[WOLFGANG]
Nietzsche pointed out the most dangerous person
in the world is a philosopher because it comes
in everything it was agreed on is no longer
clear, it confuses everyone and tonight we
have a founding professor of EGS, he was here
on the first year and he has coming back every
time he can.
On his book one can read “the most dangerous
man in the world”.
[ZIZEK]
Philosopher.
[WOLFGANG]
Now you have the most dangerous man in the
world.
Please welcome Slavoj Zizek
[ZIZEK]
Thanks very much for the great number of you
here, just a couple of points before I’ll
begin, three points basically.
First I must publicly, I promised this to
myself, to apologize to my good friend Christopher
that I was not here yesterday, I mean he is
one of my absolute persons, the reason I'm
here, and I was just ehm I have my problems
with...
I was not in a good, yesterday... sorry I
really apologize, on the other hand, so you
will not think something is wrong, I hope
he is not here because I formally prohibited
Alain Badiou to come here.
No, no, seriously because you know?
He has some health problems and he came yesterday
tired and I saw him, we have lunch this afternoon
and with it the usual communist plotting against
different persons and so on ... he wasn't
here ... ehm.
Third thing, may it surprise you but I decided
that, because we debated it a lot in my class,
that I will talk about buddhism and it is
very open, so please don't take this as a
rhetorical point, I'm not sure how deep I'm
into it, and
even if, I will be very critical, this is
more kind of a series of remarks to provoke
you because I know that some of you are probably
much more substantially in it than me, myself…So,
why deal with buddhism?
Is it just the fashion so that we in the west
feel more organic, holistic or whatever?
No, I claim that there are two features which
account for the, let's called naively, actuality
of buddhism in our today’s global capitalist,
whatever we called it, predicament.
As we all know two features characterize our
civilization today to put it very naively:
a global capitalism with its unheard dynamics;
and second: science, the role of science;
and I claim in both domains buddhism, and
I'm not going now into if it’s an authentic
one or not?
bla bla bla, but some references of buddhism,
if not crucial at least it plays a very interesting
role.
First I would like to begin with what may
be dismissed, but I don't think it is as simple
as that, as some kind of a comical western
copy of authentic buddhism so called western
buddhism, by this I mean groups in the west
who practice buddhism and so on and so on.
Now if you follow this trends a little bit
you may have noticed something, how western
buddhism presents itself as the remedy against
the stressful  tensions of capitalist dynamics
allowing us to uncouple from this frenetic
and frenzy rhythm and retain inner peace and
enlightenment, but I claim, and do you know
what take me to think this?
When I read, I don't know in what journal,
an interesting analysis of let's called it
if not religious, spiritual trends among top
managers, businessmen of today, and to cut
a long story short, 80% are what they claim
tibetan buddhist or whatever you called it,
practicing so called, ehm, meditation, and
I can understand it because in so far as,
if you are really engage in modern capitalism
at its craziest you know?
like It is really as one of the top managers
claimed, that when he studied buddhist ontology
the way he understood it, the idea of being,
as you probably know, the fragility of existence,
all are fleeting phenomena everything can
fall apart at every point…
He said but that this is our market today,
you know?
One rumor everything falls apart.
So he got it correctly this manager, sorry
I forgot his name, he said if you really want
to be fully engage in this market you get
crazy, so what you need is a kind of an inner
distance which tells you OK it’s the crazy
market, to teach you how to participate in
it without being fully existentially engage
in it, that's why businessmen like this bullshit
you know? even if I speculate all day it is
just a cosmic play for me, I'm aware of the
nothingness of it, it means nothing.
It functions perfectly, which is why, to conclude
this first point, I think that if Marx Weber
were to rewrite his legendary book on capitalist
protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism
today the title of the book would have been,
I’m sure, the taoist or buddhist ethic and
the spirit of global capitalism or something
like that.
Now more seriously, no no no, wait a minute,
let me make one point, I cannot resist it,
it’s in my nature to make so called bad
taste jokes but I take buddhism extremely
seriously, it’s absolutely an authentic,
I don't like the term because it is itself
western orientalist, let's called it subjective
existential experience.
So the other reason, for me at least much
more interesting is what some people call
the so called cognitivist breakthrough, the
new stage of our understanding of our brain,
our thinking, provided by whatever you called
them, brain sciences, cognitivism and so on.
Now  I don't want to deal with the problem
like are they true or not?
What I’m just saying is that more and more
they are somehow generally received, even
those who should resisted it most, psychoanalysts,
you know?
Often play the game of how you call this?
If you can't beat them join them, you know?
They like to claim “oh but you see how cognitivist
scientists are arriving up, this is just a
paraphrase of what already Freud knew and
so on” you know?
This kind of a join the enemy.
OK, but there is none the less one interesting
point for me and here I agree with, ehm, we
have many problems with me and Wolfgang, but
at one point I agree with him and I will make
this point that if we want to retain Martin
Heidegger as a reference it’s crucial not
to read Heidegger along the lines of some
kind of anti-technological or romanticism,
you know?
Heidegger walking in his stupid forest up
there and cursing all the technology bla bla.
No, Heidegger was quite rational here, I read
in one biography of Heidegger that like, OK
it is nice that authentic Todtnauberg, but
at the end he wanted air conditioning, full
electricity and so on, you know?
