Tadashi Nishihira

This paper discusses creative inspiration. These special experiences occur when the person undergoing them experiences without intention, plan, or expectation. Such experiences seem to happen by themselves, arriving like a gift from an unknown sender. The key questions thus become: Can we somehow 'prepare' for this gift? Are there any special conditions which facilitate the arrival of such experiences? According to the Japanese teaching of Keiko, there is a kind of 'reversal' or 'turnaround' in the process of exercise and expertise. At first the approach is aimed at mastering skills but thereafter the 'aim' is to be free from those same skills. Skills and techniques are important. However, there is the danger of being attached to methods to such an extent that it disturbs the fluidity of natural movement. The Japanese teaching of Keiko transmits the state of 'no intention' or 'no artificiality' in daily performance. This stage is said to be 'Beyond Skills.' This stage overlaps with the 'Setback Situation', a state in which the usual method no longer works. In other words, the conventional approach no longer yields results and seems to lead one into a dead end. According to Keiko, however, such darkness is also potentiality, the source from which something new will arise. If we attend to ourselves in this darkness, the time will come when the sprout of potentiality begins to emerge. During this 'incubation period' we must not be in hurry, as creative inspiration emerges on its own. It always grows beyond the grasp of intention. It appears out of nowhere and of its own accord. This is the flow of the Keiko teaching, as represented in the 'Innovation Diagram'. However, doubts often rise when no results are forthcoming from this incubation period--no innovation, no original ideas, no sprouts. Instead, the period is marked by great ordeal of trial and error, darkness and usually much doubt. Is such an 'incubation period' still worthwhile? The teaching of Keiko affirms 'yes'. The 'incubation period' is always of value, but just as it is: it is important not because it will yield a new sprout but because it is the place we find our alternative self as the fluidity of natural movement. It thus becomes most difficult for us, in the Japanese classical teaching, to evaluate such an 'incubation period'. To be sure, resignation is the optimal condition for awaiting the gift of inspiration, but such resignation is not synonymous with despair or hopelessness. Rather, this resignation should convey a sense of 'beyond skills', 'beyond conventional framework', 'free from any presupposition' and 'free from any articulations'. 'Free from articulations' is valuable not because of the intended result, but instead because this freedom itself of its intrinsic value. Potential evaluators should view the 'incubation period' without expectations of results because, on the first level of productivity, this is the optimal condition for creative inspiration. But on the second deeper level, this is because 'to be free from articulations' is valuable and luminous by itself. This is the essential point of the classical Japanese teaching of Keiko.

In this paper, we consider whether there is any subjectivity in the state of 'Mu-shin (No-mindness)'. Dr. Toshihiko Izutsu, a Japanese philosopher, has tried to answer this question with the example of a master musician absorbed in playing his harp. The master musician is so absorbed in playing and so completely one with the music itself, that he is no longer conscious of his fingers or of the instrument. But he is not 'unconscious', for he is conscious of himself as identified with the music. Izutsu explained that 'Paradoxical as it may sound, he is so fully conscious of himself as identified with music that he is not 'conscious' of his act of playing in any ordinary sense of the word.'Izutsu called this particular phase of 'awareness of self in full identification with music' 'Mu-shin teki Syutaisei (the subjectivity of Mu-shin)'.We may think of this particular phase as that which is prior to the subject-object bifurcation. However, Izutsu taught us that Zen-text has expressed this phase in four different ways, and it is these four types of 'Mu-shin' expression that we consider here.

Based on D.T. Suzuki's text "On Mushin," this paper will discuss (1) a child's Mushin, (2) the relationship of faith and Mushin, and examine the possibility of (3) the re-interpretation of Mushin as "sensibility to another's pain," and (4) the re-interpretation of Mushin as the origin of resistance. The concept of "Mushin" in Suzuki's text is based on Zen Buddhism but it is not limited to it. First, this paper will recognize this "Mushin in a broad sense" as the disposition of human nature. Second, according to E.H. Erikson's concept of "beyond identity," this paper will read "Mushin" as "beyond I," that is, "transcending beyond the level of I." Third, "Mushin in a broad sense" will be re-interpreted as "the origin and stronghold of non-violent resistance against oppression." "Non-violent resistance" never comes out from the wrath of "I." It should come out from the dimension of "beyond I," that is, from "Mushin." This paper will examine the possibility of the re-interpretation of "Mushin" as "the origin and stronghold of non-violent resistance."

教育における精神分析の影響。その問題を学説史に即して考察した論考(下司論文)を手掛かりに、まず、精神分析の「科学化」を媒介とした教育との接続を確認し、次に、フロイト精神分析に遡って「科学化される以前」の姿を確認し、そこから何が変質したのか、その転換を確認する。その上で、こうした問いの立て方とはまったく別に、フロイト精神分析それ自身のうちに「教育学的含意」を探る可能性に言及し、その作業は「教育」概念そのものを新たに規定する作業とワンセットになっていることを論じた。同時に、そうした考察を通して、「精神分析の影響」という問いの立て方が、罠にもなれば、議論を活性化する起爆剤ともなることを示した。