The Stranger (L’Etranger, 1942), written by Albert Camus (1913-1960), is hard to fully comprehend, because it is true that normal people have difficulty relating to and understanding the life of Meursault, the protagonist. Although his mother dies, Meursault does not grieve or cry. The very next day following his mother’s funeral, moreover, he goes to swim and sleep with a woman. How can we understand his behavior? Is he merely a depraved person?
I propose a new way of seeing the Stranger?from the Buddhist perspective?and so I turn to Seri Kim’s suggestion of relating the thought of Camus to that of Eastern philosophy.
There are two possible methods for understanding The Stranger as it relates to Buddhism. On one hand, the absurdity that Meursault reveals can be compared to impermanence in Buddhism, because the natural principle revealed in The Stranger is an archetype of the impermanence doctrine that “whoever is born is destined to die.” In addition, Meursault rejects the substance-self as the metaphysical Supreme One. I would argue that ‘rebirth’ (samsara, 輪廻) is doctrine of impermanence, or natural principle, to the predictable objection that samsara in Buddhism opens the possibility of hopeful wishing. In contrast to the phrase, “escaping suffering from the actual world makes it possible to go to the heaven,” Buddhist tradition?at least early Buddhism, Prajna (般若) Buddhism, and Chan (禪) Buddhism?emphasizes “overcome suffering here and now not to repeatedly experience suffering of rebirth.” I would call it ‘Self-endeavored Buddhism for enlightenment.’
On the other hand, I would point out the ethical behavior of disobedience which is illustrated in the final meeting between Meursault and the priest is a kind of religious or mystical experience. Meursault’s experience is quite similar to the idea that “the form is the emptiness,” i.e. r pa (色) is nyat (空), which becomes complete in the eighth picture (人牛忘) of Drawings of the Ten Bulls (十牛) in Chan Buddhism. Hence, the later change of Meursault is the way to the ninth picture (返本還源) and the tenth picture (入?垂手)?that is, he returns from emptiness to form. Ultimately, while the discord between the absurd and order is the negative aspect of emptiness, Meursault’s state after ‘suddenly bursting’ is the positive aspect of emptiness. Hence, The Stranger is a kind of text that can illustrate the dual aspects of emptiness, or the Middle Way (中道). At this point, Camus creates a new ‘Buddha’ or a ‘Chan master’ in his own way, although Meursault is unable to come back to the secular world, just as is the analogous case of the marketplace in the tenth picture of Drawings of the Ten Bulls.