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Buddhism and Psychotherapy: The Language of Attitude Adjustment in Psychotherapy, Meditation, and Ethics in Buddhism

Frank J. Hoffman

Abstract

John Koller in “Buddhist and Psychoanalytic Insights into the Self and Self Awareness” and Mark Epstein in Thoughts Without a Thinker are both successful in showing that there is a clear basis for meaningful comparison between Buddhism and psychotherapy in the wheel of rebirth without metaphysical language. Both John Koller’s Buddhism and Mark Epstein’s psychotherapy hold that the language of karma and rebirth can function without metaphysical language. A.D.P. Kalansuriya in “The Logical Grammar of the Word ‘Rebirth’ in the Buddhist Paradigm: A Philosophical Sketch” similarly explains that dhamma-talk is rightly construed as ethical language without metaphysical language. Whereas Mark Epstein’s understanding of psychotherapy helps people with attitude adjustment without metaphysical language, A.D.P. Kalansuriya’s understanding of dhamma-talk is also concerned with meditation and ethics without metaphysical language. Therefore, on the interpretations above by Koller, Epstein, and Kalasuriya, neither Buddhism nor psychotherapy have to interpret karma and rebirth as metaphysical in order for their language of attitude adjustment (in psychotherapy) or meditation and ethics (in Buddhism) to help humankind.

Keywords: Buddhism, Psychotherapy

Frank J. Hoffman is Visiting Professor, Central China Normal University, Visiting Scholar, South Asia Center, University of Pennsylvania, and Visiting Professor, Buddha Dharma Centre of Hong Kong Ltd.

《禪與人類文明研究》第二期（2017）International Journal for the Study of Chan Buddhism and Human Civilization Issue 2 (2017), 173–197

174 Frank J. Hoffman

Western psychology has done much to illuminate the six realms. Freud

and his followers insisted on exposing the animal nature of the passions;

the Hellish nature of paranoid, aggressive, and anxiety states; and the

insatiable longing of what came to be called oral craving (which is

depicted in pictures of the Hungry Ghosts). Later developments in

psychotherapy brought even the upper realms into focus. Humanistic

psychotherapy emphasized the “peak experiences” of the God Realms;

ego psychology, behaviorism, and cognitive therapy cultivated the

competitive and efficient ego seen in the Realm of the Jealous Gods;

and the psychology of narcissism was specifically about the questions of

identity so essential to the Human Realm. Each of these trends in

psychotherapy was concerned with returning a missing piece of the

human experience, restoring a bit of the neurotic mind from which we

had become estranged.

Epstein, first page of “The Wheel of Life” chapter in

Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

Introduction

How this “lead quotation” above relates to Buddhist meditation practice, Mark Epstein explains, is that we can practice on all of the material of the six realms as sticking points in our minds that keep us bound to the wheel of birth and death that is saṃsāra.

There have been phenomenological, humanistic, clinical, and popular applications of Buddhist Psychology in the 20th and early 21st centuries in the West. Traditional psychotherapy as explained by Sigmund Freud is unfriendly to religion and spirituality. My focus is not on cognitive-behavioral but on psychoanalytic and humanistic approaches. This aspect of Buddhist psychology provides a background for psychotherapeutic practices. For example, John Welwood emphasizes talking about one’s experiences to see if the root cause of anxiety,

Buddhism and Psychotherapy 175

depression, or unhappiness can be located. This is similar to the Buddhist idea of co-dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda) in which we can trace back causes. It is also related to mindfulness practice in which we try to become acutely aware and cultivate insight (vipassanā). Tranquility (śamatha) also plays a role because when the mind is tranquil one can proceed more carefully toward self-knowledge. However, recent approaches exemplified in Mark Epstein’s Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotheraphy from a Buddhist Perspective and John Welwood’s Awakening the Heart have shown the applicability of Buddhism to psychoanalytic practices.

Section I: Koller and Epstein on Interpreting the Wheel of Rebirth [premise (1)]

(1) John Koller in “Buddhist and Psychoanalytic Insights into the Self and Self Awareness” and Mark Epstein in Thoughts Without a Thinker are both successful in showing that there is a clear basis for meaningful comparison between Buddhism and psychotherapy in the wheel of rebirth without metaphysical language.

The wheel of rebirth (Pali: bhavacakka), (“Wheel of Becoming”) is probably the most popular diagrams in the Buddhist world. The wheel illustrates saṃsāra, the process of birth, death, and rebirth in Buddhism. Rebirth is not transmigration of a permanent soul. Both rebirth and transmigration are two different views of the reincarnation type. A predecessor in symbol is the water wheel and the ancient idea of the regularity of the seasons of the agricultural cycle. The ancient idea of a moral world order or Ṛta developed into the Hindu idea of the wheel of karma and transmigration which in turn developed into the Buddhist idea of karma and rebirth. Buddhist rebirth and Hindu transmigration each connects to different concepts in Hindu and Buddhist systems of concepts. In the historical development of Buddhism karma and rebirth began to be understood as understanding in a Wheel of Becoming.