Ok, so what I'm saying is that the question
we should ask in this spirit is is a very
naive one, if we really accept, we don't have
to but if the results of brain sciences which
is ... but this already to be debated, but
i don't want to enter it... that our subjective
freedom or the unity of our ego as a free
and responsible agent is an illusion that
in reality we are just a well functioning
neuronal mechanism?
Whatever you put it.
Ok, the problem is how to subjectivize this?
that is to say how should or does this affect
your inner most, but not some deep metaphysical,
even everyday sense of an agent engaging in
social life and so on and so on?
So here I think that buddhism to be vulgar
is doing quite well without any irony because
there are three main attitudes the way I can
see it, I mean only I'm talking only about
those who accept cognitivist breakthrough,
and buddhism is the fourth one I think.
The first predominant attitude is simple to
resign ourselves to the gap between the scientific
view of ourselves as neuronal automata, whatever
you want, and our everyday self experience
as free responsible autonomous agents.
The idea is that because off, you can be very
materialist here, because of how we were produced
through evolutionary choice and so on so on,
it we can not but experience ourselves as
free responsible agents and so on, so that
we are simply condemned to live in the gap.
Scientifically we know but in everyday life,
you know?
It’s like the same, some of them like to
use this metaphor, as we know very well how
big moon is but you cannot help perceiving
moon as the small circle up there, that is
the same, we cannot step out.
The second attitude, the worst if you ask
me, is the, I hope again we agree here we
have many other reasons to kill each other
so here we can agree, this is my declaration
of love if you didn't get it, you know? is
the habermasian position which is, he also
fully asserts the duality but not as a necessary...
but the non-naturalist aspects, is for Habermas
not simply as an illusion we should tolerate,
but a kind of a transcendental a priori which
is necessary and even points to an immanent
limitation of scientific knowledge.
No, this Habermas's reasoning is here a very
transcendental philosophical one, it’s that
science is a certain social practice, intersubjective
practice where, you know? we formulate universal
statements, we confront them through experiments
in a debate bla bla, and in this practice
the transcendental a priori of this practice,
is that we are free responsible being reasoning
in a certain way and so on.
So even if the result for example of our scientific
investigation is we are neuronal puppets,
whatever, we should not forget that this result
is the result of an exercise of our transcendental
freedom of scientific thinking which is a
priori you know? we cannot say no! that is
false, if you neglect that the result also
disappears.
Then we have an even more naive but in a way
sympathetic to me attitude, that of some radical
brain scientists like the big couple from
La Joya I think California, Patricia and Paul
Churchland, they claim, I don't think it works
what i'm saying, but it’s a beautiful position...
They claim that no! they claim that our term
among some brain scientists for this everyday
attitude is as you probably know folk psychology,
no? this spontaneous idea, my god, I do whatever
I want, we are free and so on, OK.
They claim that this folk psychology doesn't
have such a deep status as some darwinists
think, that it’s not a kind of a biological,
evolutionary a priori but simply
a reflection of our old naive ideologies.
They say self like in old times when, I think
this is even by Patricia Churchland, an example,
when so called primitive people saw a lighting
they thought God is sending us a message or
there is a higher force behind and they claim
when we act, I think 'oh!
I have a free self in me' which is the true
source of it it’s exactly the same type
of superstition and in the same way that even
if you are scared shit of a storm as I am
I admit it, specially if you are in the plane
when it happens, you know?
nonetheless at least mostly I succeed not
starting to pray and claiming you know?
 like you naturalize it, we no longer think
like so called primitives … They, the Churchland
couple, they think the same thing is possible
with even with our freedom of the will and
self and in a pretty naive way they described
how such a society would had looked, that
it wouldn’t be simply a society without
punishment as some people think, mainly the
idea being, if I’m an automaton and there
is no freedom of the will
what right do you have to punish me?
I'm not responsible, no, for them punishment
can nonetheless be a regulative mechanism
which works and so on, just a more kind, less
oppressive society and so on.
The reason I don't agree with this solution
is its implicitly naivety and the one who
is my good guy here, the german brain scientist,
maybe you should invite him, he didn’t want
to come or what?
Thomas Metzinger, it would be really nice
to get him,
maybe you can (refering to Wolfgang) if he
has some son blackmail him like you know?
mafia, everything is permitted to get good
people here to Saas-Fee, you know?
maybe your son will have an accident, who
knows? if you don't come, no, he is very well
how this type of simple acceptance ‘OK so
what? we change our view’ still leaves,
even if in works, it recognizes it ‘yeah
I admitted it , what's the problem?
