Silence and Emptiness in the Service of Healing: Lessons from Meditation

Silence and Emptiness in the Service of Healing: Lessonsfrom Meditation

Michael Del Monte

ABSTRACT. This article gives a brief historical introduction to meditation in the Christian and otherreligious traditions, relating it to concepts of Freud and Bion. Following a description of thetechnique of meditation, its essence is then discussed - especially in terms of its embeddedness inmystical traditions which hail from the old religions of the Orient. The main part of this paperconcerns the work and teachings of John Main, the Benedictine monk who arguably did most to re-introduce the ancient discipline of Christian meditation to contemporary Western practitioners.Parallels are drawn between Main's view of silence in meditation and silence in psychoanalysis.

The article ends with some cautious notes on the possibility that meditation, as Main describedit, may not be ideal for schizoid, dissociated, or overly narcissistic individuals. Those practitionerswith good ego-strengths are likely to benefit the most.

Introduction

Allow me to start with some classical quotations. Freud stated that a psychoanalyst shouldmaintain an `evenly hovering attention' between patient and self in the selection ofmaterial during analysis, but `if one's expectations are followed in this selection, there isthe danger of never finding anything but what is already known' (Freud 1912, pp. 111-112). To my knowledge Freud did not go on to describe how this important advice couldbe cultivated. Did Bion (1970) take him up when he advised analysts to forsake `memory,desire and understanding' during practice? By suggesting that analysts eschew these threefunctions, was Bion reformulating Freud's original advice not to follow one's expectationsin therapy? In a similar view Bion quoted from a letter by John Keats, written in 1817, inwhich Keats referred to `Negative Capability' as `when a man is capable of being inuncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason' (Bion 1970, p. 125). It is my hope that a deeper understanding of meditation, asexemplified by its practice in the Christian tradition, will allow us to address, later on,the issues just raised by my quotations from Freud and Bion.

Much has been written about meditation in professional journals during the last threedecades. Practically all of it concerns meditation emanating from the Hindu and Buddhisttraditions. In these journals little has been written about meditation in the Christiantradition. Hopefully this paper, by drawing attention to the role of silence in Christianmeditation, will show us that this ancient practice has relevance to some issues in currentpsychoanalytic psychotherapy. I shall continue this paper by describing the technique andpurpose of Christian meditation in some detail, while

Michael Del Monte is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the Psychological Societyof Ireland and of the British Psychological Society. The article is developed from a paper read at asymposium sponsored by the Advanced Research Centre of Human Sciences at Makuhari, Japan, inAugust 1993. Address for correspondence: St Patrick's Hospital, Dublin 8, Ireland.

British Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol 11(3), 1995© The author

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comparing it briefly with some other approaches to meditation and placing its practice insome historical context, before finally analysing it in psychodynamic terms.

Brief Historical Background

To understand the origins of Christian meditation it is useful to glance back at the longtradition of mysticism. According to Stace (1960) mysticism can be traced back to earlyHinduism, i.e. back to about 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. Buddhism evolvedout of Hinduism about 500 years BC. Hinduism and Buddhism both have very strongmystical traditions. Judaism is nearly as ancient as Hinduism, i.e. at least 3,000 years inexistence. Jewish sects like the Essenes, which existed prior to and around the time ofChrist, apparently also showed the influence of Oriental mysticism. However, accordingto Stace, mysticism has rarely been as important to Judaism, or to those religions whichemerged from it - namely Christianity and Islam - as it was, and still is, to Hinduism andBuddhism. Nevertheless, in each of these two more recent religions (namely Christianityand Islam) one finds dedicated, but sometimes rather peripheral groups which have keptthe mystical tradition alive. The sufism of Islam is just one such example.

