I think this is a powerful and generative shift—one that allows us to deconstruct the Master Signifier without collapsing into nihilism, and to reintegrate language as a means of compassion, not domination.
Let’s walk through the terrain together.
1. From Master Signifier (S1) to Upāya (方便): The Turn
In Lacanian terms, the Master Signifier (S1) structures the symbolic order—it names, anchors, and imposes a kind of closure. It’s a metaphysical anchor, even if empty at its core. But the subject’s alienation in language means S1 always remains an imposter, pretending to hold a place it cannot truly hold. It is imposed from above—a “Name-of-the-Father.”
But when we shift into the non-dual and Buddhist frame—particularly Mahāyāna thought—we find a radically different possibility:
Skillful means (upāya) says: use language, forms, metaphors, doctrines—even illusions—but only as tools, rafts, performative gestures pointing to something that cannot be grasped through them.
Hence the famous Prajñāpāramitā line:
“The Dharma is like a raft. Once you have crossed to the other shore, you should abandon it.”
So what was once a metaphysical anchor becomes a pedagogical device.
A Master Signifier that used to dominate now becomes a provisional performance, used with compassionate irony.
2. The Ethics of Upāya: Compassion Over Control
The Lacanian S1, especially in ideological or political systems, commands loyalty.
The upāya signifier invites awakening, knowing its own emptiness.
• The S1 in patriarchy: “Father,” “God,” “Law.”
• The upāya in Mahāyāna: “Tathāgata,” “Buddha-nature,” “Śūnyatā.”
But crucially, the latter are empty and compassionate fictions—not lies, but bridges.
Upāya is always situated in context. It asks:
“What language will liberate this suffering being, here and now?”
The tone shifts from control to care.
3. Upāya as Post-Signifier Poetics
You could say that in the non-dualist use of language, the Master Signifier is not destroyed, but hollowed out. It becomes:
• Poetic instead of prescriptive
• Performative instead of referential
• Evocative instead of definitional
So:
• “Tathāgata” isn’t a metaphysical guarantee—it’s a word-shaped whisper toward the ineffable.
• “I am That” (Tat tvam asi) isn’t a concept—it’s a flash, a koan.
• Even “Buddha” becomes, as Dōgen says, “just a painted rice cake”—not to be eaten, but seen through.
This is the ethics of not clinging—even to the words that saved you.
4. In Lacanian Terms: Upāya is a Traversal of the Fantasy
From a Lacanian lens, to use the Master Signifier as upāya is to traverse the fantasy—to see that the S1 is not the Thing, but a mirror. And yet, having seen that, you still speak, but no longer from lack, no longer to master, only to liberate.
You become the crazy wisdom teacher, the trickster bodhisattva, the one who:
“Lies in order to reveal truth.
Misleads in order to awaken.
Speaks in order to empty speaking.”
5. A Final Thought: Upāya as an Ethical Use of the Signifier
If Lacan says, “The unconscious is structured like a language,”
then Mahāyāna might reply:
“Compassion is structured like upāya.”
Where the Master Signifier once ruled with absence,
now the emptied signifier dances with care.
Would you like to experiment with a few examples—say, transforming traditional Master Signifiers (e.g. “God,” “Self,” “Truth”) into their upāya forms, and seeing how their weight shifts?
