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Introduction

Emptiness!

32 years old. Unemployed, divorced, and spending my whole life in the futon at my parents' house.

◆ ◆ ◆

The peak of my life was at 18. That was when I passed the entrance exam for the University of Tokyo.

My hometown is a small rural town.
The day after the results were announced, I had become a local celebrity. At the neighborhood supermarket, a woman I didn't even know suddenly grabbed my hands and shook them vigorously.

“I heard you got into Todai, that’s amazing!”
The woman was crying.
Who was that, anyway?

I, who was once that “rural prodigy,” have now lost my “job,” “home,” and “wife,” and have returned to my parents' house as the “family disgrace.” It has been exactly 14 years.

To avoid being spotted by the neighbors, I take walks toward the ocean starting at 1 a.m. I often get spotted by fishermen, but they probably think I’m a ghost.

I can’t get out of the futon.

“I just feel incredibly empty.”

For that reason alone.

I lost sight of the “meaning of working.”
“Sales,” “money,” “success.”
I should want them, but I don't.
I want to try hard, but I can't.
Not working for a reason like this is pathetic. I even think so myself.
At this rate, I’ll be in this futon for the rest of my life.

◆ ◆ ◆

What am I supposed to do about this sense of emptiness!?

Seeking the answer, I read a lot of books.

First, I read self-help books.
That’s a lie. I couldn't read them.

“Find what you love.”
“Use your strengths.”
“Become successful.”

Everything became physically impossible for me to handle.
Just encountering these words now makes my sense of emptiness feel like it’s increasing tenfold.

Next, I tried my hand at philosophy books.
So-called “Western philosophy.”
Descartes, Kant, Hegel.
Just saying their names makes me feel like I’ve become an amazing person.

Everyone looks like they’re carrying a massive sense of emptiness. (Harsh words)

If they have the greatest intellects, they must know how to overcome this sense of emptiness.
However, there was a problem.

Many Western philosophers aren't really interested in 'how to live.'

What's up with that?
They're so smart that they philosophize about terrifyingly abstract things like 'what is cognition?'
Instead of getting out of bed, it seems like they might never get out of it for eternity.
I don't have time to be thinking about stuff like this.

Even so, there is one person.
Someone who philosophizes about 'emptiness' perfectly.
That is Nietzsche.

He is a superstar in the world of philosophy, born in 19th-century Germany.

In his book 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra,' which Nietzsche wrote with the theme of overcoming emptiness, it says this:

Whoa! I don't really get it, but it sounds intense!?
If I learn about Nietzsche, I might be able to overcome my emptiness!
Thinking that, I started researching with maximum expectations.

However, I learned a shocking fact.

Apparently, Nietzsche went insane and died after staying in bed for 10 years.

That emptiness is way too intense.

That's no good!

I had a feeling that relying on Western philosophy would just make things more complicated, so I stopped.

And the last thing I turned to was'Eastern Philosophy'.I think most people don't really get what 'Eastern Philosophy' means.
But you know, Eastern philosophy is really great.

For example, Indian philosophy. Its main theme is this:

'What is the true self?'

If you say this out loud in Japanese society, you'll be mocked.
Even though everyone is curious about it!

But India, the home of soul-searching, is different.
Even at this very moment, there are hundreds of millions of people searching for their 'true self'.

Moreover, the logical thinking of Indians is at the world's highest level.
It was Indians who invented the concept of 'zero' in mathematics.

Don't you want to know the answer to 'what is the true self' that these Indian philosophers have been thinking about for thousands of years?

There was an 'answer'.
And after knowing that 'answer',
I escaped from my emptiness, and now I'm here writing this book.

The great thing about Eastern philosophy is that, fundamentally,

its theme is 'how to live.' And it has 'answers.'

People often say that philosophy has 'no answers,' but Eastern philosophy has some super solid 'answers'! This is something to be grateful for.

And above all, I want you to look at this 'face'.
This is the Buddha, a representative philosopher of Eastern philosophy.
Can a human really have such a peaceful face?
It's a huge difference from Nietzsche's nihilistic expression.

Eastern philosophy is, above all, a philosophy for finding relief.

