Public Theology and Comparative Study of Buddhism:
Semantic Realism through Intertextual Clarification
Paul S. Chung
Distinguished Professor of Public Theology
Director, Forum Center, Berkeley, CA
Abstract
Keywords. Bodhicitta, Homo Lector; Disgrace Effect; Eckhart’s Mysticism, Zen, Nihilism
Epistemic Strategy and Comparative Religion
Veli‑Matti Kärkkäinen seeks fresh resources for interfaith engagement—including the shared study of sacred scriptures—by drawing on the paradigm of recognition. He proposes that this multidisciplinary framework can equip religious traditions to navigate questions of unity and difference, as well as inclusion and exclusion. To that end, he engages a wide range of philosophical and social‑theoretical discussions on recognition, alongside recent developments in Christian theological—especially ecumenical—studies.[1]
Clarifying religious discourse and fostering interreligious understanding are essential tasks for public theology as it engages comparative religion. A sociological inquiry into comparative theology incorporates a method of problematization into the hermeneutical and interpretational reading of sacred texts. Such critical inquiry enables reflective interrogation of problematic regimes, illuminating how religious ideas become entangled with material interests and power structures, often producing “disgrace effects” through distortion within hegemonic systems.
At the same time, this inquiry seeks to recover and reinterpret the constructive resources of religious traditions for practices of solidarity and compassion. It favors immanent critique—examining contradictions between discourse, society, and institutional systems—in order to envision emancipatory social change.
As a reading example, I first analyze the seminal text Bodhicaryāvatāra (The Way of the Bodhisattva), focusing on the Buddhist principles of dependent origination and Emptiness. This analysis highlights the significance of the text for Buddhist–Christian engagement.
In seeking to articulate Eckhart’s mystical approach to the hidden Godhead beyond God, comparative theology can be advanced through an analogical register that holds together both similarity and difference, while also acknowledging a shared experiential depth in the realization of the self—thus avoiding any collapse into a hybridized “god” that devolves into syncretism.
A subsequent critical interrogation examines how Emptiness has been distorted within problematic regimes—particularly the entanglement of Emptiness, violence, and nihilism in the militaristic misuse of Japanese Zen during the imperial era, as well as in later developments shaping Masao Abe’s interpretation of the seminal Buddhist text The Awakening of Faith for Zen in dialogue with Nietzsche and Pauline theology.
Through this intertextual clarification, the paper argues that public theology offers a social‑scientific framework for engaging in comparative inquiry into religious discourse and power relations, while promoting meaningful action and an ethics of responsible conviction.
Homo Lector, Recognition, and Intertextuality
Envisioned as a project of collectio—a practice of reading together—comparative theology seeks to rethink every theological question and to reread and rewrite every theological text in light of other sacred texts. For the art of interreligious reading, the homo lector must cultivate a posture of self‑effacement before the text, formed through patience, perseverance, and imagination.[2]
An art of self‑effacement in interreligious reading involves a deliberate bracketing of personal creativity and intersects with the challenge commentators face when they submerge their identities and agendas into the text. The lifeworld of the homo lector cannot be bracketed through self‑effacement alone. Rather, in the process of learning from other sacred traditions, an attitude of appreciative openness toward those texts functions as a kind of epoché as well as a mode of reflective distance.[3]
This posture correlates with a critical method of analyzing the socio‑cultural regime itself, which can be approached as an ensemble text whose layers of meaning must be interpreted in relation to their historical formation and power effects. Such an interpretive method is crucial for strengthening semantic realism and intertextuality within a social‑scientific framework, since meaning emerges through a network of textual references, social discourse, and cultural practices formed through structural coupling and interaction.
The concept of recognition has long been developed within philosophical and social‑theoretical studies, and it has gained renewed significance in Christian ecumenical theology. The recognition model remains essential for a sociological inquiry into comparative religion and public theology, where the task involves interrogating regimes of effective history among those situated at the periphery of religious and cultural worlds.
Therefore, the homo lector must be refigured as homo socius and homo ethicus. As homo socius, the reader pursues meaningful ethical action by attending to the particular, the irregular, and the non‑identical within other sacred traditions.
Semantic Realism, Horizons in Meaning, and Effective History
Comparative public theology is concerned with elucidating the public dimension of religious studies and their social effects. It does so through a sociological‑hermeneutical analysis of the interplay between religious ideas, material interests, and power relations within the broader spectrum of intertextuality. This inquiry does not conceal the position of sacred texts; rather, it acknowledges that they are historically conditioned, socially located, and shaped by interests.
