Unifying Opposites through Metaphor

A Cognitive Approach to the Buddhist Metaphors for the Mind in the Awakening of Faith Discourse

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3487577
AutoresB Kang (0000-0001-9220-637X, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen9
Número11
Páginas345
Fecha de publicación2018-11-05
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel9110345
OpenAlexW2900387810
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas47

While metaphors for the human mind have been intensively discussed across multiple disciplines, there remains a gap on how Buddhism deals with the mind metaphorically. This study explores how Mahāyāna Buddhist discourse resorts to embodied and discursive metaphors in describing and explaining the mind. Buddhist texts analyzed are the Treatise on the Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna and its two commentaries by Wŏnhyo. The Awakening of Faith discourse abounds in metaphors for the sentient being's mind in two aspects: the ordinary phenomenal mind and the transcendental essential mind. The focus of this study is on the relationship between the seemingly opposing two minds, and the ways in which these two opposites are unified metaphorically. To do so, I first examine how the essential mind, which is said to transcend ordinary experience and verbal expression, is made speakable through primary metaphors and NON-CONTAINER (unboundedness) image schema, and how the phenomenal mind is metaphorically understood according to the covarying scalar properties in primary metaphors. With respect to the argument for harmonizing the two minds, in which introducing more apt analogical metaphors is important, two representative discursive metaphors (a mirror metaphor and an ocean metaphor) are compared and discussed

Buddhism · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Faith · Linguistics · Metaphor · Transcendental number · Action Observation and Synchronization · Families in Therapy and Culture · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology