Zen and Philosophy

Chapter 4. Existential Impasse and Zen Practice: (1894–1899)

Chapter 4 Existential Impasse and Zen Practice (1894–1899) In July 1894 Nishida returned to Kanazawa, where he was promised a position as a teacher of English at the Ishikawa Prefecture Ordinary Middle School. But in September he learned that someone in the prefecture office had suggested another candidate. The official explanation was that someone trained in English had become available. Because he had just declined a job for which he had been recommended by Höjö Tokiyuki, he was terribly disturbed by this unexpected course of events.1 Nishida found the conduct of the officials and school administrators unconscionable and confided to Yamamoto: “I sigh at the degree of corruption of the ‘real world,’ into which I have stepped for the first time from holy academia.”2 He wrote to his friends, Fujioka Sakutarö, Matsumoto Bunzaburö, and Ueda Seiji,3 asking them to keep their eyes open for a teaching position. The slight chance that Nishida might take over the position vacated by Kiyozawa Manshi in Kyoto just did not materialize.4 Nishida was obliged to spend the rest of 1894 unemployed. Although he could still subsist on a bit of money left in his name by way of inheritance,5 he needed an income to support himself and his mother. The situation was not desperate, however. Besides, his friends were engaged in projects that were not generating an income and that did not interest them. Fujioka, after graduating from the Department of Japanese Literature, did not even think of getting a job and was working on his first book, Nihon füzokushi [A history of Japanese customs ], together with Hiraide Köjirö.6 Suzuki was busy translating into Japanese Paul Carus’s book, The Gospel of Buddha.7 Being encouraged by the example of his friends, Nishida resolved to “be useful to society ” and decided to introduce Thomas Hill Green’s thought to the Existential Impasse and Zen Practice (1894 –1899) Japanese.8 Green’s Prolegomena to Ethics9 was used as a textbook in Nakajima Rikizö’s seminar (Yamamoto was sitting in on the seminar). Nishida found the Prolegomena rather hard to follow, with many ambiguous phrases.10 But he came to feel that “Green’s ideas, taken from Kant and Hegel, were not that original or novel.”11 By December he had decided that Green’s argument was tedious.12 He originally intended to write a summary of the whole book but lost interest midway through and abandoned the project after the second chapter of book 3. Thanks to Yamamoto, who was working as editor of a periodical , Kyöiku Jiron [Education Times], Nishida published his summary , “Gurïnshi rinri tetsugaku no taii” [The gist of Mr. Green’s moral philosophy]13 in three installments in May 1895.14 In 1895 Nishida was hired as head teacher of the newly founded branch campus of the Ishikawa Prefecture Ordinary Middle School and assumed his duties as of April 1, with a monthly salary of forty- five yen, a standard sum for a starting teacher. He had five colleagues assisting him. The branch campus was located in Nanao, a scenic port town on the eastern coast of the Noto Peninsula, about sixty kilometers northeast of Kanazawa. It was part of his job description to recruit students to attend the school; therefore, he walked miles and miles (the sole means of transportation in the countryside in those days was one’s legs), visiting little towns and villages to arouse the interest of prospective students. He was moderately successful in this effort. As head teacher, he was also required to give lectures to local educators whenever an occasion arose. On April 29, 1895, however, the school building burned down in a fire that razed the town of Nanao; the authorities moved the school to a local Buddhist temple, and the dormitory and the administrative office to another local temple, and the classes resumed on May 6. This did not dampen Nishida’s spirits, for the people of Nanao showed their sympathy and extended their utmost support to the school. Nishida was young, motivated, and idealistic. He taught ethics, English, and history. Teaching ethics to the teenagers especially presented him with the question “how to teach.” Nishida consulted Yamamoto , who was finishing his studies in pedagogy at the university: I find that it is useless to discuss ethical theories in the beginning. Do you happen to know of any good reference book? I wonder how Shöin15...