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Koan And Kensho In The Rinzai Zen Curriculum
Abstract
Koans are enigmatic spiritual formulas used for religious training in the Zen Buddhist tradition. This innovative religious practice is one of the most distinctive elements of this tradition, which originated in medieval China and spread to Japan and Korea. Perhaps no dimension of Asian religous has attracted so much interest in the West, and its influence is apparent from beat poetry to deconstructive literary critisism. The essays collected in this volume, all previously unpublished, argue that our understanding of the koan tradition has been severely limited. The authors try to undermine stereotypes and problematic interpretations by examining previously unrecognized factors in the formation of the tradition, and by highlighting the rich complexity and remarkable diversity of koan practice and literature.
... "logically unsolvable riddles". Thus a well known koan by Hakuin [14] asks: "Two hands clap and there is a sound, what is the sound of one hand?" Though it seems quite clever on the first sight it is an utterly stupid pun, for the following reasons: ever since prehistory Man uses to clap (or tap) his (one or both) palms against his (one or both) thighs in order to give himself rhythm during dance and singing. ...
... Whoever has ears, let them hear" (Matthew 11.14); "When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets" (Matthew 16. [13][14]; "And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things. ...
... For I come to set a man at variance against his father… and man's foes shall be of his own household" (Matthew 10.34-36). This was a great sin, one among the 6 doth Yahweh God hate: "…he that soweth discord among brethren" (Proverbs 6. [16][17][18][19]; "A naughty person, a wicked man,.. he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord" (Proverbs 6. [12][13][14]. And his own prophesy concerning his second advent (viz. ...
The doctrines of karma and reincarnation (metempsychosis) have become widely popular in the West through the mediation of esoteric practices of yoga, transcendental meditation, zen and similar Eastern spiritual techniques. It is less known, however, that the same doctrines have been residing in Europe for more than 2000 years among the texts of both the Old Testament and the New Testament likewise, but remained fairly unrecognized. The present paper deals with these doctrines from the beginning of their formation, through various stages of their development, including their transplantation into the texts of the Bible.
... This understanding of religious experience tends to dichotomize doctrine and practice, consciousness and action. However, as several scholars have argued, this notion is alien to the Buddhist tradition (Hori 2000;Sharf 2005). As long as we consider awakening as an inner experience, a breakthrough to a pure consciousness, it can never be fully mediated by way of public display. ...
... Similarly, the abbot's performance should be understood as playacting that enables him to overcome the duality of language. He can proclaim Zen by means of becoming, and if there is a level of fakery involved, it is a genuine one (Hori 2000). Hori's understanding of the relations between authenticity and ritual performance is perhaps best understood in light of the original face (honraimenmoku ) k oan, which states: "Without thinking of good or bad, what is your original face before your father and mother were born?" 44 Ostensibly, the original face k oan points to an essential state of being, to be found prior to social, cultural, and even biological conditioning. ...
In this paper I discuss the characteristics and meaning of the abbot’s sermon in the Japanese Rinzai Zen tradition. Using ethnographic data, viewed in light of performance theory, I contend that it is possible to go beyond the boundaries that have characterized previous scholarly understandings of Zen ritual (action/insight, social/mental, and formalism/authenticity). Accordingly, I demonstrate that the sermon serves as an arena for social interaction, and enforces institutional order, but at the same time, it also serves as a transformative medium that changes the participant's state of being. Finally, I contend that performance theory articulates an inherent connection between realization and enactment, as well as awakening and its manifestation; thus, it has the potential to shed new light on our current understanding of Zen practice.
... (Feuerstein, 1989). The classical texts of Zen Buddhism also cite consciousness without reportable contents many times (Reps and Senzaki, 1998;Hori, 2000). About a fifth of the world population is Hindu or Buddhist. ...
... A monk asked Ummon, "What is the kind of talk that transcends Buddhas and Patriarchs?" Ummon replied: "Rice cake!" Notice that Zen masters do not give answers but perform interventions, constantly mismatching the student's expectations. According to Hori (2000) "koans are also understood as pointers to an unmediated "pure consciousness," devoid of cognitive activity." ...
All mammals show the physiological correlates of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Many contemplative traditions propose a fourth state of consciousness, “silent consciousness,” defined as consciousness without reportable contents. For example, the Mandukya Upanishad, one of the root texts of Vedanta philosophy, explicitly claims a fourth state of “consciousness without content.” (Sharma, 1997) The classical summary of yogic thought, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, recommends “Let there be soundless repetition of (the inner mantra) OM and meditation thereon.” (Feuerstein, 1989). The classical texts of Zen Buddhism also cite consciousness without reportable contents many times (Reps and Senzaki, 1998; Hori, 2000). About a fifth of the world population is Hindu or Buddhist.
... Sharf 2007, 210-29). Even if Dahui's kanhua ultimately became the mainstream practice in late imperial China it also spread widely in Japan through the Rinzai school, as Hori (2000) observes: ...
This work addresses the theme of Japanese religions in order to rethink theories and practices pertaining to the field of Religious Education. Through an interdisciplinary framework that combines the study of religions, didactics and intercultural education, this book puts the case study of Religious Education in England in front of two ‘challenges’ in order to reveal hidden spots, tackle unquestioned assumptions and highlight problematic areas. These ‘challenges’, while focusing primarily on Japanese religions, are addressed within the wider contexts of other East Asian traditions and of the modern historical exchanges with the Euro-American societies. As result, a model for teaching Japanese and other East Asian religions is discussed and proposed in order to fruitfully engage issues such as orientalism, occidentalism, interculturality and critical thinking.
