Zen and Western Psychotherapy:
Nirvanic Transcendence and Samsaric Fixation
Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal
by Sandra A. Wawrytko
Vol.4 July, 1991
pp. 451-494
.
P.451
Summary
Much has been said about the relationship between Buddhism
and Western psychotherapy. I argue that both the ends and
the means of Buddhist practice far exceed the limitations of
Western psychotherapy in its dominant forms. This claim is
substantiated by examining the underlying views of human
nature in the broader context of cosmic Nature, as these
reflect the assumed nature of the therapeutic task. Special
attention is given to the universal human encounter with
death as the ultimate manifestation of dukkha.My conclusions
may be summarized as follows:
1)Western psychotherapy, rooted in ancient Greek assumptions
and represented by strains as diverse as Sigmund Freud and
Abraham Maslow, essentially views human nature as internally
weak and thus largely controlled by "objective" external
forces. Consequently, it conceives of its task in terms of
teaching patients to cope with existing conditions, that is,
how to tread water in the samsaric sea. Its response to
death, as expressed in Freud's later theory of the Death
Instinct, is one of resignation as demanded by the
scientifically validated fact of natural necessity.
2) One of the few variations on this therapeutic scheme,
tending toward Buddhism in general and Zen in particular, is
to be found in Viktor E. Frankl's Logotherapy. As revealed
in Frankl's dimensional ontology, he is more sanguine about
human prospects and our ability to achieve
P.452
self-transcendence. Many parallels are to be found between
logotherapeutic techniques and those of Zen, including
glimmerings of enlightenmental insight into the key role of
suffering. Yet, Frankl is never fully able to liberate
either himself or Logotherapy from Samsaara, as reflected in
his view of death as a necessary guarantor of life's
meanings.
3)Only Zen is able to transcend both self (ego) and Samsaara,
by means of the resources inherent in Original Nature. Its
attitude of detachment toward death, without succumbing to
denial, epitomizes its overarching efficacy.
P.453
Much has been said about the relationship between Buddhism
in general and Western psychotherapy. This is especially
true in terms of various explorations of the "therapeutic"
potential inherent in Zen Buddhism.(1) In part, Buddhist
tradition would seem to corroborate the comparison, as seen
in the metaphor of Buddhism as a medicine or therapy
dispensed by the enlightened physician,theBuddha,to cure our
samsaric suffering.
Despite these apparent similarities, this discussion
focuses on the need for caution in the pursuit of comparisons,
for an uncritical association of Buddhism with existing
forms of psychotherapy as practiced in the West carries the
danger of reductionism, whereby both disciplines are
compromised. When Buddhism is reduced to being nothing more
than another form of psychotherapy, with Sakyamuni Buddha
himself identified as a proto-therapist, a valuable resource
is lost for the West. In being so regarded, Western thinkers
need not delve deeply to reveal Buddhism's uniqueness, but
remain content with superficial similarities.(2) This leads
to such absurdities as the assumption that psychedelic
-----------------------------
1) For example, see Erich Fromm and D.T. Suzuki, Zen
Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (New York: Harper, 1960) and
Alan W. Watts, Psychotherapy East and West (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1961). The parallels are more subtly
suggested by Frederick (Fritz). S. Perls in his Gestalt
Therapy Verbatim (Lafayette, California: Real People Press,
1969), where the text is sprinkled with references to Zen
and terms such as satori are used interchangeably with
psychotherapeutic concepts.
2) The same reductionism is appallingly present in the many
attempts to provide convenient, but simple-minded, contrasts
based on the geographical categorization of East and West.
Buddhists would rightly be shocked to read the following
description of the "Eastern" world view by Irwin D. Yalom:
The Eastern world never assumes that there is a
'point' to life, or that it is a problem to be
solved; instead, life is a mystery be lived. The
Indian sage Bhaqway Shree Rajneesh says, "Existence
has no goal. It is pure journey. The journey in life
is so beautiful, who bothers for the destination?"
Reconciling this beautiful journey with the reality of Samsaara
is indeed problematic. Even more disconcerting is the fact
that Yalom seems to derive his conclusions from D. T.
Suzuki, as indicated in the discussion prior to the above
passage. Existential Psychotherapy (New York: Basic Books,
Inc., 1980), p. 470.
P.454
delic drugs can be a substitute for the self-discipline of
meditational practice, in that they induce the same ecstatic
state and represent a kind of expressway to enlightenment,
or that meditation is primarily of interest as a means of
stress reduction. Even those who more modestly suggest that
drugs be used merely as a motivation for undertaking the
arduous path of practice, by granting a glimpse of things to
come, fail to heed Buddhism's fundamental precept against
intoxicants.
In the following I argue that both the ends and the means
of Buddhist practice far exceed the limitations of Western
psychotherapy in its dominant forms. This claim is
substantiated by examining the underlying views of human
nature in the broader context of cosmic Nature, as these
reflect the assumed nature of the therapeutic task. Special
attention is given to the universal human encounter with
death as the ultimate manifestation of dukkha.(3) My
conclusions may be summarized as follows:
I)Western psychotherapy, rooted in ancient Greek assumptions
and represented by strains as diverse as Sigmund Freud
and Abraham Maslow, essentially views human nature as
internally weak and thus largely controlled by
"objective" external forces. Consequently, it conceives
of its task in terms of teaching patients to cope with
existing conditions, that is, how to tread water in the
samsaric sea. Its response to death, as expressed in
Freud's later theory of the Death Instinct, is one of
resignation, as demanded by the scientifically validated
fact of natural necessity.
2)One of the few variations on this therapeutic scheme,
tending toward Buddhism in general and Zen in
particular, is to be found in Viktor E. Frankl's
Logotherapy. As revealed in Frankl's dimensional
ontology, he is more sanguine about human prospects and
our ability to achieve
──────────
3)It is significant that the Chinese translation of Samsaara
(sheng(1) ssu(3a))literally means "Life and Death".
P.455
self-transcendence. Many parallels are to be found
between logother-apeutic techniques and those of Zen,
including glimmerings of enlightenmental insight into
the key role of suffering. Yet, despite Frankl's
nirvaanic excursions, he is never fully able to liberate
either himself or Logotherapy from Samsaara, as reflected
in his view of death as a necessary guarantor of life's
meaning.
3)Only Zen is able to transcend both self (ego) and Samsara,
by means of the resources inherent in Original Nature.
Its attitude of detachment toward death, without
succumbing to denial, epitomizes its overarching
efficacy.
1.Human Nature and the Nature of the Psychotherapeutic Task:
From Plato to the Present
To understand the aim of psychotherapy, and thereby evaluate
its efficacy, one must first understand its subject. The
terms "psychology", "psychotherapy", "psychoanalysis", and
"psychiatry" all share a common etymological component,
"psyche", indicative of this subject. Derived from the
Greek, psyche (4) (Latin, anima) originally referred to
one's breath and eventually came to be associated with the
soul or spirit. This was based on the belief that the soul
departed from the body at death in one's last breath, a
long-standing medical criterion of death. Hence psychology
is the logos or study of the soul, psychotherapy attendance
(therapia) upon it, and psychiatry the art of healing it
(iartria).
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(4)In Creek mythology the character of Psyche is the feminine
personification of the soul. Her life story includes a
forced marriage to a mysterious stranger (subsequently
revealed to be Eros or Cupid) and conflict with her
unsympathetic mother-in-law (Aphrodite, goddess of love),
as detailed by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses. The plot,
suffused with Freudian symbolism, later re-emerged in the
fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. See Bruno Bettelheim,
The uses of Enchantment: The Meanings and Importance of
Fair Tales (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), "Cupid and
Psyche", pp. 291-303; "Beauty and the Beast", pp. 303-10.
P.456
The psyche concept likewise reveals a fundamental assumption
in Western culture, namely the separability (dualism) of mind
or soul and body. In the Phaedo Socrates speaks confidently
of this separation at death (presumably drawing upon his
Orphic background and beliefs). A distinct preference also is
shown for the psyche over the body, which last is assumed to
be pure while its material prison is a source of defilement
that must be overcome. Psyche alone constitutes the "real"
me, the essence of my being. (5) This assumption became a key
component of Christian theology (although contrary to the Old
Testament views of Judaism, which often posits a temporary
separation that ends with the resurrection of the body at the
Last Judgement(6)).
It is noteworthy that the same concept of the soul as "breath"
is found in another Indo-European language, Sanskrit, giving
rise to the word "aatman."(7) Thus, it may be said that
psychology is devoted to the study of the aatman. Yet it is
precisely this aatman, at the core of the Brahmanical
literature, that the Buddha countered with his doctrine of
an-aatman (anaatta), the denial of
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5) In the course of the Socratic dialectic of the Phaedo, the
participants come to a consensus on the fact that "death
is nothing more or less than this, the separate condition
of the body by itself when it is released from the soul,
and the separate condition by itself of the soul when it
is released from the body" (Plato: The Last Days of
Socrates, Hugh Trendennick trans. (Baltimore, Maryland:
Penguin Books, 1969), p. 108). Socrates goes on to
recommend this separation, stating "So long as we keep to
the body...our soul is contaminated with this
imperfection" (p. 111). Hence, "true philosophers make
dying their profession" (p. 113).
6) Daniel 12:2 states: "many of them that sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake to everlasting life, and some to
shame and everlasting contempt", while Isaiah 26: 19
proclaims: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead
body shall they arise." Quoted by Jacques Choron in Death
and Western Thought (New York: Collier Books, 1963), p.
81. Choron blames Paul for importing this "pagan" idea of
the resurrection of the body into Christian theology; p.
84.
7) The Indo-European root "anh" ("breath, soul, spirit")
provides the point of derivation for myriad linguistic
developments -- including the Latin "anima", Sanskrit
"atman" and English "animate". See Robert Claiborne, The
Roots of English: A Reader's Handbook of Word Origins
(New York: Timnes Books, 1989), p. 48.
