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'Between Two Deaths'

The Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Japanese Buddhism

UNIVERSITY OF KYOTO, shingu{at}neguse.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Tetsuo Funaki

UNIVERSITY OF KYOTO, funamaruko{at}yahoo.co.jp

In both Western and Eastern traditions, human beings have had a tendency to imagine another death that would come after a physical, somatic death. There is an interval between two deaths, while they await the Last Judgment or the ultimate salvation. However, it must be noted that, aside from this tendency, there have also been particular thoughts that have laid emphasis on the anticipation of this second death from beyond, working its way into our lives. This anticipated nirvana was adumbrated in Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Freud, personified in the figure of Antigone by Lacan, and conceptualized as `the stage of the truly settled in this world' in Japanese Buddhism. We thus point out the structural homology between psychoanalytic thought and Japanese Buddhism. These concepts of anticipated nirvana were created in order to deal with the people's agonizing craving for an afterlife, which may be related to neurotic suffering.

Key Words: Antigone • between two deaths • death drive • Japanese Buddhism • nirvana • Shinran

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