Raymond Moore operated quite apart from the mainstream of the British photography scene, with its emphasis on socially engaged and documentary approaches. He created his compelling images from the most mundane subject matter, seeking out the 'uncommonness of the commonplace' as he himself put it. Moore is best known for his early work, taking its cue from Formalism as well as the nature mysticism of the British Neo Romantic movement. His mature work is minimalist, even selfeffacing, and pervaded by an understated sense of humour. It is the argument of this thesis that the general perception of Moore as one of the last great 'Modernist masters' has hindered the appreciation of a much more radical artist who only came to the fore from the mid-70s onwards. A methodological chapter addresses some of the challenges posed by an author- and work centred approach such as that adopted by the thesis. In the wake of persuasive 'postmodern' critiques of the status of critical agency and the representative function of language, how is it still possible to write about a photographer's work? What may the resulting text hope to achieve? A biographical chapter then examines Moore's life and art-historical context, based on original interviews with his contemporaries, as well as unpublished material such as letters and photographs. There follows an in-depth analysis of a number of images, mainly from the transitional period leading up to the late work. Moore's work distances us from anthropocentrism, without on the other hand surrendering to nihilism. Finally, an attempt is made to sketch out a philosophical framework from which to better appreciate the qualities found in Moore's late work. Moore's well-documented interest in Zen Buddhism provides a point or reference, as do the Hua Yen vision of radical interdependence, ideas connected to Systems Theory and Constructivism, the project of 'Deep Ecology', and Jullien's notion of 'Blandness'. The concluding chapter also examines the possible relevance to everyday life of the change in perspective implicitly suggested by Moore's work. The thesis also contains an illustrated catalogue raisonne of Moore's published work, and most of the work in public and private collections worldwide.

Many scholars exclude New York painter Philip Guston (1913-80) from the artistic tradition of Abstract Expressionism due to his absence from New York City during the group's early formative years. This thesis asserts, however, that Guston's role in Abstract Expressionism can be firmly established through his unique interpretation of the formative influence of surrealist automatism. Though never engaging with the surrealists directly, Guston explored automatist ideas upon meeting New York School experimental music composers John Cage and Morton Feldman. This trio's engagement with the Zen Buddhist concepts of unimpededness and interpenetration influenced Guston to create compositions through chance operations, a process Cage would call "indeterminacy." My aim is to enrich an understanding of Guston's idiosyncratic relationship to Abstract Expressionism and, ultimately, to offer a more expansive definition of Abstract Expressionism in general, allowing for a broader understanding of the formation of American modernism.

My interest in Thomas Merton began two years ago in my last year of an M.A. program in Church History at the Wheaton Graduate school outside of Chicago. In particular, I was impressed with Merton's ability to carry on a dialogue with D.T. Suzuki, communicator of Rinzai Zen to the west, while retaining his commitment to Christianity. Hence I chose to work on an aspect of the Merton/Suzuki dialogue recorded in Zen and the Birds of Appetite. The impulse for such a study arose from my own questions regarding Christianity. Did Christianity alone contain the formula for truth or did Christianity contain one of many formulas to find ultimate reality or God? It became evident as I progressed in my research that the kingpin in Merton's dilemma between the Kerygma of Christianity and Zen consciousness was the epistemological question. The epistemological road of Zen Buddhism is that of experience. The epistemological road of Christianity equally emphasizes experience and rationality. Inasmuch as the experience of the reality of the Kerygma is a vital component of Christianity, and inasmuch as this sphere is often downplayed in a society which puts the scientific method on a pedastle, Merton correctly assimilates Zen Buddhist themes in order to inform that neglected aspect of Christianity. However, the irreconcilable difference between Zen Buddhism and Christianity is apparent. Christianity is not just an experiential, romantic feeling of unity with 'the one'. Conversely, Zen Buddhism refuses the imposition of content on its central thrust. I conclude that we are faced with a 'Mexican standoff’ between Christianity and Zen Buddhism inasmuch as in the quest for satori the Zen Buddhist will not include the Kerygma, nor will the Christian eliminate the Kerygma in his quest for the experience of ultimate reality or God. Thus a merger is impossible unless severe compromise is made on both sides. I maintain that while there is a wealth of gold to be discovered in Christianity and Zen Buddhism, it is impossible to equate them. Merton’s theory of the non-religious character of Zen which can shine through any system, enabled him to espouse the Zen-way to a Christian audience. I refute the claim that Zen is non-religious and rather maintain that allegiance to non-thought represents a definite epistemological stance. Also, the authoritative edge in Zen inspired by satori contains the same degree of dogmatism as the Christian allegiance to the deity of Christ. I understand Merton’s assimilation of Zen themes with his evolved Christian thought in the following manner: 1. Disgust with a technological society whose values carried over into the religious sphere. 2. His own poetic, paradoxical nature and obsession with ultimate reality. 3. His desire that Zen Buddhists learn about Christianity in a non-threatening way, and 4. His intuition that Christianity must be more than intellectual assent to dogma which does not: change one’s lifestyle, and his discovery in Zen of a preparatory mode for the breakthrough of truth. He wanted to integrate the heart with the head. I begin with a biographical report of Merton’s life and evolved religious thought. The second chapter focusses on representative thinkers in Merton’s thought beginning with Bernard of Clairvauxs Meister Eckhart and D.T. Suzuki. Finally the third chapter focusses on the dialogue between Suzuki and Merton. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

No description available.