Islam, the `youngest' major religion, came into existence less than 1,500 years agofollowing the birth of Mohammed. Islam expanded rapidly and largely replaced the oldChristian communities of the Middle East and North Africa - where the first evidence ofChristian meditation was found. Although the exact origins of Christian meditation areunclear, it does appear to have spread with the early Christians from the Israeli-Palestianand Syrian areas to North Africa via Egypt by the third century after Christ, where it waspractised in Coptic monk communities. The Desert Fathers of the Middle East may havebeen the earliest Christians to use meditative prayer by the subvocal repetition of theKyrie Eleison (Greek for `Lord have mercy upon us'). This repetition was said to have ledto a state of `quiescence', 'nowhereness' and 'no-mindness' (Menton 1960). From NorthAfrica (especially Egypt) Christian meditation spread to the south of France by the fourthcentury AD where it later became practised in monasteries (Stewart 1984, de Vogue1984).

John Cassian, a Christian monk of the fourth century, born in the area of what is nowex-Yugoslavia, described the meditation practised in Egypt as `unceasing prayer' (Stewart1984). From his description it appears that this early form of meditation was again of therepetitious type, i.e. a form of concentration or mantra meditation. In this respect itprobably shows Oriental affinity. Likewise, the early Christians shared with Hindus andBuddhists an interest in achieving a profound silence for spiritual purposes (de Drenille1984).

With time meditation practice changed in Western Europe, becoming more reflective,discursive, imaginative and involving contemplation on Christian themes such as `thesuffering of Christ on the cross', `death and resurrection' or `loving thine enemy' (McCann 1952, Freeman 1986). This remained the dominant form of Christian meditationthroughout much of Christianity up to recent times, and was largely associated with theRoman Catholic Church. With a few exceptions in Great Britain and Germany, theReformed (Protestant) Churches did not take over the early contemplative and mysticaltraditions of the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, the Orthodox churchesnever dropped the ancient practice of repetitive, i.e. meditative prayer, such as the SilentPrayer, the Jesus Prayer and the Prayer of the Heart (Freeman 1986). According toKadloubovsky and Palmer (1951) the Prayer of

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the Heart goes back to Hesychius who lived in the fifth century AD. This prayer, as wellas involving repetition, also required the practitioner to focus on his breathing. Thesimilarity with Eastern meditation is striking.

In recent times, with the work of some Benedictine monks such as John Main, BedeGriffiths and Laurence Freeman, the earlier, i.e. pre-contemplative form of meditation hasbeen revived (Freeman 1986). Schopen and Freeman (1992) argue that this revival is dueto an emerging world-view based on the New Physics of Einstein, Planck, Bohr,Shrodinger and Heisenberg, which is overthrowing the mechanical, Cartesian (i.e.dualistic) and deterministic way of understanding the universe. It is interesting to notethat the Benedictines have been associated with both the earliest and the most recentmanifestations of Christian meditation. Furthermore, the word `Benedictine', like `benediction', is of Latin origin and, when roughly translated, means 'good-saying' or `blessing'.

It is particularly the work of John Main that has made Christian meditation sonoteworthy, not only in terms of its ever-growing popularity, but also in terms of itsfaithfulness to its early origins as practised by Christians nearly two thousand years ago.Later in this article I shall more specifically focus on John Main's approach which,paradoxically, is both ancient and contemporary. However, before so doing allow me todescribe, in some detail, his technique of meditation.

Technique of Christian Meditation

The type of meditation promoted by John Main squarely falls within the discipline ofconcentration rather than that of mindfulness (Main 1984, 1989). Like in many Oriental (especially Hindu) schools of meditation a mantra is used on which to focus one'sattention. Main's instructions are, and I quote:

Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert. Silently, interiorlybegin to say a single word. We recommend the prayer-phrase maranatha. Recite it as foursyllables of equal length. Listen to it as you say it, gently but continuously. Do not think orimagine anything - spiritual or otherwise. If thoughts and images come, these are distractions atthe time of meditation, so keep returning to simply saying the word. Meditate each morning andevening for between twenty and thirty minutes. (Main 1984, p. 115)

One is advised to meditate before meals rather than after to avoid feeling drowsy orsleepy. The mantra should be said slowly and its subvocal repetition may be in synchronywith one's breathing, although such synchronisation is optional. The mantra maranathais an old Aramaic word which means `Lord come' in English. Aramaic was a (Syrian)lingua franca used by the ancient Jews among others, and probably also by Christ.Hence the repetitious recital of maranatha is one of the oldest Christian prayers (i.e. `anunceasing prayer' à la Cassian).

