I really do think that Thich Nhat Hanh is exactly what Zizek had in mind in his critique of Western Buddhism. It should be called “Buddhist tourism”; it seems that most people spend a summer immersed in TNH, and then forever after they can point to the Buddha-statue on the shelf and talk about how they once “did” the Buddhism thing.

If we go deep in meditation our wounds will be thrown, a catharsis will happen.

There is a lot of discusion here about this topic. You will see that a simple “meditation brings catharsis” isn’t enough for us. Would you mind to describe in your own words what you mean?

Then even the crowd became a little frustrated because Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha was not getting irritated and it seemed he was enjoying. Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha said, ”Now, if you are finished, I should move – because I have to reach the other village soon. They must be waiting just as you were waiting for me. If you have not told me all the things that you thought to tell me, I will be coming back within a few days, then you can finish it.”

Someone from the crowd said,
“But we have been insulting you, we have insulted you. Won’t you react? Won’t you say something?”

Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha said,
“That is difficult. If you want reaction from me, then you are too late. You should have come at least 10 years ago, because then I used to react. But I am now no longer so foolish. I see that you are angry, that’s why you are insulting me. I see your anger, the fire burning in your mind. I feel compassion for you. This is my response – I feel compassion for you. Unnecessarily you are troubled.Even if I am wrong, why should you get so irritated? That is not your business. If I am wrong I am going to hell, you will not go with me. If I am wrong I will suffer for it, you will not suffer for it. But it seems you love me so much and you think about me and consider me so much that you are so angry, irritated. You have left your work in the fields and you have come just to say a few things to me. I am thankful.”

Just when Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha was leaving he said,
“One thing more I would like to say to you. In the other village I left behind, a great crowd just like you had come there and they had brought many sweets just as a present for me, a gift from the village. But I told them that I don’t take sweets. They took the sweets back. I ask you, what will they do with those sweets?”

So somebody from the crowd said,
“What will they do? It is easy, there is no need to answer. They will distribute them in the village and they will enjoy.”

So Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha said,
“Now what will you do? You have brought only insults and I say I don’t take them. What will you do? I feel so sorry for you. You can insult me, that is up to you. But I don’t take it, that is up to me – whether I take it or not. I don’t take unnecessary things, useless things. I don’t get unnecessarily burdened. I feel compassion for you.”

This is response. If a person is angry and we are present there, not with our past, we will feel always compassion. Reaction becomes anger, response always is compassion. We will see through the person. It will become transparent that the person is angry, suffering, in misery, and ill. When someone is in fever we don’t start beating him and asking, ”Why are you having a fever? Why is your body hot? Why have you got a temperature?” We serve the person, we help the person to come out of it.

And when somebody is angry the person also is having a temperature, the person is in a fever, the person is feverish. Why get so angry about it? The person is in a mental disease which is more dangerous than any bodily disease, more fatal. So if the spouse is angry the other spouse will feel compassion, will try in every way to help the angry spouse to be out of it. This is just mad – that the spouse is angry and the other spouse also gets angry. This is just mad, insane. We will look at the person, we will feel the misery the person is in , and we will help.

But if the past comes in then everything goes wrong. And it can happen only if we go deep in meditation, otherwise it cannot happen. Just intellectual understanding won’t help. If we go deep in meditation our wounds will be thrown, a catharsis will happen. We become more and more clear inside, clarity is attained, we become like a mirror. We don’t have any wounds really, so no one can hit them. Then we can look at the person, then we can respond.

Reactions are unconscious, there’s little or no real thinking involved. I used to assume that if something didn’t make any sense, then it must be the other person’s fault. Would I ever make a mistake?
A reaction is often emotional, which may demonstrate that we have a belief. Beliefs are just adopted from someone else, without any critical thinking to see if they make sense. If we can defend something rationally, we usually do. If we can’t, then we react emotionally instead.
A response shows thoughtfulness, we can change our life by using our intelligence to consider how best to respond. One secret of success is to think before we speak or write. Respond has the same root as responsibility. Without taking responsibility for our actions, we will battle to achieve any goal or intended result. Our thoughts, our words and our actions create results. And if we want a certain outcome, then we need to focus our thoughts, and our words and our actions on its achievement.
Response is always very good but reaction is always very bad. Response is always very beautiful but reaction is always very ugly. Avoid reactions and allow responses. Reaction is from the past, response is here and now. Our lives are not lost by dying; Our lives are lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.

Yes, I think ‘true function of the symptom’ expresses it much more clearly. The symptom serves an adaptive purpose for the person, which, when appropriately addressed, will no longer be required. I also like the idea implicit in finding ‘new and better’ ways to do things that nothing is necessarily lost in the process; better choices, interpretations and actions are simply added, which make the old structures redundant or unnecessary. A process of enriching ideology, then, possibly?

“The analysand who sees the true meaning of his symptom can’t “choose” to un-see it—he can of course to deny it if it is offered as an interpretation by an overeager analyst, but once he sees it himself he can’t go back”

I’m curious about the phrase ‘true meaning’. How would the analysand know the difference between the ‘true’ meaning and an alternate one, in an epistemological sense?

Tom,

Thank you so much for your explanation. There’s a lot there to chew on. I definitely see where you are coming from. Conventional or functional self is not a ‘real’ self, but is also not an illusion. The analysis example explains the part that I was missing. If I understand correctly, this functional self can know and think about ideology through the feedback from others. Thoughts seem to come out of nowhere but thinking really a collective process. Seeing this matrix is kind of a mixed blessing. There is no turning back, but now, as you say, I must persevere in helping the deluded understanding. All while realizing if I was deluded that much at one point, how much delusion do I still need to work through.

Anyway, I think I see where you’re coming from. Thoughts are part of conditioned thinking and vice versa. Luckily there are those who are so sucked up into the system that can help us out.

Thanks again.