ANALOGOUS CONCEPTS

It is clear that, for more than two millennia, Western theology and philosophy (with the significant influence of science) have been engaged in an ongoing dialogue concerning

154

Without using the word skenosis, Heidegger nonetheless refers to “the in-dwelling of releasement.” See M.

Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking: A Translation of 'Gelassenheit', ed. J.G. Gray, trans. J.M. Anderson and E.H. Freund, Martin Heidegger: Works (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 85.

155

Contrary to the dichotomy that Guignon presents early in his book, placing self-loss and releasement (which he explicitly equates also to kenosis) in opposition to self-possession or enownment, the concept of kenosis already includes the self-empowerment – the “becoming what you are” – which self-emptying effects. More accurately oppositional to self-emptying is the concept of self-assertion, the advocacy of self-interest, irrespective of what the situation is calling for. See Guignon, On Being Authentic: 6-7. This matter is also taken up in J. Malpas, "From Extremity to Releasement: Place, Authenticity, and the Self," in The Horizons of Authenticity: Essays in Honor of Charles Guignon's Work on Phenomenology, Existentialism, and Moral Psychology, ed. H. Pedersen and L. Hatab (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014).

156

Heidegger, "Conversation on a Country Path About Thinking," 65.

157

Heidegger, "Memorial Address," 46, 55.

158

Ibid., 56-57.

159

kenosis, even if not always obvious or explicit. Before continuing and concluding this chapter with an examination of the postmodern radicalisation of that dialogue, it is important to see that kenotic thought is not limited to that which has occurred in the West. Indeed, thinking about things kenotic is something that transcends cultures and faith traditions, and finds considerable relevance in, for example, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, but undoubtedly also in others. I have neither sufficient expertise nor space in this dissertation to thoroughly elucidate the connections between kenosis and Eastern cultures,160 but even their nominal treatment is important in order to establish the inter- culture and inter-faith relevance of kenotic concepts, especially in the context of globalisation. There are also two other reasons. First, such treatment sets the stage for subsequent exploration of architecture and architects, somehow influenced by Eastern cultures and traditions: Tadao Ando and Buddhism at The Church of the Light (Chapter 5), I.M. Pei and Islam at the Museum of Islamic Art (Chapter 4), and Louis Kahn and Hinduism, the latter tradition intermixing with others to influence Kahn’s projects and design theories more generally (as briefly discussed in Chapter 3).161 Second, this overview invites more expansive and exhaustive research. Many theologians have taken up the topic of kenosis for its potential as a dialogical bridge between East and West; amongst them Jürgen Moltmann and Thomas Altizer (discussed earlier), as well as John Cobb, Jr. (1925-) and Masao Abe (1915-2006).162 Philosophers such as Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945), his student Keiji Nishitani (1900-1990), and, more recently, Steve Odin (1953-) have done likewise.163 Although much more could be done, this dissertation takes steps toward an opening-up of the same potential in architecture, an initial step being the following sketch, which locates kenotic thinking in major Eastern traditions.

160 _{John Caputo notes similar limitations as he begins to write on “Heidegger, Eckhart, and Zen Buddhism, in}

Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought: 203. Here, Caputo also notes Heidegger's reservations about the limitations of East-West dialogue, as expressed in his letter to the 1969 East-West Philsophers' Conference, meeting in Hawaii to explore "Heidegger and Eastern Thought." See W.E. Nagley, "Introduction to the Symposium and Reading of a Letter from Martin Heidegger," Philosophy East and West

20, no. 3 (1970): 221. In his letter, Heidegger laments the difficulties posed by “the fact that with few

exceptions there is no command of the Eastern languages either in Europe or the United States,” and by the deficiencies of translations, particularly into English.

161

A non-practicing Jew, Kahn is also influenced by the mysticism of the Kabbalah, and one of his most important works – Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (the National Assembly Building) – is located in Bangladesh, a predominantly Islamic country (though officially secular).

162

See, for example, J.B. Cobb and C. Ives, eds., The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian

Conversation, First Indian ed. (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1996); and Frederiks, "Kenosis as a Model for Interreligious Dialogue."

163

Nishida founded the Kyoto School of philosophy and, there, in 1945, introduced the correlation of kenosis and Buddhist sunyata, which has been called, “Japanese kenoticism.” See E. D. Cabanne, "Beyond Kenosis: New Foundations for Buddhist-Christian Dialogue," Buddhist-Christian Studies 13(1993): 103; and also, Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, trans. Jan van Bragt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); and S. Odin, "A Critique of the 'Kenōsis/Śūnyatā' Motif in Nishida and the Kyoto School," Buddhist-Christian Studies 9 (1989).