P.457
aatman's reality. Accordingly, the task of psychotherapy to
care for this very psyche/aatman is fundamentally wrongheaded
Buddhistically-speaking. It amounts to attending to an
illusion, and represents a state of being deluded by an
illusion in making it the focal point of discussion.(8)
Freudian psychoanalysis is aptly named in the sense that
it literally strives to breakdown (analyze) the psyche into
its assumed constituent parts.(9) In fact, in his analysis
Freud was heavily influenced by classical Greek sources (as
he was with so many of his concepts), specifically Plato. A
vivid and revealing image of a tripartite soul is offered in
the Phaedrus:
Of the nature of the soul....let the figure be a
composite--a pair of winged horses and a
charioteer....the human charioteer drives his in a
pair; one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the
other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving
of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to
him....The chariots of the gods in even poise, obeying
the rein, glide rapidly; but the others labour [sic],
for the vicious steed goes heavily, weighing
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8) Grave consequences follow from this revelation with respect
to the Western philosophical tradition, which also has
made psyche (in its intellectual aspect) a focal point of
investigation. From a Buddhist perspective this too has
been the pursuit of an illusion, a series of footnotes to
Samsaara, from Aristotle's On the Soul through Descartes'
meditations to Kant's transcendental ego and Husserl's own
Cartesian meditations. The case of Descartes does,
however, merit further study from a Zen viewpoint,
inasmuch as he begins by marshalling the forces of "Great
Doubt" needed for enlightenment. Unfortunately for
Descartes, his "Great Faith" rested in Catholicism, which
in turn made the sine qua non of a "Great Death"
impossible for him or, more precisely, unthinkable.
9) Freud is himself well away of these etymological connections,
as he notes while describing the psychoanalytic method:
"We have analyzed the patient, i.e. separated his mental
processes into their constituent parts and demonstrated
these instinctual elements in him singly and in isolation;
what could be more natural than a request that we should
also help him to make a new and better re-combination of
them?"; Turnings in the Ways of Psychoanalytical Therapy"
(1919) in Collected Papers, Vol. II, John Riviere trans.
(New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959), p. 394. Freud even
compares the process to that used by chemists in
distinguishing between substances in their laboratories.
P.458
down the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not
been thoroughly trained:--this is the hour of agony and
extremest conflict for the soul.....The right-hand
horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck
and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his eyes
dark; he is a lover of honour [sic] and modesty and
temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no
touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition
alone. The other is a crooked lumbering animal, put
together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is
flat-faced and of a dark colour; with grey eyes and
blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride,
shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and
spur.(10)
The two horses represent the motive force/energy of our
inmost being, one of which can only be made to cooperate by
repressing its natural tendencies. The task of the
charioteer, representing reason, is to keep these two on the
right path and compel them to work in unison. Significantly,
without their efforts the chariot will go nowhere--nor can
they be traded for a more manageable pair. Hence each of
these three elements--reason, will, and passion--has an
indispensable role to play in effecting the forward motion of
the vehicle (body) despite the instability of their
interrelationships.
The Freudian Vision of the Psyche
Down through the centuries the tripartite view of the soul
(and, hence, of human nature), with its keynote of conflict
and tension, became ingrained in
────────
10)Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Benjamin Jowett and included in
The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 7 of Great Books of the
Western World (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.,
1952), 246-47, 253; pp. 124-25, 128. The means by which
the "evil" steed is to be restrained are graphically
presented later in the text (254; p. 128) : "the
charioteer...with a still more violent wrench drags the
bit out of the teeth of the wild steed and covers his
abusive tongue and jaws with blood, and forces his legs
and haunches to the ground and punishes him sorely. And
when this has happened several times and the villain has
ceased from his wanton way, he is tamed and humbled, and
follows the will of the charioteer."
P.459
Western consciousness through variations on the theme.(11)
Inherited by Sigmund Freud, it was examined through the
lenses of scientific materialism to produce his own unique
reinterpretation. The essential mechanism of control, the
assumption of a need to exert control over conflicting
forces, remains unchanged, as does the sense of the
regrettable, but necessary, evil inherent in our sources of
energy. However, Freud's refinements seem to give the
dark-horse of passion almost unstoppable power, while the
willing white horse is envisioned to be a nay-saying nag.
This view of human nature has been aptly described by
David Stafford Clark:
Freud,,.,struggled to help man find a way to elevate
himself above the savage beast, which, through no fault
of his own, is always a part of him, The doctrine of
original sin found no opposition from Freud, although
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11)On a mundane level, we have the model of the guardian angel
or conscience opposing devilish temptations, both of which
vie for the attentions of the befuddled decisionmaker.
Under the influence of Aristotelian philosophy (On the
Soul, Book II, 413b), the seventeenth century British
philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, speaks of the nutritive,
motive, and rational faculties of the soul (Leviathan,
part II, chapter 29). The three branches of the American
political system may similarly be cited here: controlling
executive branch/ President, inhibiting judiciary/Supreme
Court, and grass-roots legislature/Congress. More
recently, theories about the "triune brain" have emerged
in scientific circles whereby "three basic brains show
great differences in structure and chemistry, yet all
three must intermesh and function together" (Paul D.
MacLean, A Triune Concept of Brain and Behavior (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1973), p. 7. The assumption
of potential conflict among three forces, which
nonetheless must work together, is perpetrated here. The
parallels to the Platonic vision are striking, although
now the ephemeral soul is replaced by the "objective" fact
of the brain. A layering effect is posited in the human
brain: the core resides in the brain stem, designated the
reptilian brain, source of our survival functions, and
those recalcitrant passions represented by Plato's dark
horse; a mammalian overlay keeps us within the animal
realm of the white horse, who is more refined in its
motives and behavior than the reptilian root; the crowning
achievement of the sophisticated neocortex, however, is
confined to primates, representing the rationality of the
charioteer who must strive to remain in command of the
whole.
P.460
his explanation of it was biological rather than
religious.(12)
What is unique about Freud's three components is that
they are interconnected elements, rather than the three
distinct faculties or entities implied in Plato's analogy.
Each evolves out of its lower predecessor, struggling to
raise itself above its own roots, in a psychic version of
Darwinian evolution. The fundamental substratum, identified
as the Id (in German, "Das Es"),(13) is an impersonal,
seething sea of psychic energies, a microcosmic of the cosmic
soup out of which the universe emerged. Freud links the Id
with instinctual drives, most prominently the sexual energy
of the libido. These drives represent our primal inheritance
(original sin?) of human nature shared with all individuals,
past, present, and future. It can also be equated with the
"beast within", that aspect of human nature that directly
links, or binds, us to the primitive, material world of
animals. Precisely because of this beast that lurks within,
the savage hidden beneath a thin veneer of civilization,
social structures must be rigidly enforced and legal codes
adopted. The alternative is to plunge back into the
deplorable "State of Nature", characterized by primal
instincts of aggression and desire run amuck."(14)
────────
12) David Stafford-Clark, What Freud Really Said (New York:
Schocken Books, 1976), p. 243.
13) Debates have arisen as to the appropriateness of standard
translations of Freud's terminology. The problem seems more
crucial in the case of "Id" than that of "Ego." Bettelheim
suggests that we refer to the former as "the It" and the
latter as "the I," while the "Super-Ego" becomes "the Over-I".
Having noted the controversy,I shall continue to use the
traditional renderings here.
14) Descriptions of this "State of Nature" can be found in
Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, one of the foremost spokespersons
for this dominant self-vision in the Western world. A terrifying
fictional account of the degeneration of civilization occurs
in William Golding's Lord of the Flies (New York: Coward-McCann,
1954), chronicling the savagery that emerges when a group of
English schoolboys is marooned on an island, turning them
from well-mannered little gentlemen to murderous brutes.
Nor is the problem of psychic conflict deemed to be confined
to the human race. The intergalactic dimensions of this
phenomenon are set forth in the classic science fiction film
P.461
Obviously such views of human nature and its roots contrast
sharply with the "Original Nature" both valued and sought by
Zen. How odd, then, that some have suggested Freud's morass
of instinctual drives lodged in the Unconscious coincides
with the goal of Zen mediation. For example, it is claimed
that "[t]hrough the practice of zazen (Zen meditation), the
discriminating mind (the conscious mind) is quieted and the
intuitive mind (the unconscious) is liberated and identifies
with the universal mind."(15) Such an interpretation is at
best a partial truth, representing yet another manifestation
of the reductionist fallacy responsible for serious
misconceptions of Zen in the West.
The Ego develops out of the Id, serving as mediator between
the latter and the "real" or social world. Since the Ego is
derived from sense data and memories, what Buddhism refers to
as the five skandhas, it constitutes individual consciousness
and the sense of personal identity. In turn, the Super-Ego
emerges out of the Ego, two steps removed from the Id, by
means of social conditioning, the product of external
impositions, the demands made upon us, particularly by
parental and other authority figures. The Super-Ego's
function is essentially to inhibit the selfish (natural)
tendencies of both the instinct-driven Id and the
self-interested Ego. More informally referred to as the
conscience, the Super-Ego is responsible for instilling
feelings of guilt and anxiety that may in certain
circumstances escalate into psychic imbalance.
In a "normal", integrated personality, the Ego assumes the
reins, holding in check the recalcitrant Id without
capitulating to the excessive demands of the nagging,
negating Super-Ego. Despite the liabilities of both the Id
and the Super-Ego, the Ego cannot afford to eliminate either.
That would amount to
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"Forbidden Planet" (1956). In the story remnants of an
advanced, non-human civilization are discovered by
Professor Morbius of planet Earth. Their mysterious
demise is ultimately traced to a "dark, terrible,
incomprehensible force", which turns out to be none other
than "monsters from the Id". As the hero of the piece
states: "We're all part monsters in our subconscious.
That's why we have laws and religion."
15) Claire Myers Owens, "Zen Buddhism" in Charles T. Tart ed.,
Transpersonal Psychologies (New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1975), p. 156.
P.462
self-mutilation, as well as undermining the delicate balance
of power, The only hope for the Ego is to keep both Id and
Super-Ego in check by constantly shifting alliances with
their polar opposites. In fact, Freud declares "Man is lived
by the unconscious,"(16) meaning that our life energy derives
from this source and that our instincts are "the ultimate
cause of all activity."(17) When we fail to give the Id and
the Unconscious due respect, Freud observes, neurosis
results.
The primary task of psychotherapy, then, is to help the
individual (in the person/persona of the Ego as would-be
controller) to cope with the natural contentiousness of these
three forces and reinstate a balance among them.(18)
Regression lies at the root of the neurotic imbalance. A
psychic mechanism of great functionality, repression can at
times be too effective, too efficient, in its attempts to
tame the Id, thereby thwarting the flow of psychic energies.
