Philosophy East & West KIERKEGAARDIAN IRONY IN CHAN BUDDHISM: PLAYFUL ENACTMENT IN RITUAL ENCOUNTERS FROM A CROSSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Table of contents :
Kierkegaardian Irony in Chan Buddhism: Playful Enactment in Ritual Encounters from a Cross-cultural Perspective
Kierkegaardian Irony
The Three Marks of the Ironist
Relinquishing ``Picking and Choosing,'' Gaining ``Freedom and Independence''
Playful Samadhi as the Actual Expression of Awakening
Ironic Self(less)-Cultivation
Incommensurable Differences
Concluding Remarks
Notes
References

Citation preview

KIERKEGAARDIAN IRONY IN CHAN BUDDHISM: PLAYFUL ENACTMENT IN RITUAL ENCOUNTERS FROM A CROSSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE Rudi Capra School of Philosophy, Wuhan University [email protected]

The present essay establishes a cross-cultural comparison between Kierkegaard’s ironist and the figure of the Chan master, with specific reference to Kierkegaard’s dissertation “The Concept of Irony” and the renowned gongan collection Blue Cliff Record (Biyan lu 碧巖錄). Chan writings are often bizarre, laconic, and reticent; whenever possible, they avoid assertive language. In this framework, Kierkegaard’s philosophy performs the important function of an interpretive key capable of making explicit what is implicitly assumed, enabling a critical operation that, so to speak, uncovers the questions behind the answers. From the standpoint of cross-cultural study this essay adopts an “interpretative” strategy, which consists in “using terms, ideas, or concepts from one philosophical tradition to help understand or interpret another philosophical tradition.” Clearly, the interpretative dimension of comparative studies is intrinsically connected to a “constructive” dimension, “seeking to advance or develop philosophy through crosscultural engagement” (Connolly 2015, p. 32). The main thesis is that the comparison makes explicit significant aspects of Chan orthopraxis, since Chan masters, as presented in the Blue Cliff Record, exemplify Kierkegaard’s portrayal of the ironist. In particular, these aspects pertain to the progressive detachment from the discriminating action of karmic consciousness and self-centered thinking, toward the cultivation of a selfless stance. The first section focuses on Kierkegaard’s ironist. The following sections analyze relevant gongan narratives from the Blue Cliff Record with the purpose of expounding on the relation between irony and the discriminating mind, playfulness and selflessness. The final section considers the major incommensurable differences that mark the present cross-cultural dialogue.

Kierkegaardian Irony The Romantic era saw the resurgence of irony as a philosophical theme and an aesthetic criterion, in particular in the writings of Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) and Novalis (1772–1801). In Schlegel’s view, Romantic art is marked by the aspiration to express the Absolute, and the simultaneous ironic awareness of the impossibility to realize this purpose, bearing onto

Philosophy East & West Volume 72, Number 3 July 2022 1–23 © 2022 by University of Hawai‘i Press

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itself the creative tension between absolute and relative, belief and disbelief, allowing simultaneously both sides of the tension (Schlegel 1991, p. 13). For Novalis, irony allows the transcendence of self-centeredness into an unreflective process of self-creation allowing the emergence of the true presence of the Spirit, since “the sacrifice of the self is the source of all humiliation, as also on the contrary it is the foundation of all true exaltation” (Novalis 1997, pp. 27–29). This romantic “ideal of anti-self-consciousness” (Hartman 1970, pp. 298–310) describes the self as entangled in a perpetual oscillation between self-creation (Selbstschöpfung) and self-annihilation (Selbstvernichtung), undermining the conception of a fixed identity. In this framework, irony becomes a new modality of subjectivism that transforms the self into an unreflective, ongoing process of creation (Colebrook 2004, p. 51). Eventually, romantic irony becomes the paradigmatic style of the unsolvable tension between art and its limits, expressing “a feeling of the insoluble antagonism between the conditioned and the absolute, between the impossibility and necessity of complete communication” (Schlegel 1991, p. 13). Kierkegaard recovers the romantic irony in the context of a renewed, coherent interpretation of the individual with respect to modern society and religion. In his doctoral dissertation “The Concept of Irony,” irony figures first and foremost as a “qualification of subjectivity” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 242), in opposition to traditional forms of irony that pertain to the domain of rhetoric (classical irony, situational irony, verbal irony, etc.).1 By defining irony as a “qualification of subjectivity,” Kierkegaard means an attribute that qualifies a given subject in a distinctive fashion. Whereas his conception of irony is substantially inspired by the figure of Socrates, Socrates himself constitutes among others—Tieck, Schlegel, Solger, Hegel—the phenomenalhistorical manifestations of a peculiar kind of subjectivity who is characterized by being negatively free in respect to the given actuality: Irony is a qualification of subjectivity. In irony, the subject is negatively free, since the actuality that is supposed to give the subject content is not there. He is free from the constraint in which the given actuality holds the subject, but he is negatively free and as such is suspended, because there is nothing that holds him. (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 262)

With the term “actuality” (Virkelighed), Kierkegaard refers to the contingent historical situatedness of a single individual: the entire set of spatial and temporal relations that any given subject entertains with the world during its existence in that precise moment. Indeed, the term actuality has a long tradition in Western philosophy, and it is mainly associated with Aristotelian philosophy.2 Kierkegaard had encountered the term while studying Schelling, and (intentionally?) misinterpreted its original meaning, as noted by his supervisor, Professor Frederik C. Sibbern (Stewart 2011, p. 238). In

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Kierkegaard, “actuality” is marked by an unprecedented existential connotation: The word “actuality,” however, must here primarily be understood as historical actuality—that is, the given actuality at a certain time and in a certain situation. (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 259)

In particular, Kierkegaard’s notion of “given actuality” is shaped after Hegel’s formulation of Sittlichkeit, usually translated as “ethical life” or “ethical order” (Frazier 2006, 107). Sittlichkeit alludes to the ethical disposition of an individual dwelling within a complex network of social and political conditions and conditionings, both institutionalized and not; already in the Concept of Irony, in the distance between Hegel’s Sittlichkeit and Kierkegaard’s Virkelighed, the attentive reader notices the shift from a purely ethical to an existential perspective. In the later “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” Kierkegaard refers to actuality as “the existence in which one himself is” (Kierkegaard 1992, p. 315). Yet, actuality in Kierkegaardian philosophy does not become a simple synonym of the term “existence.” Indeed, both terms are inherent in the subject’s existence. But while the term “existence” evokes an extended segment of lived time, the term “actuality” alludes to the historical situatedness of the living subject, highlighting the revolving network of contextual factors that influence and determine its existential position. In other words, the existence of any actual subject consists in a precise historical situatedness, whose subsistence relies on a dynamic set of relationships with society, language, culture and other contingent factors. If existence is best represented by the image of a line, then actuality would be best represented by the image of a nexus whose focal point is the living subject. In fact, each living subject is an actual subject, since there is no existence outside specific spatial and temporal coordinates, just as there is no existence outside linguistic, social, and cultural conditions. In this respect, irony works as a “radical annihilating activity” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 214) that liberates the subject from the constraints of actuality. In particular, Kierkegaard defines irony as “infinite absolute negativity”: It is negativity, because it only negates; it is infinite, because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not. (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 261)

Irony is negativity, in the sense that it negates whatever can be positively determined, lifting the ironist above the limitations implied by the actual context. Irony is infinite, because it applies to all phenomena, beliefs, situations, and values. Irony is absolute, because it relies on the higher plane of negativity to negate any positivity. The infinite absolute negativity of irony, a strictly positive aspect for the romantics, is regarded with suspicion by Kierkegaard. In his view, an ironist

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who unconditionally accepts the pars destruens of irony without offering a correlative pars construens is doomed to an unproductive moral nihilism. Instead, irony should work as a bridge between the aesthetic and the ethical spheres of existence, allowing the ironist to gain a stable position out of the unstable ironic world view (Kierkegaard 1992, p. 501). In this case, irony becomes the mask of the ethicist who, incognito, is continually appropriating the ethical demand (Lippitt 2000, p. 145). As a qualification of subjectivity, irony is only justified when it allows the transition from negative freedom to subjective freedom, converting the aesthetic into the ethical (Stewart 2015, p. 79). Hence, Kierkegaard describes two different kinds of irony—or, rather, two different strategies to employ the annihilating power of irony, the first unable to overcome moral nihilism and the second capable of regaining a solid ground for ethical commitment. These strategies are commonly referred to as unstable and stable irony, or pure, total irony and controlled, mastered irony.

The Three Marks of the Ironist Therefore, Kierkegaard does not dismiss irony as a mere rhetorical technique. Rather, it constitutes an existential condition of which rhetorical irony is one among many expressions. From this standpoint, mastered irony can be identified with three fundamental marks. The first of these is skepticism. In fact, if human existence is described as the attempt to mediate between eternal and temporal, absolute and relative, then irony coincides with the awareness of the unsolved character of this mediation, and with the coherent expression of this awareness (Stephen Evans 2009, p. 132). The ironist performs a temporary, totalizing detachment from religious, epistemological, ethical, linguistic certainties: “what doubt is to science, irony is to personal life” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 326). Then, the position of the ironist constitutes to a certain extent a personification of the skeptical mindset. Kierkegaard himself hints at this kinship by reinterpreting the skeptic vocabulary—epoche, ataraxia—in a way that is functional to his description of the ironist.3 Both the skeptic and the ironist reject intellectual and emotional engagement with objective truths and ethical values, and challenge the uncontested integrity of assertive language.4 Yet there are, between the skeptic and the ironist, substantial differences: Even skepticism always posits something, whereas irony, like that old witch, continually makes the very tantalizing attempt to eat up everything first of all and thereupon to eat up itself-or, as in the case of the witch, eats up its own stomach. (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 56)

Philosophical skep ticism chiefly describes an intellectual attitude and is therefore concerned with theoretical judgment, whereas Kierkegaardian

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irony extends its annihilating power to feelings, emotions—even to the ironic subject itself. Therefore, the ironic epoche is fundamentally different from the skeptical one, since the “suspension” is not merely the symptom of a reasoned epistemic assumption, but affects the totality of the relations that the ironist maintains with the world. The skeptic doubt pervades the whole domain of actual existence, resulting in a psychological detachment that keeps the ironist lifted above, and fundamentally emancipated from, the realm of given actuality. The ironist “has the absolute face-to-face with life’s relativity, but an absolute so light that he cannot overstrain himself on it since he has it in the form of nothing” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 84).5 Then, the nihilizing power of the ironic attitude assumes the form of a radical skepsis, the first mark of the ironist, which discloses to the ironist the essential “relativity” or “limitedness” of actual existence. In the same way as someone who admires a landscape painted so realistically that it looks authentic, and who only by later noticing the frame realizes the deception, likewise the ironist, performing a radical epoche, realizes the limitedness of all existential perspectives, even his own. The ironic attitude works thus as an instrument of detachment, subtracting the subject from the conventional realm in which positive determinations of values, truths, and meanings ordinarily take place, inhabiting the world as a negative presence that always conveys, through verbal or nonverbal expressions, the intrinsic partiality and ultimate contingency of any conceivable point of view. Taken as an existential attitude, instead of as a pedagogical means, “Irony is no more heuristic, it is nihilising; it does not assist the quest for knowledge, neither unveils the essential below words, it only allows to overfly the world and neglect material distinctions” (Jankélévitch 2011, p. 19). The relentless “subtraction” of the subject from the regime of actuality corresponds to the performative disengagement that Kierkegaard addresses as “negative freedom,” the second mark of the ironist. Emancipated from constraints and concerns, but also emptied of feelings and purpose, the ironic subject participates in the historical and spatial situatedness of its own existence while maintaining a radical detachment with respect to the entireness of given actuality. Thus the whole of existence has become alien to the ironic subject and the ironic subject in turn alien to existence, that as actuality has lost its validity for the ironic subject, he himself has to a certain degree become unactual. (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 259)

The radicalness of the ironic freedom also challenges the instinct of selfpreservation, as illustrated by the case of Socrates, who represents for Kierkegaard the most genuine example of an ironist.6 Socrates, the archetypical ironist, brandishes irony as a razor, cutting off all actual relations pertaining to his own spatial and temporal situatedness. By the relentless exercise of irony, he exposed the conventional, relative character

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of the judgment imposed upon him, and even refused to recognize a death sentence as a punishment: “even life and death lose their absolute validity for him” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 196). From the ironist’s perspective all limits and distinctions, including the border that divides life and death, become non-actual. So, once finally sentenced to death, he did not abstain from waving the blade of irony, showing that his own existence had become irrelevant to him, as well as his own death, ultimately converting the drama into a farce: “Socrates’ death is not basically tragic . . . because death has no reality for him” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 271).7 This point leads us to the third and last mark (after radical skepsis and negative freedom) that characterizes irony, considered as a “qualification of subjectivity”: playfulness. The notion of playfulness is directly related to the notions of “skepsis” and “negativity.” The ironist, through the relentless exercise of a radical skepsis, performs an existential disengagement from actuality, preserving a condition of negative independence that grants an imperturbable state of serenity (defined by Kierkegaard as “ironic ataraxia” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 213). In other words, as actual existence “becomes unactual” (p. 259), the ironist becomes fundamentally indifferent to actual existence. The ironist is fundamentally incapable of taking something seriously, where for “seriousness,” I intend the existential attitude in which the subject is able to form psychological commitments in the form of beliefs or affections. Psychological commitments represent existential burdens, since they keep the subject anchored to the ground of actuality. The antithetic relationship between “seriousness” on the one hand, and “irony” and “humor” on the other hand, is also reflected in the common metaphorical language, since “the notion of gravity, in the double meaning of seriousness and geotropism, is our natural tendency” (Jankélévitch 2011, p. 31).8 Instead, the ironist “is negatively free and as such is suspended,” being “free from the constraint in which the given actuality holds the subject” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 262). If on the one hand “the serious is essentially fragile” (Jankélévitch 2011, p. 36), on the other hand the ironist evades the inherent fragility of the human condition. Yet, irony does not merely imply a subtraction from actuality, but also the presence of an intentional underlying message that earnestly opposes denotation. For instance, irony and lies share the fostering of ambiguity between language and reality, as well as the intention to deceive the audience. Nonetheless, there is a fundamental difference between the two: a lie uses deception to conceal; irony uses deception to reveal. While the liar chooses a direct expression to conceal facts and intentions, the ironist chooses an indirect expression to reveal them. For this reason, we tend to counter lies with anger, and irony with laughter: the liar’s deception springs from dishonesty, and is potentially harmful to us, whereas the ironist’s deception springs from a peculiar form of earnestness (“its earnestness is not in earnest,” as Kierkegaard would suggest—Kierkegaard 1989, p. 248).9

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Therefore, the earnest intention of conveying a message constitutes the peculiarity of verbal irony in respect to other ambiguous forms of communication: “It is like a riddle to which one at the same time has the solution” (ibid.). Therefore, the paradigmatic playfulness of the ironist coincides with the earnest expression of an existential disengagement, through which the subject learns to play with one’s actual identity as if it were a role to impersonate, a fictional character, the protagonist of a book, or a movie. The ironist, while practicing a radical disengagement from the existence that is simultaneously lived, can only re-engage into existence as a player who engages into a game, or as an actor who performs a role. In the next section it will be shown how the figure of the Chan master exemplifies to a remarkable extent Kierkegaard’s description of the ironist.

Relinquishing “Picking and Choosing,” Gaining “Freedom and Independence” The Chan description of consciousness implies that the illusory perception of a permanent “self” (wo 我) is caused by the discriminating action of “karmic consciousness” (yeshi 業識), revealing thus a profound debt with the Yogacarins (Yamabe 2014). In this regard, the primeval phenomenological distinction between an inner reality (the self) and an outer reality (the world) is only the first step of a countless number of additional distinctions. Self-centered thinking naturally tends toward its own conservation, either avoiding what is detrimental or seeking what is pleasurable, fostering the recourse to a gradually more sophisticated form of discrimination. With the term “discrimination” I mean to embrace a range of related meanings that the word implies: the etymology refers to the act of tracing a demarcation, or separating, and the contemporary usage inflected the term with negative connotations inherent in the operation of displaying bias, showing partiality, setting up a prejudicial hierarchy.10 Since the earliest texts, and following the ideological inclination of the Lankavatara, Chan literature insists on the necessity to emancipate from the one-sided views that karmic consciousness naturally imposes, nourishing a wide variety of dichotomies—good and bad, fair and unfair, true and false, love and hate, et cetera. Once the discriminating view is established, attachment naturally follows; when attachment emerges, suffering arises. Indeed, the critique of the discriminating mind assumes various forms throughout the texts, and the centuries; for instance, the Xinxin Ming predicates the relinquishment of likes (ai 愛) and dislikes (zeng 憎), but also criticizes the habit of “picking and choosing” (jianze 揀擇), a term which returns prominently in the Blue Cliff Record.11 From this perspective, the way of Chan consists in a constant practice of emancipation from consolidated patterns of cognition. Chan students must learn to avoid “picking and choosing,” overcoming any form of partiality

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and relinquishing thus their “horizon for relevance” (Hershock 1996, p. 132). In the Blue Cliff Record we find various metaphorical references to the idea of emancipation, rendered through poetic images such as “seven times piercing and eight times breaking through” (Qiquan baxue 七穿八穴), “smashing barriers” (poguan 破關), “breaking chains” (dasuo 打鎖), and so forth. Even the final goal of Chan coincides with the achievement of a definitive “liberation” (jietuo 解脱, Sk. moksha) from the yoke of karmic consciousness. Throughout the text, the unrestrained freedom enjoyed by the awakened mind is rendered by the compounds ziyou 自由, translated as “freedom,” and zizai 自在, translated as “independence.”12 Specifically, in Case 2 of the Blue Cliff Record we find a clear connection between the cultivation of the ironic stance and the emancipation from a discriminating mindset. The protagonist of the story, Zhaozhou Congshen, reveals ironically his unrestrained “freedom and independence” (ziyou zizai 自由自在) while simultaneously offering a significant handhold to his students: Zhaozhou, teaching the assembly, said, “The Ultimate Path is without difficulty; just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, ‘this is picking and choosing’, ‘this is clarity’. This old monk does not abide within clarity; [do you still take sides or not?”]13 At that time, a certain monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, [how do you take sides?”] Zhaozhou replied, “I don’t know either.” The monk said, “Since you don’t know, Teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you do not abide within clarity?” Zhaozhou said, “It is enough to ask about the matter; bow and withdraw.” (Blue Cliff Record [1977] 2005, p. 10)

If Zhaozhou does not abide in clarity, where does he abide? How does he take a position? The young monk forced Zhaozhou to recognize that his speech establishes a dichotomous discrimination, falling itself in the domain of “picking and choosing.” Nonetheless, the offensive ultimately misses the target, because Zhaozhou, who was originally “stretching his hands” in order to help the students, switches then from the state of positive samadhi (“letting go”) to the state of absolute samadhi (“holding still”), withdrawing from the role of helpful teacher he was performing just a moment before.14 Zhaozhou is presenting a dilemma to the students, but ritual encounters can always assume the form of an agonistic dharma-battle; once the young monk counter-attacks cornering the master, he has no choice but to suspend the “game.” His final line (“It is enough to ask about the matter; bow and withdraw”) certifies that the ritual fulfilled its purpose and there is no need to push it further.

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Given its recourse to negative freedom, skepsis, and playfulness, Zhaozhou’s attitude exemplifies Kierkegaard’s description of the ironist. At first, he sets up a playful test for the students. Cornered by a tricky question, Zhaozhou avoids taking sides, resorting cunningly to the radical skepsis that eludes any conceivable partiality. The inherent ambiguity of the ironic discourse allows him to deliver a cogent teaching while also displaying a deliberate ignorance that, according to Yuanwu, is entirely simulated (p. 12). In commenting on the case, Yuanwu tells us that Zhaozhou “had freedom to turn himself around in, so he answered him like this” (p. 12): While Zhaozhou ordinarily never used beating or shouting to deal with people, and only used ordinary speech, still no one in the world could handle him. It was all because he never had so many calculating judgments: he could pick up sideways and use upside-down, go against or go with, having attained great freedom [zizai 自在]. (p. 12)

The definitive emancipation from psychological and emotional bonds, which grants the awakened subject unrestrained joy and independence, is a result of the relinquishment of partiality, a goal that is shared by the Chan master and the ironist. As the former contrasts the discriminating action of consciousness by resorting to meditation and other techniques, the latter takes advantage of the ironic suspension of judgment. When the world is seen sub specie ironiae, the ordinary categories of right and wrong, good and evil, true and false lose value and significance. For the ironist, “the borders of the objective world are dissolved in the infinity of the subject as plastic forms dissolve in the moonlight dimness” (Jankélévitch 2011, p. 17).

Playful Samadhi as the Actual Expression of Awakening Negativity, freedom and playfulness mark the ironic attitude in an essential and uncompromising way. In Kierkegaard’s words, irony “enjoys in the realm of practice . . . a divine freedom that knows no bounds . . . , plays with abandon and unrestraint, gambols like a leviathan in the sea” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 279). After all, irony corresponds to the negative freedom from actuality, and involves an “infinitely light playing with nothing” (ibid., p. 270). In fact, playfulness is the only conceivable form of engagement that the ironist can assume in relation to actuality. Through a playful demeanor, the ironist calls for a perpetual disengagement from actuality, preserving a condition of negative freedom while simultaneously engaging in the earnest expression of irony. Modern scholarship recognizes the key role of “indirect communication” (indirecte Meddelelse) in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. In particular, Zacpal dedicated a recent study to the similarities between Kierkegaard’s notion of indirect Meddelelse (which Zacpal translates as “message”) and Chan

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rhetoric, identifying irony as a means for preserving a negative independence while conveying an earnest message (Zacpal 2020, pp. 50–51). Similarly, Chan masters conceal behind their playful behavior the earnest expression of joyful awakening, a condition in which the mind shines effortlessly without forming discriminations or partialities. In this sense, the performance of an ironic stance works as a means for the cultivation of awakening, complying with the emancipation from one-sidedness (since playfulness entails the radical skepsis granted by the ironic perspective) and with a master’s ethical duties (since playfulness corresponds to a form of engagement).15 In Cases 74 and 93 of the Blue Cliff Record, the masters Jinniu and Daguang perform joyful dances in front of their students.16 In these koans, the playful dances of Jinniu and Daguang work as skillful means, functioning outside of ordinary patterns of pedagogy in order to favor the intuitive transmission of the Dharma. The playful demeanor of the masters reveals its ironic nature through the intentional conveyance of a cryptic message behind an apparently meaningless behavior, delivering a teaching in a fashion that complies with the self-effacing trend of Chan pedagogy. Historically, Chan masters have counterbalanced the constructive study of sutras and scriptures with a diverse array of deconstructive techniques, aimed at preventing mindless attachment to written teachings (Huang 2018). In this specific pedagogical framework, playfulness constitutes an additional trait d’union between the Chan master and the ironist. In the cases considered, Jinniu and Daguang engage in the earnest transmission of a teaching while playfully disengaging from the austere participation in the formal routine of the monastic life. While gathering monks for the meal, or within the context of a ritual encounter, the two resort to irony as a means for preserving their share of freedom and independence while remaining engaged in the practice of teaching and helping others. Their playful exhibition is a bright example of “supernatural playful samadhi” (shentong youxi sanmei 神通游戲三昧), the state of consciousness that expresses joyfully the experience of “awakening” (wu 悟).17 In this state of mind, recurrent throughout the collection, Chan masters keep the mind “free and independent” (ziyou zizai 自由自在), unspoilt by contaminations and untrammeled by partiality, and at the same time offer a paradigmatic expression of their awakening. In Case 22, Xuefeng Yicun 雪峰 義存 (822–908) addresses the assembly saying, “On South Mountain there is a turtle-nosed snake. All of you people must take a good look” (p. 144). Xuefeng’s advice is an ironic challenge to speak a “live word” (huoju 活句) of Chan (or must we suppose that he literally asked his students to look for a turtle-nosed snake?). Yunmen fulfills Xuefeng’s request by offering an amusing instance of playful samadhi: he throws his staff before Xuefeng, pretending to be frightened.

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The turtle-nosed snake may then be regarded as a metaphorical image for the unfamiliar, taken not as a general concept but rather as the set of perspectival views that are naturally excluded by the adoption of a privileged (and therefore biased) perspectival frame.18 Then, we realize that Yuanwu’s iterated exhortation to “handle snakes” (or “play with snakes” [弄蛇手]) is an encouragement to disengage from one’s privileged standpoint in order to reach a degree of zero-perspective, which can assume all conceivable perspectives without identifying with any of them. Following Zhuangzi’s model, the Chan master can then be deemed a “genuine pretender,” someone who recognizes the contingency and arbitrariness of all foundational rules and values of existence, and takes part in the absurd game of life with the analogous function of a wild card—the joker.19 By definition, the “genuine pretender” embraces a zero-perspective, engaging in the playful enactment of contingent roles without ever identifying with them or acknowledging their inherent value (Moeller and D’Ambrosio 2017).20 Given these elements, Chan playfulness must not be dismissed as a mere touch of color meant to typify revered figures or amuse the reader. Despite being initially perceived as sophisticated literary games within the literati circles, gongans demand a functional reading strategy for soteriological purposes (Hsieh 1994). Besides, in gongan literature the norm “dictates that the subject is never changed: whatever a master says or does in that context is always about awakening” (Foulk 2000, pp. 39–40). If so, Chan masters’ playfulness may be regarded as the positive expression of their awakening within the domain of actuality, an indirect fulfillment of the bodhisattva’s vow. Finally, the passages considered expose in a clear fashion the functional connection of skepsis, negative freedom, and playfulness within the domain of irony: as the distinctions and dichotomies of conventional existence fade away, suspended in epoche, the subject is liberated by all partialities. Negative freedom is converted to positive freedom whenever the ironist comes back to haunt the world in the mode of playfulness. As Xuefeng and Yunmen are able to dwell in the state of playful samadhi, they are also capable of playing with the contingent elements of actuality, highlighting their ontological inconsistency and their perspectival identity: “this one staff, sometimes it’s a dragon, sometimes it’s a snake” (p. 152). From this standpoint, playfulness is not a selfish distraction, but an open-ended game that demands experienced skillfulness and a daring heart, as true Chan adepts must be well-versed snake handlers.

Ironic Self(less)-Cultivation The “theatrical gestures” of Chan narratives (chanji 禪機) are then intrinsically ironic, since their primary meaning is inexistent or inconsistent, and their actual significance unfolds at a secondary degree of understanding,

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concealed behind a barrier of ambiguity. The penetration of the ironic barrier through an intuitive act of cognition, only possible to the awakened mind, is ultimately a necessary condition for stepping into the dynamic field of the game and taking part in it successfully. Words and actions apparently meaningless and unrelated acquire a definite sense in the creative field of the game of Chan, which nonetheless, as musical counterpoints, requires flawless performances by all interpreters involved in order to deliver a successful execution, as shown in Case 68: Yangshan asked Sansheng, “What is your name?” Sansheng said, “Huiji.” Yangshan said, “Huiji? That’s me.” Sansheng said, “My name is Huiran.” Yangshan laughed aloud.

In this brief, intense exchange, Yangshan Huiji 仰山慧寂 (807–883) puts Sansheng Huiran 三聖慧然 (ninth century) to the test by asking his name. Yangshan’s name was Huiji, and Sansheng’s name was Huiran. Nevertheless, when Sansheng is asked, he steals Yangshan’s name (Huiji), instead of giving his own name (Huiran). In the agonistic dimension of the Dharmacombat, we can interpret Yangshan’s line as an attack, and Sansheng’s reply as an immediate counter-attack that deprives the opponent of his own identity. Once attacked, Sansheng appeals to the capacity of “withdrawing” (shou 收), and drags his opponent with him into the realm of nothingness. At this point, Yangshan cannot but resort to the complementary action of “releasing” (fang 放): he lets go and reaffirms his own identity in the realm of positive samadhi, stating “Huiji? That’s me.” Then, in a flawless combination of contrapuntal moves, Sansheng also disengages, stating his own real name, “My name is Huiran.” In the end, Yangshan lets out a “big laugh” (呵呵大笑), which in Yuanwu’s view is like “spreading flowers on brocade” (p. 381). The dialectics of shoufang 收放 exhibits both masters’ ability to disengage from one or the other’s standpoint while exploiting the playful negativity of the ironist as a means to preserve their utmost independence and freedom. Yuanwu’s insistence on the necessity to perform “mutual change” (huhuan 互換) alludes to the capacity to trespass the actual borders of selfhood. A failure to do so would naturally result in binding the subject to a limited perspective, preventing one from attaining the liberating field of the awakened mind: “if we don’t let go and gather up, if we don’t interchange, then you are you and I am I” (p. 384). On the contrary, the liberating power of irony emancipates the subject from self-centeredness, offering the opportunity for the decisive merging of subject and object, guest and host, toward the annihilation of any illusory perception of self-subsistent identity. To this end, the ludic aspect of the “mutual change” or “interchange” (huhuan 互換) offered by the contenders

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of a Dharma combat is not an eccentric whim, but a performative engagement with the ludic dimension of Chan practice, which implies the dynamic interplay of skeptical disengagement and playful engagement. Therefore, irony works effectively as a means for the cultivation of Chan orthopraxy, reminding us of the ultimate contingency of any potential identity. The awareness of such a condition allows the subject to receive any actual identity as a given role, preserving through its playful enactment the emancipation from a self-centered standpoint, toward the highest degree of “freedom and independence” (ziyou zizai 自由自在): “In a meeting of adepts, from beginning to end there must be an uninterrupted interchange of guest and host; only then there is a share of freedom and independence” (p. 446). In its joyful disengagement from actuality (unrestrained freedom) and in its earnest engagement with Chan training (playful display of compassion), the Chan adept exemplifies the paradoxical strategy of Kierkegaard’s ironist, who says while denying, and gives while subtracting.21 However, whereas irony in the context of Chan practice leads to a wholesome detachment from self-centeredness, it does not necessarily generate a comparable positive effect in the context of Kierkegaard’s philosophy unless irony allows for a shifting from the aesthetic to the ethical sphere, becoming “mastered irony.” While Kierkegaard’s ironist offers an intriguing term for comparison with respect to Chan orthopraxy and ritual encounters, the presence of significant differences raises the issue of cultural incommensurability.

