Zen Buddhism and Western Culture: How its practices affect its culture and are mirrored in many Western ideas

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

4 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

02/19/2008

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Social sciences

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Summary :

Introduction
Zen Buddhism and other religions
Freewill vs. determinism
Achieving a non conscious understanding
The submission to unreason
Characterizing divergence
Conclusion
Works cited

Abstract

There has always been a fascination with the contrast between Eastern and western philosophies, culture and ideas. And nowhere is this fact more prominent than in religion and religious practices. More specifically, the Asian religion of buddhism, though seeing its tenets blossom through western culture at times, is in a variety of ways significantly different than most western religions. These differences are expressed in the worldviews that as a philosophy of the macro and microcosm of human experience represent a rather distinct sentiment. Naturally these worldviews are rooted in its parent religion Hinduism. As such, buddhism, with its many sects, has one which is of interest here; that is zen buddhism. This unique approach to Buddha's philosophy and religious practices, with its paradoxical koans and meditations, is an abrupt abasement to the western cultural tradition of theorizing and appeals to formal logic. However, in spite of these contrarieties, the two apparent opposed perspectives reserve a more profound set of questions which both puzzle and probe the zen teacher and western thinker. In this paper, we will examine the effects that debates within zen buddhism and western philosophy and religion have had on their respective cultures with particular attention paid to how zen principles are derived from the more basic principles of buddhism.