Chan Insights and Oversights: an Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition

by Bernard Faure

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" 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.

Genres: Zen, Buddhism

340 pages, Hardcover

First published April 19, 1993

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it's the kind of book that might only be enjoyable to people who are deeply immersed in both postmodern theory and Sinobuddhology.

It's been a few years since I made my first foray into Faure, and now I know a lot more. I think I was a little more than thrilled to kinda, sorta understand the 'trendy' authors he engages with: let loose the references to Foucault (as interpreted by Rabinow and Dreyfus), Barthes, Derrida, and de Man! Throw in some Bakhtin, Bourdieu, LaCapra, White, and Jameson!

I think it reads better as a series of meandering essays, rather than as a coherent whole. Read the chapters on topics you're interested in: 1) European accounts of Chan; 2) DT Suzuki's Chan; 3) Writing of Chan History; 4) Methodologies of Chan Studies; 5) Chan on Space; 6) Chan on Time; 7) Chan on Language; 8) Chan on Writing/Orality; 9) Chan on the Individual. Depending on your interests and patience with Faure's ADHD (nice use or readings of epigrammatic sayings from Western or Eastern thinkers... but these punctuate dry, content-heavy descriptions), your mileage will vary.

Nonetheless, there is a broad point Faure wants to make, namely that Chan has been and continues to be an ideology in continual production, a tradition that creates itself in contradistinction to its others. So that's pretty cool.

[Sage · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think you can toss the word, "Zen" around and know what you're talking about? Pull up a dictionary and read this and get ready to be befuddled. Suzuki was a crock. If you want to begin to pin "Zen" Buddhism down and take it to bed, take this book to bed first and toss that Zen alarm clock of your out the window - Faure takes the simplicity out of Zen in this mind boggling epistemological critique of the ever evolving Chan tradition.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading the classic. It's still an inspiring read!