Both practices are focused on releasing followers from suffering, and both aim for emotional health
The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, surprises westerners drawn to Buddhism by suggesting they take a second look at the richness of the faiths in which they were raised instead of converting.
Photograph by: Abhishek Madhukar, Reuters, Files, Vancouver Sun
'Everybody's a Buddhist now." That's what a Vancouver yoga studio owner recently said, a wry twinkle in her eye.
She was noticing how many of her yoga students were joining western nature lovers, spiritual seekers and global pacifists in describing themselves as followers of the 2,500-year-old Asian tradition.
Most of them were finding their entrée into Buddhism through meditation and the healing arts - because the biggest names in western Buddhism these days are men and women who blend the ancient practice with psychology.
There are many natural links between Buddhism and psychology. Both are focused on releasing people from suffering. Both explore states of consciousness. Both aim for psychological liberation.
That's why western psychotherapists, many with Jewish and Christian backgrounds, have been adapting Buddhism to stressed-out people. They believe it provides a fresh approach to emotional health.
In addition, western psychotherapists have been drawn to Buddhism's existentialism, which does not call up orthodox western understandings of God. They have also appreciated Buddhism's emphasis on enlightenment and transformation -- and its meditative techniques.
It was less than 100 years ago that western psychotherapists' attraction to Buddhism first began rising noticeably to the surface in the West.
That's when famed European psychologist Carl Jung worked with Zen master D.T. Suzuki. By 1960 the humanistic philosopher-therapist Erich Fromm was noting a distinct interest among many Western psychoanalysts in Buddhism, particularly Zen.
American philosopher Alan Watts then highlighted the power of Buddhism to change consciousness. Watts wasn't necessarily thinking about the mentally disturbed. He wanted to offer high-functioning North Americans a path to escape what he considered their inner deadness.
The mass popularization of Buddhism through psychology, however, didn't really take hold until the 1990s.
That's when psychotherapists such as Jack Kornfield, Mark Epstein, Marsha Linehan, Allan Marlatt and Jon Kabat-Zinn began becoming almost household names.
It's also when famed Buddhist monks such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Chogyam Trungpa and Pema Chodron were having their profiles raised by taking a decidedly psychological approach to their teaching, including about not clinging to desire.
As one of the more well-known names in Buddhist-influenced psychology, Kabat-Zinn has become most associated with teaching popular "mindfulness" meditation as a route to stress reduction and calm awareness.
Albert Ellis, a founder of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), has championed using Buddhist rationality and contemplative practices to overcome negative emotions such as anger, hatred and greed.
Kornfield has proposed a model of psychotherapy that is not based on sickness, but on what he calls "Buddhist belief" in the inherent nobility, beauty and freedom of human nature.
It's pretty good stuff.
But these ideas and practices are not necessarily purely Buddhist. Nor are they unknown in the West.
Some Buddhist psychotherapists do not acknowledge that ideals such as compassion, respecting human dignity, overcoming negative emotions and practising awareness are deeply embedded in the Jewish-Christian-Islamic tradition. Practising loving kindness, for instance, is the central teaching of Jesus and the church.
Many of these so-called western religious values and ideas were also developed by the ancient Greeks, particularly the Stoics, and later picked up by humanistic European and North American philosophers.
For his part, an American Buddhist monk and scholar named Thanissaro Bhikkhu (who was born Geoffrey DeGraff) has been critical of the blending of Buddhism with western philosophy and psychology.
He calls it "Buddhist romanticism."
Thanissaro starts out by acknowledging there are important similarities between Buddhism and western humanistic psychology.
Both, Thanissaro writes, share an emphasis on human responsibility, as well as on inner experience and ethical pragmatism.
But Thanissaro believes many western psychotherapists are watering-down early Buddhist teachings by inadvertently melding them with European philosophy.
Thanissaro argues Buddhist-oriented therapists are making a mistake by stressing goals such as interconnectedness, wholeness, spontaneity and "oneness," which he sees as western spiritual and philosophical values.
Thanissaro believes authentic Buddhism is much more demanding than that proposed by most western psychologists.
Instead of aiming for warm feelings of oneness and connection with all that is, Thanissaro believes true Buddhists are required to seek detachment from the world.
Authentic Buddhists are expected to follow a path of discipline and renunciation, says Thanissaro, who is steeped in Thai Buddhism. Only that way can they seek the ultimate nature of reality, which he calls the "unconditional."
Whether or not you agree with Thanissaro's critique of such western values (I don't necessarily), he brings up a second critique of the kind of Buddhism advanced by many western therapists.
Like philosopher Ken Wilber, Thanissaro is concerned that Buddhist psychology doesn't have enough to offer the world's disenfranchised.
Wilber worries some practitioners of Buddhism can become fixated on achieving higher "states" of consciousness through meditation, while remaining stuck at lower "stages" of maturity.
Many practitioners of Buddhist psychology, say critics, remain aloof from the wider world, including the struggles for justice of the poor and marginalized.
Even though I think there is value in the warnings offered by Thanissaro and Wilber, in the end I don't think there is much inherently wrong with blending western psychology and Buddhism.
But it should be seen for what it is.
Buddhism itself is a powerful and demanding tradition with many diverse streams, the largest being Mayahana and Theravada. Just as followers of any tradition should study its complexities, so should new Buddhists.
Alternatively, the Dalai Lama offers something else to think about.
He often surprises westerners who are drawn to Buddhism by telling them they don't need to convert.
As a proponent of interfaith dialogue, the Dalai Lama typically suggests westerners take a second look at the richness of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions in which they were raised. The Dalai Lama, a close friend of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, believes those religions are much more sophisticated, including about divinity, than most westerners believe.
At the least, westerners who are getting into Buddhism through psychology could keep in mind that some of the values they're learning have been shaped by the Bible and European philosophy.
Buddhist-shaped psychology is helpful. It could also prove to be a fertile spiritual endeavour. But it's useful to realize it's not the same as original Buddhism.
It is a new fusion of East and West.
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Read Douglas Todd's blog at www.vancouversun.com/thesearch
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Douglas Todd - Ancient Buddhism and Modern Psychology
Interesting, an article on Buddhism and psychotherapy that mentions Alan Watts, Jack Kornfield, Mark Epstein, Marsha Linehan, Allan Marlatt, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chogyam Trungpa, Pema Chodron, Albert Ellis, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, and Ken Wilber.
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