The noumenal aspect of nature is the fact of direct experience in which subject and object have not yet separated, ... what people usually refer to as nature is what remains after the subjective aspect, the unifying activity, is removed from concrete reality. For this reason, there is no self in nature. Nature is simply moved from without according to the law of necessity, and it cannot function spontaneously from within.
Our subjective unity and the objective unifying power of nature are originally identical. […] The things that we designate as mountains, rivers, grasses, trees, insects, fish, birds and beasts all have their own respective individuality. Nature as a truly concrete reality does not come into being without having a unifying activity. Nature therefore possesses a kind of self, too. Only when there is a unifying self does nature have a goal, take on significance, and become a truly living nature. […]
Most people of religion conceive of God as something like a great human who stands outside the universe and controls it. This notion of God is extremely infantile … As previously stated, there is a fundamental spiritual principle at the base of reality, and this principle is God. This idea accords with the fundamental truth of Indian religion: Ātman and Brahman are identical. God is the great spirit of the universe. …
Just as there is no world without God, there is no God without the World […] God is none other than the world and the world is none other than God … The criticism of pantheistic ideas – such as the idea that all things are a manifestation of God – is voiced in conjunction with the problem of explaining the origin of evil. To my way of thinking, there is originally nothing absolutely evil; all things are fundamentally good, and reality, just as it is, is the good.
Our subjective unity and the objective unifying power of nature are originally identical. […] The things that we designate as mountains, rivers, grasses, trees, insects, fish, birds and beasts all have their own respective individuality. Nature as a truly concrete reality does not come into being without having a unifying activity. Nature therefore possesses a kind of self, too. Only when there is a unifying self does nature have a goal, take on significance, and become a truly living nature. […]
Most people of religion conceive of God as something like a great human who stands outside the universe and controls it. This notion of God is extremely infantile … As previously stated, there is a fundamental spiritual principle at the base of reality, and this principle is God. This idea accords with the fundamental truth of Indian religion: Ātman and Brahman are identical. God is the great spirit of the universe. …
Just as there is no world without God, there is no God without the World […] God is none other than the world and the world is none other than God … The criticism of pantheistic ideas – such as the idea that all things are a manifestation of God – is voiced in conjunction with the problem of explaining the origin of evil. To my way of thinking, there is originally nothing absolutely evil; all things are fundamentally good, and reality, just as it is, is the good.
Nishida Kitaro, Zen no Kenkyu - An inquiry into the good.
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