Pedestrian Dharma: Slowness and Seeing in Tsai Ming-Liang’s Walker
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 7
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.
Authors and Affiliations
Teng-Kuan Ng
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26061
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9070200
- Views 354
- Downloads 14
God and Guns: Examining Religious Influences on Gun Control Attitudes in the United States
Mass shootings in the United States have generated significant media coverage and public concern, invigorating debates over gun control. Media coverage and academic research on gun control attitudes and reactions to ma...
Measures of Spirituality/Religiosity—Description of Concepts and Validation of Instruments
Why do we need some more questionnaires to measure aspects of spirituality/religiosity when we already have so many well-tried instruments in use? One answer is that research in this field is growing and that new resea...
Strange Bedfellows: Meditations on the Indispensable Virtues of Confusion, Mindfulness and Humor in the Neuroscientific and Cognitive Study of Esoteric and Contemplative Traditions
Several recent publications in the study of esoteric traditions have drawn together insights from scholars of religions and philosophy, contemplative communities, metaphor and conceptual blend theories, cognitive scien...
Spirituality and Quaker Approaches to Substance Use and Addiction
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has held a consistent testimony of abstinence and moderation regarding alcohol and other substances. This paper outlines the historical background, and describes modern Quaker...
The Scythe and the Pentagram: Santa Muerte from Folk Catholicism to Occultism
Santa Muerte is establishing a presence among practitioners of contemporary occultism in Europe and North America. The occult milieu is highly different from the Mexican cult of Santa Muerte, having a strong heritage o...