Foucault, Thich Nhat Hanh: links in inter-being, on analysis of "self"-not so far fetched really

link:
Foucault, LSD, invention of a self

Foucault , in this article, is mentioned to have spent hours under LSD at Zabriskie Point in 1975,
and he is quoted to have written that this was the most transformative experience of his life and
that after he burned his volumes II and III of his 'History of Sexuality' .
Maybe a good idea...

I had liked specifically his work on madness and the history of its definitions and the history
of imprisonment and "treatment".
It went well along with having read Cooper, Laing, all on anti-psychiatry  i could lay my eyes on. Remember Mitscherlich, then Erich Wulff for whom i had worked for some time e.g. digging out stuff on Third Reich psychiatry. long time ago now.

quotes out of an article:

Love and Liberation: An interview with Thich Nhat Hanh

"The self is made only of non-self elements, and it is the insight of non-self that can liberate us. We are made of non-us elements. When we look deeply, we recognize ancestors, parents, cultures, society, everything, in us.

A lot of Buddhist teachers talk about the principle of interdependence in abstract terms, but I found it very helpful to look at the specific influences, both positive and negative, that made me who I am now.

I think that the teaching can be made simple, and even children can understand it. This morning, we were led in a meditation about the family elements alive within us: “Within me I see my father as a five-year-old child, five years old, vulnerable. I smile at him with compassion.” That kind of visualization can help us touch the truth of non-self. When you know you are made of non-you elements, you know that your father is in you. Your father is fully alive in every cell of your body, and the suffering of your father is still there in you. That is the kind of practice that can bring the insight of inter-being, of no-self. It can liberate you from your anger, if you have anger toward your father, and so on.

Why do we meditate on these non-self elements within us not only with insight but with love?

Insight and love, they are the same. Insight brings love, and love is not possible without insight, understanding. If you do not understand, you cannot love. This insight is direct understanding, and not just a few notions and ideas. In meditation we allow ourselves to be shined on by the light of that insight.

Sometimes it helps to have an image so that you can truly understand. For example, I described to the children that it is hard for the plant of corn to see that at an earlier moment she was a grain of corn. But that is the truth, and if you really see that way, you have the insight of inter-being between the plant and the grain of corn. Because without the grain of corn, how could the plant of corn be? The same thing is true with father and son, mother and daughter. If this truth is touched through meditation, then hate and anger will vanish, and love becomes possible."

link:

Thich Nhat Hanh, self made of non-self elements