NOTHINGNESS AND LOVE OF NISHIDA Текст научной статьи по специальности «Философия, этика, религиоведение»

NOTHINGNESS AND LOVE OF NISHIDA

Kiyokazu NAKATOMI1

НИЧТО И ЛЮБОВЬ НИСИДЫ Киёкадзу НАКАТОМИ

Abstract. Recently, the philosophy of Nishida has been studied internationally. However, there is not much thought about the life and existence of Nishida. Even though in Japan there are some biographies written by direct disciples and others they lack consistent philosophical principles. I reveal the existence of Nishida from the standpoint of my principle of nothingness and love. Pure experience of Nishida is intuitive nothingness and flow of life that extends beyond subject and object. It is consistent with my nothingness as reality that extends beyond the expression of words. Of course, it fits the organic worldview of the Biocosmological Association. This nothingness continues to infinity, eternity, transcendent being and love. This is called the principle of nothingness and love.

From here, I consider the life and existence of Nishida based on the biographies by Hisashi Ueda, Nishida's grandson, and the complete works of Nishida. This mainly focuses on the chronological description but in some places it overlaps with the life of Aristotle. In his 40s Nishida preferred Hegel but leaned to Aristotle in his 50s. Nishida wrote books "Philosophical Proceedings I-VIF while reading books of Aristotle. Aristotle became the driving force of Nishida in his later years.

After his sick wife passed away, Nishida's daily life became inconvenient and hampered his studies. Nishida encountered nothingness as death. However, with the help of his second wife, Koto, he completed his philosophy. The wife of Aristotle also died of sickness (nothingness as death) but his later wife supported him and gave birth to Nicomachus. It was the work and love of wives that supported the two great philosophers.

Keywords: Nothingness, Philia of Aristotle, Mutual respect, life and existence of Nishida, biographies of Hisashi Ueda, couple love, principle of nothingness and love, Biocosmological Association

Contents

Introduction

1. Existence and Failures of Nishida

2. Exercise of Zen and Intuition of Nothingness

3. Bereavement with a wife and new encounter 'Sorrow and love'

Conclusion

1 Chiba Kujukuri Prefectural High School, Chiba, JAPAN.

Резюме. В последнее время философия Нисиды изучается на международном уровне. Однако о жизни и существовании Нисиды Китаро размышляют недостаточно. Несмотря на то, что в Японии изданы биографии философа, написанные как его непосредственными учениками, так и другими исследователями; но в них отсутствует изложение последовательных философских принципов мыслителя. В данной работе, я раскрываю существование Нисиды с точки зрения моего принципа небытия и любви. Чистый опыт Нисиды - это интуитивное небытие и поток жизни, выходящий за пределы субъекта и объекта. Это согласуется с моим пониманием небытия как реальности, выходящей за пределы произнесения слов и высказываний. Разумеется, это соответствует органическому мировоззрению Биокосмологической ассоциации. Это небытие продолжается до бесконечности, вечности, трансцендентного бытия и любви. Это и называется принципом небытия и любви.

Отсюда я рассматриваю жизнь и существование Нисиды на основе биографий Хисаши Уэды, внука Нисиды, и полного собрания сочинений Нисиды. Основное внимание здесь уделяется хронологическому описанию, но в некоторых местах оно пересекается с жизнью Аристотеля. В свои 40 лет Нисида предпочитал Гегеля, но в 50 лет уже склонялся к Аристотелю. Нисида написал тома «Философские труды 1-У11», читая книги Аристотеля. Аристотель стал движущей силой Нисиды в его более поздние годы.

После того, как его больная жена скончалась, повседневная жизнь Нисиды стала неудобной и мешала ему учиться. Нисида встретил небытие как смерть. Однако с помощью своей второй жены, Кото - он сумел завершить свою философию. Жена Аристотеля также умерла от болезни (небытие как смерть), но его более последующая жена поддержала ученого и родила ему Никомаха. Работа и любовь жен поддерживали жизнь и творчество двух великих философов.

Ключевые слова: Небытие, Филия Аристотеля, Взаимное уважение, жизнь и бытие Нисиды, биография Хисаши Уэда, любовь пары, принцип ничто и любви, Биокосмологическая ассоциация.

Содержание

Введение

1. Существование и неудачи Нисиды

2. Упражнения дзен и интуиция небытия

3. Тяжелая утрата потери жены и новая встреча

Заключение

Introduction

Young Nishida already had the qualities as the best philosopher of Japan. He was born on May 19th 1870, as the eldest son of Yasunori Nishida in Unoke Town, Kawakita Gun, Ishikawa Prefecture. His father was a rich rice farmer in this province and controlled ten villages as village leader. His grandfather, Aranori Nishida was a scholarly favorite person and teaching the reading and writing for neighboring people2. Many books were piled up in his storehouse.

Nishida, being influenced by his grandfather, was accustomed to Chinese culture. The knowledge of the Chinese classics will flower as papers and books of the philosophy of Nishida eventually. The rich and classical style sentences of "An Inquiry into the Good (^(Dffi^)" cannot be written into the current Japanese language. It is a gift of study from early childhood. Nishida who took over the love of learning of his grandfather attended Ishikawa Prefecture Normal School (Kanazawa city) after graduating from Shinka Elementary School to become a teacher. However, in the Autumn of that year (1883) as if to anticipate the lifetime of the turbulence, he contracted typhus with his sister (Nao) and was absent from school for a long time. It was a sigh of a first experience of failure and nothingness of Nishida.

1. Existence and Failures of Nishida

Four years older she liked academics and Nishida, learned at a women's normal school and attended home schools for Chinese scholars and mathematicians. It was also, thanks to his older sister, that Nishida was able to study in Kanazawa3.In addition, Nao loved Nishida very much, and Nishida took to her. But Nishida had typhus with his sister and then Nao died in November of this year. Nishida lost one of his beloved, most trustworthy relative. Probably she would have taught mathematics and Chinese scripts to Nishida. At that time, she was nothing else but intelligent to go to the women's normal school, so she must have been able to see Nishida's character and ability. Sometimes she would be satisfied to teach him carefully, at some point let go of him and make him think by himself. More than anything, it was Nao to recommend to the father that Nishida, the eldest son of a farmer should go to an advanced school. After graduating from elementary school, Nishida conveyed his hope to his father to go to an advanced school, but his father, who wanted a successor, opposed it. His father was not opposed to learning but when Nishida went to an advanced school and learned, the father was worried that Nishida would go back to his hometown and not take over his family farming activity. Nao persuaded her father and mother because if Nishida went to a Normal School, he could return to the village as a primary school teacher. By her persuasion, Nao brought Nishida to Kanazawa. Young Nishida leaves the sentences:

2 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", Hisashi Ueda, Nansosha. Tokyo, 1978, p. 8

3 Ibid. p. 10

At the age of thirteen or fourteen, I was taken to Kanazawa by my sister and entered a normal school. In the village there were no scholars as much as an elementary school teacher, I entered a teacher's school.4

He enrolled in with this kind of strong resolve and hope for this Normal School. However after the school entrance, with his older sister, he was absent from school for a long time. At that time his sister who opened the way to Normal School died. What kind of emotions Nishida had with her sister is stated in "The Introduction to Literature of National Literature":

When I looked back, it was around the age of fourteen, I have lost my older sister who was the closest of my childhood and the sorrow of her death was at the beginning of my life. I could not endure the death of my sister and not hold on to see the sorrow of my mother. I cried unexpectedly, crying thoughtfully. If I could die instead of my sister from my young heart, I still remembered what I thought from my heart.5

Nishida encountered nothingness as death of his older sister who was full of affection and leadership in academic discipline. It is the first experience of nothingness of Nishida's lifetime. This sorrow was not limited to the death of his sister. The typhoid fever hit the body of Nishida further and he had to be retired. In the following year he left the school in October. Nishida could not keep the school life for about two years from September at the age of fourteen and prepared himself to self-taught school life. Currently speaking, it is the second grade of junior high school and the first grade of high school. Nishida had no choice but to spend his precious adolescence for intellectual and physical movements actively at home. At this time, he received individual tuition from professors in literature, English, mathematics, but it is easy to understand the pain as he could not go to school and the loneliness feeling of his friends left behind. Withdrawal from Ishikawa Prefecture Normal School by typhus, this is the first setback in the lifetime of Nishida. Still more with the death of his sister, it became double sadness. This sorrow is misery, darkness and nothingness of life. Nishida intuited nothingness by the sorrow.

But no matter how miserable it is, it will never end. As Nishida received personal tuition from professors, he could achieve entry to Ishikawa prefecture secondary school as a second grader in September 1886. It is the entrance to the former system middle school (now the current high school). The bud that was deflated by this entrance starts to bloom again. And at the same time, he encountered his life-long professor, Tokiyuki Hojo (ti&ft®) 6.

The uncle of Nishida, Tagaesu Tokuta, was an assistant professor at Ishikawa vocational school (calligraphy and art) at that time. Tokiyuki Hojo just graduated from

4 Ibid. p. 18

5 Ibid. P. 19

6 "Life of Nishida Kitaro", Tomoyuki Uesugi, Toei Sensho, 1988, Tokyo. p. 25.

Tokyo University and got his job as a mathematics professor there. Tokiyuki Hojo was from Kannoncho in Kanazawa city and was close to Tagaesu Tokuta. So, Tagaesu Tokuta asked Tokiyuki Hojo for the education of Nishida. Therefore Nishida became a resident student of Tokiyuki Hojo. This encounter was decisive in Nishida's lifetime. Later, Nishida will be lost, but it was Tokiyuki Hojo who saved him from his hardship. As an important turning point of Nishida's life, Tokiyuki Hojo supported Nishida as a major force. There is a rare mutual respect same as Plato and Aristotle. Plato gave geometry to Aristotle and Hojo gave mathematics to Nishida. Mathematics connect Nishida and Aristotle.

Tokiyuki Hojo is a great educator in the Meiji era who later became the principal of Yamaguchi Higher School and Hiroshima Normal School, the President of Tohoku Imperial University and the Director of Gakushuin. Nishida wrote about the time when he received the teachings of Tokiyuki Hojo for the first time as follows:

I think the first time to meet the teacher is about in my sixteenth or seventeenth. It was around the time the teacher left the university, he came to Kanazawa's technical college soon. I entered from a halfway at a vocational school because it was supplementary, so it was the time I did not enter school yet. As I wanted to receive education from the teacher, I visited the teacher for the first time with someone's introduction. The teacher came out to the entrance and said that he is busy right now, so he handed over the problem of mathematics in the stencil version and said that you would take it and return it. At that time, the teacher was still 30 years old, but I thought he was a person with a protruding throat on his bald head. A few days later, when I solved the problem and brought back it, the teacher met and talked me. Together I was troubled by a silent, hard to speak person. I asked him that there are things like mathematical journals in foreign countries. He answered that a man who truly wants to do mathematics needs to read them and that now you know that you cannot understand them.

At that time, the teacher gathered mathematics teachers and gave mathematics lectures once or twice a week. He said to me that I could come to ask questions. I remember that the lectures at that time were differential and integral calculus and a determinant method. I did not understand most of them, but I thought that with the determinant method that algebraic equations could be solved easily, it was truly effective. Things such as determinant method were rare at that time. Then I entered senior high school, the teacher taught me not only mathematics but also English translation. The teacher, who was a bachelor degree of science, was stricter than a bachelor degree of literature teacher. Many of the people who were taught by the teacher at that time became later many fine people. Before anything else, as the teacher was a person who had the excellent academic ability, he was the center view of the scenery of all the students. At that

time, everyone that took the teachings from him received great sensitiveness from the teacher.7

The first time he met Tokiyuki Hojo was the most difficult and weak position during the lifetime of Nishida at the current preparing stage (ronin) before entering high school. One does not need to worry so much about university preparing stage ronin because it does bring hope to oneself, but high school ronin is different. It is cruel to put all the responsibilities of the crossroads of life on a boy who is at most 15 years old. Even now that success to high school entrance is almost 100% in Japan, everybody would like to avoid high school preparing stage (ronin), it would be the feelings and a general opinion of parents. Nishida retired for one year at a normal school, and he dropped out. 'Nishida's grandson, Hisashi Ueda assumed that Nishida had a desire to change to a school that could provide higher studies than the Normal School8. But there was no guarantee of realization.

Normal school dropout was a very unfavorable and uneasy decision for young Nishida. In a sense, it may have been a much more difficult situation than the dropout of Ishikawa Prefectural College. Because Ishikawa prefectural vocational school, (formerly the Fourth Higher School) dropout is when Nishida was 20 years old, he could get a job as a teacher in elementary school. Indeed, at this time teachers were short9. Until around 1945 (Showa 20), old senior high school graduates or old school girls graduates were working in elementary school. Ayako Miura, the highest peak of Japanese Christian literature considered in Chapter 10 "Philosophy of Nothing and Love" (Lambert Academic Publishing), was a teacher at elementary school during the Second World War. Nishida abandoned such qualifications or was forced to abandon, however, there was no job opportunity.

A former graduate who was awarded a prize from the county side office at a local elementary school dropped out of the normal school and became lost in the street. His title at this point is long absence of what is today the current junior high school. Since the current junior high school is compulsory education, there is no dropout. But Nishida suffered from unexpected setbacks due to typhus and left the normal school. This is the greatest hardship in his life. That is because as a normal school dropout, he cannot become a teacher and if he does it, he loses the opportunity to acquire a lifelong learning. If he had failed to enter the secondary school for Ishikawa vocational school, philosopher Kitaro Nishida would not have existed. Around this time, his father failed in the business of the rice market, letting go of the house of the ancestral home. So, everyone in the family did not take over the agriculture. Nishida was not the only one left in the street but also the entire Nishida family was in trouble. The fate of the Nishida family depended on his first son, Kitaro Nishida. That Nishida was also a ronin

7 When I first received a teaching from Teacher Hojo', Nishida Kitaro, Complete Works, old

version, vol. 12, Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 1947, p. 257, I sketch it Complete Works. "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p.27.

