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Chapter 11 Prolegomena to Shin Buddhist Studies* Kaneko Daiei Translated by Robert F. Rhodes I. Study Shin Buddhism teaches us to go to the Pure Land by saying the nenbutsu. That’s all. Since that’s all there is to the teaching of Shin Buddhism, is there any need to study it academically? This, I heard, was the question once posed by a person connected with the government’s educational policies. The same matter came up among my colleagues: X        %       |               #^  not the moon itself. Because the moon of enlightenment is something that words only point to, the realization of the person who preached the teaching and the words used to preach it are quite different. So one fundamental problem is language. I am planning on discussing this problem in greater detail elsewhere,13 but I want to share   %   #  ##   the nature of language a little more. It’s for this reason that I want to investigate linguistic philosophy, but I haven’t had time for it yet. But how is language treated in Buddhism? First, there is a theory that a word is not a dharma itself. This is found in Vasubandhu’s    .14 This thing that I hold in my hand is called a rosary. But the word “rosary” is not something belonging to the rosary itself. The word “rosary” does not belong to the rosary itself. The word “rosary” belongs to us. It is us who call this thing a “rosary.” When we perceive this rosary directly, we have no way of calling it, so we grasp it with the name “rosary.” It doesn’t mean that it has the name rosary. The Laozi says, “The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the name is the mother of the myriad things.”15 That’s really 183 PROLEGOMENA TO SHIN BUDDHIST STUDIES interesting. In the beginning, Mother Nature was nameless. Human life came into existence when names were given to things. Human life becomes meaningful only at this point. Buddhism speaks of “perfuming through words” (myøgon kunj¶ 名言薫習).16 This means that human life begins with names. What we have are signs and the name does not belong to the thing itself. Why do we give names to things that have no name? According to the Chengweishilun 成唯職論 (Treatise on Mere Consciousness), things have two characteristics: their individual characteristic (Jpn. jisø 自 相, Skt. & 1  ) and the common characteristic (Jpn. g¶sø 共相, Skt. såmå & 1  ).17 The individual characteristic is something that reveals that dharma itself, while the common characteristic is something that reveals the common characteristic possessed by a group of things. Our words cannot express the thing itself. For this reason, our words grasp at some common characteristic and give it a name. For example,  _  {             \  _   {_ {          _    {           ;     employ, as long as we use words, we are just playing with concepts. The true characteristic of the thing itself is beyond our knowledge. It is beyond what Kant calls understanding (Verstand). Our thoughts are a kind of judgment. “Flower” is a judgment. To speak of “this” or “that” is a judgment. Such judgment, in other words, is a kind of concept. It’s never the form of the thing itself. So what we express in words is not really the wisdom of self-realization gained through sensing something. What we express in words is not something we sense as “hot.” Through an expedient, provisional wisdom, we grasp the concept of “hotness.” That’s what the Chengweishilun says. However, because we are accustomed to using language, we think that language expresses the thing itself. We fall into delusion through “perfuming through words,” especially through the perfuming of the word “self.” From such a perspective, even the Buddhist teaching differs from the      ` > =åkyamuni’s true realization, what he really realized, is impossible to express in words. In so far as it is expressed, it has already been conceptualized. We must say that the words are already far away from the thing itself. However, there is a problem here. Buddhism speaks of individual characteristics and common characteristics. However, can there be a individual characteristic apart from the common characteristic? An individual characteristic is already a common characteristic. As long as we conceive of the common characteristic as something existing in opposition to the individual characteristic—that is to say, as long 184 KANEKO DAIEI as we consider the common characteristic as a concept—it can be said that the individual characteristic is also a concept. But when we cast away all of our...

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