In the encounter of differing horizons among sacred texts, new meanings can emerge for those engaged in interreligious reading. Interpretation follows an epistemic process of understanding shaped by historical influences and sustained through critical dialogue with the texts. In this way, interpretation becomes an open‑ended and dynamic approximation of truth, unfolding through the ongoing fusion of horizons.[4]
A genuine conversation with the text seeks both to appreciate the meaning and truth of the religious classics and to test their applicability or non‑applicability within the public sphere. This strategy, drawing on analogical discourse and critical‑dialectical reasoning (or analectical reference and index), demonstrates how meaning evolves in the interpretation of complex texts through dialogue with the other. It highlights resistance, difference, and irregularity, ensuring that engagement with sacred texts remains dynamic, critical, and open to transformation.[5]
In the process of understanding, one’s historically effected consciousness is also shaped by social location, for religious language as social discourse is always embedded within structures of power and material interests within socio‑cultural stratification. Buddhist notions of emptiness, for example, have been mobilized in support of imperial militarism, just as the Christian symbol of the cross has been transformed into the crucifix of the crusade.
If the fusion of horizons in understanding is shaped by the history of effect—then it must be acknowledged as socially and culturally conditioned by stratified systems. Such conditioning generates a problematic regime within history and society, one that calls the reader to adopt a proleptic intentionality in order to interrogate, resist, and renew it.
This epistemic stance places a hermeneutical notion of the history of effects alongside a genealogical account of power‑ridden history, which traces the contingent emergence of ideas and institutions through struggles over power. This critical‑constructive view of history as effect adopts an archaeological mode of hermeneutics, offering a method for uncovering the layered structures of meaning, power, and discourse that shape religious and social life.
It strengthens semantic realism within an analectical strategy by synthesizing a regime of semantics—articulated through a horizon of meaning shaped by the history of effects—with the historical sites of power relations embedded in dominant social discourse. Such a procedure underscores the significance of homo socius and homo ethicus in sustaining semantic realism and a religious ethic of responsible conviction, thereby sharpening the interpretive reasoning of the homo lector.
Faith and Understanding in Correlation
As the Buddha said, “Whoever sees the Dhamma sees me; whoever sees me sees the Dhamma.”[6] The central Buddhist teaching is expressed in the Four Noble Truths, which are realized through the Noble Eightfold Path. As an axial religion, Buddhism entails an ethical way of life in the world, complemented by practices of meditation, wisdom, and generosity. The logical and philosophical dimensions of Buddhist teaching are interwoven with a rich variety of other forms of discourse, including symbols, and narratives.[7]
The object of faith (or devotion) is discovered through critical reflection and understanding. Enlightenment arises through the realization of dependent origination, which teaches that all phenomena emerge and cease through causes and conditions within a network of twelve interdependent links. Recognizing dependent origination does not diminish the significance of faith; rather, it works in harmony with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path as a guide for ethical living.
Both faith—expressed in devotion to the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha)—and intellectual discernment are essential in Nāgārjuna, the second‑century architect of Mahāyāna philosophy. [8] His integration of faith and reason within a dynamic interplay invites non‑Buddhists to read and critically engage Buddhist sacred texts, discovering how insight and devotion mutually illuminate the path toward understanding.
Similarly, a Christian understanding of faith seeks an interpretation of divine action within a reconciled world, inviting non‑Christian practitioners to critically engage Christian symbols and sacred texts. Faith and understanding form a semantic circle, interpreting the reality of life through the intertextual relationship between the faith community and the world reconciled in Christ for the sake of recognition, common good and collaboration regarding the shared lifeworld.
Within this comparative strategy of correlation, the Buddhist sacred text Bodhicaryāvatāra comes into focus. The Bodhicaryāvatāra (The Way of the Bodhisattva) is one of the most important source texts in the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition—alongside Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland and Asaṅga’s Bodhisattva Levels—and is especially influential within the Tibetan tradition. Composed in Sanskrit in eighth‑century India, the text is attributed to Śāntideva (c. 685–c. 763), a Buddhist monk associated with Nālandā University.[9]
Multiple Realities within Interpretation
The term bodhicitta has acquired diverse meanings across Buddhist contexts and traditions. Typically, bodhicitta has been translated as the “thought of enlightenment” or the “desire for enlightenment,” sometimes rendered simply as “awakening.” Bodhi refers to the state of being Buddha—the awakened one—in the Buddhist context, or, in modern translation, enlightenment or awakening. Citta has carried various technical meanings throughout its historical development, but its most basic and common senses include mind, thought, attention, or desire.[10]
In the Mahāyāna tradition, the term bodhisattva refers to any being (sattva) aspiring to enlightenment (bodhi); thus any being can become a bodhisattva, possessing buddha‑nature—the disposition and capacity to attain Buddhahood. The bodhisattva’s practice is grounded in the primary concern to lead all sentient beings who suffer within saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death, toward enlightenment, even while the bodhisattva’s own capacities remain unperfected.
