Byung-Chul Han, The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism

In this work, Byung-Chul Han tries to explain his own belief to people in the West and aims to show the philosophical power of Zen Buddhism, despite its recognition as an art of living. It is important that Zen Buddhism is based on practice and that it meets a need, considering that awareness experiences are not adequately conveyed linguistically. The author creates a framework around the topics of religion without God, emptiness, no one, living in nothingness, death and friendship, and compares Zen Buddhism with the philosophies of Plato, Leibniz, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzshe and Heidegger. Han explains that in Zen Buddhism, both affirmation and negation of life are combined and that it is not based on any ultimate purpose or reason, and explains this with the doctrine of emptiness. At this point, he also includes some issues that he thinks have been influenced by Zen Buddhism in Western thought, such as emptiness and the phenomenology of ordinary life. In this work, the author describes Zen Buddhism from a philosophical perspective, but at the same time does not mention that it is a religious sect. In a way, this causes Zen Buddhism to be incompletely understood.