Furthermore, by Freud's psychological version of the
scientific law of the Conservation of Energy, this energy can
be neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. Out of
this transformation, neurosis arises.
Consider the example of anger, as viewed within the Freudian
framework. Two options are recognized when this emotion
begins to bubble up from the primeval sludge of the Id into
consciousness: one may ex-press the anger (literally, press
or squeeze it out) or re-press/sup-press it (press it back or
under). The Super-Ego, as guardian of social order and
harmony, often inhabits direct expression of our anger,
particularly if it is directed toward what is deemed to be an
inappropriate object (e.g., an authority figure such as
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16) Freud as quoted by Yalom, p. 288, from Rollo May, Love and
Will (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), p. 183.
17) Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis. 1939. Vol. XXIII
Standard Ed., p. 150, quoted by Stafford-Clark, p. 136
18) In a popularized adaptation of Freud's tripartite model,
the more personalized labels of Parent (Super-Ego), Child
(Id), and Adult (Ego) have been utilized. Nonetheless,
the Platonic and Freudian goal of constructing an
integrated, well-balanced personality under the control
of reason remains unchanged.
P. 463
one's father or mother). The psychic strategy of the Ego in
such cases may be to banish the anger from consciousness.
Nonetheless, the energy so generated cannot be destroyed,
merely rechanneled, and so it is relegated to the wilderness
of the Unconscious. Freud warns that this strategy leads to a
potentially explosive situation, for the repressed anger will
eventually seek expression in other, more indirect forms.
These may be as harmless as Freudian slips or jokes or as
serious as neurotic manifestations of paralysis or
hallucinations.
In this dualism of expression versus repression, Freud sees
no solution but to dredge the Unconscious (through Dream
Analysis, Free Association, etc.) in order to drag the
repressed emotion to the surface. Once exposed in the light
of consciousness, its hidden energies become dissipated. It
is assumed that only by venting the anger in a controlled
situation can we avoid suffering the affects of its distorted
mutations. Fritz Perls echoes the Freudian line when he
states "Any anger that is not coming out, flowing freely,
will turn into sadism, power drive, and other means of
torture."(19)
Debates persist within the psychotherapeutic community on
the veracity of this analysis. Recent studies have suggested
that the mere fact of discussing one's anger (much less
expressing it) has the effect of aggravating rather than
ameliorating it. This implies that the situation is much more
complicated than Freud's mechanistic model realizes. Unlike
hot air in a overfilled balloon, we cannot simply find a way
to release anger in order to prevent it from exploding.
The dualistic nature of Western thought processes illustrated
by the Freudian model equally can be applied to any emotion
or instinctual drive--from hunger and sex to fear and
aggression. This either/or positing of a forced choice
between polar extremes presupposes the existence of an
unresolvable dilemma intrinsic to human nature. The psyche
thus is conceived as a veritable battlefield upon which
natural instincts (the Id) are pitted against civilized
standards of conduct (the Super-Ego), in the midst of
survival imperatives (the safeguarding of which is the
primary responsibility of the Ego).
────────
19) Frederick S. Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, John O.
Stevens ed. (Lafayette, California: Real People Press,
1969), p. 76.
P.464
Comparing the Freudian analysis of emotion with Buddhist
accounts, we see that Buddhist theory allows for a third
option over and above the extremes of Western dualism:
extinction. Anger (dosa) is a particularly apt example,
inasmuch as it is identified as one of the three "poisons"
(along with greed, lobha, and ignorance, moha)(20) The
Dhammapada devotes an entire chapter (XVII) to the topic of
anger, recognizing it as a self-imposed "fetter" (fu) we
must liberate ourselves from.(21) Significantly, this same
passage (221) cautions against clinging to either the body or
the mind (psyche). The image of the chariot also appears,
bringing to mind Plato's analogy: "Whoso, as a rolling
chariot, checks his uprising anger, him I call a charioteer;
other folk merely hold the reins" (222). The element of
control highlighted here would seem to correspond to the
prevailing Western models. Nonetheless, it is not repression
that is being advised--this would merely preserve the
unavoidable state of tension. Rather, we are instructed to
eradicate the negative emotion. This is borne out by the
subsequent passage (223) , where the methodology is
clarified--the anger (fen 4) is to be "conquered" (sheng)by
means of non--anger (pu-fen). The Suutra of Begueathed
Teaching recommends patience in such cases, for "the angry
mind is worse than a fierce fire" while anger and rage "steal
your merit and virtue" (22) Thus, anger or any other negative
emotion is not to be repressed, but replaced. We thereby
avoid the future dangers for both ourselves and others latent
within it.
Buddhism, then, allows us to transcend the Freudian dilemma
of expression versus repression by means of this third,
transcendent option. The
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20) See, for example, the Kalama Suutra, in which the Buddha
argues for the centrality of these three emotions based
on empirical data derived from his listeners.
21) The Dhammapada, trans. into Chinese from Paali by Shih
Liao-Chau and trans. into English from Paali by Narada
Thera, in Vo.II, Sutras and Scriptures, the Bilingual
Buddhist Series (Taipei: Buddhist Culture Service, 1962),
pp. 27-28.
22) The Suutra of Bequeathed Teaching, 6, trans. into Chinese
from Sanskrit by Kumarajiva and trans. from Chinese into
English by Chou Hsiang-Kuang, included in Vol.I of
Sutras and Scriptures, pp. 223-24.
P.465
extinction of negative emotion can be likened to the "blowing
out" of Nirvaana itself, so that no smoldering ashes remain
from the fire of anger that could later be rekindled.
Accordingly it is said "Defilements of those who are ever
vigilant, who train themselves day and night, who are wholly
intent on Nibbaana, fade away."(23) Others have compared it
to the uprooting of a tree:
In the primitive Buddhist view of human nature
naamaruupa (name-form) was also called naamakaaya
(name-body) and satkaaya-d.r.s.ti (the attachment to
one's own body). It was seen as being in this world by
sinking roots in the form of worldly passions, while
the co-dependent element of vijnaana [consciousness]
was the trunk that grew out of these earthly roots,
opposed to the earthiness of the roots by the principle
of clarity or knowledge. This would seem to head us in
the direction of an opposition between light and
darkness, but in fact both are fed by the same sap of
kle`sa (worldly passions) that flow through the human
mode of being. The rational discrimination of
consciousness and the correlative judgments of good and
evil may prune the branches of appetite but they do not
uproot the tree. When the violent wind of impermanence
strikes terror into one then the extinction of all
suffering and skandhas, the elemental negation of the
human mode of being, becomes a real possibility. That
is the real issue in the extinction of lust. Those who
ignore the co-dependency of clinging--lust and think it
enough to deny the burning thirst of desire reduce the
problem to a simple matter of trimming branches.(24)
If we interpret the Ego as vijnaana and the Id as kle`sa,
with the Super-Ego being represented by "judgments of good
and evil", we see that Freudian thera
────────
23) The Dhammapada, XVII, 226, pp. 27-28.
24) Takeuchi Yoshinori, The Heart of Buddhism: In Search of
the Timeless Spirit of Primitive Buddhism, James W. Eisig
ed., trans. (New York: Crossroad, 1983), pp. 95-96.
P.466
-py's denial of desire (repression) is just so much tree
trimming. It cannot hope to uproot the fundamental cause of
tension in human life. Buddhism's daring encounter with "the
violent wind of impermanence", most especially reflected it
approach to death, will be dealt with later. Here let us
examine more closely the Buddhist doctrine of human nature
that allows its radicalization or uprooting activity to
succeed, in contrast to the absence of this possibility in
Western views.
The Buddhist option, which offers a way out of the endless
cycle of Samsaara rather than simply helping us to keep our
heads above the samsaaric waves, is difficult for the Western
mind to fathom, inasmuch as it poses a direct challenge to
the reigning world view. It implies a degree of self-control
that defies the deterministic "laws" of science. Thus, Freud
condemns the concepts of freedom and choice as
"unscientific,"(25) even though he himself also described the
task of the therapist as giving "the patient's ego freedom to
choose one way or another."(26) Simply stated, the Western
view envisions the human being as irrevocably subject to
external controls, whether in the form of a divine being or
the forces of Nature.
In contrast, Buddhism, and Zen in particular, espouses a
doctrine of self-reliance bolstered by the efficacious
internal resources of Original Nature (hsing) . The
significance of this difference is reflected in the role of
moral precepts in the respective traditions. In keeping with
the Freudian model, ethical principles tend to be seen in the
West as externally-imposed universal
────────
25) Sigmund Freud, as cited by R. May, Love and Will, and
quoted by Yalom, p. 288.
26) Sigmund Freud, Tie Ego and the Id, vol. XIX, Standard Ed.
(London: Hogarth Press, 1961, originally pub. 1923), p.
50: cited by Yalom, p. 288. The incompatibility of the
free will assumed by Western morality and religion with
the determinism demanded by science continues to be a key
point of tension and contention. Numerous creative
attempts have sought to resolve the unresolvable--for
example William James' candid assertion of his personal
preference for indeterminism in his seminal essay, "The
Dilemma of Determinism". Here again Buddhism offers an
option to transcend--and dis-solve-the problem.
P.467
standards handed down by God, or, as for Freud, an
incorporation of external authority figures in the guise of
the Super-Ego. Thus, the human response to the Moral Law is
characterized by compulsion. Immanuel Kant, despite his
description of humans as legislating the Moral Law by virtue
of innate reason, uses language clearly indicative of force
and conflict.(27) A contemporary scholar, under the obvious
influence of Freudian thought, succinctly observes: "Morality
is the means by which we accomplish our repression".(28)
For Buddhists, however, the moral precepts or `sila
are regarded in a different light. Moral precepts are not
imposed upon the individual from without, but are voluntarily
observed as an expression of Buddhist compassion.(29)
Although compared to "a yoke upon the organs of sensation,"
they do not constitute a form of repression. Rather than
seeking to tame what has already "gone astray", the precepts
act as preventive measures:
`sila exponentializes negation to the power of infinity
until at last it steps outside the social realm of
ethical order altogether and takes the radical form of
a withdrawal from the world--asceticism and poverty--
that is almost inhuman in form.(30)
───────
27) See, for example, Kant's discussion, "On the Relation of
Theory to Practice in Morality in General", in On the Old
Saw: That May Be Right in Theory, But it Won't Work in
Practice, E.B.Ashton trans Philadelphia: Unviersity of
Pennsyvania Press): "duty is itself nothing but the
will's restriction to the condition of a universal
legislation; "(pp.46-47) "being virtuous, one bows to his
duty in the act(pp.48); self-denial"(pp.52); "man will
revere his duty above all else, will wrestle with the
countless ills of life as well as its most seductive
temptations (pp. 54).
