A Critique of the "Kenosis / Sunyata" Motif in Nishida and the Kyoto School

Abstract

If, as the famed historian Arnold Toynbee has asserted, the epoch-making event of the twentieth century is the interface between Christianity and Buddhism,' then this event has been brought into sharper focus through the mutual encounter of two monumental ideas: Christian kenosis (self-emptying) and Buddhist sunyata (emptiness). The locus classicus for kenotic theology in the West is the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, which propounds that we must have the of Christ, who himself, or, as it were, made himself nothing (Gk. heauton ekenosen), thereby to become a servant who gave his life for the sake of others. To cite directly from the kenosis hymn: In your minds you must be the same as Jesus. His state was divine, yet he did not cling to equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-9). The Christian idea of kenosis is at once reminiscent of the Buddhist concept of sunyat2 (emptiness) in its standard definition as an#tman (no-self, selflessness, or non-ego). Just as the mind of Christ is formulated by Philippians 2:5-9 in terms of kenosis or self-emptying, so the mind of Buddha is similarly described in the Pali Canons. The eminent Thai monk Buddhadasa Bhikku, who has emphasized throughout his writings the importance of s-unyata (Pali: sunnat2) in Theravada Buddhism on the basis of its central role in the earliest Buddhist scriptures, cites the Buddha's discourses as recorded in the Pali Canons, followed by his own commentary: