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Bringing a Psychological Perspective
to the Dharma
by Bhiksuni
Wendy Finster ©
The points of
contact between Buddhadharma and Western psychology are many.
Yet, we must be able to distinguish between the two and know
how and when to use each one. I will not pretend to understand
these topics with complete clarity, but will share my personal
opinions and experiences, based on my training and practice
as a clinical psychologist in community mental health, as
well as my training and practice for twenty-two years in the
Dharma. Others will have different opinions, and further discussion
of these points will enrich us all.
All of us ordinary beings are, I believe,
mentally unbalanced until we attain enlightenment. We are
all deluded; we all have hallucinations of our own creation
and believe in them, thereby creating our own little sphere
of mental disturbance. From this perspective, only enlightened
persons are totally mentally healthy, although bodhisattvas
and arhats are well on their way. In essence, we are all a
bit crazy; it is just a matter of degree.
A number of Dharma students, however,
experience severe mental disturbance and unbalance at some
time or another during their practice. In these instances,
we must differentiate the two levels of reality: ultimate
and relative. Ultimate reality and the ultimate wisdom that
understands it concern the deeper mode of existence of phenomena,
one that is not perceivable by our senses or our gross levels
of mind. Relative reality concerns the objects and people
we deal with on a daily basis. It is possible to become mentally
disturbed only on a relative plane with the relative mind.
It is impossible for the ultimate level of mind to become
crazy. When people have some kind of difficulty, then, it
is in relation to their ability to handle relative reality
and to know the difference between an experience of ultimate
reality and the relative plane in which they live their daily
life. They are unable to differentiate between mental creations
and beliefs, and the conventionally accepted external phenomenal
world.
Many factors can trigger such disturbances.
In my observation, some people have a certain hypersensitivity
derived from past emotional or cognitive experiences, that
predisposes them to mental imbalance. The use of drugs, recitation
of particular mantras or too many mantras too quickly, or
powerful meditation on the chakras and energies can tip the
balance for such people. I also wonder if, for some people
with certain personalities and energy, staying in silence
for long periods and meditating without any discussion with
a teacher is useful. Such forceful, sudden change from their
usual way of living seems to cause tension that can trigger
mental imbalance.
For example, once I was called to a meditation
center where a twenty-one-year old Canadian man had become
mentally disturbed. A number of Western students there were
meditating under the guidance of a Burmese master. They lived
in total silence except for five or ten minutes each day when
they could speak about what was going on within them. I wonder
if for people with a particular kind of energy, such long
periods of silence accompanied by intense meditation may in
fact trigger an energy explosion within them. Other students
at the center had noticed that he had become withdrawn over
the preceding days, but nobody even knew his name; nobody
ever talked with anyone else. They felt sorry that they did
not know his name and that something had been troubling him
before the time he lost touch with what was going on.
In general, a person who later has mental
difficulties during his or her meditation practice becomes
unhappy and mentally agitated prior to the time he actually
becomes dysfunctional. Then he develops fear and paranoia
that can alternate with a feeling of superiority. He becomes
confused and is unable to make sense of everyday things or
to interact successfully with the everyday world. I have noticed
that when other people in the environment treat this person
in a supersensitive way, as if he were crazy, he learns that
and becomes more uncontrolled. He begins to believe that he
is in fact mentally disturbed and separates himself from others
because of that feeling. How can we help a person in this
situation?
If the person is obviously a danger to
himself or others, without hesitation we should immediately
take him for professional assessment and treatment. It is
useful to act normally around the person, to treat him as
though he is normal and things are as usual. We should talk
about the way things are usually done, reminding and emphasizing
how to behave on the practical plane. It is also useful for
the person to be physically active, to do physical jobs such
as gardening, taking care of animals, cleaning, walking in
nature, or any job that requires a coordination of physical
energy to produce a result. This helps the person to re-balance
his sense of being in the world and to re-solidify his sense
of self. We need to help him get a stronger sense of the ego.
Sometimes we can say, "You are like this and that. You
can do this and that very well," and thereby remind him
of his skills or personality characteristics.
It is tricky, but it is also useful to
try to communicate with that part of his mind that can perceive
the whole scenario as a drama being created and then played
out with himself as the main protagonist. One aspect of the
mind sees this whole drama, and if we can help him to find
and communicate with that part of the mind, it has a settling
effect on him. We can also place the person in situations
with which he is familiar. For example, if he happens to be
away from his usual environment, we can take him to a familiar
environment-his home, the community shopping center-so he
is near familiar things that will bring him back to his usual
sense of self.
Getting Stuck
Although we may not suffer from severe
mental problems, at times all of us feel stuck in our practice.
This can happen in a variety of ways. One is by having high
expectations of quick achievement and thus pushing ourselves
to practice long hours, which often results in frustration,
stress, or illness. If we are in touch with our body and its
energy, we can know when we are pushing too hard before it
becomes an obstacle. Even if we think our level of intensity
is good because we seem to be more concentrated, it can cause
a reverberation in our body that can make us overly emotional
or even physically ill. We must let go of our unrealistic
expectations and have the determination to practice over a
long time. The balance of mind and body is delicate and precious,
and we should take care to nourish it.
Some students practice for years but do
not seem to make much progress with some heavy personal characteristics
such as resentment or anger. The Dharma has tools to deal
with these, but it appears they do not use them. What is missing?
I believe that most of the change we make due to Dharma practice
occurs by having a strong student-teacher relationship. Thus,
I encourage people who are not making headway with deeply
rooted personally traits to work with a qualified teacher
and develop enough devotion so that they can accept the teacher's
criticism and pressure to deal with that trait. If they do
not have such a relationship with a teacher, I describe its
benefits and suggest they try to find a good teacher with
whom to work. If they do not want to do that, I encourage
them to do work that would force them to face and correct
that quality in themselves.
Sometimes people have a close personal
relationship with a teacher and work on a daily basis with
the teacher, yet do not seem to change. If a lay student,
due to living in a Dharma center for many years, has lost
perspective on the problems faced by others in society, I
generally advise her to leave the center and live elsewhere
for a while in order to experience reality in the bigger world.
I encourage monastics to do purification practice and to balance
their study, work, and meditation. Often we Westerners become
too focused on one aspect, and this lack of balance makes
us feel that we are not making progress. If we do not do retreat
or have some inner experience of the Dharma, we do not feel
that we are worthy sangha. Taking the time to do retreat enables
us to consolidate our practice, and as a result, to experience
the change within ourselves. This can carry us through the
times of work and service for others.
Sometimes we are so black and white, so
determined to study a particular text or do a certain practice,
that we push ourselves, thus becoming anxious and stressed. We
often do not notice the damaging effect of this self-applied
pressure until it is too late to undo easily. Thus, before
beginning a retreat or a period of intense study, people need
to be aware that if they start feeling too tense, they should
give themselves permission to disengage from that activity
and relax their mind. Later, with a happy, relaxed mind, they
can return to complete the activity.
Some Western centers now have confidential
registration forms for participants in retreats or intensive
courses in which they ask if one takes any medication or has
ever been hospitalized for mental problems. Other questions
could be added to help the teacher be aware of people with
potential difficulties. The teacher or an assistant could
also have a personal interview with participants prior to
an intensive retreat in order to discuss some of these points.
Acting as a Counselor in Dharma Communities
When people in Dharma centers or monastic
communities approach us for counseling, we must first determine
whether the person wants advice regarding her Dharma practice
and clarification of the Buddha's teachings, or whether she
wants counseling for a psychological problem. Differentiating
these two is extremely important, and if the person's issue
is a psychological one, we should refer her to someone capable
of giving the professional help she needs.
