主體危機、無我、過程主體：林燿德、聖嚴法師、克莉絲蒂娃之主體觀=Crises of the Subject, Anātman, Subject-in-Process: Comparative Perspectives on Subjectivity of Lin Yao-de, Chan Master Sheng-yen, and Julia Kristéva
This dissertation aims to demonstrate that the subject is impermanent and illusory, that it is always a “subject in process,” as Julia Kristeva (1941-) puts it. Beginning by questioning the definitions of “subject,” and “subjectivity,” and how these two terms have been employed to establish a Taiwanese Cultural Subjectivity in various discourses while they actually signify various meanings, I investigate how the phenomena of the subject in process/crises are manifested in Lin’s writing, especially in his novel Mahāvairocana (1991). Examining Lin’s treatment of the crises of the subject in Taiwan at the turn of the century in light of his other writing and literary activities within the social, historical, and theoretical context at that time is significant because it serves as a key to exploring the intertwined mysteries about subjectivity at three levels: textual, contextual, and even theoretical. It serves as a text of fiction representing the writer’s perceptions of various crises facing the speaking subject in Taiwan in search for a more definite identity. It also contrasts with the writer’s efforts trying to establish himself as a speaking subject in contemporary Taiwan’s literary arena, as a spokesperson for a “New Generation” that breaks away from the previous generations in the seventies. Contextually, Lin’s efforts in establishing his generation as unique speaking subjects correspond to the collective efforts of literary and cultural study scholars in search for defining features of a Taiwanese Cultural Subjectivity. Theoretically, Lin’s treatment of how the crises of the subject could be resolved by means of catvāri-dhyānāni of the Buddhist tradition and fiction writing as a lay psychoanalytic practice as described by Kristeva offers a nexus, a point of intersection from which we can pursue beyond the textual and contextual levels and examined from a meta-theoretical level where two theoretical discourses can be brought into close comparison and contrast. And it is through this theoretical dialogue between two thinkers from contemporary Chan Buddhism and Psychoanalysis that I try to explore how the instability and impermanence of the subject can be examined and explicated. As
