Deleuze and Buddhism

Abstract

Th is book is organized around seven chapters. In Chap. 2 ,“Deleuze and the Lotus Sūtra : Toward an Ethics of Immanence,” I will be examining the resonances between Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence and the doctrine of Buddha-nature in the Lotus Sūtra . Deleuze was known for hunting down transcendence throughout his philosophical career, and for his construction of a philosophy of immanence. Th e ethical implication of this philosophy is that it does not accept the idea of other-worldly transcendence, but only a positive affi rmation of this-worldly immanence. In this regard, there is a strong resonance between Deleuze’s philosophical project with the idea of Buddha-nature in the Lotus Sūtra . Th is idea rejects the commonly held belief that the aim of Buddhist practice lies in other-worldly transcendence, and affi rms the idea that Buddhahood is a state of life that is accessible in the here and now, because all sentient beings already possess a Buddha-nature. In Chap. 3 “Deleuze, Spinoza and the Question of Reincarnation in the Mahāyāna Tradition,” Simon Duff y aims to develop a secular foundation for the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, one that is consistent with the diff erent ways in which this concept is understood across a number of Buddhist traditions such as the Mahāyāna or Madhyamaka tradition as presented in the works of Śāntideva and Nāgārjuna. In this regard, he is inspired by the Deleuzian-Spinozist account of what it means to be an individual, which provides an alternative metaphysical explanation of reincarnation. He claims that while the former makes a real distinction between saṃsāra and nirvāna , the latter makes a nominal distinction between the two. Duff y argues that this has a correlate in Deleuze’s philosophy, specifi - cally in his reworking of the fi fth part of Spinoza’s Ethics , which provides an alternative metaphysical explanation for reincarnation in terms of what remains of an individual in losing existence, in dying or even in suff ering. Chapter 4 , Tatsuya Higaki’s “Kenji Miyazawa and Takaaki Yoshimoto: Schizophrenic Nature in Japanese Th ought” considers the literary and philosophical ideas of Takaaki Yoshimoto, a famous critic after the Second World War in Japan. As an infl uential left-wing thinker, Takaaki Yoshimoto did not merely serve as a critic of literature but also examined the thought of a famous Pure Land Buddhist monk called Shinran (􃿚 􅑎). He grasped the concept of “Ou-Chyou” (􂁚􄎵), or “to go over to the horizontal direction” and it played an important role in the development of his thought. Tatsuya Higaki also considers how Yoshimoto tried to reintroduce these Buddhist concepts to bear with Leftist theories including Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy in their work on the “Anti-oedipal.” Chapter 5 , Joff Bradley’s “Ango the Schizo: Deleuze, Daraku, Downgoing,” considers the literary references to the ocean and waves in Japanese writer Ango Sakaguchi’s post-war works, his Mahāyāna Buddhism-inspired conception of the body and decadence ( daraku , 􀹅 􃩭) and his slogan “to live is to fall.” Here, he suggests that it is the Artauld’s-inspired BwO (Body without Organs) that we need to turn to, as it wards off fascism and raises questions about the possibility of a return to “furusato” (􁭵􄜧). In Chap. 6 “On Not Mistaking Deleuze (With the Help of Some Buddhists)” Ian Cook presents us with an interesting perspective on how we might read Deleuze more accurately with the help of Buddhist philosophy. In this chapter, he reads Deleuze and Guattari as critical theorists seeking to elaborate the process of self-transformation. He gives a presentation of Deleuze and Guattari’s and Buddhists’ ideas as diametrically enfolded, both engaged in the question of transformation through the rejection of representation. Both Deleuze and Guattari and Buddhists promote a concept of “Diff erence”, which they distinguish from that of “diff erence”. Both Deleuze and Guattari and Buddhists reject notions of absolute interiority (as in “absolute zero” and not “Th e Absolute”) in favor of absolute exteriority and relative interiority in favor of relative exteriority. While Deleuze and Guttari argue for transformations through a myriad of non-local assemblages that combine and fragment in the articulation of new practices (as “innovations” and “improvements”), Buddhism off ers meditation as praxis. In Chap. 7 , Toshiya Ueno’s “Deleuze and Guattari and Buddhism: Toward Spiritual Anarchism through Reading Toshihiko Izutsu,” there is a thoughtful reading of the relationship between Deleuze and Buddhism by way of examining the thought of the Japanese thinker Izutsu. Izutsu was a famous Japanese intellectual well known for his ability to straddle both eastern and western thought. Th is is especially clear in his famous studies of Islamic philosophy. Toshiya Ueno’s chapter highlights the contributions that Izutsu has made in East–West studies, as well as in his original