Main's approach is rather disciplinarian. Although one is invited to sit comfortablyand to loosen one's clothing, one is nevertheless strongly encouraged to sit absolutely stilland to resist all temptation to scratch or to fidget.

Main gives no description of active techniques such as those advocated by theRussian, Gurdjieff. Furthermore, Main asks meditators not to think about anything - noteven about God. (This is known as the `negative path' - see later). Main does notencourage the type of active mindfulness as, for example, found in running meditation (Solomon & Bumpus 1978) or in Gurdjieffian awareness training (Walker 1965). Insummary, Main advocates a technique in which concentration is the main discipline.

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Before looking critically at Main's approach it would be pertinent to address issuessuch as the essence and purpose of meditation.

The Essence of Meditation

Allow me to begin this section by posing a couple of questions, the answers to which, ifnot all too obvious, should be clearer towards the end of this article.(i) Why does it happen so regularly, in both group and individual therapy, that when oneasks for complete silence somebody paradoxically becomes quite anxious or panicky?(ii) What do love, sleep, death, hypnosis and even faith in God have in common with thepractice of meditation?

I shall from now on in an indirect way gradually deal with these two questions. Letme begin with a paradox. Ria Weyens (1992) stated, `We are afraid of the void'. Yet shealso said that `emptiness is the source of fullness', and that to develop fullness `We mustfind the no-self or selfless-self'. To help resolve the above paradoxes it is useful to returnto the tradition of mysticism. Mysticism, like psychoanalysis, is a quest into theunknown. For Louth (1992) it is more likely to be characterised by the workings of Erosthan by Logos. Hence the unknowable reality of God cannot be logically apprehended,but is experienced by transformation of the soul (Louth 1992).

Mysticism is thus concerned with transcending our habitual dualistic construing ofthe world. According to Stace (1960) mysticism has to do with the essential unity ofexperience, e.g. `the seer and the seen are one'. Techniques used to gain access to theexperience of this unity include yoga and meditation. With these techniques practitionersregularly report that the dimensions of time and space become distorted (Del Monte1987).

As already alluded to mysticism has two main approaches - the via positiva and thevia negativa. The former, based more on logic and objectivity, tends to focus on what thepractitioner gains from the mystical experience. The via negativa, on the contrary, isconcerned with emptiness, void and nothingness, and tolerance thereof. Bion's views on `negative capability' come to mind here.

By focusing exclusively and continuously on one meaningless stimulus (e.g. amantra) all contrasts fall away. As contrasts are necessary for ordinary sense-making oneis left with nothing to construe or 'no-thought' (see Del Monte 1987). This is thenothingness of the via negativa. Sustained `nothingness' can lead to an ineffabletranscendental state of non-attachment, in which one experiences undifferentiated unity (i.e. the Infinite or God). This is just one example of how meditation is embedded inmysticism and spirituality. It is remarkable how the Desert Fathers with their inducedstate of 'no-mindness' were on a similar spiritual and mystical path.

Mysticism has an ethical base. Feelings of love emergent from the experience ofunity with God are to be translated into acts of love and kindness. According to LaurenceFreeman (1992), `the human good is not found only within people, but also betweenthem'. On first impression one often thinks of mysticism as being concerned with findinggoodness (or Godness) within. The relational aspect of love (and God), as expressedbehaviourly, is not always highlighted. Ria Weyens (1992) made the point that `as longas all our energy is absorbed in self-occupation (self-fascination) we remain restless,diseased'. Yet, paradoxically, John Main would contend that we need regularly andsystematically to turn inwards to deal effectively with this selffascination. I shall nowreturn to the teachings of John Main to elaborate how he sees

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meditation as the vehicle to such self-confrontation (in search of God), and how histeachings are similar to some aspects of that ancient mystical tradition which has itsorigins in Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as being relevant to contemporary thinkingin psychoanalysis.

