The main thrust of Buddhism is to meditate on the cause of suffering and overcome it. This concern becomes intensified when Buddhism steps in an inevitable situation of encountering with modernity. Suffering and modernity，a pair of seemingly incompatible concepts, are there in brought forth as a focus of philosophical meditation. Is suffering concealed in modernity? Or，should modernity be viewed as "an unfinished project" of Enlightenment? This controversy is squarely confronted with by both modern Buddhist and Western thinkers.
In this paper，firstly，I will examine the "postmodern" positions often associated with the names such as Nietzsche，Heidegger，Adorno and Derrida, which claim that modernity is subject to suffering and illusion because it is embedded in metaphysics of identity or subjectivity. They contend that the oppressive character of the metaphysics of identity is diagnosed as the cause of suffering. Taking this controversy as a backdrop，secondly， I will explore how modern Buddhist thinkers, or scholars of Buddhist philosophy，respond to the call of modernity. Two positions are discussed： Critical Buddhism and Topical Buddhism. Critical Buddhists, notably O-yuang Chin-wu (1871- 1943) and Lu Cheng (1896-1989) of the Chinese Institute of Buddhist Studies, and Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro of Komazawa University，argue that authentic spirit of Buddhism is compatible to the project of modernity. Against this criticism，Topical Buddhist thinkers or scholars, such as Nishitani Keiji of the Kyoto School and Malcolm David Eckel，would rather disagree with Critical Buddhists, arguing that they either fail to see the limits of logocentrism or are incapable of letting difference cry out. Though they do not disagree with Critical Buddhists in criticizing the metaphysics of identity，they realize that religious or socio-political liberation must be achieved through the critique of self-centered rationality.
In the concluding part，I will argue that the unfinished project of modernity can be carried on through negative dialectics in the Buddhist sense. That is, there is no pure fulfillment of modernity without suffering. This the same as the Mahayana's saying that there is no nirvana without samsara. If samsara and suffering are ontologically part of modernity，as Adorno also points out in Dialectics of Enlightenment， metaphysics will not be eliminated or overcome completely. The problem left is how to play metaphysics in the more joyful and deconstructive ways.
