As for the view that a feature of metaphysical propositions is that they obliterate the distinction between conceptual and empirical inquiries, there may appear to be some agreement but this is superficial and masks an important difference. The word 'empirical' can be misleading here. What Wittgenstein has in mind by an empirical inquiry would be regarded in Buddhism as merely another conceptual type. For Wittgenstein, for instance, natural science would certainly count as an empirical inquiry, but not for Buddhism, because it has an elaborate conceptual structure. Again, Zen is often said to be concerned with direct, concrete experience. When we speak of an experience in this way, we might think of direct perceptual experience as a typical example, albeit this kind of experience is conceptualized; in Zen we have to think in terms of nonconceptualized sensory experience. But this kind of experience should not be thought of merely as nonconceptual. It is the experience of one who is free from selfcenteredness and the attachments that go with it. It is no use protesting that to do this is strictly impossible. A whack with a master's stick or the first moment of pain after burning ourselves on a hot stove will cut through our sophistries. So the demarcation between the empirical and the conceptual is drawn along different lines from that taken in Western philosophy.

　　 Nor is there any analogy in Wittgenstein's work corresponding to the mistake which the Buddhists think lies behind dogmatic metaphysics, that is, the confusion of transcendental experience with ordinary experience. And while metaphysics may be illuminating for each, it can hardly be said to be illuminating in the same way. Nevertheless, despite this difference, there is an interesting parallel in the various steps or stages of illumination and between the flexible attitudes toward metaphysics. I suppose that the mistake mentioned has some analogy with the kind of mistake which Gilbert Ryle called a "category confusion" or with what Wittgenstein would describe as a confusion of

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8. Philosophical Investigations, para 116.

p. 475

the rules of different kinds of language games. The Buddha seems to have laid down a basic rule for the conduct of religious thinking. It is not so much that this rule is peculiar to Buddhism but the way in which it is applied is a crucial factor in giving Buddhism its distinctive character.

　　 Wittgenstein does not try to restrict us to any one view of metaphysics. Like most other assertions, metaphysical assertions are multifunctional. He has suggestions about another way of looking at them. Our ordinary language "holds our minds in one position, as it were, and in this position sometimes it feels cramped, having a desire for other positions as well." [9] A metaphysician invents a notation which stresses a difference more strongly, makes it more obvious than ordinary language does. In a way he has discovered "a new way of looking at things. As if [he] had invented a new way of painting, or again a new metre, or a new kind of song." [10] According to this suggestion then, metaphysics can be regarded as giving us the grammar so to speak, of a new way of thinking which is involved in seeing the world differently and which frees us from a kind of suffering -- from a sense of mental or spiritual cramp or constriction. There can be, at the very most, only a very limited analogy between the kind of suffering Wittgenstein and the Buddhists have in mind, and the notion of word 'liberation' serves to conceal an important difference rather than to indicate any significant similarity. For in Buddhism, liberation serves to fit us for life in this everyday world by freeing us from its grip not to give us a vision of a different world or even of this world seen in terms of different categories and conceptual distinctions. Despite his suggestion, perhaps it is significant that Wittgenstein himself in his work concentrated on the philosophical practice of trying to free us from deep, personal puzzles and perplexities. But whether this indicates a deeper resemblance requires separate and subsequent consideration.

　　 Buddhism has been described as a set of methods and techniques rather than as a set of doctrines, for even though it is customary to speak of "doctrines," they are only conceptual constructions and their test is their utility. Accordingly they are best regarded methodologically rather than as statements of absolute and fundamental truths. Wittgenstein too, denied that he taught any philosophical theses or doctrines but only methods which function as kinds of therapy. For philosophical perplexities are like different kinds of illness, and so different methods are to be used according to the circumstances. Whether Buddhism and Wittgenstein are or are not concerned basically with the same thing, their attitudes toward dogmatism in philosophy are surprisingly similar. [11]