Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and philosophies of major Buddhist thinkers such as Nagarjuna, Chinul, Dogen, Shinran, and Nishida Kitaro. Challenging the dualistic paradigm of existing philosophical traditions, Merleau-Ponty proposes a philosophy in which the traditional opposites are encountered through mutual penetration. Likewise, a Buddhist worldview is articulated in the theory of dependent co-arising, or the middle path, which comprehends the world and beings in the third space, where the subject and the object, or eternalism and annihilation, exist independent of one another. The thirteen essays in this volume explore this third space in their discussions of Merleau-Ponty's concepts of the intentional arc, the flesh of the world, and the chiasm of visibility in connection with the Buddhist doctrine of no-self and the five aggregates, the Tiantai Buddhist concept of threefold truth, Zen Buddhist huatou meditation, the invocation of the Amida Buddha in True Pure Land Buddhism, and Nishida's concept of basho.
Part 1 Introduction: Philosophy, Non-Philosophy, and Comparative Philosophy Part 2 Part One: Body: Self in the Flesh of the World Chapter 3 Chapter 1. Merleau-Pontean "Flesh" and its Buddhist Interpretation Chapter 4 Chapter 2. Merleau-Pontean Body and the Buddhist Theory of Five Skandhas: Yasuo Yuasa's Philosophy of the Body Chapter 5 Chapter 3. How the Tree Sees Me: Sentience and Insentience in Tiantai and Merleau-Ponty Chapter 6 Chapter 4. The Human Body as a Boundary Symbol: A Comparison of Merleau-Ponty and Dogen Part 7 Part Two: Space: Thinking and Being in the Chiasm of Visibility Chapter 8 Chapter 5. The Double: Merleau-Ponty and Chinul on Thinking and Questioning Chapter 9 Chapter 6. The Notion of the "Words that Speak the Truth" in Merleau-Ponty and Shinran Chapter 10 Chapter 7. Self in Space: Nishida Philosophy and Phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty Chapter 11 Chapter 8. Merleau-Ponty, Cezanne, and the Basho of the Visible Chapter 12 Chapter 9. "Place of Nothingness" and the Dimension of Visibility: Nishida, Merleau-Ponty, and Huineng Part 13 Part Three: The World: Ethics of Emptiness, Ethics of the Flesh Chapter 14 Chapter 10. The Flesh of the World is Emptiness and Emptiness is the Flesh of the World, and their Ethical Implications Chapter 15 Chapter 11. Merleau-Ponty and Nagarjuna: Enlightenment, Ethics, and Politics Chapter 16 Chapter 12. Ki-Energy: Underpinning Religion and Ethics Chapter 17 Chapter 13. Merleau-Ponty and Asian Philosophy: The Double Walk of Buddhism and Daoism
