The basic structure of Noh drama is: a person meets a ghost, dances with a ghost, recognizes the ghost. The ghost leaves. The End. It is difficult for Westerners to see this as deep structure. But from a Buddhist perspective, it is the structure. To recognize impermanence, to see the self as an illusion, to grapple with leave-taking—this is one of the structural alternatives to the Crucifixion, to the wound at the center, the scapegoat.