This ethical orientation is expressed in the teaching of the Six Perfections (ṣat‑pāramitā)—generosity, morality, observance of the precepts, forbearance, effort, meditation, and wisdom—which the bodhisattva undertakes on the path to enlightenment and Buddhahood. These perfections highlight the social dimension of the bodhisattva ideal, particularly through practices of generosity and forbearance or tolerance.[11]
Early Mahāyāna spans the period from roughly the first century C.E. to the end of the third century. Its primary textual corpus is the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) sūtras, which articulate the nature of the Buddha, the practice of the bodhisattva, and the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā). Shorter distillations of this corpus include the Diamond Wisdom (or Diamond) Sūtra and the Heart of Wisdom (or Heart) Sūtra.
Nāgārjuna (ca. 150–ca. 250) is the major commentator of the early Mahāyāna period and is revered as the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school, which flourished from about 300 to the mid‑seventh century. Here bodhicitta is regarded as the root of enlightenment, yet it must be complemented by wisdom in the realization of emptiness (śūnyatā). The three factors—bodhicitta, great compassion (the altruistic mind of awakening), and the wisdom of emptiness—constitute the essential elements that together realize and complete the path to full enlightenment.
The true nature of dharmas is defined by their lack of inherent existence within the framework of dependent origination—what we call emptiness. This constitutes the ultimate truth, discerned through prajñā. His philosophical works were profoundly influential within the Tibetan tradition, particularly Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, which elaborates the Bodhisattva’s path to Buddhahood with poetic eloquence and fervor.
In the context of the Cittamātra (Mind-Only) school, bodhicitta is conceptualized as a form of tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-womb, a state of suchness) or ālaya-vijñāna (substratum-consciousness).
The notion of the seeds arises from the encounter of the six senses with the phenomenal world, generating impressions that may be tainted or untainted. Some beings are wholly devoid of untainted seeds, while others possess the pure seeds as the latent potential for Buddhahood. These impressions fall into the storehouse consciousness, functioning much like the latent strata of our subconscious mind.[12] By contrast, in the Middle Way school, Buddha‑nature is defined in terms of emptiness—the mind’s emptiness of intrinsic existence as the true nature of things themselves.
The idea of tathāgatagarbha is presented as the true meaning of emptiness—empty of all defilements, yet not empty of the inconceivable Buddha‑dharmas. This dual characterization, expressed in the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra and influenced by the early Mahāsāṃghika tradition (fourth century BCE), affirms that emptiness is not a mere negation but the luminous ground of all Buddha‑qualities. From this perspective, the teaching of emptiness in the Perfection of Wisdom literature is seen as incomplete, for it does not explicitly acknowledge the infinite excellent qualities of the Tathāgata.[13]
Given the diversity of textual traditions, Francis Brassard argues that the soteriological context in which the religious idea of bodhicitta is articulated must be taken into account. This Buddhist soteriology provides an important clue for sociological inquiry, enabling one to trace and analyze bodhicitta across its historical development and its varied social‑semantic expressions. Such inquiry reveals multiple realities, expressed through Buddhist discourses of emptiness, compassion, and the affirmation of non‑emptiness
Interdependence of the Two Truths in the Middle Way
The epistemology of the Middle Way serves as an antidote to mental perception and emotional attachment to the phenomenal world. In discussing the relation between relative and absolute truth, Śāntideva expounds: “Relative and absolute, these the two truths are declared to be. The absolute is not within the reach of intellect, for intellect is grounded in the relative.”[14]
The reality of the world is emptiness—the absence of inherent existence due to dependent origination—constituting the ultimate or absolute truth (nirvāṇa). At the phenomenological level, however, we cannot perceive things as they truly are, that is, the signified reality; instead, we apprehend only conceptual constructions, the signifiers shaped by ignorance, habitual patterns, and linguistic mediation.
Yet conceptual clarity and discourse still function as crucial signifiers that mediate the signified reality of Truth within the network of mutual interaction. Emptiness and dependent origination mutually imply one another, for nirvāṇa is identical with saṃsāra precisely because both are devoid of inherent existence. In the experience of the Absolute, we encounter it through the relative, qualified truth of the realm of appearance rather than as a stand‑alone Absolute or an isolated absolute nothingness.[15]
God and Bodhicitta in Buddhist-Christian Exchange
In a Buddhist-Christian context, Paul Williams—a former practicing Buddhist who later became Roman Catholic—maintains that the Bodhicaryāvatāra “is, like the Madhyamakāvatāra, a statement of the Bodhisattva’s path to Buddhahood, but distinguished by a poetic sensitivity and fervor which makes it one of the gems of Buddhist and world spirituality literature.”[16]
He introduces the moving passage from the Bodhicaryāvatāra (3:8–10), which expresses the aspirations and hopes of a bodhisattva who has generated bodhicitta—the compassionate resolve to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings:
May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.
