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- Title
Onto-theology and Emptiness: The Nature of Buddha-Nature.
- Authors
Duckworth, Douglas
- Abstract
In this article, I chart a trajectory from deconstruction to embodiment in the intellectual history of Buddhist traditions in Tibet. I focus on embodiment as a participatory approach to radically deconstructed and unthematized meaning, in contrast to an interpretation of truth as purely an analytic category or an approach to meaning that deals with values, such as emptiness, as simply truth claims or representations. I show how certain Buddhists in Tibet have represented the meaning of emptiness as a uniquely participatory encounter in such a way that its meaning is necessarily embodied. To speak of it otherwise, I argue, is to misrepresent its meaning fundamentally. An important way that the embodiment of emptiness is formulated is through the discourses of buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha). I show how Tibetan interpretations of Buddha-nature reflect postmodern concerns about metaphysics and onto-theology.
- Subjects
BUDDHA (The concept); BUDDHISM -- Tibet; SUNYATA; BUDDHIST philosophy; BUDDHIST discipline; ONTOLOGY; BUDDHIST anthropology
- Publication
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2014, Vol 82, Issue 4, p1070
- ISSN
0002-7189
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/jaarel/lfu063