The Core of Nishitani studies in Japan has formed around his two-volume Collected Essays on Religion. The first volume, completed by the author at age sixty-one, called what is Religion? (Shukyo to wa nanika; 1961), a translation of which appeared serially in the pages of this journal, is better known in the West under its adapted title, Religion and Nothingness, trans. Jan Van Bragt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). The second volume, called The Standpoint of Zen (Zen no tanchiba), came out in 1986, and contained three separate monographs:” The Standpoint of Zen" (Zen no tachiba), "Issues in the Study of Zen"(Zen ni okeru shomondai) and "[Zen] Poems" (Shige). In fact, the three essays that comprise The Standpoint of Zen were first published shortly after Religion and Nothingness, in the period from 1967 to 1969. "The Standpoint of Zen"(1967) appeared in the first volume of the eight-volume Zen Lectures (Koza Zen) series, edited by Nishitani Keiji and supervised by D,T, Suzuki, now unfortunately out of print. A translation of this seminal essay was published by John C. Maraldo in the Eastern Buddhist 17-1(1984), under the title "The Standpoint of Zen." The piece below, "The Problem of Anjin Zen"(1968), is the translation of the first half of the second essay, entitled Zen ni okeru anjin no mondai in the original and published in volume eight of the Zen Lectures series. It is hoped that the triad will be completed eventually with a translation of the third and final essay,” Dharma and Person in Zen"(Zen ni okeru ho to nin, 1969), originally published in Zen Essence and Human Truth (Zen no honshitsu to ningen no shinri), edited by Hisamatsu Shin'ichi Truth (Zen no hoshitsu to ningen no shinri), edited by Hisamatsu Shin'ichi and Nishitani Keiji. The three essays in The Standpoint of Zen have since been compiled in volume eleven of Nishitani's Collected Works. In the epilogue to The Standpoint of Zen (1986), Nishitani explains how this work expresses his view of the Zen tradition and Western philosophy, stating that he felt he had clarified his standpoint of "religious and philosophical consideration." As with the first volume, Religion and Nothingness, the critical outlook in this essay is the result of a long process of thought:” My reasoning is based on the fact that it has become possible for me to philosophically investigate the standpoint of Zen." Nishitani defines "the standpoint of Zen" as one "which I have taken as the path to the philosophical self-awareness of one's own self." It is this investigation of the self that Nishitani broaches in the first essay, "The Standpoint of Zen," and which he rigorously engages in the thoughts that follow.
