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Even the best meditators have old wounds to heal ~ Jack Kornfield
(Thanks to Alton, posted to his Illuminations group.)
Psychotheraphy/Meditation
Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal
by Jack Kornfield
For most people meditation practice doesn't "do it all." At best, it's one
important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening.
In spiritual life I see great importance in bringing attention to our shadow
side, those aspects of ourselves and our practice where we have remained
unconscious. As a teacher of the Buddhist mindfulness practice known as
vipassana, I naturally have a firm belief in the value of meditation. Intensive
retreats can help us dissolve our illusion of separateness and can bring about
compelling insights and certain kinds of deep healing.
Yet intensive mediation practice has its limitations. In talking about these
limitations, I want to speak not theoretically, but directly from my own
experience, and from my heart.
Some people have come to meditation after working with traditional
psychotherapy. Although they found therapy to be of value, its limitations led
them to seek a spiritual practice. For me it was the opposite. While I benefited
enormously from the training offered in the Thai and Burmese monasteries where I
practised, I noticed two striking things. First, there were major areas of
difficulty in my life, such as loneliness, intimate relationships, work,
childhood wounds, and patterns of fear, that even very deep meditation didn't
touch. Second, among the several dozen Western monks (and lots of Asian
meditators) I met during my time in Asia, with a few notable exceptions, most
were not helped by meditation in big areas of their lives. Many were deeply
wounded, neurotic, frightened, grieving, and often used spiritual practice to
hide and avoid problematic parts of themselves.
When I returned to the West to study clinical psychology and then began to teach
meditation, I observed a similar phenomenon. At least half the students who came
to three-month retreats couldn't do the simple "bare attention" practices
because they were holding a great deal of unresolved grief, fear, woundedness,
and unfinished business from the past. I also had an opportunity to observe the
most successful group of meditators - including experienced students of Zen and
Tibetan Buddhism - who had developed strong samadhi and deep insight into
impermanence and selflessness. Even after many intensive retreats, most of the
meditators continued to experience great difficulties and significant areas of
attachment and unconsciousness in their lives, including fear, difficulty with
work, relationships wounds, and closed hearts. They kept asking how to live the
Dharma and kept returning to meditation retreats looking for help and healing.
But the sitting practice itself, with its emphasis on concentration and
detachment, often provided a way to hide, a way to actually separate the mind
from difficult areas of heart and body.
These problems exist for most vipassana teachers as well. Many of us have led
very unintegrated lives, and even after deep practice and initial "enlightenment
experiences," our sitting practice has left major areas of our beings
unconscious, fearful, or disconnected. Many American vipassana teachers are now,
or have recently been, in psychotherapy in order to deal with these issues.
It should also be noted that a majority of the 20 or more largest centers of
Zen, Tibetan, Hindu, and vipassana practice in America have witnessed major
upheavals, centering on the teachers themselves (both Asian and Western),
related to issues of power, sex, honesty, and intoxication. Something is asking
to be noticed here. If we want to find true liberation and compassion what can
we learn?
Some Helpful Conclusions for Our Practice
1. For most people, meditation practice doesn't "do it all". At best, it's one
important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening. I used to believe
that meditation led to the higher, more universal truths, and that psychology,
personality, and our own "little dramas" were a separate, lower realm. I wish it
worked that way, but experience and the nondual nature of reality don't bear it
out. If we are to end suffering and final freedom, we can't keep these two
levels of our lives separate.
2. The various compartments of our minds and bodies are only semi-permeable to
awareness. Awareness of certain aspects does not automatically carry over to the
other aspect, especially when our fear and woundedness are deep. This is true
for all of us, teachers as well as students. Thus, we frequently find meditators
who are deeply aware of breath or body but are almost totally unaware of
feelings and others who understand the mind but have no wise relation to the
body.
Mindfulness works only when we are willing to direct attention to every area of
our suffering. This doesn't mean getting caught in our personal histories, as
many people fear, but learning how to address them so that we can actually free
ourselves from the big and painful "blocks" of our past. Such healing work is
often best done in a therapeutic relationship with another person.
3. Meditation and spiritual practice can easily be used to suppress and avoid
feeling or to escape from difficult areas of our lives. Our sorrows are hard to
touch. Many people resist the personal and psychological roots of their
suffering; there is so much pain in truly experiencing our bodies, our personal
histories, our limitations. It can even be harder than facing the universal
suffering that surfaces in sitting. We fear the personal and its sorrow because
we have not learned how it can serve as our practice and open our hearts.