8 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", pp. 21-22.

9 Ibid. p. 20.

and in his preparing period to enter the school. He lost his property and academic background, Nishida was naked, nullified and faced nothingness.

Nishida had no choice but to study academically in order to overcome such a predicament. To do that, enrollment at the Ishikawa prefectural vocational school was essential and it was all to restore the failed Nishida's life. Nishida therefore focused on preparation for admission to the Ishikawa prefectural vocational school for two years after dropping out. The power, passion, fighting spirit at this time became the cornerstone of Nishida's lifetime. His uncle Tagayasu Tokuta will bring Nishida to his colleague Tokiyuki Höjö on the basis of this Nishida family's luck and Nishida's lifetime. It was a manifestation of the uncle's affection for Nishida and it was a plan of the resuscitation that contemplated Nishida's way forward. Even colleagues, Tagayasu Tokuta was an assistant teacher at the Ishikawa prefectural vocational school and Tokiyuki Höjö was a new appointed elite at that time who left Tokyo Imperial University Mathematics Department. In sight of the future of Nishida it would not be a comparison.

Based on these circumstances, Tagayasu Tokuta introducted Nishida to Tokiyuki Höjö. Before entering, it would be undesirable to have students meet with instructors but Tagayasu Tokuta could not have pretended otherwise. Anyway he wanted Nishida to be admitted in Ishikawa prefectural vocational school whatever was necessary. Nishida probably also had the same thought. So, before the entrance, Nishida will visit Tokiyuki Höjö's house. Before entering the school, there was an hesitation naturally. Tokiyuki Höjö did not respond and gave Nishida a mathematics problem. He wanted to assess the talent of Nishida. Probably Nishida would try to solve the problem hardly. The effort of Nishida was the permission to meet the teacher. Nishida wanted the teacher to understand his talent, he asked about 'Mathematics magazines of foreign countries' to him. But Tokiyuki Höjö denied it immediately. He replied; "It is impossible for you to solve the problems of the magazines."

This is the only attitude that Nishida tried beyond his ability. But we can recognize the earnest passion that he will be admitted and accepted by Tokiyuki Höjö. There would be a gap between his thought and ability. But the passion of Nishida would hit the heart of Tokiyuki Höjö. Nishida was invited by the mathematics society of teachers.

As Nishida speaks, I could not understand most of the lecture. However, Tokiyuki Höjö was looking at his reaction. Tokiyuki Höjö inspected his passion and ability to learn Nishida's academic skills as he gets overwhelmed or bored so profoundly. Tokiyuki Höjö ascertained the passion and the ability of Nishida. After given permission to begin, Nishida was admitted to the Ishikawa prefectural vocational school to fil a vacancy. This entrance had a serious meaning for Nishida. At the present time, it can be said that it is a difference whether to end in middle school of compulsory education or enter high school. High school education has become popularized and even now almost all pupils enter high school. It still has important significance for young people. Ending two years of ronin's life and setback, Nishida who was out of the sensuous rich and sharp adolescence would have been full of joy. It is a big satisfaction because of the hardships of admission. So, the days of the Ishikawa vocational school (the Fourth Higher School) are the best times of life for Nishida.

Allowed to be introduced to Tokiyuki Hojo, Nishida learned a lot. For mathematics and even for translations of English, according to Nishida's friends, the teaching of Tokiyuki Hojo was better than that of English teacher. At that time, Tokiyuki Hojo was a person with good as academic ability and was the center of the admiration of all the students. Nishida reminds us of Tokiyuki Hojo later as follows:

When I touch a big mountain, I do not know if it is the whole mountain. I always have such a feeling about the teacher. The teacher had such deep wide knowledge that I could not measure it and he was a very warm person.10

Also, after entering vocational school, Nishida became a home student of Tokiyuki Hojo and he described his life.

Since my teacher said that you came to my house, I made a nuisance to the teacher's house. The teacher will always come back home from school in the evening. At night, his wife and I sit and study at the desks on each side of the teacher's center table. Late at night, my teacher will say that you should go to bed now. Even if I go back to my room and go to the futon, I sometimes cannot sleep with my habit.

Then, from around twelve o'clock, the sound of the koto, Japanese harp, is heard in the teacher's room. The sound of the koto becomes clear and clearer as the night goes on. In the meantime, I fall asleep. Finally, I do not know how long the sound of the koto continued. Instead, as everyone knows, the teacher gets up late. When I went to school, my teacher had never gotten in the way.11

What a pleasant sight it is! Nishida stayed at his teacher 's house and even sat down at the table with his teacher and younger wife. Nishida studied in the school, after class preparation Tokiyuki Hojo studied preparing to go to the graduate school and the young wife of the teacher wrote letters to the parents and acquaintances of the hometown and practiced calligraphy. The way that a teacher, a teacher's younger wife and disciple, three become one and study together, is the ultimate of mutual respect. Furthermore, it is full of emotion to fall asleep in the flow of melody of the koto. Nishida of 18 years old has met with setbacks and hardships and experiences intuition of nothingness, but in response to that suffering he also receives the intuition of love, the love of his educated enthusiastic mother Tosa, the love of his merciful sister Nao and of the teacher Tokiyuki Hojo.

Nishida had many hardships, but more than that, he was loved by many people. The best philosopher of Japan Nishida was nurtured in this situation. All his life Nishida admired Tokiyuki Hojo who spared consideration for Nishida also. Later

10 Ibid. P. 28.

11 Ibid. pp. 28-29.

Nishida became a professor at Yamaguchi Higher School (now Yamaguchi University), Fourth Higher School (now Kanazawa University) because of consideration of Tokiyuki Hojo. Tokiyuki Hojo was the only one master of Nishida that called in his lifetime12.

In September 1888, Nishida entered the secondary school attached to the Ishikawa prefectural School (now Kanazawa University). He left the dark road of long stagnation for two years. Dark road at that time, being able to endure suffering may have been the driving force of Nishida's lifetime. Later on, Nishida dropped out of the Fourth Higher School and aimed for self-study of philosophy.

But the confidence at that time depended on the experience of the dark road for the past two years. Although he did not go to school for the past two years, he took professors of Normal School as tutor and independently learned literature, English and mathematics. He fulfilled the supplementary entrance of the Ishikawa vocational school in this way, this gave a great satisfaction to Nishida and he became confident. Therefore, when he felt dissatisfied with the Fourth Higher School, he would have dropped out because he had confidence to self-pursued philosophy. Therefore, the dropout plays a decisive role in the philosophy formation of Nishida. If Nishida proceeded smoothly without dropping out of the Fourth Higher School (going to the Department of Philosophy at the Tokyo Imperial University Cultural University), he would have become a university professor, but the great philosophy of Nishida would not have been born. As it will be described later, Nishida who was barely able to be admitted to Ishikawa prefectural vocational college was dreaming and hopeful. Already, he met Tokiyuki Hojo who became his lifetime teacher and he moved to his teacher's house. Another benefit Nishida received at this school is a hot friendship. With Nishida's character he makes a lot of friends, he also meets life-long friends, close friends for life and death. For instance, among the friends he made are Daisetsu Suzuki (ffi&^ffi) who spread Zen sects to the world, Sakutaro Fujioka (afterwards Professor of Tokyo Imperial University) who was said to be the best of the school and Ryokichi Yamamoto (later Professor at Gakushuin University, a pedagogist). Nishida made a literary circle called "Gasonkai", private circle together with these friends along with Bunsaburo Matsumoto, Shinzo Tomoda and many others and each other's poetry and essays were presented and criticized. There was a deepened friendship13. Later on, Nishida will be appointed Associate Professor at Kyoto Imperial University as one of the members, a senior employee Bunsaburo Matsumoto introduced him14. Nishida was blessed with friendship, Philia.

Friends of Nishida are by all means members of a good friend club. As well as influence of teacher Tokiyuki Hojo, it was a great force and support for the milestones of his life. Looking at Nishida's lifelong friends makes us think deeply about what is true friendship like philia of Aristotle.

12 Ibid. p. 28.

13 Ibid. p. 41.

14 "Life of Nishida Kitaro" by Tomoyuki Uesugi, p. 46.

Since then the Ishikawa vocational school has inherited the good tradition of the Kaga clan (one of the strong Daimyos) since the Edo period. Moreover, it was a free school filled with entrepreneurship that gives specialized studies in foreign languages. However, in 1887, the centralization of education advanced due to the reform of the school system. The name was changed from Ishikawa prefectural vocational school to Fourth Higher School (after the war, it will become Kanazawa University). The school principal was dispatched from the central government (Satsuma) instead, although the school was upgraded from the local traditional school to the school of the national ward. The opening ceremony was attended by the Education Minister Arinori Mori who originated from Satsuma and built the foundation of the educational system in modern Japan. Nishida and all the students were sent to welcome the Minister from Yamanaka Onsen. Then they were made standing around Nobe city for about half a day15. Moreover, Arinori Mori said:

The new Japanese civilization is the result of the restoration of the imperial government, although the restoration of the imperial government was fulfilled by the mercy of the saintly childhood of the emperor, it was the former samurais of Satsuma who bothered to be able to do this without hesitation. For the place of the Kaga clan, you made little contribution in the Meiji Restoration. If you think a little, you will feel shame. I thought that the higher school here was established. That is to educate a person in the place of the Kaga clan.16

Arinori Mori made a speech with high pressure and irony. Although it is a short passage, there are enough elements that the people badly oppose. Later, he was assassinated at home on February 10, 1889, the ceremony date of the Meiji Constitution. Of course, the principal at this time, of Satsuma, not only brought the leadership of the school from Kagoshima in order to inject 'Satsuma Hayato (spirit) Education', but also dismissed the teachers from the former Maeda clan.

The teachers from Kagoshima did lack academic ability. Nishida was longing for academic literature, embracing extremely progressive thoughts but at school that direction is not appreciated. Nishida and other students said "Our school is a funeral school of regulation and there are many teachers with lack of academic ability"17. Tokiyuki Hojo who was also respected by Nishida was not satisfied with the principles of this principal but also entered the University of Tokyo graduate school and was gone.

Nishida and his colleagues tormented the new teachers who had insufficient academic ability and strived to answer questions, blowing up discussions with the teachers of the noncommissioned officials, escaping military exercise, cleared up the daily burst. Also, Nishida was absent from classes that were not interesting. "I went up

15 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 45.

16 Ibid. p. 45.

17 Ibid. p. 45.

to the second floor of the school's library alone, fished and read books quietly", leaving the school with classmates and heading for Udatsuyama (Udatsu mountain) to climb to challenge school authorities. Later Nishida looked back as follows:

It was the most pleasant period in my lifetime at the higher school age. Leaving it to the affection of the young man, I acted freely without hesitation. As a result, I gradually began to retire from school. As I thought at the time, academics must be accomplished by self-study. Away from the tie of the school, it is better to read freely.18

Nishida's free-minded heart is like the free spirit of Nietzsche but this free spirit is necessary in philosophy. At that time, his free spirit was rebellious against the school authorities. He took over the responsibility of the rebellion. At that time, although his academic averages of 82 points were excellent, the conduct points became zero and saw the failing sadness. He changed to science but he felt disgusted with the boring physical experiments and the bad smell of hydrogen sulfide and he was absent from class. Some friends also drop out, he despaired the school of regulations that does not have an interesting lecture or a respectable teacher.

After all, I will go on self study, even if I quit an unhappy school. I will walk an independent way with everything and decide to leave school19.

It was a great decision of Nishida at twenty years old. This withdrawal is significant. In short, the Fourth Higher School became inappropriate for his free spirit and thoughts. Twenty years old is an adult and currently speaking is a sophomore at the university. In general, it can be said that it is an age at which one can make a subjective judgment. Also, even if one drops out, one can become a teacher of elementary school because one is qualified to graduate from the ancient system junior high school. In this era, one was regarded as worthy if one received education until twenty years old. Since he was a current junior college student and graduated from the National Higher School, there is nothing to be embarrassed of and may have dropped out. And he learned the most core in philosophical research. It is "self-study". Apart from the natural sciences that need laboratory equipment, humanities and social science academics, especially philosophy often can be learned in self-study after acquiring some research method. Fortunately, Nishida had a self-study period of two years after leaving the normal school. Nishida who survived this hardship got confidence. "There is no need to forcibly stay in the Fourth Higher School." This will make him lose the orthodox way but the author thinks that he was fortunate in his choice. Now he loses the foundation of his academic background and faces difficulty, darkness, nothingness and a lack of educational background. However, this intuition induces a big change to

18 'A retirement Speech of one Professor' Complete Works Vol. 12, p.170, "Grandfather Nishida KitaO', p.46.

19 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 47.

later Nishida's philosophy. Nothingness continues to infinity, eternity, transcendent-being. From this intuition, the creative philosophy of pure experience of Nishida is born. If Nishida was still complaining about it, he probably could have gone to the University of Tokyo or the philosophy department of Kyoto University and he would have become a professor of university sailing smoothly. Indeed, many of his friends are university professors. However, the author thinks that he could not leave a big footprint in the philosophical world so far.