... Hence comes the next 'trick' (4), which is another pedagogical move: 'going beyond opposites,' combined with a 'nonverbal method' (i.e., reaching out to the participants; see line 4-5). Breaking the silence by asking an unexpected question with an abrupt gesture, Master Dae Kwang is driving the participants into 'an ever more desperate corner' 'to solve what cannot be rationally solved' (Horn, 2000). Consequently, the participants are facing the same dilemma that Deshan encountered when being questioned by the old woman: being trapped by dualistic notions of the past, present, and future while being pressured to respond immediately. ...
In this chapter, the authors argue that Zen koan pedagogy, a traditional Zen Buddhist teaching practice originating in the East, provides a holistic, spiritual approach to management education. The authors briefly introduce the historical origin of Zen koan pedagogy. Then they identify four features of Zen koan pedagogy: (1) a holistic and spiritual approach, (2) verbal and nonverbal methods, (3) a living tradition, and (4) spontaneity and creativity. These features are illustrated by a textual analysis of a classical Chinese koan followed by a video analysis of a contemporary Western dharma talk. Finally, the authors discuss how they explore Zen koan pedagogy in management education during the Covid-19 pandemic, gaining insights for spiritual teaching practice that is healing and empowering in unprecedented times.
... To think of yin and yang together has long been didactic. For example, the Chinese literary koan-curriculum 1 explores nonduality and the pairing of opposites (Hori, 2000) as a pedagogical strategy to train higher order thinking. Truth is multiple and even oppositional. ...
This editorial is an inquiry into the curriculum of interrelation. In preparation of the articles for this issue, I was struck by the spiritual, ecological, and genealogical resonances in the complex search for meaning. My makings invite you on a thread that networks here and there in a synaptic ontological question of restoring experience in the languages we know. Through reverence, restoration, reflection and reparation, how might we find grace in the curriculum of learning life? What is the understory of education?
... As a good many kōan reveal, the way language is used in Zen is dependent upon the standpoint from which one is speaking; what words mean, and what they say is completely dependent upon both the situation and the perspectives involved. In "Kōan and Kenshō in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum" (Hori 2000), Hori explains the significance of understanding these conditions by providing a thorough examination of the standpoints hen'i, "crooked", and shōi, "straight", which in turn reflect how one speaks in light of the Mahāyāna philosophy of conventional and ultimate truths. While these standpoints or perspectives are, as Hori notes, part of the Rinzai kōan curriculum, I maintain that they are quite helpful for interpreting and parsing out Dōgen's "realizational" perspective of language. ...
What is the relationship between Zen experience and language? Is Zen awakening/enlightenment ineffable? In this article, I will address this general question by providing a panoramic treatment of Dōgen’s (道元) philosophy of language which Hee-Jin Kim characterizes as “realizational”. Building on the research of Kim, Victor Sōgen Hori and Dale S. Wright, I maintain that the idea of ineffable experiences in Dōgen’s Zen is embedded within language, not transcendent from it. My focus begins by reviewing Dōgen’s critical reflections on the idea of ineffability in Zen, and then proceeds to make sense of such in the context of zazen, and the practice of non-thinking, hi-shiryo (非思量). Based upon this inquiry, I then move into an examination of how Dōgen’s “realizational” philosophy of language, in the context of non-thinking, conditions a ‘practice of words and letters’ that is effortless, vis-à-vis non-action, wu-wei (無為). From there we shall then inquire into Dōgen’s use of kōan for developing his “realizational” perspective. In doing such, I shall orient my treatment around Hori’s research into kōan (公案), specifically the logic of nonduality. This inquiry shall in turn provide a clearing for highlighting the non-anthropocentric perspectivism that is salient to Dōgen’s “realizational” philosophy of language. Finally, I bring closure to this inquiry by showing how Dōgen’s “realizational” perspective of language sets the stage for expressing a range of value judgments and normative prescriptions, both on and off the cushion, despite his commitment to the philosophy of emptiness, śūnyatā, whereby all things, including good and evil, lack an inherent self essence, svabhāva.
... In Zen Buddhism (禪佛敎), original face (本來面目) is a term pointing to the non-duality of subject and object [1]. The term original face originates from Huangpo's Chuanhsin fayao (857) and the Hui-sin edition (967) of the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (六祖壇經) [2]. ...
... In short, Zen presents us with the contradicting paradox, but also a solution to the experience. In order to realize the boxing habit, or the dualistic, "either/or thinking", Zen practitioners are presented with Koans (Hori 2000). The Koan focuses the agent's resources on the illogical paradox in order to arrive at a sudden solution (Low and Purser 2012), just like the "both/and" thinking that allows for ambiguity when facing dilemmas (Low and Purser 2012). ...
It has been suggested by other authors that Zen could be used as a tool to manage creative dilemmas. This paper explores how contradicting experiences may be handled by investigating how Zen practitioners handle koans. I propose that the outcome is usable in other contradicting situations such as management of paradox, double-binds, and cognitive dissonance. The outcome suggests that a particular mindset of non-dual awareness may be instrumental in how Zen practitioners approach contradiction. Which is illustrated by koan practice, that reveals how dilemmas are worked on in the Zen tradition. This difference is then theoretically applied to other situations. There is still a gap in the current psychological knowledge about the contemplative practices. It is necessary to take a closer look at the concepts used. Labeling something as “meditation” may not encompass the richness or context of the phenomenon and could overlook crucial factors giving rise to confounding results.
