American Koan : Imagining Zen and Self in Autobiographical Literature

The koan is among the most recognizable of Zen Buddhist genres, a riddle or puzzle used during meditation to help unravel greater truths about the world or those meditating. In American Koan, Ben Van Overmeire examines the literary function of these ancient dialogues in the Zen monastic memoirs" of modern western authors such as Natalie Goldberg, Peter Matthiessen, and others. Such dialogues are portrayed in these modern memoirs as the ideal or utopian world of Zen, against which the protagonist's own experiences of Zen are to be measured. Van Overmeire examines this "utopian" nostalgia for a pure cultural origin that represents something essential and foundational, thereby clarifying the relationship between the modern understanding of Zen and the advent of modernity, with its attendant feeling of destabilization"--

Author: Ben Van Overmeire

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Publication Date: Oct 17, 2024

Number of Pages: NA pages

Language: English

Binding: Hardcover

ISBN-10: 0813952085

ISBN-13: 9780813952086