Using a hybrid of poetry, creative prose, and critical prose, this thesis demonstrates a way in which we can rethink the natural world. Through a series of analyses and original verse and prose, using a reading premise derived from Zen Buddhist philosophy, it presents a vision of animal life and the natural world as philosophically nuanced and psychologically complex. It attempts to reposition the philosophical dominance over the natural world that humans have often considered their monopoly. All the poetry of the thesis engages and illustrates the main critical points outlined here. After an introduction setting out the basic aims and concepts of the thesis, the opening essay quotes David Attenborough. The philosophy espoused in his text, evolutionary theory, cannot be sustained if an animal s psychology is given greater importance. Secondly, from The Life of Birds, I present a critique that suggests that a bird s psychology is complicated to the point of mysticism. The third essay looks at Nietzsche. This piece suggests that what blinds us to the complexity of an animal s world is human ego. Next I look at Marc Bekoff, suggesting that the ego s dominant response is to anthropomorphise animals. The next essay gives a brief reading of Hamlet as a character liberated by a philosophy derived from the sparrow s world. Then follows a series of analyses of poems about non-human animals. A reading of an Emily Dickinson poem shows a narrator trapped in the world of a threatened and unstable ego. Next the poet Ted Hughes and his encounter with a hawk are shown as distanced by the human ego s inability to step outside binary oppositions. Then follows a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, where I argue that he draws on the notion of externality, an ego construct. The next poet, Takahashi, writes ego into his poem. His poem fails to speak without it. Finally, I look at D.H. Lawrence. Here the inability of ego to relinquish itself from dominating its encounter with the natural world is critiqued. The discursive parts of the thesis are interwoven with examples of my own creative practice that attempt to put into effect the ideas I am elaborating. In the conclusion, I offer proposals for further thought. Keywords creative writing, poetry, creative-critical, hybrid, psychology, animals, nature, natural world, Zen Buddhism, philosophy.

This dissertation explores how Chan Buddhists made the unprecedented claim to a level of religious authority on par with the historical Buddha Śākyamuni and, in the process, invented what it means to be a buddha in China. This claim helped propel the Chan tradition to dominance of elite monastic Buddhism during the Song dynasty (960-1279), licensed an outpouring of Chan literature treated as equivalent to scripture, and changed the way Chinese Buddhists understood their own capacity for religious authority in relation to the historical Buddha and the Indian homeland of Buddhism. But the claim itself was fraught with complication. After all, according to canonical Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha was easily recognizable by the “marks of the great man” that adorned his body, while the same could not be said for Chan masters in the Song. What, then, distinguished Chan masters from everyone else? What authorized their elite status and granted them the authority of buddhas? According to what normative ideals did Chan aspirants pursue liberation, and by what standards did Chan masters evaluate their students to determine who was worthy of admission into an elite Chan lineage? How, in short, could one recognize a buddha in Song-dynasty China? The Chan tradition never answered this question once and for all; instead, the question broadly animated Chan rituals, institutional norms, literary practices, and visual cultures. My dissertation takes a performative approach to the analysis of Chan hagiographies, discourse records, commentarial collections, and visual materials, mobilizing the tradition’s rich archive to measure how Chan interventions in Buddhist tradition changed the landscape of elite Chinese Buddhism and participated in the epochal changes attending China’s Tang-to-Song transition.

This interdisciplinary study explores the dialogical space between Buddhism and economics grounded upon an empirical examination of the lived experience of western Buddhist teachers. The goal of Buddhist practice is enlightenment, a powerfully liberating and transformative understanding in which the ordinary sense of self is extinguished. There is a variety of claims made by Buddhist traditions regarding enlightenment, and little agreement as to its exact nature; most Buddhist traditions, however, regard the self as having no essential basis. This view contrasts sharply with those of contemporary economic thought. Modern economic thinking has generally seen Buddhism as one of many religions, and has resisted taking its claims seriously. At the heart of this divide lies a hermeneutic barrier that is not simply between East and West, but has its roots in modernity, which maintains a separation of humans from nature, a distinction between knowledge and power, and a distrust of human subjective experience. By engaging in a dialogical approach, this study attempts to bridge this divide. It builds on experiential corroboration of Buddhist conceptions of self, based on semi-structured interviews of 34 western Buddhist teachers, to critically examine their experiences of insight into the nature of self, its impact on their relationships with others and nature, and its impact on their decisions about everyday economic activities. The purpose is twofold: to examine the nature of realisation experientially and to explore its transformative potential with a view to unfolding implications for economic action. The findings clarify many traditional Buddhist understandings, challenge and validate previous interpretations, and suggest an embodied rather than transcendent view of consciousness and spirituality. The implications for economic thought include a new conception of the economic individual (homooeconomicus), recognising the old conception as based on a misplaced idea of concreteness of self; a new epistemology which incorporates a phenomenological appreciation of life; and a new perspective of agency as the mindful embodiment of a seamless interconnection between consciousness and the social and natural world. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Music Composition. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [39-41] of unnumbered sequence at the end. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ59209.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

The Zen (Ch'an) poets Han-shan (circa 6th-9 thC.) and Ryokan (1758-1831) participate in literary activity, reclusion, and ordinary emotions in a manner that questions their typical image as models of transcendence. They participate in literary activity without attachment to either linguistic adequacy or a dualistic notion of "beyond words," and poetry serves as their mode of communication from reclusion. Reclusion is a context to realize the nature of the conventional world rather than a means of transcendence to an ultimate realm and is significant as a social and political act. Interpreted through the functional model of language, the poets' expressions of sorrow experienced in their reclusive lives embody the Zen ideal of selflessness. Ultimately, the poetry of both Hanshan and Ryokan supports a non-transcendent, or trans-descendent, ideal consistent with the nondual logic of Zen Buddhism and contrary to scholarship that assumes a dualistic view of Zen enlightenment.