This project explores the evolution of medieval Chinese Buddhist perspectives on dreams through a series of in-depth comparisons between the oneiric narratives preserved in Huijiao's (慧皎) "Biographies of Eminent Monks" (Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 [GSZ]) and Daoxuan's (道宣) "Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks" (Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳 [XGSZ]), drawing inspiration from contemporary Sinological and...
This dissertation examines the thought of Jean-Luc Marion in light of his treatment of divine revelation and in connection to the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricoeur. It argues, first, that Marion’s thought bears within itself significant ambiguities that are determined by the legacies of the key concepts which organize his work: ‘givenness’ (donation) and saturation. Secondly, it also...
I use Northrop Frye's theory of symbols (from Anatomy of Criticism) as a methodological guide for my literary analysis of Thich Nhat Hanh's Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha. I also offer a significant interpretation of Frye's theory of symbols and its five phases of poetic language. Finally I compare the conceptions of freedom that Frye offers with conceptions of...
The goal of this dissertation is to understand the nature of mystical knowledge. After rejecting the perceptual model and the "pure consciousness" model for mystical knowledge due to their inaccuracies, I try to develop a new model for mystical knowledge using the phenomenological method. This new model is based on the mystical experience of St. John of the Cross, the famous Spanish mystic of...