A Foucauldian Analysis of Vipassana and a Buddhist Art of Living

  • Edwin Ng
Chapter
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Abstract

Chapter 7 cross-reads the Foucauldian and Buddhist arts of living to elucidate how the Vipassana meditator: (1) adopts as ethical substance bodily sensation and contemplates on it as an object of meditation to develop insight about the utter contingency of the experience of phenomenal reality and selfhood; (2) constantly remakes the decision to ‘let go’ and thus accepts the open-endedness of existence as a mode of subjection; (3) performs the ethical work of desubjectification by using the contemplation of bodily sensations to defuse habitual tendencies; and (4) cultivates the telos of the ongoing work of freedom by exposing the body to unexpected limit-experiences that may usher in new ways of becoming. This analysis will be sensitive to constructivist understandings of the historical and cultural forces that shape experience, whilst remaining hospitable to the Buddhist sacred claim of unmediated awareness. This chapter will show that Foucault’s criticopolitical itinerary joins Derridean deconstruction and Buddhism in affirming unconditional unconditionality unconditionally.

Keywords

Bodily Sensation Meditation Practice Affective Tone Ethical Substance Habitual Tendency 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Edwin Ng
    • 1
  1. 1.Deakin UniversityBurwoodAustralia

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