The lecture concerns, on the one hand, the crucial question of whether there is an internally consistent relation between Nishitani's individual philosophical endeavour of overcoming nihilism by existentially realizing a "subjectivity of no-self" and his collective political enterprise of overcoming Western modernity by creating a Japanese "state of no-self"; on the other hand, the equally pivotal question is addressed of whether Nishitani's position has substantially evolved or was significantly altered over the course of his intellectual development so that Nishitani's earlier political Vision and his elaborated philosophy of religion are no longer compatible. By unravelling Nishitani's argument and engaging critically with its Buddhist presuppositions, the article argues that he failed to solve man's existential dilemma and offer a philosophically convincing alternative to nihilism. Furthermore, Nishitani could never satisfactorily resolve the contradiction between his inherently cosmopolitan philosophy of emptiness and his lifelong commitment to cultural essentialism and nationalism.