OK I'm an automaton what the hell?’ but
the de facto in your activity you
still treat yourself as the good old free
self, you don't really existentially accept
it and here again we come to buddhism because
Metzinger, who is a serious scientist not
some kind of a shitty new ager like those
who claim, you know? the tao of quantum physics,
we are not talking about that, he is in but
at the same time for very precise reasons,
although he is also totally materialist, he
is buddhist in the sense that he claims that
although it may appear that we are, as the
first position which I described claims, that
we are condemned to this duality, that is
to say scientifically we know we are neuronal
automata but in your immediately self experience
you experience yourself as free agent and
so on and so on, that there is nonetheless
possible as a limit case and this for him
as you can guess would have been precisely
when you arrive at enlightenment in buddhism,
when you accept so called Anatman that your
self does not have any substantial identity
that... and this is beautiful thesis, I like
it in a way... that, and again he is not in
that sense a mysticist, he claims that he
is totally a scientist, he just claims that
if you go to the end in buddhist meditation
where you arrive a stage of, this is one popular
book on buddhism by John Epstein I think which
is not so bad, the title is “Thoughts Without
A Thinker”, that literally you arrived at
a stage where you have thoughts but you no
longer can say there is an I agent who is
thinking this thoughts and that he claims,
although for large majority of us, he puts
it very nicely, we can't, he agrees with the
first position, we can't scientifically objectively
accept as an object of study our brain, OK,
we are automata, but he puts this beautifully,
his says we simply cannot really believe in
it in our everyday life, even if you claim
‘OK, so what?
I’m so kind off automaton’ in our innermost
identity you cannot really believe this except
if you come to the end of buddhist meditation.
I love this position although, and Metzinger
is aware of this, although, do you know that?
and that is the beauty of all this debates:
cognitive scientists, buddhism; because you
know?
many of them are idiots but some of them are
really bright guys and they know it, for example...
My God I forgot his name... there is a scientist
jewish, because this affects his notion of
free will, he is so well known in San Francisco,
his name will come to me, who is the very
author of the crucial experiment... his name
will come to me, i'm sorry...
Benjamin Libet, you know? the author of the
crucial experiment demonstrating, allegedly,
that there is no free will, you know? is that
famous experiment where... don't ask me how,
i'm giving you a Reader's Digest simplified
version... that he wires your neurons and
then he asks you to do some extremely elementary
gesture, for example, grab this pen and he
tells you just to say now drop it or whatever
to somehow signal the moment you decided,
OK you know the story, I don't know how much
part of the second before you decide your
brain already knows it, signals are already
on the way, but now comes the beauty, this
is why I like this guy, a big shock to this
common gang of morons stupid flat scientists
is that they automatically took this as a
proof of there is no free will, because when
you think you decide you just, what's the
term?
take cognizance, assume what your brain has
already decided it but this is not, you see?
this are intelligent guys, this is not Libet’s
position and he has, that's why not of any
anti-semitism or praising the jews, that is
why I emphasises that he is a jew because
he makes here a very nice theological, but
he is a materialist just as spiritual point,
reference to the ten commandments, prohibitions,
and he claims, although it’s also very problematic
topic, that we are looking for freedom of
the will at the wrong point, that the basic,
he is very hegelian here negativity that the
basic form of freedom is not I do this, there
we are overdetermined by neurons bla bla,
but to stop it, in that split of a part of
a second when I do this (drops the pen) I
can stop it and that is the form of freedom,
It’s beautiful, then if you want a more
complex counter-argumentation, Daniel Dennett,
who again he is like a mix, sometimes too
stupid but sometimes bright, has also a wonderful
attack on this primitive reading of Libet,
his point is, very Derridean almost, a minimum
of, he almost calls it differénce temporality
of the brain, he says that there is no
freedom only if you presuppose what he wrongly
I think Daniel Dennett calls the so called
central Cartesian self where ultimately things
happen at the same point, you know? if this,
if you presuppose this then you can say I
decided this but it already happened, but
you must first presuppose an homogeneous central
agent with
basic temporality, if you renounce this then
this primitive conclusion doesn't work.
I'm telling you this why? just to let you
know that I’m not as if I were totally bluffing,
you know? that I know that things are more
complex, but OK.
Now, this is just the introduction, you know?
you've got the idea why I think buddhism is
not just a kind of an amusing, exotic reference,
but it means something spiritually today in
our own constellation because it, again, it
appears to be the ideal form of functioning
in today's
crazy, frantic capitalism, at the same time
it appears to be the proper mode of subjectivization
of the results of modern science, though how
do things stand with it? now I'll go to an
even more problematic stance and then I will
try to turn directly into buddhism, it will
be of course... here I have 45 min or what?
very short, but please believe me I do bluff
a little bit but I know more than what’s
in here you know?
OK.
So as you all know, let me begin with the
beginning: buddhism, we all know, is concerned
with solving the problem of suffering so its
first axiom, as it were, automatic presupposition
is not only we but known living being wants
to suffer, OK, I will not go now immediately
into it but for me as a Freudian-Lacanian
I will say here already problems began.
I don't, I think that if there is something
which is from a Freudian standpoint not truth
is that we don't want to suffer and not only,
I'm not going here in some obscure masochism
or whatever, I just would like to invoke to
you, I will be very pathetic here even in
the sense of melodrama, imagine yourself passionately
in love, isn't it that if you are truth to
yourself and you can be, no cognitive discordance
here, you know very well or you suspect that
at the end it will probably end bad, that
whatever will happen at the end it will be
for you terrible suffering, whatever, but
nonetheless, and I've spoken with people to
whom this happened, passionately in love and
then dropped and now I'm quite open and I
was one of those people whom I've spoken,
heaven, but you know? when it ends in catastrophe,
just suffering, and then a friend ask me the
usual question: now you probably regret it,
my answer was automatic: no!
