Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism by Youru Wang (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews 203 Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism YOURU WANG. London, New York: Routledge/Curzon, 2003. xi, 251 pages. ISBN 978-0415297837. US$150.00, £85.00, hardcover. Anybody who has any cursory knowledge of the Zhuangzi 莊子 and some Chan Buddhist gong’an (公案, Japanese: kōan) cannot help but be struck by the interesting, puzzling, sometimes bizarre or even outrageous, use of language in them. Scholars of the Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism have come up with various interpretative devices to appreciate the burst of linguistic creativity in these texts. Curiously, however, there has not been any systematic treatment of the linguistic strategies in the two traditions. Youru Wang’s book, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism: The Other Way of Speaking, fills such an important gap in methodologically and seamlessly weaving together snippets of insights achieved in previous studies of the two traditions while breaking important new ground in advancing the study of linguistic strategies. Wang situates his book squarely within the postmodern discourse. His point of departure is the perceived logocentrism of classical Daoism and Chan Buddhism in the minds of several prominent modern interpreters of the two traditions. In addressing such an issue, Wang attempts to use the postmodern discourse as the broad interpretative strategy to recontextualize and reinterpret the Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism while using the study of these two traditions to reflect on that very postmodern discourse. In other words, the postmodern discourse does not merely serve as a methodological lens and an intellectual context to approach the Zhuangzi and Chan, but also as an opportunity to reflect on itself through its engagement with the Zhuangzi and Chan which, in Wang’s view, can generate new perspectives on its self-understanding and self-critique. According to Wang, the study of linguistic strategies in the Zhuangzi and Chan by using theories developed in the postmodern discourse has the advantage of bringing the former into the contemporary intellectual dialogue, while this engagement also exposes a lack of soteriological concerns by the latter. Indeed, throughout this book Wang repeatedly brings up the soteriological orientation of the Zhuangzi and Chan as he interprets their linguistic strategies. Wang conducts his systematic study of the linguistic strategies in the two traditions through three categories: deconstructive strategy, liminology of language, and indirect communication. The main body of this book is therefore conveniently organized into three parts, dealing with each category respectively. Each part follows a similar structure: the definition of a particular category and its relevance in the study of the Zhuangzi and Chan. Methodologically, what is especially valuable is that Wang does not simply adopt a readymade category and apply it to the study of the Zhuangzi and Chan. Instead he skillfully refines or redefines those categories so that they can better fit the subject at hand while pushing the limits in their original formulations. Part One addresses the deconstructive strategy in the Zhuangzi and Chan. Here Wang highlights the soteriological considerations of the Zhuangzi and Chan that are not shared by the Derridean deconstruction, which, according to Wang, is limited to textual spheres. 204 Journal of Chinese Religions However, interpreters of Derrida would dispute Wang’s characterization of the Derridean deconstruction as limited to texts in the narrow sense of the term. Rather, the Derridean deconstruction deals with the practical aspects of the world extensively, using textuality as a way to approach the world since there is no “outside-the-text.” Wang is at his best when he conducts the analysis of Zhuangzi’s philosophy of change (infinite transformation of things, things transforming of themselves, and the dynamic interrelationship of things), emphasizing its soteriological motif (the training of the mind to adapt to such changes), while demonstrating its shrewd employment of the deconstructive strategy (the deconstruction of the self) to serve such a soteriological objective. Wang’s contextualization of Chan Buddhist appropriation of the Buddha nature doctrine exhibits good historical sensitivity towards Chan’s immediate intellectual ambiance. He shows that Chan Buddhism, instead of reifying the Buddha nature or the pure mind as some have charged, is actually successful in deconstructing the notion of the Buddha nature. Part Two looks at the Zhuangzi and Chan through...