fivebells

01:50 pm - Psychology versus spiritual practice

I've been listening to these talks, recently. I think Ken McCleod is great. I've based my meditation on his book for the past several years, and it's been very helpful.



In the second talk on that page, around 15 minutes in, he has this to say: Psychological conditioning: that corresponds to some measure with what I was talking about before, in terms of karma and our life energy being consumed by patterns, and the undoing of emotional material. Frequently, when one is engaged in that work, particularly when you're moving into the higher emotions, you'll often come across very, very significant family-of-origin issues. That's understandable, and they have to be negotiated, but again, we have to distinguish between the aim of psychology and the aim of spiritual practice. The aim of spiritual practice is not to work through anything. That's the side-effect. The aim of spiritual practice is to experience whatever is arising. So you're accumulating a capacity in attention so that you can experience whatever's there. And I know in my own work that there are certain areas which I can't experience yet. I go there and it's... difficult. And it's very, very different to approach this with the idea that "I'm going to work through this," which is code for "I'm going to get rid of it" compared to "Oh, I'm just going to experience this." When you're able to experience it, then something lets go. But if you take it as the objective, then as Suzuki Roshi says, you're caught in "gaining ideas." You want to gain something from your practice. And in the end, spiritual practice isn't about gaining anything. Again quoting Uchiyama, "Gain is illusion, loss is enlightenment." That's a really good phrase to remember. (This is not verbatim. He's speaking off-the-cuff, so I've edited out some false starts and minor asides.)

From: turil Date: October 29th, 2006 09:55 pm (UTC) (Link) Most psychology these days is focused on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and it leaves the old Fruedian psychoanalysis of past memories in the dust. CBT leads the client to looking at the current state of things and working to be more aware of what is really happening and how they can make the most of it.



There's also some intersting work being done with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the field of psychology. EMDR is a process where people with traumatic memories are given an unusual body/mind exercise that helps the brain bring a partially repressed/painful memory up to the surface of consciousness where it is redirected (quite literally, using eye movement) into a more stable part of the brain where it can be processed and stored in a healthy way. It sounds to me a heck of a lot like some forms of meditation. I wonder if anyone has studied eye movement during mediation... Reply ) ( Thread From: nearfar Date: October 30th, 2006 03:35 am (UTC) (Link) The aim of spiritual practice is to experience whatever is arising.



Well said sir! Reply ) ( Thread From: koanbred Date: October 30th, 2006 02:38 pm (UTC) (Link)

Great post! Reply ) ( Thread