Gerald Virtbauer - Buddhism as a Psychological System: Three Approaches

Interesting article, especially for those interested in combing Buddhist wisdom with Western psychology.

Buddhism as a Psychological System: Three Approaches

By Gerald Virtbauer, University of Vienna

©2008, Gerald Virtbauer

[Gerald Virtbauer has kindly allowed me to print the following article on this website. Please note that some non-English words are misspelled due to my difficulties in formatting the text. I will correct those errors as soon as I am able. ~ Dr. Nielsen]

Buddhism has become one of the main dialog partners for psychology since the second part of the last century. The reception of Buddhist psychological thought in the United States began primarily after the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893, where writer and publisher Paul Carus was especially attracted by presentations of Zen Patriarch Shaku Soen. His main student, Suzuki Daisetsu Teitaro (usually known in the West as D. T. Suzuki), consequently moved to the United States to assist Carus in promoting and developing Buddhist thought in the West. Suzuki's approach to Buddhism was focused on the psychological part of the religion. On the one hand, he portrayed Zen as a genuine Asian practice way for developing the hidden capacities of the mind. In this sense, he wanted to show the gap between Asian and Western thinking and challenge the self-centered Western psyche he detected. On the other hand, he was very interested in fostering a dialog between Eastern and Western psychologies and influenced by the main religious psychological thinkers of his time (especially William James). This dialog led to co-operations with famous psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, followed by the first classic works in this field (with Carl Gustav Jung and Erich Fromm); and finally to the Zen boom in the 1960s.

Though many statements of these early beginnings have been widely criticized in recent years, the importance of the dialog between Buddhism and psychology is not in question, contrarily it is growing and expanding. Critics mainly pointed to the interest based interpretations of the respective counterpart. As a consequence of constructive elements in exploring Buddhist and Western psychology--either through the eye of the Western scientific methodology, or the Asian religious background-- interpretations tended to be orientalist or occidentalist.

The situation today is different, as Buddhism has become a subject of intense study and research, in both Asian and Western countries, and an integrated element of many Western cultures itself. Through global exchange, the presence of Asian teachers in the West has been rising and many Western Buddhists have begun to create their own teaching style and philosophy. Buddhism in the West nowadays is a mixture of attempts to present a wide range of textual sources and Buddhist teachings in their specific cultural contexts and original languages and attempts to create a new Buddhism--centered on the basic teachings of the Buddha--which can provide answers to contemporary pressing problems in a globalized world mainly ruled by Western capitalistic systems. Of course, either approach does not necessarily negate the other.

Bearing this situation in mind, I want to describe three different approaches of how the relation between psychology / psychotherapy and Buddhism can be observed and worked with in practice. These approaches should not be understood as exclusive, rather as highly overlapping. My aim is to provide a sort of helping tool for, and brief overview of the current research in this interdisciplinary field.

The first approach is to present and explore parts of Buddhist teachings as a psychology. As many teachers of different Buddhist traditions point out, Buddhism is not primarily a religion based on faith and worship, but a system, or an art to inquire into the human mind. It is difficult, or in many cases in fact impossible, to draw a clear line between the more 'religious' parts--as rituals and daily structures in Buddhist settings--, and the more 'psychological' parts--as meditation practice in all its different variations, as well as the teacher student relationship and the direct transmission of insight and knowledge. But, considering the common definition of modern psychology as a science of human experience and behavior, Buddhism provides psychological methods of analyzing human experience and inquiring into the potential and hidden capacities of the human mind. In this sense, many Buddhist scriptures are kinds of psychological instruction manuals which are pointing to the practical realization of their contents. In modern translations this direct connection and dependency between psychological method and practice is sometimes stated straight in the titles: for example, Caroline Rhys Davids depicts the Pali Dhammasangani ('Enumeration of Phenomena', the first book of the Abhidhammapitaka) as 'A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics', and Stefan Anacker calls the Yogacara philosopher Vasubandhu a 'Buddhist Psychological Doctor'.

The main characteristic of this approach is the close connection to primary sources, and the hermeneutical work with these sources which are often also translated by the author itself. In this way, an insight into the Buddhist understanding of basic human processes of perception and apperception should become apprehensible. The Buddhist system provides a rich psychological anthropology which contains a general view of the human predicament. This is shared by all Buddhist traditions, in addition to many more or less big differences depending on tradition and lineage.

From the point of view of cultural studies, the psychology in Buddhist scriptures shows the dependency of systems of thought to the specific cultural and societal circumstances they are developing in. Buddhism as a psychological system is one example of how psychological knowledge is shaped within certain cultural fundamentals. In intercultural dialog with Western psychological approaches, this can be helpful in questioning tendencies to universal claims of how to research human experience and behavior. Both Western and Buddhist psychologies are entangled in their specific histories and cultural backgrounds. Hence, they are among many other indigenous systems of investigating and understanding human experience and behavior.

The reception of foreign systems of thought can open new doors for dialog and co-operation. This is what has been happening concerning Buddhism and psychology since Buddhist teachers have arrived in Western societies. Currently, almost all streams of psychology and psychotherapy have noticed and reflected Buddhist psychological theory and many of them have integrated parts of the Buddhist teachings in their own theoretical and practical work. The second approach, therefore, is the integration of parts of the Buddhist teachings in already existing psychological or psychotherapeutic lines of thought.

Within the last years, the integration of Buddhist mindfulness and acceptance techniques has been one of the most flourishing innovations in psychotherapy.

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Tags: Buddhism, Psychology, culture, consciousness, meditation, mindfulness, Gerald Virtbauer, Buddhism as a Psychological System, Three Approaches, William James, Carl G. Jung, Caroline Rhys Davids, Pali, Dhammasangani, Enumeration of Phenomena, Abhidhammapitaka, A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, Stefan Anacker, Yogacara, philosophy, Vasubandhu, Buddhist Psychological Doctor