In “Buddhist and Psychoanalytic Insights into the Self and Self-awareness” John Koller begins by saying that the modern science of psychoanalysis appears to have a common goal with traditional Buddhist practice in that both enable people to have more healthy and wholesome life through self-awareness: Analysts work with patients to uncover repressed awareness “…blocking their abilities to understand their current experiences. Buddhist practitioners work to attain insights into their current experience by becoming aware of and letting go of the obscurations of past thoughts and actions.” (Koller p. 107) Koller goes on to say at the outset that there are connections with Freud: value of acknowledging repressed experiences and the importance of a nonjudgmental attitude. Koller continues with a comparison of Buddhism and psychoanalysis both beginning with “a pathological failure of the individual to function adequately” and that the self is a process and not a substance. (Koller, p.107)

There are differences, too, Koller notices. The Buddhist analysis is that all suffering arises from ignorance, whereas Freud thinks that the conflict that produces suffering is that between instinctual life and resistance. Ignorance of our existence as dynamic interdependence for Buddhism is ignorance of causality. Sex and aggression are humans’ fundamental problem whereas for Buddhism the fundamental problem is not understanding ourselves. (Buying into the illusion of “fortress self” we create suffering in our world through too much attraction and too much aversion.) Important too is the difference that Buddhism, unlike psychotherapy, is not a science but a philosophical, psychological, and meditational method to eliminating illness of the mind. Koller recognizes the difficulties inherent in any comparative approach as there are historical, temporal, and differences of perspective. So he embarks on a comparison similar to Mark Epstein’s focus on the wheel of rebirth in the book, Thoughts Without a Thinker. (Koller, p. 108–109)

Locating the arising and ceasing of the human illness of dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness, lack), Koller speaks of the ignorance of interdependent arising. This means both that nothing exists by itself and


that everything is a process and changing, and so not permanent. I think this line of understanding shows how the Three Marks of Everything, anicca-anattā-dukkha (impermance-nonsubstantiality-suffering) are interrelated. Koller compares this to Freud’s idea of the idea of personal existence as a developmental process of becoming a person through response to the world. On this view, the process creates who are in terms of organized thoughts and feelings. Not only going around the wheel but being released from it is understood from the diagram of the Wheel of Life.

The first chapter of Mark Epstein’s Thoughts Without a Thinker is “The Wheel of Life: A Buddhist Model of the Neurotic Mind.” Beginning with the Buddha’s “Three Sights” of “old person-sick person-dead person-renunciant” Epstein sees this as interpretable on an older and self-oriented view and a newer or other-regarding view. Here Epstein contrasts a model of therapy based on understanding the forces “within” that hold us back, and the move is from an “intrapsychic exploration to an interpersonal, or intersubjective one” (Epstein, “Preface”). He favors the newer model, consistent with Buddhist practice, of becoming like Kuan (“observer”) Yin (of “sounds”) or a good listener rather than one who digs into the archeology of past suffering. Epstein recognizes that it was the American psychologist and philosopher William James and not Sigmund Freud who understood the contributions that Buddhism would make and gives examples of this.

There is actually no one form for the wheel of rebirth, as even a quick Internet search for “types of wheel of rebirth” shows. However, as it is employed as a teaching tool in Buddhism, the wheel often consists of several elements which are analyzed by Epstein. At the center of the wheel is a pig, snake, or rooster (or a bird of a kind not found in the West) all trying to devour each other. These represent greed [obsession], hatred, and delusion. As long as beings are driven by these forces they will be ignorant and bound by the cycle of birth and death.

In Chapter 1, “The Wheel of Life,” the entire Wheel of Becoming psychologically viewed is a representation of neurotic suffering. Release


from the wheel, that is from the six realms of existence (human, gods, animal, Hungry Ghosts, purgatory, and titans) is traditionally understood as nirvāṇa. But nirvāṇa is not construed as a place you go when you die and are not reborn. Epstein calls it “a fundamental axiom of Buddhist thought” that nirvāṇa is samsāra, that release from suffering is gained by a change in perception and not through going to a heaven.

In the Human Realm— the quest for self knowledge

Here the Wheel of Life shows how beings can be self indulgent but also hide from themselves. This hiding is more pronounced than in other realms. We may view the God Realm and the Jealous Gods Realm as ego functions, but the Human Realm is about the self (or its lack). The Human Realm is the search for the self as the psychology of narcissism shows. Siddhārtha Gautama Śākyamuni showed this quest for self knowledge in his life and in his struggle to become Buddha. The central problem of the Human Realm is to know ourselves.

Socrates made “know thyself” a famous dictum. Since then generations of philosophers from Plato through Descartes with their “thinking substance” idea have struggled to articulate their own answers to the question, “what is the real me.” But clearly the Buddha emphasized a practice rather than just a theory, and it is a practice that opens up self-knowledge in the Human Realm. The solution is to see that we are deluded in thinking that there is any fortress self to defend, and that instead we are like a wave, a process in the ocean of life. That is to say, the answer is the dissolving the question itself. As Amy Kind says, the flow of narrative constitutes who we are; narrativity constitutes the process self. At best we can become an art work of our own devising through the kind of life we live. And the story that is ourselves goes on without a self-same substance.

Epstein observes that lack of acknowledgment, attention, or recognition (what psychologists call mirroring) may be transmitted from a narcissistic parent to a child. The child develops a perception of


absence that becomes the seed of fear and insecurity. After awhile the child then constructs a “false self” to deal with the demands of the alternatively intrusive and ignoring mother or father. Then the child struggles against this rigid construction of a false self devised for protection in the effort to feel more real. Winnicott thinks that the child of a narcissistic parent has reason to hide from the parent for her lack of interest. Epstein provides the example of a patient named Lily, whose mother forced her to wear a coat to cover her favorite paisley shirt. After this experience, Lily thought that she could only be invisible and a reflection of her mother.

