The formless self
By: Joan Stambaugh.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 174
Subjects: Dōgen, 1200-1253.; Hisamatsu, Shinʼichi, 1889-; Nishitani, Keiji, 1900-; Self (Philosophy); Philosophy, Japanese.; Religion -- Philosophy.
Description: Gathering and interpreting material that is not readily available elsewhere, this book discusses the thought of the Japanese Buddhist philosophers Dogen, Hisamatsu, and Nishitani. Stambaugh develops ideas about the self culminating in the concept of the Formless Self as formulated by Hisamarsu in his book The Fullness of Nothingness and the essay "The Characteristics of Oriental Nothingness," and further explicated by Nishitani in his book Religion and Nothingness.

These works show that Oriental nothingness has nothing to do with the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western concept of nihilism. Instead, it is a positive phenomenon, enabling things to be.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.