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Zen in the Contemporary Marketplace a Thesis ZEN IN THE CONTEMPORARY MARKETPLACE A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN RELIGION AUGUST 2012 By Adam Crabtree Thesis Committee: Helen Baroni, Chairperson Michel Mohr Jaimey Hamilton ABSTRACT I argue in the following thesis that scholars of Zen should take the presence of Zen related commodities in the marketplace seriously, rather than shunning this presence with respect to discursive parameters that orient scholarly engagements with religious “tradition”. I hold that much of scholarly neglect stems from the view that commodification in general is a force injurious to religious tradition. Nevertheless, when we examine closely the material objects that propagate in the marketplace, the line between commodification and religion as discrete categories is blurred. More specifically, “Zen” material objects past and present carry a semiotic and conceptual trace encoded in analogues between them, and individuals’ rhetoric in relation to Zen’s institutional, doctrinal, narrative and popular contexts is telling of this semiotic and conceptual trace. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Over the course of this thesis project, and my studies in general, there have been a number of individuals who have been helpful in different capacities, and without which my time as a student would not be nearly as fruitful a journey. Foremost, I would like to thank my committee chairperson, Helen Baroni. Helen has served as an excellent department chair during my time in the Religion Department. I would especially like to acknowledge her patience with me during the thesis writing process. At times when my ideas were slow to develop, Helen was able to facilitate in all the right ways, and without haste. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Michel Mohr, my second committee member, who has been a wonderful teacher and role model as a scholar. Michel has seen this thesis evolve through many stages, and has provided advice ranging from writing and research methods, to presentation strategies, to historical analysis. I would also like to thank Michel for his thorough remarks on the first draft of this thesis; I have gained much ground in the final copy as a result. I greatly appreciate the advice I received from my third committee member, Jaimey Hamilton. Thanks to Jaimey, this thesis has gone from a patchwork of theories without a common thread to a stronger thesis firmly rooted in material culture studies. This turn has been quite exciting for me, and I look forward to continuing research in this fascinating field. If the Religion Department faculty and staff wore uniforms, Faye Higa, our department secretary, would need a “C” embroidered in hers, for Captain. She is a fountain of knowledge with an answer for everything, and she keeps our department running like a well oiled machine. This thesis got its start in Lee Siegel’s course on research and writing methods. In fact, Lee was the one who pitched the idea of examining the commodification of Zen, and what follows over the course of these pages is what has become of Lee’s recommendation. I’ve also learned a great bit about teaching by participating in Lee’s introductory courses on the world’s religions. If I ever land a job teaching one day, I hope to be half as funny and interesting as he. David Goldberg, in the American Studies Department, has been one of the most fascinating professors I’ve encountered. Much of the impetus behind my entreaty that Religion scholars attend to a world of diffuse information, much of which is in the marketplace, is attributable to what I learned in David’s class titled Digital America. I will never forget how much of an impact the professor from whom I took my first Religion course at Hendrix College has had on me, Frances Flannery. I’ve come a long way since the courses I took with her, but if I’ve bloomed at all as a student, it’s because she planted me in the soil and tended to my growth. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Jay McDaniel, whose courses on Asian religions at Hendrix College sparked my interest in East Asian religions in particular. At last, I would like to express my unconditional love and gratitude to my mother and father, Patti and Jim Crabtree. They are the foundation upon which I stand, and any ii goals I have achieved in this life are imbued with their love and support. To them I dedicate this thesis. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Discursive and Non-discursive Engagement ---------------------------------------- 3 Semiotic Asymmetry ---------------------------------------------------------- 4 The Commodification of… --------------------------------------------------- 6 Non-Discursive Engagement ------------------------------------------------- 10 The Practitioner and the Consumer --------------------------------------------------- 12 Religion as Information ------------------------------------------------------- 14 Social Constructivism and Material Agency ---------------------------------------- 16 Assemblage Theory ------------------------------------------------------------ 20 Commodified Zen in Process: Aesthetic Motif, Mimetic Transfer, and Conceptual Metaphor ------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Aesthetic Motif ----------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Mimetic Transfer --------------------------------------------------------------- 27 Conceptual Metaphor ---------------------------------------------------------- 28 Chapter Outline -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32 CHAPTER ONE: CRITICAL APPROACHES TO COMMODIFIED ZEN------------- 33 Heine: TZN vs. HCC ------------------------------------------------------------------- 34 TZN: Ineffability --------------------------------------------------------------- 35 TZN: Nonduality --------------------------------------------------------------- 37 TZN: Societal Harmony ------------------------------------------------------- 38 HCC: Speech-------------------------------------------------------------------- 39 HCC: Mediation ---------------------------------------------------------------- 40 HCC: Discrimination ---------------------------------------------------------- 40 HCC and the Visual, Material Turn -------------------------------------------------- 42 Robert Sharf -------------------------------------------------------------------- 47 Douglas Padgett ---------------------------------------------------------------- 51 Charles Jones ------------------------------------------------------------------- 53 Reactions to Commodified Zen ------------------------------------------------------- 55 John McRae --------------------------------------------------------------------- 56 Yamada Shōji ------------------------------------------------------------------- 59 David McMahan --------------------------------------------------------------- 61 Jeremy Carrette and Richard King ------------------------------------------- 66 CHAPTER TWO: ZEN AESTHETIC MOTIFS AND THE RHETORIC OF MATERIALITY --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 69 Source Commodities ------------------------------------------------------------------- 69 Books ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 Websites ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 The Role of Authorship ---------------------------------------------------------------- 73 Range of Analysis ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 74 iv Motifs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Architecture and Design ------------------------------------------------------- Home Décor --------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital Models ------------------------------------------------------------------ Modes of Transformation ----------------------------------------------------- Rhetoric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emotive -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perceptual ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Stylistic -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER THREE: ZEN’S PATH INTO THE CONTEMPORARY MARKETPLACE: SEMIOTIC DEVELOPMENTS AND HISTORICAL ANALOGUES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Semiotic Developments --------------------------------------------------------------- 101 Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō ------------------------------------------------------- Hisamatsu Shin’ichi ----------------------------------------------------------- Rhetoric and Motif: Historical Analogues -------------------------------------------75 75 CONCLUSION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 78 82 REFERENCES ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 84 85 87 90 94 100 101 105 111 119 121 v INTRODUCTION We live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been shattered to bits, and leftovers…We no longer believe in a primordial totality that once existed, or in a final totality that awaits us at some future date. —Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Schizophrenia and Capitalism
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