PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

306Pacific Worldaspects, of which the moral one is distinctly underdeveloped. The secondtopic concerns the anthropocentric and subjectivist consequences of usingthe concept of self-awareness as a paradigm for the structure of reality,whereby the Kyoto School becomes the first culprit in what they criticize asthe anthropocentrism of Western philosophy. The third topic has to dowith the ambiguity of the notion “God,” in which the School’s critique ofthe Christian God intersects their own idea of God as a no-self approachingabsolute nothingness.In the course of the book, Heisig touches upon a few interesting,general questions. For example, to what extent should the Japanese philosophersbe judged on their own terms rather than according to universalstandards? In other words, is there an Oriental logic or only universallogic? Heisig endorses (pp. 36–37, 288) Nishida’s view that there is “concrete”logic, or “a general sense of the principles of discourse” (meaning aJapanese logic), as separate from “methodological rules that distinguish agood argument from a bad one” (universal logic). Heisig never tries toprove the point directly. But indirectly he does a lot toward substantiatingit, and his book is likely to convince the undecided readers that the “logic”of Zen and Pure Land mysticism does in fact constitute an alternative wayto see the world.Despite his emphasis on the idiosyncratic character of the KyotoSchool philosophy, however, Heisig generally believes that its ideas aretransferable across languages (p. 281). Perhaps this is why he discusseslinguistic matters sparingly, to the certain disappointment of the readersinterested in the Japanese equivalents of the key terms discussed. There isno substantial index of Japanese terms; only selected kanji appear, scatteredacross “Notes.” For example, while explaining the meaning of thecharacters kyø, gyø, shin, and shø in Shinran’s Kyøgyøshinshø (p. 322),Heisig does not show the characters themselves. In the Nishida section, onelooks in vain for the original Japanese for the English “self-awareness” and“active intuition.” And commenting on Nishitani’s play on the polyvalenceof the Chinese character for samådhi (p. 224), Heisig simply, andrather unkindly, advises the reader to consult the glossary in the Englishtranslation of Religion and Nothingness. Another cause for mild irritationis Heisig’s occasional use of German and Latin expressions without translation.For example, “a gewordener Buddhist” (p. 254; literally meaning“someone who became a Buddhist,” but here used apparently in the senseof “a past Buddhist”) is an English-German neologism, the meaning ofwhich can with some effort be deduced from the context, but which wouldotherwise be difficult to trace by someone unfamiliar with German and theKyoto School scholarship. However, the language of the book is one of itsstrong points. Heisig writes in a lively style that increases our enjoymentof reading without detracting from the incisiveness of the argument. Thebook is free from heavy and potentially misleading philosophical termi-