The Death of Buddha

[e_dog]

Freud killed the Buddha.

or more precisely, so as not to portray Sigmund as a practicioner of rinzai zen, psychoanalysis ruins eastern religion (as it does romantic love, as it does humanism, as it does existentialism, as it does economics). religion becomes at best sublimation, more probably regression to infantile state.

Thus to follow the Four Noble Truths to their ignobilities:

1b. Life is suffering
can remain
1f. Life is suffering.

2b. The cause of this is desire.
becomes
2f. The cause of this is unfulfilled desire and guilt.

3b. Desire can be overcome.
Becomes
3f. Dissatisfaction cannot ultimately be overcome (or more exactly, it can in theory, but not for most people in the present social order which cannot realistically be improved).

4b. The way to do this is the Eightfold Path.
Becomes
4f. But you might as well at least try and make things better, by paying for intensive psychoanalysis, which ensures the therapist toward a Six-Digit Salary.

[STUPID BOB]

Perhaps it is best Freud did the killing. It keeps us from having to accomplish the task. After all, if you see Buddah in the middle of the road, you're supposed to kill him.

[e_dog]

yes, indeed! (but not
in deed.)

[mtmynd]

...psychoanalysis ruins eastern religion

i don't agree with that statement.

Both are misunderstood by an inept public than brings ruin to both Freud and Buddha.

[perezoso]

Both wrong and thankfully dead, though Sigimundus, in his Civilization and Its Discontents, began to verge on the truth .....

hail thanatos

[mtmynd]

perezoso, mi amigo de la baraunda... opinion is only a line drawn thru the ego and not to be interpreted as the final destination in the quest for truth.

[e_dog]

mtmynd,

let me amend my statement

"psychoanalysis ruins eastern religion" for me.

and if i may speak for the inept public, i am curious how you think Freud has been misunderstood in a way that makes his view compatible with Buddhism. i think its precisely misinterpretors like Jung who make psychanalyse congenial with religion. i suppose that the public has been inept in its reception of Freud, but only because they have not been able to grasp the radically horrifying (because possibly true) and demoralizing nature of his message (as i see it).

for example, since perezoso mentioned Civilization and its Discontents, one of the Doctor's later works. he says that love of humanity (i.e. compassion) is simply an extension of directing sexual libido toward others; in an effort not to be frustrated by being vulnerable to one person, who can e.g. withdraw their love for you, some people, so to speak, diversify the risk in their libinal investments by extending it to larger grouping such as to all of humanity in humanism or 'all sentient beings' in buddhism. but ultimately this is nothing other than displaced sexual drive.

or, take the Freudian explanation of the 'feeling of oneness with the world' proclaimed by religious mysticisms of various sorts. this Freud says is the result of a memory trace of infancy, being held tight by mommy, or even further back in time, to the unborn fetus living in the womb. as Kerouac say: bring me home to the eternal mother . . . .