Whatever the differences in their methods and goals, psychotherapy, existentialism, and Buddhism are concerned with the same fundamental issues of life and death and death-in-life. In Lack and Transcendence, David Loy brings all three traditions together for the first time in a synthesis receptive to the insights of each, thereby casting fresh light on familiar problems. Dr. Loy's work grew out of the cross-fertilization of two basic ideas: the psychotherapeutic concept of repression and the Buddhist doctrine of nonself. Buddhism implies that our primal repression is not fear of death but the quite valid suspicion that "I" am not real. This shift from libido-instinct to the way we understand our situation opens up new perspectives and possibilities which this book explores. Written in a clear, jargon-free style that does not assume prior familiarity with the topics discussed, this book will appeal to a variety of readers including psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, scholars of religion - particularly of Buddhism - Continental philosophers, and literary and culture critics.
One of the best Buddhist texts I've read (and I really dislike Buddhism). Most Buddhist texts I've read seems ahistorical, idealist and individualistic, which is a fucking hoot considering Buddhism's emphasis on materiality, the body and interdependence.
However, David Loy engages critically and systematically with western thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida and (many, many) more. He further draws from a bunch of eastern thinkers (who I'm unfamiliar with) such as Nāgārjuna, Hui-neng, Ma-tsu, Huang-po, Chao-chou and Dōgen.
There's too much in the book for me to summarise chapter by chapter, but Loy's core thesis is a variant of Ernest Becker's (which I will summarise first � though I haven't properly read Becker, so yeet me to the rich if I fuck up). Becker believed that under modernity our desires for love, truth, sex, wealth, fame, sublime aesthetic dissolution, or whatever, were driven by a desire for immortality, because at the core of our being is an anxiety of death. Insecurity, feelings of lack and non-existence, the need to do something � these wayward energies are funneled into immortality projects, objective signifiers of our presence. They prove we were, but ironically, not that we are. By objectifying ourselves, we shift our being onto dead objects. We conjure the very death we fear, and thus, such projects increase our feelings of anxiety, lack and failure.
Now, I'm not sure if this is Becker's solution, but for thinkers such as Heidegger and Nietzsche, their attempts to overcome this immortality project tend to reconstitute it. These guys seem to recognise that immortality through self- or other-objectification is a dead end, or perhaps, an endless dying. However, Loy points out that their solutions of heroic striving, of either future-oriented death fixation or the joyous willing for eternal recurrence, involve an escape of the present, of life as it is lived now. Being-towards-death captures the present in an endless planning, of making sure every damn moment of your life is what you would do in your last breath. Eternal recurrence renders the now a mere justification for the entirety of past and future existence. Both escape the present, immortalising it in various speculative phantasms. Both desire the real where it cannot be found (in the other than here and now).
Ultimately, Loy argues that it is not death anxiety that drives us, but a fear of nihilism, the fear that there is nothing to us. He does this to deconstruct the life-death binary that is so prevalent in Becker (and the rest of western thought). In doing so, he aligns himself with Kierkegaard and Derrida � with their deconstructive methods that end in the ambiguity of nothingness, or perhaps, true infinity. Against an immortal and unchanging eternity, whose image is that of stasis and living death, Loy deploys the infinity of nothingness, of the space before death, life and all other binary logics. Here, in this deconstructed space, is where the self dies, along with all its anxieties of needing to be something (rather than nothing), whether immortal, real, successful, fuckable, or whatever. Practically, the way out of anxiety is to suffer through it, because by letting go of what we think will solve it, we give anxiety no object to latch onto, and when anxiety has no object to latch onto, it can no longer defer indefinitely onwards, jumping here, there and everywhere but where it might finally die � in the space that is itself.
Where something-nothing becomes no-thing.
Yeah, I fucking love this book. Too bad I'm a dumb bitch and ride my anxiety like a bipolar rollercoaster.
Loy intricately crafts the narrative weaving the struggles of finitude within the realm of birth and death into a vast web explaining our personal neuroses, insatiable desires, the fear of insubstantiality (to be more succinct: our groundless self or as Loy terms it: a lack), and how they expand and project into a wego. Not only does he bring up the works of Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Carl Jung, and Irvin Yalom, but he relates the psychoanalytical thought of Ernest Becker alongside existentialism with Buddhism, mystical traditions, and the other enlightenment traditions of India (PLUS countless other figures with added quotes!). Moreover, he even extends the grasp of our communal knowledge of anthropology, transference, attachment, and Heroism to that of a general analysis of nations and societies with their own diverse dialectical structures.
The words seem to trickle down the pages in a downpour of the utmost truisms, cascading the the known with the unknown in pool of groundless timelessness. The book really does speak for itself. Any added verbiage would be to detract from its heightened, exposing points. I really love how Loy accumulates a variety of thinkers while staying lucid and clear. Something even more fascinating is how he relates them into one hermeneutical study seemingly with ease. Honestly, it's quite insane the amount of references being made to schools of thought and prominent figures from all around the world. I feel like I inherited a second neural net from this book tbf. For all accounts, pure fantasia.
Here are some excerpts to pull you into this crashing-wave-of-a-story:
3.5 stars On the positive: this work offers a relevant understanding of the human condition, which the author called 'lack' (i.e. the dissatisfaction with being, the fear of death and the need for meaning in life). Three major traditions, psychotherapy, existentialism and Buddhism, are compared which broadens understanding of the subject.
On the negative: the writing is often not clear. The author needs pages to say something that can be put in a short paragraph. More importantly, in my opinion, he often assumes claims to be true without critically examining them or discussing alternative options or explanations.