Whether you're unemployed, divorced, or just lying in bed, it's a crazy,
powerful philosophy that can make you feel incredibly relieved.
By the way, I should mention upfront that Eastern philosophy has one weakness.
If you went to a friend's house and saw a giant poster of this Buddha plastered on the wall, what would you think?

It's super suspicious.

You'd start worrying about your friend.

In fact, when I lined up a bunch of Eastern philosophy books on the bookshelf at my parents' house,
my parents were genuinely worried about me.

And that's no surprise.

Eastern philosophy is a potent drug.

The effects are amazing. But if you handle it wrong, it's incredibly dangerous.

However, rest assured. I won't try to recruit you.
I don't belong to any specific religion, and I don't have a Buddha poster on my wall.

Also, to ensure it isn't conveyed incorrectly, the book was supervised by Professor Toji Kamata, a religious scholar and Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University. Professor Kamata is in his 70s but can do a backflip, so he's an amazing person—please rest assured.

This book is a 'philosophical essay'.
I am neither a scholar nor a monk, so I would be happy if you could read this casually, thinking of it as 'this is how one unemployed person interpreted Eastern philosophy'!

Now, I will introduce seven 'Eastern philosophy' thinkers.
I'll also write about how I learned about these seven philosophies and recovered from my own 'sense of nihilism'!
If you have some free time, give it a read!

You can't talk about Eastern philosophy without this person. I'll start with the strongest philosopher.
'The Buddha'.
Also known as Shakyamuni. Everyone has heard the name, right?
But I don't think many people know him in detail, so let me introduce him.

First, I want to tell you the most important thing about the Buddha.
The Buddha was a 'human'.
He was Indian.
Because he looks so much like a 'god' in paintings and statues, people often misunderstand.

He is human. He is Indian. He was born to a father and mother, and he probably ate curry.
That Buddha lived about 2,500 years ago. But he had the same worries as me, a modern person.

That is, a 'sense of nihilism'.

The Buddha was also a human who struggled with a sense of nihilism.
But the Buddha is amazing.
Believe it or not, he completely solved his sense of nihilism.
Huh? Is that even possible? Can a 'sense of nihilism' be completely solved?
I was shocked more than ever in my life when I learned about the Buddha's philosophy.
If someone asks, 'Who has influenced you the most in life?', I answer, 'The Buddha.' When that seems like it might weird people out, I say, 'Sanma Akashiya'.
From here on, I will introduce the Buddha's wild life story and the shocking philosophy that blows away nihilism.

Buddha was incredibly blessed.
Let's assume there were dating apps in ancient India.
If Buddha had registered, he would have been so 'high-spec' that the marriage market balance would have completely collapsed, and the service would have been forced to shut down.

First of all, he came from a wealthy family.

His family was royalty. His job was prince. His annual income was too high to measure. His intellect was at a level that would later be etched into human history.
And, he was probably extremely handsome. After all, a local gal suddenly gave him rice porridge while he was training.

He lived in a huge castle and could get anything he wanted. He ate luxurious meals every day and even had a harem. (It's just too weird to have a harem at your parents' house.)
He was also deeply loved by his family.
'Prince' sounds like a job that would be super rewarding, right?

However!
Despite such a blessed environment,Buddha lived suffering from a crushing sense of 'emptiness'.
I think he was probably in bed all the time.
Even though he was a prince, he was actually an 'unemployed NEET'.
Buddha, born into royalty, was in bed with a sense of emptiness.

It makes me feel incredibly stupid for feeling guilty about having a sense of emptiness when I'm just a commoner thinking, 'Well, I'm blessed...'
It seems that no matter how blessed you are, you still feel a sense of emptiness. It's a relief that the young Buddha proved that for us.

Being unemployed tends to make you philosophical. Because you have so much time.
When you're free, don't you ever find yourself thinking, 'What am I living for?' You do, right?
I also used to spend all day in bed watching videos like 'What happens when black holes collide!?' and thinking about the universe.
Buddha was pretty much the same.

'What is the meaning of this life?'
'What is the true self?'

However, his scale was different from your average unemployed person.

He thought about it so seriously that,one day, he ran away from home and stayed outside for the rest of his life. This is 'renunciation'.
Apparently, he snuck out at night because it would be bad if he got caught.
Buddha also went on a journey of 'self-discovery'.
Though his was much more serious than ours.
'Renunciation' basically means becoming 'homeless'.
Living by sleeping in forests and such. It's dangerous, and there are tigers.

