The Signifier Pointing At The Moon

Within the context of a careful review of the psychology of religion and prior non-Lacanian literature on the subject, Raul Moncayo builds a bridge between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism that steers clear of reducing one to the other or creating a simplistic synthesis between the two. Instead, by making a purposeful "One-mistake" of "unknown knowing", this book remains consistent with the analytic unconscious and continues in the splendid tradition of Bodhidharma who did not know "Who" he was and told Emperor Wu that there was no merit in building temples for Buddhism. Both traditions converge on the teaching that "true subject is no ego", or on the realisation that a new subject requires the symbolic death or deconstruction of imaginary ego-identifications. Although Lacanian psychoanalysis is known for its focus on language and Zen is considered a form of transmission outside the scriptures, Zen is not without words while Lacanian psychoanalysis stresses the senseless letter of the Real or of a jouissance written on and with the body.

Within the context of a careful review of the psychology of religion and prior non-Lacanian literature on the subject, Raul Moncayo builds a bridge between Lacanion psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism, that steers clear of Reducing one to the other or creating a simplistic synthesis between the two. Instead, by making a purposeful "one mistake" of "unknown knowing", this book remains consistent with the analytic unconscious and continues in the splendid tradition of Bodhidharma who did not know "Who" he was and told Emperor Wu that there was no merit in building temples for Buddhism.

Lacan and Chan Buddhist Thought provides a close reading of how Lacan mobilizes concepts from Chan Buddhist philosophy, culture, and practice in his later teachings. The book emerged from the three co-authors’ engagement with Lacan’s 1962–1963 Seminar on Anxiety, and the significance of Lacan’s original interpretation of the Buddhist principle that desire is the cause of suffering. The book reads key Lacanian concepts – such as the objet a, jouissance, the real, Nirvana, and the mirror – through ancient Buddhist teachings and koans. With this focused exploration of psychoanalysis and Chan Buddhism, the authors offer a philosophically grounded cross-cultural approach to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis in Asian countries. Lacan and Chan Buddhist Thought will be a rich resource for psychoanalysts, academics, and students interested in Lacan and religion, the intellectual and cultural relationship between Asian and Western thought, and Mahayana Buddhism more generally.

This book vigorously engages Lacan with a spiritual tradition that has yet to be thoroughly addressed within psychoanalytic literature—the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. The book offers a unique engagement with a faith system that highlights and extends analytic thinking. For those in formation within the Orthodox tradition, this book brings psychoanalytic insights to bear on matters of faith that may at times seem opaque or difficult to understand. Ultimately, the authors seek to elicit in the reader the reflective and contemplative posture of Orthodoxy, as well as the listening ear of analysis, while considering the human subject. This work is relevant and important for those training in psychoanalysis and Orthodox theology or ministry, as well as for those interested in the intersection between psychoanalysis and religion.

Interest in the psychotherapeutic capacity of Buddhist teachings and practices is widely evident in the popular imagination. News media routinely report on the neuropsychological study of Buddhist meditation and applications of mindfulness practices in settings including corporate offices, the U.S. military, and university health centers. However, as Ira Helderman shows, curious investigators have studied the psychological dimensions of Buddhist doctrine for well over a century, stretching back to William James and Carl Jung. These activities have shaped both the mental health field and Buddhist practice throughout the United States. This is the first comprehensive study of the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have related to Buddhist traditions. Through extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews with clinicians, many of whom have been formative to the therapeutic use of Buddhist practices, Helderman gives voice to the psychotherapists themselves. He focuses on how they understand key categories such as religion and science. Some are invested in maintaining a hard border between religion and psychotherapy as a biomedical discipline. Others speak of a religious-secular binary that they mean to disrupt. Helderman finds that psychotherapists' approaches to Buddhist traditions are molded by how they define what is and is not religious, demonstrating how central these concepts are in contemporary American culture.

In this book, Cooper brings together psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism by offering a comprehensive and integrated model, described as "The Realizational Model", that is consistent with the core concepts of Soto Zen Buddhism and psychoanalytic practice. Focusing primarily on Soto Zen Buddhism as presented in the original writings of the Japanese scholar monk Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), and supported and elaborated by relevant contemporary scholarship in relation to the writings of the British psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion (1897-1979), this book addresses the issue of how can one understand, assimilate, and integrate conceptions of the human mind that originate in the 13th and 20th centuries, as they are visited and inflected by the unconscious preconceptions of a 21st-century perspective. Expressing authentic Buddhist tradition within the frame of psychoanalytic thinking, and supported by online guided audio meditations that accompany the text, this work offers a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective of invaluable clinical significance. Case material garnered from 35 years of psychoanalytic practice as well as examples from daily life support the abstract concepts discussed in the text, rendering it equally relevant for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as students of Zen wishing to explore its practical applications.

This book examines Lacanian psychoanalysis and Christian mystical theology demonstrating the former’s potential for reinvigorating spiritual direction. The author outlines how current methods of spiritual direction become saturated with self-help psycho-pop methodologies, and that desire has therefore been foreclosed in these practices. He suggests that the root of this is a focus on ‘positive affective experientialism’, which means spiritual direction must focus on emotional wholeness, healing and positivity. Finally, he argues that a new dialogue between John of the Cross (a mystic whose writings on spiritual direction formulate part of the core of the Catholic spiritual tradition) and Jacques Lacan can open the way for a spiritual direction beyond the confines of experientialism. The book concludes that we can only escape the experiential commodification of spiritual direction by critiquing the drive to experience in and of itself. This novel work will appeal in particular to students and scholars of psychoanalysis, religion, philosophy and critical theory.

In Reimagining Zen in a Secular Age André van der Braak uses Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age to describe the encounter between Japanese Zen Buddhism and Western modernity. He proposes how Dōgen’s thought offers resources for a reimagining of Zen.