May a rain of food and drink descend
To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger
And during the aeon of famine
May I myself change into food and drink
I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all things the cold need
And may these be placed close beside them.[17]
In Williams’s account, the poem is applied to bodhicitta as the nature of emptiness and compassion—the ultimate form of bodhicitta. This arises when conventional compassion is grounded in an awareness of ultimate emptiness. At this level, bodhicitta is described as extremely radiant: the pure, luminous mind of an enlightened being, identified with the dharmakāya or tathagatagarbha. It refers to the “Buddha‑embryo” within all sentient beings who possess buddha‑nature; this nature is understood as nothing less than the indwelling Buddha himself.
At a relative level, conventional bodhicitta, understood as moral bodhicitta, refers to the aspiring and engaging forms of bodhicitta. This entails a completely life-transforming experience, expressed in Śāntideva’s words as “becom[ing] a Son or Daughter of the Buddhas” (Bodhicaryāvatāra 1:9).[18]
Nonetheless, Williams remains suspicious of Śāntideva, who, under the influence of Madhyamaka philosophy, appears to undermine a central pillar of Buddhist ethical coherence—the Eightfold Path—while simultaneously denying both personhood and God.[19]
In contrast to Williams’s suspicion of alleged atheism, Perry Schmidt‑Leukel seeks to recognize the text “Entering the Course toward Awakening” as a powerful witness to a particular form of knowledge of God. His concern lies in discerning how such knowledge might be perceived within a non‑theistic sacred text from a Christian perspective, in order to explore the deep resonances between the Buddhist mind of awakening and the mind of Christ.[20]
Śāntideva himself refers to God as “inconceivable.” Importantly, “inconceivability” does not necessarily carry a negative connotation. Even within the Madhyamaka tradition, the Buddha is designated as the Inconceivable in the third Hymn to the Inconceivable among the famous Four Hymns attributed to Nāgārjuna. If the Buddha’s physical body is understood as the incarnation of his compassion and accumulated merit—existing for the sake of others in previous lives—then the Buddha’s dharmakāya arises from his perfected wisdom and insight into emptiness.
A distinction between emptiness and phenomenal appearance remains essential for understanding the historical Buddha in relation to the ultimate reality of Truth. I characterize this as a phenomenology of the signifier and the signified—a form of radical apophasis that resists substantialized or reified modes of thinking.
By contrast, the Yogācārins differentiate vijñāna (the sixth consciousness, or sensory perception), manas (the seventh consciousness, the realm of reflexive mental activity), and citta (the eighth consciousness, the ālaya‑vijñāna or storehouse consciousness). The notion of tathāgatagarbha refers both to the “embryo” or “womb” of the Tathāgata—highlighting the universal potential for Buddhahood enfolded within all sentient beings—and to a radical interpretation of emptiness within the Middle Way tradition. It thus expresses both the immanent accessibility of awakening and the apophatic depth of ultimate reality.
A doctrine of trikāya emerged in this tradition to articulate the Buddha’s presence across both the conventional and absolute realms. The nirmāṇakāya—the historical Buddha active within the ordinary world—and the saṃbhogakāya—the bliss‑body accessible to advanced bodhisattvas—are understood as dynamic manifestations or projections of the dharmakāya, the ultimate body of truth that transcends time, space, and conceptual determination. The dharmakāya is identified with the totality of the cosmos (dharmadhātu), which the Buddha embodies as the true nature of all things.
The Body of Complete Enjoyment (saṃbhogakāya)—a glorified, supramundane mode of Buddhahood—is associated with celestial Buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas who abide in pure realms. Such a teaching may appear to open epistemic space for a divine being such as Īśvara or Brahman in Hindu Vedānta, which posits a creator deity who governs karma and the world.
However, Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE) conceptualizes two aspects of a single reality—emptiness—rather than attributing metaphysical or ontological inconceivability to the Buddha. His position highlights the Six Perfections as central to the bodhisattva’s path, linking the realization of emptiness with the cultivation of bodhicitta (the enlightened mind).
In the beginning of Fundamentals of the Middle way (1:1-2) we read:
“He who taught dependent origination—
No cessation and no origination,
No annihilation and no permanence,
No coming and no going,
Neither different nor same—
This through claiming of conceptual elaborations:
To you, who is supreme speaker
Among all fully enlightened buddhas, I pay homage.”[21]
The Buddha to whom Nāgārjuna pays homage teaches that all things arise dependently and therefore lack intrinsic existence. On the ultimate level, what is affirmed is precisely the absence of intrinsic nature—while remaining open to whether the Buddha himself occupies an inconceivable ontological realm as the ground of all Buddhas, or whether he is understood as the manifestation of the dharmakāya, the Buddha’s realization of emptiness.
In Nāgārjuna’s Dharmadhātustava, the final teaching appears to gesture toward an inherently existing ultimate—the dharmadhātu—realized only through spiritual intuition. This suggests a dimension of ultimate reality that, while empty of inherent existence in the Madhyamaka sense, is nevertheless experienced as an abiding Absolute accessible in contemplative insight.[22]
Such a perspective opens a fruitful dialogue with Meister Eckhart’s mysticism of the grunt, the “ground” of the soul that encounters the Godhead beyond God, a reality prior to all conceptual distinctions.