From a Buddhist view the Human Realm is not only about understanding the “false self” but understanding how to acquire knowledge and vision into the way things really are. I would say that this is understanding causality, understanding the world as made of processes rather than permanent substances, such that people can learn to live without too much attraction and too much aversion. Being “free from” obstacles is realizing the unreality of both the idea self and of the narcissism that can result from obsessive focusing on self. Being “free to” means also being radiantly aware in the present moment.

In the Animal Realm—nasty, brutish, but not necessarily short

The main characteristic of the animal realm is lack of critical reflective distance from desire. Epstein’s practice as a psychotherapist showed him that sometimes unresolved sexual issues about one’s own sexual identity resurface if one uses meditation as an escape from them. Whereas humans are capable of delayed gratification through reflection, animals live in a realm of instinctual gratification. Epstein provides examples of dealing with patients throughout the explanation of the realms, showing that there is a clear basis for meaningful comparison between Buddhism and Psychotherapy in the wheel of rebirth.


Realm of the gods— shining on for a moment in time

In the Realm of the gods (viz., the “shining ones” or deva not monotheistic God), there is enjoyment of peak experiences as long as the bubble lasts. In Gestalt therapy, the experiences of the gods are called “confluences,” a combination of the feelings of orgasm, digestion of food, breast feeding; a feeling of oneness in which the self dissolves.

In terms of Buddhist psychotherapy both a clinging to unhealthy confluence and a holding back from healthy confluence may be observed. The former, obsessive, behavior is clinging to others so they can hardly breathe and are forced to be the object of the need for confluence; the latter, the holding back, do not know how to connect with others as they typically have not experienced affection in childhood.

One of Mark Epstein’s friends called James illustrates the aversion aspect of the godly state. When he was sixteen James had a date with a girl he silently had a crush on for two years. The blissful date ended with several hours of making out after her parents had gone to bed, and he felt happier than ever. However, he went home that night and never called the girl again, and never understood why. Twenty years later he had difficulty accepting that his wife had to withdraw from him and her emotional experience did not always match his experience. Epstein describes James situation in Buddhist terms and Gestalt psychology terms by saying that his relation to the godly state of confluence was very fragile. As an adolescent he experienced both attraction and aversion to the state of confluence. Later, as an adult, he could not bear the impermanence of the godly state, having no confidence that he could recreate it. Thus, on Mark Epstein’s analysis, James was anxious both in the presence as well as the absence of the godly state. From a Buddhist view, experiences of the godly state of confluence are to be enjoyed and not feared, and may be accessed through meditation yet are no more sustainable than transitory sensual pleasures of the world. They are not the experiences Buddha showed would lead to tranquility and insight. These are experiences of the infantile oceanic experience of unity commented upon by Freud. They differ from the Titans, another class of “gods.”


Titans or “Jealous Gods” —Rocky with a vengeance

This category is sometimes shown as part of the gods (deva) realm and sometimes on its own. These two, the deva and the asura (titans) are separated by a fruit laden wishing tree. The titans are fighting for fruit of the wishing tree. This realm is about aggressive striving and eliminating obstacles. These jealous gods have the ability to destroy obstacles in the path of satisfaction. As applied to the psychotherapy of young children, an effective mother will destroy the infant’s former ways of relating and teach the child to “hold” their rage.

At the hub of the wheel driving the whole process is greed, hatred, and delusion. These are viewed differently in Buddhism than in one of the prominent views within the psychoanalytic community. According to this prominent psychoanalytic view, there are instincts or drives that by definition could never mature. “Can the aggressive and sexual drives ever be capable of maturation?” is a question that divides the psychoanalytic community. Some see Freud’s “id” as always needing firm control; others see that infantile drives may be transformed through development of consciousness. The latter view is like the Buddhist one. On this view the Wheel of Life represents the possibility of personal self-transformation by changing our relation to suffering. I want to say that this involves a perspectival shift away from thinking that suffering is something that always has an external source. Instead, one can see the extent to which suffering is often something we inflict on ourselves. In fact we often exacerbate our suffering though fear and worry, while not facing situations with the equanimity that is most often possible through the practice of meditation. Liberation from the Wheel of Life is not escape but clear perception of oneself, without narcissism, with neither excessive attraction nor excessive aversion. In the words of a famous gāthā, “Clear seeing but nothing to see, neither mind nor Buddha.” (Tsen T’sen, Ch’an patriarch)

There is no self to be seen, no mind, and no Buddha; only clear awareness of the flow. True thoughts, psychoanalyst W.B. Bion said as appropriated by Mark Epstein in his book title, “require no thinker.” In


this way of thinking psychoanalysis approaches a Buddhist view by eliminating narcissism. Free from narcissism and so also free from humiliation or suffering: the four noble truths are able to help us see the value of Buddhist psychology.

Hell Realm (Impermanent Purgatory) — It’s pay back time!

There are many types of Hell depicted in art history and texts. So we can call Hell “purgatory” as they are impermanent. Mark Epstein explains that from a psychotherapy view the Hell Realms are vivid descriptions of aggressive and anxious states of mind. Beings in Hell are seen as burning with rage or tortured by anxiety. The problem for them is that they do not see their torturers as products of their own minds. Instead they believe that they are tortured by forces that are external and out of their control. Psychoanalysts have helped people work with negative emotions, understand their causes, and recover energy lost through failure to acknowledge primitive urges. To be free from destructive urges, the psychotherapist encourages awareness of them in order to seek freedom from them.

