Irony and Play in Chinese Buddhism

Why are irony and play an integral part of the path to awakening in Chinese Buddhism?

The Chan/Zen tradition is notorious for its penchant for irony, humor, paradox, and absurdity, and for the playful and agonistic spirit that animates the practices of screaming, beatings, role-playing games, poetry contests, foul language, and creative improvisation.

This book sheds light on why this tendency is so marked in the Chinese tradition of Buddhism, and especially—but not only—in Chan/Zen. Exploring this question from literary, religious, and hermeneutic standpoints, Rudi Capra demonstrates how a genealogy of irony and playfulness connects the pre-Buddhist Chinese culture to the fervent cultural landscape of the Song period and beyond. The book maps a path beyond biographical, structuralist, and hermeneutical methodologies and towards a performative approach, thus following an evolution that is suggested by the inherent development of Buddhism.

In addition to engaging with the Buddhist pragmatics of language and its immense textual genealogy, this book also establishes a dialogue with the philosophies of play and irony, discussing Buddhist notions and practices in connection with contemporary theories in sociology, nihilism, and psychoanalysis. This reinterpretation of Chinese Buddhism within the field of cross-cultural hermeneutics opens up the Buddhist tradition to the playful recasting of consolidated structures into innovative patterns and daring connections.