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Is Everything Connected to Everything Else? What the Gopīs Know

Mark Siderits

in Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy

From the Madhyamaka claim that nothing has intrinsic nature it follows that nothing could be ultimately real. It is sometimes said to be a further consequence of emptiness that conventionally real ... More

From the Madhyamaka claim that nothing has intrinsic nature it follows that nothing could be ultimately real. It is sometimes said to be a further consequence of emptiness that conventionally real entities exist in thoroughgoing interconnection. This seems to be consistent with the Prāsaṅgika claim that intrinsic natures are problematic even if they are posited only at the level of the conventional reals. It likewise seems to cohere with the stance that Candrakīrti takes on the conventionally valid epistemic instruments. Here it is argued, however, that this sort of package would leave the Mādhyamika unable to account for the kind of epistemic progress that comes with the use of scientific methods. An alternative Madhyamaka stance is sketched that might avoid the problem of flattening conventional truth. According to this way of understanding emptiness, the Mādhyamika does not hold it to be conventionally true that everything is connected to everything else.Less

Orthodoxy and Plurality

in Murmured Conversations: A Treatise on Poetry and Buddhism by the Poet-Monk Shinkei

In this chapter, Shinkei talks about the notion that a style is not in accord with the Way unless it is the orthodox style. That may be true when the issue is about the language of renga, but its ... More

In this chapter, Shinkei talks about the notion that a style is not in accord with the Way unless it is the orthodox style. That may be true when the issue is about the language of renga, but its mind and configuration must be different. Such differences are the basis of the distinctions among the ten styles of poetry. It was Ryōshun who declared that the author who limits himself to the orthodox configuration (seichoku no sugata) will never attain the status of poet immortal (kasen). Shinkei's advocacy of plurality and difference is not an outgrowth of an ideology of freedom and individual liberty, but the logical consequence of the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness and temporality. For Shinkei, the ten styles are theoretically the various manifestations of a cosmic impersonal Mind. Linked poetry is a concrete manifestation of the truth of the unspeakable One that “grounds” plurality through the endless play of language.Less

Transcending Ethics

Charles Goodman

in Consequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of Buddhist Ethics

This chapter explains the sense in which Mahāyāna practitioners must go beyond ethics, relating this concept to the doctrine of no self. Advanced Mahayanists internalize morality so completely that ... More

This chapter explains the sense in which Mahāyāna practitioners must go beyond ethics, relating this concept to the doctrine of no self. Advanced Mahayanists internalize morality so completely that they do not have to think about moral rules, and will ignore them when doing so produces benefits for sentient beings. This model allows us to understand Vajrayāna ethics. The outrageously unconventional behavior of Tantric siddhas such as Padmasambhava is not amorality, but the perfection of act-consequentialism. Beings in such a state neither deliberate nor think of themselves as moral agents. This state requires the freedom and creativity made possible by a deep, experiential understanding of emptiness. Despite appearances, the Madhyamaka teaching of emptiness does not destroy ethics, though it may eliminate self-defeating attachments to following ethical rules.Less

Buddhism and the Deconstruction of Selfhood

Amanda Porterfield

in The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late-Twentieth-Century Awakening

Buddhism emerged as an important component of American culture in the late twentieth century. New laws lifting restrictions on Asian immigrants contributed to this development, as did changes in ... More

Buddhism emerged as an important component of American culture in the late twentieth century. New laws lifting restrictions on Asian immigrants contributed to this development, as did changes in American intellectual life that led more Americans than ever before to become predisposed toward Buddhist ideas about selfhood. Buddhist ideas had been present in America since the mid‐nineteenth century, but not until the writings of D.T. Suzuki and the Beat poets in the 1950s did these ideas catch hold as antidotes to the materialism and individualism of American culture. This chapter shows how Buddhist ideas of emptiness, nondualism, and no‐self contributed to the development of American psychology and popular culture, and also how American psychology and popular culture revised and redirected these Buddhist ideas.Less

Travelers on the Buddha's Path

Karen C. Lang

in Four Illusions: Candrakirti's Advice to Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path

Candrakiriti was a Mahāyāna Buddhist whose numerous philosophical treatises on the Madhyamaka school were written between the mid‐sixth to the mid‐seventh centuries c.e. Traditional accounts of his ... More

