The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism

About this book

Through a highly sensitive exploration of key concepts and metaphors Bernard Faure guides Western readers in appreciating some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth Japanese Zen. He focuses on Chans insistence on "immediacy"--its denial of all traditional mediations including scripture ritual good works--and yet shows how these mediations have always been present in Chan. Given this apparent duplicity in its discourse Faure reveals how Chan structures its practice and doctrine on such mental paradigms as mediacy/immediacy sudden/gradual and center/margins.