Because I am a psychologist as well as
a nun, I have often been approached by Dharma students for
help with personal psychological difficulties that they want
to discuss with someone who understands the Dharma. However,
as someone qualified in both Dharma and psychology, I believe
it is far better not to mix roles with one person. As a monastic
and a Dharma practitioner, my specialty and source of benefit
is in terms of the Dharma. Therefore, I decline to enter into
a therapy relationship with a Dharma student and refer them
to a well-qualified therapist for help with their psychological
problems.
If someone approaches us for help and
we determine that it regards her Dharma practice and her way
of handling the difficulty according to the Dharma, we are
qualified as Dharma practitioners to give her Dharma advice.
Before doing so, however, we have to create a situation conducive
for giving such help. First, we must be calm and balanced,
meaning that none of the three poisonous attitudes-confusion,
anger, or clinging attachment-dominate or disturb our mind
at that moment. We must give ourselves space to calm down,
empty ourselves of our own preconceptions, and prepare for
such an interview so that we can listen deeply and respond
clearly. We can prevent pride from arising by recognizing
that similar problems could occur in our lives while we remain
in cyclic existence. Although we are temporarily in a position
to offer advice to someone with difficulties, in fact we have
the seeds of those same problems within us, and given certain
circumstances and conditions, they could arise in our lives.
We must also ensure that the other person
discovers her own answer, instead of giving her our answer.
When we speak of refuge, there is outer refuge-the Buddhas,
Dharma, and Sangha external to us. There is also inner refuge,
our wisdom and compassion, the ultimate refuge being our own
inner Dharma wisdom. Because we must enable this to grow in
both ourselves and the other, our role is to help the person
discover her own solution within herself. When she is able
to do this, her self-confidence in growing her own Dharma
wisdom and progressing along the path will increase. We must
communicate optimism for change, letting her know that the
potential for enlightenment is intact regardless of how disturbed
her mind may be due to her habitual ways of thinking or acting.
As a Dharma counselor, we must remember
that we are simply a cooperative condition for helping the
other person grow; we are not a cause. We are not ultimately
responsible for his growth, nor can we make him change. Understanding
this and understanding karma prevents us from being over-involved
and makes clear where responsibility lies.
When a person living in a community becomes
mentally disturbed, we must set boundaries for acceptable
behavior and ask people to leave if they are unable to comply.
We need to do this with sensitivity and compassion by describing
why we have community rules and why it is important that everyone
follows them. If we must ask the person to leave the community,
we explain, "Unfortunately, because you are experiencing
some difficulties in this area, problems arise. If you live
somewhere else and get help for that behavior so that you
are able to deal with it, we are happy to welcome you back
into the community again."
In a community of one hundred or two hundred
people, one disturbed person would probably not make too many
ripples. But in our small and newly begun Western communities,
one mentally disturbed person in a group of five or six will
destroy the harmony of the group. Our understanding of compassion
is incorrect if we think that we should not point out to a
person what is expected of him, where his behavior has fallen
short, and his need to get help. Not dealing straightforwardly
and firmly creates a type of co-dependency in which we actually
encourage a person not to change.
The Interface of Buddhism and Western
Psychology
The relationship between Buddhism and
Western psychological theories and techniques is an important
topic concerning the spread of Buddhism in the West. Over
the last ten years, many people have begun offering mixed
or comparative courses that include some Dharma and some Western
psychology. I doubt that it is possible to do this well unless
one has equal expertise in both areas. Otherwise the points
of comparison will not be at a deep level and will not be
valid.
The factors making accurate comparison
difficult are many. First, the Buddhadharma is a vast and
profound system of knowledge. In addition, many types of Western
psychology and philosophy exist, each with its own areas and
specialties. One needs to be extremely careful before setting
oneself up as one who can do a valid comparison. I have noticed
that people who have not done serious study in Western psychology,
and thus are not qualified to give comparative or mixed courses,
are often asked to do so. These people may have read a few
books and taken some experiential courses that awakened exciting
personal insights, and in the process think they can create
and teach a course in this. I find this quite surprising:
I am a clinical psychologist and a Buddhist nun, yet I do
not feel I can do justice to such a comparison or integration.
Similarly, some psychologists, having gone to a few Buddhist
retreats and read some books, believe they are qualified to
teach meditation and Dharma to other psychologists or their
clients. There are, however, generic forms of meditation that
can be useful for introducing those in therapy to their inner
world.
I personally find it interesting to look
at the parallels between Buddhism on the one hand and Western
psychology and philosophy on the other. However, I do not
believe a Dharma center is the appropriate place for that
exploration to take place. People can go to many other places
in the West to attend psychology courses or support groups,
or to hear lectures on mixed disciplines. When people go to
a Dharma center, they should receive the pure Buddhadharma,
which is a complete system guiding a person all the way to
enlightenment. When it is taught purely, the essence and principles
of Buddha's teachings can be applied by the individual according
to his or her particular context and needs. However, the Dharma
teaching itself should not be changed according to the flavor
of the month. We are extremely fortunate that the Buddhadharma
has been maintained in its pure form and passed down through
lineages in many countries for thousands of years. It would
be a great pity if, through our generation's carelessness,
the Buddhadharma became polluted in the West by adding ideas
from Western philosophy and psychology that appear to fit
in.
However, Westerners who come to Buddhism
do have different issues than the Asians who have held and
passed the teachings on all these years. Due to our own issues,
we Westerners may not be able to easily apply some of the
Buddha's teachings. To make the Dharma applicable in the West,
then, we have to look at the society within which we grew
up, how we were conditioned, and the ideas and values held
as true in the West. For example, we were raised to be individualistic
and to be enthusiastic consumers. Because of our cultural
conditioning, we often create unrealistic expectations of
both ourselves and others, and these generate frustration
and anger when things do not turn out the way we wanted. I
think these expectations are related to our yearning for perfection;
and this yearning is a pitfall because when we start looking
for perfection, we cannot find it. This causes us to judge
ourselves harshly and feel guilty, and as a result, our self-esteem
plummets. This surprises our Asian teachers; they do not realize
the level of self-criticism and self-hatred that can arise
in individuals raised in our culture. Westerners tend to feel
fear, anxiety, and insecurity, which leads to competition,
and this, in turn, produces a type of paranoia that underlies
all our experience.
The conditioning we receive in the first
seven years of our lives has great impact on us, affecting
us on gross and subtle levels. The family into which we were
born, the experiences we had at school, the values that were
emphasized, and the expectations of the nation and culture
all affect our outlook as adults. In the same way, children
who grow up in Asia imbibe from the time they are small the
belief that this is one of many lives and that offering to
the sangha creates great merit. Although such concepts are
alien to Westerners, they feel comfortable and are easily
accepted by those who grew up in a culture with that prevailing
norm. Exploring more deeply the effects of our conditioning
could help us progress along the Dharma path. This should
be done at a place that specializes in conventional mental
health and personal development programs. If the personnel
at the Dharma center feel it appropriate to offer such mental
health courses themselves, the most appropriate way would
be to offer the courses in other locations and perhaps set
up a subsidiary branch of the Dharma center to run the courses
in those places. I strongly feel that when people go to a
Buddhist center, they should know what they will receive,
and that should be the Buddhadharma, not somebody's compilation
of bits and pieces of this and that mixed in with the Dharma.
Misunderstanding the Buddha's Teachings
In some cases, the Buddha's teachings
have been misused or misunderstood in the West. One example
is spiritual materialism, a term coined by Trungpa Rinpoche.
In gross form, this occurs, for instance, when Dharma students
take on Tibetan cultural trappings. They wear Tibetan clothes,
adopt Tibetan mannerisms, and so on. It can become quite a
trip. We should be careful to distinguish between the Buddhadharma
and the cultural context within which it has developed, and
then be sure that we grasp the essence of the Dharma without
getting caught up in paraphernalia appropriate in its Asian
cultural context. We must make an effort, through our own
individual practice, to separate the grain from the chaff.