... But if that is true, how can enlightenment as a final state have taken place? Hori, who spent 20 years in Japanese Buddhist monasteries, says that he hardly ever witnessed this transition to a final state of enlightenment (Hori, 2000). ...
Economics is a powerful way of thinking. While there may occasionally be major errors in its application, at its core the principles of economics remain the strongest paradigm in the social sciences. Buddhism is also a powerful way of thinking. The central question in Buddhist philosophy is the same as that in economics: what is the key to human happiness? How can human suffering be reduced? But the answer to this question in the Buddhist way of thinking is exactly the opposite of that given by economics. Can Adam Smith learn from the Buddha? Can Buddhism learn from economics? This essay explores these topics. I first present an interpretation of what I take to be the core of Buddhist thinking in economic terms, and then show how that could be incorporated into economic thinking, and how economics would change as a result. I then try to do the reverse, and show how the economic way of thinking can clarify Buddhist thinking. I apply simple economic theory to develop a model of rational Zen Buddhism.
... The koan is said to pose to the Zen practitioner a paradox unsolvable by the rational, intellectualizing mind. Driven into an ever more desperate corner by his repeated futile attempts to solve what cannot be rationally solved, the practitioner finally breaks through the barrier of rational intellection to the realm of pre-conceptual and pre-linguistic consciousness variously called pure consciousness, no-mind, without-thinking, or emptiness (Hori, 2000). ...
This paper intends to understand the experience of enlightenment in Zen Buddhism from a perspective of poetics. Enlightenment is understood as an existential breakthrough, which delivers people from the habitual or conventional mind set into new horizon of consciousness. This breakthrough takes place in one’s overall consciousness rather than only in cognitive thought. Therefore, it cannot be adequately described on an abstract level with a conceptual paradigm. The poetic language provides a significant alternative for capturing this leap and revealing the spiritual meaning and the practical wisdom of enlightenment. Enlightenment, as concrete experiences in the “flux” of the mind, can be most directly expressed and effectively transmitted in poetic language.
... while there are sects that do argue that satori can be achieved via meditation alone, e.g., the Soto sect in Japan (Kitagawa & Cummings, 1989 for review), most contemporary Zen in turn places satori within the "koan" frame designed to systematically bring about these realization moments. This takes the form of meetings between master and student concerning a series of specific problems, originally invented by masters throughout China, Korea and Japan, and collected and organized in the Rinzai sect (Ningen Zen Kyoudan, 2006), each designed to systematically reject a specific concept or perceptual schema (Sogen Hori, 2000). This can be further achieved in one of two ways: either a "direct method" (Suzuki, 1951;Moore, 1995) via masters' nonsensical gesture, striking and sudden exclamation (Mohr, 2000); or more often, a "verbal method" whereby the master presents the student with a seemingly illogical riddle -such as a classic first koan, "what was your original face before you were born?" (Ningen Zen Kyoudan). ...
We compare the cognitive basis of satori, or the “realization of emptiness” at the heart of Zen Buddhist enlightenment, and with the mechanism whereby satori is most often evoked – a pedagogical relationship between master and student called “koan” – to modern artworks and the conception of aesthetic experience, noting structural and psychological similarity. Based on our previous work on this topic in art-perception (Pelowski & Akiba, 2011), we offer a cognitive model for satori’s consideration. We then discuss empirical evidence for art-induced satori, noting a correlation with a progression of cognitive and emotional factors suggesting a movement through all posited model stages and a major distinction from non-satori outcomes. We also note a positive correlation between satori and hedonic evaluations of beauty, art potency and importance, understanding of art and artist’s intention, change in subject self image and a fundamental shift in meaning analysis from a mimetic to an experience-based interpretation. This study, through the exploration of the underlying satori mechanism made explicit in the Zen koan and duplicated in modern art, suggests a universal nature to and means of exploring the insight underlying the satori phenomenon and opens a new avenue for cross-disciplinary/cross-cultural study of enlightenment.
... Alternatively, one could engage in public, discursive criticism to promote learning among self and others and not merely to produce a new text that is an exemplum of scholarly criticism in the West. An example of this would be the practices surrounding solitary and public refl ection on the Zen Buddhist use of koans, a practice that aims at the melioration of one's immediate experience and the habits that contribute to its quality (Hori 2000;Stroud 2006a). Or one could ask what an author could be trying to argue through a fi ctional text (Levinson 1995). ...
: John Dewey’s work on aesthetics, community, and art holds many untapped resources for the study and melioration of communicative practices. This article explores Dewey’s distinctive and pluralistic idea of criticism and argues that such a notion can be used to elaborate pragmatist rhetoric. To lend contrast to this endeavor, I develop the concept of the “implied critic,†and compare the sort of critic assumed by Deweyan pragmatism to the critic implied by Raymie McKerrow’s critical rhetoric. What a pragmatist approach to rhetorical criticism entails will be detailed by examining the variety of purposes that can be pursued by an individual in reflecting on rhetorical artifacts. Such a pragmatist rhetoric explains the notion of artful criticism that Dewey features so prominently in his analysis of ideal forms of community.
