Japanese philosophical understanding of nature is deeply influenced by Buddhism and neo-Confucianism. Under both systems, the discussion of the connection between the nature of persons and the nature of reality is a common topic. And they differently raise the way to deal with the relationship between nature and human.
One of the important aspects of Japanese philosophical understanding of nature is derived from influence from Buddhism, especially from Zen, which emphasizes the nature of enlightenment and its relation to religious practices. Under this perspective, participation in esoteric rituals builds up a full engagement between nature and human, which are both physically and intellectually with the working of reality itself (JPS 8). As for Dogen, such an engagement between human and nature generates meaning of things and is valid depending on whether it is appropriate to the context as it presents itself on a given occasion (JPS 151). When we have not yet fully engaged phenomena with the body-mind, we think that is all there is to the phenomena. While if we sufficiently engage them with the body-mind, however, we sense there is something more left out (Lecture Oct 28). Therefore, once freed from viewing the meaning of natural things in one and only one way, we can realize that the natural things around us are not necessarily only the things reach into your eyes at that moment. Beyond their being visible as circularity or angularity, there is no limit to the other things the ocean or the mountains can be. We should bear in mind that there are many worlds everywhere (Lecture 28). Therefore, according to dogen, the practice and verification, the pursuit and the Way, must also be not merely of one or two kinds, and the ultimate realm must also have a thousand types and ten thousand kinds (JPS 154). Moreover, Dogen also points out that there is a world within