This paper discusses how Western thought would be developed far more with the help of Buddhist philosophy, which pursues the ultimate Truth (窮極 的 眞理) in a direct way. The Chinese characters employed in this paper would make meanings of the words clear. Western metaphysics has been a study of the presence of existence that goes with reason and logic in the dualistic mode of thought (二分法的 思考) with binary opposition, and even the contemporary thought to be called “postmodern ethics” is not fully free from that mode of thought. On the other hand, Buddhism (佛敎) in general has been the religion of “Emptiness”(空) for almost 2,600 years, and especially the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism (大乘佛敎 哲學) has been “true Emptiness with wondrous movements”(眞空妙有) for about 1,500 years. The true Emptiness has been misunderstood by many Western thinkers with the concept of nihilism. But Emptiness as the ultimate reality transcends (超越) both states of presence and absence and produces both. In this paper, the philosophies of Deleuze and Levinas and affect theory are taken as the supreme examples of contemporary Western thoughts that tries to reach the genuine transcendence that lies beyond/behind/beneath, and also within, phenomena more directly than ever. Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Stevendon’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are discussed as the representative literary works that show Western literature has pursued Emptiness and led readers to it through the moments of the sublime. The sublime seems to be a weak state of Samadhi , the Buddhist way of reaching the perfect Emptiness. Then this paper demonstrates that the Avatamsaka Sutra presents to us the ocean Samadhi penetrates the whole universe or universes where everything happens in terms of cause and effect, sources and consequences. I am convinced that we as Asian scholars should great efforts to present more ideas on the reality of true Emptiness with wondrous move ments(眞空妙有) to Western scholars and people in general.

1. Reason (理性) and Emptiness (空)
 2. A Very Short History of the Introduction of Buddhisminto the West
 3. Deleuze and Levinas in Postmodern Ethics
 4. The Buddhist Samadhi (三昧) toward Emptiness as theMiddle Path (中道)
 5. The Sublime (崇高美) Moments in Hamlet andJekyll and Hyde
 6. Avatamsaka Sutra (《大方廣佛華嚴經》)
 References
 Abstract

• Jae-seong LEE(Department of English Language and Literature at Pusan National University)