Just Awakening - by Jessica X Zu

About the Book

Just Awakening uncovers a forgotten philosophy of social democracy inspired by Yogācāra--an ancient, nondualistic Buddhist philosophy--arguing that it offers new vocabularies with which to reconceptualize equality and freedom.

Book Synopsis

Just Awakening uncovers a forgotten philosophy of social democracy inspired by Yogācāra, an ancient, nondualistic Buddhist philosophy that claims everything in the perceptible cosmos is mere consciousness and consists of multiple karmically connected yet bounded lifeworlds. This Yogācāra social philosophy emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries among Chinese intellectuals who struggled against the violent Social Darwinist logic of the survival of the fittest. Its proponents were convinced that the root cause of crisis in both China and the West was epistemic--an unexamined faith in one common, objective world and a subject-object divide. This dualistic paradigm, in their view, had dire consequences, including moral egoism, competition for material wealth, and racial war. Yogācāra insights about plurality, interdependence, and intersubjectivity, however, had the capacity to awaken the world from these deadly dreams.

Jessica X. Zu reconstructs this account of modern Yogācāra philosophy, arguing that it offers new vocabularies with which to reconceptualize equality and freedom. Yogācāra thinking, she shows, diffracts the illusions of individual identity, social categories, and material wealth into aggregated, recurring karmic processes. It then guides the reassembly of a complex society through nonhierarchical, noncoercive, and collaborative actions, sustained by new behavior patterns and modes of thought. Demonstrating why Chinese Buddhist social philosophy offers powerful resources for social justice and liberation today, Just Awakening invites readers to think with modern Yogācāra philosophers about other ways of building egalitarian futures.

Review Quotes

Just Awakening is a work of breakthrough scholarship, unprecedented not only in its elucidation of the historical role of Buddhism in Chinese revolutionary thought, but also in its application of Buddhist methodology to our understanding of both history and social reality, providing an emancipatory intersubjective alternative to both objectivism and subjectivism.--Brook Ziporyn, author of Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond

Focusing on the scholar, social critic, and polyglot Lü Cheng, Zu brings forth impressive erudition and research to trace out the path leading from a Buddhist theory of perception and karma to a China-centered plan for social and political renovation. This book will change many minds about a history we thought we already knew.--Charles B. Jones, author of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice

Jessica X. Zu has produced a wonderfully stimulating book on liberation Buddhology that is as much philosophical treatise as it is intellectual history. Her clear and powerful account shows how thinkers drew upon resources from Buddhist Yogācāra social philosophy to imagine a democratic path forward for China that can also provide vigorous solutions to creating a just society today.--Erica F. Brindley, author of Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE - 50 CE

In this groundbreaking book, Jessica Zu mines the teachings of early 20th century Yogacara master Lu Cheng to reveal the challenge of a new socially engaged Buddhism. The false dichotomies of sex, class, and ideology of the modern episteme fall away in the conceptual dawning of a fresh, liberative socio-soteriology.--Christopher Queen, coeditor of Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia and Engaged Buddhism in the West

This groundbreaking work provides a much-needed critical and decidedly non-Western perspective--that of Yogācāra Buddhist "socio-soteriology" as developed in early 20th century China--on issues troubling all modern societies about science and religion, race, ethnicity and individualism, and democracy and social justice. It is a well-researched and engaging piece of intellectual history.--William S. Waldron, author of Making Sense of Mind-Only: Why Yogācāra Buddhism Matters

This innovative study explores how modern Chinese intellectuals, in particular Lü Cheng, adapted Yogācāra Buddhism to envision a just society. It merges Yogācāra philosophy with social theory, creating a framework called socio-soteriology. This approach redefines social issues and justice through the lens of Buddhist soteriology, emphasizing intersubjectivity, compassion, and nonviolence.--John Makeham, editor of Transforming Consciousness: Yogācāra Thought in Modern China

Jessica Zu's work reveals the startlingly prescient social theories of early twentieth-century Buddhist intellectual Lü Cheng. Zu captures the creativity and fervor of Chinese efforts to counter Western pseudo-scientific theories that naturalized racism and colonialism. Skillfully contextualizing Lü's aesthetic theories and practice-program, Just Awakening takes his "socio-soteriology" seriously as an antidote to ongoing social maladies.--Wendi Adamek, author of Practicescapes and the Buddhists of Baoshan

Just Awakening is a finely crafted investigation of transformations in Buddhist Chinese intellectual life in the early twentieth century. It is also a deft socio-soteriological revelation of the creative value of intercultural encounters and a welcome plea to bend the arc of contemporary Buddhist studies to the moral labor of societal transformation.--Peter D. Hershock, author of Valuing Diversity: Buddhist Reflection on Realizing a More Equitable Global Future

Who would have thought that an apparently idealistic philosophical system such as Yogācāra would inspire political and social revolution? This is just what happened in early twentieth-century China. Jessica Zu shows us how the revolutionary Chinese philosopher and activist Lu Cheng adapted Yogācāra ideas to the task of remaking Chinese culture and politics. A fascinating history of philosophical impact on society!--Jay L. Garfield, author of Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live Without a Self

About the Author

Jessica X. Zu is assistant professor of religion and East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Southern California, Dornsife.