Radically Engaged Zen

What is Radically Engaged Zen?

Radically Engaged Zen is a holistic approach that tackles challenges in the 21st century. Rather than merely focusing solely on intra-disciplinary debates within Zen or Buddhist Studies, it takes a more socially engaged and pragmatic approach by situating Zen in the current era of polycrises, including hyper-individualism, overconsumption, and climate crisis. The central questions that Radically Engaged Zen asks are: How does Zen, in conjunction with other forms of inquiry, help tackle contemporary dukkha (the 'suffering' or 'unsatisfactoriness' of life)? How can Zen help build a more equitable and compassionate community?

REZ's "engagement" dimension is positioned in critical and post-critical studies. The adverb "radically" that modifies "engaged" aims to highlight that the root cause of suffering lies in false consciousness or cognitive bias. In other words, radicality pertains to the importance of transforming cognition and consciousness, catalyzed through Zen meditation practice. This Zen soteriological dimension is crucial, as it provides the experiential, first-person and non-person perspectives into the nondualistic nature of reality, it also serves as the basis for the project of social transformation. Here, meditation practices like kōan study, traditionally seen as part of the personal spiritual path, are not viewed as hindrances to social change, but as vital sources of wisdom for building a non-anthropocentric, more-than-human ecological civilization.

Readings:

1. Alpert, A. (n.d.). A critique of post-critical Zen: On Bret W. Davis’s Zen Pathways.

2. Van der Braak, A. (2011). Nietzsche and Zen: Self-overcoming without a self. Lexington Books.

3. Davis, B. (2022). Zen pathways: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen Buddhism. Oxford University Press.

4. Hattam, R. (2021). Awakening-struggle: Toward a Buddhist critical theory. Brill.

5. Hattam, R. (2022). Buddhism as a resource for reconciliation pedagogies. In H. Wozniakowski & S. K. Kim (Eds.), Buddhism and Pedagogy: North American and Continental Perspectives (pp. 127-144). Springer.

6. Hubbard, J., & Swanson, P. L. (Eds.). (1997). Pruning the Bodhi tree: The storm over critical Buddhism. University of Hawai'i Press.

7. Ives, C. (2008). Critical sermons of the Zen tradition: Hisamatsu’s talks on Linji. University of Hawai'i Press.

8. Loy, D. (1996). Lack and transcendence: The problem of death and life in psychotherapy, existentialism, and Buddhism. Humanity Books.

9. Loy, D. (2008). Money, sex, war, karma: Notes for a Buddhist revolution. Wisdom Publications.

10. Loy, D. (2010). The world is made of stories. Wisdom Publications.

11. Loy, D. (2019). Ecodharma: Buddhist teachings for the ecological crisis. Wisdom Publications.

12. Loy, D. (1988). Nonduality: A study in comparative philosophy. Yale University Press.

13. Purser, R. E. (2019). McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality. Repeater Books.

14. Spellmeyer, K. (2010). Buddha at the apocalypse: Awakening from a culture of destruction. Simon & Schuster.

15. Thompson, E. (2020). Why I am not a Buddhist. Yale University Press.

16. Wirth, J. M. (2019). Nietzsche and other Buddhas: Philosophy after comparative philosophy [Kindle edition]. Indiana University Press.