Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Dao, Thing, and World 1. Way, Thing, and World in Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Heidegger 2. The Autopoietic Self-Transformation of Things in Ziranist Daoism and Heidegger 3. Heidegger and Laozi’s Daodejing: The Gathering Emptiness of Thing and Place 4. Heidegger and the Zhuangzi: The Uselessness and Unnecessariness of Things 5. Heidegger’s Dao amidst Thing and World Part II: Nothingness, Emptiness, and the Clearing 6. Daoist Nothingness, Buddhist Emptiness, and the Myth of “Oriental Nothingness” 7. Nothingness, Emptiness, and the Clearing: An Intercultural Interpretation 8. The Nothing, Nihilism, and Heidegger’s East Asian Entanglements 9. Reimagining the Ethics and Politics of Emptiness Bibliography Index

Nelson contributes valuable new insights not only into the meaning of the Dao and Buddhism and their relation to Heidegger’s conception of being as emptiness and nothingness, but also into what these three philosophies share, despite originating independently worlds apart, in regard to an ethically and spiritually satisfying way of life. There are very few philosophers, even now, even today, capable of engaging the Dao, Buddhism and Heidegger’s phenomenology so deeply, comprehensively and with so much scholarly erudition.

Daoism and the Human Experience creates a platform to explore, question, and learn about the ways Daoist thought can elucidate aspects of the human experience that have become neglected, ignored, or misunderstood in the two-and-half millennia since Daoism’s founding. The impact of Daoism on the philosophical, literary, aesthetic, medicinal, scientific, ecological, and religious aspects of China are well known but what of the rest of the world? What can Daoism contribute to our understanding of these aspects of the human experience in other parts of East Asia, or in Europe, India, Africa, the Americas, and the Islamic world? By making the Daoist perspective of human experience the foci of discussion, Daoism and the Human Experience invites book proposals that deepen our understanding of Daoism, irrespective of the discipline, historical period, whether singular or comparative in scope, or intracultural or cross-cultural in framework. Series Editor: David Chai, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Editorial Advisory Board: Lisa Raphals, University of California, Riverside, USA Robin Wang, Loyola Marymount University, USA Franklin Perkins, University of Hawaii, USA Eric S. Nelson, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Thomas Michael, Beijing Normal University, China James Sellmann, University of Guam, USA Robert E. Allinson, Soka University, USA Chris Fraser, University of Toronto, Canada Bret Davis, Loyola University Maryland, USA Zhihua Yao, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong