Abstract:This article conducts a close textual analysis of "A Painting of a Rice Cake (Gabyō)," a key fascicle in the Shōbōgenzō that reveals the significance of artistic creation as a metaphor for realizational practice. By analyzing the multiple meanings of "gabyō," it is shown that artistic creation can clarify the nonduality of practice and enlightenment in Dōgen's thought, inasmuch as enlightenment is a constant practice as if making an evanescent and cocreative painting of enlightenment with the entire world as Buddha-nature. (...) For Dōgen, enlightenment involves a deeply personal attunement to and a concrete actualization of the dharma that is not reducible to the purely theoretical understanding of Buddhist texts, and the metaphor of "painting rice cakes" demonstrates the importance of expressive activities in manifesting one's understanding of the dharma. (shrink)

This article examines Rancière’s political reading of aesthetics through a historical analysis into the two aesthetic theories of freedom at work in Rancière’s philosophy; Kant’s freedom as self-governance and Schiller’s freedom as harmony. While aesthetic experience is considered morally conducive through its association with freedom, this article argues that Rancière translates such discussions of freedom into that of equality by extracting the political dimensions of aesthetic experience. Given that art has the unique ability to empower the spectator through its aesthetic (...) experience of equality, the true political potential of art arises from its power to redistribute the sensible rather than through the overt expression of political themes. By juxtaposing Rancière’s politics of art with Kant’s beauty as the symbol of morality, this article argues that art becomes a symbol of political emancipation for Rancière in its capacity to generate the experience of equality. Inasmuch as Rancière attributes the aesthetic revolution to the eighteenth century, it becomes evident that the empowerment of the spectator has been central to art since the inauguration of the aesthetic regime. (shrink)

In this article, I examine Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō to reconsider the notion of hope, many discourses of which are characteristically future oriented. Although there is an overwhelming suspicion that hope is incompatible with Buddhism due to its forward-looking nature, I argue that Dōgen’s Buddhist soteriology can establish a present-focused conception of hope that can challenge the dominant discourses of hope. In this comparative analysis, I first examine the conditions for hope and show that most theories regard hope as teleological and future (...) oriented. As Dōgen rejects a linear conception of time, a future-oriented hope collapses in Dōgen’s soteriology. Nevertheless, I argue that Dōgen’s theory of temporality can ascertain a new theory of hope grounded in the interconnectedness of all moments, a present-oriented conception of hope based on the radical teleology established within the moment of the absolute now. Through an analysis of Dōgen’s soteriology from the perspective of hope, it becomes evident that Dōgen’s theory of temporality creates a space for karmic causality while also emphasizing the non-obstruction between practice and enlightenment. Hence, the notion of hope presents a way in which we can reconcile the apparent contradictions between the twelve-fascicle Shōbōgenzō that emphasizes the former and the seventy-five-fascicle version that advocates the latter. Although hope is not central to Buddhist soteriology, this article shows that it is beneficial to analyze Buddhist teachings from the perspective of hope, for not only does it offer a new insight to the growing philosophical discourses on hope, but it also presents a way in which we can reconcile the contradictions within Dōgen’s various writings. (shrink)