Recurrence and the Great Death

Abstract

Branching off Heidegger’s phenomenology of death, Zen master Dōgen’s views on birth-and-death and being-time and their relation to the Buddhist notion of the great death are examined. The Kyoto School thinkers Tanabe and Nishitani’s positions regarding karma, samsāra, nirvāna, reincarnation, Buddha-nature, and the great death are then considered with respect to Nietzsche and Deleuze’s interpretations of time and the eternal recurrence. The purpose of this transcontinental approach is not only to examine the similarities and differences between two significantly different cultural perspectives but also to advance those viewpoints via a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of their respective philosophical practices.