28) Paul Bohannan, "Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard", Science 82,
April, an essay included under the column heading "Being
Human". Specifically Bohannan is referring here to the
social need to repress individual drives of sexuality and
aggression, citing as an authority Freud's Civilization
and Its Discontents.
29) For an enlightening discussion of this point see Lily de
Silva, "The Scope and Contemporary Significance of the
Five Precepts", in Buddhist Ethics ond the Modern World,
Charles Wei-hsun Fu and Sandra A. Wawrytko eds.,
(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1991).
30) Yoshinori,p.29.
P.468
Two points in this passage are especially deserving of note:
1) the way in which the `sila transcend social convention,
including the Super-Ego, and 2) the further transcendence of
humanness itself. The latter point, a unique aspect of
Buddhism's radicalization of our being, ties in with
Mahayana's assumption that the Buddha-nature pervades all
beings, as reinforced by the universal compassion expressed
in the ahimsaa (non-injury) precept.
Delving more deeply, the Buddhistic concept of human nature
emerges, sharply contrasting with the dominant Western view
discussed above:
the human person is basically pure, but in allowing oneself
to be exteriorized one takes evil karma upon oneself,
just like iron that rusts because it has been left
exposed to the elements. That evil karma then rusts the
subject to the core, like rust corroding the iron. It
is something that takes place without and yet
penetrates within unhindered to corrupt the core of the
subject. The fault here lies completely and totally
with the subject.(31)
Yet, precisely because the responsibility lies completely
within ourselves, we likewise have the means to become
purified. As an oft-quoted passage of the Dhammapada (l65)
states:
By oneself, indeed, is evil done; by oneself is one
defiled; by oneself is evil left undone; by oneself,
indeed, is one purified. Purity and impurity depend
on oneself. No one purifies another.(32)
In Buddhism, then, one must be a savior only to oneself and
cannot fulfill this function for, or expect it to be
fulfilled by, another. This is both possible and necessary
because one has the responsibility and resources to do so.
──────
31) Yoshinori, pp.29-30.
32) Dhammapada, p.77.
P. 469
Among all Buddhist sects, none is more adamant about self-
reliance than Ch'an or Zen, as is repeatedly emphasized by
Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, in his Platform Suutra. Here
`sila is referred to as one of the five forms of incense
(along with samaadhi, prajnaa, liberation, and liberational
knowledge), which "perfumes us from within; we should not
seek it without." (33) Hui-neng refers to the twofold process
of letting go of past misdeeds and guarding against future
ones, tasks to be performed by ourselves alone. Our Original
Nature, in sharp contrast to Freud's nefarious Id, is not the
source of our problems but rather of their solution. The
"repentance ritual (hui)" described by the Sixth Patriarch
does not require another to whom our appeal is directed nor
anyone from which forgiveness is received. Although it
involves a vow for the deliverance of an infinite number of
sentient beings, the vow is similarly explained as being
self-directed:
It does not mean that I, Hui-neng am going to deliver
them. And who are these sentient beings, potential
within our minds? They are the delusive mind, the
deceitful mind, the evil mind, and such like -- all
these are sentient beings. Each of them has to be
delivered by one-self by means of one's own Essence of
Mind [Original Mind]; only by one's own deliver-ance,
is it genuine.
The ultimate refuge, then, lies not beyond us, but rather in
our Original Nature; each should take refuge in the Buddha
within. No reference is made to any other Buddhas: "hence if
we do not take refuge in the Buddha of our own Mind-essence,
there is nowhere else for us to go." In this respect Hui-neng
is in perfect accord with the teachings of the First
Patriarch, Bodhidharma, and his
────────
33) These and subsequent references to the Platform Suutra or
Suutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, Chapter II, are
taken from the record of Fahai, Wong Mov-lam trans., rev.
by Dwight Goddard, included in Vol. I of Sutras and
Scriptures, pp.365-73. The English rendering has been
amended in some places.
P.470
key insight that "This mind is the Buddha",(34) which has been
described as "Mahayana Buddhism in a nutshell."(35)
Zen Repentance is suggestive of existential therapy's task
to "to de-repress, to re-acquaint the individual with
something he or she has known all along....Above all, the
philosopher and the therapist must encourage the individual
to look within and to attend to his or her existential
situation." (36) The similarity in perceptions does not,
however, translate into practice. "Existential guilt," the
sense of self-transgression or failure to realize one's full
potential that emanates from regret remains steadfast.
Confrontation with one's responsibility is necessary to
expiate such guilt, but too often it remains repressed until
the self-victimizing victim succumbs to death.
Irwin Y'alom discusses the pervasiveness of existential
guilt in Western society in terms of both clinical experience
and contemporary literature. In the latter context he
provides an insightful analysis of Franz Kafka's modern
classic, The Trial, as an explication of one man's
self-indictment, self-conviction, and self-avoidance, ended
only by his death:
Kafka's man from the country was guilty--not only
guilty of living an unlived life, of waiting for
permission from another, but he was guilty, too, of not
accepting his guilt, of not using it as a guide to his
interior, of not "unconditionally" confessing--an act
which would have resulted in the door "springing
open."(37)
───────
34) Bodhidharma. "Bloodstream Sermon" included in The Zen
Teaching of Bodhidharma,Red Pine trans. (San Francisco:
North Point Press, 1989), p.9. Bodhidharma further
insists that one must look into one's Original Nature
in order to discover a Buddha and assiduously avoid
savior figures in the forms of external Buddhas or
bodhisattvas, which are but illusions associated with
the mortal realm.
35) Red Pine, in his commentary to the "Bloodstream Sermon",
p. 16, note 12.
36) Yalom,p.16.
37) Yalom, pp.280-85.
P.471
The presupposed limitations of human nature would seem to be
instrumental in these failures. Conspicuously lacking is
Buddhism's structural basis for implementing the necessary
self-assertion, what Hui-neng outlines as "the Ritual of the
three-fold Guidance", in terms of the Buddha, the Dharma and
the Sangha.(38)
Beyond the Freudian Vision: Original Nature versus Original Sin
It may be objected that there is more to Western
psychotherapy than Freud, and this is indeed true.(39) Many
therapists, from Freud's own time until today, have taken
issue with this all-encompassing determinism regarding human
nature and human motivations. In particular there have been
many whose evaluation of the Unconscious has been much more
positive than Freud's fear and trembling over our latent
instinctual drives. C.G;. Jung, for example, redefined the
Unconscious in terms of its collective resources of
creativity. Moreover, a self-styled "Humanistic" trend has
taken hold in America, purporting to offer an alternative to
both Freudianism and Behaviorism, which heretofore have
dominated the psychotherapeutic scene.
These claims notwithstanding, an abiding consistency in the
view of human nature as inherently weak and constitutionally
inept in its dealings with natural forces remains. The
assumption of a fatal flaw has gone largely unchallenged.
Buddhism's emphasis on self-reliance goes against the grain
of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The latter is constructed
around the core assumption of Original Sin passed on from the
primal parents (and beyond our control). The corollary of
this theological assumption is Christianity's need for a
sacrifical victim, in the person of Jesus, to expiate our
collective guilt as Savior of all humanity. That this
assumption continues to suffuse Western culture is evidenced
by Jean Delumeau's exploration of the "cultural history of
sin in the West":
───────
38) Hui-neng,p. 370.
39) Nonetheless, Yalom observes "Freud's ideas have so
influenced the field that to a great extent the evolution
of dynamic thought is the evolution of Freud's thought";
p. 59.
P.472
I think that sin exists, I feel its presence in me.
Furthermore, I cannot see how one can eliminate
the idea of an Original Sin, whose scars we still bear.
Freud felt this and tried to explain it, while both
Bergson and Gouthier observed that "everything happens
as if there were an original defect in man."
My book must therefore not be taken either as a refusal
of guilt or the need for a consciousness of sin. On the
contrary, I think it will shed light on the excessive
sense of guilt and "culpabilization"...that has
characterized Western history.(40)
One corroborating example from the realm of psychology
can be found in Abraham Maslow. Heralded for his upbeat
theories, Maslow emphasizes an optimistic striving to reach
the pinnacle of one's individual potential under the banner
of "self-actualization." Despite this effusive terminology,
however, Maslow has little hope concerning the self's ability
to thwart impinging forces, especially when compared to Zen's
confidence in our Original Nature. While Maslow asserts the
goodness or neutrality of what he deems our "inner nature" in
the grounding assumptions of his psychology, he goes on to
provide the following characterization of that nature:
It is weak and delicate and subtle and easily overcome
by habit, cultural pressure, and wrong attitudes toward
it....Even though denied, it persists underground
forever pressing for actualization....every falling
away from species-virtue, every crime against one's own
nature, every evil act, every one without exception
records itself in our unconscious and makes us
──────
40) Jean Delumeau, Sin.and Fear: The Emergence of a Western
Guilt Culture, 13th-18th Centuries (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1990).
P.473
despise ourselves.(41)
This passage resonates with both Freudian views of the psyche
as a plaything of external powers and the experience of
existential guilt. Conditions beyond our control occasion
denial/repression of certain fundamental aspects of our inner
nature. The insistence on commitment to our "species-virtue"
also demonstrates that Maslow is not prepared for the radical
transcendence of humanness required in Buddhism's conception
of Original Nature.
Similarly, Maslow's oft-cited "Hierarchy of Needs" reflects
a recognition of human limitations. According to this theory,
five successive levels of needs, expressive of universal
human nature, must be met:
l)physiological needs
2)security
3)social, interpersonal needs
4)self-esteem
5)self-actualization
Satisfaction of the "higher" needs presupposes prior
satisfaction of the "lower". A species of determinism is at
work here, though it is much more subtle than the determinism
in Freud's system. Maslow assumes that l) our physical needs
(food, sleep, etc.) are the sine qua non, the bottom line, in
human life. Thus, only when they are first fulfilled can we
seek 2) to solidify our position psychologically, from which
point we can move on to 3) human interrelationships. After
the need for others has been realized we must 4) acquire a
positive self-image before we are able to 5) maximize our
potentials in the fullest sense. Such, for Maslow, is the
irrevocable demand of human life, a universal and
inter-cultural phenomenon.