Buddhism and Taoism

The most obvious connection of Buddhism to kenotic thinking lies in the title of Buddha and in the story of its conferment. As the message of Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas fervently spread across India, people began to ask if this man was a god, an angel, or a saint, to which the man’s consistent reply was, “No.” But, when finally asked, “‘Then what are you?’, the man answered, ‘I am awake.’” Thus “his answer became his title … Buddha … the Awakened One”; the “man who shook off the daze, the doze, the dream- like inchoateness of ordinary awareness.”164 _{His legend unfolds – often with remarkable}

affinity to that of Jesus, more than 600 years later165 – as he forsakes the power to rule, which he would otherwise inherit from his father, and chooses to withdraw from the world of his self and be “clothed in [the] ragged raiment” of a servant, all passive actions that would see his ultimate exaltation.166 Arguably, then, Buddhism is foundationally kenotic, insofar as the story of Buddha is a story of kenosis; that of a volitional and risky act of self-emptying, by which the Buddha makes-room and makes-ready for – and keeps awake to – the approach of releasement, its potential in-dwelling, and the even greater situational attentiveness accorded thereby. Indeed, by way of kenosis, Buddha can be seen to exemplify Heidegger’s notion of thinking. The root term budh not only means to awake but also to know. Buddha can therefore also mean “Enlightened One.”167 _{But to}

know is to be aware, which need not imply already knowing or being aware of everything. Therefore, it may be equally or more accurate to see Buddha as becoming enlightened – kenotically – through an ongoing engagement with thinking (the ground of creativity).

This notion of thinking can also be seen to connect kenosis with Taoism (or Daoism),168 a Chinese tradition that significantly influences Zen Buddhism (itself a branch of Mahayana Buddhism).169 Indeed, Heidegger begins to suggest such a connection when, in On the Way to Language, he writes: “The word ‘way’ probably is an ancient primary word that speaks to the reflective mind of man. The key word in Laotse’s poetic thinking is Tao, which ‘properly speaking’ means way.” But then he laments that, owing to a tendency to interpret ‘way’ superficially, Tao is often translated as “reason, mind, raison, meaning, logos.” As Heidegger sees it,

164

H. Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), 80-81 (my emphasis).

165

There are, of course, fundamental theological differences, not least that between Christian monotheism, and Buddhist non-theism, but, in their respective legends, the key figures of each tradition bear many resemblances. The notion of early Buddhist influence on Christianity is a source of some debate amongst modern historians and Christian scholars.

166

Smith, The Religions of Man: 82-85.

167

Ibid., 80.

168

Tao is also romanised as Dao.

169

Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought: 204-205. Mahayana Buddhism distinguishes itself from Hinayana Buddhism in that it “stresses the accessibility of the divine to the layman” without need to enter a monastery.

Tao could be the way that gives all ways, the very source of our power to think what reason, mind, meaning, logos properly mean to say – properly, by their proper nature. Perhaps the mystery of mysteries of thoughtful Saying conceals itself in the word ‘way,’ Tao, if only we let these names return to what they leave unspoken …170

Thus, the link between Tao and kenosis is powerfully made. Kenosis, seen as that original opening-up which invites releasement and, with it, thinking – more precisely, poetic thinking171 – surely also invites the source of such thinking’s power. But this is not the only occasion on which Heidegger connects his concept of thinking with Buddhist thought. In “Who Is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra?”,172 _{he acknowledges Buddhism’s attention}

to the overcoming of self-will, or subject-ism; such subjugation being a prerequisite for Heidegger’s kind of thinking. In that attention, Buddhism is connected to what I have portrayed as the kenosis that makes-ready for releasement, and to the thinking, or creativity, that arises therefrom. Huston Smith (with vivid echoes of Heidegger) renders this Tao connection to creativity as “creative quietude,” and distinguishes it from any notion of “do-nothingness” or “passive abstention,” instead portraying it as the combination of “supreme activity and supreme relaxation.” Engaged in creative quietude, humanity “rides on an unbounded sea of Tao which feeds … through [the] subliminal mind.” Smith elaborates:

One way to create is through following the calculated directives of the conscious mind. The results of this mode of action, however, are seldom impressive; they tend to smack more of sorting and arranging than of genuine creation. Genuine creation, as every artist has discovered, comes when the more abundant resources of the subliminal self are somehow released. But for this to happen, a certain dissociation from the surface self is needed. The conscious mind must relax, stop standing in its own light, let go.173