I will have done it again, you know?
so I simply think that there is in our passionate
engagement certain logic where you are ready
fully to buy final fiasco, incredibly suffering,
but you are ready to do it again, you know?
but OK I will come to this later.
Now let's go through buddhist doxa, the source
of suffering lies in the unquenchable desire
of people for things which even if they get
them will never satisfy them and it’s this
satisfaction which causes suffering.
So, the goal of the buddhist practice is,
as we all know, is liberation from suffering,
we can called it reaching nirvana, enlightenment,
awakening, whatever you want and everything
a buddhist does is ultimately for the attainment
of this enlightenment.
Buddhist practice first as we all know focuses
on a morality that will lead to enlightenment,
you know how it began for Buddha?
He first establishes the fact life is this
wheel of desire, it’s suffering, then he
defines the causes of suffering and then the
way to fight them and here, at least the moment
buddhism became an institution, it of course
introduced a certain gradualism in the sense
that first it begins with a simple morality,
everyday morality, which is supposed to as
it were paved, prepared the way, or put us
on the path to enlightenment but as they emphasise,
buddhists, it's not enough just to regulate
your conduct or how you act, this should culminate
in enlightenment, and the point of all this
is enlightenment.
This is already interesting because you know
why?
I read recently in a book, I think is a book
of the guy, very interesting guy, I think...
what's the title?
Buddha's consciousness or what?
(The Bodhisattva’s Brain) Owen Flanagan,
one of the cognitivists scientists who is
also doing Buddhism, draws attention, and
here begins ours western distortion, to an
interesting fact that for us in the west if
you say i'm a buddhist it usually means I
practice some stupid transcendental meditation
or whatever, it's automatically meditation,
while he draws attention to the fact that
for the majority of the nations, I don't know,
Thailand, I don't know which others where
real buddhism is a way of life for the majority,
the large majority of people don’t meditate.
For them being a buddhist means two things,
first to respect this ethic, moral rather
than ethical, moral rules, you know?
don't be violent, don’t cause suffering
bla bla, and where does then meditation enter?
it is very interesting, it is just as a kind
of an imagined presupposed point of reference;
you need, even if they don’t exist to be
cynical, you need to know that there are some
people who made it to the end, you know?
so that it gives you hope, it is more, it’s
kind of this subject to paraphrase Lacan subject
presupposed to meditate, people need it as
a fix point of reference.
OK, so let's go on.
How do we then fight our enslavement to desires?
Here we have the first point of buddhism which
is I think very nice materialist, there are
no higher powers, you should forget about
those later religious misreadings of Karma
and so on and so on.
The idea is simple that karma or faith triggered
by your desires, actions, is a kind of, is
immanent today to the way we act, because
as buddhists like to point out, you know?
they have this wonderful, no wonder even some
stalinists-marxists like it, the idea of codependent
origination, you know?
what Stalin called the ‘dialectical unity
of all phenomena’ to be slightly cynical,
no? so  the idea, I precisely try to give
you an idea of karma which is not some kind
of a divine out there, it’s simply that
our acts being part of a rich texture of the
world leave traces, have consequences, some
consequences are good, wholesome, others are
not and so on and in this way to deal with
your karma means to regulate, try to diminish
negative traces, consequences of your acts
and, again, as you all know, i'll just quickly
enumerate them just to give you an idea of
basically how, in a good sense, it’s not
a criticism, how common sense this first step
of basic morality is.
You have this buddhist classification where
they claim actions can occur at three levels:
body, speech and mind; and at each level,
already Buddha but it was elaborated later,
proposes a whole categorization of bad acts
as it were.
First at the level of body there are acts
which are to be avoided: killing, stealing,
sexual misconduct, by misconduct is not meant
so much perversion or what, but this excessive
passion, excessive attachment.
Then at the level of speech, four actions:
lying, hard speech, slander, malicious gossip;
and at the level of mind: greed, anger, delusion.
So, the idea is that this is widely the first
step as it were calm yourself down in what
buddha calls the middle way, not the Tony
Blair's third way, but a more authentic middle
way, you know?
like neither excess of, I don't know, gluttony,
sex or whatever; but also not some kind of
sadomasochistic radical renunciation and so
on and so on.
The goal of all this is to acquire dispassion,
as some translated, for the objects of clinging
to which we cling, that is to say, the point
is your subjective attitude of how much you
cling, you attach yourself to objects, because,
again, you all know this, i'm just repeating
it, this what in buddhism is called samsara
is precisely this wheel of life, of suffering,
and the point, this is crucial I think without
this you don't get it, is not that from bad
samsara we should get good samsara or karma,
the point is not if you do, this would be
the western reading, if you do bad things
you will have bad karma so let’s do good
things to get good karma so when you die you
will profit, no no, here buddhism is not this
type of bullshiting it’s serious, the point
is not to get good karma, the point is to
step out of it.
But again i'm well aware how refine this is,
stepping out doesn't mean Melancholia, Von
Trier, the End of the World; in one version
of buddhism even nothing has to change materially
only your, let's called it although it sounds
too Californian, your attitude.
Now I see slowly emerging problems which are
not imported by me, I registered this problems,
the very ambiguities, conflicts, the way I
found them in the buddhists teaching itself,
OK.
