Staring Into the Void

Staring Into the Void is essentially a conversation between existential and phenomenological philosophers and the Buddha, with the overarching aim of putting that conversation to use in resolving that core spiritual crisis that has crippled Western culture since Nietzsche: nihilism and the death of God.

The primary thesis of Staring Into the Void is that nihilism is deeply intertwined with sensuality and craving, and could even be considered craving’s most abstract and broad form of manifestation. This is because sensuality, in its very nature, entails the ontological appropriation of the five aggregates in a primordial process that attempts to ‘make more’ of our lives than the empty flux of temporal ekstasis that it actually is. Thus it is only through the relinquishment of sensuality in all of its forms through the practice of the Dhamma that we may ultimately relinquish even our desire for teleological grounding, and thus authentically free ourselves from Nietzsche’s ‘uncanniest of all guests’.

Beyond serving as an explicit on-ramp to the Dhamma for skeptical Western audiences, Staring into the Void also works in reverse, by applying the intellectual tools of existentialism to critique some aspects of contemporary Buddhist culture that serve to obfuscate the Dhamma’s core message of saṃvega, the totalized renunciation of sensuality, and radical, uncompromising personal transformation.

Audio book: https://archive.org/details/staring-into-the-void-audiobook

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRj6F3G8KCE