Reflections of the Land of the Rising Sun

The main theme of the new philosophical monograph by Professor Marko Uršič entitled Reflections of the Land of the Rising Sun is a philosophical, comparative-religious and existential-experiential reflection of Japanese Buddhism, especially of two important branches within the Buddhist "Great Vehicle" (māhāyana): the "pan­theistic" kegon Buddhism (in Chinese: hua-yan) and meditative Zen (chan). Special emphasis is placed on the interpretation of Buddhism within the "Kyoto School", the main direction in Japanese philosophy of the 20th century (Nishida, Nishitani, Tanabe, etc.), as well as the relationship between Japanese and Western philosophy (from Platonism to phenomenology and existentialism). The author interprets a topic that is relatively unknown in Slovenia in a philosophically innovative, thought-reflec­tive and personally engaged way, intertwining the "internal" and "external" aspects: he connects the spiritual journey through the ancient Buddhist sutras and the intel­lectual reflection of the contemporary Japanese philosophy with personal impres­sions on his meditative journey through Japanese Buddhist temples and gardens a few years ago. At the same time, this book deals philosophically, sometimes criti­cally, with relations between East and West, both in the past and in the present. – The book comprises three parts, three sets of shorter, condensed, chained and cross-linked "mosaic" philosophical sequences: the first part focuses on the role of reflections in Buddhism ("Indra's net"), i.e., the interconnectedness of all beings and things. The second part is a philosophical analysis of the concept of "non-self" in Buddhist phi­losophy (anātman, Jap. muga), also comparatively with the Western conception of self and/or ego (subject); in the third part, the focus is on Zen Buddhism as a mental and meditative experience of "being here-and-now", i.e. in the author's homeland Slovenia, at the village in the Karst region, where he lives and writes; last but not least, of particular interest is the treatment of the relationship between Buddhism and Japanese haiku poetry, enhanced with author’s own haiku verses.