Buddha, 29 years old. Around 30.
From prince to homeless. Reason: self-discovery.
It's not on the level of switching from a big corporation to a startup.
And at this time, he had a wife and a newborn child.
Renunciation means cutting ties with your family.
His father, who was the king, was also in a panic because his successor had suddenly disappeared.

India is an amazing country. It has been the home of 'self-discovery' for 2,500 years.
There were already many professionals of 'self-discovery' all over India who dedicated their lives solely to ascetic practices.
In the 'self-discovery' industry of the time,there was a trend that 'if you torture your body, your true self will appear'.Buddha, a newcomer to the industry, decided to follow that trend first.
The content of that training was incredible.

'Keep sleeping on a bed made of sharp thorns'
'Pull out your hair like crazy'
'Hold your breath like crazy'

He kept doing things like this every day. Apparently, if you hold your breath too much, you get a splitting headache and your body feels like it's burning. What is he doing?
I want you to remember. A person who was a 'prince' until a little while ago is pulling out his own hair.
If the heir to the president of Toyota suddenly started doing this, the weekly tabloids wouldn't stay silent. And, during his training, he didn't eat at all. It was fasting.
It wasn't the trendy fashion fasting. It seems he did it at the level shown in this photo.

Buddha,continued these ascetic practices for six years.
No way, that's impossible. I would have quit in an hour and gone home.
However, even after six years of training, Buddha didn't quite get it.
Even though he worked harder at 'asceticism' than anyone else, he couldn't find his 'true self' at all.
That's no surprise.
Even back then, it was a world where there were plenty of people who had been doing ascetic practices for over 50 years.
If you could find your 'true self' in just six years, everyone would find it.
If he were a senior in the self-discovery industry, he would think, 'You haven't done enough asceticism yet,' and continue the training even more.

However, Buddha came up with a revolutionary idea.
It had only been six years, but he had been doing ascetic practices very seriously. But somehow, he didn't feel any results.
'Could it be that this is meaningless...?'
He thought there must be another way.
However, even if he wanted to change direction, he had no physical strength or energy left from fasting too much. Objectively speaking, he was a middle-aged man on the verge of death.
If Buddha had run out of strength here, Buddhism would not have been born.
However, Buddha 'had it'. Miraculously, a person who would create a turning point in human history appeared.

'Isn't that handsome guy about to die?'

A local gal who was worried about him brought him some rice porridge.
Gals are amazing. I think normal people would hesitate, thinking, 'It's rude to give food to someone who is fasting.' It's the same as not giving cake to someone on a diet.
Here, Buddha was faced with an ultimate choice.

―To eat the porridge, or not to eat it.

I want you to remember. Buddha had abandoned his wife and newborn child to devote himself to asceticism.
If he ate the porridge here, and especially if he ate the gal's porridge, all his efforts until now would be meaningless, right?
Even from his ex-wife's perspective, it's a case of 'Huh? Are you kidding me?'
It's certain that his fellow self-discovery professionals would think, 'He's finished.'
However, Buddha made a major choice here that would later remain in human history.

"I'll eat the porridge."
I bet on the new scenery that might be visible by eating the porridge.

Slurp (eating sound)
Ah... delicious... (my reaction)
It's delicious, isn't it... (the gal's reaction)

The porridge, filled with the gal's mercy, soaked into me.
Buddha's physical strength and energy recovered vigorously. I was in the best condition ever.
With that momentum, after eating, I meditated under a big tree, and

I attained enlightenment.

Does that really happen? By the way, this gal is called "Sujata." It is the origin of the name of a Japanese food manufacturer familiar for things like corn soup.

To be enlightened means that the answer to the "true self" has been found.
What on earth is it?
The answer is

"Anatta" (No-Self).

That was it.

There is no such thing as yourself.

It turns out there wasn't.

No, no, what do you mean there isn't? I'm right here, aren't I? What does that mean?

Let me give you an analogy. My house is a hoarder's den, so I lose things all the time.
One day, I really wanted to watch the Japan national soccer team match, so I searched the whole room for the TV remote, but I couldn't find it. I searched for two hours, couldn't find it, and the match ended. I was frustrated.
However, the next day, I realized. I didn't even own a TV in the first place.
It's a horror story.
Work was so tough that I had lost my mind.

