When Merleau-Ponty Encounters Fazang: Comparing Merleau-Pontian Body-Network with Fazang’s Interpretation of Indra’s Net for a Critical Techno-Ethics
Religions November 7, 2025 Zheng Liu
This paper argues that Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body implies a "body-network" in which the phenomenal body is inherently interconnected with the world through motor intentionality, a connection deepened in his later concept of "flesh" into mutual reflection and chiasmic intertwining. It compares this with the Huayan Buddhist metaphor of Indra's Net and Fazang's interpretation, finding resonance between Merleau-Ponty's relationality and reflectivity and Fazang's concepts of mutual identity, mutual inclusion, and the contemplation of many bodies reflected in one mirror. Despite different vocabularies, both construct a relational ontology deconstructing dualisms.