We need to look at our whole life and ask ourselves. "Where am I awake, and what
am I avoiding ? Do I use my practice to hide ? In what areas am I conscious, and
where am I fearful, caught, or unfree?"
4. There are many areas of growth (grief and other unfinished business,
communication and maturing of relationships, sexuality and intimacy, career and
work issues, certain fears and phobias, early wounds, and more) where good
Western therapy is on the whole much quicker and more successful than
meditation. These crucial aspects of our being can't just be written off as
"personality stuff." Freud said he wanted to help people to love and work. If we
can't love well and give meaningful work to the Earth, then what is our
spiritual practice for ? Meditation can help in these areas. But if, after
sitting for a while, you discover that you still have work to do, find a good
therapist or some other way to effectively address these issues.
Of course, there are many mediocre therapists and many limited kinds of therapy.
Just as in meditation, you should look for the best. Beyond the traditional
psychotherapies of the `40s and `50s, many new therapists have been developed
with a strong spiritual basis such as psychosynthesis. Reichian breath work,
sand play, and whole array of transpersonal psychologies. The best therapy, like
the best meditation practice, uses awareness to heal the heart and is concerned
not so much with our stories, as with fear and attachment and their release, and
with bringing mindfulness to areas of delusion, grasping and unnecessary
suffering. One can, at times, find the deepest realizations of selflessness and
non-attachment through some of the methods of transpersonal psychology.
5. Does this mean we should trade meditation for psychotherapy? Not at all.
Therapy isn't the solution either. Consciousness is! And consciousness grows in
spirals. If you seek freedom, the most important thing I can tell you is that
spiritual practice always develops in cycles. There are inner times when silence
is necessary, followed by outer times for living and integrating the silent
realizations, as well as times to get help from a deep and therapeutic
relationship with another person. These are equally important phases of
practice. It is not a question of first developing a self and then letting go of
it. Both go on all the time. Any period of practice may include samadhi and
stillness, followed by new levels of experiencing wounds and family history,
followed by great letting go, followed by more personal problems. It is possible
to work with all of these levels in the context of a spiritual practice. What is
required is the courage to face the totality of what arises. Only then can we
find the deep healing we seek - for ourselves and for our planet.
In short, we have to expand our notion of practice to include all of life. Like
the Zen ox-herding pictures, the spiritual journey takes us deep into the forest
and leads us back to the market place again and again, until we are able to find
compassion and the sure heart's release in every realm.
Psychotheraphy/Meditation
Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal
by Jack Kornfield
For most people meditation practice doesn't "do it all." At best, it's one
important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening.
In spiritual life I see great importance in bringing attention to our shadow
side, those aspects of ourselves and our practice where we have remained
unconscious. As a teacher of the Buddhist mindfulness practice known as
vipassana, I naturally have a firm belief in the value of meditation. Intensive
retreats can help us dissolve our illusion of separateness and can bring about
compelling insights and certain kinds of deep healing.
Yet intensive mediation practice has its limitations. In talking about these
limitations, I want to speak not theoretically, but directly from my own
experience, and from my heart.
Some people have come to meditation after working with traditional
psychotherapy. Although they found therapy to be of value, its limitations led
them to seek a spiritual practice. For me it was the opposite. While I benefited
enormously from the training offered in the Thai and Burmese monasteries where I
practised, I noticed two striking things. First, there were major areas of
difficulty in my life, such as loneliness, intimate relationships, work,
childhood wounds, and patterns of fear, that even very deep meditation didn't
touch. Second, among the several dozen Western monks (and lots of Asian
meditators) I met during my time in Asia, with a few notable exceptions, most
were not helped by meditation in big areas of their lives. Many were deeply
wounded, neurotic, frightened, grieving, and often used spiritual practice to
hide and avoid problematic parts of themselves.
When I returned to the West to study clinical psychology and then began to teach
meditation, I observed a similar phenomenon. At least half the students who came
to three-month retreats couldn't do the simple "bare attention" practices
because they were holding a great deal of unresolved grief, fear, woundedness,
and unfinished business from the past. I also had an opportunity to observe the
most successful group of meditators - including experienced students of Zen and
Tibetan Buddhism - who had developed strong samadhi and deep insight into
impermanence and selflessness. Even after many intensive retreats, most of the
meditators continued to experience great difficulties and significant areas of
attachment and unconsciousness in their lives, including fear, difficulty with
work, relationships wounds, and closed hearts. They kept asking how to live the
Dharma and kept returning to meditation retreats looking for help and healing.
But the sitting practice itself, with its emphasis on concentration and
detachment, often provided a way to hide, a way to actually separate the mind
from difficult areas of heart and body.
