Is psychotherapy a distant cousin of the Dharma?

Christopher Titmuss

The dialogue between Western Buddhists and Psychotherapists is significant. There is a value to an ongoing inquiry into what is in common between the Dharma and therapy and what the differences are. This article is a contribution to this inquiry.

There is evidence to show that all the major schools of psychotherapy give recognition to the Buddhist approach to the resolution of suffering and the variety of afflictions that impact on our lives. There is also evidence to show that psychotherapy has proved beneficial to dedicated Buddhist meditators and Dharma practitioners.

It is often not realised that the Theravada tradition, the oldest of the Buddhist schools, had some influence 2200 years ago on the spiritual exploration in some Mediterranean countries. Thera (Elders) and vada (Way)) derives its meaning from the elders in the earliest Sangha who established the way of the monks and nuns.

The concept of ‘Therapy’ derives from ‘Theravada. ’ Around 200 BC, King Asoka, the revered Buddhist king of India, sent Theravada monks and nuns to the Egyptian city of Alexandria that attracted spiritual seekers worldwide in the pursuit of self knowledge, as well as prophets, teachers and sects from various traditions.

In Alexandria, the Theravada monks and nuns became known as the Therapeutae (Sons of the Elders). A Jewish contemplative, name Philo, a contemporary of Jesus, wrote an appreciative tract, De vita Contemplativa (On the Contemplative Life of the Therapeutae) describing the Buddhist monks and nuns as “spiritual athletes” for their disciplined way of life, austere rules and vegetarian diet in their community in the hills outside Alexandria.

The Greek word ‘therapeuta’ has come to mean ‘healing’ with its initial derivation from the Buddhists in Alexandria practising to heal suffering. In terms of the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha described himself as a doctor who

1. diagnosed the problem
2. gave the diagnosis
3. showed the cure
4. gave the prescription.

The healing (therapeutae) of suffering is the major task of the Buddha’s dharma. Incidentally, numerous statements of the Buddha (around 500 BC) find their parallel in the teachings of Jesus. Therapy owes its name to Theravada Buddhist tradition.

Here is a brief outline of each of the three major schools of psychotherapy and a paragraph on Carl Jung whose vision was particularly expansive. I have endeavoured to keep all three schools in mind throughout the article.

Psychoanalysis: Founded by Sigmund Freud, this school seeks to observe the influences of unconscious factors on the client’s mental and emotional processes. His own childhood helped formed his theories. Freud’s complex relationship with his mother towards whom he experienced sexual attraction, his view of his father, his two much older half-brothers, who were close to his mother’s age, and his love for his nurse, affected his perceptions and views throughout his life, both privately and professionally. The psychoanalytic school divides the mind into the id, ego and superego. The id springs from the instinctive drives while the ego acts as a mediator between the drives and the world. The superego represents the family and social upbringing that impact upon the drives. Freud wrote that he aimed to transform his clients from an uncontrolled neurosis to an “ordinary neurosis.” He seemed to lack experience, insight and realization to the vast range of spiritual/religious experiences and their transformative potential. He referred crudely to such experiences as ‘oceanic feelings’ and dismissed religion as a ‘delusion.’ Freud said repressed desires manifest as psychological symptoms causing conflict, despair and unhappiness. Various defence strategies, such as denial, avoidance and running away, are unconsciously employed to protect the ego from being overwhelmed. He developed the Oedipus Conflict, a theory of psychosexuality in childhood due, he claimed, to penis envy with females and castration anxiety for boys. Freud employed the techniques of free association and analysis of dreams to uncover what remained hidden in the unconscious to dissolve the inner pressure. Classical psychoanalysis is one to one, perhaps a number of times a week, and long term, often years, and expensive. However, post-Freudians have developed several ‘psychodynamic’ approaches to therapy that are less time-consuming.

Cognitive-behavioural Therapy (CBT): This branch of therapy grounds itself in experimental psychology. It began in the 1950’s with pure behaviour therapy, which worked on the basic premise that changing the behaviour changes the perception. Through various graded exposure techniques, clients learned for example that they could approach a feared object and that by acting as if they were not afraid, anxiety would in fact diminish. Later cognitive therapy added to this the recognition that the way we cognise or think about a situation not only affects our feelings but also our actions. Our cognitions consist of views, beliefs, attitudes and thoughts. CBT tends to be relatively time-limited, often less than six months, and works on specific strategies to handle particular problems that affect the ability of the client to function well. It is usually goal orientated with the aim of the client learning ways to overcome a problem, an addiction, a fear, so that they can manage their lives better. Recent further advances to CBT, influenced by Buddhism, include Mindfulness Based programmes and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. There is also evidence to show that medicine and CBT can work together effectively for anxiety and depression.

Humanistic Psychotherapy: This general approach includes several schools of therapy that are characterized by an emphasis on an inter-personal communication between therapist and client that gives attention to the immediate feelings, perception, thoughts and experiences of the client. This therapy often focuses on the personal meaning or interpretation the client gives to an experience, situation or issue in their lives. Like CBT, it is more present-focused than psychodynamic therapies, though therapists will often encourage the client to look into their upbringing, to understand how it influences their life now, and the therapist may point out connections and different perspectives. The therapist endeavours to be on the same wavelength as the client, and to offer a sense of empathy and a non-judgemental attitude. In some humanistic schools, the therapist emphasises breathing exercises, use of skilful posture and techniques to release a free flowing energy. An offshoot of humanistic psychology is transpersonal psychology where expansion of consciousness, meditation and a spiritual approach to inner health is emphasised. Humanistic psychotherapy and transpersonal psychology both aim for personal growth, not just symptomatic relief.

Transpersonal Therapy. This is a small but important tradition embracing a range of unitive, spiritual religious experiences and altered states of consciousness as well as psychological issues. Transpersonal psychologists examine the causes for such experiences and the impact they have on the individual’s life. Transpersonal therapy acknowledges the Buddhist traditions use of practices to cultivate spiritual insights. Unlike Freud, transpersonal therapy recognises the value of such experiences for clients as part of the dialogue of therapist with client. It is not uncommon for transpersonal therapy to regard Oneness as the ultimate state. Oneness, namely the perception of the unity of all things, events and experiences, serves as a contrast to the view of diversity and differences, especially painful ones. It is worth noting here that the Dharma regards the experience of oneness as a complement to diversity since neither oneness nor diversity are more real than the other. They depend upon each other. At a deeper level, the profound experience of the realm of infinite space reveals there is neither oneness nor diversity. In this formless realm, one of several realms transcendent to conventional perceptions, the meditator has gone deeper than the experience of Oneness.

Carl Jung: I feel it is important to acknowledge the central place of Carl Jung (1891 - 1961), originally a colleague of Freud who later broke away from classical psychoanalysis and developed his own approach. Jung acknowledged the presence of archetypal forces and forms in the psyche, the world of symbolism, the power of projection (transference) and the process of transformation. Jung used dreams as a vehicle for insights into the waking state. He pointed to the discovery of wholeness, the exploration of the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, the consequences of being in the grip of the animus and anima archetypes. He was the first major psychotherapist to acknowledge the significance of teachings of the Buddha, Indian mysticism and the place of religious experiences in the inner life. Jung also travelled in India. He addressed the shadow - referred to in the Buddhist tradition, as the near enemy - such as lust as the shadow of love, pity as the shadow of compassion and indifference as the shadow of equanimity. Carl Jung has had a profound influence on a range of deep thinkers such as James Hillman and Laurens van der Post, some of whom are in the forefront of inquiry into the way the inner life shapes society and vice-versa.

Apart from the Buddha, I rarely quote people but I have developed such a high regard for Carl Jung that I offer one of his many profound statements:

‘The question then arises whether the therapist is prepared to risk having his convictions dashed and shattered against the truth of the patient. If he wants to go on treating the patient, he must abandon all preconceived notions and, for better or worse, go with him in search of the religious and philosophical ideas that best correspond to the patient’s emotional states.’

Jung made it very clear that to realise wholeness the client must understand their own religious and spiritual relationship to life and their philosophy that guides their life. Far too few therapists have the courage to address these primordial sensitivities deep within their clients. Their clients may have never stopped to question themselves about the deepest reasons for their existence, nor the therapists, either.

Psychiatry and Suffering

Suffering arises through not “getting what we want, losing what we have and being separated from who and what we love, and holding onto aspects of our life, past, present or future, said the Buddha in his classic statement on human suffering.

Psychiatry specialises in the treatment of mental disorders with a frequent but not exclusive emphasis of a biological understanding of mental health issues. Psychiatry often relies upon the research of neuroscience, medicine and pharmacology. Such medication has lifted the consciousness of people out of the hell realms. Others suffer through dependency on such drugs and their effects, physically, emotionally, creatively and socially. Diagnosis and treatment in psychiatry sometimes includes psychotherapeutic tools as well.

Psychiatrists prescribe medication for their patients for a range of mental health issues based on the limited information available to them from the pharmaceutical industry and the patient. The prescription of medicine by a psychiatrist or family doctor is far from being a precise science. For example, psychiatry tends to treat so-called clinical depression as if it was a concrete, specific mind set referring to some ‘thing’ in particular in individuals rather than a generalised umbrella concept for a huge variety of unhappy states of mind born of numerous conditions, past and present.

The pharmaceutical industry makes huge profits from the medicalisation of people’s difficulties to deal with adverse conditions in daily life. The industry endorses the use of medication to overcome distress and unhappiness. Feeling low? Take pills? Feeling moody? Take pills. Feeling stressed out? Take pills. Can’t sleep at night? Take pills. Feel a headache? Take pills. It routinely condemns complementary medicine and other healthy approaches to dealing with unhappiness as ‘unscientific.’ There is very little scientific in the prescription and dosage of anti-depressants used for countless states of mind that have nothing, or next to nothing, to do with normal biological processes. When doctors issued patients with a placebo instead of Prozac, more than 30% of the patients reported they felt much better. (University of Hull, UK. February 2008). Moreover, it was recently disclosed that the makers of Prozac had not published research that showed it to be ineffective in milder cases of depression. In other words, a placebo is often just as effective. Our intentions, beliefs and expectations have a real impact on how we feel about ourselves.

As agents of the medical drug industry, psychiatrists and doctors issue drugs based on a set of generalised beliefs that pills work effectively for the welfare of the individual in the short and long term. Are the takers of medication happy? Are the former takers of such medicine happy? What is the impact of daily drugs on the brain, thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions and vitality? The same drug with the same dosage can have a completely different impact on two people given exactly the same diagnosis. A prescription is no guarantee of any kind of cure or resolution for mental health issues. It can be a hit and miss affair. Doctors and patients make do with a generalised health warning on a box of anti-depressants or other prescribed mood altering substances. That’s poor science.

Spiritual-Psychological

I have included here reference to the spiritual tradition of Advaita (Non-Duality) from India (that currently generates interest in the West). Advaita points to finding our True Self through going beyond our personal story and fixed views of who we think we are. There is a growing interest to realise our True Self, Pure Being or Personal Essence through meetings with an enlightened master or joining one of their schools.

There is a common view that the ego or personality in a wide variety of manifestations obscures a person’s spiritual essence. The language of this tradition is remarkably free from religious language, forms, symbols, rites and rituals. Yet, it carries its beliefs that followers assume as truth. We cannot reveal radiant awareness, our true nature as distinct from false nature, true self or intrinsic nature (svabhava) for the following simple reason. The self cannot show an essence to itself nor to another. Like the word God, our true nature can only be talked about or written about. The belief depends upon the metaphor that there is our true nature ‘behind’ something called our personality. As with other views, the view is a yet another construction of thought, no more real or substantial than other perceptions of reality.

Through repetition and investment in language, we give substance to personality or ego. We then give substance to a view that we all share an essential nature – when we dissolve our personality issues. This view is popular among certain enlightened masters who claim or imply they speak from their true nature, from their true self or personal essence. The same spiritual teachers adopt the view that their students speak from their ego, personality or only from their mind or feelings. They assert others are only communicating from their conditioning. Unquestioning listeners easily grasp onto this mind made division of True Self and personality as the way things really are.

The Dharma does not concern itself with negating a false view with a correct view but the relinquishment of all views. It encourages uncompromising inquiry into all conceptual foundations. Dharma steers away from the creation of a metaphysic, such as Absolute Reality, Being, Consciousness, Essence, God or our True Nature. We give too much weight to words. The word dharma is for everyday language rather than another metaphysic. The frequency of use of the language of essence and personality gives substance to a self who can know and experience both.
Abhidhamma

Often referred to as a Buddhist psychology, the Abhidhamma is not a therapy but primarily varieties of mental states classified into categories. In the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, the seven books of the Abhidhamma offer an analysis of mental and physical processes. The books enumerate through detailed lists the nature of mind/body phenomena including causality, consciousness, feelings, matter and thought. For example, Abhidhamma says there are 18 kinds of rootless consciousness, 52 kinds of mental states and 31 planes of existence. According to Abhidhamma, phenomena finally break down to sub-atomic particles, called kalapas – a word not found in the discourses (suttas) of the Buddha.
Abhidhamma is not quite as dry as dust but very few Dharma practitioners have the conceptual interest to delve into the books of Abhidhamma, although it can offer a useful map to show the range of various mental and emotional states that drive our behaviour.
Orthodox Theravadins believe that the Buddha taught Abhidhamma to his mother in Tusita Heaven. Historical research shows that Buddhist monks/scholars wrote the Abhidhamma several centuries after the death of the Buddha. Abhidhamma is probably not even heaven for those who love long, detailed and lengthy lists of analysis. A Manual of Abhidhamma by Ven. Narada Thera is probably the best introduction to Abhidhamma.

The Meaning of Dharma

The word “Dharma” has three meanings

1. Truth
2. Teachings/Practices
3. Every “thing” is a Dharma – real, unreal, material, mental, worldly, spiritual or abstract

The dedicated practitioner of the Dharma is totally committed to the Three Jewels of life, namely awakening, the teachings and practices, and the sangha (spending time in community with men and women dedicated to the Dharma in its countless manifestations). Everything belongs to the Three Jewels – relationship, family, work, lifestyle and values. The Dharma functions as the vehicle to bring about a revolutionary change in consciousness, not just to overcome a single problem or patterns of problems. The teachings and practices point to an authentic liberation and an awakened life that is fearless, adventurous and compassionate, where the constructs of self and other have become low key to reveal the force of truth and unshakeable love. There are whole networks of people in the Sangha including monks, nuns, teachers, organisers, monasteries and centres who give support to each other. Generally speaking, psychotherapy works in the climate of a one to one basis or regular small group to deal with a specific issue, such as the condition of the personality.

What are supportive conditions suitable for transformation? There are various conditions, suddenly or gradually, that can transform our life and wake us up. The Buddha’s teachings make reference to all of these supportive conditions.

Ten Supportive Conditions

In alphabetical order

1. Being in the nature
2. Being with like-minded people.
3. Calm and Insight Meditation (meditative happiness, contentment and the facing of one’s bare existence in silence and stillness).
4. Communicating the Dharma (not being afraid to speak up and take the blessings and backlash that goes with it).
5. Inquiry or dialogue (with a teacher or in groups).
6. Listening to teachings (total attention to profound teachings on the ultimate and relative level)
7. Questions and answers – to dharma teachers and from the teachers.
8. Exploring suttas (sacred texts) with mindfulness and concentration for insight and understanding, not for intellectual simulation and pleasure.
9. Reflection (asking oneself the profound questions and listening inwardly to the deepest responses)
10. Wise application of a creative and sustainable way of life

The dedication that is required for each one of these supportive conditions cannot be overemphasised. Take the first for example – being in the nature. This is not a matter of just going for out for a walk or jogging around the park. It is a mindful, purposeful and quietly determined act to experience nature or a sustained meditation on a single flower. A walk might also include a Yatra (pilgrimage), sleeping out under the stars, spending days in the forest, sleeping in tents, spending time in the cave, being utterly alone in the nature or with hundreds of others. There is no hierarchy in the list. All weather conditions are included as a vehicle for transforming the inner life.

Dharma and Psychotherapy

There is much to appreciate in the crosscurrent of perceptions, practices, forms and discourses between the worlds of the Dharma and psychotherapy. Some Dharma teachers have become psychologists or psychotherapists for the benefit of themselves and others. Some psychologists or psychotherapists have become Dharma teachers with a similar motivation.

Some schools of psychotherapy have adopted the ancient Buddhist practices of emphasis on the here and now, letting go, formal meditation and also encourage clients to go on a Buddhist retreat. Psychotherapists are nowadays a solid constituent on most retreats, while many insight meditation teachers and their students, most noticeably in the Anglo-American world, will make the regular trip into the armchair of the therapist or analyst. It is an important dialogue with mutual benefit for the Sangha of dedicated practitioners and the range of psychotherapists.

A growing number of psychologists apply Buddhist mindfulness practices to deal with stress reduction and depression in their lives and the lives of their clients. Thousands of psychologists throughout the West have attended training days or longer courses on mindfulness and stress reduction for their own benefit and/or to teach this to clients.

Based on the current dialogue, readers might get the impression that the Dharma and Psychotherapy share exactly the same remit, namely that “there is suffering and there is the resolution of suffering” – to quote the Buddha. You might even think that the only difference between the two is methodology and language.

The Buddha Dharma is an expansive path and inquiry into liberation incredibly diverse in skilful means, transformative experiences and tools for a total waking up with the Sangha of practitioners as an immense support. It addresses equally the conventional experiences, pleasurable and painful, and spiritual/religious experiences, illuminating and dark. Dharma practices also look into feelings that appear neither pleasant nor unpleasant. No stone is left unturned.

In the past five years, I have experienced one to one meetings with Julian David, a senior and much respected Jungian analyst and lecturer on Jungian analysis, who lives near my home in Totnes. I have been meeting with him a handful of times every year since 2003. I continue to find the sessions beneficial and insightful. He is very perceptive, incisive and authoritative.

It is very important to express mountains and rivers of appreciation for the growing army of counsellors, mind/body workers, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, and social workers who are willing get down into trenches and work intimately with the nightmares of people’s lives that our neurotic and pathologically problematic society produces. These dedicated individuals save numerous people from suicidal depression, despair and terrible heartache as well as steering clients through crises and unresolved personal problems, addictive tendencies and traumas dating back in some cases to early childhood. We cannot overstate our appreciation to the countless numbers of therapists giving support to people’s lives week each week.

However, whatever the length and intensity of their training, psychotherapists tend to place themselves firmly in the category of professionals, those elite bodies of people with specialist expertise that have a powerful influence on societal values. Being identified with their status, the professional classes are often unable or unwilling to examine in a free and independent way the oppressive structures and demands of a workaholic society. Have far too many therapists and clients become dutiful and obedient citizens of consumer obsessed society?

This article endeavours to make it clear that an authentic Dharma reveals a vision, teaching, exploration, language and variety of forms that address far more than the rather narrow paradigm of contemporary psychotherapy. Buddhists and psychotherapists may experience disquiet at my generalisations. Yet, it would be unfortunate to avoid the subject based on some genuine exceptions to what is written.

There are some committed Buddhists who fear that psychotherapy gradually “waters down” the Dharma. They believe the Dharma is in danger of becoming just another therapy. It is important to sit up and take notice of this concern. For example, there are a growing number of cognitive behavioural therapists who have adopted the practice of mindfulness, the seventh link in the Noble Eightfold Path, at the exclusion of numerous other features of the three fold training of ethics, samadhi (depths of awareness and meditation), and wisdom, including knowing liberation and realising the Deathless.

While appreciating the major contributions made by mindfulness-based approaches in alleviating the suffering of people with physical and mental health problems, there is also concern that too many teachers of mindfulness based programmes in psychology have attended only a few days of training in Buddhist style mindfulness practice. There is a growing disquiet about this among respected psychotherapists and senior Buddhists.

Just as yoga has often been reduced to a form of physical exercises, rather than a profound exploration of the yoga of life, psychology courses making use of dharma practices, such as professional mindfulness training, can obscure a variety of factors to wake us up and realise liberating truths. Any exaggeration of the importance of one feature of the Dhama gives it ‘selfhood’ – isolating it from dependent arising conditions and the breadth of the Dharma. While acknowledging psychologists and psychotherapists truly wish to help others and offer practical skills and empathy to their clients.

What are the Intentions of the therapist?

The role of medicine and therapy is another complex issue. Some clients benefit enormously from both medicine and therapy working together. Skills of therapists have enabled many clients to come off heavy dosages of medication for mental health issues.

Psychotherapy deals with emotional blocks, problematic attitudes, childhood history, self worth and unresolved day to day conflicts thus placing it firmly in the relative, the story, the needs and desires.

In striving to get afflicted people to function well, to get them back to work or studies as quickly as possible, professionals in psychology and psychotherapy are often unwittingly the agents of governments and the corporate world. Productivity and efficiency are shadows in working life. When the healing process is slow, the therapist may recommend to the client an appointment with a physician for a prescription to tranquilize the emotions. Is this always wise advice to a client in a vulnerable position? Are some therapists anxious themselves about their clients and encourage them too quickly to take antidepressants?

As elsewhere in the public and private sectors, therapists can place themselves under pressure to get through the workload. Clients have told me that a session suddenly ends when the hour is up just when they are in the middle of an emotional wave. The therapist looked at his or her watch, expressed a thank you, stood up and moved towards the door to usher in the next client. There are a small number of therapists who encourage a new client to stay in therapy with him or her for two years or more - because the therapist needs the client and not the other way around. It does happen, hopefully occasionally, and it is unfortunate that the self interest of the therapist can come first – sometimes to the point of demanding unreasonable commitment from the client.

What is the priority in the Dharma?

Buddhist teachers also can fall into a narrow framework – preferring to stay within the safety zone of mindfulness, loving kindness, short periods of daily meditation, equanimity and seeing impermanence. We explore the whole body of the Dharma not just one hand. Dedicated Dharma students deserve more. Students may need to keep exploring the Dharma through various teachers and teachings rather than settle for a single teacher or lineage.

The Buddha went further than religion, philosophy, mysticism, or spirituality. He had no regard for personal success in the social order, or the pursuit of possessions and status as a worthwhile goal, nor did he make the variety of transpersonal spiritual experiences as the goal. He offered a radical departure from secular and spsiritual/religious life. In other words, he endorsed a liberating inquiry into worldly and spiritual life free from any prejudice for one above the other. There is nothing materialistic or innately spiritual about the Dharma or Awakening.

Skilfully, the Buddha placed his core teachings into simple, easy to remember groups requiring a vigour and energy to free up the being from a small minded life. He dismissed the view that what he advocated can be done alone and equally dismissed the view that another individual has the answers. He regarded the exploration of the Dharma as a co-operative adventure where we all give support to each other. We go for refuge in awakening, the dharma and the Sangha, not a living individual whether guru or therapist. The majority of clients in psychotherapy do not have contact with a Sangha. The therapist is often their primary refuge.

Here are some of the important groups to explore so there is a waking up to a liberated life. The Buddha points to far more than becoming emotionally well-adjusted and comfortably established in the social order. One could say that Dharma teachings and their application certainly leads to emotional intelligence but this serves only as a springboard towards a noble and realized life. The following are some of the main groups for profound and sustained exploration that the Buddha recommended.

EXPOSITIONS OF THE DHARMA

In Numerical Order

Three Characteristics of Existence
Three Jewels
Three Kinds of Desire
Threefold Training
Four Applications of Mindfulness
Four Divine Abidings
Four Formless Realms of Existence
Four Deep Meditative Absorptions
Four Kinds of Attachment
Four Noble Truths
Five Aggregates
Five Precepts
Five Powers of Mind
Seven Factors of Enlightenment
Seven Latent Tendencies
Eightfold Path
Ten Fetters
Twelve Links of Dependent Arising

For the sake of simplicity, the Buddha placed the Dharma into three primary areas, namely the Threefold Training.

1. Ethics (the Buddha did not mean just the exclusive and narrow version of morality called the Five Precepts in the Theravada tradition, important as the precepts are, but the application of ethics into every area of personal, social and global life
2. Samadhi (from depths of meditation to single pointed concentration on what matters over a lifetime.
3. Wisdom, namely the capacity to see clearly what has become, free from problematic life and knowing of Emptiness, non-self and dependent arising. The deepest wisdom knows unexcelled liberation.

Dharma teachings and practices address the issues of the so-called personality and the belief in personality called the 10 Fetters. Psychotherapy addresses primarily the fetters and the unhappy and unhealthy states of mind. The Dharma regards the fetters as one aspect in the body of the teachings. They are called fetters because they tie us down to the painful cycles within daily existence. The fetters are:

1. Belief in personality.
2. Doubts (in oneself, others, life and the Dharma).
3. Clinging to rules, rituals, forms, techniques, ways of doing things.
4. Craving for pleasure, problematic desires, habits addictions.
5. Ill will, negativity, blame, resentment.
6. Craving for fine material existence, aesthetic satisfaction through the senses.Craving for formless existence, spiritual experiences, deep states of mind, transformation.
7. Conceit, pride, arrogance.
8. Restlessness, agitation, anxiety.
9. Ignorance, not seeing clearly, blind spots.

Dharma teachings are not concerned with building up the self or tearing down the self. The priority is access to clarity, wisdom and awakening. Practice shows that belief and identification with personality is problematic. There is a common view that everybody is unique, special, and different from everybody else. This is an extreme position. It springs from a reaction to the other extreme position that we are all the same – just energy, just nature, just formations of life. Dharma practice points to the middle way between uniqueness and sameness.

To ascribe our ‘self’ with a personality or another ‘self’ with a personality is an error of perception since it means grasping hold of perceived patterns or tendencies and imposing a ‘self’ upon. There is neither truth nor reality to the view of “having a personality,” or “being unique” or “we are all the same.” These views and beliefs arise dependent upon grasping of the self and other. They are all beliefs about the self in terms of body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, including thoughts and speech, and consciousness. The notion of personality can arise in four ways. We believe at different times:

1. I am the body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts or consciousness(total identification with)
2. I am in the body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts or consciousness (a self residing within)
3. I am outside of body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts or consciousness and thus can witness them
4. I am the owner of body, feelings, perceptions, formations or consciousness (the self who posseses – my body, my feelings etc).

When one belief arises it refutes the other three in that moment. While psychology also addresses the fetters (though rarely the first one) as the main thrust of its concerns, the Dharma concerns itself with what is means to be fully human and fully awake that goes far deeper than simply working with the fetters.

The Dharma never takes the self as a given, as a fact, as a reality. It endorses a depth of inquiry, meditation and dialogue into the construct of a ‘self.’ This requires a relentless investigation into the whole notion of ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my.’ There is no support whatsoever for a separate self, a self that experiences oneness, a true self or a higher self. Who is making claim these claims? Psychology and psychotherapy constructs itself around the belief in a self to be changed or improved. It does not have the depth, skills or insights to realise non-self and the liberating teachings of emptiness although clients certainly can experience transformations in the process of therapy.

The Buddha makes bold statements. He said: One who sees with clear wisdom dependent arising and dependent arising phenomena, it is impossible that he will run back into the past thinking

‘Did I exist in the past?
Did I not exist in the past?
What was I in the past?
How was I in the past?
Having been that, what did I become in the past?

Or he will run forward into the future thinking
Will I exist in the future?
Will I not exist in the future?
What will I be in the future?
How will I be in the future?

Or that he will now be inwardly confused about the present.
Do I exist?
Do I not exist?
What am I?
How am I?
This being – where has it come from and where will it go?

The reason is that one has seen clearly with wisdom dependent arising and dependently arising phenomena.’ (S. II. Book of Causation.20 (10).

Dharma practices explore sukha (happiness) as much as dukkha (suffering). When we lose trust in the wholesome and disbelief takes a hold and prevails, then what is unwholesome will gain entry. ANV 6. Dharma offers a huge range of practices to cultivate the wholesome so the unhealthy loose their foothold in consciousness.

Practitioners explore happiness through developing the wholesome such as

In Alphabetical Order

appreciative joy,
being in nature
community
compassion
creativity
generosity
deep meditative absorptions
formless realms of experience
friendship
letting go
love
loving kindness
meditation
mystical experiences
non attachment
passion
reflection
relationships
seeing and knowing profound awakening
service
sharing
transcendental realisations

When the Buddha was asked: “Why do we follow the Dharma?” He replied: It is the happiest way to live.’ He said that he teachers the ‘mastery of the dharma (finding deep wisdom in daily life), through reflection on the discourses, mixed prose, verses, inspired utterances, brief sayings, birth stories, marvellous accounts and miscellanies. (AN V73). The Buddha employed language in various forms as an organic and diverse vitality connected totally to an awakening process.

Happy and contented people, who are emotionally well adjusted, embark on the path of the Dharma. They regard it as an adventure in consciousness, an opportunity to look deeper into the whole experience of life on earth. The Dharma offers a variety of invaluable resources in the outer to support the inner journey and discover a liberating wisdom and compassion. The resources include the:

In alphabetical Order

arts
ashrams
Buddhist countries
caves
community living
creativity
desert
dharma gatherings
festivals
forests
India
jungle
listening to spiritual teachers, Buddhist and otherwise
mentoring
monasteries
ordination as a monk or nun
pilgrimages
retreat centres
rituals
social action
training programmes
and various countless ways to serve others

The Dharma offers an incredible way of life for men, women and children. It contributes to the fading away of suffering and stress, generates happiness and freedom of being. The Buddha described it as an unsurpassed way of life. Psychotherapy cannot offer such diversity of exploration of happiness in the inner life and the range of environments for practice. Therapy simply does not have access to such a wealth of resources for transformation for their clients.

‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is often a search for meaning for difficult experiences. Therapy is to change the meaning we give to such experiences. There is always the danger that the client feels that he or she has created their own problems or somebody else, past or present, caused them.

The view that all problems are self-caused or caused by another or both is a common agreement between client and therapist. This view, itself, is severely problematic. Much psychotherapy adopts the attitude that the primary cause for the current suffering in a client’s life is the past or present family constellation.

The Buddha refused to adopt such a view. He said: “If one should carry one’s mother on one shoulder and one’s father on the other, and while doing so should live a hundred years, even by that one would not do enough for one’s parents “ for what they have done for us.

The Dharma endorses reflection on the difficulties of our mother’s pregnancy, the pain of giving birth and the efforts of one’s mother and father to do what they could in the light of their conditioning. We have much to be grateful for. This attitude is far healthier than accusing our parents of not giving us enough love or holding resentment towards them for their limitations or lack of presence. If there is some accuracy to the perception of our parents, then we practice to develop love (metta) rather than feel trapped in our conditioning or disappointed and resentful about our upbringing.

The Buddha was not naive. He did not carry an idealist picture of parents. He remained very much aware of the failings and limitations of our parents. In the same discourse, he said, we can develop our capacity to offer trust if our parents are untrustworthy, morality if our parents are unwholesome, generosity if they are mean or wisdom if they are unaware. By this means, we can repay, or more than repay, for their efforts, said the Buddha. (AN. chapter of the Twos).

The Buddha expressed a profound concern on holding to views about the causes of suffering.

I would advise every psychotherapist to read and re-read the following words of the Buddha until deeply understood. in the bamboo grove in the Squirrel Sanctuary in Raghir in Bihar, the Buddha had with an inquiry with an austere yogi.

“Is suffering created by oneself?” the man asked the Buddha.

The Buddha replied: “Not so”

“Is suffering created by another?”

“Not so.”

