{"id":1029,"date":"2009-02-14T10:37:25","date_gmt":"2009-02-14T15:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/02\/14\/immanence-codependent-origination\/"},"modified":"2009-02-14T10:37:25","modified_gmt":"2009-02-14T15:37:25","slug":"immanence-codependent-origination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/02\/14\/immanence-codependent-origination\/","title":{"rendered":"immanence & codependent origination"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took a break from reading John Mullarkey’s Post-Continental Philosophy: An Outline<\/a> – in which Mullarkey develops a philosophy of immanence drawing on, and critiquing, the respective efforts of Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, Michel Henry, and Francois Laruelle – to have some lunch and browse the latest issue of Tricycle. One of the articles, a personal-confessional story of the kind that’s typical for this popular Buddhist magazine, includes a nice, pithy summary of the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination:<\/p>\n

“It’s teeter-totter metaphysics–I arise, you arise; you arise, I arise. […] You are because you are not something else; therefore, what you are not–the chair beneath you, the air in your lungs, these words–births you through an infinity of opposites. It’s like the ultimate Dr. Seuss riddle: Without all the things that are not you, who would you be you to? There’s no Higher Power in this system to grab onto for support; we are all already supporting each other. Pull a person or people the wrong way, and you immediately redefine yourself in light of what you’ve done to your neighbor.”<\/p>\n

Isn’t this the metaphysics of immanence in a nutshell? A two-and-a-half-thousand year tradition of philosophy and practical psychology studies it intimately, while contemporary philosophers grope painstakingly towards it. A handful of philosophers work to bridge the two traditions (David Loy, Robert Magliola<\/a>, Carl Olson<\/a>, Youxuan Wang, Jin Park<\/a>, et al.), but they are pioneers in a largely undiscovered corner of the forest (or wing of the insane asylum). Loy’s most recent books, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution<\/a> and The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory<\/a> are particularly good at communicating, in a popular vein, the more theoretical\/philosophical work he had done in earlier works such as Nonduality <\/a>and A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack<\/a>. But it’s a little frustrating that this dialogue has not gotten further. (For instance, the parallels between Loy’s Buddhism and Zizek’s Lacanianism cry out for analysis. Only a handful of people seem to be working on a rapprochement between Buddhism and psychoanalysis, e.g., Raul Moncayo, Anthony Molino, Gay Watson<\/a>, Mark Unno<\/a>. Zizek’s own writing on Buddhism seems restricted to a superficial, pop-cultural analysis. The blog Something Completely Different<\/a> has had a bit of discussion about this.)<\/p>\n

Incidentally, Mullarkey’s book seems very good at first glance; he’s a clear thinker and writer. And his new book on film and philosophy, Refractions of Reality<\/a>, looks even better. Its first chapter can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took a break from reading John Mullarkey’s Post-Continental Philosophy: An Outline – in which Mullarkey develops a philosophy of immanence drawing on, and critiquing, the respective efforts of Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, Michel Henry, and Francois Laruelle – to have some lunch and browse the latest issue of Tricycle. One of the articles, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688977,691847],"tags":[4417,201,389,4426],"class_list":["post-1029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","category-religion-spirituality","tag-buddhism","tag-immanence","tag-psychoanalysis","tag-theory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-gB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1008,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2008\/12\/01\/immanence\/","url_meta":{"origin":1029,"position":0},"title":"Immanence","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Immanence suggests co-implication, the implication of one thing in another (spirit in matter, mind in body, movement in repose, humans in nature), nonduality, the vitality of becoming rather than the stasis of being, the sufficiency of life in its generative relational flux, its vessels of light scattered for our gathering\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/01\/23\/immanence-and-field-being\/","url_meta":{"origin":1029,"position":1},"title":"immanence and field-being","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"An excellent source of current philosophical thinking on issues related to this blog from an Asian perspective (primarily Buddhist and Daoist) is the International Journal for Field-Being, which is published by the International Institute for Field-Being. \"Field-being\" is one of the terms Asian thinkers (and translators) have used to encompass\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1054,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/04\/11\/after-1968-the-blessedness-of-the-buddho-spinozan\/","url_meta":{"origin":1029,"position":2},"title":"‘After 1968’ & the blessedness of the Buddho-Spinozan","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a wealth of material in post-marxist and poststructuralist political philosophy to be found at the After 1968 web site, which documents a series of seminars and lectures held in Maastricht over the last few years. You can find texts by Agamben, Deleuze, Badiou, Ranciere, Baudrillard, Negri, Derrida, Nancy, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2100,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/01\/03\/planes-of-immanence\/","url_meta":{"origin":1029,"position":3},"title":"Planes of immanence","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Concepts are like multiple waves, rising and falling, but the plane of immanence is the single wave that rolls them up and unrolls them. ... Concepts are the archipelago or skeletal frame, a spinal column rather than a skull, whereas the plane is the breath that suffuses the separate parts.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/01\/blb31-400x266.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1012,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2008\/12\/14\/immanence-transcendence-religion-imagination-politics\/","url_meta":{"origin":1029,"position":4},"title":"immanence, transcendence, religion, imagination, politics","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"On the surface, \"immanence\" would appear to favor certain religiosities (paganisms, pantheisms, animisms, earth spiritualities) over others (transcendentalist monotheisms, rigid dualisms, Buddhist \"extinctionism,\" et al). But its resonance works within traditions as well: towards panentheistic strains of Christianity, where the Christ is seen as in-dwelling, where Easter is the rebirth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1343,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/16\/1343\/","url_meta":{"origin":1029,"position":5},"title":"\"immanence is itself real, or\u2026","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\"immanence is itself real, or reality itself. It is nothing other than reality in the making. But this reality is not reducible to actuality: what is actual may be rational, as Hegel claimed, but reality is also virtual, and it is with virtual singularities that philosophy is concerned. As a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wintersinflammation.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/09\/wintersinflammation.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}