Photo: William James, By Notman Studios (photographer) - [1]MS Am 1092 (1185), Series II, 23, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Public Domain, Link Lately, as part of my book project on modern Zen autobiographies, I've been reading up on the notion of "religious experience." The 20th-century Zen Buddhist authors I'm interested in talk about experiences a…Read more What we talk about when we talk about religious experiences
Japan
Student Project on Contemporary Zen Masters
In January, I taught a course titled "Zen masters: history and criticism." The course outline was as follows: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” “What was your name before you were born?” Though this course might not give you the correct answer to such mysterious questions, it will explore the characters that ask…Read more Student Project on Contemporary Zen Masters
Janwillem van de Wetering’s “The Japanese Corpse”
What's worrying, though, is the extent to which experiences like Japan and Zen are accessed through stereotypical depictions of women and orientalist portrayals of the Japanese themselves.
Thoughts on Peter Haskel’s “Sword of Zen: Master Takuan and His Writings on Immovable Wisdom and the Sword Taie”
Peter Haskel's study of the Zen monk Takuan Sōhō (CE 1573–1645) provides a nuanced, in-depth analysis of a topic that is all-too often dominated by nonsense. As a professor of medieval Chinese history told me recently, despite the enthusiasm of undergraduate and graduate students to investigate the connection between Zen and the martial arts, until…Read more Thoughts on Peter Haskel’s “Sword of Zen: Master Takuan and His Writings on Immovable Wisdom and the Sword Taie”
