Philosophy of No-Mind

Nishihira Tadashi is a Japanese philosopher who held the Chair of Education in Kyoto University, Japan. He is currently professor and vice-director at the Institute of Grief Care at Sophia University, and Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University. He has authored books (in Japanese) on The Philosophy and Psychology of E.H. Erikson (1993), The Spiritual Lifecycle in the Works of Jung, Wilber, and Steiner (1997), Philosophical Investigations into Zeami's Teaching of Exercise and Expertise (2009), Mysteries of Death and Birth in Childhood (2015), Lifecycle Philosophy (2019), The Wisdom of Keiko: Practice and Exercise (2019), The Wisdom of Shuyo: Self-Cultivation in Japan (2020), and The Wisdom of Yojo: Health-Care and Self-Cultivation (2021), among others. He also translated several of E.H. Erikson’s works into Japanese.Catherine Sevilla-Liu is a researcher specializing in narrative and embodied practices at Kyushu University, Japan. She is also interested in how mindful- and compassion-based therapies may be combined with these practices. Aside from being a researcher, she is also a certified yoga instructor and sumi-e artist.Anton Sevilla-Liu is Associate Professor of Clinical Pedagogy at Kyushu University. His research examines how to transform education using the insights of Japanese Philosophy combined with contextual psychology. He is the author of Watsuji Tetsurô’s Global Ethics of Emptiness: A Contemporary Look at a Modern Japanese Philosopher (2017) and the translator of Sueki Fumihiko’s Religion and Ethics at Odds: A Buddhist Counter-Position (2016). He is also one of the editors of the Journal of Japanese Philosophy.

Nishihira’s accessible and delightful book highlights traditional and innovative aspects of No-Mind: consciously becoming-one with rain, music, audience, or opponent; throwing one’s mind into one’s body, stopping nowhere, to be everywhere; disengaging with the self in interpersonal exchange, allowing care to emerge. Sevilla-Liu’s insightful essay encourages educators to juxtapose No-Mind and the cultivation of being-mode to the prevailing doing-mode.

• Series Editor's Preface Introduction1. Seeking Out the Linguistic Roots of "No-Mind"2. Dynamism and Paradox: The Schematic Diagram and Flow of this Book3. D.T. Suzuki on No-Mind: The Experience of Mushin that Founds Religion4. D.T. Suzuki’s Research on the History of Zen Philosophy: Mushin in the History of Zen5. Izutsu Toshihiko’s Zen Philosophy: Philosophical Considerations of the No-Mind of Zen6. Mushin in Zeami’s Writings: “Not a Single Thing in Mind” and the Perfection of Theater7. Mushin in Takuan’s The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom: “Not Placing the Heart-Mind Anywhere” and “One Ought to Give Rise to this Heart-Mind”8. Ishida Baigan’s “The Heaven of Mushin”: “The Mind that is One with All on Heaven and Earth” and Social Ethics9. Innocence, Unconscious, No-Self: The Periphery of Mushin10. Paradox and Zero-Point: The Continuous Reversals of No-MindAppendix: Fragmentary Notes on the Care of No-MindTranslator’s Essay: No-Mind and Mindful Education (by Anton Sevilla-Liu)EpilogueIndex