The guy, sorry for the vulgarity, who reaches
this state of acquiring distance, maybe the
term stepping out is wrong because we have
nowhere to go out, there is no transcendence
in buddhism, that is the beautiful about it,
as you know it’s called Bodhisattva, the
one who is concerned with freeing all sentient
beings not just himself or herself, even not
just humans from Samsara and it’s cycle
of death, rebirth and suffering.
But what makes it so difficult, so interesting
here is that, and this brings me to the first
conflict that I see, OK, conflict tension,
you know that traditionally at least according
to my informations, we get three levels or
notions of bodhisattva, they’re called very
nicely king-like bodhisattva, boatman bodhisattva
and shepard bodhisattva.
King bodhisattva aspires to become buddha
as soon as possible and then help all others,
like I do it myself, I try to reach nirvana,
and the wager is by doing this, either me
as an example or by acting in a more gentle
way, I will help others.
Boatman is already more communist, you know?
the idea is yes but not me alone together
with others.
Now the highests, according to some classifications,
but for me I agree here with critics with
the other tendencies of buddhism, the lowest,
the most dangerous, where things go really
wrong is sheperd-like bodhisattwa, the idea
is the following one: that the greatest ethical
act is that you reach enlightenment but out
of compassion for all those who are, as they
called it the greatest work of american literature,
i’m making joke, did you read the cycle
of novels from, how are they called it?  by
Tim LaHaye ‘Left Behind’? the lowests
of the low, OK, what I want to said, I mean
it’s really like Dan Brown is Shakespeare
compared to them.
But what I want to say is that, so again that
should will be the great ethical act, you
are there eternal bliss bla bla but out of
compassion you go back into the wheel of suffering
and so on and so on like, you know? you give
priority to others you say no I don't have
the right to enjoy it myself, I’ll go back
to help others, this delaying stepping it
back.
But some, I was told maybe i'm wrong many
of you must know it better, there are other
buddhists made accounter, OK, in traditionally
buddhism there is a kind of a graduation here,
you know? the lowest, the king bodhisattva
‘I’ll do it fuck you, you are following
or not’, you know? then the shepherd like
type communists, you know? and then the highest
one, I was up there but uh I came in infinite
goodness, I came down to help you all.
But some theravada guys and they are immediately
on their side, they make a nice argument,
even if the core of authentic buddhism is
not, has nothing to do with this ridiculous
European spirituality uh I move up there into
a higher domain, no, I stayed here, I'm fully
here, I eat the same apples like you, whatever,
it is just my attitude totally changed, I'm
still socially active, I even, it even doesn't
mean to attain nirvana that you meditated,
that you are in a some kind of pseudo orgasmic
spiritual trance
if this is true and authentic, buddhists always
emphasise this, you know? that this vision
of buddhists saying of someone hiding in a
cave and just trembling bla bla bla that it’s
false, so, if this is true, why then the necessity
to step back? you can act like buddha and
so on, you can attain nirvana and at the same
time be active here.
The idea is, and I think again this is the
origin of catastrophe, this idea, you know?
the moment somebody who wants to redeem you
here we us nietzscheans should agree, both
how good he was that he sacrificed himself,
don't trust the guy you know?
OK.
So, what do I mean by this?
Now I'll come to another, please I'm here
openly exposing myself, I'm not kidding this
is not rhetorics do your criticism if you
know more, I noticed another problem here,
on the one hand some radical buddhists, radical
means I like them I'm sorry, describe in a
wonderful way how authentic buddhism deals
with suffering, you first isolate the cause
of suffering and blame the others, for example
‘oh I was deprived of that pleasure, fuck
the world and so on, why me? this is the eternal
why me?
question, you know?
like children are starving in Somalia OK I’ll
give them five dollars a month to make me
feel good but why me? or my child?’.
The idea is that of course the first thing
to do is to precisely stop blaming the circumstances,
blame your desire and then extinguish, although
I don't like this term distinguish because
it’s too violent in the wrong way, but here
is a quote: "what has always been, what was
extinguished when you stepped out of samsara,
cycle of suffering, it’s only the false
view of the self,  what had always been illusionary
was understood as such, nothing was changed
but the perspective of the observant, so I
know this and again correct me if i'm wrong,
I know this here the following tension which
from my reading on my books on history of
buddhism, is all present there and it mirrors
precisely this first tension in the notion
of bodhisattva, ‘should I simple go there?
and this way? is it the best thing for others?
or, should I play this sacrificial game? no
no I love you so much I stepped back and so
on’.
The problem is that on the one hand we have
this radical description of nirvana which
is everything is different but nothing changes,
you know?
like ‘it’s the same world out there and
so on, just I'm aware of it's illusory nature
and I assume this illusory nature existentially’.
Why? and this I call the minimalist attitude
but then you nonetheless have, especially
attached to this notion of bodhisatwa as the
one who sacrifices himself, the opposite of
what I call it the maximalist attitude ‘I
don't want to reach nirvana before prior to
all other sentient beings reaching it, so
there it’s not just my subjective attitude,
you are aiming effectively at some kind of
a global, as it were, global cosmic change.
