Buddhist psychology: A review of theory and practice

This paper gives an account of some of the major aspects of Buddhist psychology. The survey is confined to the texts of Early, or Theravada, Buddhism — that is, the canonical texts and their early Pali commentaries and related expository texts. The importance of psychological concepts in the philosophy and practice of Buddhism is highlighted. The problems inherent in the study of Buddhist psychology are discussed, including the problem of translation and interpretation. The paper then describes and analyzes several key Early Buddhist psychological notions including: basic drives that motivate behavior, perception and cognition, consciousness, personal development and enlightenment, meditation, and behavior change. The relationship between theory and practice in Buddhist psychology is commented on, with special reference to meditative techniques and other behavior change strategies. Finally, comments are made on the possible interaction between Buddhist and modern psychology. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society, St. Andrews, April, 1989.     

Buddhist psychology: A review of theory and practice

This paper gives an account of some of the major aspects of Buddhist psychology. The survey is confined to the texts of Early, or Theravada, Buddhism — that is, the canonical texts and their early Pali commentaries and related expository texts. The importance of psychological concepts in the philosophy and practice of Buddhism is highlighted. The problems inherent in the study of Buddhist psychology are discussed, including the problem of translation and interpretation. The paper then describes and analyzes several key Early Buddhist psychological notions including: basic drives that motivate behavior, perception and cognition, consciousness, personal development and enlightenment, meditation, and behavior change. The relationship between theory and practice in Buddhist psychology is commented on, with special reference to meditative techniques and other behavior change strategies. Finally, comments are made on the possible interaction between Buddhist and modern psychology. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society, St. Andrews, April, 1989.     

Quality of life: A Psychological analysis

Quality of life (QOL) is an amorphous concept; it is normative and value laden. Economists’ emphasis on the standard of living brings into focus the value of growth, expansion and acceleration. Financial status is important but has limited impact on feelings of happiness. The subjective experiences (e.g. wellbeing, cheerfulness, satisfaction, contentment, empathy, faith, wisdom and purpose in life) complement the economist’s concept of standard of living. The criteria for determining the QOL may relate to adaptive mechanisms one employs in everyday life. Dispositions of altruism, sublimation, humor, empathy, optimism, and wisdom also contribute to the QOL. It appears that QOL is essentially a cultural concept overflowing both economics and psychology. Non-Western approaches such as Chinese, Buddhist, Hindu thought, have proposed balancing as a key factor in QOL. The highest quality of life is one in which one transcends dualism in life, namely happiness — sorrow, pleasure — pain, love — hate, etc and cultivate the capacity to remain unassailed by the dualities, rather than that of balance. We need to attend to the views of humanistic disciplines and examine the issue of QOL in the context of the world view one holds.     

Adding Silence to Stories: Narrative Therapy and Contemplation

A review of the literature reveals that one particular form of contemplation—mindfulness—has been integrated into cognitive-behavioral therapy. Built upon this background, this article raises the issue of combining contemplation and narrative therapy. It first examines the unique experiences that occur when one enters into silence. Then, it explores the implications of these experiences for narrative therapy. A contemplative-based approach to narrative therapy differs from traditional narrative therapy in that it utilizes: (a) contemplative skills, (b) contemplative and narrative metaphors, (c) modified interventions, and (d) broader views of reality and self. The outcome is an enlarged narrative approaches that possess numerous benefits and possibilities for future treatment models. P. Gregg Blanton is a Professor of Human Services at Montreat College. He is a Clinical Member and Approved Supervisor of AAMFT.     

A Buddhist contribution to the psychoanalytic psychology of self

The author attempts to integrate the concepts of self used in psychoanalytic theory with the understanding of the nature of self as explained within the Buddhist meditative tradition. He divides different concepts of self in psychoanalytic theory into three major levels of consciousness and abstraction: self as experience, representational self and self as system. The representational level is defined as consisting of unconscious organizing structures of interaction: the system level is a hierarchically higher organization of representations, while the experiential level consists of the moment-to-moment flow of consciousness. He argues that for the sake of theoretical clarity these levels should be differentiated in discussions of self. He then describes the Buddhist psychology of self and tries to show how this perspective can enrich psychoanalytic understanding of the experiential self and of narcissism, which in Buddhist language would be described as clinging to (seeking or avoiding) images of self that arise in the mind. Last, he describes a model of therapeutic development using different levels of self and the interrelationship between them, showing how psychoanalytic psychotherapy and Buddhist insight meditation emphasize different levels of self using complementary rather than mutually exclusive methods.     

The Wall inside the brain: Overestimation of distances crossing the former Iron Curtain

A study of distance estimations between German cities investigated the organization of mental maps and their specific deviations from reality. Potential factors for the deviation of mental maps from reality are physical barriers, emotional involvement, and semantic unity. Distance estimations between cities situated in different former parts of Germany (East or West) were systematically overestimated compared to distances of cities located in the same parts of Germany. This trend was strengthened when participants had a negative attitude toward the reunification of Germany. The impact of these results is far reaching, because overestimated distances between both German parts indicate that there still exists a mental gap between East and West—even in young people—15 years after the German reunification.     

LOT,CTM, and the Elephant in the Room

According to the language of thought (LOT) approach and the related computational theory of mind (CTM), thinking is the processing of symbols in an inner mental language that is distinct from any public language. Herein, I explore a deep problem at the heart of the LOT/CTM program—it has yet to provide a plausible conception of a mental symbol.     

The Chan Mind: Transmission or mission-of-translation? Reading Wright’s<Emphasis Type="Italic">Philosophical Meditations</Emphasis>

Conclusion Wright maintains that tradition (including language) plays a fundamental role in the origins and shaping of the monastic world that made a unique “Chan mind” possible. Through a creative application of the Buddhist idea of “dependent origination,” Wright has broadened the hermeneutic concept of historicity in that it is more than a linear and causal relationship of contextuality (that is, the person is always a person-in-community, and the text is always a text-in-context). Instead, contextuality refers to a (w)holistic network of associations and re-associations. The word “tradition” thus becomes an open tradition that is constantly shaped and reshaped, formed and transformed. The meaning of tradition as such is always a “trace” of that other which is forever absent. In this sense, Wright is quite Derridean. Like Derrida’s deconstruction, Wright’s interpretative endeavor, as part of the tradition of “linguistic turn,” seems to become separated from the real world of flux and takes on an independent status, that is, the realm of reading, explaining, and understanding (perhaps mis-understanding, sometimes). Wright’s project fits the need of those who have a passion for “doing things with words,” and those who prefer meditative reading to meditative practice (in a Buddhist sense). Though Wright keeps reminding us that the effort to play language in relation to Chan experience does not imply that Chan enlightenment/mind is in any sense reducible to language; it still remains a question whether his critical “philosophical meditations” are fully out of the “spell of conceptuality” of the hermeneutical circle. Wright might say that there is no need to be out of the circle, or there is no such circle in the first place.     

Arnold W. Brunner and the new classical synagogue in America

Arnold W. Brunner (1857–1925), Albert Kahn (1869–1942), and other Jewish architects played an important role in reviving the classical style for American synagogue design at the turn of the twentieth century, putting their stamp on American Jewish identity and American architecture. The American-born Brunner was the preferred architect of New York’s Jewish establishment from the 1880s until his death. He adopted the classical style with his third New York synagogue, Congregation Shearith Israel, dedicated in 1897, and then championed the style in his extensive public writing about synagogue design. The classical style was subsequently widely accepted nationally by Reform congregations, especially in the South and Midwest. Classicism was a mediating device, and served as a new emblem of religious and civic identity. Mixing a variety of architectural and cultural traditions, Jewish architects and their patrons created a bridge between Judaism—or Jewishness—and Americanism.     

TWO STRAINS IN BUDDHIST CAUSALITY

This essay will focus on the Buddhist metaphysics of experience which is generally glossed over due to the excessive concern for the ultimate goal in Buddhism, nirvīna , and in consequence of which the emphasis has been on the practice of; meditative discipline in aspiration for that goal. Yet neither nirvana nor meditative discipline can be understood properly without examining the full dimension of our ordinary experience. Such an examination should reveal to us the unique ways in which the Buddhist refers to the bounded and unbounded conditions of existence. All this is novel insofar as metaphysics goes and indeed it would have to be a unique form of metaphysics in order to accommodate the dual aspect of existence. The key to this metaphysics lodges in the Buddhist concept of experiential process,¹ technically known as pratītyasamutpāda which is variously translated as relational origination, interrelational origination or dependent origination. It refers to the Buddhist concept of causality but, as we shall see, it is a unique concept with more than the usual Western connotation.     

