence void is most
strikingly indicated by the fact that their occurrence is invariably
dependent on causes, conditions". [21]

The Two Truths Doctrine which Batchelor mentions indicates that as a result
of the coincidence between emptiness and phenomenal appearance, [22] it is
essential that we regard everything as having two aspects, a conventional
aspect and an ultimate aspect. For Buddhism, at a conventional level,
people and things appear to have distinct self-natures. However, at an
ultimate level, everything is empty. Because of the Two Truths Doctrine, it
makes perfect sense for a Buddhist to talk about particular individuals
while at the same time a&Bring ultimately to the notion of emptiness. From
the Buddhist standpoint, the realm of conventional truth is characterized
by ignorance of ultimate reality, of the truth of emptiness and dependent
origination. Ultimate truth, in contrast, is characterized by wisdom and
enlightenment. Though some Buddhist scholars may not agree, it is my
opinion that in transcending conventional truth, ultimate truth does not
negate conventional reality so much as encompass it. From the perspective
of ultimate truth, one can see conventional truth and see through it. One
can accept conventional truth as conventional without jeopardizing one's
awareness of ultimate truth. In the subsequent paragraphs, I shall examine
how this sort of understanding, an understanding which I feel derives from
an authentic understanding of dependent origination, serves to explain the
dual-nature of the Buddhist aesthetic.

Generally speaking, I believe the reason the subjective responses of joy
and melancholy which characterize the Japanese aesthetic appear
inconsistent with the notion of anatman is because people oftentimes
wrongly conflate Buddhism's denial of the subject in an ultimate sense to a
denial of the phenomenal subject. However, as the Two Truths Doctrine and
the concepts of impermanence, emptiness and dependent origination indicate,
the goal of Buddhism is not to annihilate the phenomenal self but to
demonstrate that there is no basis for belief in, and subsequently
attachment to, an enduring or absolute conception of the subject. According
to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, existence is suffering and the origin
of suffering is desire, or trsna. According to Buddhism, desire is what
prompts us to regard ourselves as "selves" possessing essential natures and
particular likes and dislikes. Desire is what prompts an individual to
discriminate herself from the dynamic totality of life and to erroneously
identify a "world composed of numerous finite entities standing alone and
essentially unrelated". [23] From the Buddhist perspective, the only way to
end suffering is to extinguish desire and the attachment which stems from
it. However, the non attachment which Buddhism claims is necessary for
eradicating suffering is not a radical withdrawal from the world. Instead,
it is a transformation in awareness which stems from a realization of the
impermanence and ultimate emptiness of things and of the truth of dependent
origination. As Nishitani states in Religion and Nothingness, this
realization marks "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". [24] Similarly, as Kasulis
remarks in Zen Action, Zen Person, "without denying the forms encountered
in daily life, the Zen Buddhist, nonetheless, does not cling to them or
take them to be the only reality". [25]

Given the understanding that from a conventional standpoint forms, that is
particular entities, appear and function, the goal of Buddhism is simply to
prevent attachment to any absolutized understanding of form. In terms of
aesthetic experience, the Buddhist would not wish to deny "subjective"
responses to phenomena, but rather would want to prevent clinging to those
feelings. From the Buddhist standpoint, the aesthetic experience might be
compared to waves incessantly hitting the shore. Here, the waves represent
the feelings which result from the identification with the aesthetic object
(i.e. the apprehension of suchness), and the shore can be regarded as the
subject. As this image illustrates, the shore does not hold onto the waves.
Rather, the waves ebb and flow naturally. The feelings associated with
aesthetic experience should be treated likewise. They can be acknowledged,
but cannot be coveted.