The next ambiguity I see is, and again I already
debated this in my class and some of you reproached
me so I did as much of homework as I was able
to do and I still stick to my opinion, that
there are serious debates among within buddhism,
I think this is the third level of the same
tension namely, as you do remember how I described
it? first you do morality, you know?
not too much sex, proper eating, don't curse,
don't be violent, as preparing the way for
enlightenment; but the obvious point here
is, is there any link between the two? this
is a great problem in buddhism, I read many
texts on this were they claim if we are really
honest we have to admit that once you are
in enlightenment nothing imminently prevents
you, for example from torturing people, you
can just say my acts leave no traces because
I'm already at the nirvana level, no karma
and so on and so on.
Now I know what you will say now ‘but nonetheless
where is here compassion for others bla bla
bla?
I'm just making a typical western logical
extrapolation totally out of touch with existential
reality of buddhism’, no, I will give you
immediately proofs, sorry.
Before I’ll go into this, the fourth debate
I encountered is the one where even the Dalai
Lama has some wonderful statements like if
drinking, by drinking he means real alcohol,
helps you, why not? you know?
like the problem is that many, if not all
of the states, described as nirvana, can be
if not totally it gets pretty close to it,
you know?
like they say money is not all, my answer
is usually but it comes pretty close to it,
no?
Ok.
That what if you can induce the experience
which imminently, inherently, fits nirvana
in a biochemical way with some drugs or whatever?
how to distinguish? should we then distinguish
the bad nirvana?
‘I’ll take a pill fuck you I'm there’
and then the good nirvana?
‘i was torturing myself meditating for years
whatever’, as some guys, but here I don't
agree with them, try to introduce here an
ethical distinction, quote from Owen Flanagan
"cases where happiness is gained by magic
pills or is due to false belief do not count
because the allegedly happy person must be
involved in cultivating her own virtue.
Happy states born of delusion are undeserved"
but I think this is totally non-immanent,
once you are in you are in, who cares how
you got there?
Ok, back to that problem of suffering, compassion
and so on, let me give you a little bit to
shock you and then... yeah, yeah, I will stop
then, to shock you, some of my all stuff,
a little bit of buddhism and war, because
you know?
like buddhism did dealt with this problem,
specially  interesting is here the relationship
between japanese zen buddhism and war and
it’s interesting to know what tricks this
zen buddhism employed to justified taking
part in war.
First there are two main strategies in zen
buddhism, the first one to justified, participating
in war, that is to say killing people whatever
to be clear; the first one is the standard
teleological narrative which is even
well known in our western societies, a quote,
I think this quote is from Teitaro Suzuki
the great popular writer: “even though the
buddha forbade the taking of life he also
thought until all sentient beings are reunited
together through the exercise of infinite
compassion there will never be peace, therefore
as a mean to bring this harmony those things
which are incompatible killing and war are
necessary", you know? the usual trick, you
know?
like...
My God i'm sorry to tell you but Hitler would
have argued you like this, he would had said
‘I'm totally against suffering, I want peace
but fuck it, there will be no peace as long
as jews are manipulating our needs, so the
only way to really fight for peace is to give
to the jews, to be cynical, one way first
class ticket to Auschwitz’, no?
I mean, Ok.
So again did you listened precisely what this
passage says, it’s the very force of compassion
which guilts the sword, a true warrior kills
out of love, and Suzuki was consequently here,
you know? when he wrote many texts supporting
japanese war effort in China, he said "the
chinese are like stupid children, they cannot
get that the sword which it's killing them
now is really the sword of love".
He even proposed so much, fuck you if you
even think you will squeeze out by compassion.
Suzuki and some other japanese buddhists introduced
the wonderful term of compassionate war like,
you know? you do it precisely out of compassion
to prevent further att.. now comes the truth
horror, OK this is the western bullshit also,
we had it.
But Suzuki and others then add to this teleological,
let's call it justification in the sense of
war is a necessary evil to bring about the
greater good, no? and of course in a certain
way I agree with it, I mean I'm not going
to bri... there is a much more radical line
of reasoning which is, I really find this
one terrifying and OK, look into my book,
I think it’s 'The Puppet And The Sword'
but I don’t want to repeat myself so I developed
this in detail; namely Suzuki also dealt with
this problem, how to make the japanese military
machinery more efficient? he knew well that
we have a certain elementary decency like,
lets say you are my love partner, I meet you
Wolfgang in a battlefield and even if I hate
you I would find it somehow difficult  to
stab my knife or sword into you.
Here Suzuki enters and says ‘I have this
difficulty because I'm still caught in the
false illusion of my self, you know? because
I still think I'm the agent of my acts I feel
falsely responsible and so on but, quote from
Suzuki, a beautiful one: "if, the logic is
that, if I
reach nirvana then I no longer experience
myself as an acting agent responsible for
the act but, you know is this very beautiful?
I admitted, this buddhist view of the world
as a free flow of phenomena where I whatever
remains of me, I'm no longer an agent but
just a pure gaze, an impassive observer which
meditates on this crazy dance.
This makes things easier because here, quote
from Suzuki: “when I try to kill some of
you it is really not me, but the sword itself
that does the killing, he (the killer) has
no desire to do harm to anybody but the enemy
appears and makes himself a victim, it is
although the sword performs automatically
its function of justice
which is the function of mercy".