Empty and extended craving: an application of the extended mind thesis to the four noble truths

According to Buddhism's four noble truths, (1) we find our lives filled with anguished suffering because (2) we habitually crave for life to be other than it is; and (3) this habit of craving will cease (4) only if we cultivate in our lives the Buddha's path of mental discipline, wisdom, and moral conduct. The aim of Buddhist practice is to cure craving. There is a model of the self that can be derived from the recent work of some philosophers in the field of cognitive science, Andy Clark in particular. His writings suggest a model of the self that is spread out or extended. I will argue that the model of the extended self offers contemporary insight for interpreting what craving is in the Buddhist sense and how to cure it.     

COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING AND MENTAL CONTAMINATION: AN EMPIRICAL RE-CONCEPTUALIZATION

The main goal of this article is to propose a cognitive technology for blocking the impact of mental contamination during cognitive restructuring in cognitive-behavioral and rational-emotive therapy, by using fundamental research findings from cognitive psychology. In step 1, after a review of the relevant cognitive and social psychology literature, the authors elaborated several techniques hypothesized to control mental contamination. In step 2—Experiment I—the authors tested the efficacy of these techniques in blocking mental contamination. The three techniques that proved to be effective in controlling mental contamination were: (a) the global restructuring technique; (b) the rational anticipation technique; (c) the incompatible information technique. In step 3—Experiment II—these techniques were adapted and tested in clinical setting using a single case experiment design-multiple baselines across subjects (five subjects with simple phobia). The techniques were shown to be effective in both stimulating the assimilation of new adaptive cognitions (i.e., global restructuring and incompatible information technique) and in preventing relapse (i.e., rational anticipation technique). Future directions for research are discussed. Address correspondence to Daniel David, Ph.D., Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapies, Babes-Bolyai University, No. 37, Gh. Bilascu Street, 3400, Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania; e-mail: danieldavid@psychology.ro.     

Utilization of research findings: A matter of research tradition

Differences between the realist and pragmatist research traditions are seen to explain different levels of utilization of research findings. The realist tradition, which views knowledge as a true representation of reality with the role of research being to reveal its underlying causal relations, is less associated with high levels of utilization. In the pragmatist tradition, on the other hand, knowledge is a personal construction of reality, not necessarily its true representation, but rather a fruitful one that leads to desired consequences in a given context. This tradition is associated with higher levels of utilization. An example of a research study for the development of educational indicator systems illustrates the impact of a shift from one tradition to the other on the level of utilization of the research findings. Pragmatically developed indicator systems usually address specific aims, and often reflect preferred policy while following up its execution. These are fairly simple systems of indicators that have main effects on the variability of educational outcomes. Thus they are easy to be interpreted and translated into policy decisions. On the other hand, indicator systems developed in the realist tradition make theoretical rather than pragmatic contributions to our understanding of school effectiveness issues. This approach offers multivariate, multilevel, and interactive models that represent the entire schooling phenomenon. These models are hard to interpret and less applicable for policy recommendation. The coupled process for development of an indicator system for both pragmatic and theoretical aims illustrates the tension inherent in such a dual approach and its impact on the usability of its findings. The example is based on her research together with Professor Murray Aitkin, at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Tel Aviv University. The research was funded by the Israel Foundation Trustees—Grant 90 (1991–1992)—and the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture.     