The Teachings of John Main: The Purpose of Christian Meditation

Main (1982, 1984,1989) sees meditation as preparation for both living and dying.For him meditation practice is important because it makes `life courageous about death' (1989, p. 24). Main goes on to say' We must live well but we must die well too'. Main'sapproach here differs from the clinically adapted versions of Western meditation whoseadvocates often see its practice as an antidote to stress and thus as having a positiveeffect on the quality of life (e.g. Benson et al. 1974; Carrington & Ephron 1975a) andeven on the quantity of life via a slowing down of the ageing process and therebypromoting longevity (Morse 1988). Main's spiritual approach to meditation hasconsequences for other aspects of its practice, namely that its practitioners should notdeliberately seek benefits from meditation. In other words, whereas an intrinsic value tothe practice of meditation may spontaneously emerge, practitioners of Christianmeditation à la Main should not search for extrinsic benefits or secondary gain, such asimproved sleep, better scholastic grades or enhanced performance at work. Here Main'sapproach is, once again, at variance with most of the Western or clinical adaptations ofmeditation. For Main, all desire in terms of goals should be held in abeyance. Here thepsychoanalyst Bion would be in agreement. He also saw `desire' as being an obstacle to `ultimate reality and truth - the unknown, unknowable, "formless infinite"' (Bion 1970, p.31).

For Main meditation practice allows one to transcend egoism. This involvessuspending any notions that this is my meditation. The path chosen by Main is the pathof simplicity. This is achieved by first learning to be still, and then silent. Silence comesfrom learning to sit still and not to fidget physically. Physical stillness is the road tomental stillness for Main. Interestingly, stillness and silence are both translated by thesame word, stilte, in Dutch.

There is a great similarity between the concept of 'no-thought' in Eastern meditation (see Del Monte 1987, 1990) and Main's view of silence. For Main silence can lead todepth. Such depth is achieved by learning, via meditation, to stop thinking about 'myself'. The mantra is initially used as a means to develop `other centredness', i.e. to block self-preoccupation. This involves letting go of `one's' own ideas and thoughts andtranscending habitual cognition. (Here Main is close to Bion's (1970) view that thoughtexists independently of thinkers and that thinking is essentially `parasitic'). Hence thereshould be no analysis of the process of meditation during its practice. Disciplined mantrarepetition will block such internal monologue and give rise to some `fertile silence'. Mainargued that with continued practice there will emerge some `profound silence'. This inturn will eventually, with sufficient dedicated rehearsal, lead to the experience of `infinite silence'.

This infinite silence is seen by Main as being the eternal silence of God. It has twoaspects. The `silence of absence' and the `silence of revelation'. The former is akin toStace's description of the via negativa of the mystics already referred to above.Consistent with Main's approach is his warning to practitioners not to try to possess thissilence, not to use it for one's satisfaction. If a revelation should come, all the better, butdo not seek any.

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As soon as we become aware of this profound silence we are to return to the mantra.We should not linger with it expectantly. This requires both courage and generosity ofself. Gradually these silences become longer as the practitioner is increasingly absorbedin the mystery of God. For Main, God is the `ground of being in which we are eternallyrooted' (1989, p. 98). The meditator transcends the world of illusion, i.e. of self, andenters the world of reality - the reality of our being, of creation, and of God. Main callsthis `de-throning the ego'. Obstacles to achieving all of this are, according to Main, fearand attachment to trivia. He, like the Buddhists, advocates the development of non-attachment or 'apatheia' in us. Non-attachment should not be confused with detachment.The latter implies indifference, whereas non-attachment is more akin to equanimity ornon-grasping. The single-pointedness of Main's mantra meditation paradoxically leads toan experience of the infinite.

For Main the infinite is God, Christ and love. The experience of love leads to theabsence of fear. All this for Main amounts to a spiritual re-birthing experience.

According to Main, learning to be at one with oneself facilitates being with others, i.e. breaking out of isolation. Here Main clearly sees a social consequence to the practiceof Christian meditation. Nevertheless, on reading Main, the principal purpose ofmeditation appears to be learning to `side-step' the ego, that is, all `desire', `sin', `possessiveness' and notions of `progress', so as to attain `full availability to God'.

The word meditation comes from the Latin meditare or, more originally, from starein medio - to stay in the centre. So meditation is returning to our centres, or to our cores.The word core is linked to the French coeur meaning heart. For Main, the practice ofmeditation brings us back to our core rootedness - to the heart of the matter, whichparadoxically puts us in touch with love and the greater transcendental reality (or God).

Meditation is a journey beyond the fear of existential dread into the essence ofbeing, that is, into love, unity, peace, and `the all'. The word `all' is akin sonorally to `Allah' (i.e. God). Reading Main one gets the impression of divine reciprocal indwelling.In other words, we find God both in us and around us. Our core nature is God-like ordivine, yet paradoxically God is also omnipresent.

Main goes on to argue that our full self emerges in relationships. For Main, the basichuman relationship is with ourselves. First, we must learn to love ourselves, then othersand finally God. Herein we encounter the intra-personal, inter-personal and trans-personal aspects of love.

One person in particular, Bede Griffiths - also a Benedictine monk, has developed amore flexible view of meditation in the Christian tradition. Just before his death hepublished a book (Griffiths 1992) in which he explains the differences in style (but notin essence) between Main and himself. Griffiths, although profoundly influenced byMain, felt that he did not sufficiently emphasise the role of breathing in meditation. `Formany people the attuning of the mantra to the breathing is of great importance and helpsto bring the body into the heart of the prayer' (Griffiths 1992, p. 36).

Griffiths also questioned the value of sitting rigidly in the upright position: `I thinkthat a good deal of liberty should be allowed. A technique must never be allowed to

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take control and hinder the firee movement of the Spirit' (Griffiths 1992, p. 36). Withregard to the disciplined repetition of the mantra Griffiths argued that most people cannotstop the continued flow of thoughts, but rather should learn to observe them `like cloudsin the sky'. Perhaps the most important difference between Main and Griffiths is withrespect to repressed thoughts. Whereas Main felt that unconscious material should not befaced during meditation, Griffiths said, `there are times when they have to be allowed tocome up into consciousness in meditation' (Griffiths 1992, p. 38). In fact, he argued thatdealing with personal unconscious material, liberated during meditation, is an importantstep in the `healing of memories'. This point has been made elsewhere before (Del Monte& Kenny 1985, Del Monte 1987, 1990). Furthermore, for Griffiths not only doesmeditation lead to access to our personal unconscious but it is also a gateway to thecollective unconscious à la Jung. Hence Griffiths, although agreeing with Main on muchof what he wrote, goes further and sees meditation as the means to unravel our personaland collective pasts, as well as to transcend the duality of the everyday psyche in order toobtain the essential unity of the spiritual domain in the Mainian sense. For Griffiths,Western mantra meditation, when stripped of meaning, is merely psychological tuningand does not go far enough.

For Main the discipline of meditation teaches us a surrendering of self - firstly tostillness and then on to silence, love, God and death. Thus for Main, meditation is notjust a clinical technique but a religion. The word religion originally meant 're-linking'.Hence meditation practice provides an opportunity for re-linking with inner experiencefor those of us (most of us?) who are adrift and out of touch with it. It can be argued thatpsychoanalysis has become, par excellence, the contemporary discipline concerned withinner experience. Hence it is to psychoanalysis that we now turn.

