Dovetailing Features of Zen Buddhism, Levinas’s Phenomenology, and Metamodernism (Post-Postmodernism)

There are three phenomenological voices I hear – phenomenology being the study of “appearances,” and according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is the “study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view.” Herein are the voices I hear: 1) Zen Buddhism's most fundamental notion of sunyata – emptiness, nothing – but not the Westernized notion of nihilistic nothingness; 2) Emmanuel Levinas's 'face' of the Other, the Infinite; and 3) Metamodernism's voice of a post-postmodern (or, post-post-modern) spirit that acts to repair the popularized, nihilistic misappropriation of postmodernism; thus, metamodernism hopes to retrieve and restore human authenticity and sincerity.

The author's hope is to convey – as precisely as possible – the vital philosophical and spiritual importance of listening to these three phenomenological voices, as they dovetail nicely into a singular message of restoring human authenticity and sincerity, without falling off the deep end of nihilism or an extremely darkened cynical sarcasm towards life.