If one were on the regular course of philosophy, he could have been taught by his instructor politely and kindly but unfortunately some themes and translations were given by his instructor. By that, he would lose his true philosophy and he could not open his road. Nishida became a selective candidate of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tokyo (currently as passive auditor), but the then head professor was Tetsujiro Inoue, a famous scholar. He was lecturing on the Western philosophy system and Indian philosophy but it was not attracting Nishida20. Though Inoue's elite consciousness is substantial, probably he had not paid attention to Nishida. Even though Nishida visited Inoue's place, it seems he did not have a good feeling for Nishida, as Nishida felt "as if the threshold was high".

I am not so sensitive to Mr. Inoue's academic study. It is a lack of etiquette that I say slander about my professor. But it is strange that the professor shows pity about my theory.21

Perhaps even if he would regularly enroll, Nishida's great success would have been broken by head professor Tetsujiro Inoue or he must have obeyed blindly. Of course, discrimination and inferiority complex due to lack of selection were all over. But that is just a minor but important trial. In the library, he could not enter the central reading room and had to read on the desk which was arranged in the corridor. Also, retrieval of books from the shelf was not allowed. He wrote that his heart was hurt by the poor treatment under the circumstances far away from former alumni22: "I felt like something to be a failing person in life."23 After all, Nishida is lonely during three years.

I did not become familiar to the teacher and could not become what we would call friends. I quietly entered the library every day and read myself alone, thinking independently.24

20 Ibid. p.71.

21 Nishida Kitaro Complete Works Vol. 18, Letters I No. 85, I sketch it Letters. "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro'', p. 72.

22 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 70.

23 'A retirement Speech of one Professor', Complete Works 12, p. 170 cf. "GrandfatherNishida Kitaro" p. 70.

24 Ibid. p. 72.

In the letter of this time:

There is no interesting lecture for me.25

I study philosophy but it is not interesting. I am stunned on the day and feel like dark night in my future.26

The author thinks that there is a feeling like the dark night in future, it is darkness and is nothingness as lack of light. One intuited nothingness in inferiority and humiliation. It is proportional to the depth and the size of emotional wound. As the author wrote in "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love", man intuits nothingness in difficulty and suffering. Nothingness eventually continues to infinity, eternity and to creation. Nishida is exactly the suffering of creation, the suffering of existence itself. But in such condition:

I have been getting smaller towards the corner for three years. On the other hand, as I cannot be caught in anything and I can freely study my favorite things, I enjoyed inside myself. As I keep myself from other people, I can have pride in an independent spirit.27

He could enjoy purely that he was able to study philosophy freely and independently. This is a true philosophical attitude and even though he loses the right path in society, it is a right path in philosophy spirit. It is too mediocre that man receives his future position from the head professor and inherits the school of his professor. To build a big job, a great philosophy, man has to leave school, be absent and walk on his own feet. This is the same as Aristotle once criticized Plato, left, and created his own philosophy.

No, before that, man must destroy various prejudices, idols, false ideas and philosophies. To that, school education and title threaten and disturb the freedom of the spirit. The setbacks and hardships are seemingly painful and unhappy at that time but if man looks at it in the long run, it makes intuition possible. This intuition opens the way to creation. This is like the phenomenological reduction by Husserl. Three years of Nishida in Tokyo were not a big harvest, but on a holiday he visited Zen priest Daisetsu Suzuki in Kamakura Enkaku-ji and got the opportunity to discover the depth of intuition with Zen. Nishida's experiences of Zen are important to the formation of philosophy. There is a theory that western philosophy and Zen are often told to be incompatible so they are unrelated. But that is an extremely deviated error. The extreme one would be the position of European philosophy which respects logic excessively. From this standpoint, Zen Buddhism eliminates logic, so Zen is not subject to philosophy. Therefore, the philosophy of Nishida which is based on European philosophy is unrelated to Zen studies. The other extreme is from the standpoint of

25 Letters I No. 6.

26 Letters I No. 7, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 72.

27 "Selective Course of the Tokyo Cultural University around the Meiji 24 and 25 years", Complete

Works Vol.12 p. 241, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 70.

Zen. Zen is not academic. It is not philosophy either. It is beyond them. Therefore, the philosophy of Nishida is unrelated to Zen. At first glance, both theories express their view but it is a fact that Nishida was involved in both European philosophy and Zen. Ignoring this fact, just speaking one-sidedly from each position is ineffective. Actually, it is like this. In European philosophy which emphasizes logic, man cannot tell Zen that excludes logic. On the other hand, from Zen which eliminates logicality, man cannot say philosophy. Both standpoints confront with nothingness so that man cannot talk from both sides. A breakthrough from this rigid state is intuition. In the first place Zen Buddhism was derived from the practice of enlightenment of Buddha. Nothingness functions on the root of enlightenment and emptiness (Ku,^).28

Therefore, also nothingness functions in Zen which acquires enlightenment and emptiness. Intuition in the failure and difficulty of Nishida's life and intuition in Zen experience are overlapped. The intuition of nothingness is beyond form, place and time. It is possible in all states. Nishida leaves Tokyo and returns to Kanazawa. Then he searches for Zen to escape from the severe reality. Zen meditation, not to be caught in chaos, is a flow of living life, that is, a unity with reality, pure experience itself. It is big forward step for Nishida to visit priest Daisetsu Suzuki in Kamakura and brings interest to Zen sect. Detailed inquiries will be handed over to the next chapter

Nishida graduated from special selective course of the Department of Philosophy, Tokyo Imperial University College of Science, in July 1849. Nishida after graduation has no good employment and returns to Kanazawa where his mother is waiting. Nishida family who had fallen down then had no land, no house. Still more there was also home discord and Nishida insulated from his father29. Nishida returned to the Tokuta family (his uncle's house) where his mother stayed. By the efforts of his friend, the job of the prefectural middle school (current high school) as English teacher had been decided but he was deprived of it by the official of the prefectural office who chose a graduate of the selective course of the English department.30 Nishida was isolated from his father, losing the house and further losing the unofficial job. Misfortunes never come singly. He is at the bottom of unhappiness. Nishida sent a letter to his friend Ryokichi Kaneda as follows:

Now that all the acquaintances passed away, I am like a strange foreigner in my hometown. There are no persons who I speak to and I only think of the pity of the sound of insects in the morning and evening in fall.31 I came to the so-called world starting from the academic world that is holy and I am sighing about the corruption of this world.32

28 cf. "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love" Chapter 2, Nothingness as the root of Ku.

29 "Grandfather Nishida KitarO", p. 79.

30 Ibid. p. 79.

31 Letters I No. 16, ibid. p. 80.

32 Letters I No. 16, ibid. p. 80.

Nishida experiences the sorrow of the selective course of the department, his helplessness and the dirtiness of the world bitterly. The world does not depend only on the ability of science. It is also necessary to do some sort of worldly wit. If he really wanted to get a job, could he find it in Tokyo? Should not he go to the prefectural office many times carefully about the job of the former system of junior high school which had been decided? This is a weakness of Nishida or his ignorance because of his youth. Therefore, he despaired of the dirtiness of the world. However, without compromising on this, as the situation gets worse, he was devoted to his research to inspire his brave heart. He began research on "Introduction to Ethics" of the British idealist philosopher Thomas Hill Green (1836~1882) influenced by Kant, Hegel, and he finished the essay "Outline of Ethics Philosophy of Mr. Green". Green's philosophy has influenced not only "An Inquiry into the Good' but also the view of morality of Nishida later.33

After failing in employment, Nishida desperately seeks a job. After eight months, he was invited as a branch chief officer of the newly established Ishikawa prefectural middle school Nanao branch (present high school). The current high school teacher is the starting point of Nishida. He was in charge of three subjects: ethics, English and history. The transformation from academic life to education was a big embarrassment. During the holidays of the end of the school year, he had to walk round the villages of outback of the Noto peninsula with straw sandals in order to recruit freshmen.34 There is a gap between Nishida who is willing to study academics and students of 16 and 17 years old. Reality does not pardon Nishida of a scholar's potentiality. It seems to that Nishida's image is being chased by school work and chores unrelated to his research. Moreover, high school students have various academic standards. Everyone is not like a scholar hopeful like Nishida. There should have been enough students to graduate from this school.

Still more, Nishida who is clumsy about interpersonal relationships would not be able to handle the student guidance adequately. As unfortunately the school building burned down with a large fire, Nishida had to borrow the main building of the neighboring temple to do the class. The unexpected difficulty to rebuild the school struck Nishida, finally he gave up. He sent the next letter to his friend Ryokichi Yamamoto:

I am struggling for the student education like a child day and night. The most troublesome thing is to teach ethics. Do you have a good idea? The students cannot understand the ethic theory. Are there some good books to use? I wonder how Shoin Yoshida (leading thinker of Meiji Restoration, 18301859) and Toko Fujita (founder of Teno thought, 1806-1855) could educate their celebrity of the world. Is the teaching of Mr. Jo Niijima (1843-1890) who established Doshisha University, Christian university in Kyoto, useful? There is no mistake on the book to be made. Concerning the educational

33 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 81.

34 Ibid. p. 82.

method of a person, the school rules of ancient persons are better than the theories of the present self-styled educators.35

Probably, as Nishida only devoted to read philosophy books in his university, he did not receive pedagogy and lessons of educational principles. Today, since the system of teacher license is established, preliminary practice such as teaching practice is done. We can know the situation of the site beforehand. However, Nishida's record shows no such experience. It seemed like that an amateur of education suddenly entered the educational site and both the teacher and the student would have been surprised by the disparity. In modern high school education, a simple ethics theory lecture is impossible. For what purpose do you want to teach ethics to students? Even if man teaches a universal theory suddenly, the students only show rejection. Nishida explored such experiences.

Perhaps Nishida lacks pedagogy and teaching practice (at the time of dropping out of Normal school). It seems that passion for pedagogy had been lost. He had to work hard to fill up this gap. If he had learned them, he could have understood the difficulty of dealing with students. Anyhow by unexpected housekeeping and suffering of his work, Nishida thought about changing jobs and asked Ryokichi Yamamoto:

As I have many difficulties and lack of talent like yours, I cannot follow you. Day and night I am struggling with my school work. But I want to make efforts to study academy. Would you mind introducing me the post of philosophy or German teacher in your Honganji school (formally a Buddhist teaching organization in Kyoto now known as Ootani University)? Now I am engaged in regular education in the current 3 years school, I cannot cultivate students enough. I am really not enjoying and I am losing the light.36

After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University, Ryokichi Yamamoto was a Kyoto prefectural middle school (current high school) teacher who just arrived. He was one year younger than Nishida, so it would have been easy for Nishida to request. As the job of high school teacher is too hard, he said that he wants to study philosophy and find work. Please introduce a good job to Nishida. It takes too much for granted. On top the former school system is the present junior college i.e. university. He asked the professor of junior college. Besides, Nishida is a graduate of selective course. Nishida was advised by Ryokichi Yamamoto. Though Nishida is working as a high school teacher, he is immersing himself in academic research and further looking for a better job. This is not good. It is sad for the pupils to have a teacher who is mainly interested in academic research. Nishida does not face with the reality with students. Also, the teachers who devote themselves to academic studys instead of education show a lack

35 Letters I No. 20, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 82.

36 Letters I No. 22, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 85.

of etiquette to work with their colleagues. Nishida makes a poor statement to Yamamoto that he does his best for school and academic research.37

The real society of a year and a half after graduating from university is severe for Nishida. ThereforeS he cannot behave like "manly, freely and openhearted" same as in the former high school days. Nishida who was anti-religious in high school days also experienced "sorrows of life", darkness and nothingness and asked for a peace of mind. That is Zen. Life, Zen and philosophy will become united. Zen is meditation and transcendent experience. Aristotle did not talk about religious practice. But he preached theoria that is meditation for intuition of God (transcendent being). Meditation as transcendent experience also connects Nishida and Aristotle.

For Nishida, Nanao high school magic black box experience was necessary. He experienced how difficult it was to balance compatibility between educational practice and philosophical research. Through this experience, Nishida was aware of the limitation of time, energy, ability and his own helplessness, "nothingness". At the same time, he married his uncle's daughter, Kotomi, and his eldest daughter, Yayoi, was born. Having a family is a great happiness and leads to stability of the mind, while family affairs occur.

There was also a conflict between the Nishida family and the Tokuta family.

I am regretting my family life now, so I hope you do not fall into this black cave.

Today the 25th my girl is born. I am making a worldly bond. Every day, I am afraid of a withered spirit for academic study.38

Originally married life is full of unlimited pleasure. But in the case of Nishida, he was soon exposed to the suffering of the couple life. So, he regretted marriage and he was afraid that his vigor and passion for philosophy will wane. Still more household chores and the conflict between the houses of their parents occur. As Nishida faced many difficulties, he began seeking religious help. Nishida already received "Yorategama", a booklet of the essence of Zen by the letter collection of Zen Priest Hakuinn,39 from Tokiyuki Hojo at the Ishikawa prefectural vocational school. And in the Tokyo University period Nishida was visiting Zen Priest Daisetsu Suzuki. Nishida would have aimed to overcome the conflict between reality and idealism, the trouble in life and to get unity and stability of mind. In his letter to Ryokichi Yamamoto, Nishida tells that Zen is the shortest shortcut to reach the unity of thought and he describes that he will continue to practice Zen for all his life.40 The hardship at Nanao high school opened the way to Zen.

37 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", pp. 85-86.