Relevance to Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis, compared with meditation, is a neophyte on the world stage. Like mostforms of psychotherapy it uses verbalisation as its modus operandi. While one would notdispute great merit in the `talking cure' approach there is, nevertheless, a growing corpusof opinion on the value of silence in therapy. Silence on the part of the patient was seenas resistance by Freud (1912). However, Balint (1958) argued that 'if we can change ourown approach - from considering silence as a symptom of resistance to studying it as apossible source of information - then we may learn something about this area of mind'.Later authors saw silence as indicative of shyness, shame, sorrow, anger, hostility,absence and fear (Shafii 1973a, Coltart 1992). Silence has also been construed, at times,as adaptive regression to pre-verbal sense-making (as opposed to malign or psychoticregression (Shafii 1973a), or the unconscious need for total union with mother (Shafii1973a)). In keeping with this theme Shafii (1973a) sees words as creatingcommunication, and silence as fostering communion. Coltart (1992) goes as far as sayingthat 'my own preference, above all others, is for a silent patient'. This is because therelatively silent patient allows the analyst ample time to work with the counter-transference. It should come as no surprise that Coltart describes herself as a practitionerof meditation and Buddhism. This is a long way from Freud who did not work with thecounter-transference, and who saw religious experience, meditation and mysticism asregressive and mal-adaptive phenomena, i.e. a form of oceanic fusion and oneness withmother or the wish to re-experience

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intra-uterine life (Freud 1930). To facilitate the patient in adaptive regression the analysttoo must be capable of silence, e.g. by avoiding unhelpful interpretations. In this way pre-verbal traumata can be 're-experienced and mastered again in silence' (Shafii 1973a).There are probably several ways in which analysts can learn to be comfortable withsilence. From this paper it should be clear by now that one pathway is via meditation.

Many authors have written on how the practice of meditation by psychotherapists canenhance receptivity, empathy, staying in the hic et nunc (here and now), and the use ofcounter-transference (Lesh 1970, Carrington & Ephron 1975b, Keefe 1975, Speeth 1982,Rubin 1985, Del Monte 1987, 1990, Coltart 1992). For example, Speeth (1982) arguedcogently that meditation can be a form of attention training. She sees that concentrativemeditation is a training in narrowly focused or specifically invested attention, whereasmindfulness meditation trains one to adopt a non-attached, panoramic or wide-focusattention which is evenly invested in everything that comes to mind - namely a kind of 'choiceless awareness'. Allied to these two approaches Speeth also describes a third (andhigher) level of integrated attention which she calls `witness consciousness'. Thisinvolves an awareness of the type of attention being given (narrow or panoramic), as wellas the object of attention.

In a similar vein, Rubin (1985) argued that training in both concentrative andmindfulness meditation enhances `psychoanalytic listening'. He postulated thatmeditation produces a `laying fallow' state of mind. Such a state would be more receptiveto any pregnant silence emergent from the analytic dyad. Fromm (1977), in an excellentarticle, descriptively contends that the practice of meditation helps to make theunconscious conscious by enhancing ego receptivity, primary process mentation, fantasy,imagery, free-floating attention, and adaptive regression. Finally, on this theme, Coltart (1992) argues that since much of what patients present to us is `beyond words' (as inpsychosomatic symptoms and hysterical conversions) it cannot simply be dealt with atthe level of language. Instead she uses her training in meditation to enhance neutral or `bare attention', both `sharply focused and scanning' to tune into the patient's transference,and especially, into her own countertransference. It is worth quoting her conclusion onthis subject. `The discipline of meditation practice enhances the discipline of one'scontribution to an analytic session which sometimes is, in fact, itself almostindistinguishable from a form of meditation' (p. 147). I would call this mindfulness.

All of this is not to argue that during analysis, patient and analyst must sit out sessionafter session in blissful silence! Rather, the ability to suspend, at critical moments, thecomplex cognitive processes involved in 'memory, desire and understanding' (Bion 1970)is a stance in analysis which meditation training enhances. It is not so much a question offorsaking or eschewing memory and desire like Bion advised, but rather temporarilyholding them in abeyance. This is precisely what mindfulness meditation is all about.This process has also been referred to as the `de-automatization' of cognitive construing (Fromm 1977, Del Monte & Kenny 1985, Del Monte 1987, 1990), and is akin to Bion'suse of the expression `negative capability', which refers to the analyst's capacity tosuspend logic and dwell in uncertainties, mysteries and doubts.

