In this innovative contribution, Eric S. Nelson offers a contextualized and systematic exploration of the Chinese sources and German language interpretations that shaped Heidegger's engagement with Daoism and his thinking of the thing, nothingness, and the freedom of releasement (Gelassenheit). Encompassing forgotten and recently published historical sources, including Heidegger's Daoist and Buddhist-related reflections in his lectures and notebooks, Nelson presents a critical intercultural reinterpretation of Heidegger's philosophical journey.

Nelson analyzes the intersections and differences between the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and Heidegger's philosophy and the linguistic and conceptual shifts in Heidegger's thinking that correlate with his encounters and interactions with Daoist, Buddhist, and East Asian texts and interlocutors. He thereby traces hints for encountering things and environments anew, models for intercultural hermeneutics, and ways of reimagining the thing, nothingness, and freedom with and beyond Heidegger's thought.

This work elucidates the thing, the mystery, and freedom in Heidegger and Daoism in Part I and Heidegger's thinking of nothingness, emptiness, and the clearing in relation to Daoist and Buddhist philosophy in Part II. In each part, Nelson unfolds a fresh perspective for thinking further with Heidegger and East Asian philosophies in relation to the contemporary existential and environmental situation for the sake of nourishing life amidst damaged life.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Dao, Thing, and World
1. Way, Thing, and World in Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Heidegger
2. The Autopoietic Self-Transformation of Things in Ziranist Daoism and Heidegger
3. Heidegger and Laozi's Daodejing: The Gathering Emptiness of Thing and Place
4. Heidegger and the Zhuangzi: The Uselessness and Unnecessariness of Things
5. Heidegger's Dao amidst Thing and World

Part II: Nothingness, Emptiness, and the Clearing
6. Daoist Nothingness, Buddhist Emptiness, and the Myth of "Oriental Nothingness"
7. Nothingness, Emptiness, and the Clearing: An Intercultural Interpretation
8. The Nothing, Nihilism, and Heidegger's East Asian Entanglements
9. Reimagining the Ethics and Politics of Emptiness
Bibliography
Index