... Finally, for those capable, writing matching poems in Chinese for the various koans was required. 46 Like almost all other aspects of Zen, the koans and the enlightenment that is hopefully to follow from their study, are presented to Americans, in an extremely idealized fashion. The qualities Koans are used mainly in two ways. ...
Ch'an/Zen Buddhism has become widely accepted in the West during the past fifty years. At the head of Zen institutions sits the person of the Master/roshi. Through the mechanisms of sectarian histories, ritual performance, a special language, koans, mondos,2 and most importantly through the ideas of Dharma transmission and Zen lineage, the supposedly enlightened Zen Master/roshi is presented to the West as a person with superhuman qualities. This presentation, mostly idealistic, is meant to establish, maintain, and enhance the authority of the Zen Master. It is also meant to legitimate the Zen institutions and establish hierarchical structures within it. It is my contention that this idealistic presentation has been widely and uncritically accepted in the West, but more importantly it is the source of a variety of problems in Western Zen. I begin the paper by giving four examples showing the extremely idealistic presentation of Zen in America. The examples will be from American, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese teachers. I will show that this presentation of Ch'an/Zen is widely accepted and in addition, display some of the consequences of this acceptance. The American sociologist Peter L. Berger will be introduced along with his view of the social construction of reality. Berger's theory will be used throughout the paper as a model for viewing Zen institutions. The defining terms of Zen; Master/roshi, Dharma transmission, and Zen lineage as well as koans and ritual behavior will be more closely examined. However idealistically these terms are presented to Zen students, the reality of how they have been used historically and what they mean in an institutional setting is quite different. This idealistic presentation of the defining terms of Zen is used to establish a mostly undeserved authority for the Master/roshi and to legitimate the hierarchical structures of Ch'an/Zen. The result of this presentation of Zen often leads to the Master/roshi being alienated, in Berger's sense of the word. The paper ends with a few suggestions for change in Zen from within the larger Buddhist tradition.
... In ''Rethinking Transcendence: The Role of Language in Zen Experience'' (1992), Wright makes some effective criticisms of assumptions that he sees in much writing on Zen to the effect that kenshō and samā dhi are to be understood in terms of the realization of unstructured states of mind of some kind-a psychological impossibility in mature adults (cf. Hori 2000, Wright 2000. Drawing on parallel lines of argument in Heidegger and Wittgenstein concerning the public nature of thought and meaning, he argues that although the full character of the enlightenment experience is perhaps unique to the individual, enlightenment is impossible unless one becomes enmeshed in an alternative cultural context consisting of fellow travelers-the Zen community or sangha. ...
Some common conceptions of Buddhist meditative practice emphasize the elimination of emotion and desire in the interest of attaining tranquility and spiritual perfection. But to place too strong an emphasis on this is to miss an important social element emphasized by major figures in the Mahāyāna and Chan/Zen Buddhist traditions who are critical of these quietistic elements and who stress instead an understanding of an enlightenment that emphasizes enriched sociality and flexible readiness to engage, and not avoid, life’s fluctuations in fortune and essential impermanence. It is argued here that these criticisms of quietism are bolstered by recent advances in the philosophy and psychology of the emotions that highlight the role of emotions in framing the context of decision making—that is, in sorting out the relevant from the irrelevant, identifying salience, and directing decisions when uncertainty prevents definitive judgment. This research makes clearer why self-liberation is fundamentally a matter of liberation from judgmental habit and inflexibility, and lends support to a view of enlightenment that emphasizes compassionate engagement with others. It also provides for a more plausible picture of the cognitive transformation involved in liberation and sheds light on the rationale for certain traditional Chan and Zen teaching tactics, such as those involving koan introspection.
... This point is argued at length by G. Victor Sogen Hori in expanding on a realizational reading of koans. 37 Understanding a koan is understanding and experiencing enlightenment in the way directly affected by the koan in front of one's awareness. Second, the koan is oriented not toward a separate effect unrelated to its meaning (as is the case with a lie) but is intended to convey a notion of enlightenment; it happens that such a conception can only be redeemed experientially, and this is the logic that governs the evocation of experience as a warrant for understanding and accepting that experience. ...
In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that are aimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism's use of the kōan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of kōans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor's experience of the artwork.
Eleven papers were collected, which are focused to help healing the patients not only by surgery but also spiritually.
Prior to the Tokugawa period, Buddhism was an elitist religion in Japan. It was practiced by government officials and was part of the state cult. After the Tokugawa shogunate took power, Buddhism was separated from the state cult and forced to fend for itself. As a way to prevent the spread of Christianity, the Tokugawa shogunate forced the populace to register within the Buddhist temple system, bringing the working class into the Rinzai Zen temples. Zen master Hakuin Ekaku developed a form of teaching using koan and calligraphy in order to bring Rinzai Zen to the everyday people. He turned Rinzai Zen Buddhism into a more universal practice that would accept anyone who was willing to devote themselves to Zen, regardless of social class. This essay follows a chronological structure, discussing the political movement of Rinzai Buddhism from its entrance into Japan during the Kamakura Period to the Ashikaga Period and then the Tokugawa shogunate. Hakuin Ekaku used his new koan based practice to revitalize the elitist Rinzai tradition through the percolation of Zen into the common populace. The practices he developed are still used today, and have helped hundreds of students attain new levels of enlightenment.
