Zen meets New Thought: The Erhard Seminars Training and Changing Ideas About Zen

‘Est’ was a human potential movement founded by Werner Erhard in San Francisco. At the height of the movement in the mid-1970s, thousands of trainees in the United States and Japan participated in gruelling 60-hour seminars intended to shock the participant into a more direct experience of reality. Est and derivative seminars became popular in North American business culture and several corporations have required employees to undergo the training. This article locates the est seminars within the context of an going dialogue between Japan and the West. Erhard combined New Thought with Zen ideas about satori and sesshin. This adaptation intensified a movement, already begun by thinkers such as D. T. Suzuki and Yasutani Hakuun, that presented Zen as a ‘technology’ for achieving a particular experience of reality. Est was then successfully exported back to Japan. Examination of the historical relationship of est and Zen explains many of the most controversial aspects of est. It also reveals an important channel through which ‘Zen’ ideas were disseminated into American culture. Finally, the reciprocal exchange of ideas between Japan and the West raises important questions about such categories as ‘traditional’ Zen and ‘Americanized’ Zen.     

Unity and diversity of views on intelligence and consciousness: Where the East meets the West

Intelligence is a cognitive function. Cognitive processing is a common base for cognitive theories of intelligence in both the East (India) and in the West (Europe and America). I first review the Eastern view of intelligence and its relation to consciousness. I argue that the study of consciousness has been accepted in Western psychology as a legitimate topic since William James, then present further discussion on the topic from Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. In essence, it is about awareness and the means of achieving a pure state of awareness through self-directed attention to internal thoughts, rather than external objects. The validity of a first-person observation of consciousness then becomes an important issue as well as the question of a non-physical mind. The paper concludes that using introspective reflection as a tool to explore consciousness is supported by both views.     

神会的禅学思想特色——兼论神会对慧能禅学思想的继承和发扬

为了批判神秀北宗的不究竟的禅法,弘扬慧能南宗的顿教禅法,神会引经据典地从佛性本体论、无念无住的修行方法论和顿悟境界论等多方面对慧能南宗禅法做了非常全面而深入的理论上的论证和发挥。神会禅学立知见,注重知解,神会的顿悟说注重于解悟,神会禅学的这种特征是应该结合当时的禅学背景才能恰当地理解的。与后来侧重于从实践上发挥和发扬慧能南宗禅法的禅派不同,侧重于从理论上论证和发挥慧能南宗禅法的神会禅学是有它特定的历史使命和时代特征的,神会禅学是禅宗发展史上一个非常重要的环节。     

Zen and the Art of Living Mindfully: The Health-Enhancing Potential of Zen Aesthetics

Amidst the burgeoning enthusiasm for mindfulness in the West, there is a concern that the largely secular ‘de-contextualized’ way in which it is being harnessed is denuding it of its potential to improve health and well-being. As such, efforts are underway to ‘re-contextualize’ mindfulness, explicitly drawing on the wider framework of Buddhist ideas and practices in which it was initially developed. This paper aims to contribute to this, doing so by focusing on Zen Buddhism, and in particular on Zen aesthetic principles. The article concentrates on the seven principles identified by Hisamatsu (1971) in his classic text Zen and the Fine Arts: kanso (simplicity); fukinsei (asymmetry); koko (austere sublimity); shizen (naturalness); daisuzoku (freedom from routine); sei-jaku (tranquillity); and yūgen (profound grace). The presence of these principles in works of art is seen as reflecting and communicating insights that are central to Buddhism, such as non-attachment. Moreover, these principles do not only apply to the creation and appreciation of art, but have clear applications for treating health-related issues, and improving quality of life more generally. This paper makes the case that embodying these principles in their lives can help people enhance their psychosomatic well-being, and come to a truer understanding of the essence of mindful living.     

