thought of mutual penetration  and mutual identification  of
the elements of experience.  Even God in its primordial  and
consequent  natures functioned  within the inner dynamics of
this cosmology.  He was always guided by a profound synoptic
vision of the nature of things, albeit  Western  and largely
Platonic.  He cleansed  Western  thought of some categorical
errors, such as, the bifurcation of nature.  In all this, he
brought Western philosophy closer to a
 
 
　　　　　　　　　　  P.376
 
global nature and intercourse with the East.
   Kant and Whitehead, and  many others  in  the  West  like
Heidegger  and Wittgenstein, have brought  global  sense  of
philosophy  to a higher  plane.  Yet, it seems  that Western
thinkers in general have not been able to accommodate  basic
Eastern  thought, such  as,  emptiness  and  non-being, into
their   epistemology　　 and   metaphysics.　　 Kant's   three
transcendentals  cannot  handle  them, nor  can  Whitehead's
concept   of   creativity,   Bergson's   temporal   reality,
Heidegger's   being-in-the-world   or  Sartre's  existential
nothingness.
   In our enterprise today, we must be wary of past mistakes
in  imposing  high  sounding  but  irrelevant   metaphysical
theories  on human  nature  and function.  We must  not, for
example, introduce  strictly  non-human  forces  into  human
experiential content.  Should there be any forces, they must
conform  to and  comprise  the very  nature  of experiential
content  itself  and not be something  totally  external  or
alien. With this in mind, the organic type of metaphysics is
advanced. This type is connected with the ontological nature
of things where the term, ontology, is not restricted to the
traditional   metaphysical   view   of  treating   entities,
including the self, as separate and independent. For, in the
final analysis, there are no entities  floating  in mid-air.
Vacuous existence is mere thought and has no credence in any
life or experience.
   It goes without saying that to see things from  within  a
system locked in a dichotomous framework, is very difficult,
if not impossible.  This is because any resolution  may turn
out  to  be  another  example  of a dichotomy  or  a further
refinement of the existing dichotomy.
　　 It certainly is about time that we look  earnestly  at
ourselves as a vital organism which extends out borderlessly
to the surrounding world. For example, the Buddhist wheel of
life  is not  internally  bound  but extends  to the  entire
external   world  reported   by  perceptual   data,  however
invisible  and inconsequential  some aspects of the data may
be. It is about time also that our perception be holistic in
the sense  that the inner  and outer realms  are not treated
separately  or dichotomously.  These realms should collapase
or are strictly non-divisive except that the mind lapses or
lags behind in a sort of
 
　　　　　　　　　　  P.377
 
perceptual habit of dichotomization.
　　 In pursuing this habit of dichotomization, we may go a
step further to assert that notions, such as, unity, oneness
and totality  are generally  mental constructs  which do not
ultimately  have anything  to do with the nature  of things.
Yet, it must be admitted  that we normally  perceive  things
dichotomously  or fragmentarily.  This means that there must
be some corrective  measures implemented  to compensate  and
balance our perception  into a holistic  nature.  Meditative
discipline  is one such important  measure and, although the
vast majority  of the people  are not attuned  to its worth,
being  wary of its method  and consequences, many Westerners
are presently engaged in it in centers throughout the world.
This is indeed an auspicious  sign.  It should  ease the way