Chan insights and oversights : an epistemological critique of the Chan tradition
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Chan insights and oversights : an epistemological critique of the Chan tradition
（Princeton paperbacks）
Princeton University Press, 1996, c1993
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. [281]-315
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
For many people attracted to Eastern religions (particularly Zen Buddhism), Asia seems the source of all wisdom. As Bernard Faure examines the study of Chan/Zen from the standpoint of postmodern human sciences and literary criticism, he challenges this inversion of traditional "Orientalist" discourse: whether the Other is caricatured or idealized, ethnocentric premises marginalize important parts of Chan thought. Questioning the assumptions of "Easterners" as well, including those of the charismatic D. T. Suzuki, Faure demonstrates how both West and East have come to overlook significant components of a complex and elusive tradition. Throughout the book Faure reveals surprising hidden agendas in the modern enterprise of Chan studies and in Chan itself. After describing how Jesuit missionaries brought Chan to the West, he shows how the prejudices they engendered were influenced by the sectarian constraints of Sino-Japanese discourse. He then assesses structural, hermeneutical, and performative ways of looking at Chan, analyzes the relationship of Chan and local religion, and discusses Chan concepts of temporality, language, writing, and the self.
Read alone or with its companion volume, The Rhetoric of Immediacy, this work offers a critical introduction not only to Chinese and Japanese Buddhism but also to "theory" in the human sciences.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction3Chan as Secondary Orientalism5The Cultural "Encounter Dialogue"9Comparison, Counterpoint, Intertwining10Ch. 1Chan/Zen in the Western Imagination15Missionary Accounts15Buddhism and Quietism29Chan and Indian Mysticism34The Apostle Bodhidharma45Claudel and Buddhism50Ch. 2The Rise of Zen Orientalism52Suzuki's Zen53The Western Critics of Suzuki67Nishida and the Kyoto School74Ch. 3Rethinking Chan Historiography89Places and People92The Rise of Chan Historiography in Japan99The Cost of Objectivism110The Teleological Fallacy114Writing Chan History123Ch. 4Alternatives126The Structural Approach126The Hermeneutic Approach135Toward a Performative Scholarship145Ch. 5Space and Place155Chan and Local Spirits156From Place to Space159Chan In-sights and Di-visions167Ch. 6Times and Tides175Conflicting Models177Dogen and His Times187The Ritualization of Time192Ch. 7Chan and Language: Fair and Unfair Games195On the Way to Language199Poetical Language in Chan205How to Do Things with the Koan211Ch. 8In-scribing/De-scribing Chan217A Qualified Anti-intellectualism217Chan Logocentrism220Orality in Chan228Chan as a Kind of Writing233Another Differend234Chan Rhetoric237Ch. 9The Paradoxes of Chan Individualism243The Western Configuration of the Self243Early Buddhist Conceptions251Chinese Conceptions254The Individual and Power257Solitaire/Solidaire261Epilogue269Glossary275Bibliography281Index317
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