Candrakiriti was a Mahāyāna Buddhist whose numerous philosophical treatises on the Madhyamaka school were written between the mid‐sixth to the mid‐seventh centuries c.e. Traditional accounts of his life recount legendary stories about a charismatic figure who exemplified the Bodhisattva's practice of compassion and exhibited insight into the emptiness of inherent existence. Candrakiriti uses philosophical inference and argument, as well as the narration of short stories about ruthless kings, hapless fools, and promiscuous women, to demonstrate the superiority of Buddhist practices and beliefs. As an antidote to the four illusions that impede progress on the Buddha's path, he advocates the cultivation of mindfulness.Less

Introduction Coleridge's Later Poetry

Morton D. Paley

in Coleridge's Later Poetry

Samuel Taylor Coleridge always had a number of poetic voices, but their composition and relative importance changed dramatically. It is the argument of this book that this body of work is worth ... More

Samuel Taylor Coleridge always had a number of poetic voices, but their composition and relative importance changed dramatically. It is the argument of this book that this body of work is worth serious attention. The poet beclouded the critical issues by frequently disparaging his later work to others and even to himself. For every dismissive gesture, there is somewhere a justifiable expression of pride in his later poetry. As early as 1801, Coleridge was saying farewell to his career as a poet. In a letter to William Godwin dated March 25 of that year, he provided what might be called the ‘metaphysical explanation’. Appropriately, Coleridge's most celebrated poetic valedictory is in poetic form, ‘Dejection: An Ode’, along with the verse letter to Sara Hutchinson from which it was rewritten. ‘Dejection’, to consider Coleridge's public statement, indeed expresses feelings of inner emptiness and of the incapacity for expression.Less

Emptiness

David E. Cooper

in The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility, and Mystery

This chapter examines the Mahayana Buddhist notion of ‘emptiness’ and Heidegger's meditations, in his later writings, on ‘Being’ and ‘Enowning’ to explain a doctrine of mystery that does not try to ... More

This chapter examines the Mahayana Buddhist notion of ‘emptiness’ and Heidegger's meditations, in his later writings, on ‘Being’ and ‘Enowning’ to explain a doctrine of mystery that does not try to eff the ineffable. It investigates the problems of interpretation that may arise in related texts, including the place of emptiness in Buddhist sotoriology, equation of the doctrines of emptiness, and accommodating a tradition of speaking of emptiness. It looks into the resources transparency, grace, and epiphany that satisfy the desiderata of a doctrine of mystery.Less

Dogen’s apophasis

J. P. Williams

in Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions

Dogen's basic presentation of the Buddhist Way is entirely orthodox. He intends the practitioner to cease grasping and clinging to phenomena and to concepts, and sees the way to achieving this ... More

Dogen's basic presentation of the Buddhist Way is entirely orthodox. He intends the practitioner to cease grasping and clinging to phenomena and to concepts, and sees the way to achieving this detachment as being through an understanding of impermanence and emptiness. Similarly, he shares the traditional concern to guard against a nihilistic understanding of impermanence and emptiness. In avoiding both these extremes, he points out the Buddhist Middle Way. In his writings, the major themes of ineffability, nondualism, and emptiness address these fundamental issues. Dogen was able to resolve the issue of original versus acquired enlightenment through the notion of actualizing Buddha-nature in this-moment, but also provides the practice ‘just sitting’, in which that actualization occurs. This chapter deals with the use of affirmative speech, the constant work of ‘going beyond Buddha’, the existential application of negation, and the stance of non-thinking. It examines Dogen's apophasis and his version of the familiar nondualism of Buddhism.Less

Conclusion

Zina Giannopoulou

in Plato's Theaetetus as a Second Apology

The last chapter shows that Socrates’ final reference to and validation of spiritual obstetrics supports the interpretation of Theaetetus as a dialogue that frames and debates issues of Apology. ... More