Unlike the ancient Vedic seers, the authors of the Zen-Buddhist koans, especially those gathered in the medieval collection called Zen-rin-kushū (禪林句集"Zen Forests Saying Anthology"), must have been very “smart” guys, who did hardly comprehend the fundamental laws of physics and nature.
Meditation in Zen has received much attention in the scientific exploration of consciousness from metacognition and the social brain. Zen meditation provides effective clues to self-knowledge by providing awareness of “present self-being”. Our brains are thought to operate in dynamic equilibrium every day with two broad networks: the working memory network (WMN), which is oriented toward solving real problems (cognitive brain network), and the default mode network (DMN), which wanders in an internal imaginary and a creative world (social brain network). However, how these two cyclical networks operating in seesaw mode relate to meditation is not well understood. In this paper, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the process of meditation from a cognitive conflict situation in monks who had meditated in Rinzai Zen for over seven years and healthy adults who had not meditated before. The monks were asked to perform a Stroop task as a conflict task in the first half of the study, and were led to meditate in the second half. Behavioral experiments revealed that monks showed excellent performance under the Stroop task with fewer errors and shorter reaction times due to better control of attention, whereas healthy adults showed poor attentional control and were more affected by the conflicts. Two new findings about brain activity were found. First, it was suggested that the two networks were not in an anti-correlated relationship, as is usually claimed, on the time series, but were involved in a mutually cooperative manner. Second, in terms of functional connectivity, the monks' brains showed a strong inhibitory effect under meditation. As a result of years of Zen practice, the monks were found to be able to successfully deal with conflict situations in the DMN of the brain and maintain meditative awareness.
Koan practice in the Zen Buddhist tradition is a catalyst to awaken as Gautama Buddha did. Impromptu encounters and statements attributed to the early Chan (J. Zen) tradition can be considered precursors of koans. Eventually these encounters and statements spawned, on one hand, the practice of focusing on the koan as one’s own deepest problem-question in order to directly awaken no-self, that is, being without self. This was done through rousing the fundamental religious quandary known as great doubt, a doubt in which the very nature of one’s being, and that of all others, is fundamentally called into question. On the other hand, a unique literature of koan cases and commentaries developed to probe and express awakening from the dream world or nightmare of isolation and opposition. Particularly in Japan, koan practice has been formulated into curricula both to foster awakening and to refine it in all facets of life. Modern scholarship has examined koan practice, including its historical development, literary texts, sociopolitical contexts, and sectarian rivalries. While taking critical scholarship into account, this chapter clarifies what koans are and how they are used in authentic practice.
We provide an in-depth and international overview of
the critical and scholarly reception of Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi". After surveying a substantial amount of reviews (written in English as well as in Spanish, German, and Hungarian) published during the years following the book’s publication in 2001, and identifying the most important trends and themes discussed, we also present a summary of a list of scholarly essays and book chapters dealing with the novel. As part of this survey, we also furnish full bibliographic information for this substantial list of English-language scholarship.
Understanding Zen views on language and experience from a philosophical hermeneutical point of view means conceiving such an understanding as a merging of horizons. We have to explicate both the modern Western secular horizon and the medieval Japanese Zen horizon. This article first describes how Charles Taylor’s notion of the immanent frame has shaped Western modernist understanding of Zen language and experience in the twentieth century. Zen language was approached as an instrumental tool, and Zen enlightenment experience was imagined as an ineffable “pure experience.” More recent postmodernist approaches to Zen language and experience have stressed the interrelatedness of language and experience, and the importance of embodied approaches to experience. Such new understandings of language and experience offer not only new perspectives on Dōgen’s “Zen within words and letters” and his embodied approach to enlightened experience, but also an expanded view on what it means to understand Dōgen.
This paper discusses the impact of East Asian philosophical ideas on the origins and development of martial arts. The article argues that the ideas of Daoist philosophy were developed into ‘soft styles’ or ‘internal schools’ that are based on the doctrine of ‘wuwei’ (action through non-action, effortless action) which follows the path of Yin. These styles are in opposition to ‘external’ or ‘hard styles’ of martial arts that follow the path of Yang. Daoist philosophy of ‘ziran’ (naturalness, spontaneity) influenced ‘animal’ or ‘imitation styles’ and the paradigm of natural, unplanned, and unforced combat movements. The influence of Buddhism on martial arts is found in techniques of mental tranquillity training for the extreme conditions of combat. The work also shows the significance of Confucianism for the formation of a code of honor for warriors, which includes the ethics of duty and respect.