A Mysticism of the Grunt
Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) employs the term to indicate the hidden depths of God at a level beyond God as the efficient cause of the universe. In the Godhead there is no distinction among the Trinitarian Persons, but only the absolutely One.
The hidden Godhead as negation of negation does not act; it “un‑becomes,” while remaining the precondition for all divine activity in the emanation (bullitio) of the Trinity, which includes the creative ebullitio. This dialectic of bullitio and ebullitio underlines the path of return to God through via eminentia,[23]underlying Neoplatonic dialectics between the signifying and the signified (via negationis), or indistinction and the negation of negation.[24]
If grunt is linked with principium to express the formal emanation of the Trinitarian Persons, it also describes the active dynamism of divine emanation—both the inner boiling (bullitio) within God and the outward boiling over (ebullitio) that signifies creation. This correlation of the ground, within a metaphysics of flow, finds a resonant parallel in the biblical expression of union in John 17:21. This provides the ground for ontological participation and adoption, highlighting “an ever‑present hominification of God and deification of humanity and the universe.”[25]
In distinguishing the Son by nature—Jesus Christ—from those who become sons by the grace of adoption and participation as coheirs, this account articulates a Christological innovation: the assumption of human flesh and the redemptive significance of the Word, which includes the eternal birth of the Son in the ground of the soul. This innovative pattern forms the basis for our transformation into the same image from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18), meaning that we receive the same image through total self‑denial, detachment, emptiness, and the breaking‑through into the silent desert. They point to a practical way of living without why—a daily, uninterrupted rhythm of detachment, birthing, and breaking‑through.
In attempting to relate Meister Eckhart’s mysticism to Zen Buddhism, however, one must acknowledge that the negative grasp of transcendence as absolute nothingness—and the breakthrough into true transcendence—is articulated in a far more radical and uncompromising manner in Zen. Zen Buddhism refuses theistic personalism and the salvific significance of divine grace; instead, it relocates the locus of ultimacy beyond the One. In this horizon, “nothing” is what is absolutely pure, corresponding to the traditional Buddhist term śūnyatā.[26]
For Eckhart the grace of the divine mode of existence is supernaturally given to the essence of the soul. God’s grace is understood as an efficient cause of God, gifts given freely and grace without merit. “By grace you haven been saved” (Ep 2:2:8). What God works in us and for us is received passively from without. “By God’s grace I am what I am” (1 Cor 15:10).
In grace, a person receives both conformity to God and distinction from God, expressed in the movement of flowing out toward all and flowing back in a return to God through saving grace. In this dynamic exchange, the soul is transfigured into and with God. This saving grace effects the breakthrough to the roots, enabling the intellective soul to discover her uncreated image as the offspring of God, wholly dependent on God’s gift. God alone is true beatitude, the end toward which our transformation moves (1 Cor 13:12).
This innovative reading strategy of theistic emanation and Christ‑centered grace shares an experiential depth—and a self‑realization of ultimate reality—with the Buddhist experience of emptiness, wondrous being and compassion in the world. Yet it simultaneously safeguards the dialogue from collapsing two distinct concepts—God and Emptiness in dependent origination—into a syncretistic hybrid deity.
Problematic Regime: Bodhicitta, Absolute Nothingness, and Violence
Nāgārjuna grounds his social position in great compassion, bodhicitta, and the wisdom of emptiness, thereby extending the bodhisattva path into concrete social responsibility and effective action. He advocates a rehabilitative approach to the treatment of prisoners, explicitly rejecting retributive capital punishment.[27]
According to D.T. Suzuki, the radical implication of Zen is conveyed and construed through the theory of śūnyatā, which he presents as resonant with the broader teaching of the Madhyamaka school, especially Nāgārjuna. Yet in Zen and Japanese Culture, Suzuki offered a romanticized portrayal of Zen as embodying spontaneous, intuitive freedom—a depiction that was later appropriated within the ideological apparatus of Japanese imperialism. In this context, notions such as “no‑mind” and self‑emptying were reinterpreted as virtues conducive to unquestioning obedience, self‑sacrifice, and militaristic zeal.
As Suzuki argues, “The art of swordship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the sword that gives life. …For it is not really he [the swordsman] but the sword itself that does the killing. He had no desire to harm anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is as though the sword automatically performs its function of justice, which is the function of mercy. The swordsman turns into a first rate artist, engaged in producing a work of genuine originality.”[28]
A second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army, Tanaka, became a practitioner of this teaching during the sack of Nanjing (December 13, 1937)—the so‑called “Chinese Holocaust,” one of the most devastating war crimes of the twentieth century.
