Peace as Awakening to the Other: A Comparative Hermeneutics of Levinasian Face and Qisong’s Chan Buddhist Notion of Inherent Nature (Xing 性)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay presents an analysis of Levinas’ and Qisong’s perceptions of the peace as an awakening to the other and its context. Based on an analysis of their views, it suggests that we as a society need to develop an ethical sensitivity, and also to base it otherwise than on an ethically neutral ontology. The first section examines Levinas’ perception of the Western ideal of peace and presents its ontological presupposition of the “sufficiency of being.” The second section interprets his conception of peace as relationship with the other grounded in a “nondual transcendent.” In the third part, a parallel analysis of Levinas’ Chan Buddhist counterpart is presented: Qisong’s peace as relationship with the other grounded in a “nondual transcendent.” The last part explores a second parallel: between Levinas’ peace as disinterestedness and Qisong’s no-form good deeds.