Behind the stereotype of a solitary meditator closing his eyes to society, meditation, like any other human activity, always takes place in close interaction with the surrounding culture. Even when seeking to reach a dimension beyond all phenomena, it is clearly situated within the social, cultural, and historical context in which it is practiced. Th ere is oft en a tension between the transcendent aspirations involved in meditative practice and the ways in which it is deeply embedded in custom, tradition, and doctrine. Th is volume studies cases in which the relation between meditative practice and cultural context is particularly complex. Th e aim is to get a more nuanced and realistic view of the tangled interactions between practice and context, and to get closer to an answer-or rather several answers-to the question: What is the relation between meditation and culture? Th e volume gives no single answer. Taken together, however, the many diff erent viewpoints included amount to an argument concerning the complexity of the relation. Transformations of the self One dimension of this complex relation concerns the question of how the changes associated with meditation come about. Meditation is about self-transformation, and the relation between meditative practice and cultural context depends on the nature of the self that meditation aspires to transform. If the self is a social, cultural, and linguistic construction, shaped from external forces, like the Bergsonian moi social but without the connotations to superfi ciality, then meditation is a way of integrating impulses from the outside. If the self is the seat of individual consciousness and agency, derived from within, like the moi profond , then the surrounding culture can still facilitate self-transformation, but mainly by helping the person open up to latent impulses residing within. If the social and individual selves both turn out to be but useful abstractions-dissolving into a number of postmodern selves, or merging into a higher self grounded in a cosmic or divine
A cognitive model is presented, known as the theory of mental symmetry. This model is used to explain core aspects of scientific thought and theology. A previous paper showed that this cognitive model can be mapped in detail onto current neurology (Friesen, 2019), and this model has also been used as a meta-theory to explain many aspects of human thought and behavior. This paper will begin by describing the theory of mental symmetry. The methodology of cognitively natural, semi-rigorous, analogical analysis will then be introduced: The analogical reasoning comes from finding similarities in the way that the mind analyzes various situations and topics. This is cognitively natural because it is guided by how cognition naturally interprets situations, and it is semi-rigorous because analogies are used in a manner that is consistent with how they are used in science. This methodology will be used to analyze many fundamental characteristics of scientific thought. The same cognitive methodology will then be used to analogically relate these fundamental characteristics of scientific thought to central doctrines of Christian theology, including the Trinity, atonement, justification, righteousness, and the conversion experience. The way that a fundamentalist mindset causes these doctrines to be misinterpreted will also be described. Extending this same methodology to biblical exegesis will then be discussed. Approximately half of the original Greek text of the New Testament has been analyzed using this cognitive approach. If the Gospel of Matthew is analyzed from a cognitive perspective, then an extensive correlation can be found between the biblical text and Western history, extending from the Roman era until the present time. This correlation is too extensive to be fully presented in this paper, but two sample texts will be analyzed. The full 640 page analysis is available on the mental symmetry website (Friesen, 2020).
Neurological research has made amazing strides in recent years. Enough is now known about what specific brain areas do to make it possible to start looking at how various parts of the brain interact. What is missing is a general theory of cognition to tie all of this information together. Back in the 1980s, a cognitive theory was developed that began with a system of cognitive styles and was expanded through an in-depth study of biographies. It was discovered at that time that this theory mapped in a general way onto the brain. This cognitive theory, known as the theory of mental symmetry, has recently been tested as a meta-theory by using it to analyze a number of fields and theories dealing with human thought and behavior. This paper shows that personality traits that were discovered by mental symmetry correspond in detail to the functioning of brain regions described in current neurological papers. In brief, the cognitive model suggests that there are seven cognitive styles: There are four simple styles, and there are three composite styles that combine the thinking of the simple styles. Two of the simple styles use emotions and emphasize a circuit composed of orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal cortex, temporal lobe, and amygdala, with one in the left hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The other two simple styles use confidence and emphasize a circuit consisting of dorsolateral frontal cortex, frontopolar cortex, parietal cortex, and hippocampus, again with one in the left hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The three composite styles form a processing chain. The first composite style combines the two simple emotional styles and emphasizes the ventral striatum, and dopamine. This leads to the second composite style, which combines the two simple confidence styles and emphasizes the anterior cingulate, the dorsal striatum, and serotonin. This is followed by the third composite style which balances the functioning of the mind and emphasizes the thalamus and noradrenaline.
(The file 'mapping_cognitive_theory_fixed.pdf' is an updated version that fixes typos and adds minor clarifications.)
As the central figure of the third generation of the Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy, UEDA Shizuteru 上田閑照 (b. 1926) has not only followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, NISHIDA Kitarō 西田幾多郎 (1870–1945) and NISHITANI Keiji 西谷啓治 (1900–1990), but has taken several strides forward in their shared pursuit of what can be called a “philosophy of Zen.” The “of” in this phrase should be understood as a “double genitive,” that is, in both its objective and subjective senses. Ueda not only philosophizes about Zen, he also philosophizes from Zen. Like Nishida and Nishitani before him, he has devoted himself to the practice of Zen as well as to the study of Western philosophy. However, what does it mean to speak, much less philosophize, about Zen experience? Ueda has in fact concentrated much of his attention on questions concerning the relation between Zen and philosophy or, more generally, between experience and language. Any development of a “philosophy of Zen,” Ueda recognizes, must begin with the question of what it means to “speak of experience.” What does it mean to express, that is, to speak from and about experience? This question has been at the heart of Ueda’s philosophical path from the beginning. His many works on this topic include a seminal early (1968) essay “Zen and Language,” later re-titled “The Language of Zen” (Ueda 2001: 183–260), articles written in German including “Awakening in Zen Buddhism as a Word-Event” (Ueda 1982a), and a recent article, “Language in a Twofold World,” which Ueda put together to represent his thought in a major anthology of Japanese philosophy (Ueda 2011a). In these and other works, Ueda convincingly demonstrates that the question of the relation between language and experience has always been a pivotal issue for the Zen tradition itself. He also shows how this tradition can help us, in the wake of the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, to return afresh to this fundamental question.