In his interpretation of Zen and the Sword, D. T. Suzuki traces the genesis and historical development of Zen (derived from the Chinese transliteration and associated with satori, or Enlightenment) within the framework of modern Japanese Buddhism. He anchors this trajectory in what he terms “the doctrine of Buddha‑heart,”[29] a concept that, in this context, was tragically distorted to legitimize militaristic ideology and practice.
This iconoclastic tradition is embodied in the figure of Huìnéng (638–713 CE) in ancient China, the founder of the doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment, as expounded in the Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch. Its most important ideas revolve around three interrelated doctrines: no-thought (a pure and unattached mind), non-attribute, and non-abiding. Together, these negate inherent existence, fixed selfhood, and even the duality of inherent good and bad.
According to Masao Abe, in the Heart Sūtra’s stanza “form is emptiness,” the term “form” should be understood as nonsubstantial or formless, thereby privileging emptiness as absolute nothingness. Ethical “form,” in this reading, is continually emptied; when true śūnyatā is realized, ethical form itself dissolves into “formless” emptiness—a mode of wisdom no longer grounded in the compassion of bodhicitta.[30]
Following in the footsteps of Suzuki, Abe extends this logic to the Holocaust, grounding it in the collective karma inherent in human existence. Responsibility, he argues, should be shared by all people, not only the perpetrators.
By contrast, a deep realization of emptiness in the context of the Heart Sūtra gives rise to the aspiration to free oneself from suffering through meditative absorption on the appearance of the profound. This insight becomes the very ground for cultivating powerful compassion toward all sentient beings.[31]
In fact, karma is often likened to a psychological impulse behind an action or to a seed that participates in a natural process of maturation, eventually yielding a karmic fruit. In fact, the Buddhist teaching on karma differs from fatalism, for it emphasizes the significance of human action and its consequences, as well as the freedom to choose wisely. This entails an ethical posture of personal and collective responsibility in shaping one’s life—standing in contrast to any elusive attitude that would dampen or obscure the historical reality of the Holocaust or the Nanjing Massacre.
In his article “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” Robert H. Sharf, Professor of Buddhist Studies at UC Berkeley, offers an incisive analysis of the history of Zen as it became intertwined with Japanese culture in general and the ethos of the samurai in particular. As he argues, “the popular conception of Zen is not only conceptually incoherent, but also a woeful misreading of traditional Zen doctrine, altogether controverted by the lived contingencies of Zen monastic practice.”[32]
The Awakening of Faith: Zen, Nihilism, and the Great Death
Masao Abe engages with the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (traditionally attributed to Aśvaghoṣa), a foundational sixth‑century Chinese Mahāyāna treatise in which tathāgatagarbha (Buddha‑nature) is synthesized with Yogācāra’s “mind‑only” teaching.[33]
Abe interprets the Awakening of Faith through a Zen‑Nietzschean lens, aligning its teaching of Suchness with Nietzsche’s critique of Western metaphysics. For Abe, the core of Nietzsche’s nihilism does not lie in recognizing the delusory nature of the phenomenal world but in exposing the idea of God itself as a “sacred lie” embedded in European Christian civilization and the Platonic tradition.
For Nietzsche, the historical life of Jesus embodied a liberating vitality, yet the “good tidings” (Evangelium) died on the cross, degenerating into “ill tidings” (Dysangelium) through the institutionalization of Christianity.[34]
Abe argues that Nietzsche’s critique is not fundamentally different from the Buddhist and Zen standpoint, for value‑interpretation itself belongs to the discriminating mind. Both perspectives expose how conceptual constructions—whether metaphysical, moral, or religious—can obscure direct insight into reality. Unlike Nietzsche’s affirmation of life through the will to power, however, Abe maintains that the world of ignorance must be absolutely negated in order to point directly to the Original Mind, or Absolute Nothingness. In the infinite expanse of self‑awakening, the seeking mind ceases; one seeks neither God nor Buddha, for the very act of seeking belongs to delusion. Abe thus reads Nietzsche’s project as structurally parallel to Zen’s radical negation, even as their metaphysical commitments diverge.[35]
Interestingly, Abe finds an unexpected point of convergence with Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:31, which he interprets as expressing the true nature of death and the true meaning of life—over against Nietzsche’s notion of “dying at the right time” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (“On Free Death”).
Abe re‑reads Paul’s “daily dying” through the lens of the Buddhist concept of the Great Death, understanding it as essential to a profound affirmation of life. For Paul, to die daily is to participate in the death and resurrection of Christ, so that “Christ lives in me” through faith in the Son of God (Gal 2:20). Abe interprets this Pauline self‑emptying as structurally resonant with Zen’s radical negation of the ego, even though their metaphysical horizons diverge sharply.
As Abe argues, “Zen, which realizes birth-and-death itself as the Great Death and gains a new life of rebirth through the realization of the Great Death, does not differ from the standpoint of Paul in essence.”[36]
In what sense, essentially? Within Abe’s mosaic‑like, generalizing approach, a serious question emerges: Should Zen ultimately embrace the grace of Other Power through faith in Amida Buddha, or the resurrecting reality of the crucified Christ?
