Yochai Ataria

Where do we end and where does the world begin? The case of insight meditation

This paper examines the experience of where we end and the rest of the world begins, that is, the sense of boundaries. Since meditators are recognized for their ability to introspect about the bodily level of experience, and in particular about their sense of boundaries, 27 senior meditators (those with more than 10,000 hours of experience) were interviewed for this study. The main conclusions of this paper are that (a) the boundaries of the so-called “physical body” (body-as-object) are not equivalent to the individuals sense of boundaries; (b) the sense of boundaries depends upon sensory activity; (c) the sense of boundaries should be defined according to its level of flexibility; (d) the sense of body ownership (the sense that it is ones own body that undergoes an experience) cannot be reduced to the sense of boundaries; nevertheless, (e) the sense of ownership depends on the level of flexibility of the sense of boundaries.

Helplessness: The inability to know-that you don’t know-how

ABSTRACT The sense of helplessness stands at the very core of the traumatic experience. This paper suggests that a sense of helplessness arises when, despite the functioning of the cognitive system and awareness of circumstances and feelings, an individual is unable to access practical knowledge. As a result, the subject becomes a victim of one’s own inability to perform, or act, in the real world.

Culture-Trauma: Some Critical Remarks

Throughout the book, I emphasize the connection between the concepts of the postraumatic individual on the one hand and the posttraumatic culture on the other hand, even though the shift from individual to society is not at all clear in this context. In this chapter, then, I examine how trauma can shift from the individual to society. I bring up what I believe to be a necessary reservation when describing trauma in terms of society.

The Sources of Western Trauma: From the Akeda of Isaac to Kafka

This chapter presents three models: (a) the story of the Binding of Isaac—the Akeda. This story exposes the primordial trauma that has shaped Western culture; (b) Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return; and (c) the Kafkaian ever-present sense of guilt. Through an understanding of these models, we can begin to describe the traumatic origins of Western civilization and to understand how the primal trauma (the Akeda) continues to recur and reenact itself in the present.

The Body in the Postmodern Era: A View from Captivity

This chapter is based on research conducted among returned prisoners of war (POWs) who had been held captive in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. The main insight of this chapter is that postmodern individuals are primarily posttraumatic individuals who as prisoners have lived their lives with uncertainty, fear of death, and the dissolution of a sense of self. The primary insight of this chapter is that human beings in the postmodern age spurn the human body and turn the ideal of beauty into something that by its very essence rejects the human body, so that the only solution is life in a virtual body.

The New God of Anarchy

This chapter introduces the new leader of anarchy—Tyler Durden, protagonist of the movie Fight Club. Tyler is the direct outcome of the posttraumatic structure of Western capitalist monotheistic culture, and particularly of characters like Camus’ Meursault and Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now. In this chapter, I discuss the character of the posttraumatic leader after he has murdered the father figure. The conclusion is that this leader is much more dangerous than a leader imprisoned in the obsessively recurring Akeda, for the acts of this imprisoned leader are at least somewhat predictable. The central motif in Fight Club is disgust for the human body.

A Serious Man

This chapter focuses on Larry, the protagonist of the movie A Serious Man. Larry moves along two main axes. One is his professional life, and specifically his application for tenure in the academic world of science. The other is his private life, and particularly his son Danny’s bar mitzvah. The tension in the film is between the world of religion and the world of science, that is, between the attempt to be a “serious and rational individual” and the dybbuk at the base of Western culture as a whole. Chigurh (No Country for Old Men) is the antithesis of Larry. Chigurh is a man who represents total freedom, a truly free man. Chigurh’s character shows there is nothing more frightening than an individual who is truly free, for he understands that there is no divine accounting ledger and no reason not to commit murder.

Toward Post-Humanity: A Literary Consideration

This chapter examines three writers: Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, and Michel Houellebecq. In Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain, we encounter the character Hans. Hans represents the traumatic figure immediately before the moment of pleasurable death. From there I go on to Camus and to Meursault, hero of The Stranger, who signifies humanity’s shift from the traumatic age to the posttraumatic age after World War II. Clamence, (anti)hero of Camus’ novel The Fall, represents the posttraumatic individual trapped in passivity and an obsessive self-consciousness that lead to infinite regression. Through an analysis of works by Houellebecq, I show that today we have reached the end of the human era and are on the brink of the post-human era.

This is the End: A World of Silence

This chapter examines the relationship between silence and trauma and discusses the possibility of expressing trauma through silence. This chapter proposes an alternative for the posttraumatic subject—to choose silence. Indeed, in a world in which human beings are sent to die for “justifiable reasons,” the very use of words constitutes a form of cooperating with the hangman. In this chapter, I seek to show that often the only way to enable silence to speak is through physical appearance. In a world of silence, working through the body can break the cycle of obsessive reenactment.

Techno Rather than Guns

This chapter examines a new character, Lola from the movie Run Lola Run—a character that moves to the beat of techno, the language of trauma, and, by so doing, manages to revive the human heart and save her man. She does this not by disregarding the virtual world in which we live, but rather by crossing, and thus eliminating, the lines between “true” reality and virtual reality. Lola understands that it is necessary to undergo healing in the virtual world in order to revitalize the human body. The way to return to the body is through music linked to the pre-reflexive primordial physical experience. This is the body prior to the illness known as Western culture.