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Document Details : Title: Nietzsche, Christianity and Zen on Redemption Author(s): VAN DER BRAAK, André Journal: Studies in Interreligious Dialogue Volume: 18 Issue: 1 Date: 2008 Pages: 5-18 DOI: 10.2143/SID.18.1.2031605 Abstract : In addition to his critique of Christian notions of redemption, Nietzsche tries to come to a life-affirming, Dionysian form of redemption, which he opposes to Christian redemption. Nietzsche's Dionysian redemption involves going beyond the illusory individual subject, and could therefore fruitfully be compared to Buddhist soteriologies based on the perspective of no-self. From the nondual Mahayana Buddhist perspective of emptiness (sunyata), redemption (nirvana) is not seen as a liberation from conditioned existence (samsara) but as an enlightened and awakened engagement with it. The thirteenth-century Zen philosopher Dogen speaks of redemption as a playful «samadhi of self-fulfilling activity.» From such a perspective, redemption is not a state of liberation «beyond good and evil» but, on the contrary, increasingly confronts us with good and evil. This can help to answer certain criticisms of both Nietzsche and the contemporary Zen Buddhist Kyoto School. |
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