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When one speaks of martin Heidegger one seldom mentions East Asian philosophy in the same breath. Although the former's indebtedness to the latter might be historically well documented,* 1 in terms of comparative philosophy there remains much to be said. One concept of particular note, and whose meaning evolved over the course of Heidegger's career, is Lichtung, "the clearing." As the site wherein the truth of being is revealed, Heidegger's theory that the clearing's own abyssal nature facilitates said revelation was without question influenced by Eastern philosophy, specifically that of Daoism. Drawing upon Laozi's (around sixth century B.C.E.) Daodejing and Zhuangzi's (375-300 B.C.E.) work of the same name, the argument will be made that Heidegger failed to fully grasp the cosmological significance of the nothingness of the clearing. By holding the former to the latter, their relationship is no longer one of mutual dependency but is subjugated to the existential truth of being. Had he taken the clearing as the self-embracement of nothingness, as Daoism does, Heidegger could have bridged the divide separating nothingness and being giving him the new beginning from which to approach the question of being he so much desired.
Focusing on the recent translation of Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) by Rojcewicz and Vallega-Neu," this paper seeks to explicate Heidegger's version of the clearing and how it differs from the Daoist rendition, illuminate the relationship between nothingness and Being (hereafter beyng), and probe the significance of his call for a leap into the abyss of the clearing if we wish to learn the truth of beyng. This last point offers especially rich comparisons with Daoism, which holds that nothingness is the source of beyng while serving as the ground for its freedom.
To begin, let us look at the German word for clearing. As a verb, lichten can be translated as the clearing of land; as a noun, Lichtung means lightness or unencumbered openness. Heidegger thus uses Lichtung in the sense of an opening in the forest that is free of obstructions allowing it to act as a space that exists independently of the interplay between its own hidden and manifest existence.3 4 * Although he associated beyng with light as early as Being and Time* Heidegger would...