Simone and Buddhism

I have located a few works on Weil and Buddhism, including the one below on Zen Buddhism:

鈴木 順子  (Suzuki, Junko). "破壊された魂の行方 : 鈴木大拙を読むシモーヌ・ヴェイユ(研究論文) (Apres la destruction de l'ame : Simone Weil, lectrice de Daisetz Suzuki)." フランス語フランス文学研究 (Études de langue et littérature françaises) 100 (2012): 239-53. . 


Other works include (Note annotations were written by Debra Jensen):


Little, J.P. (Janet Patricia). "Simone Weil and tantric buddhism." Cahiers Simone Weil 27.1 (2004): 47-60. Little looks at Simone Weil's encounter with Tantric Buddhism, primarily her response to Alexandra David Néel's Magic and Mystery in Tibet as well as Milarepa's thought found in the translation by J. Bacot in 1925, titled Milarépa,  ses crimes, ses preuves, son nirvana.   Little briefly describes how and when Weil came to these texts before focusing on Weil's comments on Tibetan deity practice specifically in relation to her notions of reading, decreation and necessity.  Little also outlines Weil's thought on the Tibetan practice of chod, comparing it to the 'difficult' prayer found in Weil’s “La connaissance surnaturaelle”, where Weil asks to  be stripped of all of her mental and physical capacities; a prayer that has both intrigued and horrified her readers.   Little ends by commenting on Weil's fascination with Milarepa's attitude towards food, noting how well it fits with Weil's own preoccupation with it.


Lussy, Florence de. "To On: A Nameless Something Over which the Mind Stumbles."  The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil. Eds. E. Jane Doering and Eric O. Springsted. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 115-32. De Lussy  focuses here on Weil’s statement found in her notebooks that “In Plato, translate to on by the real”. De Lussy’s essay constitutes a carefully nuanced, in-depth consideration of exactly what Weil means by this statement.  She traces the development of Weil’s thought in this understanding of ‘the real’ from her early writings at age seventeen, through her encounter with Zen Buddhism in the work of D.T. Suzuki to the more fully developed elaboration in her writing on Greek mathematics and philosophy.  Central to the latter are Weil’s ideas of harmony and mystery, particularly her notion of convenable which De Lussy says, Weil somewhat redefines as “the concept of what is outside all concept” (p. 122).

Pirruccello, Ann. "Making the World My Body: Simone Weil and Somatic Practice." Philosophy East & West 52.4 (2002): 479-97. Pirruccello discusses Simone Weil’s views of the body in comparison to some Japanese Buddhist forms of somatic practice.  She begins by outlining Weil’s views on the body and their relationship to her religious thought paying particular attention to her notions of attention, reading, apprenticeship and the self or ego.  She next briefly presents Weil’s tentative identification of ways of incorporating bodily practice into one’s spiritual development.  Pirruccello then turns to the Japanese Zen tradition, focusing on Dogen in order to compare and contrast Weil’s views to some of the teachings of this tradition.  She concludes by reflecting on the development of somatic practices that might incorporate aspects of both Weil’s work and the Zen traditions presented. 

Pirruccello, Ann. "Philosophy in the Ten Directions: Global Sensibility and the Imaginary." Philosophy East & West 58.3 (2008): 301-17. Brief discussion of Simone weil and Asian Religions 307-308 

Rozelle-Stone, Rebecca. "Forgiveness Through Attention: Simone Weil’s Critique of the Imagination." Sacred Web: A Journal of Tradition and Modernity 15 (2005): 121- 38. Rozelle-Stone begins with a critical look at notions of forgiveness in popular American culture.  She then raises what she describes as the deeper questions related to forgiveness: "who the offended person is such that she could forgive? or in other words, what conditions must be present for true forgiveness to even occur?"  (p. 122).  To answer these questions, Rozelle-Stone  turns to identify two notions of forgiveness in Weil's work.  After a brief discussion of the first sense pardonner, the pardoning an offense, which she argues we cannot successfully do, she turns to the type of forgiveness we, according to Weil, must do, remettre.    Understanding this second sense necessitates a more in-depth discussion of Weil's thinking on imagination and illusion.  Here Rozelle-Stone argues at some length, Weil's reading of Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist texts influenced her thought. The article concludes with a reflection on the ethical and phenomenological significance of Weil's notion of forgiveness.