Meditation and Psychotherapy

When describing the differences between meditation and psychotherapy, Jack Kornfield has remarked, “the best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own” (p.245). I also believe that the practice of group meditation, while not necessarily therapeutic, is pointing to the intricacies of the self. Many times, I sense that my stay in the Buddhist group is a kind of unearthing of “unfinished business”. While mindfulness helps me to expose sources of vexation and to stay with them, analysis of these areas show me the places where I am “stuck” or unable to go forward. This leads me to wonder, with the exception of those who have no serious childhood or existential issues, is meditation in itself ever “enough” to deal with one’s emotional difficulties? Kornfield warns that “many students of Eastern and Western spirituality have been led to believe that if they experience difficulties, it is simply because they haven’t practiced long enough or somehow have not been practicing according to the teachings” (p.248).

I see meditation as a process of inquiry, not a kind of blanket “solution” to the problems faced when one is practicing mindfulness. When I am inquiring into vexations, I am seeing them for what they are and attempting to hold them long enough that I am not trying to explain them away. By refusing to short-cut to any easily defined solution, I am respecting the conditions of the mind: not forcing them to go away or be replaced by an easy thought, and not indulging those conditions at the same time. But I am also susceptible to receiving help from different sources, as well as being open to different ways of approaching difficulties. “Sitting with” one’s difficulties is indeed an important and crucial step, but this does not mean that I only sit with them and they will magically go away! They need to be seen as coming from the mind, for sure, but this also necessitates a sensitive examination of the sources of suffering. Otherwise, how can I be able to compassionately care for the situations of others, if I am simply telling them that “everything is created by the mind?” Something more is often needed to bridge a person’s felt experiences with Buddhist ideas and concepts.

Kornfield, J. (1993). A Path with a Heart: A Guide Through the Promises and Perils of Spiritual Life. Toronto: Bantam Books.

Direct and Expedient Approaches

    It's been said that Chan is a much more direct approach toward managing and dealing with one's vexations, in the sense that it does not try to analyze the objects that "bother" or "vex" a person, let alone attempt to uproot those objects from the mind. To reiterate, this latter approach tends to be what Western psychologists prefer. For example, if I am wanting to approach a particular phobia or fixation that I want to overcome, I will go to a psychologist who might suggest that I expose myself repeatedly to the object of my phobia to form new associations (perhaps more pleasant than before), or "couple" things that I am fixated to with "disgusting" images so that I start to cool off my emotional attachments to these things. To a certain extent, Buddhism has upheld these approaches; for example, in early sutras and Vinayas, the Buddha exhorts the monks to contemplate the impurity of the body in order to help them overcome their attachment to the body, which could be seen as an early form of "operant conditioning".
   The Chan approach, on the other hand, is not to categorize any kind of phenomena as either "good" or "bad" ---not even so-called "addictive" or "aversive" stimuli. Instead, its approach is to question the actual mind itself so that we start to loosen our belief that there is a solid, permanent "self" experiencing these conditions around us. The less convinced I am that there is a solid enduring self that "craves" or "avoids", the more likely these cravings and aversions will start to disappear on their own, because I am no longer believing that they "refer" to a self. This is a much more direct, albeit somewhat harder to experience or practice, approach, as opposed to one in which certain phenomena are being challenged or uprooted.
  It's a little bit like the difference between seeing one's mind as the character in a movie and seeing the entire experience of the movie (including the screen and background elements) as one's mind. In the former case, I attach to the idea that there is a single protagonist who sees the movie from a single view that it is enduring, and is not the objects that are around it. This idea gives rise to the fear of being annihilated by powerful and averse elements, as well as the craving for beautiful or appealing ones, as though they existed outside the self and were "buffeting" the self from all directions. If one is able to see that the entire movie and the background screen is the mind, one does not attach to a particular view or character as being "me" or "mine" and does not even root for one character or another.
  In Tea Words Volume II, Master Sheng Yen refers to differences between Chan and therapy when he remarks, "In general, psychotherapy is more analytical while Chan is more direct. It is also important to add that unless the Chan master is very expert, it will be difficult for him or her to effectively help people. By contrast some types of therapy can be learned in a reasonable amount of time, so that a therapist can provide his or her patients with some relief. But in the beginning it is not easy to combine the two approaches." (p.13). This is very important to know. Although I might think that Chan methods are more direct and therefore less time consuming than therapeutic ones, in fact the opposite might be the case as well. Someone with a very severe personal issue might not have the time to directly address that issue and reach a point of mental stability by going on long retreats or cultivating Chan practice and theories for extended periods of time. In those cases, it might not hurt to learn some therapeutic approaches as ways to allow a person to think along multiple lines of inquiry into their suffering. Again, my tendency and preference is to see these two approaches as complementary to one another.

Sheng Yen (2013). Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Bodhi Mind

    What is Bodhi mind? In Tea Words Volume II, Master Sheng Yen explores bodhi mind in the context of what is often referred to as "beginner's mind". Master Sheng Yen defines beginner's mind as "the mind of an ordinary sentient being that has taken the first steps in turning his or her mind toward illumination". He then remarks how "this step is sometimes called, “the first arising of bodhi-mind.” But what is bodhi? In Sanskrit, “bodhi”means awakening, or enlightenment" (p.12).
  I have often heard of the term beginner's mind, such as in situations where a person is just relaxing into doing something with wholehearted attention. For Master Sheng Yen, this entails something more specific, which means going beyond the self to embrace other beings. Hence, "To develop bodhi-mind, you begin to engage in activities that are not centered on yourself, dealing with all problems in an objective way. Ironically, this can be the way that you will resolve your own problems" (ibid).
   It's only when one is of service to others that one can get out of a mind that dwells on past pain or memories. The more that I think about it, the more this seems to me to distinguish Chan from Western therapies, particularly early forms of psychoanalysis. A lot of the underlying ideas behind psychoanalysis is that it't one's thinking and underlying ideas that cause one's present behavior. But what if, as Chan practice suggests, the real work is to engage in activities that go beyond the self, and thus deal with problems more "objectively" from the perspective of others? This is admittedly a very different view, and it challenges the belief that we are determined by our thoughts. In fact, as meditation practice suggests, we are not the same as our thoughts. We can create spaces around our thinking and ideas that allow us to see ourselves as more than our thoughts. In fact, we are even more than the sum of our own thinking.
   I am not sure how this translates into my life, because I don't feel that I have yet awakened true bodhi mind. What I do feel is that when a person makes a space for their heart's wish to connect, they can lay aside past sorrows and feelings of rejection (as well as thoughts of not being worthy of love from others or loving others). It is then that the thoughts are revealed as only the traces of what has long since been gone, at which point a person can truly start all over again in their relations to others. This "starting over again" is truly the heart of Bodhi mind.

Sheng Yen (2013). Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications.

Putting Aside My "Problems"

 From the previous blog entry, I mentioned how Master Sheng Yen has distinguished between psychotherapy, which is intended to "root out" problems by understanding and analyzing their core elements, and Chan, which simply re-frames situations as not having "problems". It might be interesting to ask at this stage, how can this be done, particularly if a person has not cultivated meditative practice deeply, or for a very long time? Secondly, does this entail that Chan and psychotherapy are somehow incompatible with each other?
   Part of the answer to these questions has to do with the emphasis in both disciplines. Since psychotherapy aims at self-understanding, it has a tendency to focus around issues of the self and inner life. Even when one's family complexes and situations are identified and surfaced, they are couched in terms of internal dynamics that happen to an individual. Often, little concern may be given to the social dynamics of the problem itself. For Chan practitioners, on the other hand, the emphasis is away from self-analysis and toward acting in the interests of others. Notes Sheng Yen, "When you see the vexation and suffering that torments others, you can try to help them resolve their problems and end their suffering. In this process it will be easier to put your own problems aside for the sake of others" (p.12). This means that we can sometimes (if not always) be able to see our own suffering as a window to understand the suffering and vexation that plagues others. For example, if I am a person prone to irritation or impatience, I can use this emotion to better understand (yes, even be patient) toward people who have similar tendencies or experiences. I don't come to them with an attitude of judgment or superiority. Rather, I am able to express a solidarity with their suffering, which is more akin to empathy.
     I don't necessarily at all feel that these two approaches (Chan and psychotherapy) are incompatible. They seem to be like two wings on a bird. Without the Chan view of seeing all problems not as problems, it's easy for psychotherapy to go to a place of proliferating "solutions" or "fixes", without considering that the framing of the problem itself as a problem is a desire that becomes part of the suffering itself. It's easy for this to become a game of "looking for the root cause" when in fact there can be many interlocking conditions that manifest and even change in a small period of time. On the other hand, a Chan approach that lacks an analytic component (or a psychoanalytic one) might end up bypassing emotions that one must necessarily go through in order to transcend clinging to those emotions. Without the analysis or ability to reflect on one's patterns of vexations, Chan practice can become a convenient way to avoid deeper or subconscious patterns of the mind. For this reason, I consider the psychoanalytic approach to neatly complement Chan.

Sheng Yen (2013). Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Not Seeing Things As Problems

 During the morning meditation, ChangYuan Fashi had talked about the real function of meditation as being about uplifting one's character and bettering themselves. Part of this means realizing that happiness is not something that comes from outside of me, but is rather something that I create through my own reactions to things. To use a simple example: for me, eating a meal after a long day of walking outdoors feels so much more satisfying than the same meal that has been consumed after sitting in an office all day. Why is that? I think it has a lot to do with the state of one's mind in the process of eating, and whether they have taken steps to prepare their mind to enjoy what they are doing.
   Fashi had also mentioned that method should not be approached in meditation with a rushed or forced attitude. Instead, the important aspect is to build the foundation of one's practice by way of a relaxed, unperturbed mindset. Whatever is arising in this moment is totally fine, regardless of whether one is generating blissful states through meditation or drowsiness and vexations. Vexations themselves can become the foundation upon which one can know themselves and truly practice awareness. Most importantly, however, is to always allow the mind to stay on whatever it is doing in this moment, without being perturbed by the world's events. If I am able to maintain a positive mindset and not give any vexations to others, in this way, I begin to cultivate merits with others.
   In distinguishing Chan from psychoanalytic approaches, Master Sheng Yen (2013) puts it in this way:

The Chan approach to resolving one’s problems is quite different from the psychological approach where the person’s problems are the centerpiece of analysis. In psychotherapy one’s problems are analyzed, themes and motifs are suggested, and the patient is urged to recognize patterns from early childhood, and to break the hold they have upon him. The approach of Chan is different: practitioners learn to simply put down their vexations and leave them behind. This does not mean that you should ignore what you have to do in life; it simply means that you abandon the idea that what confronts you constitutes a problem. You continue to deal with situations but you no longer see them as problems. In this way, the problems cease to exist. (p.11-12)

The difference is that whereas psychotherapy might try to analyze things as problems, the Chan approach goes beyond seeing them as "problems". This is a different orientation, in the sense that it asks that a person reconsider the idea that something needs to absolutely change due to one's judgments about it. For example, if I am plagued by a disturbing childhood memory, I might try to figure out what that memory is, label it as bad, and then do everything in my power to alter it or get rid of it. Chan, on the other hand, proceeds from the awareness that problems are only as such when we define them in ways that contribute to vexations. If I am able to see that all of these assessments, judgments, labels and evaluations are only thoughts in mind, then I am no longer determined to eliminate thoughts that bother me. I see that it is the judgment itself that becomes the source of the problems. Chan's approach is to develop a mindset that is not seeking, grasping or rejecting any thoughts or experiences, opting instead to know deeply the sources of the thoughts and phenomena themselves. In this way, everything starts to be seen as good, okay, manageable, and not needing to be altered to suit my passing mood or thought.

Sheng Yen (2013). Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications

The Glass in Muddy Water

 In Buddhism there is often a term used to explain the mind as having a lot of agitation. The mind is sometimes compared to a kind of jar of muddy water, where all the contents of that water are frequently stirred up or agitated. Once the mind is fully settled, such as through the practice of stillness, it is able to see itself and its environment much more clearly. Master Sheng Yen thus remarks, in the practice of samatha, "The goal is to bring the mind to a standstill. This process can also be thought of as clarifying and settling the mind. One can use the analogy of a glass of muddy water that becomes clear once the water is still and the dirt sinks to the bottom" (p.11)

As in much of this first talk in Tea Words Volume II, Master Sheng Yen is not creating any needless duality between the "true" and "false" mind. Rather, he is pointing out the ways that the mind can be harmonized so that it can see that both true and false are just creations of the mind. In meditation, I am thus not trying to sort my "good" from "bad" thoughts. More so, by allowing all the thoughts to settle and thus lose their capacity to captivate the mind, one can see the nature of all thoughts. Delusion is not the result of the thoughts themselves, but rather my tendency to cling to these thoughts and excessively identify with them.

Samatha is only one part of meditation, but it often seems necessary in this busy time to allow the mind to be like that muddy water that gradually sinks all its contents. When cleaning my apartment, can I think of all the things around me as settling thoughts that have their own place in mind, and which don't need to be fretted with? If I am clinging to everything I do and think, then all my chores become heavy demands. On the other hand, if I adopt the attitude that mind is only this clear and natural space, then all the contents in it are not so relevant. And I can put them away smoothly.

Sheng Yen, Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications

True and False again

 What is the difference between true and false mind then? Again, I circle back to this point. During the group meditation this evening, the participant described her process as trying to figure out that this "self" that is aware is not separate in any way from the surrounding environment. In fact, any attempt to create a separate "mind" from the body and environment is yet another delusion. Do we not need to separate from realms of ignorance to establish what "true" really means? According to Chan Buddhism, this process of separating "true" and "false" mind is not all that straightforward.
   In Tea Words Volume II, Master Sheng Yen remarks:

If we attempt to use the concept of consciousness to explain true mind, there will be quite a bit of confusion. It might be possible to say that true mind represents a kind of pure, undefiled mental activity while false mind represents impure mental activity, but this would still lack clarity. To avoid confusion Chan masters simply refer to “mind.” (p.10) 

True mind is not something that is separate from false, because if that were the case then there would be something "false" that is not included as part of the true mind. in fact, true mind is simply "mind" itself. It's the very same mind that we use to generate both pure and impure concepts and mental activity. By trying to separate a true mind from a false, I am only feeding my tendency to assume that there is a separate self that exists independently of the world or other phenomena. This is also like saying that the villain in the dream needs to be caught and thrown in prison in order to set "me" free-when in fact both the villain and myself are both in the same dream, and therefore cannot be separated.
   Master Sheng Yen furthermore remarks "buddhamind and the mind of sentient beings are not fundamentally different; we can look at false mind as the process of practice and true mind as the goal of practice." (ibid) This entails that the process of knowing false mind is needed for true mind to be revealed. This is quite fascinating because it points to a more inclusive way of looking at phenomena as part of one's practice (an integral part, in fact) rather than as being separate. It also suggests that even the most incorrect view contains true mind beneath it, and is in fact embedded in it.

Sheng Yen (2013) Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst: Dharma Drum Publications.