ABSTRACT
In the second half of the twentieth century, a tendency among English language scholars of comparative theology and philosophy emerged in portraying Buddhist philosophy, and Japanese Zen Buddhist philosophy. In The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, Dogen develops what some of the Kyoto school philosophers will later call a philosophy of nothingness based on his examination of the records of the Chinese Chan masters and other Buddhist texts. The philosophy of emptiness emerged around two thousand years ago in the Prajnaparamita literature. Two of the sunyatavada texts that are important to the current discussion are nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakarika, and the Diamond Sutra. The sixth case of the Gateless Barrier introduces the rhetoric of silence in a narrative from. This rhetoric of silence is most visible in the four principles of Chan and the so-called flower sermon. Dogen argues that kyamuni's speech qua mitsugo comprises the non-dualism of individual and universal, form and formlessness.
