Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a problem that people have nowadays, which manifests itself by always thinking that their home is unlocked, checking their things repeatedly to see if they have pulled something down before leaving the house, etc. Everyone is neurotic, so obsessive-compulsive tendencies or behaviors manifest themselves in normal people as well. For example, we all occasionally have the habit of double-checking or over-washing, especially in some stressful situations. An important manifestation of compulsion is its repetitiveness and stereotypical nature. We can find people with obsessive-compulsive traits in professions that require delicate manipulation, such as accountants, bank clerks, doctors, academic researchers, and so on. What is the driving force behind compulsive behavior? The first thing we find is the repressed urge to attack in these people. You can find that their emotions are actually easily irritable, angry and rage. Most of them will actually express it by reversing it, they appear to be overly rational or calm, yet deep inside they all we can find some hidden anger. What they need to deal with inside is the conflict brought on by aggression and its suppression. A man once shared a table with me, and after eating the fish, we noticed that the bones on his plate were very neatly arranged. This made me think of the “triad” of OCD – stingy, stubborn, and neat. He then talked to us about his father, who was a soldier and very strict with him, and how violence was sometimes inevitable. When dealing with aggressive conflict, people with OCD will employ a range of psychological defense mechanisms – rationalization, emotional isolation, and reverse formation, among others. In conversation you will find that they are very rational and will often make grand and even quite philosophical statements. I find that many mothers who are teachers have a stereotypical “educator-educated” relationship pattern when interacting with their children. One mother who is a teacher said about her relationship with her daughter that her daughter wanted to share with her the ups and downs of her life, but the mother was not interested, did not like to listen, and was even bored. All her focus was on her daughter’s academic performance, so she would always tell her how she should behave in a coaching tone. Another mother and daughter were in the same situation. The mother was bothered by her daughter’s tendency to “clean up”. The daughter complained that she hated the way her mother always acted as if she was a teacher teaching her students and spoke in a philosophical manner. How to understand the defense mechanism of reverse formation? We often say that the deeper the love, the more hatred. Love and hate are one and the same, and hate is because of lost love. What we often see is an overly worried mother who is constantly worrying and nagging her child, and all the child experiences is hate and resentment. In fact, what lurks inside the mother is hatred for her children. A person who is overly polite or warm to us often makes us feel uncomfortable, and this is when we think about whether the other person has subconscious animosity toward us. A mother’s hatred for her children should also be self-evident, and sometimes there is even a certain element of cynicism in the mother’s love. Sometimes the mother’s love is even tinged with a certain cynicism that her children are more fortunate than she is, that they are able to receive more care or enjoy better living conditions. We tend to repress or reverse the expression of our hatred when we are not fully aware of or meeting our own needs. Of particular note is the psychological defense mechanism of “offsetting”. Offsetting is the elimination of a previous behavior through an action. The latter behavior is designed to eliminate the consequences of the previous behavior. This explains why compulsive behaviors are repeated over and over again. For example, to check if the door is closed, the average person would simply push the door to verify it. A compulsive person would open the door and then close it. After closing the door, they would worry about whether it was closed and then open it again, and so on and so forth. Certain ritualistic behaviors have a counteracting effect, such as when someone says something inauspicious and then “yucks” it to eliminate its effect. A person with obsessive-compulsive traits will often continue the same action after making a mistake to counteract the effects of the previous behavior. For example, he bought a three-dollar ice cream, came back to his friend told him, in fact, this ice cream can be bought for $2.50, you guess what he will do, he will spend another $2.50 to buy back the same ice cream. In this way the later behavior cancels out the effects of the earlier behavior. Compulsion is, in Buddhist terms, obsession. In the Vajra Sutra, it is said that “there should be no dwelling and no mind”. “This is the realm of reality. In other words, all things are changing. All dharmas are “unborn, undying, undefiled, undiminished, not increasing, not decreasing, not coming, not going, not one, not different, not moving, not changing”. However, we should not fall into partial emptiness. If we cling to indistinguishability, we will fall into emptiness and silence, so it is said that “the mind is born”.