Incommensurable Differences Incommensurability in a cross-cultural perspective may be defined as the eventuality that the grounding concepts adopted by distinct cultural traditions to make sense of the world “are so different from one another that members of these traditions cannot understand one another” (Connolly 2015, p. 62). Nevertheless, a rigid conception of incommensurability would preclude any productive interaction between different cultures. Moreover, the impossibility of an absolute objectivity does not frustrate the efforts of constructive hermeneutics, “which seeks to disclose new possibilities of meaning within the fabric of cultural products themselves” (Kepnes 1996, p. 5). In this regard, Kierkegaard’s description of the ironist finds its ideal integration within his philosophical worldview, which indeed belongs to the specific cultural tradition of Western philosophy, which historically has few to no connections with the tradition of Chinese Buddhism. Therefore, it is only natural that the two terms compared are, at least partially, incommensurable. In particular, there are two main points of divergence to clarify: first, the nature of the self, and second, the effects of irony. Concerning selfhood, in Chan “realizing one’s true nature” (jianxing 見性) entails the detachment

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from the illusory perception of a “permanent self” (wo 我), an illusion that is created and nourished by the stream of consciousness. On the contrary, Kierkegaard holds the belief that human beings possess an irreducible core of subjectivity that endures all existential and moral permutations, eventually guiding them—namely, the soul (Podmore 2011).22 In Kierkegaard’s view, irony does not involve the rejection of selfhood, but rather the negation of the actualized world before the self, which finds itself suspended over the actual world: In irony, the subject is continually retreating, taking every phenomenon out of its reality in order to save itself-that is, in order to preserve itself in negative independence of everything. (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 257)

Due to the incessant motion of irony, which undermines all previously established existential certainties and epistemic criteria, “the soul is always on pilgrimage” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 282). Yet, in the concluding part of his dissertation Kierkegaard reiterates the necessity to master and control irony so that individuals do not become unethically disengaged from their social roles embedded within their respective communities. While irony “rescues the soul from having its life in finitude” (ibid., p. 326), it does not lead to a radical emancipation from selfhood as in the case of Chan Buddhism, but it rather favors the positive integration of the self within actuality by counterbalancing the excessive depth of a serious psychological commitment: The description suggests that there are occasions when it is very helpful for a person to step back from energetic and robust engagement in the affairs of life—those things that are involved in taking seriously the task of actuality (or selfhood). . . . It is not difficult for persons who take their responsibilities seriously to lose sight of a larger perspective from which these duties can be transcended momentarily in order for one to gain a better perspective on them. Kierkegaard uses the imagery of “undressing” to capture the kind of controlled disengagement that is needed in such cases (Frazier 2006, p. 144).

This point leads us directly to the second major difference between the standpoint envisaged by Kierkegaard in his portrait of the ironist and the one that characterizes the Chan masters’ attitude: for Kierkegaard, pure (nonmastered) irony is a substantially self-defeating and unhealthy psychological mindset. In its incessant mobility, irony allows nothing to remain established. Nonetheless, irony becomes itself a peculiar kind of earnestness, even though it is not earnestness about anything in particular. Thus, the ironist remains incapable of actualizing the self, achieving the transfiguration from aesthetic irony to religious humor. The way of pure irony is the road that leads to nihilistic despair, resulting not in self-realization but selfdestruction (Frazier 2006, p. 139).

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In both cases—Chan masters and Kierkegaard’s ironist—the effectiveness of the ironic disengagement liberates the subject from a burdensome existential condition. Whereas in Chan irony implies the annihilation of selfhood, in Kierkegaard’s view irony is beneficial under the condition that the subject is able to master it. In the Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard explains the notion of mastered irony as follows: As soon as irony is controlled, it makes a movement opposite to that in which uncontrolled irony declares its life. Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content; it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency. . . . Irony as a controlled element manifests itself in its truth precisely by teaching how to actualize actuality, by placing the appropriate emphasis on actuality. (Kierkegaard 1989, pp. 326–328)

In other words, mastered irony does not necessarily lead to the universal rejection of actuality, as in the paradigmatic case of Socrates. Rather, irony offers the opportunity for the momentary realization that actuality can be negated to a significant extent, resulting in a more conscious embracement of its intrinsic contingency: “For to know that I could say ‘no’ to actuality, deepens my capacity to say ‘yes’ to it” (Hall 2001, p. 344). Chan Buddhism offers a substantially different worldview. Even accepting the definition of irony as an existential attitude that achieves a radical disentanglement from self-centeredness, its actual performance, far from dragging the subject into an abyss of despair, complies with the soteriological path indicated by the Buddha, which must be traveled in a blissful state of playfulness. Due to the significant distance that separates European modern philosophy and Chan Buddhism, we can assume a relevant degree of incommensurability. However, it is striking to note the theoretical commensurability that appears to connect Kierkegaardian philosophy and Chan practice on the topic of irony.23 Both philosophies have a therapeutic goal, seeking to help people by delineating a specific method of cultivation. Both paths are egalitarian: they are open to anyone wishing to follow them. Both include a pars destruens and a pars construens, offering the opportunity for the positive realization of the individual on the basis of a negative freedom. Finally, both employ a rhetorical style relying consistently on wordplays, allusions, humor, and irony, refusing (and mistrusting) direct communication.

Concluding Remarks The most innovative feature of Kierkegaard’s conception of irony is that it relies on the fact that “irony is essentially practice, it is theoretical only in order to become practical again” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 257). After considering irony as a qualification of subjectivity, Kierkegaard outlines an existential portrait of the ironic subject (i.e., the ironist), who takes advantage of the ironic “infinite absolute negativity” to erase the borders of

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actuality dwelling within an existential attitude characterized by radical skepsis, negative freedom, and playfulness. Chan Buddhism shares a similar position, as several scripts and passages reiterate the necessity to relinquish the discriminating mind, contrasting the spontaneous tendency to “pick and choose” (jianze 揀擇), that is, to form likes and dislikes, preferences and attachments. The state of mind gained from the successful relinquishment of the horizon for relevance results, then, in a serene imperturbability, comparable to the skeptic ataraxia. In an analogous way, the true share of “freedom and independence” (ziyou zizai 自由自在) promised by Yuanwu echoes the notion of ironic freedom as described by Kierkegaard. Finally, the joyful and unconcerned meditative state known as “playful samadhi” may be regarded as the Chan variation of the ironist’s playfulness. Given these elements, I have argued that the figure of the Chan master exemplifies Kierkegaard’s ironist, as they both relinquish their horizon for relevance through an act of skeptic suspension, expressing unrestrained freedom in a condition of playful enactment. After all, “great ironists do not merely use irony: they live ironically” (Draitser 1994, p. 1). Although Kierkegaard’s ironist seems to offer some relevant explanations for specific aspects of Chan practice, it must not be forgotten that a crosscultural comparison often raises the issue of incommensurability. In particular, the role of irony in Kierkegaard’s philosophy promotes an emancipation from the enactment of a social persona, and as such it does not obliterate the veritable notion of selfhood. In Kierkegaard’s view, mastering irony is the key for preventing the unhealthy identification of self and social persona, allowing the subject to appropriate the ethical demand incognito. In Chan Buddhism, instead, a performative recourse to irony allows the progressive erasure of the self through its relentless power of annihilation. Notes The following abbreviation is used in the Notes and References: CBETA Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (中華電子佛典協會) (cbeta.org)

