A Japanese Perspective of the Mind-Body-Land Connection

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

In this paper, I aim to interpret the mind-body-land connection that Christianity and Buddhism suggestively teach as a three-stage extension process of the field of experience, which proceeds accordingly as the three-step movement of our experience develops. Drawing on the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro, I first show why the mind or one’s subjective consciousness deserves to be regarded as the field of experience corresponding to the first phase of the movement of experience. I then explore how the second phase of the movement of experience requires the body as its corresponding field, which also serves as a seat of super-individual unity provided by the unifying power of nature. On this basis, I finally argue that this transpersonal power of nature is combined with that of society. Inspired by the Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani, I thus seek to clarify that these both powers are merged into the land as the ultimate field of our experience.