According to Buddhism, eradicating suffering involves following a Middle
Way, a path which avoids the extremes of essentialism and nihilism, that
is, of assuming the essentiality and independence of form or reifying
nothingness. While denying the existence of the world in an ultimate
sense,irms the existence of the phenomenal world and the phenomenal
subject. What Buddhism asks is not that we deny who we are and seek some
abstract nirvanic state, but that we find an end to suffering here in the
world by "break[ing] down our dependence on categories that interfere with
the directness and immediacy of experience". [26] As Kasulis states, "[t]he
Zen Master simply advises us to return: to go back to the state before we
put on the first filter. But what is this telling us to become? An
infant-like preverbal consciousness that, making no distinctions, is
incapable of communication? Certainly not. That would be an autistic route,
a withdrawal from the world . . . [r]ather, we must return to where we are.
We must regain our grasp of the present moment". [27] This return involves
recognizing that our typical mode of discriminatory understanding is one
where we analyze experience and try to make our experience fit already
existent categories of understanding, and, more importantly, that this
typical mode of understanding, or vijnana, does not allow us to see things
in their true suchness because it denies the dynamic interrelationships
which characterize phenomenal reality. From the Buddhist standpoint, in
order to see things in their suchness, one must see through our typical
mode of understanding. To see things in their suchness, we must resist the
objectification and categorization which characterize conventional thinking
and language, but, as Kasulis states, "this does not mean that thought
stops altogether". [28]

What does Kasulis mean here? How can one not think in a discriminatory
manner? And, in terms of aesthetics, how can one talk about aesthetic
experience without using discriminatory language? In Zen Action, Zen
Person, Kasulis develops the notion of "without-thinking", [29] a notion
which he contrasts with conventional or discriminatory thinking and
not-thinking, or the absence of consciousness altogether. In my opinion,
this notion of without-thinking captures what is going on during an
aesthetic experience. According to Kasulis, without-thinking is a
"non-conceptual or prereflective mode of consciousness", [30] which is the
foundation of all discriminatory consciousness.

For Kasulis, in the without-thinking state there is no discrimination
between the self and the object. This parallels Suzuki's comments regarding
aesthetic experience where he states, in aesthetic experience "there ought
not to be any presence of a mediatory agent between artistic inspiration
and the mind into which it has come". [31] Importantly, the absence of a
mediatory agent during an aesthetic experience does not preclude subsequent
analysis of the aesthetic impression, for, as Kasulis states, "[e]ven
though without-thinking circumvents all objectification, it is nonetheless
a mode of consciousness, and through reflection on a without-thinking act,
one may isolate aspects of its formal contents". [32] Given this
understanding, it seems that, in terms of aesthetics, we can, for purposes
of clarity, isolate the aesthetic experience which occurs in a
without-thinking state, from discursive attempts to convey the impressions
accompanying that experience. [33] While Buddhists generally view analysis,
or discriminatory thinking with suspicion, Suzuki maintains that its use
can be justified in an effort to convey aesthetic experience so long as the
"images are not figurative representations made use of by the poetic mind,
but they directly point to the original intuitions . . . and are immediate
expressions of the experience". [34] On this point, Kasulis agrees,
stating, "from the Zen Buddhist view of consciousness, thought is effective
only when it arises spontaneously out of a problematic situation. Whenever
the person willfully thinks, whenever one tries to make experience fit
retrospectively derived categories, that thinking inevitably leads to
paradoxes and conflicts. When thought arises as a spontaneous response to a
break in immediacy, however, it serves as an intermediary in the return to
spontaneity". [35] Thus, in terms of aesthetic usage, thought and language
are justified when they attempt to convey the original aesthetic intuition,
an intuition we are removed from either due to temporal, physical, or
psychical separation. Accordingly, in the case of a haiku, or landscape
painting, the goal is not to invest the scene with layers of symbolic
imagery, but to render the scene in such a manner that it reveals the
original situation's suchness.

Having defined Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic, argued for the consistency
between `subjective' aesthetic responses and the doctrine of no-self, and
having distinguished between the original aesthetic experience and
secondary aesthetic descriptions, we can now turn our attention back to our
original question concerning the compatibility of the notion of dependent
origination with Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic. Why, we must ask, does his
Japanese aesthetic have a dual-nature? Why does it incorporate both an
affirmative and a melancholy aspect? In my view, this dual-nature is a
response to the existential insight into dependent origination, a
realization which both annihilates one's previous sense of connection to
the world and at the same time places one in the midst of an infinite
matrix of interrelation. [36] I maintain that the dual-action of alienation
and association that result from the realization of dependent origination
is conveyed in and through the dual-nature of Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic
and that this dual-action relates directly to what Nishitani describes as
the "Great Affirmation" [37] and the "Great Doubt", [38] and what Batchelor
describes in a Sartrean fashion as being-alone and being-with-others. [39]

