 The idea of a nothingness that radically transcends, or underlies, both being and its simple negation can also be traced back to pre-Buddhist Chinese thought. A recent Chinese scholar laments the philosophical ambiguity inherent in the Chinese character wu (nothingness). He writes that “in Chinese ‘wu’ can mean both the contrasting pair of ‘you’ [i.e., ‘being’] and the metaphysical source of both ‘you’ and ‘wu’” (Zhang 2002, 150). In the terminology of the Kyoto School, the former sense of wu (mu in Japanese) is a matter of “relative nothingness,” while the latter sense is akin to what they call “absolute nothingness.” The latter sense of wu is expressed in chapter 40 of the Laozi (Daodejing) as follows: “The myriad things under heaven are generated from being. Being is generated from nothingness (wu).” This unnamable non-dualistic source of all being and relative non-being is also referred to as the Way (dao). Of the latter it is said, in chapter 14 of the Laozi: “It is called the shapeless shape, the image of no-thing” (see Izutsu 2001, 50–51 and 104). It is not hard to link this thought with Nishida’s professed intention of giving philosophical foundation to the “form of the formless” that lies at the heart of the traditions of the East.