Zen meditation and access to information in the unconscious

In two experiments and two different research paradigms, we tested the hypothesis that Zen meditation increases access to accessible but unconscious information. Zen practitioners who meditated in the lab performed better on the Remote Associate Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962) than Zen practitioners who did not meditate. In a new, second task, it was observed that Zen practitioners who meditated used subliminally primed words more than Zen practitioners who did not meditate. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

天然函昰禅师的悟道因缘及其禅教并重的宗趣观

天然函昰禅师是明末清初岭南曹洞宗的高僧,在他的弘化下,曹洞宗风大振,僧俗奔凑如云。本文从函孟禅师的悟道因缘及其阐教并、重的宗趣观入手,说明他之所以能在明末清初之际摄受数千僧俗,乃是因其具有深彻的悟境和圆满的见地,非人们所谓“以忠孝节义垂示及门”所能范围。     

Empowerment meets narrative: Listening to stories and creating settings

Comments on and summarizes some of the themes of a special issue on empowerment. Extends empowerment theory with the suggestion that both research and practice would benefit from a narrative approach that links process to practice and attends to the voices of the people of interest. Narrative theory and method tends to open the field to a more inclusive attitude as to what counts as data and to cross-disciplinary insights as well as citizen collaboration. Communal narratives are defined at various levels of analysis, including the community, the organizational, and the cultural. A definition of empowerment that includes a concern with resources calls attention to the fact that communal narratives and personal stories are resources. Implications for personal and social change are suggested.     

Unconscious Process: Zen and Psychoanalytic Versions

Attention to unconscious processes forms the nexus of the psychoanalytic endeavor and adds dimension to the theoretical and clinical integration of Buddhism and psychoanalysis. The author traces convergences between Freud's, Matte-Blanco's, and D.T. Suzuki's explication of the psychoanalytic and Zen readings of the unconscious. The Buddhist understanding of the unconscious propensity to reify experience can be integrated with psychoanalytic thinking. An alternative understanding and processing of aggression with supporting clinical material provides a case in point. The author concludes that continued Buddhist practice holds the potential to alter radically existing psychoanalytic models without destroying the efficacy of well-established formulations and accompanying techniques.     

Integrative study in physiology and medicine: Obstacles on the road to integration

A recent report of the Long-Range Planning Committee of the American Physiological Society identifies physiology with “integrative biology” and urges that physiologists make their field “a unique branch of biology that deals with synthesis and integration.” However, certain institutional, procedural, and psychological obstacles lie in the way of those who would embark upon this task. The hurdles to be overcome include the following: the erroneous belief that biomedical scientists are already integrative; the inapplicability of the powerful methods of areas of specialization to integrative study; the fear of failure; the identification of integrative biology with the study of function; the disregard of hierarchy; the undervaluation of the abstract; and the loss of a sense of mystery. These obstacles, though insidious, pervasive, and powerful, can be surmounted.     

Zen and the Art of Storytelling

This paper explores the contribution of Zen storytelling to moral education. First, an understanding of Zen practice, what it is and how it is achieved, is established. Second, the connection between Zen practice and ethics is shown in terms of the former’s ability to cultivate moral emotions and actions. It is shown that Zen practice works at the roots of consciousness where, according to the fundamental tenets of Buddhism, the possibility of human goodness, known as bodhicitta (awakened heartmind), lies. Third, it is suggested that storytelling is a viable and desirable means of moral education. Two examples of Zen stories are introduced, and interpretive commentaries are offered in the service of illustrating the major points made in this article.     

Between the face and the voice: Bakhtin meets Levinas

The essay draws on a little-known fragment from M.M. Bakhtin’s Draft Exercise Notebooks of 1943 to highlight both the affinities and the divergences of the respective philosophical projects of Bakhtin and Emmanuel Levinas. The first part of the discussion follows their parallel itineraries through several points of convergence, from a sense of profound philosophical disenchantment to a conception of the ethical subject as living on borderlines, facing the other, irremediably vulnerable and infinitely responsible. The second part focuses on the “dialogic impasse” and its attempted resolution through gestures of triangulation, evidenced in Levinas’s “third” and Bakhtin’s “superaddresee.” The third part of the discussion, beginning with Bakhtin’s and Levinas’s different readings of Dostoevsky, focuses on the ultimate divergence of their philosophical positions, and suggests that Bakhtin’s discursive conception of subjectivity may point the direction towards a more viable thinking of a post-metaphysical ethics.