The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan / Zen Buddhism.

Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1994. Paperback First Edition Thus (1994), Second Printing. Very Good+ in Wraps: shows indications of very careful use: very light wear to extremities; moderate rubbing to wrapper covers; a tiny stain at the front panel has leaked through to stain the front end-paper as well; a former bookseller's rubber-stamped logo at the front end-paper; the front panel wants to curl slightly; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creases to the panels. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. A handsome copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing mild wear and minor cosmetic imperfections. Not so very far from "As New". NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (9.25 x 6.15 x 0.85 inches). xii., 401 pages. Language: English. Weight: 20.4 ounces. University Press Paperback. Bernard Faure (born 1948) is a Franco-American author and scholar of Asian religions, who focuses on Chan/Zen and Japanese esoteric Buddhism. His work draws on cultural theory, anthropology, and gender studies. He co-founded the Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University. In this volume, through a highly sensitive exploration of key concepts and metaphors, Bernard Faure guides Western readers in appreciating some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth, Japanese Zen. He focuses on Chan's insistence on "immediacy"--its denial of all traditional mediations, including scripture, ritual, good works--and yet shows how these mediations have always been present in Chan. Given this apparent duplicity in its discourse, Faure reveals how Chan structures its practice and doctrine on such mental paradigms as mediacy/immediacy, sudden/gradual, and center/margins.