1 – For reasons of space, in my analysis of Kierkegaardian irony I am focusing primarily on the Concept of Irony. 2 – Aristotle’s actuality is expressed by the Greek term energeia (literally “being-in-action,” “being-at-work”). 3 – On Kierkegaard’s interest in (and reception of) Greek philosophy, see Furtak 2013. 4 – Even in Rorty’s definition the ironist “has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses,” because irony entails

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the awareness of the inherent contingency of all vocabularies (Rorty 1989, p. 73). 5 – By “relativity,” Kierkegaard here means the “limitedness” or “partiality” of life, its “being enclosed” or “being framed” within a specific actuality. The term “relativity” recovers its etymological sense of being relatus, i.e., “brought back” (from the Latin referre) to a definite context. 6 – Throughout Kierkegaard’s work, Socrates is described as an ironist. Nevertheless, in Kierkegaard’s view irony represents more for Socrates than a sophisticated rhetoric expedient: “irony constituted the substance of his existence” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 12). This eccentric claim implies that (a) Socrates made an extensive recourse to irony throughout his whole existence, and (b) Socrates’ commitment to irony was justified by a coherent intellectual perspective. 7 – “He became involved with the Sophists in their attempt to create a surrogate for the established order. Their reasons could not hold back the gale wind of his infinite negativity, which instantly blew away all the polypous ramifications by which the particular and empirical subject clung fast and swept them out into the infinite Oceanus in which the good, the true, the beautiful, etc. confined themselves in infinite negativity. So much for the relations in which his irony manifested itself. As for the way in which it disclosed itself, it emerged both partially, as a mastered element in the development of discourse, and totally and in all its infinity, whereby it finally sweeps Socrates away with it” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 218). 8 – “La gravité, au double sens de sérieux et de géotropisme, est ainsi notre tendance naturelle” (my translation). 9 – In Kierkegaard’s view, irony “is earnestness about nothing—insofar as it is not earnestness about something.” The ironist moves freely through the negative ground of irony, disengaged from all forms of psychological, conceptual, or emotional commitment, obligation, and attachment. The ironist’s irony “continually conceives of nothing in contrast to something, and in order to free itself of earnestness about anything, it grasps the nothing. But it does not become earnestness about nothing, either, except insofar as it is not earnestness about anything” (Kierkegaard 1989, p. 270). Furthermore, since the ironist’s freedom is absolute, the ironist’s earnestness is also, in a certain sense, absolute: a true ironist does not need to lie, since irony liberates the subject from the ordinary plane of existence, in which objectives are pursued, beliefs are held, and lies are essential.

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10 – From Latin discrimen, “space between,” “separation,” “distinction,” in its turn from discerno, “to tell apart,” “to differentiate.” 11 – Unless specified otherwise, translated passages from the Blue Cliff Record refer to the volume edited and translated by Cleary and Cleary (Blue Cliff Record [1977] 2005). Otherwise, personal translations are based on the text uploaded on the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (中華電子佛典協會) (CBETA, at cbeta.org). Throughout, all names are transliterated according to the most recent pinyin rendition. 12 – The expression ziyou 自由 (literally, “arising from oneself”) has been widely used in Chinese literature since antiquity and had a great impact on the Chan tradition. It is rendered as “freedom” or “spontaneity,” since it indicates a positive state that accords with one’s true character as it originally and spontaneously unfolds. The expression zizai 自在 (literally, “existing in oneself,” and by extension “at ease” and “unrestricted”) is closely connected to Buddhist documents. In fact, it translates the Sanskrit īsvara, which means “supreme being” or “ruler,” with a compound that alludes to the capacity of being “master of oneself,” i.e., unfettered by the psychological or emotional entanglements that naturally arise from consciousness. It can be rendered as “autonomy,” since it alludes to the capacity of ruling oneself (autonomy from the Greek, aὐtóz + nómoz, literally “self-law”) and therefore not being ruled by destructive emotions or detrimental psychological states. Here I follow Cleary and Cleary (Blue Cliff Record [1977] 2005), who translate ziyou 自由 as “freedom” and zizai 自在 as “independence.” 13 – My translations in brackets. There appears to be a mistake in the original text. The original passage employs the terms hujie 護借 and huxi 護惜. Hu 護 means “to defend,” “to shelter”; jie 借 means “to borrow”; xi 惜 means “to cherish,” “to regret.” The compound 護惜 huxi appears also in the Linji lu 臨濟録, with the meaning of “guarding,” “standing against” (Sasaki 2009, p. 218). Cleary translates “to preserve” for both compounds. Probably hujie 護借 is a misspelling for huxi 護惜, yet the translation is not helpful. Sekida’s version is not illuminating (“do you appreciate this meaning or not?”). The compound huxi 護惜 (literally, “defending-cherishing”) looks like one of the frequent antonymic compounds employed in Chinese literature to convey a definite idea. Perhaps, rendering huxi 護惜 as “taking sides” is a better solution, since it also complies with the narrative and thematic context of the koan. 14 – “Holding still” (bazhu 把住 or bading 把定 or bashou 把手—also “holding fast,” “guarding,” “withdrawing”) and “letting go” (fangxing 放行 or fangguo 放過—also “releasing”). These states correspond

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respectively to the states of “absolute samadhi” and “positive samadhi.” When one is in the state of absolute samadhi, the entire world is subsumed under nothingness. On the contrary, in positive samadhi, the world resurfaces, and the positive identity of names and people is re-affirmed. The two states are opposed, but ultimately complementary, like two sides of a coin. 15 – I refer here to the bodhisattva’s vow, the ethical imperative that requires Chan adepts to exercise compassion toward other sentient beings by helping them to walk the path of liberation. 16 – Case 74: Every day at mealtime, Master Jinniu would personally take the rice pail and do a dance in front of the monks’ hall: laughing aloud, he would say, “Bodhisattvas, come eat!” Xuedou said, “Though he acted like this, Jinniu was not good-hearted.” A monk asked Changqing, “When the man of old said, ‘Bodhisattvas, come eat!’ what was his meaning?” Changqing said, “Much like joyful praise on the occasion of a meal.” (p. 408) Case 93: A monk asked Daguang, “Changqing said, ‘Joyful praise on the occasion of a meal’—what was the essence of his meaning?” Daguang did a dance. The monk bowed. Daguang said, “What have you 195 seen, that you bow?” The monk did a dance. Daguang said, “You wild fox spirit!” (p. 510).