38 Letters I No. 26, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 84.

39 Zen Priest Hakuin is one of the famous Zen priests in the Edo period.

40 Letters I No. 34, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 86.

In April 1896, Nishida resigned from Nanao High School and he returned to Kanazawa as a lecturer at the Fourth Higher School by the introduction of his friend, Professor Seiji Ueda (high school college age friend). The friendship of Seiji Ueda spared Nishida from a deeper crisis. Also, on this occasion, he visited the monastery "Senshinnan" of the Zen Priest Setsumon at the foot of mount Udatsuyama. Zen Priest Setsumon was a high-ranked disciple of Dokuen Zen master of Rinzai sect of Kyoto Shokokuji41 and was excellent in academia and virtue. Therefore many people in Kanazawa visited him and exercised and practiced Zen.42 Nishida received the following teaching from Zen Priest Setsumon:

When you ask an important question and you chew and chew the Koan (Zen problem to reach Satori, enlightenment), then your teeth disappear, you will thoroughly reach the insight of the truth.Other disciplines aim to increase fortune but Zen is forgetting it.Zen is only useful at the border of life and death.43

In addition, Zen Priest Setsumon said to Baron Seiji Honda of his best disciple:

If a man named Nishida passes the Mugakuisseki (one of Zen Koan, discipline), he will be a great philosopher.44

This word will be realized afterwards. Perhaps he would have experienced Nishida's extraordinary searching spirit and integrity, passion. As will be described in detail later, Nishida practiced Zen meditation from 28 to 38 years old that is the most important time to establish the foundation of "^n Inquiry into the Good'. Nishida was a Fourth Higher School lecturer (German) due to friendship of Seiji Ueda but the old good tradition was fading for the old school. While some teachers were prideful or susceptible to flattery, there are some talented and encouraged students and some students with bad behavior. There was a tendency to enjoy alcohol, women, and pleasures. Nishida grieved. With several colleagues, he raised the flag of the school style renewal and recommended an opinion letter to the principal. Probably Nishida had a strong sense of love for school and justice.

However, this renewal campaign produces a result opposite to what he had intended, he received the anger of the principal. Along with several teachers, the opponent teacher Nishida is also fired.45 Nishida, who had been working at the Fourth Higher School for just one year and stabilized both temporally and economically, decided to stand to the world through academics. In the diary of the year of 1897, it is written as follows:

41 It is a famous temple that was opened by distinguished priest Musö Soseki during the Kamakura period.

42 "Grandfather Nishida Kitarff", pp. 87-88.

43 Ibid. p. 88.

44 Ibid., p. 88.

45 Ibid., p. 92.

Those who become extraordinary persons and who make a great success are required to have a strong will that is not moved by the reverse effect of the sky and earth and have a strong courage to skirt the devil. Richness, nobility and force do not move my spirit. To do justice, I never avoid water or fire. I conduct myself independently. If man wins others, he needs more effort than others. I do not depend on others. I have a firm courage to go my own way, though I have no-learning or ignorance. I will first consider to reflect by myself rather than reading others books. Be sure to that man should not take for granted many books.

Take the great books in the world and read them carefully. The first philosopher did not read many books. The best method of reading is reading, consideration and writing. If man concentrates on one thing, one never thinks about other things. Do not take other books unless you read the book thoroughly.46

Here is written the brave fierce fighting spirit, academic spirit and selfish spirit for independent discipline. It is not just a notation but a valuable resolve declaration that is lifelong stamped in the heart of Nishida. Nishida constantly kept this sentence in mind, thought correctly and spread deeply the philosophy. After Nishida wrote that careful reading is more effective than extensive reading and one needs to chew the bones of great philosophers.47 His basic posture has already been expressed in this declaration of resolve.

Although he got a job at the Fourth Higher School, he was laid off in just one year. Still more there was a divorce as his wife Kotomi ran away with her baby, he could keep burning his passion for learning without giving up. The reason was he had such a great determination. A strong spirit, intention, passion open up the hardships of destiny. Nishida faced the hardships of unemployment, divorce, nothingness but these difficulties were alleviated by the mutual respect of Tokiyuki Hojo.

Tokiyuki Hojo was the principal of Yamaguchi Higher School (now the Yamaguchi University) since June 1880. Tokiyuki Hojo who saw the dismissal and difficulties of Nisihida would adopt Nishida as English and German lecturer. Nishida was reconnected. This city of Yamaguchi gave a big shock to Nishida. It was an encounter with Christianity. Originally Francisco Xavier marched in this city of Yamaguchi in the 16th century. Therefore Yamaguchi became Christian land. Near the place where Nishida lived in Yamaguchi for the first time, there was a Catholic church.48 Also, Nishida's favorites were Hegel and Aristotle, he was keeping books of Hegel49 by his side.

By the way, Hegel philosophy is a philosophicalization of Protestant Christianity (God is regarded as Absolute Spirit. History and the world are defined as self-

46 Ibid. p. 89.

47 Complete Works Vol. 12, Reading, p. 228.

48 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 108.

49 Complete Works Vol. 12, Reading, p. 228.

development of Absolute Spirit "God"). Christianity is essential to understanding Hegel. Possibly he had understood a little Christianity through the study of Hegel. Without understanding Christianity, he cannot get a deep understanding of Hegel. Nishida was interested in Christianity because of the need for research. More than anything, the problem of Kotomi who got divorced was plagued and heavy. Nishida who read the Bible seemed to be very impressed. Then in the letter to Ryokichi Yamamoto, Nishida wrote about Matthew Chapter 6. It is famous for Lord's Prayer that begins with "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy mame." Especially, Nishida was impressed and consoled in the next section, "If you store your treasures in Heaven, you do not need the anxiety of eating and clothing like birds. Behold the fowls of the air for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?".

Nishida thought that the Bible is above the Analects of Confucius and he consulted Ryokichi Yamamoto.50 Mr. Hisashi Ueda, the grandchild of Nishida, writes clearly on this page. "For Nishida who originally had an idealistic tendency, the teaching of Christianity hits the soul of Nishida." Nishida who touched the eternal life is healed from various frustrations and dissatisfactions with the suffering of the youth period. Even if he could not stand up as a scholar, he could reach a state of satisfying mind. Because God gives grace to all, if you follow the right way of living, you do not have to worry about yourself or your family. Thinking that there was grace of God, he was able to rest in peace.51 Due to this encounter with the Bible, Nishida's biggest challenge became a problem of the soul rather than the ambition of a successful lifetime.

Nishida started from the intuition of nothingness to the intuition of the transcendent being and touched the love of God. Therefore he received peace. He could touch God but could not believe in God. He wrote about that in next letter to Ryokichi Yamamoto in 1901:

Ms. Mochikawa at the end of last year visited from time to time and advised me about my life and the teaching of Christ. I deeply thanked her. I was pleased with the teaching of Christ. But I had no necessity for salvation. Her kindness and effort for me cannot do anything. About my life, Ms. Mochikawa did make effort to wake up the religious heart of my wife, it was difficult to wake up because of a lack of a refined heart. I feel deeply to be shamed and sorrowful. But I think that the thing of religion is not something to believe in the teaching knowledge, it needs to be accepted gradually. Christians are inclined to inform this faith and confession to non-Christians directly. By this method man cannot accept it. I think that the mission needs firstly to express the sympathy of sorrow and joy, then a missionary should preach the need of religion enlighteningly. After that,

50 Letters I No. 29, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 105, I referred to the Oxford world's Classics The Bible authorized King James version with apocypha.

51 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro'', p. 106.

a missionary should give the teaching of salvation. What do you think of

this?"52

The views of Nishida on Christianity are clearly described supra. Certainly Nishida enjoyed peace, grace and joy from Christianity. It can be said the grace was that Nishida's heart touched God. From the intuition of nothingness, he could reach to infinity, eternity and intuition to the transcendent being (God). This fits God as transcendent being of Aristotle. However, it is not the end with the intuition of God. Intuition is movement, repeated over and over in life. It is sometimes continuous and sustained whole recognition of body and intelligence.

Nishida touched the transcendent being and could benefit from peace and joy, but he could not believe in God because there is no existential encounter and dialogue between Nishida and Jesus Christ. Ayako Miura, the first class writer of Japanese Christian literature, met with Jesus Christ while struggling with the hardships of pulmonary tuberculosis and spinal caries and believed in God. Nishida lacks such encounter with Jesus Christ, an existential religious experience.

Therefore, although Ms. Mochikawa's evangelism is also initially favorable, it gradually becomes annoying. Perhaps Ms. Mochikawa would have told about the story of Jesus Christ and Nishida said: "A thing like her own beliefs clause" (a testimony of her own religious experiences). However, it was only harmful to Nishida without encounter with Jesus.

Ms. Mochikawa's enthusiastic evangelism message seems to be one-sided and instant injection and pressing of doctrine for Nishida. Therefore, Nishida does not feel the necessity of salvation:

I think that the mission like academy needs firstly to express the sympathy of sorrow and joy, then a missionary should preach the need of religion enlighteningly. After that, a missionary should give the teaching of salvation. Here, religion and academics are regarded as similar. Emotions precede, then gradually doctrine is taught, salvation is last.

This is the understanding of Christianity of 31 years old Nishida. However, the first principle of Christianity is "You will be saved if you chant the name of Jesus." If one will be saved after being trained like in academics, only a few people would be saved because only a few people like academics. For people who are not named, poor and stray in the street, first is salvation. In Chapter 9 of Buddhist's mercy of "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love", I demonstrated that the influence of Christianity on the formation of Mahayana Buddhism exists. St. Thomas, disciple of Jesus, spread "Saved by chanting the name of Jesus" in India. After, Buddhists changed this verse as follows, "If you chant the name of Buddha, you will be saved".

With this, Mahayana Buddhism, which was only one sect of Buddhism, and recites Nembutsu, was established and spread explosively. It reached to Tibet, through

52 Letters I No. 36, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 107.

Central Asia, to China, Korea and Japan. Nishida's practicing Rinzai Zen is also Mahayana Buddhist. Nishida could not understand the first principle of Christianity, "those who chant the name of Jesus will be saved." Therefore Nishida seeks enlightenment, Satori instead of salvation.

2. Exercise of Zen and Intuition of Nothingness

Nishida who did not accept the salvation of Jesus sought unity and stability of the spirit in Satori. Given his birth, it is certain that Zen was familiar. It was the first time when he received the teachings of Koan Zen "Orategama" from Zen Priest Hakuin introduced by Tokiyuki Hojo. Tokiyuki Hojo is the most respected in his life. His best friend, Daisetsu Suzuki was exercising Zen and during the dark selective course days at the University of Tokyo, Nishida visited Daisetsu Suzuki in the Engaku-ji in Kamakura, touching the atmosphere of Zen sect. For Nishida without an existential encounter with Jesus, Christianity remained to understand God. Therefore he was not lead to a decision of faith. But the searching spirit was intense. Nishida Searched for the truth of Zen that was familiar with him from the youth

Zen originates from enlightenment of Buddha. Buddha who was suffering from the emptiness of life endeavoured to practice Zazen meditation, abandoning the position as a prince and his family. Sitting under a linden tree for six years, Buddha realized the truth of the universe (Dharma) and became Buddha (Awaking person of truth). It is Zen to understand the truth of this universe (Dharma) and to acquire it. It is just "ShikanDaza just only exercising Zen in Dogen (Mtt) teaching.

Dogen was the founder of the Soto Zen sect during the Kamakura period. In "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love" Chapter 2 Nothingness as the root of "Ku" (Ku, is Enlightenment), I demonstrated the function of nothingness as negative words. For example, enlightenment is a condition of lack of desire for wealths, desire for ownership, desire for feasting and sexual desire for women. Therefore, even in Zen seeking Ku, Nothingness is always functioning.

Conversely, if man can eliminate any desire, man can understand and reach Ku. Ku is represented by the word of Zen Priest Kaisen Joki53 at Keirin-ji (temple in Enzan City, Yamanashi Prefecture) which is a family temple of Shingen Takeda who was a daimyo in Sengoku period. "If the heart is destroyed (concentrating on Zen), the fire will also cool down (Kaisen Joki)". As for the reason which opposes Kaisen Joki to Nobunaga Oda, Keirin-ji is burned. At that time, Kaisen Joki burned dead while keeping the shape of zazen. "I feel the hot and cold sensation, if I will destroy (ignore) head and the mind, it is cool even in the fire. The spirit and intention of this fire Zen are really the essence of Zen.

Surely, the words of Tokiyuki Hojo are not exaggerated. Nishida said:

I thought it was when I was at my teacher's house, when Mr. T, of my friend came from Tokyo, and I were talking to the teacher one day, when asking

53 Kaisen Joki 1502-0 1582).

what kind of Zen, the teacher quietly told us: if you had the courage to stab a blade in your belly, you could exercise Zen. That is all.54

Practice of Zen with the preparedness of the belly, Zen is Life itself. In the past, Jinko who sought Satori visited the Dharma Master at Holy Mt. Shorin-ji Then he was denied before the gate, he showed determination to Zen by cutting his arm. Later Jinko would open his enlightenment and become Eka the Zen sect second generation.

In the era of Nishida, the hero of the Zen sect is Tesshu Yamaoka (&ffl$&1836-1888) who saved Edo at the end of the Edo period after the battle between Tokugawa and New Government of Takamori Saigo Yamaoka, swordsman master,

whose former name was, Ono, inherited Yamaoka dojo from his wife, a spear master. Besides being excellent not only in martial arts but also in Zen practice, it is said that he had reached the point of unity of Sword and Zen (&J1$—$). He served at the Shogunate, his character was also pure, honest and his popularity was strong. Carrying the letter of Katsu Kaishu he singly entered into the enemy army of

thousands of government officials (Satsuma army), before the Edo Castle total attack in the Meiji Restoration war near Kawasaki in 1868.

