Argues that certain Buddhist and Jewish thinkers say scandalous things on purpose, and that these statements are infused with deeply transformative ethical power, intended specifically as a way of relating to suffering. These scandalous statements are, in fact, always communicative in function, structure, and intent, but they are designed to create a kind of 'cognitive dissonance.' The thinkers considered in this article say scandalous things in order to cause a breaking-open in the consciousness of the hearer and practitioner, which produces compassion, transformation, and liberation. Counterintuitively, this rupture highlights intersubjectivity and language.