The kenotic concept of emptiness leading to fullness is directly traceable to the Tao Te Ching (also Dao De Jing, or Daodejing, with texts dating from ca. 300 BCE), its writing traditionally attributed to an ancient Chinese philosopher and poet, Laotse (historicity uncertain). In fact, Heidegger quotes the entirety of its Chapter 11 in “The Uniqueness of the Poet”,174 _{wherein a wheel, a vessel, and a house are used to illustrate}

the essentiality of the emptiness in each. For example, the wheel is only able to propel

170

M. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, trans. P.D. Hertz (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 92 (my emphasis). This translation renders the name of the ancient Chinese philosopher as ‘Laotse’, but more contemporary romanisation often sees it as ‘Laozi’ or ‘Lao Zi’. To avoid confusion, I will use Laotse, as used in this initial citation.

171 _{In the paragraph following this discussion of Tao, Heidegger appends poetry to thinking – as he does}

elsewhere – saying “These lectures make their way within the neighborhood of poetry and thinking …” See ibid., 92.

172

M. Heidegger, "Who Is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?," Review of Metaphysics 20, no. 3 (1967): 424.

173

Smith, The Religions of Man: 181 (my emphasis).

174

M. Heidegger, "Die Einzigkeit des Dichters," in Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000), 43.

the cart by virtue of the emptiness of its hub, which receives the axle, and by the empty space between its spokes, which allows the spokes to absorb tension and compression. Hence, while it is by the components of each object that they are used, such use is only made possible by the emptiness between those components. Heidegger reads Laotse in such a way as to support his notion of Being (granted by “the Non-being”) and being (yielding “the utility”); a reading critiqued by some Tao scholars as too ‘violent’ and self- serving of his own project, but defended by others.175 Nonetheless, what is at work here is clearly kenotic. Underscoring the essentiality of wu (the Chinese term for ‘not to be present’) in relation to you (the Chinese term for ‘there exists’)176 is comparable to underscoring the essentiality of emptying and emptiness as a readying for that which might approach, be received, and in-dwell; the essentiality of kenosis in relation to skenosis.

Perhaps the most kenotic aspect of Buddhism lies in its concept of śūnyatā. According to Masao Abe, “the ultimate reality for Buddhism is neither Being nor God, but Sunyata,” a term which “literally means ‘emptiness’ or ‘voidness’, and can imply ‘absolute nothingness’ … because Sunyata is entirely unobjectifiable, unconceptualizable, and unattainable by reason or will.”177 _{Particularly emphasised in Mahayana Buddhism,}

“Sunyata not only is not Being or God, but also not emptiness as distinguished from somethingness or fullness.”178 _{To self-empty is also to empty oneself of any attachment}

to the emptiness. Nishitani elaborates, describing sunyata as “the point at which we become manifest in our own suchness,” even as it is also “the point at which everything around us becomes manifest in its own suchness.” Thus it is seen as “an absolutely transcendent field,” yet “on our near side,” effecting an “absolute death-sive-life.”179 _At

this field – what could be seen as a bounded open domain, a ‘place’ or ‘situation’ – “everything that exists, including God … and the relationships between them, [are] made

175 _{Lin Ma is amongst those who closely analyse Heidegger’s use of Laotse’s writings and find “heavy-handed}

modifications of [Laotse’s] verses in order to suit them to his central concern with Being.” See L. Ma, "Deciphering Heidegger's Connection with the Daodejing," Asian Philosophy 16, no. 3 (2006): 159-167. Xianglong Zhang undertakes equally careful analysis, which includes many observations similar to Ma’s, but nonetheless attempts “to defend Heidegger’s Daoist exegesis and disclose the significance of his interest in Daoism.” See X. Zhang, "The Coming Time 'Between' Being and Daoist Emptiness: An Analysis of

Heidegger's Article Inquiring into the Uniqueness of the Poet via the Lao Zi," Philosophy East and West 59, no. 1 (2009): 71-87.

176

These are the definitions presented in Ma, "Deciphering Heidegger's Connection with the Daodejing," 161. As seen later, in Chapter 5, the Japanese rendering of this term is mu, or, if specifically referring to the empty space between as in an interval, then the term ma can be used. (The term’s similarity to author Lin Ma’s surname is coincidental.)