He went to the Grand Governor's Office and shouted," I, general representative of Yoshinobu Tokugawa, enemy of the emperor (Tenno) want to pass and meet the general head quarter." By his powerfulness, he stunned the Satsuma army.55 Tesshu Yamaoka met with General Takamori Saigo. He conveyed the letter of Katsu Kaishu to Saigo, informing of the cessation of the general attack of Edo Castle, promising Edo Castle a bloodless end to the conflict. He and Katsu Kaishu protected Edo and spared the life of one million Edo citizens from the battle. Tesshu Yamaoka later became a Shizuoka prefectural counselor, Ibaraki prefectural counselor, Imanri city governor (Kyushu) serving as a public servant of the Meiji Emperor.56 It is extraordinary to force oneself into the rank of thousands of military. He was able to achieve it because of the spirit of unity of Sword and Zen which transcended life and death. His intelligence and brave spirit saved the lives of many. Nishida would have known about the name of Tesshu Yamaoka as well. Whether it is coincidence or inevitability, Nishida and Tesshu Yamaoka were not acquainted but the teacher of Zen of Nishida, Zen priest Setsumon would connect to both.

Setsumon was a priest of the Kokutai-ji of Ecchu area (now Niigata Prefecture). He devoted himself to missionary work and rebuilding the temple. He sometimes requested Tesshu Yamaoka for calligraphy and paintings. By selling them, Setsumon realized the profits and used them to the temple.57 Setsumon would probably have introduced the writings and paintings of Tesshu Yamaoka to Nishida who came to Zen.

54 " When I was taught by Teacher Hojo'' Vol. 12, p. 257 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 29.

55 "Super Japanese History" Kodansha, Tokyo, 2001, p. 488

56 "The Heibonsha World Encyclopedia'', Item of Yamanaka Tettshü, Heibonsha, Tokyo.

57 "Life of Nishida Kitaro", Tomoyuki Uesugi, p. 162.

Then he would have told the attitude of Tesshu Yamaoka to Zen, unity of Sword and Zen. Nishida also learned from these Zen great men and practiced Zen with an attitude of whole body and spirit.

In the diary from 1888 to 1906, the record of the practices of Zazen frequently comes out. In particular, the six years until 1903 day and night, it is continuous Zen meditation. Among his disciples, Nishida told Masaaki Kosaka that he enthusiastically practiced Zen at Yamaguchi Higher School.58

When he was home for long holidays, he was always sitting by Daitoku-ji and Myoshin-ji temples in Kyoto. In the diary of the New Year of 1898 (Meiji 31) he wrote about the sitting at Myoshin-ji in Kyoto:

day 1 (Saturday) rain. I got up at 7:30. Around 10 o'clock, I practiced Zen. I ate lunch in the temple. Afternoon and night I practiced Zen. day 2 (Sunday) in the morning during the darkness I got up and practiced Zen. In the morning I visited Mr. Takarayama. In the afternoon and at night I practiced Zen.

day 3 (Monday) I got up in the morning at 8 o'clock. In the morning I luckily talked with Zen priest Bunki...

day 8 (Saturday) at 5:20 AM I departed from Kyoto and arrived at Tokuyama at 9:00 PM.

day 9 (Sunday) around 1 PM I arrived at Mitajiri (near Yamaguchi city) by ship. I stayed at Santoku city one night. I got on a horse-drawn carriage at 8 AM. I arrived at Yamaguchi around noon. day 10 (Monday) from today school class begins. At night I practiced Zen. I went to bed at midnight.

day 11 (Tuesday), I got up in the morning at 7:30 AM. ...In the afternoon I visited Professor Tokiyuki Hojo. As I did not participate in the starting ceremony, I was reproved by him.

As stated above, he was reproved by Tokiyuki Hojo. Because he could not make it in time for the starting ceremony of the school as he encouraged himself to practice Zen until the end of the winter vacation. The custom which passes the year end to the New Year continued for nine years. At the back of the cover of the diary of the year 1898 the following self-regulation and determination statement is written:

The ancient intelligent people formed the great way after having gone through a lot of hardships. As I have a small talent, I need to go through a lot of hardships.

Time flies like an arrow. It does not come back again. I should keep my big ambition and make effort to achieve the great way taking off the evil desire. The way is not dependent on the environment but the ambition. If man is honest thoroughly, he cannot but form his way. Man should be ambitious and never desire small interest and success.

58 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 123.

A diamond in the rough. Abandon self-interest. Do not hide evil from people. Do not make a difference referring to conscience. Keep building your ideas steadily and avoid making them irresponsible. You should think a great deal of a little time.

Idleness is a terrible enemy. Man should always keep the tension that the blade puts on the head.59

Nishida carved a golden saying that natural intelligent persons formed their great successes going through a lot of hardships. And he was aware of having a big ambition. Make sure to build great pride and mind, leave your evil desire and devote yourself to the great way. The realization of the great way is based only on the will. Embrace the ambition, do not wish for small interest and success. A man of great promise blooms later. Abandon my evil desire, just always devote myself carefully saving time. Always think that a threatening blade hangs overhead. Nishida who desires Zen desperately seeks truth, the great way, enlightenment. Nishida was given an 'ignorant draft' (Questions and answers in Zen). Naturally he will remember this subject day and night while practicing Zen. No-thinking No-imagination in Zen Buddhism is not to not think of anything and not to not imagine anything but it means not to be captured by desires and evil interests. That is the heart condition of Satori and Enlightenment which has already been discussed in Chapter 2 of my original book "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love". It is impossible for us as a living body to think nothing and not to think anything. As long as we are alive, consciousness is flowing and thinking is moving. If man stops thinking, he could not practice Zen.

Nishida intensely asked for Zen, in other words, a variety of evil thoughts, desire, anxiety, a dream of a lifetime, hope to become a university professor, a divorced wife, pride, complex of selective course of Tokyo University and problems with his child and his father whirled violently, Zen meditation was liberation from these problems and sufferings. At least, when he practices Zen, he is not caught in such sufferings. The nothingness of an 'ignorant draft' (Questions and answers in Zen) conforms to the essence of "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love". No-thinking, No-Imagination is not to not think of anything but it is not to be captured.

It took him six years to pass through this 'ignorant draft'. Nishida survives desperately every moment of the day, day after day. However, the greatness of Nishida is not only liberation but also to find the way of living and the truth of the entire universe. It means that Nishida breaks through and beyond the wall of anguish and suffering unconsciously, he reaches to the intuition of nothingness as the reality. That experience eventually comes to fruition as the establishment of the 'pure experience' philosophy of Nishida. Though Nishida passed through the 'ignorant draft' he was not satisfied. In 1903, on August 3, the old Zen master Koshu admitted to Nishida the solution of 'ignorant draft' in Kyoto Daitoku-ji. In the diary of the day:

59 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 100.

In the evening I practiced Zen. I was permitted to pass Koan 'ignorant draft'. But I am not satisfied. My friend Sugimori goes abroad studying. Man should make an effort to study independently. Man should not rely on others. Koan : Stop the sound of the temple bell.60

For a long time, what has been sought after offering the whole body was finally recognized and permitted. If it was an ordinary man, he would have been filled with the joy of great Satori, Enlightenment. However, the spirit of Nishida has already reached to the intuition of nothingness as reality deeply and far beyond that area of Koan 'ignorant draft'. Therefore, he felt no satisfaction. Nishida's direct disciple, Torataro Shimomura (former Kyoto University professor) asked Daisetsu Suzuki why Nishida was not satisfied. Daisetsu Suzuki answered as follows:

There is such a thing, like an intellectual logical human brain like Nishida. But I think there is something certainly grasped, otherwise such philosophy would not be born.61

Daisetsu Suzuki Zen Buddhist worldwide authority says "There is something he has grasped certainly". That is the 'nothingness as reality' as my book tells. When Nishida did not have the philosophical concept of 'nothingness as reality' and went on the way to Satori, he expressed 'the law of the universe' in his diary of May 6, 1901.

The idea is like the law of the universe similar to the axiom of mathematics. It should not be bent as if man tries to bend it.62

From the principle of 'the law of the universe' eventually the philosophy of pure experience is established. From the "Philosophy of Nothingness and love", Zen of Nishida is not only a solution to life problems, suffering and conflicts but also the formation experience of his pure experience. He intuited nothingness as reality, further he deepened and widened it. After going through the 'ignorant drafts', the number of Zen practices gradually decreased and he headed towards philosophy formation. In the process of struggle with Zen, in 1898, his wife Kotomi came back and it was restoration of the marital relationship. In addition, he became professor at Yamaguchi Higher School as he hoped and the same year in July he became the Fourth Higher School professor by the invitation of Tokiyuki Hojo. He decorated his success in his hometown. His father who was in a state of bad relation died of pneumonia the previous year, feudal opposition disappeared. It seems that most troubles where resolved by taking office as professor and having reconciled with his wife.

As he became a professor at the fourth higher school, the former student complex of the selective course has gone. He would then be able to live academic life with

60 Ibid. p. 120.

61 "Nishida Kitaro Man and Thought', Torataro Shimomura, p.61 Quotations "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 124.

62 Complete Works Vol. 17, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro" p. 124.

confidence. However, Zen will continue. As the author had described before, Nishida asked for intuition of nothingness as reality not just the liberation from the troubles of life problems. If he was an ordinary man, he would probably stop Zen by reconciliation with his wife and taking office as a professor. Nishida was different. Having broken through the wall of anguish, he sank the intuition of infinite world of nothingness as reality. Then he published various papers such as "On reality", "Ethics", "Knowledge and Love", "Pure experience and thinking, will and intellectual intuition", "On religion". Eventually he will publish "An Inquiry into the Good' (1911). In this sense, this era is extremely valuable.

Nishida remembered the age of the Fourth Higher School as follows:

Remembrance of the Fourth Higher School:

There is nothing to be with me without past memories. If past memories mean the existence of myself, it must be said that the memory of the Fourth Higher School occupies most of me that cannot be removed from myself. When I was a student of the Fourth Higher School, I was at young age where the direction of the whole human being was determined. And when I was a professor of the Fourth Higher School, I was most energetic in the lifetime of thirty to forty. I regret that I cannot be confident that I am a dropout as a student and I am a good teacher as an instructor.

As far as the remembrance of the Fourth Higher School, what comes to my mind is not the brick building that faces Hirosaka street but it is the building of old vocational school which faces Sengokucho, forgotten by the wave of the times a long time ago. (Abbreviation)

It was around four years since I left the university that I became the fourth Higher School teacher. But I quit once and went to Yamaguchi. Then I returned to the Fourth Higher School in the era of Mr. Hojo Principal. It was about ten years since then. By the end of the year I was sick and the body was weak. From the principal at that time, I could often be said little reproaches. I also taught logic and psychology but I mainly taught German language. Once I've been the dormitory officer, I stayed at the Jishu dormitory once a week for about a year. (Abbreviation)63

As Nishida himself says, the memories of the Fourth Higher School that "occupy most of me that cannot be removed from what I am". It has a greater significance than Yamaguchi Higher School in that he was most enthusiastic about Zen and the honorable Kyoto Imperial University era. For reading, Zen meditation, leisure time, he went to see the peach blossoms and the flower garden at the mountain and enjoyed tennis with his colleagues. For the later, Nishida crossing several mountains and rivers, again the Fourth Higher School era was the best. He was nostalgic. Let's introduce a Waka poem (traditional Japanese poem) that he wrote about that time:

In the evening of Miyako far away,

63 Complete Works Vol. 12, 164-167.

I take my mind off and remember the old days.

(Written in October 1944)

This Waka was written in ink on the back cover of the first edition book of "^n Inquiry into the Good'. When Torataro Shimomura, disciple of Nishida, visited Nishida in Kamakura in his later years, Nishida presented him the book.64 The main reason why the Fourth Higher School era is "the majority of his life" is the writing of "An Inquiry into the Good' above all. The philosophy of Nishida begins with "An Inquiry into the Good' and ends with "An Inquiry into the Good'. It was this era that established the huge foundation. If compared to mountain climbing, he succeeded in climbing the highest peak in the world by "An Inquiry into the Good' and the subsequent papers are logical explanations of the expanse of the world from the summit. Nishida was in the acceptance phase of philosophy, forced to deal with the European philosophy.

After "An Inquiry into the Good' he struggles to publish various papers. From the point of view of "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love", it is only a matter of expressing the spectacular scenery and impression from the summit simply. But Nishida explains the world that is constantly generating and moving by logic, especially Hegel dialectic. Further in the middle term, he explains the world by the notions of phenomenology. This was decisive failure. It is to explain the infinite world by concept and logic and it is like explaining the whole by the parts.

Of course, it is impossible. Nishida intuited something and nothingness that cannot be explained at all times. Nishida uses contradictory through something and the negative nothingness. As nothingness is infinity also, nothingness is a much wider concept than the being. The dialectic is full of contradictions in the world. Nishida therefore thinks of the world of self-identity of absolute contradiction. This is easy to understand if you consider Jesus Christ. In the Christian way of thinking, Jesus is 100 percent God and 100 percent human being. This 100 percent God and being 100 percent human being are complete, absolute contradictories. But Jesus is one and the same. Therefore, Nishida named it self-identity of absolute contradictories.

Nishida explains the world by self-identity of absolute contradiction logic from the summit. At that time, the horizon of "Absolute Nothingness" is raised. Before explaining the world of contradiction, there is a spread of the world. From the viewpoint of that infinite spread, "my horizon" is absolute nothingness. In grammar, this is a sentence (subject) lack of subject, but on the contrary, everything is possible by having no subject.