Now, are you? and please don't just tell me
that this are the freaky japanese and so on,
all around you find this idea that, all around
buddhism, that
reaching nirvana, getting rid of your false
self makes you a much better warrior.
This is why you have this long mythology of,
you know?
zen buddhists as perfect samurai because you
can do it with proper distance and so on and
so on.
So if you allow me now from here just to,
I mean I should squeeze it now, two concluding
points.
The one is that here I see, I cannot... (a
butterfly appears) My God I feel like a bad
buddhist, let's squash that! take a sentient
being! good! he killed a sentient being! but
you know this will worsen your karma, you
know? in the next life maybe instead of being
an even greater philosopher you will be reborn
as that butterfly, who knows?
Sorry, I’m not making fun, but I hope, let
me, you know why not? because, do not please
misunderstand me and that's my, I'm open to
say this tragedy here, I'm not in anyway saying
that
buddhist enlightenment is some kind of a joke
to make killers or military better functioning,
it's an absolutely authentic existential experience,
all I'm saying is that we have to accept the
gap and again Suzuki is here honest, he says
buddhism is a technique of stepping out of
the karma and bla bla and he says you can
be (his examples) a stalinist, a fascist,
a liberal, democrat, whatever, it doesn't
matter, so I think to be a truly radical buddhist
you have to accept the minimal gap between
all those ethical, you know why? because,
let me give you now a really brutal idea,
if the point of acting kindly, the buddhist
moral injunctions and so on compassionate,
if the true point of this morality is to teach
you to bring you this dispassionate attitude
of seeing the illusionary nature of reality
and so on and so on.
And when I, when I was in Korea a month ago,
I debated there with a buddhist and I laughed
him, because he said yes what's the problem?
when I told him wouldn't then be logical to
conclude that the true proof that you are
in nirvana would have been precisely that
you can do horrible things without your acts
leaving traces in your karma?
like, it’s easy to claim I don't cause any
suffering bla bla if you just, you know?
eat properly, don't swear, don't steal, don't
have too much sex and so on and no guilt;
but wouldn't the true strength have been to
do acts which usually involve a kind of a
crazy fanatical attachment, torture, killing,
but to be able to do it in a zen way with
a distance?
Here I go very depressed, when I read a biography
of ha ha he was the one, Pol Pot’s Khmer
Rouge, and it is incredibly how many of his
colleagues claim, people who met him, that
Pol Pot had such an absolutely breathtaking
incredible in direct human relations, his
inner peace and kindness, even when he ordered
you know what, that there was a kind of a
myth all around the Khmer Rouge leadership
that he is in the highest state and so on.
So, what I’m saying here are two things
to conclude.
First: I claim that, and i'm not even taking
sides here, both positions are crazy but I
claim that here we should grasp the gap that
separates buddhism as one radical condition
from let's call it the western christian ethics
which is, I think there is an absolute abyss
here and all those shitty attempts to claim
‘no, we are all talking about the same God
or this things we are wrong’, mainly as
Chesterton and others emphasised, in western
christian ethics the truth is as it were out
there, the whole point is excessive attachment,
what buddhists see as evil is for us the good
itself, good means let's take our love, you
fall in love means, Alain Badiou will probably
talk about too this later, which means you
know you get this excessively attachment,
you throw yourself to the end into it.
In other words, as Chesterton put it so nicely,
all other religions want to unite the world...
how to unite with god? we are all one all
bla bla...
Christianity separates, it is the religion
of separation, Christianity is not a religion
of harmony, It's a religion which says yes
there is some kind of homogeneous, harmonious
circle of life but this is bullshit, this
is the pagan background.
The Christian gesture is to say no!
I do something crazy, I chose this, I stick
to this even if it turns everything around.
Ok, I will, if you allow me just to take this
next three minutes really to conclude, here
also because some people try... this will
be the really concluding part, some people
try to bring together Heidegger and buddhism
claiming again two paths towards the same
and so on, no, I claim not, you know why not?
because for Heidegger what he calls Ereignis,
this radical form of historicity, concealment,
unconcealment and so on and so on, and precisely
this radically historical dimension is missing
in, for Heidegger Ereignis is not nirvana,
Ereignis is an historical event, this dimension
I don't find.
But now if allow me just to conclude and it
is madness because this is the speculative
center of what I'm trying to prove, where
I would have been at the same time where I
would have to entertained a certain distance
towards Heidegger and towards buddhism is
in the following one, and this is not just
ethical, it's much more radical distinction,
you know? as a guy called, if you want to
get more on this there is an interesting book,
very, it's a modest book but very well written,
I think the guy is Bret Davis, I forgot the
title (Zen After Zarathustra) but basically
it’s basically about Heidegger and zen buddhism
and he points to one, to a deep ambiguity
in Heidegger, how Heidegger sometimes he is
radically historicists, you know? in the sense
of like modern nihilism bla bla but somehow
here and there Heidegger locates, let's called
it naively, the origin of evil of how things
go wrong, into the a priori structure of this
closure of being itself, for example I will
read you this short passage from Heidegger’s
Der Spruch des Anaximander where he claims
something which sounds strangely buddhist,
a quote "an entity may even insist bestehen
upon its while... strange translation, it
means the way that goes on I think... solely
to remain more present in the sense of perduring,
that which lingers persist in its presencing,
in this way it extricates itself from its
transitory while (while is here substantive),
it strikes the willful pose of resistance
no longer concerning itself with whatever
else is present, it stiffens as it is the
only way to linger and aims solely for continuance
and subsistence”.
