Bztddhisn? and Postrnodernity: Zen, Hziajnn, and the Possibility of Bztddhist
Postnzodern Ethics is a response to some of the questions that have emerged
in the process of Buddhism's encounter with modernity and the West. The
questions are interwoven with different threads that constitute our philosophical, political, and cultural arena. By nature the questions are not specific to
Buddhism but can be identified by generic issues that have haunted philosophical discourses. However, by the fact that the questions have appeared
when two philosophical traditions collide in a historical moment, these questions become self-critical references for both Buddhist philosophy and for
some of the Western philosophical traditions that are discussed in this book.
The questions can be divided into three themes, each of which comprises one
part of the book. The first is the question of the nature of Buddhist philosophy; the second is the meaning and function of violence in Zen Buddhism;
and the third is how to envision ethics in the context of Zen and Huayan Buddhism along with postmodernism.
To soine Buddhist scholars, the notion of Buddhist philosophy is problematic. These reservations about Buddhist philosophy have also appeared. if in
a Inore unspoken manner, in the way Buddhism has been treated in American
academic and philosophical circles. The reasons for the two groups' objection to understanding Buddhism as philosophy are not the same. Nonetheless,
the phenomenon is one result of Buddhism's encounter with the Western
categorical system. The very question of the existence or non-existence of
Buddhist philosophy. then, is fraught with not only philosophical but political
implications.