Epstein gives the example of his daughter’s phobia of the wind of a person being in the Hell Realm during life. Fear of the wind had become a terrible feeling projected from inside to the outside world which started after the birth of her brother. It turned out that her feelings toward her brother were not creating her fear of the wind, but it was her feelings toward her mother. She experienced rage at her mother for her loving acceptance of her new brother. Solution came in play in which she could express her anger to her mother indirectly and also in racing into the wind and yelling at the wind. After she could express her anger, her phobia of the wind disappeared. She was out of the Hell Realm of mental torment. The other path, refusal to acknowledge unwanted feelings, may give them power over us. Here the daughter came to


acknowledge the loss of an exclusive relationship with her mother and the phobia disappeared.

Epstein notices a parallel to banishing demons as Padma Sambhava did in the 8th century transmission of Buddhism to Tibet. According to legend, Padma Sambhava won a contest with the shamans of the Bon religion thereby defeating the animal headed demons of hell and converting them to protectors of Buddhism. Thus the psychological power of Buddha mind is seen as triumphant over indigenous animistic tradition.

Hungry Ghosts— “I can’t get no satisfaction”

With their needle like necks, distended stomachs, and hungry searching, the Hungry Ghosts (Pali peta; Sanskrit preta) are perpetually dissatisfied. Trying to eat with their tiny necks causes them pain. We are them when we act as such. They are full of rage and desire. Because they have insatiable desire they have unfulfilled cravings. They search for gratification of old unfulfilled needs from the past and so are represented as ghosts. Hungry Ghosts have uncovered a terrible emptiness in themselves and cannot figure out how to correct past misdeeds. They cannot assimilate present impermanent satisfactions due to their obsessions. Hungry Ghosts are obsessed with a fantasy of complete release from the pain of the past and cannot see this as a fantasy. Not seeing this, Hungry Ghosts cannot be aware that their fantasy is a fantasy and liberate themselves.

Here I will mention one example from Epstein, the case of a successful academic, Tara. From a Buddhist perspective, she lived in the perpetually dissatisfied realm of the hungry ghost. Tara narrated in therapy having a series of relationships with talented men and discounting each one as inadequate in turn. She would start one such relationship while still in another, find fault and withdraw from the first one while still in the relationship, and fantasize about the other. None of her relationships were intimate and truly satisfying.


It was when she was able to give voice to her yearnings in psychoanalysis did it emerge that her mother’s coldness to her in childhood had inflicted a deep wound of the heart. (Psychologist John Welwood also points out that this wound of the heart can be long lasting, deep seated, and below the conscious level.) Tara’s unhappy and critical mother set a pattern that Tara was replicating. After this deep realization, she was able to resume the study of zazen (sitting meditation) which she had both wanted to practice and resisted practicing. Sometimes she could not face herself and literally ran from the meditation hall, and consequently ended up in psychotherapy. After awhile she was also able to bring to consciousness her compulsive need to denigrate those who sought intimacy with her. In this case study, Tara, who had a long series of unsatisfying short term relationships with other teachers, has became a Hungry Ghost in this very life.

Section II: The language of karma and rebirth [premise (2)]

(2) Both John Koller’s Buddhism and Mark Epstein’s Psychotherapy hold that the language of karma and rebirth can function without metaphysical language.

Early Buddhist people didn’t “literalize” belief in the wheel, because they did not have a different view before and then change it to a “literal” one (whatever exactly that literal view would be like). Of course, nibbāna (nirvāṇa) cannot be a heaven, or place we go, for in Buddhism there is no permanent, blissful, center of consciousness or “self” to go anywhere. Rather, as Mark Epstein notes (from one Buddhist perspective) nirvāṇa is samsāra. When there are bodhisattva inset into each realm of the wheel, then that implies that it is possible to learn another way of relating to the emotions in each dimension. According to Epstein (following Nāgārjuna), it is “an axiom of Buddhism” that nirvāṇa is samsāra. In Buddhist Psychotherapy, nirvāna is the experience in the here and now of changing our relation to suffering.


Accordingly the textual examples of Buddha flying to the sun and the moon, holding them in his hands, etc. are understandable as just so many expressions of the visions of power that can change one’s relationship to suffering.

For this topic of how religious language can function without metaphysics, I turn to a philosophical classic written by the psychologist, Thomas Richard Miles, O.B.E, called Religious Experience. T.R. Miles was trained as an experimental psychologist, and made significant contributions to the study of dyslexia. Miles was initially appointed to the college of education and philosophy in Bangor, and contributed a lucid text on understanding religious experience from a Wittgensteinian viewpoint.

To see the relevance of T.R. Miles work, Religious Experience, to Buddhist experience in particular, consider “experience” in early Buddhism. Buddha is depicted in the Pali Nikāya as both calling attention to, and circumscribing the limits of special experiences. One may become adept at abhiññā (“psychological powers”, literally “higher knowledge”), and yet early Buddhist texts say one should not use them as means to convert people. Instead one may see the value of the dhamma, and be converted because of the truth of Buddhism, rather than because of strange powers that are beyond the ability of ordinary men and women to replicate.

