ABSTRACT
Many writers have commented on connections between the work of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and Chan/Zen Buddhism—a school of Buddhism originating in China around the 6th Century. In this chapter, we will explore one aspect of that connection, drawing on the work of the Japanese Zen philosopher Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253). Heidegger held that being is ineffable, and Dōgen held that ultimate reality is ineffable. Now, ineffability is an extreme form of indeterminacy: if something is ineffable it transcends any determinacy whatsoever. However, there is an obvious contradiction involved in talking about the ineffable, as do both Heidegger and Dōgen. Indeed, even to say that something transcends all determinacy is to give it a determination. Though Heidegger and Dōgen’s concerns are, prima facie, completely different, we will show that they both responded to the contradiction (or came to respond to it) in exactly the same way: they were dialetheists about the matter. Not only did they endorse the contradiction in question, but they both, in much the same sense, also endorsed the necessary entanglement of the speech of effability and the silence of ineffability. Finally, by looking at the work of Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990), we will show that the thoughts of Dōgen and Heidegger converge in the fact that the subject of the contradiction for both may, in fact, be seen as nothingness.