Logically, it guarantees the infinite possibilities of everything and every event. Man faces the deadlock by only the logic of self-identity of absolute contradictories. But Absolute Nothingness breaks its deadlock. In any case, the development of his philosophy is difficult. That is because Nishida himself is too conscious of the European philosophy and tries to apply the concept of European philosophy forcedly.

64 "Life of Nishida Kitaro", Tomoyuki Uesugi, pp. 40-41.

Absolute Nothingness and self-identity of absolute contradictories become clear in later years. But on the development of "Intuition and Reflection in Self-consciousness" and "From the Seeing to the Acting", he thinks of constitutional subjects in these books and uses the notions of Husserl and new Kantians. But it is a failure.

This time, he is struggling to insert "An Inquiry into the Good" into European philosophy by force. Therefore, lacking clarity, he himself has entered into the maze of narrow and complicated European philosophy. Often philosophy makes the process important. But his process is too complicated. There are also papers such as over coloring of philosophical concepts such as these of Kant, Hegel, New Kantians, Husserl and others. We can say as follows:

Nishida's book is only "An Inquiry into the Good' and the rest is a large number of papers. It has double meaning. For one, a single book of the foundation of a firm system is enough. After that, since man can write according to this foundation, the papers are sufficient. The other meaning is that "An Inquiry into the Good' is a great book but then Nishida was at the mercy of European philosophy, disturbing his perspective of seeing far away. By not being able to see the distant place (like a thick cloud at the top of the mountain), a book with a long-term perspective became hard to write. Therefore, he wrote fine papers (but the number of which was enormous). I shall treat about this infra.

For such criticisms, as will be described later, for the Nishida who established "An Inquiry into the Good", the Fourth Higher School era was the precious youthful era which is irreplaceable. Eventually, he was invited at Gakushuin University and Kyoto Imperial University in search of stimulus to the city. But his academic and spiritual foundation was formed by the land of Kanazawa that includes, "Kenrokuen", one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan and the experience of Zen meditation.

3. Bereavement with a wife and new encounter 'Sorrow and love'

In 1910, Nishida was appointed professor of the prosperous Kyoto Imperial University and both the position and the prospect were shining. However, in his private life he met his wife and children deaths. He experienced a series of sorrows. In his lifetime, Nishida lost his wife Kotomi (death following disease) and his five children. Aristotle also lost many immediate family members, parents, wife and his successor son, Nicomachus.

The first big sorrow of Nishida is the death of his second daughter (six years old). She was a cute flower from kindergarten to elementary school entrance period. The author recalled Mikiko Maekawa who was a childhood friend of Ayako Miura, the first Christian writer in Japan who I introduced in "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love". Mikiko Maekawa who entered the former girl school in Asahikawa in Hokkaido soon died of pulmonary tuberculosis. At that time, Mikiko appreciated her parents and brothers without being herself bothered at all about death, quietly sleeping eternally while praying to God. Mikiko invited Ayako to the church when she was a kindergarten

pupil, Ayako saw the birth drama of Christ at that time. Mikiko at the time of the appearance was about six years old and was playing the role of a shepherd. Ayako was surprised that a child who does not yet enter elementary school recites the long Bible words. Perhaps Mikiko's parents instructed her about the birth drama of Christ. For a young shepherd, they must have made costumes through the night. It seems that love pouring into a child aged six is to be seen. Nishida lost his sixth year old girl with bronchitis and grieved the loss of his child, nothingness.

In a letter to a friend, Takashi Horii, he wrote:

The second daughter, who was named by Mr. Mitake, Yuko at the peak of cute five years old, treated for serious illness since last year pasted away last 11th. When I was returning home, she always welcomed my return, with a lovely face and when I was reading a book, she sat by my side with a gentle shape. I remember her hands, shape and beautiful singing voice and in poor condition suffering from serious illness though she was too young. Even now these one by one and my daughter come to my mind and it is truly viscerally unbearable for me. Now I feel as if to know somehow the true nature of human life. If I was not at the desperate sorrow state such as the death of my beloved child, I think as I am dull, I could not understand the true nature of human being.65

Also in the introduction of "Japanese literary history lecture" by his close friend Sakutaro Fujioka we can read:

When I lost my child, I did not bear my deep sorrow. Especially if I thought that this sorrow would disappear with the years, I was deeply amazed. At least I recorded the dead child's image.66

Always waiting for her father's return home, when he came home, she greeted him with "welcome home", while Nishida was reading, she sat quietly by the side and sometimes sat on his knees. As Mikiko, a friend of Ayako Miura, once sang a child hymn in the church, she sang songs for school children with a cute beautiful voice. Nishida's gentle feelings for his daughter did arise.

Three years before the death of his beloved daughter, he lost his brother Hyojiro at the violent battle of Ryojun where about 80,000 people died. With the Russo-Japanese War Nishida was struck hard and had to think about taking care of his brother's widow (Hatsue) and her newborn child (Toshiko). Later Hatsue remarried and left her baby in the house of Nishida. He took care of the baby with his eldest daughter Yayoi like a daughter. After the deaths of his brother Hyojiro and daughter Yuko, twins were born (daughter Tomoko and daughter Aiko). But Aiko dies in June. In 1912, it is

65 Letters I No. 57, "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 144.

66 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 144.

a double sorrow that the six years old girl Yuko dies in January and baby Aiko dies in June.

However, misfortune continues. In September 1919, his wife Kotomi laid in bed with cerebral apoplexy. Kotomi is the daughter of his uncle who took care of Nishida. Nishida and Kotomi are cousins. They met at a young age together. She understands Nishida's character and academic well and worked devotedly for Nishida and his family. Hardships of many years have come at once. After five years, she becomes a bedridden sick person. Nishida had to give attention to nursing her. Worse, at the same time in June the following year, the eldest son Ken who was energetic until then is suddenly killed by peritonitis. Ken was a rugby player and his body was sturdy. But the bacteria causing the disease entered the blood, causing endocarditis, treatment of the hospital did not work well. He was a sophomore at Kyoto University and had a bright future. This death is reminiscent of Tadashi Maekawa, a former fiancé of Ayako Miura and a medical student. Ken and Tadashi Maekawa are ten years apart in age but they were great in the promising future. In a poem (Japanese Waka) Nishida conveys that sadness to his best friend Ryokichi Yamamoto:

From that day my son will be carried on this stretcher, he becomes one that will not return. Not hearing the sickle sound of god death,

my sick child is dreaming of the student hat. Textbooks with a lot of finger marks and kana writings of my dead son, I will place them as precious things in a basket.67

In June, he graduates from the Third Higher School (Kyoto University Liberal Arts Course) and will put on his student hat of the Kyoto University (speciality course of 3 and 4 years). That disappointment, sorrow are clearly indicated by the next passage of Mr. Hisashi Ueda, grandchild of Nishida:

When Kubo (a student who Nishida supported economically and lived in the same house) who went on to study at the Tokyo University came back from Tokyo at the end of July and asked for my grandfather, he sat in front of the desk of the six-tatami second floor room that was buried under books. Grandfather was silent for a while then said: "Ken is dead". Kubo also kept silent to endure the burning of his eyes but he cried without putting up with the sorrow. Then they cried together violently.68

At once Ayako Miura lost her fiancé Tadashi Maekawa and broke down sorrowing with the mother of fiancé Tadashi Maekawa. The sorrow seems to overlap with those of Nishida and Kubo. Nishida also loses his eldest son and cries. There is

67 "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", Nansosha, Tokyo, 1983, p. 72.

68 Ibid. p.73.

the striking shape of Nishida. From this time, Nishida will begin to compose Waka (Japanese poem).

In Waka, there are unique worlds that can only be known and be described in Waka. Nishida presented to the Third Higher School Library (now the Kyoto University Education Library), as a memorial to Ken who died young, ten volumes of Kant Complete Works, six volumes of Fichte Complete Works, "Prelude" of Windelband and "World and Individual" of Lois. Inside the back cover of the first volume of Kant Complete Works, a picture of Ken as the student of the Third Higher School is pasted:

My son spends up to twenty-three healthily, it is him that disappear like a dream. and this Waka was written.69

In the diary of the following year, it is written that he dreamed of Ken and a Waka is composed:

In winter morning I am speaking with my dead child in my dreams, the loneliness of things come up after awakening.70

Now the affection for and memories of the deceased eldest son are coming to pass. Nishida confers self-existence through waka.

Nishida's hardships are still going on. Two years later, the fourth daughter Tomoko and the sixth daughter Umeko are hospitalized with typhus, while the sorrow of Ken's death is not healed. A total of three people, his wife and two daughters, will go to bed side by side in the house. Further Nishida had to take care of them. Even if he asked a housekeeper, it was not easy. It was confusion in the house. One would not think it was the house of a professor at Kyoto University. The fourth daughter Tomoko is affected by this typhus fever and loses a little intellect. Later, Tomoko will get married but will soon get divorced and die feebly. Nishida has survived this philosophical study just for this predicament. Devoting himself to philosophical research he tried to dispel the sorrow. After the illness of the two daughters, his second son Sotohiko and intelligent woman Asako got married and his joy flew for a while.

In January 1925, his wife Kotomi died. She was 49 years old. Nishida loses his companion for thirty years. Often Nishida picked up flowers in the field and flowers in the garden and put them on the bedside of his wife. Then they were talking with each other.71 Nishida who was severe for learning was also kind to his wife. Nishida who lost the second daughter Yuko, the fifth daughter Aiko, the first son Ken and his beloved wife Kotomi is pushed down to the solitary bottom, darkness and nothingness.

Nishida wrote to Hajime Tanabe as follows:

69 Ibid., p. 73.

70 Ibid., p. 73.

71 Ibid., p. 71.

What kind of Engi (relation in the world) is there? Once I troubled you with a good luck and two times I troubled you with unlucky things. As I received your great kindness, I do not know how I should reward you. From last year, I should not raise the sorrow of the death of my wife. But I lost my house now. As if I am a traveler wandering in a distant country. Where will my heart go?72

Although the death of my wife was prepared at some point, now my wife has disappeared. It seems like my house disappeared. I felt like a traveler wandering around a distant country. Nishida sings that sorrow and loneliness into poems:

Last autumn I planted the flowers near the window, they will blossom or scatter without a viewer.

Even the winter shadow is dim light, it has been a few years ago, I come to the deceased wife's living room.73

Nishida experienced the darkness and nothingness of life in failure and suffering of the adolescence. Further Nishida intuited nothingness as reality through Zen and nothingness as the death of his children and his wife. Disciple Kiyoshi Miki (H^ffl ),74 the rare prominent philosopher in Japanese philosophical history, called it "thick and thick darkness" also "darkness of bottomless unknown".

... The teacher's philosophy is the effort to illuminate the darkness, the light comes out of that darkness. The deeper the darkness is the more demanding the rational things are violent. Teacher's philosophy is not just intuitionism just as it is not just irrationalism. It is a fierce pursuit for rational and logical things. The light entering into the dark is the most beautiful. The attractiveness of the teacher's philosophy and the human appeal of the teacher come from this unknown darkness.75

Through his sharp eyes, Kiyoshi Miki has seen through the darkness and nothingness of Nishida's heart. Nishida experienced the darkness of the death of his children, his brother and his wife over and over again with a storm of the sea of life. His apprentice Kiyoshi Miki of the disciples intuited that experience of nothingness. Even if life is harsh, the joy and happiness that surpass it will come. Sad death is also preparation for new encounters. Nishida loses many of his children but as if to compensate for it, he is blessed with many disciples and finally gains the grace of remarriage. Nishida's successors are Kyoto University Hajime Tanabe, Seiichi

72 Ibid., p. 87.

73 Ibid., p. 88.

74 Miki Kiyoshi (1897-1945).

75 Miki Kiyoshi Complete Works, Vol. 17, p. 304, "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", pp. 54-

55.

Hatano,76 Sanjuro Tomonaga77 father of Shinichiro Tomonaga78 who received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Risaku Mudai79 the president of Tokyo University of Education and later Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe80 and others.

He was blessed with his disciples that the author could not grasp it. Among them, Kiyoshi Miki is shining as the most excellent disciple of mutual respect.

There is no disciple who admired Nishida more with a heart. The encounter is impressive. Yayoi, the eldest daughter, wrote the father "father of the time" and was lively:

... When I did something anywhere and returned to my house by train from Demachi terminal one day there where were traditional ancient Japanese straw sandals that are not very new at the inside entrance and a student hat on the stile. The sheepskin hat was torn at the top and one white braid was wrapped in a casual manner. "Who is he?" From his hat shape, he probably is not a Third Higher School student but First Higher School student. I remember that though First Higher School student style is not rough (Bankara), the style of Kiyoshi Miki is rough (Bankara) strangely and I laughed it suddenly. (The shape of the Third Higher School is rough.) "My mother I return now. Is the visitor First Higher School student?" "Yes." "It's a very strange hat and footwear. I have not seen them before." - That was the first time Kiyoshi Miki came to my house. It was probably the day when he came back after borrowing "Pure Reason Criticism" of Kant.

My father seems to say that it is usual to send visitors and sometimes to tell them to come and visit. Asking to my father who strolled into the living room, "I wonder who is he now". "He is a prodigy who ranked first at the First Higher School of this year.

He listened to my lectures and will go into the department of philosophy of Kyoto University from September. As Mr. Hayami and others professors of the First Higher School are praising him. I'm looking forward to him, "He was glad to tell me that. My father was having a good disciple, how pleasant it was. I, eldest daughter, remembered his long-time academic life during which my father was disadvantaged. Anyway, even if a person who should go out first, go to law department, go to the administration, get better in the real industry and others should enter the University of Tokyo naturally. But he goes to Kyoto University, probably he will be a special person. Therefore6 I was deeply moved. Through the day after that, Miki's letters arrived at my father's. His letters were left-

76 Seiichi Hatano (Mßl&M—,1877-1950) He was a leading figure in the Kyoto School with Nishida and Second President of Tamagawa University.

