Turning toasters into toasters and teacups into teacups : The Zen poetics of Richard von Sturmer

Abstract

This research is interested in the intersection of the artistic and the religious in the poetry of Richard von Sturmer (1957- ). Having undertaken over ten years’ intensive training in Zen Buddhism, and having co-founded the Auckland Zen Centre with Amala Wrightson, von Sturmer is an accomplished practitioner of Zen. Two of his published literary works present themselves in explicit dialogue with Indian, Chinese and Japanese writings of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and demonstrate an extensive engagement with Zen literature. This is the first scholarly study of von Sturmer’s writing. As such, I begin with a consideration of how von Sturmer’s biography and Zen poetry fits into wider frames of Western Buddhism and Western Buddhist literature. How does von Sturmer reinterpret Buddhist teachings according to his own time and place? In what ways does von Sturmer’s Zen poetry differ from his American peers and his Japanese and Chinese predecessors to offer something of relevance to New Zealand? Through these questions, I explore in what way von Sturmer contributes to the creation of a Buddhist literature for New Zealand. The second half of the thesis constitutes a doctrinal reading of von Sturmer’s work. I investigate the impact of Zen meditation on von Sturmer’s poetry and elucidate the philosophical underpinnings of his imagistic holism. I suggest that the dominant aesthetic characteristics of his poetry arise as a reflection of his meditation practice, so that for him, “ontological and poetic experience are one.” I also address how von Sturmer responds to the Zen imperative that the poet produce literature that proves a soteriological aid on the Buddhist path through an analysis of his use of apophasis. In conclusion, I suggest that von Sturmer’s own poetic practice of bringing mundane settings into the sphere of meditative inquiry becomes, in turn, a soteriological aid for readers. The mode of the thesis is explorative scholarship and critical reading rather than polemic. By way of descriptive modularity, my writing follows and contextualizes the engagements between Zen practice and poetic practice in von Sturmer’s work.