ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Insight Meditation’s Buddhist and Modern rhetorics form the basis of what I call Modern Holism; that is, a hybrid rhetoric whose appeal is based on the integration of the transformative rhetorics of Buddhism with the democratizing rhetorics of modernism. This hybrid rhetoric is significant for the study of rhetoric because it offers novel understandings of the pre-rhetorical habits upon which language and argument are built. Further, Insight’s hybridity opens a means for the vast metaphysics of Buddhist theory and praxis to enter discussions of rhetoric. In making this argument, I first outline the praxis of Insight meditation and its implications for a kind of knowledge production that integrates bodily sensation and conceptual knowledge. Second, Insight’s origins in late nineteenth-century colonial Burma are explored towards the ends of understanding how the Modern rhetorics of science, secularism, and market capitalism have shaped the practice of Insight and made it accessible to Western audiences. The notion of hybridity allows for Insight to avoid essentializing categories of authenticity; that is, a praxis that is either Buddhist or Western. A rhetoric of hybridity thus allows for the emergence of both rhetorical traditions, resulting in novel practices and means of persuasion.
