Lack And Transcendence

Loy draws from giants of psychotherapy and existentialism, from Nietzsche to Kierkegaard to Sartre, to explore the fundamental issues of life, death, and what motivates us. Whatever the differences in their methods and goals, psychotherapy, existentialism, and Buddhism are all concerned with the same fundamental issues of life and death—and death-in-life. In Lack and Transcendence (originally published by Humanities Press in 1996), David R. Loy brings all three traditions together, casting new light on each. Written in clear, jargon-free style that does not assume prior familiarity, this book will appeal to a wide variety of readers including psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, scholars of religion, Continental philosophers, and readers seeking clarity on the Great Matter itself. Loy draws from giants of psychotherapy, particularly Freud, Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, and Otto Rank; great existentialist thinkers, particularly Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre; and the teachings Buddhism, particularly as interpreted by Nagarjuna, Huineng and Dogen. This is the definitive edition of Loy’s seminal classic.

Buddhism teaches that to become happy, greed, ill-will, and delusion must be transformed into their positive counterparts: generosity, compassion, and wisdom. The history of the West, like all histories, has been plagued by the consequences of greed, ill-will, and delusion. A Buddhist History of the West investigates how individuals have tried to ground themselves to make themselves feel more real. To be self-conscious is to experience ungroundedness as a sense of lack, but what is lacking has been understood differently in different historical periods. Author David R. Loy examines how the understanding of lack changes at historical junctures and shows how those junctures were so crucial in the development of the West.

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools enabled has us humans to control the destiny of our species "A wondrous, visionary work." --Tim Flannery, scientist and author of the bestselling The Weather Makers What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.

It's said that women and men are from two different planets when it comes to communication, but how can they overcome the obstacles of prehistoric times when one of them simply doesn't have the ability to comprehend language?Ehd's a caveman living on his own in a harsh wilderness. He's strong and intelligent, but completely alone. When he finds a beautiful young woman in his pit trap, it's obvious to him that she is meant to be his mate. He doesn't know where she came from, she's wearing some pretty odd clothing, and she makes a lot of noises with her mouth that give him a headache. Still, he's determined to fulfill his purpose in life - provide for her, protect her, and put a baby in her.Elizabeth doesn't know where she is or exactly how she got there. She's confused and distressed by her predicament, and there's a caveman hauling her back to his cavehome. She's not at all interested in Ehd's primitive advances, and she just can't seem to get him to listen. No matter what she tries, getting her point across to this primitive but beautiful man is a constant - and often hilarious - struggle. With only each other for company, they must rely on one another to fight the dangers of the wild and prepare for the winter months. As they struggle to coexist, theirs becomes a love story that transcends language and time.

Hopper's historical-theological study not only illuminates the past but also sheds light on the tumultuous present, revealing how a recaptured understanding of God's transcendence can confront the thoughtless tolerance and inward-facing spiritual consumerism of our own time and radically transform both theology and culture today. --Book Jacket.

In this dynamic and utterly novel presentation, David Loy explores the fascinating proposition that the stories we tell--about what is and is not possible, about ourselves, about right and wrong, life and death, about the world and everything in it--become the very building blocks of our experience and of reality itself. Loy uses an intriguing mixture of quotations from familiar and less-familiar sources and brief stand-alone micro-essays, engaging the reader in challenging and illuminating dialogue. As we come to see that the world is made--in a word--of stories, we come to a richer understanding of that most elusive of Buddhist ideas: shunyata, the "generative emptiness" that is the all-pervading quality inherent to all mental and physical forms in our ever-changing world. Reminiscent of Zen koans and works of sophisticated poetry, this book will reward both a casual read and deep reflection.

In calculus the definition of a function is a rule of correspondence between two sets. Externalization theory postulates that a defined internal set of internal physiological function corresponds to an external set of creation in the environment: the pursuit of functional equivalency between both sets through externalizations and their refinements is the “Direction of Man.” The history of man is the incremental history of man externalizing the internal processes of his body to the environment and their ensuing refinements. The past 3000 years provides us with a history of man’s achievements and externalization theory, which draws from significant accomplishments, predicts the direction and achievements of man for the next 3000 years. Consciousness (which has three main functions: cognition, purposive musculoskeletal movements and interpreting stimuli entering the senses) is born out of the total physiology of the interior which makes it the purveyor of externalizations. We are what we are biologically and we create what we are. We will not be able to transcend our existence until we have completely externalized our interior.