David Fincher may not be an expert in Buddhism. But his description of Fight Club—as reprising the figurative admonishment to “kill the buddha” by Lin-ji Yi-xuan (9th cent.), the founder of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist school—illuminates the way that Fincher’s own directorial choices mirror the ritualized practices of Rinzai Zen aimed at producing insights into the imaginary and subjective nature of reality. Other articles have already looked from the perspective of film criticism at the many Buddhist (and non-Buddhist) diegetic elements in Fight Club’s story, plot, and dialogue. In contrast, this article analyzes the non-diegetic elements of Fincher’s mise-en-scène in Fight Club from the perspective of film theory in order to demonstrate the way they draw inspiration from certain Zen Buddhist pedagogical methods for breaking through to a “glimpse of awakening” (kenshō). By reading David Fincher’s directorial choices in light of Zen soteriology and the lived experience of Rinzai Zen informants, the article sheds light not only on the film’s potentially revelatory effects on its viewers, but also on esoteric aspects of Rinzai Zen pedagogy as encapsulated in Lin-ji’s “Three Mysterious Gates” and Hakuin’s three essentials of practice.
Characteristic of the recent cognitive approach to religion (CSR) is the thesis that religious discourse and practice are rooted in an inveterate human propensity to explain events in terms of agent causality. This thesis readily lends itself to the critical understanding of religious belief as "our intuitive psychology run amok." This effective restriction of the scientific critique of agent causality to notions of supernatural agency appears arbitrary, however, in light of evidence from cognitive and social psychology that our sense of human agency, including our own, is interpretive in nature. In this paper I argue that a cognitive approach to religion that extends the critique of agent causality to the folk psychological experience of conscious will is able to shed light on several characteristically religious phenomena, such as spirit possession, ritual action, and spontaneous action in Zen Buddhism.
An important subset of the phenomenon of multiple religious belonging is that of Buddhist- Christian belonging: people who claim to belong to, owe allegiance to or believe in both the Buddhist and Christian faiths. This phenomenon has not yet been the subject of much normative theological investigation, as opposed to descriptive and empirically-oriented social scientific study. Recently, however, two theological studies have appeared on dual Buddhist-Christian belonging: Rose Drew’s Buddhist and Christian? and the collection of essays Buddhist-Christian Dual Belonging. From a theological point of view, is it possible to be authentically both Buddhist and Christian? Rose Drew has formulated two demands that can be applied in investigating such a theological question. In this article, I will first critically assess several possible strategies for dealing with those two demands, and then explore an approach to Zen-Christian dual belonging that focuses on the practice of apophasis.
John Dewey's work on aesthetics, community, and art holds many untapped resources for the study and melioration of communicative practices. This article explores Dewey's distinctive and pluralistic idea of criticism and argues that such a notion can be used to elaborate pragmatist rhetoric. To lend contrast to this endeavor, I develop the concept of the “implied critic,” and compare the sort of critic assumed by Deweyan pragmatism to the critic implied by Raymie McKerrow's critical rhetoric. What a pragmatist approach to rhetorical criticism entails will be detailed by examining the variety of purposes that can be pursued by an individual in reflecting on rhetorical artifacts. Such a pragmatist rhetoric explains the notion of artful criticism that Dewey features so prominently in his analysis of ideal forms of community.
In recent years, there has been an upsurge in critical engagement with mindfulness and the mindfulness industry. The critique is manifold and includes concerns about the marketing and presentation of mindfulness, its relation to the Buddhist tradition and cultural appropriation, conceptual fuzziness and exaggerated claims, methodological insufficiencies in studies of meditation and mindfulness, and the ideological function of mindfulness practices. The chapter summarizes and discusses a number of critical articles that have appeared on Web sites and in popular media during the past few years, and the responses they have elicited.
While technology is often seen as a noisy, impatient and pervasive aspect of our lives, this practice-led research project investigated the counter proposition–that we might be able to evoke sensations of stillness through technology-mediated artworks. Investigations into stillness were informed by Buddhism, phenomenology, and experiences of meditation and the practice of archery. By combining visual art, performance, installation, video and interaction design, a series of experimental, interdisciplinary artworks were produced and exhibited to evoke a sense of stillness and to impel audiences to consider the form and nature of stillness in relation to time, space and motion.
This chapter examines the six forms that the teaching of emptiness takes in Zen. Before doing this, the chapter comments briefly on Zen's relation to the doctrinal sources upon which it critically and creatively draws. The Zen tradition understands itself to be based on Śākyamuni Buddha's profoundest teaching of Mahāyāna Buddhism, which has been passed down not through texts and doctrines but by way of face-to-face acknowledgment of awakening. The six rubrics which the notion of emptiness is used in the Zen tradition are lack of ownbeing, formlessness of ultimate reality, distinctionless state of meditative consciousness, no-mind in the action of non-action, emptiness (or emptying) of emptiness, and emptiness of words. Each of the six rubrics contains a cluster of closely related teachings. Moreover, there are certainly many interconnections, and arguably some tensions, among the rubrics.
