Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2018

Abstract

This paper studies the ways that Walker, a short film by the Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-Liang, visualizes the relationship between Buddhism and modernity. Via detailed film analysis as well as attention to sources in premodern Buddhist traditions, this paper argues that its filmic performance of Zen walking meditation serves two functions: To present slowness and simplicity as prophetic counterpoints against the dizzying excesses of the contemporary metropolis; and to offer contemplative attentiveness as a therapeutic resource for life in the modern world. By instantiating and cultivating critical shifts in viewerly perspective in the manner of Buddhist ritual practice, Walker invites us to envision how a place of frenetic distraction or pedestrian mundaneness might be transfigured into a site of beauty, wonder, and liberation.

Keywords

Buddhism and modernity, contemplative studies, kinhin, slow cinema, transnational Chinese cinema, Tsai Ming-Liang, walking meditation, Zen ritual

Discipline

Film and Media Studies | Religion

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

Religions

Volume

9

Issue

7

ISSN

2077-1444

Identifier

10.3390/rel9070200

Publisher

MDPI

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9070200

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