THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BUDDHISM

'Everything arises from the mind.'
- Buddha Shakyamuni.

The great esotericist Manly Palmer Hall (pictured left) once wrote, ‘In Buddhism we have what is probably the oldest and most perfectly integrated system of what we now call psychology.’ I think Hall is right. Certainly, there were others before Buddha Shakyamuni whose teachings were psychological in nature, but I don’t know of any other person before the Buddha who had expounded such a clear, coherent, logical and empirically-based set of psychological principles and techniques.

Yes, first and foremost, Buddhism is applied psychology, the aim of which, in the words of the Venerable Ajahn Chah, is to ‘cure disease of the mind.’ The Venerable Narada Maha Thera said something similar when he described Buddhism as ‘a system of deliverance from the ills of life.’  Alan Watts saw Buddhism as 'something more nearly resembling psychotherapy,' as opposed to its being a religion or philosophy 'as these [terms] are understood in the West.'

Specifically, the 'system' treats what Buddhism often calls an 'illusory [or a 'false'] mind' (that is, a mind characterized and dominated by wandering, oppositional and discriminatory thoughts) with a view to bringing into manifestation a 'true [or 'pure'] mind' (being a mind which is not in opposition to itself).

Buddhism has something distinctively unique and, I think, very meaningful to say about ‘disease of the mind’, and it is this –– the root cause of our disorder, distress, sorrow, anxiety, stress, tension, insecurity, discontent, frustration, and general ‘unsatisfactoriness’ (dukkha) is ... attachment, craving, grasping and clinging of various kinds (collectively, upādāna) ... especially, clinging ... to ‘mind stuff’ in the form of, among other things, ideas, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions and prejudices. All of this ‘mind stuff’ we then turn back on itself ... and on ourselves. That is tantamount to insanity but we are all very good at doing it ... most of our waking hours (if not whilst asleep as well). Instead of living by reason and direct experience (sanity), we are driven by emotional compulsion. Worse, we cling to the ‘self’ as self, and we even manage to convince ourselves that we ‘belong’ to that self, and that we are those myriads of I’s and me’s that make up our waxing and waning consciousness.

Now, some dispute that Buddhism is a religion. I think it is a religion ... at least in some of its manifestations, but not others. Be that as it may, Buddhism, as Watts stated, is certainly not a religion as Westerners generally understand the term.

Nor is Buddhism a philosophy as we generally understand the term, although it does contain much which is philosophical, as well as ethical and moral, in nature. However, that which is philosophical in Buddhism is very much 'practical philosophy' ... with the emphasis on 'practical' or, rather, practice.

One thing Buddhism is not, is a ‘belief-system.’ I hope I have made that perfectly clear in my previous blogs. (The Buddha said, 'Do not believe, for if you believe, you will never know. If you really want to know, don't believe.')

Yes, first and foremost, Buddhism is a form of ‘therapy’ ... self illusion therapy or ego delusion therapy, you could call it. The basic premise of Buddhism is this –– all of our problems and difficulties in this life arise out of our mentality. More specifically, the root of all our problems and difficulties – all our  upādāna – lies in our illusory sense of a separate selfhood, in our misplaced concept of I-ness, that is, in a false view of who we really are. To borrow a couple of phrases from the ‘Big Book’ of Alcoholics Anonymous, the result of our misbelief in a separate ‘self’ is ‘self-will run riot’, and the regular practice – note that word practice – of Buddhism is able to relieve us of the ‘bondage of self.’

The essence of Buddhism, in two words, is ... ‘Wake up!’ Yes, Buddhism is ... an ‘awakening.’ Buddhism is a set of humanistic principles and teachings which, when put into regular practice, enable us to overcome (‘cure’) our false view of ourselves – which is due to ignorance (avijjā) – and thereby experience a psychological transformation or mutation. We then overcome what Manly Palmer Hall referred to as our ‘psychological astigmatism.’ That is a condition in which we fail to see things as they really are because we are locked into certain habits of mind and modes of perception which are based on the supposed existence of a separate self. That is why Buddhism has been described as a teaching of ‘practising within.’

Buddhism is a whole mind-body experience. Buddha Shakyamuni was a radical empiricist. He taught people how to realize for themselves enlightenment ... by direct experience. It is through the regular practice of mindfulness, from one moment to the next, that we experience – note that word experience – life directly ... without those mental filters and psychological barriers which we tend to erect between ourselves and the objects of experience.

Buddha Shakyamuni was very smart. He knew that it was impossible to directly cultivate 'happiness.' That is why he spoke in terms of the causes of 'unhappiness'. Do you want to be happy? Of course. We all do. Then correct the causes of your unhappiness. That is how Buddhist psychology works.

Although the Buddha was not a psychologist per se, he nevertheless 'discovered' and understood the unconscious mind (bhavanga-citta), the ego (atta), and ego fixation (atta-vādupādāna) ... some 2,500 years before Sigmund Freud!             

              Mushin - Empty Mind


That is amazing! Yes, if nothing else, Buddhism is an education. In that regard, the English word ‘education’ is derived from the Latin roots educo and educare.  Educare means ‘to rear or to bring up,’ and can be traced to the Latin root words e and ducere.  Together, e-ducere means to ‘pull out,’ to ‘draw out,’ and to 'lead forth’ ... all aptly applicable to Buddhism, for the teachings of Buddhism, if diligently practised, will indeed 'draw out' one's innate potential to become a buddha.

Buddhism is also a praxis ... and a practice. It consists of various practices and activities by means of which we can better come to understand ourselves, others and the world. However, those practices and activities have to be enacted, practiced and realized in our minds and bodies. We learn in Buddhism that our mind is part of the ‘problem,’ but it can still be used to faithfully report on the flow of life from one moment to the next. That is why mindfulness is so important. We are not separate from life. We can never be less than life. We are persons among persons, each part of the endless procession of life. We are not those waxing and waning I’s and me’s, those various ‘selves’ which we mistakenly take for the person each of us really is.

It has been said that, for the first time, Buddha Shakyamuni taught that not only was self-deliverance possible, it could be attained independently of an external agency. He said, ‘I have delivered you towards deliverance. The Dhamma, the Truth is to be self realized.’ Further, he encouraged his followers to ‘come and see,’ that is, to investigate for themselves whether or not his teachings worked.

No wonder Krishnamurti - who was not a Buddhist - could nevertheless say, 'The Buddha comes closer to the basic truths and facts of life than any other.'

Now, it really doesn’t matter whether or not you're a Buddhist. The only thing that really matters is that you attain freedom from the bondage of self. That is where mindfulness is very useful, for it involves observing and releasing all those habits of mind that would otherwise preserve and maintain the illusion of a separate self.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE: See the Terms of Use and Disclaimer. The information provided on this blogspot is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Never delay or disregard seeking professional medical advice from your medical practitioner or other qualified health provider because of something you have read on this blogspot. For immediate advice or support call Lifeline on 13 1 1 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. For information, advice and referral on mental illness contact the SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE (7263) go online via sane.org

MINDFULNESS, PSYCHOLOGICAL MUTATION AND HEALING

‘The mind is made up of thousands of yesterdays.’

So said Krishnamurti (pictured left), who often spoke of what he referred to as a ‘complete psychological revolution in the nature of the whole human being.’

This ‘psychological revolution’ – this ‘real crisis in the life of man’ or ‘radical inward revolution’ – can happen instantaneously or incrementally (although Krishnamurti appeared to doubt whether any change which was not immediate could be ‘true’). In either case, the experience is ‘revolutionary.’

The ‘psychological revolution’ of which Krishnamurti often spoke is one which you ‘must radically, profoundly, bring about [yourself].’ It is not something that others can do for you. Only you can effect this change within yourself, and it is a change which affects the conscious mind as well as the unconscious. The change comes from finding a ‘way of living’ where you ‘come into reality.’ It is an awakening, in which we wake up ... and then learn to stay awake.

This liberating experience is a ‘radical’ and ‘inward’ one but it can only happen when an individual realises that inner change is of ‘primary importance.’ That means that you have to want it more than anything else. In that regard, there is an Eastern story which goes like this. A seeker after wisdom asked a master, ‘How can I attain wisdom?’ The mater replied, ‘Let me show you.’ He took him down to the sea and immersed his head in the water three times. Then he asked him, ‘What did you desire more than anything else when your head was under water?’ ‘Air,’ replied the seeker. ‘When you desire wisdom as much as you desired air, you will attain it,’ said the master. (In some accounts of this story the master is none other than Socrates.)

Yes, so great is the power of change that if you want it – that is, really want it – you will have it! But first you must see the ‘danger’ inherent in the way you’re living. Krishnamurti would say, ‘It is like seeing the danger of a precipice, of a wild animal, of a snake; then there is instant action.’ Yes, so often we do not want to get well. No wonder Jesus asked the man who had been an invalid for 38 years, ‘Do you want to get well?’ (Jn 5:6).

The change produces freedom – ‘freedom from psychological fear, freedom from greed, envy, jealousy, dependency; freedom from the fear of being lonely, from the fear of conformity’ – and the freedom which comes into being comes not through the pursuit of freedom but when one ‘understands the total conditioning of his own mind.’

This is not some pathetic so-called ‘complete makeover’ of the kind that is so sickeningly popular these days, but a total reorientation of one’s life and being. Everything else becomes secondary to the task of remaining ‘alert’ and ‘anew to the challenge of life.’ What is required is vigilant, ‘thought-less’ self-observation and choiceless awareness of ‘the outer as well as of the inner.’ Says Krishnamurti, ‘To observe the action of the past is again action without the past. The state of seeing – in the form of a disinterested and passive alertness – is more important than what is seen. To be aware of the past in that choiceless observation, is not only to act differently, but to be different. In this awareness memory acts without impediment, and efficiently.’

New Thought minister and writer Emmet Fox (pictured left) wrote, ‘Has it ever occurred to you that the only time you ever have is the present moment?’ He went on to say, ‘It means that you can only live in the present. It means that you can only act in the present. It means that you can only experience in the present. Above all, it means that the only thing you have to heal is the present thought.’ When we do that, we free ourselves from what Krishnamurti called the ‘background,’ and when we are free of the background, we can, in Krishnamurti’s words, ‘renew life’ and ‘recreate ourselves’ immediately, without dependence on time.

That’s a powerful idea – the only thing we have to heal is the present thought. We need to ‘get the present moment right.’ What we call the past is nothing more than our memory of the past ... experienced in the moment of the present. However, until we awaken to that fact, and stop living in the past, I regret to advise that our present and also our future will all be in the past. We are the result of the past, and all too often we live in the past.

For Krishnamurti the ‘past’ was not the chronological past but all ‘the accumulated experiences, the accumulated responses, memories, traditions, knowledge, the sub-conscious storehouse of innumerable thoughts, feelings, influences and responses.’ All psychological maladjustment can be seen to be a condition of the past, and, if Krishnamurti is right, we can instantaneously free ourselves from the past. ‘Freedom from the past,’ says Krishnamurti, ‘means living in the now which is not of time, in which there is only this movement of freedom, untouched by the past, by the known.’

Krishnamurti had little or no time for those ‘analysts’ who were of the view that it was necessary to examine ‘every response, every complex, every hindrance, every blockage,’ for all that implied a process of time, but nothing which was the result of time could, he said, free us from the burden of the past. For Krishnamurti, ‘choiceless awareness’ was ‘a much simpler, a more direct way’ to liberate oneself from the past. He referred to it as a ‘psychological mutation.’

Ultimately, one’s understanding of oneself and reality is ‘from moment to moment.’ If you can ‘get that right’, then, as Dr Emmet Fox would say, ‘the whole picture will change into one of harmony.’ Gone will be the contradiction, friction and conflict between all the warring ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ within that supposed ‘self’ which we mistakenly take for our true being or personhood. We need no longer be anxious, depressed or fearful. Mindfulness, in the form of a constant, meditative choiceless awareness of the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’, provides us with ever-present opportunities for self-healing, for it is (to quote Krishnamurti once again) an ‘objective, kindly, dispassionate study of ourselves, ourselves being the organism as a whole: our body, our feelings, our thoughts.’

Now, this is important. I am not saying that we can heal ourselves of all maladies including psychological illnesses. As regards the latter, some people can at times experience a gross distortion of reality – a state of affairs which is not readily amenable to healing of the kind the subject of this post ... at least not until other therapeutic modalities are effectually in place. What I am saying is this – ultimately, all healing is self-healing which frees us from the bondage of both the past and a non-existent, but ever so persistent, ‘self.’ Yes, not only must each of us be our own teacher and our own pupil, we must also be our own healer ... to the fullest extent humanly possible.

Acknowledgment is made, and gratitude is expressed,
to the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, USA.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE: See the Terms of Use and Disclaimer. The information provided on this blogspot is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Never delay or disregard seeking professional medical advice from your medical practitioner or other qualified health provider because of something you have read on this blogspot. For immediate advice or support call Lifeline on 13 1 1 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. For information, advice and referral on mental illness contact the SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE (7263) go online via sane.org