Q0655

“Nothingness in the sense of emptiness (śūnyatā) is not separate from being,…” — Nishitani Keiji (Religion and Nothingness (Van Bragt; discussion…)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Religion and Nothingness (Van Bragt; discussion of śūnyatā). Theme: being.

English

Nothingness in the sense of emptiness (śūnyatā) is not separate from being, but always in a relationship with being: being-sive-nothingness, nothingness-sive-being.
Thinker Nishitani Keiji
School Kyoto School
Source Religion and Nothingness (Van Bragt; discussion of śūnyatā)
Theme Being
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Religion and Nothingness (Van Bragt; discussion of śūnyatā) and files it under Kyoto School. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Nishitani Keiji

Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990) was Nishida’s student and a central second-generation Kyoto School figure. Educated in Japan and briefly in Germany under Heidegger’s orbit, he taught at Kyoto University and wrote Religion and Nothingness (Japanese Shūkyō to wa nanika), which confronts modern nihilism through Zen and Mahāyāna emptiness.

How to read this passage

Across 4 recurring voices here (notably Paul Tillich and Avicenna), being is framed through Africana Philosophy and Religious Existentialism. Some passages define being; others warn how it fails; still others relocate it inside habit, community, or language. This passage enters that discussion through being.

Concepts in this quote

Being
Being appears in this archive as a live philosophical concern—not a slogan. These verified English passages show how thinkers treat being as a problem of judgment, practice, or explanation.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Nishitani Keiji. (n.d.). Nothingness in the sense of emptiness (śūnyatā) is not separate from being, but always in a relationship with being: being-sive-nothingness, nothingness-sive-being. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0655

MLA: Nishitani Keiji. “Nothingness in the sense of emptiness (śūnyatā) is….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0655.

Chicago: Nishitani Keiji. “Nothingness in the sense of emptiness (śūnyatā) is….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0655.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “Nothingness in the sense of emptiness (śūnyatā) is…”?

The passage is attributed to Nishitani Keiji, Religion and Nothingness (Van Bragt; discussion of śūnyatā). The archive attributes this English wording to Religion and Nothingness (Van Bragt; discussion of śūnyatā) and files it under Kyoto School. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Nishitani Keiji mean by being?

Across 4 recurring voices here (notably Paul Tillich and Avicenna), being is framed through Africana Philosophy and Religious Existentialism. Some passages define being; others warn how it fails; still others relocate it inside habit, community, or language. This passage enters that discussion through being.

Same thinker

More from Nishitani Keiji

  1. For what purpose do I exist?
  2. At the point of our deepest questioning of ourselves, the religious quest awakens in us.
  3. So long as the field of separation between within and without is not broken through, and so long as a conversion from that standpoint does not take place, the lack of unity and contradiction spoken of earlier cannot help but prevail among the things we take as real.
  4. Religion cannot be fully understood either within the parameters of utility or from a sociological viewpoint alone.

All quotations by Nishitani Keiji

Same theme

More on being

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the being theme