17 – The Sanskrit word “samadhi” (sanmei 三昧) refers to a state of meditative absorption. Indeed, the Buddhist tradition envisages a great number of samadhi. It seems that “playful samadhi” (youxi sanmei 游 戲三昧) may be considered a peculiar instance of positive samadhi (contrasted with absolute samadhi; see endnote 14). To my knowledge, in Chinese sources it is first mentioned in the Platform Sutra traditionally attributed to the Sixth Patriarch Huineng (Sixth Patriarch’s . . . 2001): Those who see their own nature can establish dharmas in their minds or not establish them as they choose. They come and go freely, without impediments or obstacles. They function correctly and speak appropriately, seeing all transformation bodies as integral with the self-nature. That is precisely the way they obtain independence, spiritual powers, and the samadhi of playfulness. This is what is called seeing the nature. 見性之人，立亦得、不立 亦得，去來自由，無滯 無礙普見化身，不離自性， 即得自在神通游戲三昧， 是名見性. (T48.358C20–21).

It is also mentioned by Dogen (Van der Braak 2011, p. 128, and Nishitani 1982, p. 264). Sekida describes playful samadhi as a merry and egoless activity of mind, such as that of an actor who, playing a part on a stage, is freed from his own egocentered thinking. In just this way, when a student of Zen fully realizes that there is no constant ego to which he

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can attach his notions of self and identity, the constrictions of egotistically motivated behavior and thinking are broken. Activity in this free frame of mind is called playful samadhi. (Blue Cliff Record 1996, p. 30)

18 – Interpretation supported by Yuanwu’s commentary: “If you see something strange as not strange, its strangeness disappears by itself. What a strange thing! Unavoidably it causes people to doubt” (p. 144). 19 – The “wild card metaphor” has been originally employed by Brook Ziporyn (2015) in relation to the Zhuangzi. 20 – The idea of “zero-perspective” was originally elaborated by HangGeorg Moeller in relation to the Daoist sage: “Viewed from the zeroperspective of the Daoist sage all positions, however contradictory they are, are equally ‘right’” (Moeller 2011, p. 126). Indeed, a comparative analysis of the Daoist sage and the Chan master could only be addressed at book length, even if there are significant analogies. 21 – The penchant for irony typical of Chinese Chan is also tangible in Japanese Zen. For instance, Sengai Gibon 仙厓義梵 (1750–1837), renowned monk, poet, and painter, was known for his ironic drawings. One of them, Meditating Frog, shows at the same time the portrait of a smiling frog and a sharp critique of the idea that Zen merely coincides with sitting meditation (zazen): if so, the painting suggests, all frogs are Buddha. 22 – The dominant view on the soul stemmed from a significant influence of Platonism over Judeo-Christianism: “A broad consensus emerged among biblical and theological scholars that soul-body dualism is a Platonic, Hellenistic idea that is not found anywhere in the Bible” (Boyd 2001, p. 107). The ideal of the immortality of the soul is also widely considered to be a Platonic importation. From this perspective, Kierkegaard’s view that a soul can be existentially “achieved” represents a significant point of departure from Judeo-Christianism. 23 – Analogous similarities are illustrated in relation to Daoism and Zhuangzi’s philosophy in an intriguing comparative study by Karen L. Carr and Philip J. Ivanhoe, The Sense of Antirationalism: The Religious Thought of Zhuangzi and Kierkegaard ([Scotts Valley, CA:] CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010).

Chinese Buddhists Texts Biyan lu 碧巖錄. CBETA T.48.2003. Liuzu tanjing 六祖壇經. CBETA T.48.n.2008 Xinxin ming 信心銘. CBETA T.48.n.2010

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References

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Huang, Yi-hsun. 2018. “Chan Master Hanyue’s Attitude toward Sutra Teachings in the Ming.” Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 15:28–54. Jankélévitch, Vladimir. 2011. L’Ironie. Paris: Flammarion. Kepnes, Steven. 1996. Interpreting Judaism in the Postmodern Age. New York: New York University Press. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1989. The Concept of Irony with Continual References to Socrates. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1992. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lippitt, John. 2000. Humour and Irony in Kierkegaard’s Thought. London: Macmillan. Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2011. Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory. Chicago: Open Court. Moeller, Hans-Georg, and Paul J. D’Ambrosio. 2017. Genuine Pretending: On the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi. New York: Columbia University Press. Nishitani, Keiji. 1982. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press. Novalis. 1997. Philosophical Writings. Edited and translated by Margaret Mahony Stoljar. Albany: State University of New York Press. Podmore, Simon. 2011. Kierkegaard and the Self before God. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sasaki, Ruth Fuller. 2009. The Record of Linji. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Schlegel, Friedrich. 1991. Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Peter Firchow. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

The Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, with commentary by Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua. 2001. Burlingame: Buddhist Text Translation Society. Stephen Evans, Charles. 2009. Kierkegaard. An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Stewart, Jon. 2011. “The Notion of Actuality in Kierkegaard and Schelling’s Influence.” Ars Brevis 17:237–253. ———. 2015. Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van der Braak, André. 2011. Nietzsche and Zen: Self-Overcoming Without a Self. Plymouth: Lexington Books. Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. 2014. “Yogacara Influence on the Northern School of Chan Buddhism.” In Buddhist Meditative Traditions: Their Origin and Development, edited by Kuo-pin Chuang. Taipei: Shin Wen Feng. Zacpal, Zd enek. 2020. “The ‘Indirect Message’ in Kierkegaard and Chán Buddhism.” Comparative Philosophy 11, no. 1:46–68. Ziporyn, Brook. 2015. “Zhuangzi as Philosopher.” Online at www.hack ettpublishing.com/zhuangziphil. Additional Sources Lock, Graham, and Gary S. Linebarger. 2018. Chinese Buddhist Texts: An Introductory Reader. Abingdon: Routledge. Walsh, Sylvia. 1994. Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Wang, Youru. 2017. Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Rowman and Littlefield.

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