───────
41) Abraham Maslow in his Introduction to Toward a Psychology
of Being, 2nd ed. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company, 1968), pp. 3-5. Under these same assumptions
Maslow discusses the nature of anger; his comments invite
comparison with the Buddhist notion of the "three
poisons" mentioned above: "Anger is in itself not evil,
nor is fear, laziness, or even ignorance. Of course,
these can and do lead to evil behavior, but they
needn't."
P.474
The model found in Buddhism again differs greatly. Even if
we assume that the fifth and final stage, self-actualization,
is inclusive of enlightenment (a most optimistic assumption),
the other four steps pose the possibility of indefinite
postponement. When, indeed, can we be certain those other
needs have been fulfilled, such that we are at last liberated
from natural necessity? How far do our physiological needs
really extend--how much food, sleep, etc. is necessary before
progressing to a sense of security? What is an appropriate
means of assuring security--a stable job, a six-digit income?
Without human bonding is a sense of security indeed
impossible? Even then how broad and intricate must this human
network be in order for one to feel fulfilled? Most
problematic of all is the emphasis on self at what are
assumed to be the highest levels of development. Zen
practitioners would seem to defy their own nature when they
defy the promptings of what Maslow takes to be natural
necessity. What shall we say of those who forego fulfillment
of the lower level needs while meditating --abjuring food,
sleep, human interaction, and all sense of self (much less
self-esteem!). Are they, then, not human? Buddhism's element
of self-transcendence, including a transcendence of the
human, is again crucial here. Perhaps Maslow has misjudged
human nature, ascribing to it limitations that are neither
universal nor insurmountable.
Another problematic aspect of Maslow's view is his emphasis
on the polarities of growth and deficiency. We must either
move forward or remain defective. The "process of healthy
growth" is elaborated in terms of mutually exclusive choices:
"a never ending series of free choice situations, confronting
each individual at every point throughout his life, in which
he must choose between the delights of safety and growth,
dependence and independence, regression and progression,
immaturity and maturity."(42) In Zen, however, realization
rather than growth is the focus--realization of our
pre-existing and pristine Original Nature. There is nowhere
to grow to, nor is there an innate weakness or defect to be
healed.
──────
42)Maslow, p. 47.
P. 475
Death: The Ultimate Challenge
Of all the dualisms that riddle psychotherapy in the West,
the most challenging of all revolves around life and death.
Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz fantacizes escape from this
inescapable and terrifying reality:
....for a short time there is no death
And time does not unravel like a skein of yarn
Thrown into an abyss.(43)
Like its religious predecessors, psychotherapy is challenged
to offer a response to the fact of human mortality. Western
religion's response has largely taken the form of denial,
made possible by positing the existence of another realm
beyond the material. Thus, our mortality is limited to our
physical being and does not affect the soul or psyche.
Accordingly, the central event of Christian
theology--ritualized in the Mass--is the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through his own conquest of
death, Jesus has imparted salvation and immortality to all
believers, precisely as the primal guilt of Adam and Eve has
been imparted to all human beings. The sins of the parents
are visited on the children while, conversely, the glory of
the "Son of Man"/"Son of God" is equally available to all.
Freud, of course, was less sanguine and as a scientist
had grave reservations about religion, characterizing it as
"an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which
we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have
developed inside us as a result of biological and
psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its
end....lts consolations deserve no trust."(44) In his later
years Freud was compelled to confront the perennial problem
of death without the benefit of religious consolation. Most
importantly, he was forced to modify
──────
43) Czeslaw Milosz, "The Garden of Earthly Delights", Unattainable
Earth (1986).
44) Sigmund Freud, new Introductory Lectures on
Psychoanalysis, Lecture 35. "A Philosophy of Life" included
in Vol. 54 of the Great Books, p. 878.
P. 476
his earlier view of human nature as motivated exclusively by
the Pleasure Principle to explain the persistence of
contradictory behavior. Hence, to the primal instinct for
pleasure, identified as Eros, was added the "Death
Instinct"─Thanatos.(45)
A new manifestation of the eternal inner conflict ensued
from these dual manifestations of the Id, with the forces of
life (sexuality) confronting those of death. Thus, according
to Freud's analysis, the human being seeks both pleasure or
prolonging/propagating life and its extinction in death.
Somewhat paradoxically, both of these instinctual drives are
grounded in the same end--homeostasis or the elimination of
tension. The tension, experienced as pain created by
unfulfilled instinctual drives, is eradicated by satisfying
those drives, as pleasure results from the reinstatement of
balance in the organism. Death, on the other hand, represents
the elimination of all tension, by eliminating the organism
along with its potential for both balance and imbalance.
Ultimately, then, the instinct for self-destruction detected
by Freud seeks to return us to pre-life oblivion.
It has been suggested that Freud sought in the Death Instinct
"a natural correspondence between the inevitability of
physical death and the drive of the human personality to
accept this, even to seek it unconsciously in a mixture of
biological fulfillment and resignation."(46) In other words,
this was Freud's means of making scientific sense out of an
indisputable fact, fitting death into the deterministic
scheme of things as a "natural" consequence. Freud himself
alludes to the comfort that can be derived from the Death
Instinct hypothesis: "If we are to die ourselves, and first
to lose those who are dear to us, it is easier to submit to a
remorseless law of nature, to the sublime necessity, than to
a chance which might perhaps have been escaped."(47) Indeed,
Freud speculated
────────
45) See Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920).
46) Stafford-Clark, p.193.
47) Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Standard Ed.,
Vol. XVIII, James Strachey trans. (London: Hogarth Press,
1968), p. 45.
P.477
that the "pleasure principle seems actually to serve the
death instincts,"(48) giving the latter ultimate priority in
the psychic realm--pleasure as the means to the end of death.
As Freud himself puts it 'the aim of all life is death'. (49)
The fact that no alternative exists may seem to provide
scant comfort, especially when compared to the "escape route"
outlined by the Buddha in the Four Noble Truths, and the
Eight-fold Path in particular. Ironically, or perhaps simply
misguidedly, Freud uses the term "Nirvaana-principle" as
identical with the Death Instinct designating a stabilizing
force with "the aim of extinguishing, or at least maintaining
at as low a level as possible, the quantities of
excitation",(50) representing "a need to restore an earlier
state of things".(51) Yet, it also offers a point of entry
for exploring the differences between Western
psychotherapeutic and Zen approaches to death.
The major trends in Western psychotherapy, as exemplified
in Freud, teach people how to cope or come to terms with
existing social reality. The focus is on balancing inner
drives and outer expectations. Freud offers an insightful
description of his own intentions:
We have formulated our therapeutic task as one of bringing
to the knowledge of the patient the unconscious, repressed
impulses existing in his mind and, to this end, of uncovering
the resistances that oppose themselves to this extension of
his knowledge about himself....out hope is to achieve this
by exploiting the patient's transference to the person of
the physician....I have expounded elsewhere the dynamic
conditions in the new conflict we lead the patient through,
which we have substituted in him for the previous conflict
of his illness. (52)
──────
48) Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 63.
49) Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 38.
50) Sigmund Freud, "The Economic Problem in Masochism",
Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers, Vol. II, Joan Riviere trans.
(New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959), pp. 255-56.
51) See Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, pp. 56-57.
52) Freud, "Turnings in the Ways of Psychoanalytic Therapy", pp. 392-93.
P.478
However, while one may cure a neurosis by treating it as
an aberrant attempt at conflict resolution and make one fit
to re-enter human society, no cure is offered or sought for
the more fundamental problem of Life and Death. Thus,
psychotherapy serves primarily as a means of self-adjustment
to Samsaara (aptly rendered as Life and Death in Chinese).
Dukkha, reinterpreted as tension, is dealt with by reference
to the instinct for pleasure or the elimination of tension in
homeostasis. But, being ultimately a futile endeavor, the
Death Instinct alone provides the final resolution of all
tensions. Awash with determinism, Freud's view seems
congruent with the Buddha's Noble Truths, at least in part:
I. Life is dukkha/tension.
II.Dukkha/derives from ta.nhaa/instinct.
III.To end dukkha/tension we must eliminate ta.nhaa,
as the proximate cause of dukkha or, more
fundamentally, eliminate the ignorance (avidyaa) which
is its root cause (that is, satisfy instincts through
the Pleasure Principle or else obliterate them through
the Death Instinct).
Conspicuously absent is the fourth and final truth
outlining the Eight-fold Path. No practice leading to
transcendence is offered. Without this component the analysis
of Life and Death loses the optimistic edge of Liberation,
being replaced by Freud's resgination to "sublime necessity."
The transcendence of Samsaara for Nirvaa.na--or the Zen
realization of Samsaara as Nirvaa.na, Nirvaa.na in
Samsaara--is likewise unimaginable.
To summarize, for Freud and most psychotherapists in the
West, human nature is hopelessly burdened by the collective
weight of the Id forces that forever dictate and delimit our
actions. "Original Nature" thus represents a kind of
enslavement rather than Zen's means of liberation. All that
remains is to make the best of a bad situation by
rationalizing it scientifically. For Freud the problem of
Life and Death is biologically posed, and hence must also be
resolved biologically (that is, through the Death Instinct).
In Zen, however, the self-generated bonds of desire,
clinging, etc. allow for our own action to dissolve the
problem of Samsaara by seeing its mergence in Nirvaa.na.
P. 479
Although both psychotherapy and Zen recognize our problems
as self-generated--whether in the form of existential guilt or
"sin"-only Zen provides the means for "conquering"
conditioned genesis by opting out of the cycle completely. At
the root of this difference lies psychotherapy's fixation on
the psyche -- aatman, the illusory ego-self--as opposed to
Zen's adherence to the real or Original Nature, characterized
as anaatta/anaatman. As a consequence, psychotherapy is not
only seeking solutions in the wrong place (namely Samsaara),
but also is searching for the wrong object (aatman). Hence we
cannot help but remain enmeshed in impermanence (anicca) and
delusion.(53)
II. Variations on the Psychotherapeutic Theme:
The Logotherapy of Viktor E. Frankl
Not all forms of Western psychotherapy fall into the same
traps as those noted above. In the following I shall discuss
one school--Logotherapy--that manifests certain qualities
indicative of a striving for transcendence in the direction
of Zen. At the same time, it falls short of a complete
liberation from samsaaric bonds. The reason for this failure
further illuminates the differences between Zen and Western
psychotherapeutic trends.