These problems exist for most vipassana teachers as well. Many of us have led
very unintegrated lives, and even after deep practice and initial "enlightenment
experiences," our sitting practice has left major areas of our beings
unconscious, fearful, or disconnected. Many American vipassana teachers are now,
or have recently been, in psychotherapy in order to deal with these issues.
It should also be noted that a majority of the 20 or more largest centers of
Zen, Tibetan, Hindu, and vipassana practice in America have witnessed major
upheavals, centering on the teachers themselves (both Asian and Western),
related to issues of power, sex, honesty, and intoxication. Something is asking
to be noticed here. If we want to find true liberation and compassion what can
we learn?
Some Helpful Conclusions for Our Practice
1. For most people, meditation practice doesn't "do it all". At best, it's one
important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening. I used to believe
that meditation led to the higher, more universal truths, and that psychology,
personality, and our own "little dramas" were a separate, lower realm. I wish it
worked that way, but experience and the nondual nature of reality don't bear it
out. If we are to end suffering and final freedom, we can't keep these two
levels of our lives separate.
2. The various compartments of our minds and bodies are only semi-permeable to
awareness. Awareness of certain aspects does not automatically carry over to the
other aspect, especially when our fear and woundedness are deep. This is true
for all of us, teachers as well as students. Thus, we frequently find meditators
who are deeply aware of breath or body but are almost totally unaware of
feelings and others who understand the mind but have no wise relation to the
body.
Mindfulness works only when we are willing to direct attention to every area of
our suffering. This doesn't mean getting caught in our personal histories, as
many people fear, but learning how to address them so that we can actually free
ourselves from the big and painful "blocks" of our past. Such healing work is
often best done in a therapeutic relationship with another person.
3. Meditation and spiritual practice can easily be used to suppress and avoid
feeling or to escape from difficult areas of our lives. Our sorrows are hard to
touch. Many people resist the personal and psychological roots of their
suffering; there is so much pain in truly experiencing our bodies, our personal
histories, our limitations. It can even be harder than facing the universal
suffering that surfaces in sitting. We fear the personal and its sorrow because
we have not learned how it can serve as our practice and open our hearts.
We need to look at our whole life and ask ourselves. "Where am I awake, and what
am I avoiding ? Do I use my practice to hide ? In what areas am I conscious, and
where am I fearful, caught, or unfree?"
4. There are many areas of growth (grief and other unfinished business,
communication and maturing of relationships, sexuality and intimacy, career and
work issues, certain fears and phobias, early wounds, and more) where good
Western therapy is on the whole much quicker and more successful than
meditation. These crucial aspects of our being can't just be written off as
"personality stuff." Freud said he wanted to help people to love and work. If we
can't love well and give meaningful work to the Earth, then what is our
spiritual practice for ? Meditation can help in these areas. But if, after
sitting for a while, you discover that you still have work to do, find a good
therapist or some other way to effectively address these issues.
Of course, there are many mediocre therapists and many limited kinds of therapy.
Just as in meditation, you should look for the best. Beyond the traditional
psychotherapies of the `40s and `50s, many new therapists have been developed
with a strong spiritual basis such as psychosynthesis. Reichian breath work,
sand play, and whole array of transpersonal psychologies. The best therapy, like
the best meditation practice, uses awareness to heal the heart and is concerned
not so much with our stories, as with fear and attachment and their release, and
with bringing mindfulness to areas of delusion, grasping and unnecessary
suffering. One can, at times, find the deepest realizations of selflessness and
non-attachment through some of the methods of transpersonal psychology.
5. Does this mean we should trade meditation for psychotherapy? Not at all.
Therapy isn't the solution either. Consciousness is! And consciousness grows in
spirals. If you seek freedom, the most important thing I can tell you is that
spiritual practice always develops in cycles. There are inner times when silence
is necessary, followed by outer times for living and integrating the silent
realizations, as well as times to get help from a deep and therapeutic
relationship with another person. These are equally important phases of
practice. It is not a question of first developing a self and then letting go of
it. Both go on all the time. Any period of practice may include samadhi and
stillness, followed by new levels of experiencing wounds and family history,
followed by great letting go, followed by more personal problems. It is possible
to work with all of these levels in the context of a spiritual practice. What is
required is the courage to face the totality of what arises. Only then can we
find the deep healing we seek - for ourselves and for our planet.
In short, we have to expand our notion of practice to include all of life. Like
the Zen ox-herding pictures, the spiritual journey takes us deep into the forest
and leads us back to the market place again and again, until we are able to find
compassion and the sure heart's release in every realm.