Double Exposure: Cutting Across Buddhist and Western DiscoursesThis book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some clichés about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture ("faith and reason," or "idealism and materialism"). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think "in a new key." Double Exposure is somewhat of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western "spirituality." Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through philosophical and literary texts, dreams, poetry, and paradoxes. |
Contents
Do We Know What Buddhism | 1 |
Buddhism and Rationalities | 18 |
Buddhism and Chinese Thought | 49 |
A Hybrid Teaching | 64 |
The Major Schools | 86 |
Transcendental Concepts | 101 |
Twofold Truth | 115 |
External Thought | 142 |
18 | 153 |
After | 173 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
absolute According aspects awakening become believe Buddha Buddhism Buddhist doctrine Buddhist thought called Candrakirti century Chan master China Chinese thought Christianity concept Confucianism consciousness constitute conventional truth critique cult culture Dalai Lama Daoism Derrida dhism dhist disciples discourse Dōgen dreams Émile Benveniste emptiness Enlightenment excluded middle existence Freud Greek Henri Michaux Huineng human Ibid idealism ideology illusion illusory immanence Indian interpretation Jacques Derrida Japanese Kant karma kind kōan language Laozi Linji Linji Yixuan logic Madhyamika magic Mahākāśyapa Mahāyāna Māra meaning meditation metaphor metaphysics mind monk monotheism moral mysticism myth Nāgārjuna nature Nietzsche nirvāṇa notion Oedipus oneself paradoxical particular philosophical possible practice precisely principle psychic pure rationality reality reason rejection religion religious ritual sacred samsāra seems Segalen sense simply Socrates speak spiritual stem symbolic Tantrism tetralemma things Tibetan Tibetan Buddhism tion tradition transcendence true twofold truth understand Western thought words Yogācāra Zhuangzi