In the “Introduction” to the book T.R. Miles begins by distinguishing three things that religion might be about: theism, ritualism, or cosmic questions. He believes that religion as concern with cosmic questions is important, and provides an account that links religion with the asking of cosmic questions. (18–19)

In Chapter 1, of Religious Experience, called “Aims and Method,” Miles says that evaluating arguments is not the only thing philosophers may do; they may examine classifications of concepts. “The main point, I think, is that if we fail to take seriously what is implied by the words of ordinary language we may unwittingly misclassify and hence mislead ourselves.” (8) This point is similar to one made by Kalansuriya: “…the word ‘rebirth’ in the Buddhist paradigm is ethical and therefore all


statements involving it within this closed system (paradigm) are also ethical in nature.” (Pali Buddhism, p. 132) Similarly distancing himself from talk about “other worlds” when giving an account of religious experience, T.R. Miles says: “in particular I shall argue that we should not think of religious experiences as ‘mental’ entities as opposed to ‘physical’ ones, nor as devices for putting us in touch with a ‘non-physical’ or ‘non-material’ world. To talk in this way is to misclassify.” (8)

In “Experiences and Mental Events,” Chapter 2, T.R. Miles says: “My conclusion is that if we equate ‘experiences’ with ‘mental events’, as sophisticated philosophers and psychologists have done, we shall generate confusion. I shall suggest in what follows that, for an adequate understanding of the expression ‘religious experience,’ it is the unsophisticated uses of the word ‘experience’ which need to be taken into account.” (14) Kalansuriya’s position is similar. It is the ordinary people and monks practicing Buddhist meditation and ethics which provide a focus for the idea of religious experience. It is not philosophers subscribing to a double world theory (like Plato or Descartes) who we need guide us in understanding what is Buddha dhamma. Rather, Wittgenstein’s attention to “language games” in relation to “forms of life” may guide our understanding of how to account for religious experience. “Nothing is hidden”, as Norman Malcolm has emphasized in a book with that title, so we do not have to appeal to a world apart from this one to account for the “mental life” as if we had two lives “in” one body. The job of the philosopher is not to be an amateur sage and open up perceptions of strange realms. Recognizing reality is just seeing things as they are. And, I add, if higher knowledge is generated from the practice of meditation then that too is part of the human world.

In Chapter 3, “Religion and Dualism,” T.R. Miles states: “Religion, as I see that matter, does not need to be tied to a ‘dualist’ world-picture; it is quite possible to take people’s religious experiences seriously without raising the issue of ‘dualism’ at all.” (26) Here Miles observes that the argument from religious experience to God is often told as if God is “upstairs.” It is as if we are occupants of the lower flat asking whether our experiences down here are evidence of a non-material world


(28). A similar point could be made for those who tend to view Buddha, not as a term to indicate the very human possibility of enlightenment (nibbāna) in oneself, but as something out of this world that deserves worship.

In Chapter 4, it is asked, “Why does the analogy with the man-in-the-top-flat situation break down?” Because on the pragmatic view of William James what it is like to be religious can be described with reference to what is before and what is after conversion (33). Kalansuriya observes similarly that talk of other worlds is not necessary for Buddha dhamma may be rightly characterized like this: “It is an ethics-based, ethics-oriented procedural guide with a definite and unconditional end, namely, nibbāna.” (Pali Buddhism p.138) As John Koller has explained in detail, the Rebirth Realms may be personality types in need of liberation from their characteristic limitations.

In “Experiences without Dualism”, Chapter 5, T.R. Miles writes: “My conclusion in this chapter is that it is possible to take people’s accounts of their religious experiences seriously without having to accept the dualistic contrast between ‘material reality’ and ‘non-material reality.’ (44) Accordingly, Kalansuriya says: “Our philosophical sketch by way of Wittgenstein’s techniques makes explicit the view that the word ‘rebirth’ in the Buddha’s ontology takes an exclusive ethical use. That is, the logical grammar of it within the Buddha’s paradigm is such that empirical criteria remain logically inappropriate.” (Pali Buddhism p. 139)

In Ch. 6, The Natural-Supernatural Dichotomy, Miles maintains: “My conclusion is that rejection of the ‘material’-‘non-material’ dichotomy or the ‘natural’-‘supernatural’ dichotomy presents difficulties only if one takes ‘God’—sentences literally—only, that is, if one thinks of God as a ‘non-material Being’ who exists (or does not exist) in a quite literal sense.” (51) (Here I doubt that a contrast between “literal” and “figurative” is clear enough to be of much use.) In the main, Miles does as in the work of Koller, Epstein, and Kalansuriya, adopt a way of presenting Buddha-dhamma according to which its main significance is ethical and not metaphysical at all. My use of Miles’ work brings it more in line with some parts of the ever evolving Buddhist tradition than


others. I think that Miles’ critique of the “religion as otherworldly” view fits well with Ch’an Buddhism in which there is a well-known emphasis on practice rather than abstract thinking. Ch’an also directs attention to the particular case in the here and now. To a large extent, Miles’ critique of supernaturalist religion fits well also with the overall spirit of American Buddhism, as we can see in many of the writers in annual volumes of Melvin McLeod’s Best Buddhist Writing.

