Recent debate has questioned the validity of Zen as a school of Buddhism, claiming that theudcharacteristic justification of apparently immoral acts by 'enlightened' individuals cannot beudreconciled with the Buddhist eight-fold path, which emphasises 'right' actions and states ofudmind. To simply dismiss Zen as deviant, however, ignores the ramifications of this problemudfor Buddhists more widely and overlooks parallels with the contemporary problem ofudnihilism.udThis thesis investigates the philosophical ground ofthe 'Zen moral problem' in 'emptiness'ud(sDnyato), through the construction of a metaphysical framework based upon the relatedudMahayana Buddhist principle: 'interdependence' (pratJtyasamutpoda). In order to critiqueudthe validity of Zen as philosophy, I am guided by the goal of the Buddhist soteriologicaludproject; the promise of enlightenment in order to overcome the experience of suffering. If audframework built up from base principles of Zen thought is capable of explaining andudmaintaining the Buddhist goal, then we must still determine how the moral problem arises.udIt is important to note that this thesis does not represent a Buddhist position, in a textualudsense; instead it is a philosophical examination of Buddhist principles - addressing theudproblems that motivated specific historical positions. Rather than an analysis of theseudhistorical positions as such, the current work takes them as responses to a commonudconcern, and makes use of them as critical examples. To this end the metaphysicaludframework developed here is used to analyse those foundations in contemporary thoughtudwhich give rise to the moral problem.
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