AMERICAN STUDIES; MARGARET FULLER; BUDDHIST INTERPRETATION
摘要
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), a Transcendentalist of the nineteenth century America, was a woman of enigmatic thought and remarkable personality. However, both her thought and personality have neither been understood nor forgotten. This is the Margaret Myth. She has been depicted as an arrogant woman, who said that there was no intellectual above her in America, and as an immoral eccentric woman who pursued free love. Her thought was full of nobility and wisdom. Some say that her thought is very modern or even ahead of our age, yet it was disregarded because it was not Christian. These are her images for a few who still remember her in America. Yet she has been a popular topic for the students and scholars of Transcendentalism, Women's Studies, feminism and so forth. Once she becomes a topic, many are deeply attracted to her. Some scholars have tried to do more justice to her. Generally speaking, however, she is still not well recognized. Surprisingly, however, her thought is very similar to that of Buddhism. She had an awakening experience like the Buddha had, and her thought was constructed on it. The central idea of her thought is the ineffability of Truth. It is very similar to the doctrine of sunyata (emptiness) in Buddhism. Her enigmatic personality is not that of an eccentric, but it is very similar to an awakened person, who is well recognizable in Buddhism, especially in Zen. The inseparability of her thought and personality was also a mystery; however, such phenomenon also similarly happened in many awakened persons.
