Tag Archives: Chan

Review: Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017

Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record: Sharpening a Sword at the Dragon Gate. By Steven Heine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-939776-1 (hardback) 978-0-19-939777-8 (paperback), $105.00 USD (hardback) $36.95 USD (paperback).

Reviewed by Rafal K. Stepien

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Ethics in Postmodern Organizations

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 14, 2007

The Ethics of Knowledge and Action in Postmodern Organizations

Michael M.Tophoff
Limmen, The Netherlands

Good Corporate Governance was explicitly formulated in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which became federal law in 2002. It includes ethical guidelines to regulate employee behavior and the interrelations between organizations and their shareholders. While these guidelines are exterior to the person, this paper discusses the construct of an internal beacon for right managerial action, in the Buddhist sense, as well as ways not only to access it mentally but also to extend it into the outside world. Within this perspective, it also presents the ethical teaching of the Chinese Ming philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529). Although Wang is considered to be a Neo-Confucian philosopher, in this article he is considered a seminal thinker within the Chan Buddhist tradition Wang’s method of self-cultivation is presented to access the person’s innate knowledge which in itself implies right action.

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Zen Social Ethics: Zen as a Social Ethics of Responsiveness

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 13, 2006

Zen as a Social Ethics of Responsiveness

T. P. Kasulis
The Ohio State University

One reason traditional Chan or Zen did not develop a comprehensive social ethics is that it arose in an East Asian milieu with axiologies (Confucian, Daoist, and Shintō) already firmly in place. Since these value orientations did not conflict with basic Buddhist principles, Chan/Zen used its praxes and theories of praxis to supplement and enhance, rather than criticize, those indigenous ethical orientations. When we consider the intercultural relevance of Zen ethics today, however, we must examine how its traditional ethical assumptions interface with its Western conversation partners. For example, it is critical that Chan and Zen stress an ethics of responsiveness rather than (as is generally the case of the modern West) one of responsibility. This paper analyzes special philosophical problems arising when one tries to carry Zen moral values without modification into Western contexts.

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