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Critique and Conclusions

Now at last to answer my two questions posed at the beginning of the section entitled `The Essence of Meditation'. Many people find silence so unbearable precisely becausethey have not learned to love in the Mainian sense. For Main, trust, peace and love inunion with God spell the end of fear. Being alone with oneself without distraction is noteasy for narcissistic people, that is, for people who are overly self-preoccupied. Suchpeople often also find it difficult to surrender themselves in hypnosis or simply to yieldand relax. They tend to fear death, feel isolated and are unable or afraid to let go andexperience love for others (as opposed to lust or infatuation).

Insomnia is a common complaint of theirs as sleep also involves a yielding - but thistime to the unconscious domain. Hence, love, sleep, hypnosis, death, faith in God andthe practice of meditation, all require a surrendering of the self to something beyonditself. The practice of meditation as described by Main is concerned with the spiritualaspect of this surrender.

It could be argued that Main's contention that we find love and goodness (God)within is one-sided. He has little to say about finding, `owning' and coming to terms withour inner `badness' or destructiveness (e.g. anger, hatred, lust, envy, and the like). ZenBuddhists refer to makyo as morbid, unwanted, unconscious material which interfereswith meditation by arising spontaneously during its practice (Russell 1986). Meditationas instructed by Main, like its oriental counterparts, does not seek to analyse emergentmakyo. In this respect the practice of traditional meditation differs from psychoanalysis.With the latter, there is an attempt to integrate split-off goodness (ego-ideals andidealised objects) and badness (our `shadows') rather than 'sidestepping' our unwantedparts as advocated by Main. Psychoanalysts see splitting as weakening the ego. Main'sapproach is to move beyond the ego. A difficulty with this approach could be thatindividuals who have rather fragmented egos tend to be drawn to meditation, yet mayexperience considerable difficulty in transcending their unintegrated egos. Paradoxically,we need good 'ego-strength' to help us transcend our ego strivings. Such transcendencedepends for its success on a healthy ego being able to suspend temporarily its functioning(Del Monte 1987, 1990).

Another worry is that schizoid or split-off individuals may use meditation as adefence to escape even further from the world, and rather than finding love à la Mainthey may become even more dissociated and cut off from others. Meditation is nosubstitute for psychotherapy but rather can supplement it, especially for those who havegained sufficient ego-strength. Perhaps with meditation, as with psychotherapy, it iseasier to help those most who need it least.

A problem with those who exclusively advocate the via negativa is that they tend toreify (or deify) the 'no-self or `nothingness' experience. Although such experience canhave enormous spiritual value for some it can also be an escape into `narcissisticemptiness' (Epstein 1990). In other words, there can be a confusion between egolessnessand self-abnegation. The latter has been described as pathological depersonalisation andde-realisation (Castillo 1990). There is the risk that the via negativa can turn into apainless form of premature self-destruction anticipating death, i.e. working more in theservice of thanatos than of eros.

As already suggested some people may turn to meditation as a defence by using it todistance themselves from what they regard as unworthy parts of themselves - namelytheir aggression, sexuality, intellect, envy and so forth. But, as Epstein points out,

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these functions are still present (only denied). `Such people often find themselvesirresistibly attracted to powerful others who come to contain essential ego functions thatare otherwise disavowed' (Epstein 1990, p. 78). Hence the cult leader phenomenon. Thistendency is also found with respect to some political leaders.

The path of meditation (silence) should not seek to destroy the ego, but rather toaccomplish the liberation of self from blind allegiance to impulses and from theimpoverishment resulting from our defences. Meditation should allow ego just to be ego- neither permanently subjected to repudation through the via negativa nor indulged withnarcissistic grandiosity. The insights gained through psychoanalysis show us that eroscannot stand alone without thanatos, and that the via negativa, without the bridle of logicafforded by the via positiva, may be no more than an elaborate defence.

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