177 _{M. Abe, "Kenotic God and Dynamic Śūnyatā," in}

The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian

Conversation, ed. J.B. Cobb and C. Ives (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1990), 27. Here, Abe also suggests that to properly portray its unobjectifiable nature, “we should … put a cross mark ‘X’ on Sunyata,” just as Heidegger did with his term, Sein, for the same reason. The referenced use of a cross mark ‘X’ over the word Sein, appears in M. Heidegger, The Question of Being, trans. J.T. Wilde and W. Kluback, First ed. (Albany, NY: NCUP, 1958), 88.

178 _{Abe, "Kenotic God and Dynamic Śūnyatā," 27.} 179

possible.”180 _{Indeed, it is here “that beings one and all are gathered into one, while each}

one remains absolutely unique in its ‘being’,” and form a relationship wherein “all things are master and servant to one another,” in other words, a “circuminsessional” relationship (and thereby, a compassionate one), which also brings forth the existence of ‘things’.181

Potentially manifested at this “field of circuminsessional interpenetration" is consciousness, because “consciousness is originally emptiness.”182

Thus, the Buddhist concept of sunyata – “the pure activity of absolute emptying”183

– shares fundamental characteristics with the Western concept of kenosis, which, if not precisely the same, must at least be seen as the making-room for, and enabling of, the field of sunyata. Found therein are the self-emptying or self-dying of a “death-sive-life”; the surrender to a field or situation in which self, others, and other things exist relationally, in a circumincessional relationship that is perichoresis; and, finally, the potential approach and filling, or in-dwelling, of consciousness, also seen as awakedness, awareness, attentiveness, thinking, or creativity. Moreover, like kenosis, sunyata is dynamically immanent, incomplete, and unending. According to Abe:

We are right here, right now, in Sunyata. We are always involved in the ceaseless emptying movement of Sunyata, for there is nothing outside it. And yet, in another sense, we are always totally embracing the ceaseless movement of Sunyata within ourselves. We are Sunyata at each and every moment of our lives … In this living realization … true Sunyata is nothing but the true self and the true self is nothing but true Sunyata. Apart from the absolute present – right here, right now – this dynamical identity of self and Sunyata cannot be fully realized.184

Although little is said of the volitionality of sunyata, there is an understanding that one can attempt to objectify the unobjectifiable sunyata – doing so intentionally or otherwise – and thereby remain attached to being, or “the objects of self.” This “endless, unconscious thirst to be” – avidya – “can be overcome when one completely empties oneself.”185 _So,

although sunyata is constantly underway – like kenosis – its realisation is imperfect and susceptible to compromise, whether by ignorance or will. In its unceasingness, sunyata is also forever incomplete – like kenosis – neither a goal nor an end, but a threshold.

Against the Buddhist notion of sunyata being unobjectifiable, it is worth noting that antecedent ideas had already become represented (a kind of objectification), when, in early Indian culture, the symbol for ‘zero’ – a dot – evolved to become an open circle and

180

Ibid., 99.

181 _{Ibid., 148. Nishitani uses the term “circuminsessional” with the same meaning as others use}

‘circumincessional’. Both nonetheless describe the Greek notion of perichoresis. See note 25.

182

Ibid., 153.

183 _{Abe, "Kenotic God and Dynamic Śūnyatā," 27.} 184

Ibid., 28.

185

was named by the Hindu word sunya, which also implied void or nothingness or emptiness. Buddhism gradually became imbued with such ideas, which, particularly in Zen Buddhism, extended to conflate notions of form with emptiness. Zen and its circle imagery thrived in their emigration from India to China and, in the thirteenth century, from China to Japan, where the figure of the circle became known as the ensō and was further objectified in painting and calligraphy.186 Diverse meanings are attached to this ‘circle’. John Daido Loori (1931-2009), a Zen Buddhist rōshi (Master teacher, or elderly wise man), sees the enso much as Abe sees sunyata: the “direct expression of thusness, or this-moment-as-it-is,” but also as “enlightenment” and the “continuing and ceaseless action through all time.”187 _{Robert Aitken (1917-2010), a Zen teacher, ascribes to these}

circles the potential for both “emptiness” and “fullness.”188 Indeed, the daily act of drawing an enso can be seen as a kind of self-emptying, a kind of kenosis that enables spiritual filling. And Audrey Seo (1966?-), scholar and author in Japanese art, notes that, while it can indeed invoke universal power, the enso is at once symbolic of “the void, the fundamental state in which all distinctions and dualities are removed: ‘Outside – empty, inside – empty, inside and outside – empty.’”189 Although the enso is often drawn as a