Navigating Extinction: Zen Buddhism and Eco-Anarchism

What can esoteric knowledge and spiritual practices from the East teach us about the deep psychological roots of domination and hierarchy? In what ways have ancient Buddhist sages acted as anarchist exemplars and deep ecologists long before these traditions began in the West? How might these anarchistic spiritual traditions inform our approaches to work in education, expand our notions of community, help us navigate ecological collapse, and contribute to our efforts to sustain living systems and rekindle our connection to the myriad sentient inhabitants of the places we live beyond the reaches of capital and the State? This paper will examine the anti-doctrine doctrine of Zen Buddhism as a concrete and embodied system of thought and practice for seeing through the delusions of the ego and the psychological and cultural conditioning these delusions engender. What will also be acknowledged is the general lack of attention this spiritual tradition has given to the capitalistic, authoritarian, and anti-ecological systems that tap into and flow from these delusions. It will be argued that these experiential approaches to overcoming the tyranny of the ego have significant implications for loosening the grip of hierarchical thinking, capitalist hyper-consumption, centralized systems of obedience and command, and human destruction of the biosphere.

Husserla redukcja fenomenologiczna a „pusty umysł” w buddyzmie zen

The text compares two themes: Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological reduction, and the category of „empty mind” in Zen Buddhism. The similarities and the difference between the two epistemological strategies are shown and the common ground for metaphysical and partly ethical solutions are outlined. The basic thesis is that different cognitive strategies can lead to very similar effects. In other words, meditation does not exclude discursive knowledge which does not necessarily oppose meditation. Husserl and the great Zen masters see the principle of all principles in consciousness (mind). An empty mind is like the mind of a philosopher who has made a phenomenological reduction.

The Role of Myths in Japanese Calligraphy’s Interpretative Process

The Role of Myths in Japanese Calligraphy’s Interpretative Process. This article illustrates the role of myths in the interpretative process of calligraphic works. Being considerably different from Western calligraphy, Japanese calligraphy (shodō) may seem at times visually similar to abstract art. However, calligraphic works – and shodō as art – are rich in meaning and abundant of myths. Focusing on both linguistic and visual elements of calligraphy, the article depicts how myths can be identified in a calligraphic work and how they provide a better understanding of the particularities of shodō. In order to illustrate how myths uncover new layers of meaning, the article incorporates an analysis of a calligraphic work created by Rodica Frențiu, underlining the process of accessing the transcendent meaning. Keywords: shodō, Japanese calligraphy, calligraphy, cultural semiotics, Japanese studies, kanji, myth, Zen, Buddhism.

THE RELIGION OF NO RELIGION: JUNG’S PSYCHOLOGY IN THE HISTORY OF ZEN BUDDHISM IN THE 20TH CENTURY

In the 1930s, Zen Buddhism was hardly known outside Japan. By the 1960s, it had become by far the most popular form of Buddhism in Europe and the United States. Its popularity was born from the general belief that Zen responded to the psychological and religious needs of the individual without incurring the criticisms customarily levelled against religion. Zen was imagined as a practical spirituality that accepted all religions and religious symbols as expressions of a universal psychological truth. Zen was not itself a religion, but a ‘super-religion’ that had understood the inner mechanics of the psyche’s natural religion-making function. Three authors in particular, namely D. T. Suzuki, Friedrich Spiegelberg and Alan Watts, were pivotal in the formation of this narrative. Using Jung’s psychological model as their conceptual basis, they promoted a vision of Zen Buddhism that laid the foundations for the ‘Zen Boom’ of the 1950s and 60s. This article will examine the pivotal role played by Jung’s psychology in the formation of this narrative. KEYWORDS Zen Buddhism, D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Friedrich Spiegelberg, The Religion of no Religion.

Time Difference in the Social Transformation of China and Korea: A Case Study of Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara Paintings of the Song and Yuan Dynasties and the Koryŏ Dynasty

The Water-Moon form of Avalokiteśvara arose in China during the process of nativization of Buddhism in Tang China. Extant images of Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara tend to have been painted in either China or Korea, but there is an odd dislocation in the changes of style, with the colorful Koryŏ dynasty images paralleling not contemporary Song trends but rather those from hundreds of years earlier. That this effect might simply be a delay caused by geographical distance seems unlikely given the active cultural exchange between the two realms. Dramatic changes occurred in the Tang-Song era, including the rise of plebeian culture and Zen Buddhism. This carried over to a more minimalist style of art in China. Meanwhile, in Koryŏ, Buddhism continued to receive royal sponsorship and remain influential. This article argues that the differences in images and techniques between Koryŏ and Song-Yuan paintings of Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara were caused by the time difference in the social transformations of China and Korea.

Pataquericalism: Quantum Coherence between the East and West

Charles Bernstein's pataquericalism is not just a poetics but a philosophy of life, a leftist way to wrench freedom from authority to recognize the actual face of reality that toggles us with hope and despair, to explore hitherto undreamed regions of the mind in order to acquire a new point of view—to inquire into language, into poetics, into life, into reality. This poetics indeed resonates with Barin Ghosal's Expansive Consciousness theory in the world of Bengali New Poetry. Both are inventive poetics of an eccentric centrifugal journey toward infinite possibilities with intuitive leaps to open up an infinite space. This is to interenact with the endless rhythm of the cosmic dance of energy of the universe to harmonize our relationship with Eastern mystic philosophy of Upanishad/Zen Buddhism as well as modern science. This essay is intended to find the quantum coherence between the voices/processes/thoughts of different poets, scientists, and philosophers of the East and West.

Zen Buddhism and the Phenomenology of Mysticism

In this paper, I use a comparative analysis of mysticism in Zen and the Abrahamic faiths to formulate a phenomenological account of mysticism “as such.” I argue that, while Zen Buddhism is distinct from other forms of mystical experience in important ways, it can still be fit into a general phenomenological category of mystical experience. First, I explicate the phenomenological accounts of mysticism provided by Anthony Steinbock and Angela Bello. Second, I offer an account of Zen mysticism which both coheres with and problematizes these accounts, arguing that Zen demonstrates the inadequacy of these accounts as descriptions of mysticism as a universal religious category. Lastly, I use this investigation to propose that Zen mysticism does generally cohere with the mystical experiences of other religions, but only if we devise a new formula for speaking phenomenologically about mystical experience as such which captures this phenomenon in all of its manifestations.

“El vent lluita per ésser flor”. La idea de la metamorfosi en la poesia de Joan Brossa i Federico García Lorca

In the studies on poetry by Joan Brossa, his literary inspirations from the French tradition are indicated, but his connection with Spanish-language literature is almost nonexistent. The purpose of this article is to present Brossa’s testimonies about his Federico García Lorca readings and to compare his “Sonet del pur estrèpit” (1949) with Lorca’s “Muerte” (1931). Both poems show textual and conceptual similarities and share the theme of metamorphosis, so we propose their analysis to look for possible inspirations in different philosophical and aesthetic traditions (surrealism, Ovid, Darwin, Zen Buddhism).