I've quoted this same different paper in three posts. That's how rich I find this content. In short, I'm presenting idolatry in terms of "god's dick."Personality is a throbbing 8=====> that wants to jam itself in to the center and become law. To condemn this would be hypocrisy. To "zoom out" and contemplate this structure is something else, which is not to say innocent or pure but perhaps the opposite: a desire for incarnation. — Hoo
The cult leader is sometimes the master. He is the truth. But most debate, as I see it, is "university" discourse. We've been doing that here. No one claims to be the thing itself, but all make indirect claims on this center via a knowledge of it from the outside. There is a right way to get what we are looking for, we might say, even if we won't quite claim that we have got there. Why not claim mastery or possession outright? First, this may just feel like a lie. Second, we don't expect recognition that way, for we ourselves refuse to recognize outright claims that are beyond the control of our own method-as-substitute-for-object. (That's my hypothesis.)Lacan ties the theory of sexual difference to the four discourses named above through his “formulae of sexuation.” ... Master and university are masculine; hysteric and analyst are feminine... — http://kmcmahon.faculty.ku.edu//LacanZizeksum.html
The basic concept of sexual difference is that the sexual relation can only be experienced in symbolic terms. Two people form a relationship and have sex because they both agree to a similar set of signifiers that define the story of their conjunction. Lacan likes to say that there is no sexual relationship. By this he means that there is no such thing as sexual harmony, no perfect balance of sexual partners. He uses a special term to name the female side, “not-all” or “pas tout.” Not all can also mean not whole. The woman is the not all to the man. This means that she represents the fact that she can never be totalized, summed up, or contained. There is no one perfect woman; nor can the man resist that fact by having or containing all the women. The series of women is infinite, each single woman representing the fact that she is “not all,” like the series of numbers in mathematics --they are infinite, always one after another.
There is a logical sense to the relation between the masculine and feminine positions. If one, the masculine, insists on specifying the attributes of the perfect woman, then there must be a position, the feminine one, which denies that such specification is possible. Nevertheless, the woman cannot claim thereby that she occupies a place of true enjoyment. Such a claim would return us to the master’s discourse of full self presence, but a self presence couched in even more abstract terms, as if that were possible. Still, the main advantage of the feminine position --and Lacan definitely favors the feminine over the masculine at least in this logical sense --is that the concept of not-all resonates with the idea of the void at the center of the signifier, the split in the subject, the inherent impossibility of self-mastery and fixed definition.
Another way of summarizing sexual difference is to say that the masculine side seeks to totalize from the perspective of a single exception, the master. The position of the exceptional male implies that all other subjects must work in order to be part of the totality or universal order, which is ruled by the master who, unlike the rest, is exempted from having to work for his inclusion in the totality. He is the exception because he is what he is by nature and special privilege, because it is so. The feminine side, however, comprises the infinity of subjects with no exceptions. That is, there are no exceptional people who alone enjoy special privilege. There is no one who is not a split subject. There is no neutral zero point from which to conceive of or rule over the whole.
Man’s relation to woman is like the subject’s relation to the body. There is a real body, but we are only in it as linguistic subjects, that is, we experience it only through language. Its realness is something we experience as external and impenetrable. — http://kmcmahon.faculty.ku.edu//LacanZizeksum.html
Buddhism includes an analysis of human psychology, emotion, cognition, behavior and motivation along with therapeutic practices. A unique feature of Buddhist psychology is that it is embedded within the greater Buddhist ethical and philosophical system, and its psychological terminology is colored by ethical overtones.[1] Buddhist psychology has two therapeutic goals: the healthy and virtuous life of a householder (samacariya, "harmonious living") and the ultimate goal of nirvana, the total cessation of dissatisfaction and suffering (dukkha).[2]
Buddhism and the modern discipline of Psychology have multiple parallels and points of overlap. This includes a descriptive phenomenology of mental states, emotions and behaviors, as well as theories of perception and unconscious mental factors. Psychotherapists such as Erich Fromm have found in Buddhist enlightenment experiences (e.g. kensho) the potential for transformation, healing and finding existential meaning. Some contemporary mental-health practitioners such as Jon Kabat-Zinn increasingly find ancient Buddhist practices (such as the development of mindfulness) of empirically proven therapeutic value,[3] while Buddhist teachers such as Jack Kornfield see Western Psychology as providing complementary practices for Buddhists. — wiki
The usual process of sense cognition is entangled with what the Buddha terms "papañca" (conceptual proliferation), a distortion and elaboration in the cognitive process of the raw sensation or feeling (vedana).[9] This process of confabulation feeds back into the perceptual process itself. Therefore, perception for the Buddhists is not just based on the senses, but also on our desires, interests and concepts and hence it is in a way unrealistic and misleading.[10] The goal of Buddhist practice is then to remove these distractions and gain knowledge of things as they are (yatha-bhuta nadassanam).