In Religion and Nothingness, Nishitani states, upon the realization of
dependent origination, "where form is emptiness and emptiness form, `forms'
(that is, all things) are absolutely nameless, absolutely unknowable,
distanced from one another by an absolute breach ... [yet] on the field of
emptiness that absolute breach points directly to a most intimate encounter
with everything that exists". [40] As Nishitani indicates, when one
realizes the thoroughgoing nature of emptiness and the truth that things
are impermanent and emerge only as a result of conditions, there is both a
sense of intimacy and a sense of alienation, a Great Affirmation and a
Great Doubt. In Alone With Others, Stephen Batchelor expresses a similar
understanding when he states, "[1] if e does not mechanically alternate
between aloneness and participation, rather it embraces them both in an
undivided unit. Being-alone and being-with are the delicate ontological
strands which, when woven together, help form the complex fabric of life.
Thus, life is the unified whole of which they are the diverse parts and we,
as living beings, always find ourselves in the paradoxical situation of
being simultaneously alone with others". [41] For Batchelor, upon the
realization of dependent origination one exists in the paradoxical
situation of knowing, in an ultimate sense, that one is inextricably tied
to innumerable conditions (i.e. to others), and yet, at a conventional
level, one's individual orientation is experienced "only by oneself". [42]
Here, both Batchelor and Nishitani recognize that the insight into
dependent origination prompts a sort of dual reaction, an affirmation of
our intricate connection to the world, and a doubt which results from the
emptying of foundations.

In my view, insight into dependent origination initiates a radical shift in
orientation from our conventional mode of understanding. As Batchelor
points out, humans typically seek a "world composed of numerous finite
entities standing alone and essentially unrelated. This situation seems to
offer us security, predictability and manageability". [43] However, when
robbed of this sense of fixity and faced with the dynamic totality of
dependent origination, the individual's conventional sense of security is
compromised. Basically, her security is compromised because the individual
can no longer rely on her fixed conceptions of things. Perhaps more
disturbing, the individual can no longer accept a single linear notion of
causality which at once explains events and serves to tie her to certain
things and make her independent of others. While the insight into dependent
origination offers the individual a vision of an infinite matrix of
interrelation, precisely because that matrix is infinite, because its
relations are innumerable, this vision defies understanding. Because the
vision of dependent origination defies both the individual's understanding
and even her imagination, the individual becomes, as Batchelor indicates,
"acutely and uneasily conscious of [her] aloneness, insignificance and
helplessness ... existence as such is anxiously felt as too massive and
overwhelming to be concernfully accepted as a totality". [44]

As Suzuki acknowledges, the immensity of the vision associated with
dependent origination can engender feelings of "helplessness" [45] and
"resignation" [46] on the part of the subject. In my view, the utter
incomprehensibility of this insight likely contributed to the emphasis on
aloneness and humility in Suzuki's conception of the Japanese aesthetic. As
Nishitani points out, upon the acceptance of impermanence, emptiness and
dependent origination, one is forced to admit that "[e]ach and every thing,
no matter how well acquainted the self may be with it, remains at bottom,
in its essential mode of being, an unknown". [47] Thus, even when one
accepts the notion of dependent origination and intuitively embraces its
rich and dynamic view of the world, because that view defies conceptual
understanding, it can, at a certain level, engender a both sense of
alienation and a sense of humility. In Kawabata's novel, Snow Country, this
response is captured when Shimamura gazes at the night sky and, as he
states, "[t]he Milky Way came down just over there to wrap the earth in its
naked embrace. There was a terrible voluptuousness about it". [48]
Shimamura describes that in this state of "voluptuous astonishment," [49]
his life, "the years and the months ... seemed to be lighted up in that
instant; and there, he knew, was the anguish". [50] Here, as Shimamura
faces the immensity of life, its voluptuous arising and dissolution, his
anguish seems to lie both in his inability to comprehend it all and his
recognition of his own insignificance.

