Entombment or a Dragged Corpse: Exploring themes of Death and Rebirth in Eastern Christian and Chan Buddhist Asceticism.

Dr Cullan Joyce

Comparing philosophical structures within religious thought can be a difficult process; one more subtle issue is deciding whether or not two seemingly similar events being described are the same event described differently in two traditions, or two different events.

This paper is a case study of such comparison, exploring two versions of 'emptying the baggage of consciousness: the death of False-Knowing-Consciousness (logismoi) by Maximus the Confessor (6-7th Century) and the Hua Tou scrutiny-process question of "Who is dragging a corpse here?" posed by a strand of early 20th Century Ch’an Buddhism (Ancestor Xu Yun). My account of how to compare Maximus’ and Xu Yun’s descriptions reaches the conclusion that both positions, each in their own way, is anticipatory or descriptive of the lead up to or process of insight, but there are some incommensurability issues that make them only awkwardly congruous. It finishes by discussing dialogical avenues of hope faith, and possibly resurrection.

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