ABSTRACT
This chapter presents acts that subvert conventional dialogue that merely exchanges information and ordinary everyday communication. Whereas analytical interpretation works with words, the Zen act is silent like the cut, like an analytical act. The analogy between the master-student exchange in Zen and the analytical session leads us see the cut as a modality wherein the analyst's semblant comes to represent object a to the analysand. According to Sigmund Freud, the relationship between the analyst's presence and the interruption of the analysand's discourse—shown in the example of the Zen master and the disciple—is transference's manifestation. The analyst acts within a paradoxical structure of the psychoanalytical act wherein the subject is subverted and the object a is an active part of that structure, albeit outside of language. Zen technique aims at bringing the subject to the state of satori: a spiritual experience of revelation or enlightenment.
