The Role of Shuqing (Feeling-Expression) in Response to the Form of Formlessness: Its Role in Eastern Culture and Philosophies

In elaborating the uniqueness of the Eastern concept of nothingness, Nishida Kitarō places his focus on the characteristic of a feeling that is closely related to Japanese culture, and “the form of formlessness” is regarded as manifesting the specific connotation of this characteristic: the feeling indicates a sense of both its going beyond and continuously making possible any kind of form. However, such connotations relating to the form of formlessness are not only associated with the Japanese cultural sense of “nothingness”, but are also demonstrated in another Eastern tradition, the main concern of which is the concept of existence, or simply “being”. This tradition, I will suggest, is bound up with a principle of “interpenetration 交感” and could be further linked to interpenetration/resonance of emotive feeling and sense/perception of the form of formlessness.