Enacting the self: Buddhist and Enactivist approaches to the emergence of the self

In this paper, I take up the problem of the self through bringing together the insights, while correcting some of the shortcomings, of Indo–Tibetan Buddhist and enactivist accounts of the self. I begin with an examination of the Buddhist theory of non-self (anātman) and the rigorously reductionist interpretation of this doctrine developed by the Abhidharma school of Buddhism. After discussing some of the fundamental problems for Buddhist reductionism, I turn to the enactive approach to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I argue that human beings, as dynamic systems, are characterized by a high degree of self-organizing autonomy. Therefore, human beings are not reducible to the more basic mental and physical events that constitute them. I critically examine Francisco Varela’s enactivist account of the self as virtual and his use of Buddhist ideas in support of this view. I argue, in contrast, that while the self is emergent and constructed, it is not merely virtual. Finally I sketch a Buddhist-enactivist account of the self. I argue for a non-reductionist view of the self as an active, embodied, embedded, self-organizing process—what the Buddhists call ‘I’-making (ahaṃkāra). This emergent process of self-making is grounded in the fundamentally recursive processes that characterize lived experience: autopoiesis at the biological level, temporalization and self-reference at the level of conscious experience, and conceptual and narrative construction at the level of intersubjectivity. In Buddhist terms, I will develop an account of the self as dependently originated and empty, but nevertheless real.     

Clouds Into Rain

Drawing from the work of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion, this article explores projective and introjective dynamics in terms of Buddhist meditative methods and practice. Forms of meditations, such shamatha or calm-abiding, and vipashayana or analytic meditation, are linked to psychoanalytic dynamics in clinical terms. The interface between Buddhist meditation and psychoanalytic experience is explored with case material.     

Foucault’s politicization of ontology

The paper explicates a politicized conception of reality with the help of Michel Foucault’s critical project. I contend that Foucault’s genealogies of power problematize the relationship between ontology and politics. His idea of productive power incorporates a radical, ontological claim about the nature of reality: Reality as we know it is the result of social practices and struggles over truth and objectivity. Rather than translating the true ontology into the right politics, he reverses the argument. The radicality of his method lies in showing how the ontological order of things is in itself the outcome of a political struggle: Ontology is politics that has forgotten itself. I argue that Foucault’s thought accomplishes the politicization of ontology with two key theoretical moves. The first is the contestation and provocation of all given and necessary ontological foundations. He affirms the ontological view that there is a discontinuity between reality and all ontological schemas that order it, and a subsequent indeterminacy of reason in establishing ultimate truths or foundations. After this initial step whereby ontology is denaturalized—made arbitrary or at least historically contingent—the way is open for explanations that treat the alternative and competing ontological frameworks as resulting from historical, linguistic and social practices of power. The second key move is thus the exposure of power relations and their constitutive role in our conception of reality. I conclude by considering the implications of Foucault’s politicization of ontology for our understanding of politics.     

Race,gender, and the response to stress: Autoworkers' vulnerability to long-term unemployment

A three-wave panel study of auto plant closings focused on the mental health effects of unemployment on blue-collar workers. This paper explores how the impact of long-term unemployment varies across race and gender. We also examine whether other demographic factors can themselves modify the impactsof race and gender. Dependent variables include two measures of distress and two drinking measures. Results showed that the effect of long-term unemployment on distress and drinking was more severe among less educated workers, and responses of blacks were especially sensitive to level of education. In addition, men showed a greater association of long-term unemployment with depression (and to some extent anxiety) than did women. Marriage affected the responses of men but not of women, and of whites but not of blacks. Explanatory variables—the worker's experiences of financial hardship, other negative life events, and lack of a confidant—largely accounted for male-female differences. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications of these effects and address the limitations of the traditional term “vulnerability” in describing them. A prior version of this paper was presented at the North Central Sociological Association meeting in Dearborn, Michigan, April 25, 1991. Funds for the research were provided by the Michigan Health Care Research and Education Foundation and by the International Union-UAW. We are especially grateful to the men and women of the UAW, whose experiences and views form this investigation. We thank Kiseon Chung, Scott McKearney, David Rauma, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts.     

IMAG(IN)ING THE BUDDHIST BRAIN: EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

Buddhism has captured the imagination of many in the modern (Western) world. Recently, scientists have seemed eager to discover whether claims about Buddhist meditation can be verified experimentally. Brain research is beginning to produce concrete evidence that mental discipline and meditative practice can change the workings of the brain and allow practitioners to achieve different levels of awareness, as measurable for instance in reaction times to stimuli. The goal of this section of articles in Zygon is to address recent developments in this area. The contributions address a wide array of questions, although they certainly do not cover the whole ground of what one may consider “problems” of meditation. Yet, we believe that the issues addressed here have widespread implications and that they constitute a strong argument for the richness of the meditation domain.