In Abe’s interpretation of the Awakening of Faith for Zen and Nothingness, a significant conceptual gap appears in articulating the relationship between the Absolute (the quintessence of Suchness), the tathāgatagarbha (the Tathāgata’s womb or Buddha‑nature), and the vast scope of Mahāyāna activity in the world—both phenomenal and supra‑phenomenal.
Unlike Abe’s reading—which tends to interiorize the Awakening of Faith as a philosophical disclosure of Absolute Nothingness—the treatise itself emphasizes trust in the fundamental truth and in the Buddha by directing worship toward the Buddha of Suchness together with Amida Buddha in the Western Realm. The text’s devotional orientation, its reliance on faith, and its affirmation of the salvific activity of the Buddhas stand in tension with Abe’s Zen‑centered interpretation.[37]
When the absolute mind assumes a relative aspect through its own self‑affirmation, it becomes the all‑conserving mind (ālaya‑vijñāna). This dynamic—where the One Mind manifests both as Suchness (the absolute) and as birth‑and‑death (the relative)—is central to the Awakening of Faith. Within this framework, sudden enlightenment does not contradict gradual enlightenment. Determined by Suchness in its relative aspect, ignorance gives rise to all forms of defilement, perfuming Suchness with adventitious impurities; therefore, even after awakening, the residual defilements and habit‑energies require further cultivation to eliminate them fully.[38]
Accordingly, Tsung‑mi (780–841), honored as the fifth patriarch in both the Hua‑yen tradition and Southern Ch’an, interprets the mind as Suchness in the Awakening of Faith as neither born nor destroyed—ineffable, inconceivable, and identified with the wondrous mind of perfect enlightenment, the one true dharmadhātu.
Within this framework, sudden awakening does not negate the necessity of gradual cultivation. Because the Absolute is empty of defilements, the true mind is eternal and self‑sufficient—empty of impurities yet not empty of its own luminous nature. Buddhist cultivation must integrate textual study and meditative discipline, grounded in the inseparability of prajñā and samādhi.[39]
Given this, Abe’s Zen‑centric reading simply does not match what the Awakening of Faith actually teaches. When the rhetoric of emptiness, no‑mind, and self‑transcendence is severed from the Bodhisattva ideal of compassion, the result is not liberation but distortion: a nihilistic logic of “absolute nothingness” that can be redirected toward self‑absolutization and, in extreme cases, the justification of violence.
Epilogue
In our comparative study of Buddhist texts on emptiness, dependent origination, and compassion, public theology assumes the constructive task of generating new theological possibilities through cross‑cultural and interreligious engagement, fostering bilingual and intertextual creativity. It positions comparative inquiry as a public, dialogical, and justice‑oriented practice that treats the world’s religious traditions as partners in addressing shared human challenges and a common lifeworld.
From this perspective, a Christian ethic of tolerance and patience—as articulated in Matthew 5:38–42—resonates deeply with Mahāyāna Buddhism, particularly in the context of Bodhisattva ideals. The gospel’s injunction to “love your enemies and pray for your persecutors” finds a meaningful parallel in Mahāyāna sources, where compassion toward adversaries is not merely recommended but elevated as a defining practice of the Bodhisattva path.
Accordingly, the Dalai Lama draws illumination from the gospel’s teaching that “the sun makes no discrimination where it shines.” This imagery conveys a profound sense of compassion, impartiality, and all‑embracing benevolence—qualities that Buddhists can affirm as integral to the Bodhisattva path.[40]
In our quest for interfaith engagement, the notion of recognition concerns how we embrace the Religious Other—affirming their value and dignity through clarified discourse on wisdom, truth, and compassion—without violating their personal or communal self‑identification and worth. Religious traditions are not isolated systems but interacting moral and spiritual resources within the universal history of religion, capable of addressing global crises such as poverty, violence, ecological degradation, and cultural fragmentation. The aim is not syncretism grounded in hybridity, blending, or the comparatist’s artificial ingenuity, but rather mutual critique, learning, and illumination in correlation. In this mode of engagement, traditions learn from one another in service of the common good and with an ethical commitment to the lives of those on the margins within the world of religion.
Bibliography
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Asvaghosa, The Awakening of Faith: The Classic Exposition of Mahayana Buddhism, trans. Teitaro Suzuki. Mineola, New York: Dover, 2003.
Bellah, Robert N. Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, Mass. London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Brassard, Francis. The Concept of Bodhicitta in Santideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Albany: SUNY, 2000.
Chung, Paul S. The Social Scientific Study of Religion: A Method for Constructive Theology. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2022.
Cloney, Francis. The Truth, the Way, the Life: Christian Commentary on the Three Holy Mantras of the Śrīvaişņava Hindu. Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge, U.K: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008.