This psycho-physical process is further linked with psychological craving, manas (conceit) and ditthi (dogmas, views). One of the most problematic views according to the Buddha, is the notion of a permanent and solid Self or 'pure ego'. This is because in early Buddhist psychology, there is no fixed self (atta; Sanskrit atman) but the delusion of self and clinging to a self concept affects all one's behaviors and leads to suffering.[9] For the Buddha, there is nothing uniform or substantial about a person, only a constantly changing stream of events or processes categorized under five categories called skandhas (heaps, aggregates), which includes the stream of consciousness (Vijñāna-sotam). False belief and attachment to an abiding ego-entity is at the root of most negative emotions. — Wiki
Zen is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being; it is a way from bondage to freedom; it liberates our natural energies; ... and it impels us to express our faculty for happiness and love.[44] [...] [W]hat can be said with more certainty is that the knowledge of Zen, and a concern with it, can have a most fertile and clarifying influence on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis. Zen, different as it is in its method from psychoanalysis, can sharpen the focus, throw new light on the nature of insight, and heighten the sense of what it is to see, what it is to be creative, what it is to overcome the affective contaminations and false intellectualizations which are the necessary results of experience based on the subject-object split"[45] — Fromm
Perhaps, but how can that dimension be linguistic? Which is to say meaningful beyond feeling? I thought you'd like the notion of the barred or split subject. It seems Buddhist to me. Are you sure your not just biased against the West?So again there's an entire dimension absent, but one which can't be articulated to those who don't see it. — Wayfarer
Subject connotes the idea of being subjected to something external, in particular, the rules of the social-symbolic order. Subject contrasts with individual, which implies self-determination and uniqueness. The subject is inherently split between the range of conscious knowledge and the unconscious. Symbolic order is the term for designating the social world in which the subject lives and functions. I will define this further below, but for now will say that the symbolic order consists of language and its rules of sound and grammar, laws, and social structures having to do with the family, schools, religion, and government institutions. In general it consists of all the rules that govern social and subjective existence. The subject has no choice but to be born into the symbolic order. We occupy the subjective roles that are made available to us by the social order in which we live. Hence the idea of the subject-self being subjected to that order.
The subject is a speaker of language. Language is the key link between all subjects; it is the core network of social existence. The subject is only a subject in language. Reality only exists through language. We can never escape the process of expression through language and what can be called subjectivization through language. No pure self-consciousness exists outside of language, even if the subject is simply sitting still and not speaking. Consciousness is only possible through the mediation of other consciousnesses. This is the central meaning of Lacan’s statement that the unconscious is structured like a language.
The subject in this sense of a speaker of language is fundamentally split. This is simply a way of referring to the impossibility of full and present self-consciousness or self-understanding. There will always be a gap between what one thinks one knows of oneself and what is hidden from view. The split or divided subject “is operative in all of the various ways in which we fail to identify ourselves, grasp ourselves, or coincide with ourselves” (Bracher, 113). This is also understood in terms of the split between the “I” who speaks and the contents of the statement
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that is spoken. In Lacanian terminology, the distinction is between the subject of enunciation -the I who speaks --and the subject of the enunciated, that is, the statement. There is the empty I that is the subject and there is the self that is part of concrete reality. Descartes said “I think therefore I am,” where “I think” supposedly designates a pure transcendental point of self-consciousness removed from the real world. But Kant (and also Lacan/ Žižek) would say that there is no way to say “I think” without attachment to the whole of reality. The “I” is “an empty, nonsubstantial logical variable” (Žižek, TN, 14) which is inherently inaccessible, is only purely possible, not concretely real. The I is a pure void, an empty void or frame only knowable through the predicates that make up the contents of what I think. I cannot acquire consciousness of myself except through the endless series of predicates and statements that fill out what the I thinks.
This may be one of the hardest notions to accept by anyone first studying Lacanian theory, but it is important in terms of undermining the sense of the human being possessing ultimate self-knowledge or possessing an essence which bestows innate authority over self or others. In short, all master figures are emperor’s without clothes. — http://kmcmahon.faculty.ku.edu//LacanZizeksum.html
Are you sure your not just biased against the West? — Hoo
The 'I' is a pure void, an empty void or frame only knowable through the predicates that make up the contents of what I think. I cannot acquire consciousness of myself except through the endless series of predicates and statements that fill out what the I thinks
Buddhism has sometimes been called an atheistic teaching, either in an approving sense by freethinkers and rationalists, or in a derogatory sense by people of theistic persuasion. Only in one way can Buddhism be described as atheistic, namely, in so far as it denies the existence of an eternal, omnipotent God or godhead who is the creator and ordainer of the world. The word "atheism," however, like the word "godless," frequently carries a number of disparaging overtones or implications, which in no way apply to the Buddha's teaching.
Those who use the word "atheism" often associate it with a materialistic doctrine that knows nothing higher than this world of the senses and the slight happiness it can bestow. Buddhism is nothing of that sort. In this respect it agrees with the teachings of other religions, that true lasting happiness cannot be found in this world; nor, the Buddha adds, can it be found on any higher plane of existence, conceived as a heavenly or divine world, since all planes of existence are impermanent and thus incapable of giving lasting bliss. The spiritual values advocated by Buddhism are directed, not towards a new life in some higher world, but towards a state utterly transcending the world, namely, Nibbana.