Logotherapy--literally "therapy through meaning" (logos)
--originates from Viktor Frankl's sense of the limitations
and misperceptions of his predecessors. More specifically,
Frankl offers his own "dimensional ontology" to supplement
the oversights of Freud (whom he studied) and Alfred Adler
(Freud's erstwhile student and one time heir apparent whose
school Frankl once belonged to). Frankl asserts that Western
psychotherapy has failed to grasp the
───────
53) Fritz Perls illuminates this point: "This is Freud's great
discovery--that there is something between you and the
world....Freud's idea that the intermediate zone, the
DMZ, this no-man's land between you and the world should
be eliminated, emptied out, brainwashed or whatever you
want to call it, was perfectly right. The only trouble is
that Freud stayed in that zone and analyzed this
intermediate thing. He didn't consider the self-awareness
or world-awareness; he didn't consider what we can do to
be in touch again."; pp. 49-50.
P.480
complexity of human nature. He seeks to expand the definition
beyond reductionist tendencies that make the human "nothing
but" another organism governed by drives for sexuality or
aggression (the rat model) or malfunctioning component (the
machine model).(54) It is here that Frankl begins to resonate
with Zen's insights.
Frankl's scheme can be summarized as follows:
Freud--Will to Pleasure, the physiological dimension
(sexuality, sensuality, hedonism--the infant stage)
Adler--Will to Power, the psychological dimension
(money, politics, fame--the adolescent stage)
Frankl--Will to Meaning, the noological dimension
(spiritual--the adult stage)
Love/experiential values, what one takes from the
world (an external source of meaning in other human
beings, Nature, etc.)
Work/creative values, what one gives to the world
(an internal source through service, creations, etc.)
Suffering/attitudina1 values, one's interaction with
and response to the world.
Of special significance in Frankl's ontology is his attempt
to account for transformational elements in human nature, our
inherent human resources for self-transcendence able to act
alongside and beyond instinctual drives. In this
"ontological" dimension lies his "height psychology",
countering the "depth psychology" of Freud and others.
Frankl's discussions do not focus on the conflicting forces
of Id, Ego, and Super-Ego; nor does his therapeutic
interaction with patients necessitate delving past
experiences, particularly childhood traumas, as the causes of
present neuroses. Frankl supplements the scientific methods
of Freud with existential philosophy (and at one point even
referred to his school as Existential Analysis). He descries
the pan-determinism
──────
54) See Viktor E. Frankl, The Unheard Cry for Meaning:
Psychotherapy and Humanism (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1978), pp. 55-57.
P.481
or all-encompassing sense of determinism inherent in Freudian
thought. In its places he proposes a reinstatement of freedom
and responsibility. Unlike the majority of therapies,
Logotherapy is receptive to the healing potential of
spirituality, seeing such currents as part of the cure rather
than a symptom of neurosis.(55)
Nonetheless, as a scientifically trained professional,
Frankl is not completely comfortable with the inclusion of
religion. His coinage of the term "no1ogical" (from "noos"
and "nous", "mind"), although essentially descriptive of
spiritual expressions, allows him to clothe his discussions
in a mantle of respectability imparted by a Greek derivation.
Despite his advocacy of "cosmic meaning", Frankl's treatment
of religion tends to be similarly circumspect. In general God
remains for Frankl an indispensable, but eternally
unprovable, hypothesis, much as it is for Immanuel Kant in
his "als ob" moral philosophy. (56)
By putting meaning uppermost in his analysis of human
nature, Frankl orients his therapy toward helping patients to
realize their personal life meaning. The lack of such meaning
Frankl identifies as the mass neurosis of modern times--the
Existential Vacuum--a gaping hole resulting from a
disconnectedness. between fact and values that can only be
bridged by meaning. The parallels to Buddhist Sunyata are
manifest here, although in the latter case no pejorative
value judgment is attached to this ultimate expression of
reality. The Vacuum or Void then becomes our final target
rather than something to be avoided.
──────
55) In this regard, Frankl quotes a letter from Sigmund Freud
to Ludwig Binswanger in which Freud states that he had
"already found a place for religion, by putting it under
the category of the neurosis of mankind." Frankl goes on
to observe that "Even a genius cannot completely resist
his Zeitgeist, the spirit of his age"; The Will to
Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy (New
York: New American Library, 1969), p. 27
56) Frankl's ambivalence toward religion is perhaps best seen
in the closing lines of his unpublished play,
"Synchronization in Buchenwald", where the protagonist
calls out in turn to his dead mother, brother, and God.
The first two respond from their afterlife environment,
while the response from God is simply a thundering
silence.
P.482
The Logotherapist and the Zen Master
Frankl's therapeutic method manifests certain similarities
to Zen. For example, like a logotherapist, the Zen Master's
finger points to the moon of Original Nature without being
able to impart that nature to the disciple.
Moreover, the importance of self-reliance is stressed in
both Zen and Logotherapy--as Frankl notes "truth imposes
itself and needs no intervention".(57) Frankl rejects an
approach that would presume to give meaning to the patients
or it create it for them, since each person possesses the
freedom and responsibility to realize their unique meaning,
for "the meaning of our lives is not invented by ourselves,
but rather detected".(58) Thus, he compares the role of the
logotherapist to that of an opthamologist, that is, one who
corrects the patient's vision so that they may see reality
for themselves, as opposed to a painter who presents a
picture of reality to the patient: "The logotherapist's role
consists in widening and broadening the visual field of the
patient so that the whole spectrum of meaning and values
becomes conscious and visible".(59)
Yet another area of congruence is found in their
respective methodologies. A characteristic logotherapeutic
technique is to help the patient realize their own unique
meaning and responsibility in life. This is comparable to the
dynamics that exist between the Zen Master and the disciple
aspiring toward seeing their Original Nature. The patient,
like the Zen practitioner, begins at the level of
hyperreflection--an excessive concern with one's own problems
to the exclusion of all other concerns. In the patient, this
condition may manifest itself as a wallowing in self-pity,
one is deeply sunk in one's own Existential Vacuum, and
oblivious to the surrounding reality. The Zen student,
although intellectually aware of the samsaaric nature of this
suffering (dukkha)--as well as its universality--seeks the
Buddhist means of ending it, as outlined in
────
57) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 175.
58) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to
Logotherapy(New York: Pocket Books, 1963), p. 157.
59) See Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 174.
P.483
the Four Noble Truths. However, existential or lived awareness
is lacking. The problem then becomes fixation on
enlightenment, becoming what Pai-Chang aptly describes as
"one who is fond of the raft and will not give it up,"
"intoxicated by the wine of pure things."(60)
The initial task of the logotherapist/Zen Master is thus
to broaden the vision of their charges through the process of
dereflection, gradually turning the focus of attention toward
reality as a whole. In the context of Logotherapy, this may
take the form of paradoxical intention, an unexpected
response to the patient's seeking of solace. For example, in
response to a distraught patient's litany of travail Frankl
pointedly asks "Why do you not commit suicide?"(61) The
similarity to the Zen koan is obvious here.(62) Both pose a
jarring challenge to our trite expectations, thereby
challenging us to draw upon more than mere conditioned
response--the primal resources of Original Nature in Zen and
the noological dimension in Logotherapy. Both thus
demonstrate Frankl's insistence on the need for creative
tension as "an indispensable prerequisite of mental
health"(63)-- in sharp contrast to Freud's assumption of
homeostasis as the optimum state of an organism. For Frankl,
one "is questioned by life; and ...can only answer to life by
answering for his own life",(64) a process facilitated by the
person of the Zen master or logotherapist. Moreover,
paradoxical intention is seen to be "a useful tool in
treating obsessive, compulsive and phobic conditions,
especially in cases with underlying anticipatory
anxiety."(65) What better description could be given of the
dukkha inherent to the human condition, infected by the three
poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance!
─────
60) Sayings and Doings of Pai-Chang, Thomas Cleary trans.
(Center Publications), pp. 30-32.
61) See Gordon W. Allport's Preface to Frankl, Man's Search
for Meaning. p. vii.
62) A discussion of this topic can be found in Cliff Edwards'
"Logotherapy and Zen: Anecdotal Approaches to Meaning"
in Sandra A. Wawrytko ed., Analecta Frankliana: The
Proceedings of the First World Congress of Logotherapy
(1980) (Berkeley, California: Institute of Logotherapy
Press, 1982), pp. 301-09
63) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 164.
64) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 172.
65) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p.201
P.484
If successful this technique elicits detachment or a
distancing from one's obscuring self-involvement. Thus, the
distraught patient is stimulated by the shocking
counter-question of the logotherapist to provide a multitude
of reasons as to why he or she should not commit suicide,
whereas previously they were passively waiting to be provided
with that meaning. Correspondingly, in Zen the apparent
request for a logical response to the counter-logical koan
question belies the true intent of drawing upon the student's
trans-rational resources, rooted in Original Nature. In both
Logotherapy and Zen, humor is reognized as an effective
expression of paradoxical intention. Frankl's own experiences
in the death camps of World War II Frankl confirmed that
"humor, more than anything else in the human makeup, can
afford an aloofiness and an ability to rise above any
situation, even if only for a few seconds."(66) Given
sufficient prior cultivation, satori may indeed be attained
satori may indeed be attained within these few seconds.
An interesting integration of Frankl's technique of paradoxical
intention is found in the story of Ch'an master Hsien-yai's
successful intervention (by non-intervention) in a marital
conflict. While traveling the Master encountered a couple
engaged in a violent quarrel, hurling threats and
counter-threats at each other. Rather than trying to reason
them out of their anger or address them directly, the Master
called on passers-by to come and see the excitement, luring
them with the prospect of an imminent homicide. When someone
in the crowd objected to such behavior on the part of a monk
the Master replied that this was quite consistent with his
calling, since it represented a good opportunity to earn some
money by performing funeral services. As the argument between
the Master and the irate spectator escalated, the couple was
distracted/dereflected from their own hyperreflective state.