Gadamer, H.-G., Truth and Method, 2nd ed. Rev. ed. and trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York, London: Continuum, 2004.
Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics; Foundations, Values and Issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Jones, Ken. The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective. Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2003.
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_______. Ed. Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher. New York: Paulist Press,1986.
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Mu Soeng, The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Schmidt-Leukel, Perry. Buddhist Mind—Christ Mind. A Christian Commentary on the Bodhicaryāvatāra. Leuven: Peeters, 2019.
Sharf, Robert H. “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” History of Religions, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Aug., 1993), 1-43.
Shizuteru, Ueda. “Meister Eckhart’s Mysticism in Comparison with Zen Buddhism,” trans. Gregory S. Moss. Comparative and Continental Philosophy, Vol. 14:2 (Nov., 2022), 128-152.
Suzuki, D.T. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press, 1964.
Tracy, David. Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
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_______. Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama’s Heart of Wisdom Teaching, trans. and ed. Geshe Thupten Jinpa. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2002.
_______. The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teaching of Jesus, trans. Geshe Thupten Jinpa, ed. Robert Kiely. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1996.
Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.
_______. The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism. Edinburgh and New York: T & T Clark, 2002.
[1] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Towards Mutual Recognition: Resources for Interfaith Engagement from the Multidisciplinary “Recognition” Paradigm,” Comparative Religion & Multicultural Literature, vol. 1, No.1, Spring (2025) at https://youngsung.devmisc.com/comparative-religion/towards-mutual-recognition/
[2] Francis Clooney, The Truth, the Way, the Life: Christian Commentary on the Three Holy Mantras of the Śrīvaişņava Hindu (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge, U.K: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008), 9-10.
[3] Paul S. Chung, The Social Scientific Study of Religion: A Method for Constructive Theology (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2022).
[4] H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed. Rev. ed. and trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York, London: Continuum, 2004), 306-7.
[5] David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 93, 102.
[6] Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000), 941–42.
[7] Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Cambridge, Mass. London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 540.
[8] The Dalai Lama, Practicing Wisdom: The Perfection of Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Way, trans. Geshe Thupten Jinpa (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005), 3.
[9] Francis Brassard, The Concept of Bodhicitta in Santideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (Albany: SUNY, 2000), 16. See Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 58.
[10] Brassard, The Concept of Bodhicitta,7-8.
[11] Kogen Mizuno, Essentials of Buddhism: Basic Terminology and Concepts of Buddhist Philosophy and Practice, trans. J. W. de Jong (Tokyo: Kosei, 1996), 27-28.
[12] Mu Soeng, The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000), 48.
[13] Peter N. Gregory, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 218-219.
[14] The Dalai Lama, Practicing Wisdom, 17.
[15] Mu Soeng, The Diamond Sutra, 48, 84.
[16] Williams, Mahayana Buddhism, 58.
[17] Ibid., 203.
[18] Ibid.,199.
[19] Paul Williams, The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism (Edinburgh and New York: T & T Clark, 2002), 203.
[20] Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Buddhist Mind—Christ Mind. A Christian Commentary on the Bodhicaryāvatāra (Leuven: Peeters, 2019).
[21] Cited in The Dalai Lama, Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama’s Heart of Wisdom Teaching, trans. and ed. Geshe Thupten Jinpa (Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2002), 122.
[22] Williams, Mahayna Buddhism, 108.
[23] Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing (New York: The Crossroad, 2001), 41.
[24] Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, ed. B. McGinn (New York: Paulist Press,1986), 25.
[25] McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 115, 118.
[26] See Ueda Shizuteru, “Meister Eckhart’s Mysticism in Comparison with Zen Buddhism,” trans. Gregory S. Moss. Comparative and Continental Philosophy, Vol. 14:2 (Nov., 2022), 128-152.
[27] Ken Jones, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2003), 47.
[28] Cited in Jones, The New Social Face of Buddhism, 116.
[29] D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove Press, 1964), 32, 37.
[30] Divine Emptiness and Historical Fullness: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation Masao Abe, ed. Christopher Ives (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1995), 51-2.
[31] The Dalai Lama, Essence of the Heart Sutra, 132.
[32] Robert H. Sharf, “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” History of Religions, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Aug., 1993), 2 [1-43].
[33] Asvaghosa, The Awakening of Faith: The Classic Exposition of Mahayana Buddhism, trans. Teitaro Suzuki (Mineola, New York: Dover, 2003), 43, 50.
[34] Masao Abe, Zen and Western Thought, ed. Willliam R. LaFleur (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), 141-44.
[35] Ibid., 146.
[36] Ibid., 148.
[37] Asvaghosa, The Awakening of Faith, 128, 146.
[38] Ibid., 85, 92.
[39] Peter N. Gregory, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 228, 236.
[40] The Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teaching of Jesus, trans. Geshe Thupten Jinpa, ed. Robert Kiely (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1996), 49.