77 Sanjuro Tomonaga 1871-1951).

78 Shinichiro Tomonaga —^,1906-1979) He received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his achievements in quantum electrodynamics.

79 Risaku Mudai (0~nSfä,189O-1974) He was second president of the Philosophical Association of Japan.

80 Fumimaro Konoe (&0£M189\-\945) He was a royalty. I mentioned about him supra.

rising characters and beautifully aligned sentences that were more orderly than letterpress. It seems that letters of Miki have been collected for a long time.

It was from that time that my father and Mr. Miki's master-disciple relationship occurred, as I think about it, it is 24 years since I left my school in Tokyo. I appreciate that Mr. Miki has cherished my father as a teacher. I do not understand philosophy, especially the philosophy of my father who is said to be esoteric, neither I do understand it nor want to understand it. But I thank that the disciples do care about our imperfect father, I think it is a blessing. ...81

Kiyoshi Miki is the head of the University of Tokyo at the time. Will the first Higher School be a liberal arts education for the 1st and 2nd year of the University of Tokyo? So he was the chief. Originally he proceeded to law school and he should have been willing to follow the path to a high level bureaucrat such as at the Ministry of Finance but he came to Kyoto University without choosing it. As Yayoi, his daughter, wrote there was almost none to go to Kyoto University from the First Higher School. Then Kiyoshi Miki was the first one as he himself said later. To a great extent, the University of Tokyo from Meiji to Taisho periods was prestigious.

Originally Kiyoshi Miki had the potential to become the elite in the elite of Japanese national bureaucrats but abandoned its status and honor. Instead of this he came to study philosophy at Kyoto University where Nishida was teaching. It is comparable to Nichiren's historical determination "I will be a pillar of Japan" which is the height of that aspiration. He visited Nishida's home before entering university and borrowed "Pure Reason Criticism" of Kant. This shows his spirit and enthusiasm. Nishida would have been struck by that attitude.

No, this scene seems to strike the hearts of everyone who intends for philosophy and reading. The author wants that modern bureaucrats and politicians who are struggling to acquire concession and getting profit should learn from the attitude of Kiyoshi Miki. Everyone should respect the passion for truth of Kiyoshi Miki and the spirit of adoration for the teacher. Kiyoshi Miki's talent is said to have been legendary since it flourished at Kyoto University. He studied abroad in Germany and France from 1922 to 1925. Then he used English, French, German and Greek languages all the time and surprised the Europeans. He went to Heidelberg first but in a month or two he spoke just like a German and in a blink of an instant he wrote a philosophical paper in German. A German scholar also was stood by reading the original Greek text. After that, he moved to under Heidegger in Marburg, further moved to Paris and studied Pascal works. This research will be summarized in "Human studies in Pascal" and this book is a masterpiece of Pascal's research. It may be said that the high level of his ability is above that of Nishida.

The author remembers Yukio Mishima who was a candidate for the Nobel Prize of literature. Yukio Mishima graduated from the department of law of the University

81 "Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", pp. 199-200.

of Tokyo as head chief and entered the Ministry of Finance. That future was highly anticipated but he retired from the Ministry of Finance to concentrate on writing. He presented many masterpieces with his high ability. Together with Yasunari Kawabata, an authority of Japanese literature, he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize of literature. Yasunari Kawabata won the prize in order of age but the talent of young Yukio Mishima was superior. It might be a match to the public opinion. Kiyoshi Miki's ability was also in that area. Just Yukio Mishima committed suicide on the Ground of Self Defense Force's Ichigaya garrison and was short-lived as 45 years old. Although Kiyokshi Miki was about 28 years older than Yukio Mishima, the head of the University of Tokyo had high ability as well as Mishima. He was expected in the philosophy world of Japan. But as he hid to escape a punishment, he was imprisoned for violation by the Security Maintenance Act. Soon he dies in prison at the age of 49. Japan has erased the next big star of Japanese philosophy world. Originally he was the most influential person of the successor of Nishida. But Japan itself buried the best philosopher in Japan. The effects of this tragedy last for decades. If Kiyoshi Miki was alive, philosophy of Japan would have been much different. The sharpness of his insight and criticism are first-class and the sentences of his works have rhythm and tension. It fascinates the reader. Although it is a difficult point to incline too much to Marx, it is worthy to cast light on further research.

Encounter with genius Kiyoshi Miki and Japanese philosophy big star Nishida was decisive for both destiny. Nishida made Kiyoshi Miki the first disciple and trained him academically. Kiyoshi Miki also respected the sincerity of Nishida. It seems like the mutual respect between Nishida and his teacher Tokiyuki Hojo. Kiyoshi Miki himself said about his admission to Kyoto University:

I went to Kyoto in order to study under Prof. Kitaro Nishida. The greatest influence in higher school days was teacher's "^n Inquiry into the Good". Through reading this book, when I was in doubt, I made the decision to study philosophy.82

And:

My most favorite book was Teacher Nishida's "^n Inquiry into the Good". I was delighted with the dance when I could find all the personalityful satisfaction that I had never felt before. If it should be philosophy, I had to believe that it is a philosophy that I cannot help being asked for. And it will never deny my passion, on the contrary, it raises my passion.83

He also wrote regarding the life at Kyoto University:

In the age of university, I was influenced from humans more than books. I think it to be very happy. At that time, as the numbers of the students were

82 Miki Kiyoshi Complete Works, Vol. 1, p. 364, "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro"", p. 50.

83 Miki Kiyoshi Complete Works, Vol. 1, p. 29, "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro"", p. 51.

not so many, the relationship between professors and students were closer than now not comparatively.84

It seems that the student days of Kiyoshi Miki at Kyoto University were truly happy. He was loved by many teachers under Nishida who can also be called a master of life. It is like the life of Aristotle in Academia. When he graduates from university, he studies abroad in Europe. Till that time he was sail wind full and had momentum like a dragon. After returning to Japan after completing study in Europe for three years, he became a lecturer of philosophy at the Third Higher School. Then the next step was supposed to be a professor at Kyoto University. But that ambition did not realize at all. Genius, Kiyoshi Miki has revealed himself and is unexpected faults and lacks to seniors. Although it was good to tell the impressions of returning from Europe, he made extraordinary rude critiques of his seniors momentarily. This is often the case of genius and if a man is a genius, the surroundings for him seem to be too mediocre. In fact, this mediocrity is sometimes valuable. But for a genius philosopher of 30 years old, it would have been impossible not to point out this mediocrity. However, the pointing out, the words were regarded as insulting by the seniors. In other words, he was in a situation unfamiliar to the public. Nishida makes the greatest effort for his beloved disciple but failed to overturn the majority of faculty meetings.85 Eventually, Kiyoshi Miki moved to Tokyo in disappointment.

Nevertheless, it is a wonderful he became professor at Hosei University. But Kiyoshi Miki thought naturally being a professor at Kyoto University was a good deal. He would have felt big frustration and hardship. Kiyoshi Miki who was called a star of Japanese philosophy world experienced setback, hardship, darkness and nothingness. However, Kiyoshi Miki grows up humanly with this setback and he could see through Nishida's darkness and nothingness because he experienced himself darkness and nothingness. Although Kiyoshi Miki left for Tokyo, the trust of Kiyoshi Miki of Nishida never wobbled. Inquiries about the current proofreading sent to "Thought', philosophical magazine, in the later years were determined solely to answer "All questions are heard and corrected by Miki".86 The respect of Kiyoshi Miki for Nishida never faded. In his diary on February 23 of 1936:

I visited teacher Nishida in the afternoon. Today I had a very interesting story about the problem of the body. I would like to study harder if I talk with my teacher. Also I have to do a big job as a philosopher. Never lightly see my mission and power, I can do it. There is neither envying nor fearing others. What is my current situation! It's work! It's work! I will be happy if I think so. I have power.87

84 Miki Kiyoshi Complete Works, Vol. 1, p. 366, "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 51.

85 "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 52.

86 Ibid., p. 53.

87 Miki Kiyoshi Completed Works, Vol. 16, p. 153, "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 55.

Kiyoshi Miki received inspiration from Nishida and encouraged himself to improve himself. Kiyoshi Miki was arrested on suspicion of violating the security maintenance law in 1930. Therefore he resigned from Hosei University and was exclusively engaged in literary activities. But he was brave, since about 1938 he entered the Showa Institute to resist military fascism. In March 1945 at the end of the war, he gave a meal and one kimono (bearing the name of Miki) to Tel Takakura, communist in that period who escaped from the Metropolitan Police Department. He was arrested for violation. At Toyotama Prison in Nakano, due to extreme insanitation and extreme malnutrition, he died of acute kidney disease. As a philosopher he was 49 years but had a future to come.

It was September 26th and forty days had passed after the end of the war. Repeatedly, Japan slaughtered Kiyoshi Miki the next big star of Japan's philosophy. This loss is immeasurable. Although the encounter between Nishida and Kiyoshi Miki was dramatic, the end is tragic. However, Kiyoshi Miki's high ambition struck our hearts. Though his philosophy was incomplete, he is great as a philosopher, resisted militaristic fascism with courage and life.

In any case, mutual respect between the two big stars of Japanese philosophy world is shining brilliantly. Necessary to the Japanese philosophy world now is a young philosopher who burns with enthusiasm for ambition and academics like Kiyoshi Miki. And a mature philosopher burning with a passion for originality to open a new age to respond to young people is necessary. In terms of originality and passion, the modern philosophy is not one step ahead of the mutual respect between Nishida and Kiyoshi Miki. No, it is a retreat only by the increase in thin philosophical history research papers and articles. It is because they made their mutual respect a mere relic of the past. The background is a bad progressive historical perspective and a slowing of spirit. Progressive historical perspective, same as evolution theory, human beings and human society are considered evolving and developing with the times. So new ones are better, older ones are inferior. Natural science fits this completely. Computers of decades ago are outdated and not usable. Depending on things, in general the lifetime of a personal computer is three to five years, after that it will be coarse garbage or some people will not have three years to replace it. Cars, washing machines, refrigerators also have a lifetime. At first glance, the progressive historical perspective seems true, but most of it is limited to science. Morality, religion, philosophy are not that simple. One possible assertion is to say that it is somehow difficult to find Japanese philosophers with an aura beyond Kitaro Nishida and Kiyoshi Miki. In 1933, Nishida already predicted the philosophical world of Japan and foresaw it. It is written in a letter to Goichi Miyake of Tohoku University:

Protest is the place I'd like to hear most happily. Please do not just read the thin things such as "Human studies" or "Live philosophy", please read more deeply. Even this time, I admire enough Heidegger's works. But man cannot deal with deep entities and life problems by any means. Japanese students read German books only and use them for dexterity by incorporating their methods. But Japanese students do not really think seriously from the

bottom of their hearts. In this way it will only end in imitation. If not from the bottom of our life a philosophy cannot be born. I think that we have to read the Japanese books more and make a scholarly publikum for our country. Learning cannot be done by one's power.88

Nishida had already seen the weak point of Japanese philosophy. Japanese philosophers are absorbed in the imports of Europe and the United States, especially German philosophy. Also they do not think seriously at the bottom of their heart. They understand the philosophical books like the natural science books. Philosophy that lacks questioning of its own soul and life is merely an imitation. Although Nishida pointed this out seventy years ago, unfortunately, after Nishida and Kiyoshi Miki, the tendency of imitation and translation of Western texts is felt strongly. However, it is not enough to mourn. By "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love", such imitation of the past has been overcome and a new originality has been initiated. One of the steps is mutual respect between Kitaro Nishida and Kiyoshi Miki. Continuous impression and love make awakening from slumber and dullness of sensitivity.

In Nishida's life, it is his remarriage with Koto Yamada that shines. At that time, Koto Yamada of 49 years old was a professor and vice president of Tsuda College, a prestigious women university. It can be said that she was one of the highest ranked social standings and the most gifted woman among gifted women. On November 2nd 1884 Koto was born in Kofu in Yamanashi Prefecture, famous place under Mt. Fuji. She graduated from Kofu Toyo Eiwa Girl School. At one time she taught English at Shizuoka Eiwa School but later entered Tsuda College. After graduating from Vassar College (USA), returning to Japan, she went through the Kobe College and had been teaching at her mother school Tsuda College for a long time.89 As a professor at Tsuda College, Nishida proposed to Koto Yamada to the elite of girls' education. However, gifted Koto also bore bitterness, darkness and nothingness of the past. It is her divorce with a teacher (Nakagawa) at the Nara girls normal school.

Although she gets married in 1904, the pleasure disappears soon. She tends to lie down on the floor due to illness. Then the mother-in-law ordered her to rest at her parents' house. When she returns to her parents' house in Kofu, one day suddenly all her baggage were sent from the mother-in-law.90 It was a unilateral divorce notice that was too harsh. For the new wife of early 20's, she would have been deeply and profoundly injured. It can be said that neglect of human rights is also serious if it was now. It would be advisable to request a corresponding financial compensation. Also, even if man divorces, there is a legal procedure. A spouse may have serious illness or mental disability, and in some cases, it is impossible to continue married life. Even so, sending all baggage suddenly after returning to her parents' house ... Ayako Miura's first fiancé, Ichiro Nishinaka kept waiting for Ayako suffering from tuberculosis for three years after the date of promise. Even if the road from Shari Town, facing the Sea

88 Letters I No. 824, "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 162.

89 "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 142.

