Zen and the White Whale (Part 2): Daniel Herman

In Moby-Dick’s wide philosophical musings and central narrative arch, Daniel Herman finds a philosophy very closely aligned specifically with the original teachings of Zen Buddhism. In exploring the likelihood of this hitherto undiscovered influence, Herman looks at works Melville is either known to have read or that there is a strong likelihood of his having come across, as well as offering a more expansive consideration of Moby-Dick from a Zen Buddhist perspective, as it is expressed in both ancient and modern teachings. But not only does the book delve deeply into one of the few aspects of Moby-Dick’s construction left unexplored by scholars, it also conceives of an entirely new way of reading the greatest of American books—offering critical re-considerations of many of its most crucial and contentious issues, while focusing on what Melville has to teach us about coping with adversity, respecting ideological diversity, and living skillfully in a fickle, slippery world.

Part 1: ~90pp
I: Melville's Encounters with Buddhism
II: Ishmael's Way-Seeking Mind
Part 2: ~76pp
III: Moby Dick's Inscrutable Selflessness
IV: Captain Ahab's Universe

Zen and the White Whale:

• Amazon
• epub

Extracts:

• "SWOONING swim to less and less, / Aspirant to nothingness! / Sobs of the worlds, and dole of kinds / That dumb endurers be- / Nirvana! absorb us in your skies, / Annul us into thee." ("Buddha")
• "That vision waned. And, far afloat, / From eras gone he caught the sound / Of hordes from China’s furthest moat, / Crossing the Himalayan mound, / To kneel at shrine or relic so / Of Buddha, the Mongolian Fo / Or Indian Saviour. What profound / Impulsion makes these tribes to range? / Stable in time’s incessant change / Now first he marks, now awed he heeds / The inter-sympathy of creeds, / Alien or hostile tho’ they seem— Exalted thought or groveling dream." (Clarel, 1.5)
• "If Buddha’s estimate of this present life confirms, and more than confirms, Solomon my wise father’s view, so much the more then should a son of his attend to what Buddha reveals or alleges touching an unescapable life indefinitely continuous after death." ("Rammon")

This meetup is part of a series on Japan Unbolted.