Zen and the Art of Democracy: Contemplative Practice as Ordinary Political Theory

Meditation, often packaged as part of 'Buddhist modernism' in American culture, can be understood as an aesthetic practice that cultivates modes of experience, perception, thinking, and feeling that further radical democratic projects. Drawing on the democratic theory of Jacques Rancière and the Zen writings of Shunryu Suzuki and Thomas Merton, the essay argues that contemplative practices function as a form of political theorizing in everyday life. By reclaiming experience and generating care and compassion, meditation enables, enacts, and extends democracy at a fundamental level.

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Abstract

In recent years, contemplative practices of meditation have become increasingly mainstream in American culture, part of a phenomenon that scholars call “Buddhist modernism.” Connecting the embodied practice of meditation with the embodied practice of democracy in everyday life, this essay puts the radical democratic theory of Jacques Rancière into conversation with the Zen writings of Shunryu Suzuki and Thomas Merton. I show how meditation can be understood as an aesthetic practice that cultivates modes of experience, perception, thinking, and feeling that further radical democratic projects at the most fundamental level. Reading the landscape of Buddhist modernism to draw out democratic possibilities, we can understand contemplative practices like meditation as a form of political theorizing in a vernacular register. Buddhist modernism works as a practice of everyday life that ordinary users can employ to get through their days with more awareness and attentiveness, to reclaim and reauthorize their experience, and to generate more care and compassion in ways that enable, enact, and extend the project of democracy itself.