So here HeIdegger says something like the
origin of disturbance is when a thing, and
entity, persists too much, doesn't want to
just be part of circle of life whatever, you
know what is the circle of life?
I hate it, it's, you know?
I think it’s the most oppressive ideology
that you can imagine, this is my old joke
maybe you know it, did you see , I hope you
didn't, the Lion King, and you know when where
you find there the song the circle of life
precisely when the son asks his father the
obvious question, is this right that we lions
eat zebras? and father, it's easy when you
are on the top, sings the song wich is ‘it’s
all a circle of life, we eat zebras but we
will die, we will turn into dust, our flesh
will feed grass and grass will be eaten by
zebras so it's all one big circle of life’
no? so all I'm tempted to say is imagine in
Beautiful Life, the movie by Benigni, the
son asking him father but why are germans
killing us jews? and I can well imagine Roberto
Benigni singing back ‘it’s all one big
circle of life, you know?
jews are killing us but we will die and we
will turn into food, our maneuver for grass,
grass will be eaten by cows and one of us
will kill a cow and we will eat the cow so
it is a big circle of life, you know?’
like, you know what's the point here?
the point, the point is yeah but what if there
are differents circles of life, maybe let's
hope there is a circle of life where you exactly
you don't have to do holocaust let's hope,
no.
But seriously now comes my final thesis, I
will just try to hint it, if you want more
read my big fat book.
My thesis is that enlightenment is an authentic
position but comes afterwards that, lets say
that at animal level immediately we are simply
fully emerged in life and there is no fall,
we are there like animals but how do you create
the space for nirvana, void or whatever by
acquiring a distance from being fully immersed
into ordinary life? and this distance is true
obsessive attachment, that is to say to be
primitive how do, it's very naive, I developed
it much more technically in the book, how
do animals become humans? when you say, no
no sorry Mr. Lion King it's not a circle of
life, there is this woman, politically idea
... I get fixated on that, if the whole world
drops, I want that, you know? this fixation
de naturalizes you, throws you out of the
circle and in this way, that's my claim, creates
the space for withdrawal for nirvana, you
cannot get into nirvana directly from full
immersion into natural life, you must fall,
fall in the sense of excessive attachment
and this fall creates the void where you have
to withdraw.
Now really to conclude, look I don't even
have a paper, this brings me, and here I'm
not kidding, I'm sincerely asking you if you
know more, I spoke with some guys here, this
brings me to the crucial enigma that I find
in buddhism and again very respectfully this
is not a critical remark, you know?
Buddha says the fact is people suffer, how
to get them out? as a hegelian I like the
opposite question, not how to get out but
how did we fall in? and here, and this is
the question I'm asking people, is simply
samsara affected or was there some kind of,
you know illusion of maya? but, how did we
get caught into this illusion? and I can make
a report to you I've got three answers.
The first one is the totally pragmatist one:
Buddha is a practical guy, he is not, this
is a concrete answer, I'm not mocking it,
Buddha was a practical guy, his problem was
how to get out of suffering, he didn't care
about this metaphysical questions.
The second answer is a version of the first
one but it is more a tricky one, a little
bit of a sophism, it says to understand how
this, how the follower, you have to be already
there in nirvana but once you are there you
don't care about this, you know? it is a kind
of like a trick.
The third one, and some tibetans that I met
in Beijing half illegally told me, I really
like that, here I can identify with buddhism,
they told me that, they gave me a kind of
a, the name is meant ironically but basically
very seriously, you know in star wars?
now we are talking about real works of art,
you know how they all the time mention this
dark side of power, you know? and this is
I think very hegelian... so you don't simply,
we are caught into earthly confusion but then
there is a higher domain of peace, but what
if something can go terribly wrong in this
nirvana domain itself?
what is you know?
what is we are here in deep shit not because,
or to put it in more agnostic terms of Schelling
and so on, human evil is not because we fell
from God, human evil originates in madness
reversal, something going wrong in God himself,
I know in buddhism you don't have in this
sense God but what they told me this guys
is that and they gave me a wonderful experimental,
experiential reason, they told me, my God
just listen to and I do, it’s really pure
horror, do you know that buddhist music...
they told me this is the voice of evil and
no wonder, do you know who knows this?
FBI, do you remember some 10 years ago they
got to Waco Texas, those  fundamentalists
who were encircled by FBI, do you know what
music FBI played to them to get them out to
terrorize? this buddhist horns and so on and
so on.
So this is I think some kind of a secret of
tibetan buddhism witch, and again it is not
rhetorics what I'm telling now, if you know
anything about me I would... (someone walks
out of the door) it is nice that you want
to take a walk before I'll finish come back
in half an hour.. no, seriously, you see?
this enigma speculative hegelian of how, it
is not just we are here in a world of illusions
and then nirvana what if something can go
wrong up there.
I'm very sorry if I was too long but on the
other hand I'm not sorry, fuck you, what can
you do?
Thank you very much.
