Gaspard de la Nuit is an 1842 book of prose poetry by French author Aloysius Bertrand. Published posthumously, the book introduced the prose poem into the French language and had a great impact on later artists of the form, such as Charles Baudelaire and Max Jacob.
The work, preceded by a prologue, is divided into six books: "Ecole Flamande" ("Flemish School"), "Le Vieux Paris" ("Old Paris"), "La Nuit et ses Prestiges", "Les Chroniques" ("Chronicles"), "Espagne et Italie" ("Spain and Italy"), and "Silves".
- published in 1842, one year after Bertrand's death, by a friend of the author, Victor Pavie ([1])
- directly inspired Baudelaire's Spleen de Paris: "C'est en feuilletant, pour la vingtième fois au moins, le fameux Gaspard de la Nuit, d'Aloysius Bertrand (un livre connu de vous, de moi et de quelques-uns de nos amis, n'a-t-il pas tous les droits à être appelé fameux?) que l'idée m'est venue de tenter quelque chose d'analogue, et d'appliquer à la description de la vie moderne, ou plutôt d'une vie moderne et plus abstraite, le procédé qu'il avait appliqué à la peinture de la vie ancienne, si étrangement pittoresque." [2]
Antinomianism in Buddhism
- Buddhism is divided into three main branches: the Theravāda, the Mahāyāna, and the Vajrayāna; the Theravāda is the earliest of the three
- each of the three branches makes primary use of different collections of sacred texts: the Theravāda uses the Pāli canon exclusively; the Mahāyāna uses primarily the Mahāyāna sūtras, in addition to the Pāli canon; the Vajrayāna uses primarily various tantras, in addition to the Pāli canon and the Mahāyāna sūtras
- owing to this large array of texts, Buddhism has never really developed a single authoritative dogma, apart from the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda, and the notion of enlightenment; these are beliefs shared by all of the branches
- what has been termed "antinomianism" in Buddhism is generally connected to the doctrine of upāya-kauśalya ("skill-in-means") that is particularly influential in Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism
- the doctrine of upāya-kauśalya relates to the practice of tailoring religious teaching methods so as to reach individuals or audiences with differing abilities to understand
- Buddhist teachings as crutch to be abandoned when no longer necessary, or as boat to be left behind when the opposite shore is reached (see: the Kalama Sutta; the Diamond Sutra VI)
- illustrated in Parable of the Burning House from the Lotus Sutra:
- A man's sons are playing inside their home, unaware that the house is burning. The man, who is outside the house, tries to convince his sons of the danger, but they pay him no heed. Finally, the man tells the boys that there are "rare playthings" outside of the house, and that they must leave in order to receive them. At this promise, the boys come "wildly dashing out of the burning house".
- This is glossed in the sutra as follows: "[The man] did not commit a falsehood ... [He] had earlier made up his mind that he would employ an expedient means to cause his sons to escape. Using a device of this kind was no act of falsehood."
- see also this site
- the doctrine of "original enlightenment" (本覚 hongaku) as used in Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism as antinomian (see also Jacqueline Ilyse Stone's site)
Images to be Used
Antinomianism in Islam
- the term "antinomian" has been used to describe the Qalandariyah (Bashir 67), (Ritter 504), (Valsiner 234), (Ewing 249); and the Malāmatiyya (Cornell 25), and see Schimmel
Dōgen's Zen
At the heart of the variety of Zen that Dōgen taught are a number of key concepts, which are returned to repeatedly throughout the Shōbōgenzō.
- "casting off of body and mind" (Japanese: shinjin-datsuraku); learned from Rujing
- "oneness of practice-enlightenment" (修證一如 shushō-ittō/shushō-ichinyo): "To practice the Way singleheartedly is, in itself, enlightenment. There is no gap between practice and enlightenment or zazen and daily life" (Fukan Zazen-gi, Yokoi 47)
- "samādhi of self-fulfilling activity" (自受用三昧 jijuyū-zammai); related to shikan-taza ("zazen-only" per Kim): see here
- "non-thinking" (非思量 hishiryō): "Sitting fixedly, think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Nonthinking." (Bielefeldt 3; "兀兀と坐定して思量箇不思量底なり. 不思量底如何思量. これ非思量なり."; see Supp. Not. for Yueshan case, as well as here)