90 Complete Works Vol. 17, Appendix 'Grandmother Koto Nishida', p. 5.

of Okhotsk, to Asahikawa in Hokkaido was 300 km long, he came to visit her. He bought and brought a lot of fish and meat to help the recovery of Ayako's physical strength. Somehow he wanted to cure her disease, he brought several books of the Growing House (new religion in Japan) and sometimes read them at her bedside. When Ayako tried to spit out phlem, he quickly reached out his hand and took a phlem pot and brought it to Ayako's mouth. He was also a kind person who made haiku, wrote letters and was quite pleasantly aware.91

While there was a man who did wait for three years during the pulmonary tuberculosis of Ayako Miura and showed amazing devotion, there was no conversation, just sudden sending baggage and a striking separation pattern. Marriage is essentially the whole of the inflating life of dreams and hopes for every new wife. Husband and wife are alive together, eventually it will be the birth of a new life.

Originally marriage is sublime and solemn. But the suffering by Koto was considerable. It seems that Koto also did not talk much about her bitterness to Mr. Hisashi Ueda (Nishida's grandchild). However, thinking of Koto and her parents, man is aware of that sorrow. Koto also experiences the sadness, darkness and nothingness of life.

After resting at her parent's home in Kofu, she became an English teacher of Shizuoka Eiwa School and became a colleague of Ms. Ai Hoshino who will become the president of Tsuda College later. After working for Shizuoka Eiwa for four years, Koto burning for study was given the chance to attend Tsuda College (third grader) and was recognized by the founder of Tsuda College, Umeko Tsuda. However, at a great opportunity for school attendance, pleurisy recurs and she drops out of Tsuda College. Experiencing divorce and dropping out at young age, Koto also encounters hardships, darkness and nothingness. Fortunately, she seems to be familiar with the Bible from a child age in a Christian home and seems to continue praying for this hardship with patience. She prays for recovery of health and chances of life. God never abandoned Koto. God gave her the best way. Umeko Tsuda who regretted the talent of Koto, opened her the way to study in the United States with the help of Mrs. Fuka. Fuka's family member is an American millionaire and a relative to the Rockefeller family. Koto who entered Vasser Women's College and majored in psychology got academically as dry sand absorbs water. She also made a lot of acquaintances. When she graduated from college in July 1916, she then taught at Kobe College. The student at this time, Ms. Taka Kitamura (Professor of Tokyo Woman's University) tells as follows:

She was a hi-tech teacher who returned home with dark black hair and white eyes, classes were severe. But she is somehow a fascinating woman, had a huge popularity among girls.92

91 Ayako Miura, "Michi Ariki" Shincho Bunko, Tokyo, 1980, pp.22-23.

92 Complete Works Vol. 17, Appendix 'Grandmother Koto Nishida', p. 6.

After she taught for two years at Kobe College, Ai Hoshino, a former colleague, went studying abroad and Koto was recalled to Tsuda College to be the successor of Ai Hoshino. When Ai Hoshino returned from the United States, the pair resurrected as of thirteen years ago. In 1906, two people who parted as first teacher at Shizuoka Eiwa School reunited while walking different paths in life. A beautiful friendship between Koto and Ai Hoshino is shining in there. Koto was thoroughly backed up at the time by the head teacher Hoshino. She behaved modestly. This is humble virtue:

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.93

Koto practiced educational activities with this verse in mind. 'Do everything with humility and gentleness', it seems that the character of Koto is symbolized. Koto was the first-class lady of the time. It was natural that Nishida courted her. According to his grandson Hisashi Ueda, she was longed for by many students during Tsuda College. One of them, Ms. Fuki Yamaguchi (Tokyo Prefectural First Girl High School) wrote:

The teacher's lesson was very fun English, and I was taught about 'Little Prince' and British history. Her nick name is "thousand eyes" and she has long eyelashes and big black pupils. She has a sober kimono on and a silver watch with chain.94

Ms. Yamaguchi's class and other students are very popular and every time she sees myself in class during class then she draws a picture of the eye on a notebook. The notes are filled with eyes. On Sunday Church school was held for the dormitory students at the chapel in the school but it was said that school students attended Koto's Bible lecture. For the students, Koto translated "the book mark of girl prayer" from English into Japanese.95

Koto was also an enthusiastic Christian as Church school teacher. To prepare lectures every week is not so easy. The teacher herself corrects her collar and burns the passion of faith. Every night, the appearance that Koto reads the Bible and devises the contents of the lecture seems to appear to the eyes. It needs three or four days and is completed on Friday night. On Saturday, she had time for preparations of her lecture and her mind. That girl came last week and that girl did not come. She wonders what's wrong. She prayed for each and every one to attend.

Psalms and Hymns should have been in the age of Koto in general: Hymn no. 472 "Storm of the Sea of Life" introduced in "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love", Psalm no. 461 "Jesus Loves me! This I know" (Recalling the Cross of enfant Ludovico Ibaraki), Hymn (chant) 641 "Face to face with Christ my Savior (For our sins)" (a pure

93 Ephesians 4: 2-3.

94 Complete Works Vol. 17, Appendix, p. 6.

95 Ibid., p. 6.

melody that comforted Mrs. Maekawa's sorrow who lost her daughter and son). Probably Koto would have sung the poetry. In the past, Koto herself was hurt and she was forced to drop out due to illness. She experienced sorrows of life, difficulty and nothingness. However, since Koto was a Christian with her family, she overcame her sufferings and nothingness by faith in God and prayer. Koto herself experienced the principle of nothingness and love, nothingness ^ infinity ^ eternity ^ God ^ love. Nishida would have intuited such a deep life experience of Koto. Nishida who first met her in introduction of Shigeo Iwanami at Iwanami Shoten and Kakutarö Nakagiri who taught philosophy in Tsuda College was struck at heart and fell in love.

Nishida discharges that feeling with a poem:

Coming and Passing many years and days,

my heart burns violently for you. With my heart longing for you,

my life is not so long now. At nights I don't meet you immediately,

I dream of you in my dreams continuously.96

Fifth years of wife's nursing, after a deceased wife, six years supporting a family as a single man, Nishida also reached the limits of solitude and labor. He had already revealed the mind of remarriage with Tetsurö Watsuji in conjunction with the idea of "Nothingness".

Next thought perhaps will become self-defense. To have a comforter (wife) with a warm heart is desirable for me, as I am a lazy person and melancholic. I do not think anything such as a Hagestolz (old single) except a Zen priest or a Catholic priest.

I have a deep admiration for Religiosität (reverence) but the formal religious life which denied human nature is not my favorite place. I do not even think of it as the ideal of life and truth. My "Nothingness" must be a warm heart that thought is like Shinran (MM) who admits the freedom of each and envelops any sinner, I do not know in detail if Shinran is such a thing ...97

Nishida's heart was exhausted by years of solitude and the burden of the family. So, he revealed his hope to have a wife who takes care of him and family with a warm heart. He was neither a Zen priest nor a clergyman. He also admitted that he is a common person who drinks and eats. At that time, Nishida uses the important concept of religion, philosophy of "Nothingness". "Nothingness" does not mean nothingness of all existence. In this case that is nothingness of wife. In this book that is undefined and incomprehensible nothingness, it is beyond the words, regulations and every definition. Therefore that is freedom. That freedom should be Shinran's freedom

96 "Continued Grandfather Nishida Kitaro", p. 143.

97 Ibid., p. 134.

including all sinners, a warm heart. By the way, we have already discussed about Shinran in "Philosophy of Nothingness and Love". The author pointed out that Shinran on the mountain was teaching the sermon of Chinese sentences called "Evil persons are saved theory (MA^MM)". Shinran's sin concept comes from Christianity and the forgiveness of sin is Agape (the love of God). It is called as Buddha's mercy in Buddhism. Freedom including any sin is unspecified nothingness and it continues to the principle of nothingness ^ infinity ^ eternity ^ God ^ love. Nishida sought from freedom and nothingness to warm heart and love.

Shinran (1173-1262) is the founder of Jodoshinshu that is the largest Buddhist sect in Japan. As the first monk he married a nun against the teaching of Buddhism like Martin Luther did in Christianity.

It is also shown here that the highest wisdom in Asia "Nothingness" continues to love. When Nishida informs Teturo Watsuji that he wishes to remarry, Nishida is attracted to Koto who has both academic and cultural learning, both humility and youth that does not suit the year. The embankment of the heart of Nishida who endured solitude alone and supported the family starts to collapse.

My loose heart brought down for a few years, my life unraveled with broken heart.98

Nishida sends a letter of courting to Koto. It was the letter filled with love, honesty and a whole heart. The best Japanese philosopher did everything in love and wisdom to gain a wife. Otherwise, the heart of Koto could not move either. She was a vice president and a professor at Tsuda College at that time and was unilaterally divorced and had a bitter experience. No matter how noble her partner is, she cannot easily step over. Also, since Koto was a Christian, she wanted to be a Christian also to the partner. The difference in values will cause large deviations and grooves later. She must have considered the marriage deeply. However, the sincerity and courtesy of Nishida from the bottom of the heart rocked the heart of Koto. Koto's niece (Chieko Tsunoda) wrote in a glimpse of how to read that letter:

When my husband was hospitalized in Tokyo University Hospital, my aunt (Koto) who came down to leaning against the window of the hospital room took Mr. Nishida's letter written on a long paper from her bosom carefully and read it pleasantly. I remember that though my aunt came to see the patience, she was smiling. Therefore, I felt anger.99

Irrespective of that place, Koto read the letter from Nishida at the time attentively. The heart of Koto beats so much, full of passion, rendering her content. At last Koto opens the door of her heart and decides to get married. The philosophy of Nishida that

98 Ibid., p. 143.

99 Ibid., p. 142.

had sunk at the time then eventually emerged as the Japanese philosophy. For Nishida it can be said that the survival of Japanese philosophy relied on the marriage with Koto. To a great extent, the existence of Koto was great. At Tsuda College, an emergency staff meeting was held immediately. President Ai Hoshino announced (September 1931):

This time Professor Koto Yamada gets married with Dr. Kitaro Nishida of Kyoto University.

It was said that Ms. Koto was a teacher and she wound up as a big sensation among staff members and students.100. Nishida will give a memorable lecture at the graduation ceremony of Tsuda College on March 23, 1932 in the following year. It means a blessing given by the university. Kyoto University and Tsuda College were tied through two people.

How was the reality of marriage? Some people already knew the difficulty of the marriage. There were two unrelated daughters and a cluttered home absent from a housewife. One was mentally impaired and one has caries. Every father will become sweet. But Koto is rather a noble professor of a strict girls' university against the girls who were living free liberally. The gap is clear. There will be problems and frictions naturally. For the daughters, the mother-in-law will be annoying and for the mother-in-law the daughters will be delicate. The description of Hisashi Ueda, the grandchild, best expresses the situation:

... but my grandmother who was a devout Christian literally devoted everything for my grandfather. The honesty seems to have gradually passed to my aunts. The existence of my grandmother later, although she was unremarkable even when taken by, she became the important existence to support my grandfather and the Nishida family. In a informing letter of the remarriage of Motoei Kimura at Hiroshima on December the 31st:

I wish to leave as many anxieties (sorges) as possible, <As I am older>, I hope to immerse in my work for the coming years.101

But this grandfather's hope was realized by my grandmother.

Got a new wife, my grandfather escaped a long lonely life and he felt a bright glee. The poem (waka) described supra can also express his mind. The grandfather who left all of his family's life to his wife will publish papers one after another and build the philosophy of Nishida. If my grandfather did not wed this person, it would be doubtful that he could accomplish his subsequent bigger work. ...

100 Ibid., p. 144.

101 Letters I No. 711.

After my grandfather's death, when I asked if my grandfather was awkward, my grandmother strongly denied saying,

'No, your grandfather was very kind to me and I have never been scolded'.102

There is no way for us, bystanders to talk about it. The story of his grandson Hisashi Ueda is all about the truth. The Nishida family that Koto joined had a lot of difficult questions. However, Koto, a devout Christian, dedicated everything to Nishida, as the author expected. "Doing as long as humble and meekly" Koto worked as a support of Nishida. Honesty and generosity eventually came to the daughters. Although Koto is inconspicuous, she became a big pillar supporting the Nishida family. Mr. Hisashi Ueda, the grandson, said: "If my grandfather did not wed this person, it would be doubtful that he could accomplish his subsequent bigger work." Speaking clearly, "There is no philosophy of Nishida in the late period without Koto."

Conclusion

The philosophy of Nishida that consists of "Nothingness", "Absolute Nothingness" and "Self-identity of Absolute contradictories" is borne by Koto's dedicated effort, "love" in its foundation of living. Here, we can find the great couple love of Nishida and Koto. Nishida's lifetime is mountains and valleys, a series of sufferings and a philosophy of sorrow. But in the later age he is peaceful, joyful and warm hearted through his marriage with Koto Yamada. As a result, the great philosophy of Nishida was completed. The decision of Koto's marriage saved the philosophy of Nishida as well as the Japanese philosophy afterwards.

Further regarding the work of the wife, the second wife of Aristotle is equally great. When his ex-wife died, his second wife, Herpyllis, took entirely care of the life of Aristotle and bore their son Nicomachus. Unfortunately he died young in military service. Losing the successor son is the same as Nishida. Aristotle named the book of Philia (Love) "Nicomachus Ethics" in honor of his late son's name. It has become a historical masterpiece today. The second wife of Aristotle also supported his philosophy. This is the fruit of the couple love of the great philosophers. Both philosophies live and shine together. This is a technique that the organic worldview of the Biocosmological Association and my principle of nothingness and love can achieve.

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