Religion and Nothingness Q&A with Tetsuzen Jason Wirth

This video is a recording of a question and answer session on Keiji Nishitani’s Religion and Nothingness with Tetsuzen Jason Wirth. Tetsuzen is a professor of philosophy at Seattle University and an ordained Soto Zen priest with expertise in the Kyoto School of philosophy. His other research areas include continental philosophy, aesthetics, environmental philosophy, and Africana philosophy. His recent publications include Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis - a meditation on the work of American poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder and thirteenth-century Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dōgen - and an edited volume produced with Kanpu Bret W. Davis and Shudo Brian Schroeder titled Engaging Dōgen’s Zen: The Philosophy of Practice as Awakening.
You can find these texts from the publishers here:
www.sunypress....
wisdomexperien...
We’d like to extend a hearty thanks to Tetsuzen for taking the time out of his busy academic schedule to share his knowledge and wisdom surrounding Nishitani, the Kyoto School, and Buddhism.
This Q&A was the final installment of a 15-week reading group focusing on Keiji Nishitani’s Religion and Nothingness. I regularly offer these types of virtual learning experiences, allowing for slow reading and deep discussion of difficult texts in philosophy and religion. If this is something which interests you, get in touch at jaredmorningst... or via email [e-mail]
#Philosophy #Religion

[@O.G.Rose.Michelle.and.Daniel]

This was wonderful: really, really liked it. Some points that I jotted down:

1. The distinction between “singularity” and “individuality.”
2. Learning that the term “Buddhism” was something the Germans came up with (I had no idea).
3. The idea that religion involves dogma and that spirit entails experiences of “nothing” (to use those Christian terms). It’s as if religion is a dogma that covers the “experience of nothing” (suspensions of thought) which constitutes spirit.
4. The insight that the Western belief “you don’t know a thing unless you can define is” is contrasted strongly with the East (which reminds me of work on David Hume).
5. That notion that if the self doesn’t exist, religion can’t exist, in a sense.
6. The reflections on “the ecstatic self” (or “open self”-which kind of reminded me of the book I Am a Strange Loop).
7. “My ground comes to me as a question” - great phrase.
8. The point that the question “How do I deal with my self that is gone?” is its own answer.
9. On the overall idea that spiritual life is learning to deal with the experience that nothing holds up anything-the realizing that there is no Being under being (that can at least be confirmed or experienced as such in terms of beings). I’m particularly interested in how this impacts sociology and “societal formation,” as I try to write about in Belonging Again.

Anyway, a really great talk which has me thinking a lot. Great work!

[@Matthew-pm8fg]

Helpful notes, thank you.

[@O.G.Rose.Michelle.and.Daniel]

@@Matthew-pm8fg My pleasure! Thank you for saying so.

[@marcbarcelona1973]

Great notes, thank you!

[@gunterappoldt3037]

Well, two critical comments, if I may:
(1) The pivot of Nishitani´s religio-philosophical system rather seems to be existentialist: "生死大事/the big affair of life-death". The horizon of "nothingness", granted, may be implicitly be "hovering", but that´s another story...
(2) The term "shukyô/宗教" comprises several meanings (ancestor-worhip, origin/primordial ground/..., holistic unity/totality, ...), but not the one of "believe". Believe would, at best, be implicit as, let´s say, the condition for the possibility of (or pre-assumption for) proposing certain propositions, like: "There are ancestors in Heaven that have to be ritually nourished and revered", as the older variants of the ideogram "宗" imply.
I wonder, did I overlook something?

[@mikehutchinson4826]

This is a very good elaboration on the Mahayana teaching of emptiness.

[@anthonylawton5363]

Thank you. Brilliant! Jason is such a gifted communicator.

[@petera141]

who is Wasugi? am i spelling it right. Want to locate the book AFudo that JW references

[@JaredMorningstar]

Watsuji Tetsurō!

[@room9podcast]

Which came first the chicken or the egg? Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk!

[@Californiansurfer]

Busho. You are it.

[@ResoluteWay]

Thanks so much for posting this exceptional exchange between a gifted teacher and some deep-thinkings students. I'm very grateful that that stumbled into it. I eagerly look forward to reading Wirth's work.

[@alialeksandrovic8136]

Loved this session, and am very grateful to have listened to Tetsuzen.
Thank you for putting this together and for posting it.
I'll write to you, Jared, about joining your reading group.

[@sarapourhassani]

Thanks for sharing this video.

[@pasisovi]

Thank you for this. One observation, why we always mention Christianism when mention a religion, and not Judaism, which is actually the base of Christianism and holds a far greater force in shaping the mind of the Western world; and is the founding stone of the Abrahamic religions.

[@DankoHC]

Thanks for sharing this man

[@fernandoorozco5968]

Thank you

[@ransetruman2984]

thank you for this.

[@JaredMorningstar]

Glad you found value in the conversation! Tetsuzen is phenomenal.

[@Californiansurfer]

Great interview

[@JaredMorningstar]

Thanks Frank!