The last chapter shows that Socrates’ final reference to and validation of spiritual obstetrics supports the interpretation of Theaetetus as a dialogue that frames and debates issues of Apology. Socratic midwifery imparts self-knowledge, an achievement that lies at the heart of Apology, where Socrates shows himself aware of his own ignorance, and his questioning of the putatively wise men aims to induce in them that same awareness. In Theaetetus midwifery is predicated on his realization of his ignorance and fuelled by his desire to know. Socrates thus offers himself up to his associates as an example of self-knowledge, and Theaetetus follows his example. At the end of the dialogue, the youth’s physical resemblance to Socrates is complemented by a spiritual kinship with the man who relieved him of what lay in him. The boy’s psychic emptiness and awareness of that emptiness mirror the midwife’s.Less

/ Teaching the Law: Gary Snyder's Poetics of Emptiness

Jonathan Stalling

in Poetics of Emptiness: Transformations of Asian Thought in American Poetry

This chapter explores the didactic and soteriological function of classical Chinese poetics that take shape in Snyder's desire to transmit the Buddhist dharma, so that it may shed some light on how ... More

This chapter explores the didactic and soteriological function of classical Chinese poetics that take shape in Snyder's desire to transmit the Buddhist dharma, so that it may shed some light on how different notions of emptiness produce radically different poetic praxis. But by chasing the intertextual tail of emptiness through Snyder's work and theories of translation, this chapter shows how he transforms concepts of emptiness drawn from Zen and Yogācāran Buddhist discourses into a unique unifying grammar in his own poetic productions. Using Snyder's explicitly Buddhist body of work, this chapter argues that his writing reflects and reframes Zennist readings of classical Chinese poetry found in Dogen's Shōbōgenzō, the Zenrin kushu, along with Snyder's own Zennist reading of the Tang poet Han Shan. Lastly, this chapter maps the ways in which Snyder's Zen reading of classical Chinese poetry draws upon and further codifies specific Zennist interpretive habits.Less

Language of Emptiness: Wai-lim Yip's Daoist Project

Jonathan Stalling

in Poetics of Emptiness: Transformations of Asian Thought in American Poetry

This chapter begins by exploring an influential poetics of emptiness, drawn from a historically specific transpacific “Daoist” poetics. Yip postulates a transpacific imaginary in which Chinese ... More

This chapter begins by exploring an influential poetics of emptiness, drawn from a historically specific transpacific “Daoist” poetics. Yip postulates a transpacific imaginary in which Chinese poetry, infused with the Daoist worldview, allows (through linguistic wuwei) phenomena to represent itself “as it is” without distortion (ziran), and so can be adopted as a methodological solution to cross-cultural misinterpretation. This chapter explores Yip's use of translation to support his heterocultural vision, as well as the theoretical and poetic precedents for Yip's poetics in both Daoist and Western discourses. While shedding light on the central importance of Yip's work to the transpacific Daoist imaginary, this chapter also takes Yip to task for his transhistorical/cultural reading of Chinese poetry as an image-laden, syntax-free, in order to move beyond latent elements of cultural essentialism in Yip's work and to open pathways beyond the received tradition of “Daoism” in the West.Less

/ Pacing the Void: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictée

Jonathan Stalling

in Poetics of Emptiness: Transformations of Asian Thought in American Poetry

This chapter shows how Cha's novel/poem Dictée, unquestionably the most important transpacific document of American Postmodernism has not been adequately contextualized within the explicit East Asian ... More

This chapter shows how Cha's novel/poem Dictée, unquestionably the most important transpacific document of American Postmodernism has not been adequately contextualized within the explicit East Asian philosophical discourses running through it. While one can trace Cha's interest in Daoism to, for example, her daily practice of taiji chuan during her years at UC Berkeley, or to the numerous Daoist concepts and references to “inner alchemy” in her MFA thesis “Paths,” the depth of her Daoism is clearly attributable to a fusion that has taken place between the poststructuralism of Roland Barthes and the Daoist desire to enter the “void”, the undifferentiated/infinite/potentiality, from which, according to Daoist cosmogony, all things emerge and, according to Daoist soteriology, one can return. The heterocultural aggregate of this poetics of emptiness re-imagines “active reading practices” and “writerly texts” as a gateway through which to empty the subject of its ideologically constructed “expressive voice.”Less

Compassion out of Wisdom: Buddhist Perspectives from the Past toward the Human Future

Ruben L. F. Habito

in Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue

A collection of texts are said to contain early strata of transmitted teachings of Gautama the Buddha. The term brahma-vihā-ra refers to a tetrad of cardinal virtues. The term maître is placed in the ... More