In Ch. 7, “Experience and Commitment,” Miles argues: “to suppose that religious commitment could ever be justified by an appeal to results is to mistake the nature of what is being demanded. In science, if a research policy does not seem to be leading anywhere, one abandons it; continuation is conditional upon progress. By contrast, the demand in religion for commitment is unconditional; those who commit themselves have no right to expect any particular experiences as a result.” (59) I have defended a similar line of argument in a paper called “Buddhist ‘Belief In’” by drawing attention to the distinction by H.H. Price between “belief in” and “belief that.” (Religious Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, September 1985). Kalansuirya agrees about religion that it is unconditional in the sense that: “no amount of empirical data (evidential data) [is] going to prove or disprove it simply because it is outside the scope of facts.” (Pali Buddhism, p. 138)

Overall, T.R. Miles work replaces a dualistic, metaphysical picture of religious experience with an everyday one, and explains the grammar of religious commitment as unconditional. In effect, he provides a philosophical reconstruction of what “religious experience” might mean to modern religious people who do not believe in “other worlds.” This interpretation of religion and religious experience is, in my view, applicable to some Buddhist traditions like Ch’an and early Buddhism.

The important point to take away is that it is possible, following T.R. Miles, to think that the experiences of Buddhist meditation adepts and parallel elites in other religious traditions are no more important than the experiences of ordinary religious believers so far as the validation of religious belief is concerned. With the publication in 1963 of K.N. Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, a generation of


scholars interpreted Buddhism as a form of empiricism. They have been influenced by the idea that the early Buddhist position requires empirical validation and has this validation in the development of abhiññā (higher knowledge). For example, that one could know and see rebirth as a fact. So here the rareified forms of consciousness of only a few, if at all, senior forest monks are foregrounded in characterizing foundations of Buddhism. On this view the faith and practice of ordinary people is thought at least implicitly to be second rate. A later version held that it is justified by the pragmatism of what works and what works is psychic powers. In the process of emphasizing metaphysics an overemphasis on epistemology has led to underemphasizing of faith and ethics when in fact each of these three are important in Buddhism.

My conclusion about T.R. Miles, Religious Experience is that overall, T.R. Miles work replaces a dualistic, metaphysical picture of religious experience with an everyday one. He explains the grammar of religious commitment as unconditional in the sense that one has no right to expect any particular experiences as an outcome of the commitment. In effect, he provides a philosophical reconstruction of what “religious experience” can mean to modern religious people who do not believe in “other worlds”. In my use of Miles’ work, the emphasis is on extrapolating from his general account of the nature of religion to discuss Buddhism.

Section III: Kalansuriya on Dhamma-talk is ethical and not metaphysical [premise (3)]

(3) ADP Kalansuriya in “The Logical Grammar of the Word ‘Rebirth’ in the Buddhist Paradigm: A Philosophical Sketch” similarly explains that dhamma-talk is rightly construed as ethical language without metaphysical language.

ADP Kalansuriya has developed an interpretive filter for Buddhism using Wittgenstein’s ideas. In this regard his paper “Logical Grammar of


the Word ‘Rebirth’ in the Buddhist Paradigm: A Philosophical Sketch” offers an insightful critique of the thesis that Buddhism is a form of empiricism by providing an alternative picture. Kalansuriya argues that ‘rebir th’ has a specifically ethical meaning in Buddhism and that empirical criteria are not appropriate, explaining: “That is to say, various Buddhist scholars and commentators, have attempted to find factual evidence to substantiate conclusively and definitely, a kind of life after death, or a kind of life before birth or both. Yet, to date, there was no conclusive proof or definitive substantiation. Why is this the case? Are we not intelligent enough to find conclusive evidence? Alternatively, are we misled into thinking that evidential data could be found, one day, to prove rebirth as a fact? It is clear that the issue about the Buddhist life after death or life before birth is not an empirical one, and that therefore, the issue of truth or falsity in this context is inappropriate.” (Pali Buddhism, p. 134)

If we follow the implications of views by Mark Epstein and John Koller on interpreting the Six Realms (human, animal, divine, titan, hungry ghost, and purgatory beings) we then arrive at Kalansuriya’s view of rebirth. That is to say if these are psychological states represented in personal behavior in this very life, then rebirth is a process of changing from one to the other. Without understanding Epstein and Koller it is otherwise hard to understand Kalansuriya when he connects rebirth to the eightfold noble path and asserts that rebirth belongs in exclusively ethical discourse, rebirth: “is one of the key ethical words in the Buddhist conceptual family.” (Pali Buddhism, p. 136)

The wrong pursuit of looking for empirical verification of “there is rebirth” is so deeply rooted in scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s in Sri Lanka that it is hard for some to see the need for a fresh viewpoint. “There is rebirth” is simply part of the conceptual background in early Buddhism, something that stands fast and is not up for empirical verification or refutation. As Wittgenstein said in On Certainty, the relation between empirical propositions and background beliefs is like that between the hard river bed and the water flowing over it. Sometimes a proposition is fluid, like the water, and is tested against fixed


propositions like the river bed; over time this relation may change, but anyway there is a distinction between propositions that are treated as testable by experience and those that stand fast and form the river bed against which other propositions are tested. This ingenious comparison by Wittgenstein helps one understand that what counts as an “empirical” statement and what counts as a “conceptual” statement depends on the background beliefs or river bed in which the statements occur. But that this is not a permanent matter, for the river bed of thought may shift. So “there is rebirth” may in a non-Buddhist culture be thought of as doubtful and salvageable only if there is empirical verification (whatever that would be like in this case) or the same claim in a Buddhist culture may be thought of as part of the conceptual background of all our believing. (Hoffman, Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism, 74)

“There is rebirth” might, in some context or other, be treated as a metaphysical claim. However, it may also understood as talk about immortality as “eternal life” rather than immortality as “endless life” in a way that does not depend on the no self doctrine. (Hoffman, Rationality and Mind in Early Buddhism, p. 118) So it’s not necessary to lose any of the ethnic texture of the rebirth wheel. It’s a matter of how the whole matter is interpreted. And we can do so without the distinction between “literal” and “figurative” because the contrast between the metaphysical and the ethical is much more straightforward and clear.