This humor-induced detachment paved the way to a final
resolution of both the quarrel and their dysfunctional mode
of interaction.
The final stage in the therapeutic process is in Logotherapy
self-transcendence
───────
66) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p.68.
P.485
dence and in Zen enlightenment. Here Frankl has made a
valuable contribution to psychotherapy by pointing beyond
both Freud's self-involved Ego/Id/Super-Ego construction and
Maslow's culminating point in self-actualization, Ego-centrism
is at last decentralized, edging close upon Buddhism's
anaatta insight. Frankl even flirts with non-duality by
insisting that our own happiness is only possible when we are
willing to forego it for the sake of something or someone
outside ourselves. He employs the analogy of the boomerang,
which, like happiness, returns to us only when it has first
been thrown away. Taken a step further, this leads to a
recognition of the artificiality of ego-boundaries, such that
self and others are not separated. However, Frankl's
Western-trained sensibilities seem to prevent him from taking
this final step into the nirvaanic Void.
As illustrated through these paralleling processes, the
role of the logotherapist is far closer to that of a Zen
Master than to a Freudian psychoanalyst. The latter functions
as a mediator, an object of transference, who all too often
induces a state of utter dependency in the patient. There is
in Freud's therapy a presupposed ideal of how the psychic
elements of Ego, Id, and Super-Ego are to be integrated, set
limitations for handling repressed instincts, definite
expectations as to the value of sublimation. This
authoritarian stance is largely absent in logotherapeutic
theory, and even moreso in Zen, both of which emphasize
self-reliance. Both also share a common optimism about the
patient's ability to reveal pre-existing values, either in
the form of meaning or the Original Nature.
Finally, Frankl's approach is future-oriented, is focussed
on a goal to be accomplished or meaning to be realized. The
past is not allowed to be used as an excuse for shirking
present responsibilities. As Frankl tells a patient: What
counts is not what lurks in the depths but what waits in the
future, waits to be actualized by you." (67) Like the Buddha,
Frankl counsels against speculating on
───────
67) Viktor E. Frankl, "Fragments from the Logotherapeutic
Treatment of Four Cases" in Modern Psychotherapeutic
Practice, A. Burton ed. (Pale Alto, California: Science
and Behavior Books, 1965), pp. 365-67.
P.486
the causes for one's condition, and instead encourages the
patient to simply get on with their life task. Just so,
Hui-neng exhorts us to non-attachment by declaring "let the
past be dead".(68)
Love, Work, and Suffering; Wisdom, Compassion, and Practice
Comparisons also exist with regard to the three sources
of meaning recognized by Frankl. The experiential values
reflected in it may be correlated with wisdom (prajna), the
creative values of work with compassion (karuna), and the
attitudinal values of suffering with practice. These pairings
also serve to disclose the limitations inherent in the
logotherapeutic methodology, revealing its groping toward the
insights that reach their full realization only in Zen.
Frankl sees these as three equally accessible avenues to
meaning, three interchangeable routes to satisfying the will
to meaning. Nonetheless, suffering is said to hold the
promise of meaning only when it concerns an "inescapable,
unavoidable situation", as "a last chance to actualize the
highest value, to fulfill the deepest meaning".(69) In
Buddhism, however, the first Noble Truth recognizes that
suffering (dukkha) in its myriad forms pervades the life
experience. Accordingly, a a vehicle to meaning, it does not
represent a "last chance", but rather is an integral part of
all meaning. Suffering as dukkha is indeed the one and only
means to meaning. Furthermore, the division of experiential,
creative, and attitudinal values is merely provisional, for
in essence they are inseparable.
Frankl characterizes love as something to be experienced
or "taken" from the world, from which one might assume it has
more in common with the emotion of compassion than wisdom.
However, the Buddhist practitioner does not merely experience
the world through love, but actively seeks to transform that
world. Wisdom, then, seems a more appropriate parallel here,
in the sense of its being an existential acquisition by means
of lived experience. The limitation in Frankl's conception,
from the Buddhist standpoint, is seen in his description of
experiential values as being "realized by the passive
receiving of the
───────
68) Hui-neng, p 391.
69) Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 178.
P.487
world (nature, art) into the ego".(70) This quotation reveals
that the self/other distinction, the illusion of ego/aatman,
is itself the limiting factor here. The redeeming aspect
is that love also is said to open the lover to as broader and
deeper vision of the cosmos, which in turn may serve as the
occasion for removing that selfsame dualistic delusion.
Work, like compassion, constitutes a creative expression,
what we "give" to the world, thus a natural progression
beyond the acquiring of insight. Buddhist love, unlike its
more mundane human expression, fits this description by being
rooted in meditational practice. It is a
microcosmic-macrocosmic merging or dissolution of the
ego-self, (71) a mystical love made possible by detachment
from the samsaric realm, while simultaneously rendering
service to those who remain deluded by Samsaara. On this
point the Buddhist approach comes into conflict with Frankl's
emphasis on the indispensibility, irreplaceability,
uniquenmess, and singulaiity of the individual as an active
agent.(72) Such assumptions are indicative of being enmeshed
in the "demon net" of the would-be Bodhisattva or "warrior
for enlightenment".(73)
A liability of both experiential and creative values in
Frankl's approach is that he often discusses them in terms of
"the optimism of the past"--a perspective that envisions the
past as a permanent storehouse of values. This contradicts
Hui-neng's directive to "let the past be dead". Only the
attitudinal values of suffering, practice (dhyana leading to
samadhi), is present and future-oriented. Suffering also
offers the most promise here as a catalyst for what I refer
to as "serendipitous enlightenment", that is, a crisis
situation that has the effect of allowing an individual to
achieve insight into reality through a critical
reconsideration of their past value system. Such an
experience thrusts the person
────────
70) Viktor E. Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy
to Logotherapy, Richard and Clara Winston trans. (New York:
Vantage Books, 1973), p. 105.
71) For an elaboration of the intricacies of Buddhist love-in
the forms of mettaa, karunaa, muditaa, and upekkhaa -- see
Yoshinori, pp. 42-47.
72) Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul, p. 35.
73) Pai-CVhang, p. 35.
P.488
headlong into the Existential Vacuum. and may even induce the
symptomatology of existential neurosis. Numerous cases are to
be found both within and beyond the logotherapeutic
literature. All share a common core experience -- an
accidentally provoked crisis that serves to expose the
superficiality of previously held goals, thereby
precipitating a confrontation with one's life task from the
vantage point of a new, broader perspective.
While Logotherapy does not advocate that the individual
actively seek such crises (which, according to Frankl, would
amount to masochism), it does propose a structure within
which they can be made meaningful when unavoidable.
Buddhistically speaking one may say that suffering in general
-- the samsaric cycle of dukkha -- is unavoidable, and hence
every experience is potentially enlightenmental. But
Buddhism, and Zen in particular, goes even further to propose
a plan of action or practice under these circumstances, as
contained in Buddhist Dharma. What in Frankl's scheme
represents a negative happenstance that is therapeutically
transformed, in Zen becomes the ground of the human condition
(as well as the non-human), and the focal point of Buddhist
"therapy". The Zen Buddhist thus does not masochistically
pursue suffering, but does undertake to deal with the fact of
its existence.
If successful, self-transcendence follows from working
through the process from hyperreflection to dereflection and
detachment. One example concerns a young man from Texas who
aspired to every boy's dream -- the life of a cowboy. His
goal was within his reach when in his late teens a tragic
accident left him a quadriplegic. Obviously, he could not be
a wheelchair cowboy. After considerable soul-searching and
inspiration derived from Logotherapy his serendipitous
enlightenment led to a personal transformation. He concluded
that rather than being worst off after the accident he was in
fact blessed, for it forced him to reconsider his options in
life. He decided to continue his education, which otherwise
would have ended after high school, in pursuit of a degree in
psychology, toward the end of counseling those who has
undergone similar life-shattering and potentially
life-transforming experiences. Here he found the meaning of
his tragedy, making it an opportunity for self-transformation
and
P.489
enlightenment.
As testimony to Frankl's insights about the pervasiveness
of the Existential Vacuum in contemportary society, we may
cite the trend toward crisis-inducing organizations. These may
take the form of intensive group therapy sessions, isolation
tanks, or wilderness survival courses. Such programs as
"Outward Bound" are particularly designed to provide
rehabilitation and therapy to juvenile delinquents. The
intent is to instill a realization of inner resources as a
means to building self-confidence and bolstering self-esteem,
such that the individual becomes a productive member of
society. Herein lies the problem, for even if they are
successful, such experiences serve only to bolster the
(illusory) ego-self and reinforce samsaaric fixation.
Moreover, the artificiality of these self-induced and
other-directed crisis situations differs greatly from Zen's
recognition of the existing life crisis of Samsaara. What is
lacking in the Western models is a firmly grounded
philosophical basis and discipline, a set of guidelines for
venturing into the very depths of the samsaaric Void.
Extending Buddhism's broadened view of suffering as pervasive
of life experience, we can take a fresh look at Frankl's most
influential and widely-known work, Man's Search for Meaning.
Originally entitled A Psychologist Experiences the Death
Camp, the text is divided into two parts: the first details
Frankl's experiences as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration
camps, while the second outlines his logotherapeutic
principles. It is perhaps not inappropriate to see the
concentration camp as a metaphor for samsaaric existence in
general.
The condition holds either directly (in the case of the
inmates) or indirectly (as in case of their overseers, who
envision themselves as inflicting, rather than being
subjected to, suffering). The three stages experienced by the
prisoner in Frankl's account then are applicable to the broad
spectrum of humanity. The first of these stages--the delusion
of reprieve--aptly characterizes the state of those who look
to some divine force to provide salvation from the human
condition, usually in the form of a paradisiacal afterlife.
Western science has discredited this hope, as reflected in
Freudian psychotherapy. Hence, there is a
P.490
move toward the second stage of Adjustment, the most
complicated as well as the most long lasting phase. For the
camp inmate this stage requires a gradual acceptance of the
abnormal as normal, including emotional hibernation,
desensitization, and overall apathy. The concerns of life
take on a primal immediacy, eliciting the very instincts
Freud deems to be the source of human energies. The only
remaining course, as Freud counsels, is resignation to
irrevocable, natural necessity. Only Zen ventures beyond, to
offer the prospect of liberation, in the sense of escape from
Samsaara and realization of the co-existing nirvaanic state.