Searching for something that "doesn't exist" was a complete waste of time and a terrible suffering.
If there is no "self," then "soul-searching" must be painful indeed.

What does "Anatta" mean? What exactly is the thing I currently think of as "myself"?
Buddha said this.
"Self" is just a "delusion."
In truth, this world is all connected.
You will understand if you observe carefully.

Are you serious? "Delusion" is going a bit too far.
So, let's challenge Buddha.
This (↓) is my"Body."

It's very much "myself."
However. As is often said, the cells of the human body are constantly being replaced.

According to one theory, they are almost entirely replaced in three months.
This (↓) is a photo from about 10 years ago.

I tried to find a photo where I was facing forward with a straight face, but I hated having my picture taken back then, so there weren't any decent photos left.
The photo app's AI determined, "This is you," and I also think, "That's me."
You all probably look at photos of yourselves from 10 years ago and think, "That's me."

Of course.
However, surprisingly, the body from 10 years ago and the body now are on a completely different level materially. Looking at old photos makes me feel strange.

To begin with. The body is made of food.
Yesterday, I bought and ate chicken at a convenience store. It was a Famichiki. I'm easily deceived by the cheerful name "Famichiki," but it's essentially "bird body."
Eating Famichiki means you are absorbing "bird body."
Your muscles right now are the "bird body" you ate in the past.

Your "own" body is made of food, that is, things "other than yourself."

To put it another way,
A "bird" is also made of things other than a "bird." It eats bugs and such.
A "bug" is also made of things other than a "bug." It eats grass and such.
"Grass" is also made of things other than "grass." Water, sunlight, and so on.

This world is all too interconnected.
If you observe it carefully, you realize there is nothing you can call "this is me."
It is "Anatta" (no-self).

I want to share one more unfortunate and grotesque truth about the world to drive the point home.
Are there other people in the same space as you right now?
Home, work, the train—it doesn't matter.
That space is circulating everyone's exhaled "breath," and even their "farts."
I don't want to think about it, but you know it's true.
Every time we breathe, we are inhaling and absorbing each other's "breath," and even "farts," into our bodies.
Just by being in the same space, you are constantly exchanging matter with some random guy, like swapping soccer jerseys. That is what your current body is made of.
Sorry for saying such things.
But,unfortunately, everything is connected.
It is connected to a degree you really don't want to think about.

◆ ◆ ◆

Even so, you probably find it hard to believe that there is no "self."
Maybe the body is like that, but what about the mind?
I think various thoughts have been popping up while you've been reading this book.
Thinking things in your mind. We usually live our lives thinking that such "thoughts" are "ourselves." That makes sense.
However. If you observe your "thoughts" veeeeery carefully, you start to see something different.
Take a look at this photo.

"I want to eat curry."

"I want to eat curry."
Didn't you think that? Just pretend you did.
However. I want you to observe it veeeeery carefully.
Didn't the "thought" of "I want to eat curry" just "pop up" on its own, from out of nowhere?

Alright! I'm going to think 'I want to eat curry' right now!
↓
"I want to eat curry."

There's no one that crazy, right? If there is, sorry about that.
If you observe the moment a thought "pops up," you gradually stop thinking of thoughts as "yourself." Or rather, it starts to get a little scary.
Who was it that thought, "I want to eat curry"? It's actually a horror story.
If I hadn't shown you the picture of the curry, the thought "I want to eat curry" wouldn't have popped up.
The only reason I thought "I'll show them a picture of curry" is because that thought popped up for me, too. I don't know why it popped up.
Maybe today's weather has something to do with it. The influence of the clouds and the sun. We're talking on a cosmic scale now.
Within a cosmic-scale web of relationships, "thoughts" pop up and then vanish.

Even "thoughts" are like natural phenomena.
It's the same not just for "thoughts," but for "emotions" as well.
"Alright! I'm going to feel happy now!"
"Alright! I'm going to feel angry now!"
"Alright! I'm going to feel sad now!"
If there were someone who kept creating emotions like this, it would be too scary.
Emotions, too, are just "popping up."