Section IV: Epstein’s focus on attitude adjustment and Kalansuriya’s on meditation and ethics in Buddhism [premise (4)]

Whereas Epstein’s understanding of psychotherapy helps people with attitude adjustment without metaphysical commitments, Kalansuriya’s understanding of dhamma talks is also concerned with right speech and action in an ethical sense.

It’s an important question whether the rebirth wheel has to be


construed as metaphysical at all. Both Epstein and Kalansuriya offer “ethics only” interpretations of the Wheel of Life, the former from psychotherapy and the latter from philosophy. Someone who would agree with them is the eminent Cambridge philosopher, R.B. Braithwaite, who was reared a Quaker and later became Anglican. Braithwaite formulated a view in philosophy of religion that religious language may be understood as the telling, but not the assertion of, certain stories with ethical import. So from Braithwaite’s perspective it is on the wrong track to try to align stories like those associated with the wheel of rebirth with metaphysical views. We may say that it may be true that the Wheel of Life is an excellent teaching tool for those who have other concerns than philosophy. But it is worth noticing that many of those who have thought deeply about such matters (including Immanuel Kant) had also argued that religion may be understood as a story made out of moral purposes. In his book, Religious Experience, T.R. Miles writes: “My interest (I am a Quaker) lies in the personal religious experience of individuals and in the way in which particular expressions of religious conviction have ‘struck home’ to people or failed to do so…” (4) In this section I have illustrated how Miles’ understanding of “experience” is valuable in the understanding of Buddhist experience.

It is common knowledge that techniques derived from Buddhism are employed by psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and psychologist. Why they do so is to help patients with anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. Terms like “mindfulness” have both ordinary and technical Buddhist uses. Capable of being practiced and not just thought about, focused not mainly on creed but on personal self-transformation, Buddhism has found favor in the West. One might think that when Buddhist epistemology is described in its fullness, with reference to the six special types of knowledge or abhiññā (divine eye, divine ear, retrocognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, and knowledge of the destruction of defiliements) the results are out of this world. Another view, well attested by Mark Epstein, John Koller, and ADP Kalansuriya is that these results are very much in the world where they happen and point to


what the embodied human mind is capable of in the here and now.ADP Kalansuriya in his paper, “The Logical Grammar of the Word

‘Rebirth’ in the Buddhist Paradigm: A Philosophical Sketch,” notices in conclusion that without falling into either eternalism or annihilationism one may simply say that there is rebirth is part of the conceptual background of early Buddhism. One may take a middle way without falling into a metaphysical eternalism (of, for example, ātma-vāda Hindu thought) or a metaphysical annihilationism (of, for example, the ancient Carvaka materialists) and emphasizing ethics instead.

The less able we are to get a grip on our emotions, the more likely that rage and harm will result. Conversely, with mindful awareness of sensations, their causal patterns, and the beginnings of unskillful emotions, the closer we will come to achieving good ethics following eight fold path, good practice of mindfulness, tranquility, and insight. However, there is a major difference between Buddhism and Psychotherapy according to Mark Epstein: Psychotherapists lacked meditation, a clear method for working directly with confusion about ourselves.

This last point of Epstein is the conclusion of a brief historical survey of types of psychoanalysis. The first wave is Freudian (into the 1950s) and it was concerned with life and love (Eros) and death (Thanatos) instincts corresponding to rooster and snake. The next wave was a concern with object relations and narcissism (60s, 70s, and 80s). This corresponds to the black hog of confusion, the root of obsession and hatred. Here therapy exposed emptiness, inauthenticity, and alienation. These feelings result from estrangement from our true selves and ignorance or confusion about our own natures. So the importance of meditation for psychoanalysis is that it provides the means to take self knowledge deeper than psychoanalysis can do. In addition, it is reasonable to believe that meditation can also take self knowledge deeper than philosophy can do by itself. If not grounded in tranquility and insight the philosophical mind just produces “wordy warfare.”


Section V: Conclusion

Therefore, on the interpretations above by Koller, Epstein, and Kalasuriya, neither Buddhism nor psychotherapy have to interpret karma and rebirth as metaphysical in order for their language of attitude adjustment (in psychotherapy) or meditation and ethics (in Buddhism) to help humankind. [by (1) thorough (4)]

In Philosophy, R.B. Braithwaite argued that religious language may be understood as the telling, but not the assertion of, certain stories with ethical import. So from an empiricist perspective like that of Braithwaite it is on the wrong track to try to align stories like those associated with the wheel of rebirth with metaphysical views. From Kalansurya’s perspective based on Wittgenstein’s thought the result is the same. He thinks it is wrong grasp of dhamma to focus on the idea of another world. After all, liberation is to be worked out in this very life. Kant had also argued that religion may be understood as a story made out of moral purposes. Also we have seen that in his book, Religious Experience, T. R. Miles similarly argued for a view that puts to rest worries about religion having to be concerned with other worlds. Nothing is lost, because, as Wittgenstein would say, “nothing is hidden.” In religion, such as Buddhism, it is conversion narratives that show ethical meaning. Viewing conversions philosophically, the “before” and “after” of a religious experience is more significant than any deep experience in the minds of religious believers, as both William James and T.R. Miles have well understood. It is the “after” that shows the ethical effect of the conversion.