In what Frankl refers to as a "rehumanization" process, we
can conceive of the liberated inmate's re-establishment of
contact with Original Nature, which has been thwarted and
obscured by samsaaric submergence.
Thus, we see in Logotherapy a much more successful attempt
to deal with the human condition than Freudian theory -- much
more optimistic about the inherent powers of human nature.
Nonetheless, in lacking the structural basis for the
enlightenment process, for cultivation prior to
enlightenment, and its dependence on the unreliability of
"serendipitous enlightenment", it continues to lag behind
Zen. Unaware of the universality of suffering, it therefore
relegates the approach needed for nirvanic liberation to
extraordinary circumstances.
Death as the Sine Qua Non of Meaning
The final topic to be considered in the light of Logotherapy
is that of death and its relationship to life. As seen above,
Freud ultimately was moved to posit a Death Instinct in order
to bring some semblance of rationality to this universal
human phenomenon. Death proved no less troublesome for
Frankl, and in fact constitutes the beginning point of his
therapeutic search. He recounts his own precocious encounter
with the mortality at age four.(74) This catalyst launched
his lifelong search for meaning. Given the fact of death, he
queried, how could life hold any meaning? His answer was
phrased in terms of the meaning of death itself, or, more
precisely, the fact that death imparts meaning to life. Thus,
in the context of Logotherapy, death becomes not a necessary
──────
74) See Stephen Kalmar, "A Brief History of Logotherapy"
in Analecta Frankliana p. XVI.
P.491
evil of Nature to which we must resign ourselves, but a
guarantor of the meaning life, and hence a focal point of
discussion.
How does Frankl accomplish this transformation of death?
He begins by delving the etymology of the word "finite", a
word of usually negative connotations. Western culture has
evidenced an overwhelming preference for the infinitem, the
eternal, qualities associated with divinity. Frankl argues
for an attitudinal change in terms of our sense of the word,
which thereby entails a change in our attitude toward
death.(75) The word finite, says Frankl, has a dual meaning,
derived from the Latin "finis", which signifies both a limit,
a boundary, or ending point and a goal. If we conceive of
death in the former sense, as a limitation, as is usually
done, then it becomes a barrier for us, something that
represents the termination of life. If, however, we explore
the possibilities inherent in the second meaning of a goal,
death becomes integrated as an intrinsic part of the entire
life process; it is the finish line toward which we are
continually striving, the time limit that puts all that
precedes it into proper perspective.
Frankl then asks us to consider the consequences of having
no such final goal. Without the incentive (creative tension)
evoked by impending death, our lives would be characterized
by interminable postponement, under the assumption of
immortality. There would be no need to compete or even pursue
any project now, or to strive after professional or personal
goals immediately, since we would literally have all the time
in the world to fulfill any and all of them. As a
consequence, we would most likely accomplish very little and
so suffer the overwhelming effects of Existential Vacuum for
eternity.(76)
Aldous Huxley offers a fictional account of just such a
terrifying immortality in his novel After Many a Summer Dies
the Swan. In the story an incredibly wealthy man devotes his
entire fortune to finding the secret to life extension, only
to learn that there are inevitable negative accompaniments to
──────
75) Frankl devotes an entire section of his text, The Doctor
and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, to "On
the Meaning of Death" (New York: Vintage, 1973), pp. 63-92.
76) See Frankl,"On the Meaning of Death", The Doctor and the
Soul, pp. 63-92.
P.492
this goal. In living far beyond the human norm, he becomes
sunk in a Freudian-esque oblivion of primal drives. Death
under such circumstances emerges not only as meaningful, but
moreover as a welcome relief.
III. The Zen Transcendence
Turning now to Zen proper, we see that the dualism of life
and death has been left behind, as mere relics of the now
transcended Samsaara. Hence the therapeutic goal differs
enormously from the Freudian resignation to death. The means
to this goal, while related to logotherapeutic methods, far
exceed the scope of the latter. Rather than teaching one to
cope with samsaaric existence--however that may be conceived
-- Zen radicalizes our very being. The Zen practitioner is
not content with an occasional glimmer of serendipitous
enlightenment, but actively engages in Zen practice to evoke
that experience. Most fundamentally, the difference can be
traced to Zen's profound grasp of the mechanism underlying
Samsaara (conditioned genesis), along with practical methods
of escaping its grasp (meditation, etc.). Zen transforms our
way of seeing the world by pulling aside the veil of
illusion. In so doing it reveals our Original Nature and
exposes the delusive fallacy of self-development and progress
beyond an assumedly defective point of origin.
The crucial difference between Zen and Western psychotherapy
in terms of attitudes towards death may be expressed as a
difference in eschatology. The term itself, derived from the
Greek "eschatos", denotes what is "further" or "ultimate".
Invariably it has been used with reference to death as the
assumed ultimate for human beings. Despite their
disagreements on the details, this interpretation seems valid
for both Freud and Frankl. Freud resignedly perceives death
as a matter of natural necessity, while Frankl rationalizes
its necessity in terms of imparting meaning to the finitude
of life.
In Buddhism there is no eschatology, strictly speaking.
(77) To imagine an ul-
────────
77) Thus, Yoshinori observes "viewed in its authentic sense,
the dharma of the Buddha is eternal and there should be
no such thing as an eschatology in Buddhism"; p. 60.
P. 493
timate
timate beyond the eternal present, an end point in
a progression to perfection, is contrary to Buddhist thought.
Both progress and death alike belong to the samsaaric realm.
Enlightenment itself involves the "Great Death" of the
psyche, an experience far surpassing mere physical death in
significance and profundity. Zen offers detachment from life
as well as death, without denial or redefinition. Every
moment is simultaneously samsaaric and nirvaanic,
simultaeously life and death -- and neither life nor death,
in terms of the Original Nature. Zen's attraction for the
Japanese samurai stems from this same insight, as expressed
in the following verse:
Some think that striking is to strike:
But striking is not to strike, nor is killing to kill,
He who strikes and he who is struck--
They are both no more than a dream that has no reality.
(78)
The death scenes of great Buddhist figures bear out this
death-preparedness. Sakyamuni Buddha, for example, passed
from physical realm with an exhortation to his disciples to
apply themselves to their enlightenment. Prior his death
Hui-neng observed: "It is only natural, death is the
inevitable outcome of birth. Even the Buddhas as they appear
in the world must manifest an earthly death before they enter
Parinirvana. There will be no exception with me; my physical
body must be laid down somewhere. Fallen leaves go
─────
78) Quoted by Daisetz T. Suzuki in Zen and Japanese Culture
(New York: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 123,
Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Jocho) echoes this same sentiment: "I
have discovered that the Way of the samurai is
death....In order to be a perfect samurai, it is
necessary to prepare oneself for death morning and
evening, day in and day out...One begins each day in
quiet meditation, imagining one's final hour and the
various ways of dying....When a warrior is constantly
prepared for death, he has mastered the Way of the
samurai".
Quoted by Stephen Addiss and G. Cameron Hurst III in
Samurai Painters (Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd.,
1983), p. 45.
P. 494
back to the place where the root is."(79) Numerous death
scenes of Ch'an Masters demonstrate their ability to maintain
equanimity in their final moments.(80) Master Nan-ch'uan
P'u-yiian even manages to insert a humorous note when he
tells an inquisitive disciple that after he dies he intends
to go "down the hill to be a water buffalo".(81)
There is in Zen no sense of tragic loss, no need to vanquish
the "enemy" of death. Conflict and duality are let behind,
and a new attitude ensues:
In life one is not stayed by life; in death, one is not
obstructed by death. Though within the clusters [skandhas]
Of matter, sensation, perception, coordination, and
consciousness, it is as if a door had opened, and one is
not obstructed by these five clusters. One is free to go
or to stay, going out or entering in without difficulty.
(82)
──────
79) Hui-neng, p. 443.
80) See Philip Kapleau ed., "Dying: Of the Masters" in The
Wheel of Death: A Collection of Writings from Zen Buddhist
and Other Sources on Death-Rebirth-Dying (New York: Harper
& Row, Publishers, 1974), pp. 63-75.
81) Original Ch'an Teaching of Buddhism: Selected from The
Transmission of the Lamp, Chang Chung-yuan trans. (New
York: Pantheon Books), p. 163.
82) Pai-Chang, p. 32.
p.495
提要:
關於佛教與西方精神治療的關聯課題，已有不少討論。我認為佛
教實踐的目標與進路，遠遠勝過頗有限制的代表性西方精神治療學說
。此一評價可由在廣大的宇宙性（佛家稱為法性）脈絡裡有關人性觀
點的考察得以證實。本文特就人與（做為「一切皆苦」的終極彰顯的
）死亡之間的普遍交遇加以討論。我的結論共有下列三點。
其一，西方精神治療有其古代希臘的人性論根基，而在其現代發
展可以看到弗洛依德（ Freud ）與馬斯洛（ Maslow ）的代表性對立
看法， 本質上所強調的是人性的內在脆弱一面，由於內在脆弱性格，
人的生命多半受制於外在「客觀上的種種情勢條件」。 由是，西方精
神治療的基本課題，乃存在於教導患者如何應付生命的負面條件； 如
用佛家比喻說明，就是祇不過教我們在生死大海之中勉強過水而已。
以弗洛依德晚期的死亡本能理論為例，它對死亡只能表示我們人類的
無奈認命， 藉助於所謂「科學證實的不可迴避的事實」，來說明此一
負面現象罷了。 其二，在現代西方精神治療的種種進路之中，傅朗克
（ Frankl ）的意義治療法（ logotherapy ）可以說是最能契接佛教
與禪的主要代表。正如他的「層面存在論」（ dimensional ontology
）所提示，他對我們生命的上進與獲致自我超克的能力較有樂觀的看
法。 我們在意義治療法與禪的方法之間可以發現許多契接點，包括對
於生命苦惱的深刻的洞見慧識在內。 不過，從禪的觀點去看今傅朗克
未能把自己或意義治療從生死大海中真正解放出來。他那「死亡是生
命意義的必需保證」看法即是一例。
其三，相比之下，禪能夠根據本心本性的內在資源超克自我與死
亡。禪並毋需否認死亡，卻對死亡能夠建立徹底解脫的健全態度，充
分體現它的極大功能。