A collection of texts are said to contain early strata of transmitted teachings of Gautama the Buddha. The term brahma-vihā-ra refers to a tetrad of cardinal virtues. The term maître is placed in the context of this tetrad, each also referred to as “immeasurable” or boundless. In the Wisdom sūtras and in Mahāyāna Buddhism in general, the key term used to describe this reality of “things as they are” is śūnyatā or “emptiness.” The “realm of the unborn” is no other than the realm of Emptiness, the realization of which frees one from the cycle of birth and death, assuring entry into nirvāna. The Metta-Sutta, a representative of early Buddhist teaching, presents the summit of the Buddhist path as a place of peace, the locus wherein the seeker of wisdom and truth attains ultimate reality.Less

Medieval Symbolic Poetry and Buddhist Discourse

in Emptiness and Temporality: Buddhism and Medieval Japanese Poetics

In the treatise, Korai fūteishō, Shunzei views poetry as the mediating link between man and external reality. In modern Japanese scholarship, moto no kokoro has been equated with the concept of ... More

In the treatise, Korai fūteishō, Shunzei views poetry as the mediating link between man and external reality. In modern Japanese scholarship, moto no kokoro has been equated with the concept of hon'i, or “essential nature,” of phenomena. If this is the case, then hon'i in the present context would refer to the essential nature of phenomena as seen in Buddhist philosophy, rather than to the accepted handling of particular phenomena in the poetic tradition. The issue can be traced to Shunzei's reading of the term kokoro, which he situates within the larger question of poetic value. This chapter explores the link between symbolic poetry in medieval Japan and Buddhist discourse. It looks at the concept of “three truths” (sandai) about poetry as mentioned in the work called Tendai shikan, along with the doctrines of emptiness and the Middle Way that underlie these “three truths.” The chapter also discusses the concept of nonduality in the Makashikan and how it is interpreted by Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein.Less

The Chill and the Meager (Hieyase): Poetics and the Philosophy of the Privative

in Emptiness and Temporality: Buddhism and Medieval Japanese Poetics

Shinkei composed a hokku to which Sōgi wrote a tsukeku, providing concrete evidence that Sōgi learned a lot from Shinkei during their mutual participation at sessions in Musashi during the Ōnin War. ... More

Shinkei composed a hokku to which Sōgi wrote a tsukeku, providing concrete evidence that Sōgi learned a lot from Shinkei during their mutual participation at sessions in Musashi during the Ōnin War. It is also a testament to the close and immediate relation between performance and critical evaluation in the renga milieu. Shinkei emphasizes the important role of critical evaluation in the dialogical poetics of renga and argues that appreciating another poet's brilliance is more difficult than composing a verse oneself. This chapter examines Shinkei's tsukeku as an example of his celebrated aesthetic of the “chill and meager” (hieyase), his valorization of sabi and hieyase, the philosophy of renunciation, reclusion as a time-honored tradition in Japanese culture, Shinkei's view about the moving character (aware) of art and his understanding of privation, as well as his notion of pure poetry and Japanese poetry. It also considers the so-called “vital tensility,” Shunzei's “deep mind” and Teika's ushin realm of meditation, and the post-ushin realm of absolute emptiness (hikkyō-kū).Less

Morality without God

Charles E. Scott

in Styles of Piety: Practicing Philosophy after the Death of God

This chapter examines three viable approaches to God, i.e., styles of piety: theism, atheism, and deism. Using Psalm 8 as a base text, Scott sees the infinitude of space ... More

This chapter examines three viable approaches to God, i.e., styles of piety: theism, atheism, and deism. Using Psalm 8 as a base text, Scott sees the infinitude of space and stars as both a sign of the divine presence, but also as a sign of the infinite emptiness that can utterly separate man from Creator. Atheism would seem to be borne of the capacity to ignore the enormity of life itself, and hence to see no special significance in it, but only random chance. However, there is a danger of moral chaos when the emptiness loses all significance. By contrast, for the deist, morality derives from the grandeur of the void, and that void's implication that we need to be our own arbiters of our behavior. Hence, when the emptiness is itself holy, ethics can endure the loss of faith in a theistic God.Less