Both Kalansuriya and DeSilva are committed to interpreting the Buddha dhamma well. Do we have to say which has the correct interpretation? What would the standard of correctness exactly be? Whether we agree with Padmasiri DeSilva or not depends in large part whether we are inclined to take metaphysical positions about elements in the rebirth wheel or construe its use in the here and now as indicating types of personality (philosopher Koller and psychologist Epstein).


Earlier I said: It’s another picture of Buddhism. A blurry picture would do just as well as a crisp clear one, to paraphrase the later Wittgenstein. Now I want to say: whether we choose the “Buddhism as ethics picture” or the “Buddhism as metaphysics” picture depends on our human purposes. There is no absolute right or wrong here, or better, it is not clear what “absolute right or wrong” interpretation would even mean in such a case. Then the question becomes, which human purposes are typically aligned with each choice? Clearly the Buddhist psychotherapists and those in the modern mode of using Buddhism to help people generally are not emphasizing whatever metaphysical views may be found. Instead they are pragmatically emphasizing wellness.

It is common knowledge among those who the read early Indian Pali Buddhist texts that the Buddha is sometimes depicted as having supernormal powers or iddhi. Amazing feats attributed to Buddha (such as walking through walls or flying to the sun and the moon and cupping each in his hands) may be symbolic or metaphorical talk if interpreted by a person who is philosophically Buddhist. The same events may be interpreted as actual historical fact by a person who is religiously Buddhist; and it may be considered part of folk tradition by someone who is culturally Buddhist. Attention to the particular case rather than an exhibition of the craving for generality is needed. There is no need to think that meditational states in Buddhism must all be understood in some one way.

Bhikkhu Bodhi has illuminated some difficulties with going too far away from traditional Buddhism while still claiming to write about it in his review of Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs at http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha106.htm This type of discussion will be an ongoing debate within Buddhism as it experiences the “growing pains” of expanding into different cultures and takes new forms. In any radical attempt to reject tradition one must be observant of what is being lost and reflective in asking if the price is too high. (Hoffman, “Beyond Post Zen” in D.Z. Philips.)


Bibliography

Books

Epstein, Mark. Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1995.

Hoffman, Frank J. and Deegalle Mahinda (eds.), Pali Buddhism. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996.

Hoffman, Frank J. and Mishra, Godabarisha, Breaking Barriers: Essays in Asian and Comparative Philosophy in Honor of Ramakrishna Puligandla. Fremont, Calif. : Asian Humanities Press, c2003.

Kind, Amy. Persons and Personal Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015.

Book Chapters

DeSilva, Padmasiri. “Suicide and Emotional Ambivalence” in Frank J. Hoffman and Deegalle Mahinda (eds.), Pali Buddhism.

Hoffman, Frank J. “Beyond Post-Zen” in D.Z. Philips (ed.), Religion and Morality.

Kalansuriya, ADP. “The Logical Grammar of the Word ‘Rebirth’ in the Buddhist Paradigm: A Philosophical Sketch” in Frank J. Hoffman and Deegalle Mahinda (eds.), Pali Buddhism.

Koller, John. “Buddhist and Psychoanalytic Insights into the Self and Self Awareness” in F.J. Hoffman and G. Mishra (eds.), Breaking Barriers: Essays in Asian and Comparative Philosophy in Honor of Ramakrishna Puligandla.

Articles

Bhikkhu Bodhi. Book review of Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs at http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha106.htm.

佛教與心理治療：佛教視角看心理治療之心態調適、冥想、倫理的語言運用

弗蘭克 J. 霍夫曼

摘要

約翰 •科勒（John Koller）在《佛教和精神分析之自我和自我意識觀》和馬克 •愛潑斯坦（Mark Epstein）在《無思想者之思想》都有力地顯示：在有關輪回的研究中，不涉及形而上的語言而對佛教和心理治

療做出有意義的比較研究是具有可靠基礎的。約翰 •科勒的佛教研究和馬克 •愛潑斯坦的心理治療理論都認為，有關業報和重生的理論不需要運用形而上學的語言加以論說。ADP Kalansuriya《在佛教範式下重生一詞的邏輯語法：哲學素描》一文中同樣解釋說，佛法

可以不運用形而上學的語言而合理地詮釋為倫理。馬克 •愛潑斯

坦的心理治療理論幫助人們調整心理狀態，A. D. P. 卡蘭蘇利亞（Kalasuriya）的佛法研究論述冥想和道德，兩人都沒有涉及形而上學的語言。因此，從科勒、愛潑斯坦、卡蘭蘇利亞的文章中可知，無

論是佛教還是心理治療都不必用形而上學的語言來解釋因果報應和

輪回，以便用心理治療或佛教冥想及倫理學說來幫助人類。

關鍵詞：心理治療、佛學

弗蘭克 J. 霍夫曼，美國賓夕法尼亞大學教授，香港佛法中心訪問學者

《禪與人類文明研究》第二期（2017）International Journal for the Study of Chan Buddhism and Human Civilization Issue 2 (2017), 173–197

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Buddhism and Psychotherapy: The Language of Attitude ...cbhc.crs.cuhk.edu.hk/main/wp-content/uploads/2019/... · For example, John Welwood emphasizes talking about one’s experiences