Abstract
For Nishitani Keiji, “Directness or 直接性” of the Reality was one of the most fundamental issues in his whole system of philosophy of religion. Although procedure of his thought life has shown the three clear-cut stages, as he recalled in his later life by using such terms as “pre-philosophical”，“philosophical” and “post-philosophical”，there lies his consistent interest in the “Directness” of the Reality in his deep experience of his life.
In his young days, Nishitani was suffered from the uncertain feeling of his own existence by his father’s death or his own disease, so much as he once decided to become a Zen monk. In those days, Nishitani came to the steady selfconfidence; “I am alone and nobody else helps me”. In this way he began to concentrate himself upon the self-inquiry (koji-kyuumei or 己事究明）. What made him decide to study philosophy amid of such situation was no other than the issue of nihilism, since a nihilism inevitably has the direction to philosophy.
A study in philosophy however gave him another uncertainty, and he felt as if his feet are not certainly touching to the ground. About that time, he entered the gate of Zen monastery, and his philosophy (such as Denken des Denkens in Hegel) transcended into the “post-philosophical” realm where philosophy was no more mere philosophy but Lebensphilosophie. Through his lifelong practice of Zazen meditation, Nishitani seems to have enjoyed his “Directness” through his existential touch with the Reality which had opened itself both within and transcending himself.
