The Abhidhamma Pitaka, the third, newest and longest of the three divisions of the Pali Canon, is the original source of the theory of Buddhism as a school of psychology; the Canon is universally acknowledged as the oldest and most reliable source of Buddhist Sacred texts. This makes timing one of the problems in the development of Buddhist psychology. On one hand, Buddhism precedes psychology by over two millennia; on the other, the Abhidhamma Pitaka is dated around two hundred years after the death of Siddhattha Gotama. So the Teachings of the Buddha were not proposed to be a school of psychology and obviously such evolution was not intended by the Buddha. (Last, least and just for fun, the first root of the word “psychology” comes for the Greek “psykhe," which means “soul”, an entity that Buddhism considers non existing). So Buddhist psychology is an inconclusive puzzle, which must be completed with pieces from other schools and made up by each scholar within his/her own specialization and frame of mind.
Jack Kornfield’s approach to the subject is described in THE WISE HEART. Here he explains in detail what he calls the twenty six principles of Buddhist psychology. I am not very happy with the result. Most items are indeed principles —comprehensive and fundamental rules— though some, as you could expect, are no more than basic Siddhattha Gotama’s Teachings. Examples: Don’t cling to self (#5), be mindful of your body (#8), your thoughts (#10) and your intention (#17), release grasping/be free from suffering (#16). and follow the middle way (#24). A few other, such as see inner nobility of human beings (#1) and recognize and transform unhealthy patterns of our personality (#12), are just nice recommendations that you find in almost any personal growth writing. A couple of principles, shift attention from experience to spacious consciousness (#3) and mindful attention to any experience is liberating (#7), seems to contradict each other.
Buddhist psychotherapy further complicates the whole subject from the strict doctrinal point of view. Whoever agrees to work with a therapist is after some kind of change, namely wanting to be somebody different from what he/she currently is. I see problems here. The desire to change is the THIRST, the second noble truth, the root of suffering, “the craving that makes for further becoming” (Thanissaro Bhikkhu), “the craving that produces renewal” (Ñanamoli Thera), or “the craving which leads to renewed existence” (Peter Harvey). Most therapy cases, as described extensively and illustratively by Jack Kornfield, portray situations that obviously aim at modifying mental health conditions. There the Buddha’s Teachings and the Buddhist meditation techniques have proved to be excellent tools to help patients. But they were just some of the tools that are to be used in connection with other techniques of, so to speak, conventional western therapies. You can hardly talk of such a thing as a purely / exclusively Buddhist approach to psychotherapy.
The supporting material of each principle is excellent thanks to the long experience of the author both as a psychologist and a therapist, on one hand, and as the Buddhist practitioner and scholar of many years, on the other. Most quotations prove very helpful to the author purpose, particularly those by Ajanh Chah. The Buddha’s quotations are also most appropriate still, as the meticulous picky reader who often checks alternative translations, I would love to see the suttas or discourses where they are taken from. This is particularly important to take into account when excerpts from the Mahayana texts are quoted since they are farther away from what might actually have been the Buddha’s words.
Jack Kornfield makes THE WISE HEART a very entertaining good-title-to-read book. But it does not match the expectancy created by the subtitle.
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