I attended an open conference with the Ernest Becker foundation and asked the question in the chat - is there a crossover between Becker's fear of death, its repression and our symbolic heroism and the Buddhist philosophy of our fear of a groundless state of being - a no-self? Yes, someone said - read David R Loy's Lack & Transcendence. I had never heard the author's name before, but bought the book the same day. I was immediately taken in. Loy compares and contrasts the existential philosophies and psychologies regarding our anxiety and guilt as centered around our fear of death with an examination of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Rank, Frankl and most importantly, Becker, then takes a shift in perspective to compare and contrast all of this with the Buddhist philosophy of our inherent sense of lack due to our intuitive recognition that there is no-self to hold on to. In other words, Loy argues that it is not so much about our anxiety of death that creates our suffering and motivates our various psychopathologies, but it is our anxiety related to our groundless state 0f being - our recognition that our sense of self is a grand delusion. Our motivations to fill that inherent sense of lack is primarily to reify and maintain a sense of a real, stable, autonomous and voluntary self. However, this is not possible because we continue to feed something that does not and cannot exist in itself. Therefore, we can never be satisfied, but will always press for more and more of the same if we don't let go. Loy's arguments are well written and coherent. He builds and maintains his argument for a non-dual, no-self functionally coherent understanding of the world.
I loved this book. If you enjoyed Becker and other existentialist philosophers, along with the basics of the psychoanalytic tradition, and want to bring it together with Buddhist philosophy, here is the book. It is comprehensive, understandable, and remains on point throughout. It's now one of my favorites of all time. This from an author I had never even heard of until about a week ago. His ending chapters leave you with a helpful paradigm to understanding and taking action in the world - to live in this world and strive to improve it without ever expecting to perfect it; to harmonize with the world with less sense of separation from it; and to transcend to a broader, more universalistic perspective of the world to enable our creative leverage to solve problems.
I highly recommend this book. Loy is obviously well educated on the subject matter, but also has a skillful way of writing that's clear and creates a logical flow.
Couldn't be happier with this one. For me it has been one of those "right book at the right time" examples.
I can vow for what mr. Loy writes about here. Starting from being religious, to me losing my faith as was taught to me by my parents, to arguably my deepest depressive state. Something was wrong which I just could never put my finger on. Buddhism (and hinduism) have liberated me from that circle.
I don't know about any other books that compares these three "fields" as well as in this book.
I am validated by this book on how some beliefs and concepts don't make sense. Some does prove to have their own point but the author also molded the different aspects that supports how 'lack' plays a role in life and death. It might be translated into something harmful as he says in the book but if you fully understand the concept, it might convice you to believing that it all boils down to lack. This perspective might stabilise some people and it did to me. It did successfully want me to convert to buddhism but buddhism isn't the very core concept of this book.
Although it takes a variety of perspectives, the main topic of the book is addressing death. We're all going to die, and it's a fundamental concept that human beings cannot properly grasp. A good starting out is his use of Ernest Becker’s work on the denial of death, on how we make "immortality projects" to in order protect and project our identity. However, his approach differs from Becker, and he takes a Buddhist perspective, very often by using the interpretations of Nāgārjuna and Dōgen.
He connects death to an even more basic notion: lack. That there is something wrong, and there is something we need. A lot of material is covered on why this lack exists and the problems it produces. In one sense, it is very connected to nihilism itself, and I found his description of problem very well articulated.
How do we overcome lack? This is where his Buddhist metaphysics comes in, and what the book tries to offer. There is no lack because there is no self. And likewise, there is no death because you were never alive in the first place; how you think of "being alive" is a conceptual structure that was created, but it is ultimately not real.
However, it's difficult to appreciate this insight properly. I was certainly familiar with the concept of no-self, but beyond some introductions here and there, most of which I forgot, I gained a lot by reading his exposition, and it's more complex and reputable than one might assume. The whole book argues for this view throughout the book, adding philosophical, psychoanalytic and historical perspectives that support it.
A few key topics stood out to me. One was his discussion of both Heidegger and Nietzsche on how they relate to time and why it's misguided. It's a critique I would never have thought of and it was very insightful. The other was his discussion of the cultural differences between India, China and Japan. And how their religion/metaphysics structured their society and made them evolve into what they are today.
The book was much denser than I expected, especially in the beginning; it took a while to get used to what and how he was speaking about. But it was deeply rewarding; even if I don't agree his overall perspective, just the amount of insight I gained about a Buddhistic worldview was immense. Although, of course always with a bias in how he chooses to interpret it. Something I'm not knowledgable enough to comment on, but I am trying to keep it in mind.
I find this particularly important because it addressed nihilism in a way that is very opposite to most of the Western traditions. Our sense of lack is supposed to be fought with some kind of heroic existentialism; while it's important to remember that there are traditions that take a completely different perspective, there is no battle in the first place if you understand what you really are.
This book is my bible. My friends think I'm crazy as they find it too difficult to read, but I have read it over and over again, and it is always at the corner of my desk, giving me insight into myself and my own inner struggles, the work I'm creating, and what's under the surface of everyday life and literature. I love Loy's other work too, including The World is Made of Stories. If you're aching for depth and insight, you will find it in his work.
He's got an interesting take on lack - the unease, dissatisfaction, sense of unreality, etc. that we all feel, and all try and suppress or ignore, and he nicely outlines our projects / ways of trying to fill this lack. BUT if I read the word "deconstruct" or "dualism" one more time, I'm going to LACK the willpower to not throw this book out of a window!
Fascinating ideas but unfortunately I found the writing style to be inaccessible at times. Not surprising as the author is a philosophy professor, but I need to re-read to glean some wisdom from this book.
An excellent book that looks at certain intersections between Existentialism, Buddhism, and psychotherapy. Especially relevant to anyone who is at least a little versed in both Existential and Buddhist perspectives.