One of the most significant figures in the history of Japanese philosophy is the Zen master Hakuin. Yet, in the West, little attempt has been made to present and evaluate his thought in a way that would make it accessible to Western philosophers. This article attempts to redress this neglect. Here, it is shown how Hakuin uses koan meditation to create 'the great doubt' or scepticism concerning the self. Hakuin's method shares elements in common with both ancient Greek scepticism and Descartes. Koan-induced scepticism leads to 'the great death' or a rejection of the self as a delusion. Hume's similar rejection of the self helps to explain the basis of this delusion. The rejection of this delusion carries with it the realization that one is not separate from the rest of reality. This is the instant of seeing into one's own nature and, for Hakuin, is the experience of nirvana.
This essay takes as its focus Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) and his seminal first text, An Inquiry into the Good (or in Japanese zen no kenkyū). Until now scholarship has taken for granted the predominantly Buddhist orientation of this text, centered around an analysis of the central concept of ‘pure experience’ (junsui keiken) as something Nishdia extrapolates from his early experience of Zen meditation. However, in this paper I will present an alternative and more accurate account of the origins of this important work, a text often seen as marking the beginning of Modern Japanese philosophy. I will show that while Buddhism is an important part of Nishida's early intellectual development, there is ample biographical and textual evidence to suggest that zen no kenkyū is at its core a text which attempts to solve key ethical problems via a modern interpretation of concepts drawn from the Confucian tradition. This analysis thus places the concept of ‘Conduct’ (koi), rather than ‘pure experience’, at the center of the text, suggesting that ethics, rather than metaphysics, is the core theme of the book.
While accounts of “aesthetic” experience inspire art study and drive its cognitive goals the current modeling of art perception, based on the analytic tradition emphasizing successful assimilation of art information, is unable to truly address this phenomenon, leaving us without means of accounting for disruption and fundamental change—either perceptual or self-referential—as well as epiphany and insight, within the experience of art; and no means of addressing ’art’s ability to mark and change lives. To address this, we introduce a five-stage model of art-perception, organized around initial disruption and subsequent meta-cognitive reflection and self-transformation, which allows for this needed discussion of perceptual and conceptual change, and a connection of art-viewing to viewer personality. Based on this, we consider belletristic accounts of aesthetic experience, and discuss the inter-relation of emotional, cognitive and appraisal factors that may be important for objective research.
This paper strengthens the theoretical ground of feminist analyses of anger by explaining how the angers of the oppressed are ways of knowing. Relying on insights created through the juxtaposition of Latina feminism and Zen Buddhism, I argue that these angers are special kinds of embodied perceptions that surface when there is a profound lack of fit between a particular bodily orientation and its framing world of sense. As openings to alternative sensibilities, these angers are transformative, liberatory, and deeply epistemological.
In this article, I address divergent Buddhist positions on conceptual and non-conceptual understanding of reality and the process of transition from the former to the latter. My discussion is anchored in the context of a well-known problematic issue in the field of religious studies, namely, the question of (un)mediated mystical experience. Connecting uniquely Buddhist philosophical and contemplative perspectives with the questions debated in contemporary studies of mysticism, I argue that Buddhism can make significant contributions to that field. Not only does it provide refined models of mind, contemplative processes, and other elements that help us understand certain mystical experiences, but it also encourages us to rethink the very meaning of “mediation,” “ineffability,” “experience,” and other categories used in discussions of mysticism. The application of the category of mystical experience to Buddhist traditions thereby problematizes that category itself, simultaneously suggesting new meanings and perspectives. Far from being passive objects of contemporary scholarly Euro-American discourse on this issue, Buddhist traditions can actively engage, challenge, and modify that discourse.
Research into specificities of experiences, insights, and realizations articulated by Buddhists themselves and interpreted from within the context of Buddhist worldviews and practices has much more to offer to the study of mysticism and mystical experiences than the one that starts with generalizations about mysticism across diverse religions grouped under such categories as “theistic,” “non-theistic,” and so forth. For example, most Buddhists would disagree that such key Buddhist experiences as realization of ultimate reality and awakening or “enlightenment” are accessible to those who have not undergone specific types of Buddhist training and conditioning. At the same time, they also agree on similarities or sameness of certain experiences across Buddhist traditions. That consensus in its turn is often interwoven with fierce polemics against seeming flaws of Buddhist traditions disagreeing with one’s own in the areas of contemplation, identification of reality, results of meditative practice, and so forth. Studying these elements across Buddhist traditions and analyzing how Buddhists themselves approach such differences, similarities, uniqueness, and diversity will greatly contribute to a more nuanced overall understanding of mysticism and mystical experiences.
In particular, I argue that if the category of “mystical experience” is applicable to Buddhism at all, the direct realization of ultimate reality (Skt. paramārthasatya) or emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā) should be treated as one of the highest expressions of that experience in the Buddhist context because of its supreme soteriological value as the only direct antidote to impediments to awakening. Likewise, because that realization both transcends and destroys conceptuality, mundane mentality, and dualistic thinking, it best approximates the category of “unmediated mystical experience,” if such a category has any relevant use in the Buddhist context. Correspondingly, because the process of direct realization of ultimate reality is one of the most challenging and important topics of Buddhist philosophical and contemplative theory and practice, the study of different approaches to accessing that realization directly bears upon and promises to contribute to the question of (un)mediated mystical experience. Therefore, although many elements involved in this polemical issue are uniquely Buddhist, their analysis can help us to achieve a better and more nuanced understanding of the issue of (un)mediated mystical experience. While only briefly addressing other forms of mystical experience in Buddhism, I will be targeting the issue of the process of realization of ultimate reality throughout this article.
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