ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the closeness of Meister Eckhart’s way of thinking to that of Mahayana Buddhism, especially of Zen Buddhism. Eckhart’s statement regarding God’s self-love which ‘contains his love for the whole world’ corresponds in a way to the Buddhist idea of universal enlightenment. The idea of enlightenment may make Buddhists appear in some respects more impersonal and metaphysical than Christians. Buddhism thus may be considered more scientific and rational than Christianity which is heavily laden with all sorts of mythological paraphernalia. Buddhist philosophy is the philosophy of ‘Emptiness’, it is the philosophy of self-identity. Self-identity is to be distinguished from mere identity. In an identity we have two objects for identification; in self-identity there is just one object or subject, one only, and this one identifies itself by going out of itself. Self-identity is the logic of pure experience or of ‘Emptiness’.
