The Heart of Buddhist Philosophy: #REF!

Acknowledements

Acknowledgments The philosophers upon whose labors the present writing has rested are those who have lived on both sides of the Pacific Basin and who have sought to contribute to a deeper understanding of our life in the world. During the last century and a half, this philosophic labor has been intensified by turbulent changes sweeping over the most powerful nations as they reach for broader and deeper social unities and modes of communication. It is impossible for me to find words adequate to express my gratitude to the symphony of philosophers found in these pages. My indebtedness for this reason is best left to the documentation. The significance of these philosophers can best be indicated, however , by saying very simply that their insights are presently becoming unavoidable for rescuing humankind from the intellectual and cultural traps of the past. The present book is primarily an invitation to readers to enter into direct communication with the small number of philosophers East and West-half a hundred at the very most-who have been most alert to the human failure that Whitehead calls the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness," the failure to be aware of the power of conceptual systems to hold men and women, as it has been said in Tibet, in deep sleep. The Buddhist contribution is formulated most clearly in chapter 4 in connection with the labors of Nagarjuna, sometimes referred to as the Plato of the Buddhist tradition. The chapter has been read by Kenneth K. Inada, who has specialized on Nagarjuna throughout his career. The chapter has been given its wider historical sweep by Herbert V. Guenther, both through his published writings and through his personal xiii xiv Acknowledgments communications with the author. The contribution of Western philosophy to combating the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" has been brought into focus in the work of Charles Hartshorne. In twenty-five centuries of philosophy East and West, Nagarjuna and Hartshorne have performed similar historical functions: as rigorous logicians with a sharp sense for the nonlogical side of awareness, both have worked to loosen their traditions from the compulsive grip of prevailing intellectual commitments, Nagarjuna freeing Buddhism from its ancient Upanh,adic past, Hartshorne freeing the West from its long moorings in AristotelianThomist thought. As compared with these two - Nagarjuna and Hartshorne-philosophers past and present have struggled indecisively in the nets of language. The insights constituting the central core of the book have been clarified by the recent studies of Heraclitus by Ken Maly and by the as yet unpublished writings of David Lee Miller, both philosophers at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse. Both have fostered a clearer grasp of what I have learned from many years of reading Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Alfred North Whitehead, and Charles Hartshorne on the philosophical traditions of the West and equally long preoccupation with Kenneth K. Inada, Herbert V. Guenther, Hajime Nakamura, and my Japanese colleague Seizo Ohe, all of whom are authorities in the traditions of the East. The many people who have assisted me in my fieldwork in Burma and Japan must remain anonymous for the time being, though my friend Nyanaponika Mahathera, now president of the Buddhist Publication Society in Sri Lanka, should be acknowledged in this connection. Words could never convey the deep gratitude I feel for the contributions of Curtis 1. Clark to the form and content of this book. His labors have far exceeded the usual duties ofeven the most distinguished editors. The indebtedness that is greatest of all, however, is to my wife, Grace, who continues to be the individual I have known who most fully embodies a sense of gratitude and reverence for the present moment and an ability to relate spontaneously to the wonder of life in the passing now. The Heart ofBuddhist Philosophy ...