Buddhism and Postmodernity

Buddhism and Postmodernity

Author: Jin Y. Park

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780739118238

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Through a close analysis of Zen encounter dialogues (gong'ans) and Huayan Buddhist philosophy, Buddhism and Postmodernity offers a new ethical paradigm for Buddhist-postmodern philosophy.


Buddhism and Postmodernity

Buddhism and Postmodernity

Author: Jin Y. Park

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2010-10-28

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0739164279

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Buddhism and Postmodernity is a response to some of the questions that have emerged in the process of Buddhism's encounters with modernity and the West. Jin Y. Park broadly outlines these questions as follows: first, why are the interpretations and evaluations of Buddhism so different in Europe (in the nineteenth century), in the United States (in the twentieth century), and in traditional Asia; second, why does Zen Buddhism, which offers a radically egalitarian vision, maintain a strongly authoritarian leadership; and third, what ethical paradigm can be drawn from the Buddhist-postmodern form of philosophy? Park argues that, as unrelated as these questions may seem, the issues that have generated them are related to perennial philosophical themes of identity, institutional power, and ethics, respectively. Each of these themes constitutes one section of Buddhism and Postmodernity. Park discusses the three issues in the book through the exploration of the Buddhist concepts of self and others, language and thinking, and universality and particularities. Most of this discussion is drawn from the East Asian Buddhist traditions of Zen and Huayan Buddhism in connection with the Continental philosophies of postmodernism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Self-critical from both the Buddhist and Western philosophical perspectives, Buddhism and Postmodernity points the reader toward a new understanding of Buddhist philosophy and offers a Buddhist-postmodern ethical paradigm that challenges normative ethics of metaphysical traditions.


Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy

Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy

Author: Carl Olson

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2000-08-24

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780791446539

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Carl Olson is Professor of Religious Studies at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. His previous books include The Indian Renouncer and Postmodern Poison: A Cross-Cultural Encounter and The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade: A Search for the Centre.


American Dharma

American Dharma

Author: Ann Gleig

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-02-26

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 0300245041

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The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates the aspirations and struggles of younger North American Buddhists during a period she identifies as a distinct stage in the assimilation of Buddhism to the West. She observes both the emergence of new innovative forms of deinstitutionalized Buddhism that blur the boundaries between the religious and secular, and a revalorization of traditional elements of Buddhism such as ethics and community that were discarded in the modernization process. Based on extensive ethnographic and textual research, the book ranges from mindfulness debates in the Vipassana network to the sex scandals in American Zen, while exploring issues around racial diversity and social justice, the impact of new technologies, and generational differences between baby boomer, Gen X, and millennial teachers.


Working Emptiness

Working Emptiness

Author: Newman Robert Glass

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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Newman Robert Glass argues that there are three workings of emptiness capable of grounding thinking and behavior: presence, difference, and essence. The first two readings, exemplified by Heidegger and Mark C. Taylor respectively, present opposing views of the work of emptiness in thinking.The third, essence, presents a position on the work of emptiness in desire and affect. Glass begins by offering a close analysis of presence and difference. He then fashions his own understanding of essence, or emptiness. He goes on to use this third reading to construct a comprehensive Buddhistposition based in desire and affect -- a Buddhism of essence.


The Making of Buddhist Modernism

The Making of Buddhist Modernism

Author: David L. McMahan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-11-14

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0199884781

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A great deal of Buddhist literature and scholarly writing about Buddhism of the past 150 years reflects, and indeed constructs, a historically unique modern Buddhism, even while purporting to represent ancient tradition, timeless teaching, or the "essentials" of Buddhism. This literature, Asian as well as Western, weaves together the strands of different traditions to create a novel hybrid that brings Buddhism into alignment with many of the ideologies and sensibilities of the post-Enlightenment West. In this book, David McMahan charts the development of this "Buddhist modernism." McMahan examines and analyzes a wide range of popular and scholarly writings produced by Buddhists around the globe. He focuses on ideological and imaginative encounters between Buddhism and modernity, for example in the realms of science, mythology, literature, art, psychology, and religious pluralism. He shows how certain themes cut across cultural and geographical contexts, and how this form of Buddhism has been created by multiple agents in a variety of times and places. His position is critical but empathetic: while he presents Buddhist modernism as a construction of numerous parties with varying interests, he does not reduce it to a mistake, a misrepresentation, or fabrication. Rather, he presents it as a complex historical process constituted by a variety of responses -- sometimes trivial, often profound -- to some of the most important concerns of the modern era.


Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism

Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism

Author: Jin Y. Park

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2009-08-13

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0739140779

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Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and philosophies of major Buddhist thinkers such as Nagarjuna, Chinul, Dogen, Shinran, and Nishida Kitaro. Challenging the dualistic paradigm of existing philosophical traditions, Merleau-Ponty proposes a philosophy in which the traditional opposites are encountered through mutual penetration. Likewise, a Buddhist worldview is articulated in the theory of dependent co-arising, or the middle path, which comprehends the world and beings in the third space, where the subject and the object, or eternalism and annihilation, exist independent of one another. The thirteen essays in this volume explore this third space in their discussions of Merleau-Ponty's concepts of the intentional arc, the flesh of the world, and the chiasm of visibility in connection with the Buddhist doctrine of no-self and the five aggregates, the Tiantai Buddhist concept of threefold truth, Zen Buddhist huatou meditation, the invocation of the Amida Buddha in True Pure Land Buddhism, and Nishida's concept of basho.


Buddhism in the Modern World

Buddhism in the Modern World

Author: Steven Heine

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0195146980

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The history of Buddhism has been characterized by an ongoing tension between attempts to preserve traditional ideals and modes of practice and the need to adapt to changing cultural conditions. Many developments in Buddhist history, such as the infusion of esoteric rituals, the rise of devotionalism and lay movements, and the assimilation of warrior practices, reflect the impact of widespread social changes on traditional religious structures. At the same time, Buddhism has been able to maintain its doctrinal purity to a remarkable degree. This volume explores how traditional Buddhist communities have responded to the challenges of modernity, such as science and technology, colonialism, and globalization. Editors Steven Heine and Charles S. Prebish have commissioned ten essays by leading scholars, each examining a particular traditional Buddhist school in its cultural context. The essays consider how the encounter with modernity has impacted the disciplinary, textual, ritual, devotional, practical, and socio-political traditions of Buddhist thought throughout Asia. Taken together, these essays reveal the diversity and vitality of contemporary Buddhism and offer a wide-ranging look at the way Buddhism interacts with the modern world.


New Mahāyāna

New Mahāyāna

Author: Ryōmin Akizuki

Publisher: Jain Publishing Company

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0895819007

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In 1959 Newsweek reported that a young Zen monk and scholar threatened to shake Japanese Buddhism by publishing the "secret answers" to the koan. Though he never took that step, Akizuki Ryomin did make good on his promise to devote himself to "breaking the formalism that constricts Zen and exposing the fake masters." Here, he brings his ideas on reform together into a proclamation of a "New Mahayana."


Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand

Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand

Author: Jim Taylor

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780754662471

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This book presents a rethink on the significance of Thai Buddhism in an increasingly complex and changing post-modern urban context, especially following the financial crisis of 1997. Defining the cultural nature of Thai 'urbanity'; the implications for local/global flows, interactions and emergent social formations, James Taylor opens up new possibilities in understanding the specificities of everyday urban life as this relates to perceptions, conceptions and lived experiences of religiosity. Changes in the centre are also reverberating in the remaining forests and the monastic tradition of forest-dwelling which has sourced most of the nation's modern saints. The text is based on ethnography taking into account the rich variety of everyday practices in a mélange of the religious. In Thailand, Buddhism is so intimately interconnected with national identity and social, economic and ethno-political concerns as to be inseparable. Taylor argues here that in recent years there has been a marked reformulation of important conventional cosmologies through new and challenging Buddhist ideas and practices. These influences and changes are as much located outside as inside the Buddhist temples/monasteries.