“We know how Buddhism starts. You
know. The problem is suffering. All living beings want happiness,
want to suffer less. Then what is the source of our suffering?
Desire, attachment to objects. You know the story. Here comes my
first problem... If there is a lesson of psychoanalysis, it's
precisely that we want to suffer... a typical (Film) Noir scene, for
example, you get a guy, normal guy, suddenly he's seduced by an evil
femme fatale. His life is ruined at the end, he's betrayed by her,
everything. And at the (..?) of his death, somebody tells him, 'Oh my
god. Now that you know how evil she was. Would you like to go back in
time and start again, avoiding her?' And the typical Noir answer is,
'No, it was worth every moment.' ...This is the true Noir spirit.
Even if I know that it's a catastrophe it was worth it.”
This interesting
provocation from Slavoj Zizek, the popular Marxist thinker
currently promoting his new documentary, is one of many issues
he takes with Buddhism in this video.
Though while quite right to call out westernised “Buddhists”
on their dilutions of its core perspective - in particular the
attempts to parlay it into an underpinning of a 'progressive' middle class
lifestyle - his materialist perspective leaves him incapable of
understanding its essential truth. Both bourgeois westerners and
Marxist philosophers would benefit from first understanding what the
actual teachings of Buddhism amount to.
What is meant by suffering, in
spiritual terms, is not the opposite of happiness, but precisely this
getting caught up in the endless struggle to achieve happiness and
avoid suffering - the natural consequence of attachment to objects.
The opposite to suffering is spiritual enlightenment. This is what
the philosophy is actually about (as opposed to leading a more
pleasant, happy life). It means the human mind opening up to transcendent
consciousness, the formless basis of the material world. From this
perspective, all objects, all energy forms, are viewed with complete
equanimity as parts of a whole the human organism lives in
interconnected harmony with.
It's
worth pointing out here, that Marxist philosophy actually appropriates
this spiritual understanding, reinterpreting it as a secular
end-point to a historical struggle. Here's
Frederick Engels, Marx's collaborator and financial backer: “(T)he
more this progresses [the historical struggle] the more will men not
only feel but also know their oneness with nature, and the more
impossible will become the senseless and unnatural idea of a contrast
between mind and matter, man and nature, soul and body.” (From The
Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Apes to Man, 1876.)
Buddhism,
though, is not opposed to social action. From its perspective, the
human body, embedded in its environment, is naturally involved with
social relations and their organisation. And in a globally-wired up
world, that means it is connected in a tangible and meaningful way
with the organisation of humanity across the planet. But a Buddhist
knows that the deeper the internal perspective - the closer to the
unitive essence of the universe - the more the sense of individualism
and egoic separation is removed. They operate always from a genuine
sense of relationship with everyone, regardless of superficial
differences. Deeply connected with the unifying consciousness that
pervades the universe, they bring clarity and understanding to social
predicaments.
As
for Zizek's point about Noir and the yearning for suffering, it is
easily explained when we understand that he is confusing Buddhist
'happiness' (enlightenment) with pleasure. And that suffering and
pleasure, on the terms he uses to discuss them, are not actually opposites, but
different poles on a continuum. The human mind that cannot grasp its
essential nature feels separated and alone in a world of objects -
some it derives pleasure from, some it is repulsed by. To take the Noir example, this gives
rise to sexual pleasure when communion with an apparently
mutually-attracted human 'object' is engaged. But pleasure comes with
an undercurrent of suffering, because even if unacknowledged, the
sensation is always temporary and dependent on another's compliance,
which can always be withdrawn.
Noir
characters are drawn to formerly unattainable sexual pleasure and
their previously unthinking, innocent happiness is disturbed as a
result. Theirs is a journey to self-knowledge through experience, and
to a deeper understanding of the fragile contracts social
relationships are built on. It is the point of the genre, and why it
is so compelling. It speaks to the deeper sense of truth missing from
films about love that posit romantic coupling as the ultimate
happiness we can achieve. Zizek is entertaining and insightful in his
analysis of films, but only
up to a point. Though the fact he actually attempts to engage with
spiritual philosophy is welcome, and also shows his perspective takes
him beyond the banal simplicities usually found in left-wing, secular
materialist thought.
Pic here
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