The purpose of this essay is to examine the history behind the idea of purernexperience within the Buddhist tradition, and to look at how this idea becomesrnexplicitly connected with the notions of emptiness and dependentrnorigination. My discussion of dependent origination and emptiness will bernbased on an interpretation of Dale Wright's reading of Huangbo in his PhilosophicalMeck'tationsrnon Zen Buddhism. I will examine the implications Wright's textrnhas shown for our understanding of the "pure experience" of Chan/ZenrnBuddhism. Wright's book makes us aware of the emptiness or dependentrnorigination of thing-events in general that the Chan/Zen Buddhists havernthemafized both in thought and in practice. What his book also shows is thernvery contextuality or conditionality lying behind Chan Buddhist practice.rnThis is despite the claim often made by some modem Chan/Zen apologistsrnthat the Buddhist enlightenment experience, the attainment of nirvana, isrn"pure." Does the contingency, conditionedness, and contextuality of thernenlightenment experience delegitimize this claim to purity?
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