Michel Foucault and Zen: a stay in a Zen temple (1978)

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Originally published in the Japanese Buddhist Review Shunju and translated by
Christian Polac in Umi, no. 197, August-September 1978, pp. 1-6, as `Michel Foucault
et le zen: un sjour dans un temple zen. The following English translation is based on
the text from Dits et crits, which contained the following introductory note: `Working
on the history of the Christian discipline, M. Foucault wished to understand better the
practice of Zen and was invited to spend some time at the temple of Seionji at
Uenohara, in the area of Yamanashi, where Master Omori Sogen led the meditation
room. An editor of the Buddhist review Shunju recorder a number of interviews with the
bonze which are translated by Christian Polac.


It is not that religion is delusional by nature, not that the
individual, beyond present-day religion, rediscovers his
most suspect psychological origins. But religious
delusion is a function of the secularization of culture:
religion may be the object of delusional belief insofar as
the culture of a group no longer permits the assimilation
of religious or mystical beliefs in the present context of
experience.

Michel Foucault (1962), Mental Illness and
Psychology, University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1976.


Foucault: I dont know if I am able to follow correctly the rigorous rules of a Zen
temple, but Ill do my best. I am very interested in Buddhist philosophy. But, this time, I
didnt come for this. What interest me most, is life itself in a Zen temple, that is to say
the practice of Zen, its exercises and its rules. For I believe that a totally different
mentality to our own is formed through the practice and exercises of a Zen temple. Just
now, you told us this is a living temple which is different from traditional temples. Do
you have different rules to other temples?

Priest:
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I want to say that this is not a temple that is representative of Zen culture. In
this sense, the temple is perhaps not sufficient enough. There is an expression which
says that Zen represents man. We have here a number of monks who follow with
ardour Zen in itself. Living Zen means that.

Foucault: As concerns memories of my first visit to Japan, I have rather a feeling of
regret to have seen nothing and to have understood nothing. That absolutely doesnt
mean that I wasnt shown anything but that during and also after I had made my tour to
observe many things I felt I hadnt grasped anything. For me, from the point of view of
technology, a way of life, the appearance of social structure, Japan is extremely close to

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Chapter eight: Religion and culture: Michel Foucault
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(A bonze or Japanese priest.)
the Western world. At the same time the inhabitants of this country seem in every way a
lot more mysterious compared with those of all other countries in the world. What
impressed me, was the mixture of proximity and distancing and I couldnt get any
clearer impression.

Priest: I am told that almost all your works are translated into Japanese. Do you think
that your thoughts are understood enough?

Foucault: I have no way of knowing how people interpret the work that I have done. It
is always a great surprise to me that my works have been translated abroad and even
that my works are read in France. To speak frankly, I hope that my work interests ten or
a hundred people; and, if it is a question of a larger number, I am always a bit surprised.
From my point of view, its that my name, Foucault, is easy to pronounce in Japanese;
for example, much easier than Heidegger. That is a joke of course. I believe that
somebody who writes has not got the right to demand to be understood as he had
wished to be when he was writing; that is to say form the moment when he writes he is
no longer the owner of what he says, except in a legal sense. Obviously, if someone
criticizes you and says that youre wrong. Interpreting badly your arguments, you can
emphasise what you wanted to express. But, apart from that case, I believe that the
freedom of the reader must be absolutely respected. A discourse is a reality which can
be transformed infinitely. Thus, he who writes has not the right to give orders as to the
use of his writings.

I dont believe that I write an oeuvre in the original and classical sense of the word. I
write things which seem usable. In a word, usable in a different way, by different
people, in different countries in certain cases. Thus, if I analyse something such as
madness or power and that serves some purpose, then thats enough, thats why I write.
If someone uses what I write differently then thats not disagreeable to me, and even if
he uses it in another context for something else, then I am quite happy. In this way, I do
not believe that I am the author of an oeuvre and the thought and the intention of the
author should be respected.

Priest: I have been told you are interested in mysticism. In your opinion, do mysticism
and esotericism mean the same thing?

Foucault: No.

Priest: Do you think that Zen is Japanese mysticism?

Foucault: As you know, Zen was born in India, developed in China and arrived in
Japan in the thirteenth century. I dont believe therefore that it is totally Japanese. Rinzai
is a Zen priest whom I like a lot and hes not Japanese.
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He is neither a translator of
sutra nor a founder of Chinese Zen, but for me I find he is a great Zen philosopher. He
is from the nineteenth century, isnt he? I read the French translation by Professor
Demiville, who is an excellent French specialist on Buddhism.

Priest: It seems that most Chinese specialist believe that Zen Buddhism came from
China rather than from India.

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(Lin Chi Rinzai, died in 867. One of the greatest Zen Masters of the Tang dynasty.)
Foucault: The Zen which came from India is perhaps a little mythological. Its
probably to link Zen to the Buddha himself. Zen in India isnt very important, and
certainly it developed strongly in China in the seventh century and in Japan from the
thirteenth, isnt that so?

Priest: What do you think of the relationship between Zen and mysticism?

Foucault: I believe that Zen is totally different from Christian mysticism, but I think
that Zen is a mysticism. That said, I dont know Zen well enough to defend this
conviction. It might be said in any case that there is virtually no point in common with
Christian mysticism, whose tradition goes back to St Bernard, St Teresa of Avila, to St
John of the Cross. It is completely different. When I say mysticism, I use the term in the
Christian sense. What is very impressive concerning Christian spirituality and its
technique is that we always search for more individualization. We try to seize whats at
the bottom of the soul of the individual. Tell me who you are, there is the spirituality
of Christianity. As for Zen, it seems that all the techniques linked to spirituality are,
conversely, tending to attenuate the individual. Zen and Christian spirituality and that of
Zen are comparable. And, here, there exist a great opposition. In Christian mysticism,
even when it preaches the union of God and the individual, there is something that is
individual; because it is a question of the relation of love between God and the
individual. The one is he who loves and the other is he who is loved. In a word,
Christian mysticism concentrates on individualization.

On Zen meditation

Foucault: With so little experience, I cant say precisely. Despite that, if I have been
able to feel something through the bodys posture in Zen meditation, namely the correct
position of the body, then that something has been new relationships which can exist
between the mind and the body and, moreover, new relationships between//