Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East

Title: Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East

Author: Byung Chul Han

Publisher: Polity

Publication Year: 2023

ISBN:  9781509546206

Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but ‘the way’ (dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwelling and wandering. ‘A Zen monk should be without fixed abode, like the clouds, and without fixed support, like water’, said the Japanese Zen master Dōgen.