As the previous quotation suggests, one of the reasons the insight into
dependent origination challenges conceptual understanding is its dynamism.
From the Buddhist standpoint, by demonstrating that things arise only as a
result of conditions, the notion of dependent origination illustrates the
truth of impermanence. In terms of aesthetics, awareness of impermanence
initiates a realization that the suchness of things lies in their
momentariness, in their fragility. The acknowledgement of impermanence
causes one to realize that while one may want beauty to endure, beauty is
not enduring. Rather beauty is revealed in the suchness of things and this
display of suchness is fleeting. Ultimately, beauty is revealed in the
absolute uniqueness of phenomena in the moment. Again, Kawabata captures
this realization in Snow Country when he states, "[k]aya plumes waved on
the steep slope of the mountain opposite, a dazzling silver in the morning
sun. Dazzling and yet rather like the fleeting translucence that moved
across the autumn sky". [51] Ultimately, with the realization of
impermanence comes the sense of melancholy that is characteristic of
Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic. It prompts the bittersweet acknowledgement
that while things can only exist in transience, that nonetheless we
experience a sadness at their loss, at their utter irreplaceability, their
presence and passing.

Finally, with regard to the affirmative aspect of Suzuki's Japanese
aesthetic, I maintain that it too is compatible with the intuitive
recognition of dependent origination. While the notion of dependent
origination defies our understanding in many ways, it nonetheless supplies
a more plausible conception of our existential condition. Rather than
keeping us isolated from phenomena, the insight into dependent origination
gives us a sense of how we merge with them. It allows us to see ourselves
in terms of dynamic interrelation and to admit the myriad of ties we have
to the world. An affirmative attitude emerges upon the acceptance of
dependent origination because after admitting the inherent impermanence and
permeability of life, one is no longer opposed to reality, frantically
trying to force a fluid existence into fixed categories. One affirms the
vision of dependent origination because upon its acceptance one is, for the
first time, able to deal with "those little pools of non-being which we
encounter each instant". [52] After embracing dependent origination one
realizes that emptiness and phenomenal reality are one and the same, that
emptiness is not a threatening force but an integral component of the
dynamic totality we call life.

In conclusion, though there seemed to be a prima facie inconsistency
between some of the basic doctrines of Buddhism and Suzuki's Japanese
aesthetic, through my discussion of certain Buddhist doctrines and specific
pieces of literature, I hope to have shown that these Buddhist doctrines
are not only consistent with Suzuki's aesthetic, but that they can help
explain its dual-nature. As I have argued, the realization of dependent
origination prompts both joy and melancholy because while initiating the
individual into an infinite network of interrelation, because of the
immeasurable complexity of this network and the fact that it challenges the
individual's conventional understanding, joy may be tempered with sadness.
Ultimately, as Shingo states in The Sound of the Mountain, acceptance of
dependent origination forces one to admit the wonderful and at the same
time sobering truth that, "[h]appiness ... might be just such a matter of
the fleeting instant". [53]

NOTES

[1] SUZUKI, D. T. (1993) Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton, Princeton
University Press), p. 27.

[2] Here, tathata indicates awareness of an object or event in its own
right, namely without subjective projection or overlay. As Nishitani states
in Religion and Nothingness, when things appear in their suchness, "[a]ll
attachment is negated: both the subject and the way in which "things"
appear as objects of attachment are emptied. Everything is now truly empty,
and this means that all things make themselves present here and now, just
as they are, in their original reality". [34]

[3] Here, I am referring to the objections raised by various commentators
that Suzuki has overemphasized the role certain foreign influences like
Buddhism have played in the formation and development of the Japanese
aesthetic, while failing to give sufficient consideration to elements
indigenous to Japanese culture.

[4] SUZUKI, op. Cit., p. 246.

[5] KAWABATA, YASUNARI (1970) The Sound of the Mountain (New York,
Berkeley), p. 79.

[6] SUZUKI, op. Cit., p. 257.

[7] Ibid., p. 221.

[8] Ibid., p. 24.

[9] Ibid., p. 23.

[10] KAWABATA, op. cit., p. 195.

[11] Ibid., p. 113.

[12] Ibid., p. 126.

[13] Ibid., p. 16.

[14] Ibid., p. 18.