“Is suffering created by both oneself and another?

‘Nor so.’

Does suffering arise by chance*?

‘Not so,’ said the Buddha.

“Is there no suffering? the man asked.

“It is not that I do not know and see suffering. I know suffering. I seeing suffering.’ said the Buddha.

Then the yogi asked the Buddha for teachings on suffering.

Is suffering is caused by oneself? The Buddha questioned whether the self who acts is the same one who experiences the result. (eg.Is the child the same person as the adult. If so, this is a view of fixed continuity).

Is suffering is caused by another? The Buddha described this as an annihilationshist view since it negates a possibility for inner change, for liberation.

Is suffering caused by oneself or another?( If so, what part of oneself and what part of another causes suffering?_

If neither, then self and other have no responsibility whatsoever for any suffering that arises.

The Buddha then explained that suffering occurs due to dependent arising conditions. It is NOT caused by any of the four propositions that the yogi made.

The yogi realised the truth of what the Buddha said. “The Dharma has been made clear showing the one to the way or holding the lamp for those with eyesight to see forms.” he responded with happiness. S.11. Book of Causation 17 (7).

*(NB.the Pali word for chance is adhicca. It also means fortuitous, spontaneous, without cause, without reason, including the belief in God’s punishment.

The Buddha makes a truly profound statement. He unequivocally refutes the four standpoints that oneself, another, both or chance cause suffering.

The Buddha went on to add: ‘People maintain that pleasure and pain are created by oneself, by another, by both or neither by oneself nor by another.
I believe that this single dialogue and the Buddha’s response constitute a radical shift in the way we look at the world.

We are spellbound with our perceptions, views and beliefs in self, other, both and neither. It is one of the most severely problematic of all human delusions.

It is impossible they will experience (anything) without contact. (S.II 25.(5).

In the 12 links of Dependent Arising (MN. Sutta 115), the Buddha explained that

With ignorance conditions as a condition, mental formations,
With mental formations condition consciousness
With consciousness conditions name and form (mind and body)
With name and form conditions contact
With contact (impressions) conditions feelings,
With feelings conditions desire/wanting/craving,
With desire conditionsn clinging/holding/attachment
With clinging conditions being/becoming
With being conditions birth
With birth conditions aging
With ageing conditions sickness and death.

Like a circle, there no beginning to this cycle of dependent arising conditions generating unsatisfactoriness and suffering in a person’s life. Practice includes meditating, reflecting and inquiring to the above conditions that are problematic for a life of love and liberation

Politicians and political organisations who make war believe totally in the ‘other’ as the cause for war. The level of self deception, or ignorance, is tragic Perhaps only in their dreams and nightmares does the truth emerge.

Remember 9/11 when 90% of the psyche, according to opinion polls, of an entire nation of 300 million people endorsed war on poverty stricken Afghanistan because they believed Osama bin Laden resided in Afghanistan. No proof has been found that bin Laden is in Afghanistan. ‘They caused us suffering and so we will cause them suffering.’ They were not even Afghanistan citizens who engaged in the act of terror.

Instead of belief in ‘self’ and ‘other,’ let us explore deeply dependent arising conditions so that we abide insightfully with what unfolds whether predictable or unpredictable, and can act wisely in the face of events.

The Buddha said: ‘Dependent arising is profound. It is because people do not understand or penetrate this dharma that this generation is tangled up like a ball of twine afflicted as with an inflammation.’

Therapy also puts much store on past acts involving the client and others from conception onwards to explain what is going on in the present. This approach can fuel the danger of the client becoming a narcissist dwelling only on themselves and their personal needs. The genuine care and concern of the therapist can feed the client’s self absorption.

The therapist and the client rarely question whether there is a past to explore, often not realising that memories are only perceptions caught in the field of time. Dwelling frequently on this narrow construct of me and my past can isolate the client from authentic engagement with daily life. There is a place for reflection on previous conditions, but is therapy exaggerating the influence of the past? Recent psychological research, as well as our practice, indicates that our apparent memories of past events are in any case selective and unreliable.

Can I get to the past?
Do I only have a perception of it?
Are my memories very selective?
Do even more memories of ‘my past’ transform my present?
Is it the past or the perception of it?

The time has come for a careful and conscious re-evaluation of each school of therapy into some of the basic concepts from which it operates.

What is ‘I’ and ‘my?’
Who am I before a thought arises?
What is reality?

I believe this requires psychotherapy to take a honest look at its root beliefs and the limits of its assumptions of the paradigm about self and others, past and present.

Psychotherapy and the World

Due to the preoccupation with the past in some schools, with the mental interpretation of cause and effect, therapy also largely ignores our relationship to the world of politics, profit, use of resources, use of land, water and air and the impact of nature upon our lives.

From a Dharma perspective, we might wonder whether any individual can live a well-adjusted, emotionally content life, with love and compassion, in our stress ridden and violent society. Can we express a deeply conscious and caring lifestyle given the degree of pervasive tension, desire and narcissism in our society? In the Dharma, compassion gives voice to our emotions, our concerns and places them firmly in our immediate world. On the other hand, the army of professions cannot deal with this nightmare state of affairs because it is frequently spellbound by another myth – namely that the inner life is a self-existent entity, bound to its past, independent of society and environment. This is the privatisation of the self. Can a fish stay out of the water?

There is much unhappiness among those who are in debt, unemployed, lack work skills, or have poor education, poor housing, long working hours, demands on performance, health, insurance, fear of contracts and so on. How can regular sessions with the therapist, 12 step programmes and workshops liberate individuals from social, economic and political demands? There is no treatment for this pervasive mental sickness with more and more targets, appraisal of performances, monitoring and surveillance. Millions of people in our society feel trapped in horrible circumstances through no fault of their own. One increase in the interest rate of a bank places terrible pressure on countless homes…

Protest against injustice and exploitation of the individual or group expresses an ethic. The ethics of protest are noticeably lacking in most schools of psychotherapy. We hear a lot about the ethics of the relationship between therapist and client. It is the same situation in the Buddhist tradition. Therapy does not address all the links in the Noble Eightfold path, nor all the gross nor subtle features of the inner life, nor the mutual dependency of the inner life and the world around, nor do many Buddhist teachers. Therapy has the potential to question and contribute to the transformation of the structures, timetables and demands upon the lives of individuals. There are those in the helping professions who speak up for their clients. Advocacy is an important aspect of a social workers role, for example. Often psychoanalysts in private practice do not encourage their clients to act against injustice and, instead, help them to handle their emotions. This can lead to a deafening silence and collusion with social oppression.

In 2007, thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns joined courageous laypeople in Rangoon to protest about the Burmese military government, doubling of bus fares and fuel bills on an impoverished nation. Mercifully, these brave monks and nuns don’t have analysts encouraging them to look at their feelings. Action matters. It is the same with the courageous monks and nuns in Tibet protesting against the occupation of the Chinese regime.

Psychotherapy tends to support the established order and needs to do much more to show clients the way to make viable, effective and empowering protest against social issues that damage the lives of clients. We need our army of professional helpers to support fundamental changes in the political, corporate and social system that oppresses the lives of their clients and countless others. The act of protest IS therapeutic. The client, who only wishes to unburden some feelings and thoughts, may show a lack of respect for themselves and for others through a passive response to citizenship and a liberating empowerment. We must speak up. Psychotherapists, psychologists and Buddhist meditation teachers must support the politics of protest.

Living in the Unconscious

There are a number of themes and concepts that generally form the framework for psychotherapy. Some features apply more to one school than another and the approach of some of those in each of the schools varies from the very conservative to the very radical.

One of the key concepts in many schools of therapy, particularly psychodynamic ones, is the “unconscious.” While acknowledging that the term has a conventional use, it is severely problematic from a dharma standpoint. The word does not appear in the teachings of the Buddha in the Pali suttas (discourses). The unconscious is a fancy word for the unspoken. The unconscious bewitches us. The conscious mind makes the claim that all the unconscious stuff has to become conscious.

The Buddha engaged with a yogi about this who claimed that by being still and in the present moment, he was not creating new karma and was working out his old karma. In other words, the yogi was watching what arose from the unconscious. In Middle Length Discourses, Sutta 14, on the Mass of Suffering, the Buddha asked him four simple questions:

1. Do you know all that you did in the past that you have to work out?
2. Do you know how much you have exhausted?
3. Do you know much is left?
4. How will you know when it is all exhausted?

The yogi replied no to all four questions.

In contemporary language, we might ask.

1. Do you know all what you have in your unconscious to work out?
2. Do you know much in your unconscious you have exhausted?
3. Do you know how much is left?
4. How will you know when you have exhausted all that is in your unconscious?

The Buddha regarded trying to work out all the past (the unconscious) as pointless.

Is an enlightened person one who has worked out everything in his or her unconscious?

Or is there some unconscious stuff left to work out?

If so, how much? Ten per cent, fifty, ninety per cent? Who decides? The enlightened master? You?

If there are still unresolved issues in the so-called unconscious, does it mean that nobody is fully enlightened?

If so, which part of the enlightened person is enlightened and which part isn’t?
Is the unconscious an illusion or real?
If it is an illusion, they why give it significance?
If it is real, then could there be any escape from it?
If it is real, is it in competition with the reality given to the Now?
Does this mean that the unconscious is more real since the vast majority of people appear unawakened?

Meeting with a Dharma teacher or with a Therapist?

There is a view that therapy offers tools to deal with western problems that the Dharma lacks. There may be some truth in this or it could be another Western myth. Yet it would be unwise to adopt this position as an ultimate fact. There is a desperate shortage of residential Dharma teachers and mentors. Many teachers travel extensively, and few offer formal one to one meetings on a weekly basis though this is beginning to change.

I know Dharma practitioners who would prefer to meet with a Dharma teacher or Dharma mentor if one lived in the immediate locality rather than a therapist, but they find that therapy is much more available. Some practitioners meet a therapist who has knowledge of the Dharma teachings and engages in the practices and forms of inquiry. Other Dharma teachers and mentors may prefer to meet with an insightful analyst or therapist who is outside of the sangha. Wise counsel of the detached witness can offer fresh perspectives on numerous situations. Some analysts and therapists are like guardian angels to the Sangha. Their wisdom gives much support to the Sangha.

As the sangha develops with more teachers and mentors, and a wider expression of voices of wise counsel, it may not be so necessary for some practitioners to see a therapist. The “talking cure”, the professed primary method of much of therapy, is only one resource in the Dharma (see Ten supportive conditions earlier).

One error of judgement, and it is common, is making a comparison between meditation on its own (especially insight meditation, known as Vipassana) and psychotherapy. One of my students told me recently: “Christopher, I have touched places in my heart with my therapist that I never touched in 20 years of meditation.” The conclusion may be reached that psychotherapy adds something that meditation lacks; but this totally misses the point. There is much more to a complete practice of the Dharma than meditation.

What is the difference between psychotherapy and Dharma? It is simple. In therapy, honest and heartfelt communication with the therapist is THE means. In the Dharma, calm and insight meditation acts as a small contribution to depth, clarity and waking up. Dharma teachings and exploration contribute to a totally liberated life. Our experience includes far more than uncovering old painful feelings, important though it is. Our network of Insight Meditation (Vipassana) teachers often work daily in their retreats with participants who touch within unresolved emotional issues, old wounds, rejections, abuse, traumas and turmoil that suddenly arise in sitting, walking, standing or reclining meditation. Some Vipassana teachers insist that the meditator simply goes back to the technique but in our network, we give personal attention to the suffering that the meditator goes through. We are not psychotherapists but we are blessed with a broad range of resources, inner and outer, to enable the meditator to work through unresolved old pain and know the light in the tunnel of darkness.

We must also explore our full range of worldly and spiritual feelings, the experience of the divine in the heart, a depth of absorption into happiness, bliss and contentment, and unshakeable steadiness of the heart in facing the most challenging of circumstances. Dharma offers the opportunity and practices to explore the ten supportive conditions that include dialogue and meditation. We completely miss this point when we compare therapy with meditation alone.

Psychotherapy cannot offer such a variety of supportive conditions for transformation. It does not have the resources, the environments, the centres, the monasteries, the skills to show clients their deepest potential as creative and awakened human beings. Even if a client or Dharma practitioner experiences a range of deep experiences, and transcendent states, different realms of altered perceptions and shifts in consciousness and dissolution experiences of the self, these would all still merely be features of the Way! The purpose of the dharma is a total waking up in every area of life, the totally dissolution of the problematic interpretation of events and a realisation of the nature of liberating truth.

Psychotherapy deals primarily with mundane experiences in personal life, with personality issues, and areas of emotions, thoughts and views that need attention, sometimes urgently. Generally speaking, it is not the task of therapy to tell an emotionally well adjusted, well integrated human being in terms of the past, present and future, that he or she may be wasting their life, or that there are things far more important than a stress free life. Our contentment and our discontent can serve as a spur towards a radically different way of life. The armchair of the therapist may hinder that inner force for change. A straightforward Dharma teacher raises difficult questions with practitioners, gives direct teachings and gives clear and straightforward advice when circumstances require it. Dharma teachings do not adhere to the view, often adopted in therapy, to not give advice. The resolution is dependently arising in an atmosphere of an expansive dialogue.

Aside from the variety of experiences that affect one’s self, there is the question of what is meant by the word self. Is self actually referring to anything? The sense of self, the sense of I is a mental construct, a sensation, not something self-existing. There is not anything whatsoever self-existing in the self. Any attempt to give selfness to that which has nothing self-existing reveals an illusory perception. We treat the self as something, either satisfied or dissatisfied, thus ignoring the emptiness and ultimate futility of this view. The notion and belief in self distorts perception as if in reality there was a subject involved in objects.

Dharma teachings make this ruthlessly clear. The Buddha said:

When this exists, that comes to be
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this does not exist, that does not come to be
With the cessation of this, that ceases.

If the body and mind were ‘me’, then I would come and go like them
If I were other than body and mind, then body and mind would say nothing about me at all.

Dharma is not a teaching about accepting oneself but about seeing dependently arising conditions and finding liberation amidst the process. The word ‘acceptance is not found in the teachings of the Buddha. It is often a lightweight response to situations inhibiting a deeper inquiry.

Most therapy tries to dissolve the old painful meaning around personal stories and unresolved issues while making available new stories and new possibilities. It is truly commendable. Psychotherapy works to leave the self in a much healthier and happier condition than it was prior to the dialogue with the psychotherapist. It is a praiseworthy aim but it still leaves a construction of the self, an identity.

Psychotherapy follows a developmental model. The self is the feeling of personal continuity and sameness but this view is unreliable. There is the experience of the idea of absence and presence of a self in various circumstances. There is no sense of self at all in deep sleep, none in some depths of meditation, nor in some spiritual formless experience. The presence of the self arises in the dream, in a light way in countless experiences and gathers more substance owing to identification with it such as when suffering arises. Greed, hate and delusion confirm the self (aham kara - I-making activity) in its strongest and most destructive form. To see there is no self to the self dissolves the self.

A common perspective of some Buddhist psychotherapists is that ‘you have to be somebody before you can be nobody’. The Dharma perspective treats this view with great circumspection to put it mildly, as it begs many questions:

How much of a somebody do you need to be before becoming nobody?
How long do you need to become somebody?
When will you know that you have now become somebody?
When will you know you can now start to become nobody?
How do you know that you won’t end up where you started?
Have you scratched the inner life of those who are somebody?

Being somebody and being nobody express two polarised views that reinforce the ego. Happiness and unhappiness can swing up and down in the same person based on these two views. The ‘self’ depends upon perceptions and views to feel to be a somebody or a nobody.

If the Dharma tragically adapts itself too much as it takes root in the West, it will surely become either a form of therapy or another religion or both. It is vital that the Dharma distances itself from such a modification. The religion of Buddhism wraps itself around the Dharma, but Dharma does not fall into the box of being a religion, nor psychology, philosophy or science. Let us keep our trust fully in Awakening, Dharma and Sangha, and draw from time to time on other explorations of the human experience.

Twenty One Dharma Questions for Dharma Practitioners to Inquire into

Here are twenty one questions that Dharma teachers need to bring into dialogue with their students. It would require a tremendous amount of self-honesty, a facing up to some uncomfortable home truths and a willingness to make the unspoken become the spoken. To redress any power imbalance between teacher and student, the student could ask their teacher the same questions. The student would not be then taken in by the pleasing demeanour of their teacher, whether monk, nun or layperson.

The teacher would want to know from their students how they really feel about such important issues and what would be the therapeutic and liberating steps to make. Such questions are far beyond the current remit of psychotherapists. Fortunately, there is no limit to the Dharma of inquiry.

1. What desires have you examined this week? (2nd Noble Truth, Letting Go)
2. What are your views on the war on the Muslim world? (Wise Attention, Right View)
3. What is your primary practice at the present time?
4. What dharma disciplines do you engage in? (Dharma Vinaya)
5. What do you eat and how does your diet impact on living beings and the planet?
6. What is your greatest passion?
7. Does doing overshadow being in your daily life?
8. What do you spend your money on? (Mindfulness). Do you have indulgences? (Greed)
9. Have you placed your surplus money in ethical investments? Is there anyway you are corrupt in your finances? (2nd Precept)
10. How many hours precisely in a week do you watch television, sit in front of the computer or go to a movie? (hindrances, delusion)
11. What percentage of your income do you give away to charities, foundations, NGO organisations, religious and spiritual centres or communities? (Generosity, Dana)
12. How often do you change your car? What is the size of your car? Do you fly for a holiday, how far and for what reason, and how often in a year? (Skilful means)
13. Do you give time to go on retreat?
14. Do you engage with others for social, political, economic and global justice? (various sanghas)
15. What is your commitment to the global crisis around resources? (Right Action, Compassion)
16. What would show a great act of love before you die? (Metta)
17. Have you left your will to a tiny number of family members or provided for the benefit of thousands? (Metta, Appreciative Joy, Dana).
18. What service do you offer the Sangha?
19. What depths have you touched in meditation?
20. What are you prepared to give up to realise truth?
21. What is non-duality?
22. What is emptiness?
23. What was your most awakening experience?
24. What reveals your liberation?

The Triple Gem of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha offers unexcelled realisations and countless ways and means to wake us up. It has a very wide remit to inquire into the depths of our being and uncover everything that matters. Psychology is the new kid on the block in terms of insight and wisdom into suffering and its total resolution, inwardly and outwardly. The tradition of psychotherapy is little more than 100 years old while the tradition of Buddha Dharma is 2500 years old. The approach of psychotherapy is important. Its purpose is to contribute to the peace of mind and clarity of clients and serve as a catalyst for genuine change. This is to be fully acknowledged.
Stay unwaveringly committed to the utter transformation of consciousness, unexcelled awakening, realisation of the emptiness of self and an authentic liberation. Discover an unstoppable love and compassion going in all directions. This is the best. Don’t settle for anything less.

Thank you to Jenny Wilks, Radha Nicholson and Subhana
who kindly read a major draft of this article.