Within our own cultural context, the wisdom the Buddha taught
can be included in the disciplines of philosophy, psychology,
theology, and contemplative studies.
In a subtler form, spiritual materialism
occurs when we use the Dharma to reinforce our desires, pride,
or political views. For example, when we learn something and
are able to teach others, we may become smug, self-satisfied,
and arrogant as a result. Using the Dharma in this way is
like taking poison.
A second way in which we Westerners tend
to misinterpret the Dharma teachings is by believing that
all feelings-or at least the troublesome ones-should be repressed
or pushed away. I think this is done out of a basic dislike
for oneself and self-hatred, arising due to the strong influence
of Cartesian dualist thought in the West. Our language and
the words we use strongly affect our ideas, philosophy, way
of thinking, and what we feel is possible. We have a cultural
heritage of a very powerful dualism between good and bad,
with no gray area in-between. Our perfectionism comes from
wanting things to be perfect in an absolute way. Asian cultures,
on the other hand, do not put such stress on the extremes
of good and bad, right and wrong, and see things as a gradation.
In our culture, we do not have this perspective and thus can
easily become inflexible.
An example of this inflexibility is a
Dharma student intensely reciting mantras, while walking with
prayer beads in hand in a Dharma center. Someone stops to
ask her for assistance, but she cannot bring herself to break
that intense concentration to help the person in front of
her. Another example is someone who has studied the Dharma
for years, learned all the outlines of the philosophical treatises,
and passed examinations on these topics. However, his daily
life actions are out of control. At a number of centers the
comment has been made that non-Dharma people are often much
kinder than people studying at the center. This should make
us reflect: Are we truly practicing the Dharma? Or are we
misusing it to fulfill our cravings or repress our problems,
and in the process poisoning not only our practice but also
the purity of the Dharma in the world?
An excellent yardstick for assessing our
Dharma practice is to check if we are becoming happier. If
we find that we are not happier in our daily life, then we
are not practicing the Dharma correctly. We must be either
misinterpreting or misapplying what the Buddha taught. No
matter what wonderful high realizations we think we may have
attained, unless we are able to translate them into kitchen
sink reality and talk about them in very basic terms, we are
off with the birds. One of my teachers told me, "If you
do retreat and think you have had fantastic experiences and
attained great realization yet you are not able to bring those
experiences into your reality on earth on a day-to-day basis,
you don't have any realizations. You're just on another ego
trip."
It sometimes happens that a teacher, director,
or other person in a position of responsibility in a Dharma
center behaves erratically. When this happens, it is important
to maintain our discriminative wisdom and to accurately discern
right and wrong behaviors, whether they are in ourselves or
in someone in a position of responsibility. In the latter
case, if we discover that something inappropriate has been
said or done, we need to make it known in a skillful way.
We need to dissociate ourselves from that behavior, and if
necessary, we may have to leave the situation. It is important
to contemplate the four reliances:
1. Rely on the doctrine and not on
the person teaching it
2. Rely on the meaning and not on the words
3. Rely on sutras of definitive meaning and not on those of
interpretable meaning
4. Rely on the exalted wisdom directly perceiving reality
and not on ordinary consciousness
Our present opportunity to learn the Buddhadharma
and our freedom to practice it are unbelievably precious.
Confidence in the validity of the teachings helps us to practice
enthusiastically. The obvious method to determine this validity
is to put the teachings into practice in our daily lives in
a correct and gradual manner. If we observe results occurring
with our physical, verbal, and mental actions moving in a
more positive direction, we know the teachings work. Even
though it is unwise to expect instant happiness and wise to
be prepared to practice over many lifetimes, we should still
be able to notice clear changes in our mental attitudes and
our actions from year to year. Slowly our kind thoughts and
compassionate actions will increase, benefiting ourselves
and all those around us. We will make the heart of the Buddha's
teaching come alive by following his essential instructions:
Do not commit any unwholesome action.
Enjoy doing perfectly constructive actions.
Subdue your own mind completely-
This is the teaching of the Buddha.
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