The Buddhist Path as Therapy

Amber Larson and Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Thanissaro, "Healing Power of the Precepts" (Noble Strategy); Mary Loftus (Psychology Today, Sept. 5, 2013); Sunny

Fairness or martyrdom? When virtue becomes a vice (Jeff Riedel/psychologytoday.com)

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Virtue becomes a vice? (PT)

The Buddha was a kind of doctor [referred to in some sutras as a "master physician"], treating the spiritual ills of living beings [human and devas, also referred to as "the teacher of gods and humans].

The path of practice he taught was like a course of therapy for suffering (disappointed) hearts and minds. This way of understanding the Buddha and his teachings or Dharma dates back to the earliest texts, and yet it is also very current.

Buddhist meditation practice is often advertised as a form of healing, and quite a few psychotherapists now recommend that their patients try (mindfulness based) meditation as part of their treatment.

 

After several years of teaching and practicing meditation as "therapy," however, many of us have found that meditation on its own is not enough.

Psycho Mike (Suicidal T.)

In my own experience as a Western monk and abbot of Wat Forest Monastery in California (Thai Theravada), I have found that Western meditators tend to be afflicted more with a certain grimness and lack of self-esteem than any Asians I have ever taught.

Our psyches are so wounded by modern civilization that we tend to lack the resilience and persistence needed before concentration (serenity) and insight practices can be genuinely therapeutic.

 

Other teachers have noted this problem as well and, as a result, many of them have decided that the Buddhist path is insufficient for our particular needs. To make up for this insufficiency they have experimented with ways of supplementing meditation practice, combining it with such things as myth, poetry, psychotherapy, social activism, sweat lodges, mourning rituals, and even drumming.

The Buddha's full course

The problem, though, may not be that there is anything lacking in the Buddhist path, but that we simply haven't been following the Buddha's full course of therapy.

 

The Buddha's path consists not only of mindfulness, concentration, and insight practices, but also of virtue (sila), beginning with the Five Precepts. In fact, the precepts constitute the first and most basic step on the Buddhist path.
 

Balance? (Jeff Riedel/PT)

There is a tendency in the West to dismiss the Five Precepts as Sunday-school rules bound to old cultural norms that no longer apply to our modern society. But this misses the role the Buddha intended for them: They are part of a course of therapy for wounded minds/hearts. In particular, they are aimed at curing two ailments that underlie low self-esteem, regret and denial.

 

When our actions do not measure up to certain standards of behavior, we either regret the actions or, worse, engage in one of two kinds of denial -- either denying that our actions did in fact happen or denying that the standards of measurement are actually valid. These reactions are like wounds in the mind... More

(Sunny and the Sunliners) Self-esteem low? Depressed after a bad relationship? "It's Okay," says Sunny. "Ha, ha, ha/ It's all right/ I've been hurt before/ It's all right/ You don't love me anymore/ Maybe someday/ I'll find a way without you/ Ha, ha, ha/ Who am I kidding?/ It's okay/ Baby, I can see/ It's okay/ But, but would it make you happy?/ Maybe someday/ I'll find a way without you./Ha, ha, ha/ Someday, it won't be long/ You're gonna find yourself all alone/ It's okay/ Baby, I can say see/ It's okay/ I will set you free..."

Beyond Coping: The Buddha on Illness

Wisdom Quarterly; Abbot Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff, accesstoinsight.org), "Study Guide"

The Buddha ministers to the needs of a very sick monk the other monks were neglecting

 

Chinese Oroqen shaman

An anthropologist once questioned an Eskimo shaman about his tribe's belief system. After putting up with the anthropologist's questions for a while, the shaman finally told him: "Look. We don't believe. We fear."

 

In a similar way, Buddhism starts not with a belief, but with a fear of very present dangers. As the Buddha himself reported, his initial impetus for leaving home and seeking awakening was his comprehension of the great dangers that inevitably follow upon birth: aging, illness, death, and separation.

 

The awakening he sought was one that would lead him to a happiness not subject to these things. After finding that happiness, attempting to show others how to find it for themselves, he frequently referred to these themes as useful objects for contemplation.

Because of this, his teaching has often been labelled "pessimistic." But his emphasis is actually like a doctor who focuses on symptoms and causes of disease to bring about a cure. The Buddha fearlessly dwells on these unpleasant topics because the awakening (enlightenment) he teaches brings about total release from them.

 

This study guide provides an introduction to the Buddha's teachings on them. The passages included here -- all from the Pali canon -- are arranged in FIVE SECTIONS:

1. The first section (The Buddha as Doctor, the Dharma as Medicine) presents medical metaphors for the teaching (Dharma or Dhamma), showing how the Buddha was like a doctor and how his teaching is like a course of therapy offering a cure for the great dangers in life.

 

2. The second section (The Doctor's Diagnosis) diagnoses the problems of aging, illness, death, and separation, touching briefly on the Buddha's central teaching, the four noble truths.

3. The third section (Heedfulness) contains passages that use these themes as reminders for diligence in the practice. The central passage is a set of five recollections, in which these recollections forms a background for a fifth recollection: the power of one's actions (karma or kamma) to shape one's experience. In other words, the first four recollections present the dangers of life, whereas the fifth indicates the way to overcome the dangers by developing skill in one's own thoughts, words, and deeds.

4. The fourth section (Advice) contains passages that give specific advice on how to deal with these themes. The Buddha's teachings on karma provide an important underpinning for how problems of pain and illness are approached. Given the fact that the experience of the present moment is shaped by past and present intentions, it is possible that -- if an illness is the result of present intentions -- a change of mind can effect a cure. If the illness is the result of past intentions, a change of mind may not cure it but can protect the mind from being adversely affected by it. Some passages focus on how practicing the Dharma can cure an illness, whereas others focus on how the Dharma can ensure that, even if a person may die from an illness, the illness will make no inroads on the mind.

5. The fifth section (Teaching by Example) gives examples of how the Buddha and his disciples skillfully negotiated the problems of aging, illness, death, and separation.