BuddhaEye_FINAL.qxd
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3:42 PM
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The Buddha Eye tered” horizon. Thus the “being” dimension is limitless, beyond any sort of “centrism,” and is most radical precisely in terms of its nonman-centered nature. It is this most radical non-man-centered and cosmological dimension that provides the genuine basis for the salvation of man in Buddhism.2 Accordingly, in Buddhism man’s samsþra, i.e., succession of births and deaths, is understood to be inescapable and irremediable unless one transcends man-centeredness and bases one’s existence on a cosmological foundation. In other words, not by doing away with the birth-death nature common to all living beings, but only by doing away with the appearance-disappearance nature—i.e., the being-nonbeing nature common to everything—can man’s birthand-death problem be properly and completely solved. Herein one can see a profound realization of that transitoriness common to man and to all other beings, living or nonliving. This realization, when grasped in its depth, entails a strong sense of solidarity between man and nature. The story of a monk who, looking at the fall of a withered leaf from a tree, awakened to the transiency of the total universe, including himself, bespeaks the compelling power of such a realization. When transiency as such is fully realized and is thereby transcended in the depths of one’s own existence, then the boundless dimension of jinen or “naturalness,” where both man and nature are equally enlightened and disclose themselves each in its own original nature, is opened up. It is for this reason that, referring to such familiar Buddhist phrases as “All the trees and herbs and lands attain Buddhahood” and “Mountains and rivers and the earth all disclose their Dharmakþya [their essential Buddhahood],” I once wrote: “Indeed, unless all the trees and herbs and lands attain Buddhahood together with me, I shall not have attained Buddhahood in the true sense of the word.” Here the non-man-centered, cosmological emphasis of Buddhism is very conspicuous. The non-man-centered nature of Buddhism and its idea of jinen, however, do not imply, as is often mistakenly suggested, any denial of the significance of individualized human existence. In fact, it is precisely the other way around: the very act of transcending mancenteredness is possible only to a human being who is fully self-conscious. In other words, without self-consciousness on the part of human existence, it is impossible to go beyond “human” and “living” dimensions and to base one’s existence on the “being” dimen150