Han, for once, delves explicitly into eastern thought, though, as usual, comparing and contrasting its tenets with western philosophy, particularly the Greeks and German idealists, along the way. His focus is on Zen, but he also describes Buddhism more generally. Han begins with the concept of nothingness and the lack of an inner subject in Zen. “The Buddhist nothing is opposed to inwardness…. The Buddhist nothing’s lack of ‘exclusive subjectivity’ or ‘conscious will’ is not a ‘deficiency’ but a strength of Buddhism. The absence of ‘will’ or ‘subjectivity’ is precisely what constitutes the peacefulness of Buddhism…. Buddhism’s foundation is an empty centre that does not exclude anything…. The Zen sayings about Buddha being ‘broken tiles and pebbles’ or ‘three pounds of flax’ indicate the orientation towards immanence in the spiritual attitude of Zen Buddhism. They express the ‘everyday mind’ that makes Zen Buddhism a religion of immanence…. The worldview of Zen Buddhism is not directed upwards, nor is it oriented towards a centre. It lacks a ruling centre. One might also say: the centre is everywhere…. In a single plum blossom, the whole universe blooms…. The nothing of Zen Buddhism does not offer anything to hold on to, no solid ‘ground’ that one could be sure of or ascertain, nothing that one could cling to…. The path does not lead into ‘transcendence’. One cannot flee from the world, because there is no other world.”
Having dealt with both a lack of inwardness and of transcendence, Han moves on to the Buddhist concept of emptiness. “Substance (Latin: substantia, Greek: hypostasis, hypokeimenon, ousia) is without a doubt the fundamental concept of occidental thought…. The central Buddhist concept of sunyata (emptiness) is in many respects a counter-concept to substance…. It empties out all being that remains within itself, that insists on itself or closes itself up in itself. Sunyata spills such beings into an openness, into an open, stretched-out distance…. Emptiness, however, is not a principle of creation; it is not a primary ‘cause’ from which all beings, all forms, ‘emerge’…. It does not mark a ‘transcendence’ that precedes the forms as they appear. Form and emptiness are situated on the same level of being…. Emptiness empties the one seeing into what is seen…. One individual being reflects the whole in itself, and the whole dwells in this one being…. Emptiness thus does not mean the negation of the individual…. The emptiness or the nothing of Zen Buddhism is therefore not a simple negation of beings, not a formula for nihilism or scepticism. Rather, it represents an utmost affirmation of being. What is negated is only the substance-like delimitation that produces tension…. In just one thing, then, the whole world dwells.”
As is his want in almost all of his books, Han brings in Hegel. “Hegel’s notion of spirit, with inwardness being its fundamental trait, is certainly opposed to the Zen Buddhist notion of spirit. Zen Buddhist practice is an attempt at de-internalizing spirit without, however, immersing it in, or turning it into, a pure ‘outside’ and without hollowing it out by reducing it to a ‘vegetative covering’. The aim is to empty out the spirit, to make it awake and collected without inwardness. Satori [understanding] may well refer to that state of the spirit in which spirit flowers, so to speak…. Satori is the other of selfhood, the other of inwardness…. Spirit de-internalizes itself in an indifference, even in friendliness.”
Of course, Han also brings in Heidegger, in opposition to the Zen concept of wandering through life and being at home nowhere. “Dasein perceives the world only with regard to itself, to its own possibilities of being…. The heart that dwells nowhere is opposed to the kind of subject whose fundamental trait is the continual return to itself…. Dwelling nowhere, wandering, presupposes a radical renunciation of possession, of what is mine. Basho walks himself and his possessions away…. The temporality of his hiking is without future…. His wandering is free of any teleological or theological meaning. Basho has always already arrived…. Basho is hiking because he strives to be nowhere…. Dwelling nowhere radically questions the paradigm of identity…. The heart that dwells nowhere, that does not cling on to anything, follows the changing circumstances…. In its detachment, the heart is not tied to anything, and it knows neither joy nor sorrow, neither love nor hate. The heart that dwells nowhere is too empty, so to speak, to be capable of love or hate, joy or sorrow…. Emptiness, however, cannot be an object of desire, for it is nothing. It empties out all desire…. Emptiness, however, is not the wholly other of the multiform, manifold world. It is the world…. To dwell nowhere is not to flee from the world. It is not the negation of dwelling in this world.”
Han finishes this short treatise by taking on death and friendship—an odd pairing. “Death does not put an end to what is mine. Instead as my death, it calls forth an intense I am. I am dying therefore means: I am…. In Zen Buddhism, death is not a catastrophe or a scandal, but nor does it set in motion a labour of mourning that works compulsively against finitude…. In the face of death Zen Buddhism cultivates an attitude of letting go [Gelassenheit] that is free of heroism and desire…. Finitude begins to shine, without the brilliance of infinity or the semblance of eternity…. The impermanent world is not transcended towards infinity. You do not move somewhere else. Rather, you immerse yourself in impermanence.” Finally, Han concludes, “Emptiness must be understood as a medium of friendliness. In the field of emptiness, there are no strict demarcations. Nothing remains isolated in itself or within itself. Things nestle up to one another, reflect each other. Emptiness de-internalizes the I into a rei amicae that opens up like a guest house…. Original friendliness is not something that is exchanged between persons; it is not a case of ‘someone’ being friendly towards ‘someone’. Rather, one should say: no one is friendly…. It is a gesture of emptiness.”
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