[15] KAWABATA, YASUNARI (1957) The Snow Country (New York, Perigee), p.
129.

[16] KAWABATA (1970), op. cit., p. 126.

[17] Ibid., p. 205.

[18] KAWABATA (1957), op. cit.

[19] SUZUKI, op. Cit., p. 228.

[20] CHANG, GARMA C. C. (1989) The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The
Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism (University Park, Pennsylvania State
University Press), p. 60.

[21] RABTEN, GESHE (1983) Echoes of Voidness (London, Wisdom Publications),
p. 8.

[22] Here, I am referring to the form is emptiness and emptiness is form
identification which is expressed in the Heart Sutra.

[23] BATCHELOR, STEPHEN (1983) Alone With Others: An Existential Approach
to Buddhism (New York, Grove Press), p. 62.

[24] NISHITANI, KEIJl (1982) Religion and Nothingness (Berkeley, University
of California Press), p. 90.

[25] KASULIS, T. P. (1981) Zen Action, Zen Person (Honolulu, University of
Hawaii Press), p. 44.

[26] Ibid., p. 58.

[27] Ibid., p. 56.

[28] Ibid., p. 58.

[29] Ibid., p. 72.

[30] Ibid., p. 75.

[31] SUZUKI, op. cit., p. 225.

[32] KASULIS, op. cit., p. 75.

[33] Here, I want to emphasize that one must be careful when making
determinations with respect to original and secondary sorts of aesthetic
experience. An original aesthetic experience is determined by the presence
of a without-thinking state. Thus, it is not the aesthetic object which
determines whether the aesthetic experience is original or secondary, but
the experiential orientation. Accordingly, while a haiku may be a secondary
aesthetic experience for the individual who wrote it (i.e. insofar as that
individual is attempting to convey the immediacy of an actual event), it
may be an original aesthetic experience for the individual who, having not
had any actual interaction with the subject matter of the haiku, is
experiencing it for the first time.

[34] SUZUKI, op. cit., p. 240.

[35] KASULIS, op. cit., p. 64.

[36] Here, it is essential to note that I do not feel that formal awareness
of the doctrine of dependent origination is necessary in order for an
individual to have the senses of affirmation and mourning that are present
in Suzuki's Japanese aesthetic. While formal knowledge of this and other
Buddhist doctrines may indeed deepen an individual's existential
understanding, it is not a prerequisite for aesthetic appreciation.
Ultimately, the doctrines of impermanence, no-self emptiness and dependent
origination simply offer formal articulations of insights into the human
condition that are available to all. In other words, one need not study
Buddhist philosophy to know that life is characterized by impermanence.
Instead, one can simply watch the changing of seasons. Likewise, one need
not possess thematic awareness of the doctrine of dependent origination to
know that things exist in a matrix of interrelation. Instead, one can
simply bear witness to the complex interpenetration of things in the
natural world. Thus, what I mean when I state that an individual realizes
the truth of dependent origination is not that the individual possesses a
formal understanding of the historical doctrine of dependent
origination--although that may be present--but that she has in some manner
come to recognize both the inherent impermanence and emptiness of things
and to acknowledge that things exist fundamentally in interrelation.

[37] NISHITANI, op. cit., p. 131.

[38] Ibid., p. 111.

[39] BATCHELOR, op. cit., p. 91.

[40] NISHITANI, op. cit., p. 101.

[41] BATCHELOR, op. cit., p. 91.

[42] Ibid., p. 94.

[43] Ibid., p. 62.

[44] Ibid., p. 61.

[45] SUZUKI, op. cit., p. 230.

[46] Ibid., p. 231.

[47] NISHITANI, op. cit., p. 111.

[48] KAWABATA (1957), op. cit., p. 165.

[49] Ibid., p. 168.

[50] Ibid., p. 174.

[51] Ibid., p. 117.

[52] SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL (1956) Being and Nothingness (New York, Washington
Square Press), p.53.

[53] KAWABATA (1970), op. cit., p. 195.

~~~~~~~~

By JENNIFER McMAHON RAILEY

Jennifer McMahon Railey, Department of Philosophy, State University of New
York, 607 Baldy Hall, Box 601010, Buffalo, New York 14260-1010, USA.
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