Empty ethics: Bodhisattva ethics in Nishitani Keiji's 'Religion and Nothingness'

摘要

Writings about Buddhist ethics and Mahayana Buddhist ethics in particular cannot escape two basic problems. The first problem is that the often-misunderstood soteriological aim of Mahayana, achieving Nirvana, conflicts with the tradition's normative ethics because Nirvana is posited as transcending worldly conventions. The second problem is that Mahayana Buddhist emptiness ontology seems to destroy the idea of ethical action by revealing the fallacy of acting from the standpoint of an individual self. For these reasons, it has been said that Mahayana ethics is impossible. By utilizing the Zen Buddhist philosophy of Nishitani Keiji's Religion and Nothingness, I will demonstrate that these two problems are misinterpretations of basic Mahayana tenets and that when Mahayana soteriology and ontology are properly understood, they do not conflict with the tradition's normative ethics. Furthermore, I will use Nishitani's interpretation of the Bodhisattva to show that there is ethics without an ethical agent.