Both body and mind are just happening to be this way right now, within a cosmic-scale web of connections.
Every time you exhale, you are swapping part of your body with some random guy.
Every time you eat, the Earth and your body are being swapped.
Your mind is also constantly changing, influenced by the weather and the universe.
The Buddha meditated and "observed" more than anyone else. Based on that,

"There is not a single thing you can call 'this is me.'"

He concluded.
Everything is infinitely swapping places.
"Yourself" is no exception. This is"Anatta" (no-self).

And from this philosophy of "Anatta," the Buddha completely unraveled the cause of our life's suffering.
The fundamental cause of life's suffering. Don't you want to know?
The cause of suffering, it is,

"The self"

(!)
In this world where everything is changing, you try to create an unchanging "self."
If you do that, of course you're going to suffer.

A parable. When I was in elementary school, there was a small river near my house where I often played.
One day, I came up with a truly terrifying evil plan.
There were big rocks rolling around in the river.
If I used these rocks,

"Couldn't I stop the river?"

I thought. I immediately began my crime.
Until the sun went down, I moved a massive amount of rocks by myself, and the levee was complete.

"Tomorrow the river will stop, and I'll be on the news as a criminal," I thought, and spent a sleepless night.
The next day, when I went to check the river,the rock levee had miserably collapsed.

The river is flowing in a swirling, churning motion.
It was an experience that made me realize, 'Nature is wild.'
Perhaps the 'self' is like this stone embankment. When you try to stop the changing
river, it becomes incredibly painful.
In this world where everything is changing, we try to create an unchanging 'self'.If you do that, you are bound to suffer.

Let's think about this concretely.
On a personal note, now that I'm in my 30s, I've started getting more gray hair.
Until now, I would just rip out any noticeable gray hairs with a 'Hmph!', but recently the frequency has increased so much that it hurts and brings tears to my eyes. It's painful.
Trying to stay in my 20s, stopping the change, and trying to keep my 'self' young.
It's the same as trying to stop the river. It's incredibly painful.
'Aging' is unpleasant, isn't it? But,

to avoid the 'suffering' of 'aging',
I am creating a 'self' that is 'young'.

That 'self' itself was the cause of the 'suffering'.
Aging cannot be stopped. If you want to find relief, you have no choice but to accept it. Ugh, I hate it.
But, even if it is the cause of 'suffering', what would happen if you threw away your 'self' entirely?
Doesn't that sound dangerous?

There are words left behind by the Buddha.

Supreme peace.

'The most comfortable feeling'

is what that means.
If you throw away your 'self' entirely, it's apparently 'comfortable'. Is that for real!?

I want you to remember here that the Buddha was a former prince.
He is a person who has experienced all kinds of 'pleasures', such as 'delicious', 'fun', and 'erotic'.

The fact that such a Buddha says,'The most comfortable feeling'is heavy.
It's so serious it's scary.
He called this state of 'the most comfortable feeling' Nirvana.

The Buddha was a human being. He died normally. His cause of death is also properly recorded.
One day,
'Buddha, I really respect you!'
'I cooked this, so please eat it!'
After eating mushroom dishes given to him by a good-vibes young man like that,he got food poisoning and died.
He was 80 years old. India is hot, so it's unavoidable that food would spoil.
When the Buddha died, everyone was sad.
And so, the disciples decided to organize and record the Buddha's teachings in writing, saying, 'We will pass on the Buddha's teachings to future generations!'
These are the 'Sutras'.
Thanks to them, the Buddha's teachings
'Buddhism'became what it is and was passed down to us.

However, they hit a problem.
The Buddha's 'Anatta' (no-self) was too difficult.
The feeling of 'there is no self', which is hard to understand...
In the end, the disciples' groups split over the interpretation of the Buddha's teachings, leading to a great debate that lasted for hundreds of years. Through the debate, what was a fairly simple teaching in the Buddha's time became something so complex that only scholars could understand it.
The hearts of the people had already begun to drift away from Buddhism. It was a crisis for the survival of Buddhism.
However! After 700 years, an incredible genius appeared, and the situation changed completely.
He defeated all the scholars in India in debate.
Buddhism became simple again, a teaching for everyone, 'Mahayana Buddhism', and achieved a great revival.
The name of that genius is 'Nagarjuna'.
In the next chapter, I will introduce Nagarjuna. By knowing his philosophy, you can understand more clearly that 'there is no self'.