Perhaps, but how can that dimension be linguistic? Which is to say meaningful beyond feeling? — Hoo
What of this race that speaks of the Kingdom and doing the Fathers work, and uses all the language of the Truth, and at the same time sows seeds of fear and hellish inventions? What is this race that is always seeking evil to destroy, like a weasel seeks out a rat? What is the hopelessness they preach that on one hand, you are the sons of God, and on the other, that you must fight against evil of every sort and nature? Ah, yes, but, if, and maybe they roll these stumbling-blocks under their tongues with a wise twinkle in their eyes, as much as to say, "Yes it is all true, but it comes only with hard labor and long study, and it is not for such as you, sinner and worm of the dust that you are, until you have purified yourself in the fount of my wisdom and paid me personal homage."
It is then that the Magdalene hears the Laughter of God and is clean and free; and in an instant too; and it is when the cripple hears the Laughter of God that he leaps to his feet and runs away praising the living God. It is when you, no matter where you are or what you are, no matter what you have done or left undone, hear the Laughter of the God within and the God without, that you will crash through the gates of hell and find heaven, no matter what these gates may be—person, place, or thing.
One moments recognition that you are the son of the Living God, and you have attuned your ear for the Laughter of God which will put to flight all the stupid ideas, of my and yours, free you into an expression that you have not dreamed of. How can you restrain the joy that fills you when you hear this laughter which, when it is heard, causes the winter of your discontent to break into full fruition, which causes you to see literally see that " before they call, I will answer," is not a bit of euphonious language, but a positive living, glowing fact.
"I was afraid," and therefore you were driven out of the Garden of Life. You have been afraid that God will punish you, that it is too good to be true, that you are not ready, that it comes by great learning; and so you are still without the portals of your own kingdom, trying every way but the only way to re-enter. Many there be who try the way of violence, and many who expect to ride in on the skirts of another. There are some so foolish as to invite this.
Why do you not stop trying to get things, trying to learn how to get power place? Why do you not come away from the man whose breath is in his nostrils? You who read this page, and go within and hear the Laughter of God, and know that " it does not matter"- that the things which gave you great concern are all swept away into the dump heap? The sooner you learn this the sooner you will see they have no value. Finally, one time, when you take away their value, they are possible of attainment to you. You profess to be a follower of the Master. If you in any way believe this, you will begin to listen for the Laughter of God through your whole being, and you will know that the Laughter of God sets you free from the snarling discontent of the tower of Babel in which you have been living.
Presently, as you listen for this Laughter, you will hear it, and gradually you will begin laughing—billows of laughter, silently-audible laughter that will shatter one limitation after another; laughter filled with the divine indifference which knows that the Universe is filled with God and only God, and to recognize this will cause this laughter to flow into expression and shatter the belief in sin, sickness, and death. When this belief is shattered in you, the pictures of this on your universe are dissipated and are no more, and even the place thereof is no more. You will know how there can be naught but laughter in the Kingdom of Heaven. What good of words or arguments? What in humans’ sense is a lecture worth on the subject of Laughter, as compared to one glorious sudden peal of joy released by a God soul and picked up be all those in hearing distance?
Gradually, as you learn the Laughter of God and join in with the glory of the Sons of the Living God, then you will laugh at yourself. You will perhaps go back and laugh all the mistakes and faults and limitations out of existence You will stand with your glorious feet on the mountain-tops of Self-Revelation, laughing at your universe and with your universe, and laughing in words: "It is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful."
"Let the filthy be filthy still." Some may read into the Laughter of God a belief in carelessness and indifference, and some consecrated souls may rail and tear their hair and say that it is encouraging license and making nothing of sin, in order that one may indulge in sin, and so on; and for them this message is not. — The Laughter of the Gods
I hope you don't mind me interjecting here. Whatever we say is by definition, linguistic, but it does not follow from that, that the things we talk about; whether those things be empirical objects, feelings or spiritual experiences are themselves merely linguistic. So, I don't think that the linguistic nature of everything we say provides a good argument for collapsing the spiritual or the mystical into 'mere feeling'. I too have thought that the mystical is collapsible into mere feeling at various times during my life, but never for too long; I always seem to find fresh reasons to think that view is greatly mistaken. — John
Thinking about hallucinatory or entheogenic experiences you may have had; how would you class those? They obviously have content, well, at least according to my own experience, in fact often, contra what Hume says about thought, dreams and memories as compared to sensory experience, they have content of a vividness that so-called empirical experiences cannot nearly match, so they are not merely affective. The content is not empirical, so it can't be sensual. — John
So it seems you are saying that when you experience such things you have no accompanying sense of coming into touch with an immanent order of truth, love, goodness, beauty, in touch with what feels like the primordial essence and origin of all things? Something more than anything merely empirical, sensual, emotional, intellectual although the empirical, sensual, emotional, intellectual may be suffused with it? Something that is so much more than any mere interpretation, emotion, thought, or object could ever be? — John
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