Learning to Love
Dick Cheney

New York Times: What do you think about when you meditate?

Robert Thurman: Usually, some form of trying to excavate any kind of negative thing cycling in the mind and turn it toward the positive. For example, when I am annoyed with Dick Cheney, I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.

New York Times: You mean you fantasize about being breast-fed by Dick Cheney?

Robert Thurman: It's a fantasy of releasing fear and developing affection. It's a way of coming back to feeling grateful toward him and seeing his positive side, finding the mother in Dick Cheney.

New York Times: What would Freud say about that?

Robert Thurman: Freud would freak out. He would say, "Well, you are seeking the oceanic feeling of the baby in the womb." Infantile regression --- that's what he thought the quest for enlightenment was.

--- From an Interview with Robert Thurman,
The New York Times Magazine
29 June 2008