Psychological Meditations

It was the clear blue of the lake, small tongue of sand, waves’ quiet whisper, luring them to wake up early, to go in, right at sunrise and run from hill cottages, among pine trees, over the earthen dike, run to throw themselves into the surface of water, clear for all of them, to be shared with small fish and plants floating quietly, flies and mosquitoes chasing each other in the fata morgana of moist of the morning, as their skin broke thin top layer of water - it was usually warmer there - and then, face first, they’d dive deeper, into darker cold, closer to the sand bottom, as if they wanted to stay there longer, as long as they could, maybe there was a bit of competition between them, but it might have been simply a way of exploding with joy of the moment, a joy of just being-in-the-morning, as their bodies just swam, in and out, gasping for air after each stroke, in and out, breathing, eyes seeing only blurred, in water, and then suddenly jumping up and out into the bright, and then in again, the rhythm itself was a dance, as much as dance and breath are expression of joy of Being, they swam out to the middle of the lake, away from the sand and reed, and the pine trees looming over them, there was also the pleasure of exertion, pleasure of movement in waking up, but also knowing that breakfast was already waiting, was going to be there later, and that the time had no end , then, time had only a horizon of a few hours and the beyond of the horizon was a “Beyond”, unknown, only to be anticipated with excitement, innocent yet somehow knowing, or maybe just assuming, because it had not been contradicted yet, that it was going to bring more shreds of new life, moments of requisite delight of being alive and only 10.

There were also rare moments of complete peace and serenity permeating entire body and mind, quietude of each day, simple morning rituals, simple foods, the sun, the lake, boats, swimming, and the meadow there, the meadow which later became an archetype of some basic trust and serenity he carried within himself for many, many years later

The meadow extended behind the dike as the flow of water narrowed and became an underground fall emptying into a long sedate canal leading to an old German dam and fortified underground bunkers five flooded floors deep, with dark shafts evoking a sense of the ultimate mystery, mystery that could never be resolved anyway, associated with sadness of never knowing, an impossibility of knowing certain things, or maybe the impossibility of time to stop, or to reverse itself, to see what was, or to stop what is, and also they conveyed a sense of some greater purpose, the Germans fortifying the land to stop the Russian Red Army from advancing west, and also knowing about their ultimate failure, the war, the dead who must have been somewhere here, still, and the military bunkers were bigger, stronger than anything else they had ever seen, and all that now uncannily quiet, sleeping in tall grass, field flowers, trees which must have been there then, but now it all conveyed a sense of time lost, of another world which was but somehow continued into the present.....

Ironically, on the other side of the lake, was an old fort, old as reaching back to the ninth or maybe even eight century, to the time of Piasts, the original settlers there, the ones first converted to Christianity by Roman explores, the Piasts who were the first owners of this land later fought over by Germans and Poles for the next 10 centuries, it was a fort which used to be an old harbor where the lake somehow deepened, or its bottom dug out, to receive old ships or barges transporting people and goods to the other sides and shore of the lake. They tried to reach the bottom of the lake with a long string and a metal weight attached to it but they ran out of the string after the first 100 meters? – was it deeper than that or was it something else devouring the string as it descended into that impenetrable, dark and cold beyond the acceptable cold they knew, reaching beyond what could be seen, letting fantasies, imagination and stories run out of control for generations?

And the stories were mainly internal, infusing minds with a mix of images and narratives, myths and archetypes which were born and lived there, in that land, and that grounding in the actual reality of the past, of the unconscious, touching it since the very first moments of life, swimming in those lakes, touching tombs of the past in old Jewish and German cemeteries, right behind their house, where they went to play, the presence of death was a fact, its factuality was a constant presence as they jumped over graves hiding among family monuments, hiding in undergrounds crypts, the imminent company of death and the past was a reality, the past was not to be discovered as in other places, the past was the present and although they did not know it, only the past was missing for others there.

And the Mind became multiple universes in their growing brains, isn’t it what Mind is, anyway, multiple universes growing in our brains? As they lived on, the images of the old, old and new narratives, suffused, contained and transformed together, made the inside outside, made the dead live again, in the young ones, isn’t Mind that which imprints itself on life all the time, unless, of course, that one life is a deviant outlier, free to be different?

So the old lived in him, along with the solitude of forests and lakes, with the beauty of the land ravished by countless wars rolling over, trench to trench, leaving rusting bayonets for children to find, a generation later, for young boys to blow up themselves with old land mines left there, or old munition they were not allowed to touch but did, of course, anyway, how could they contain their curiosity?

And all that lived in him, and more came later, as he eventually discovered that he was the old within the new, always being both in his mind then and now.

......and the world was infinitely pure then, smelled of morning cows ready to give milk, as they both walked to the village every morning with a battered milk bucket, already expecting the fat white foam bubble in their mouths, and the sun rays flickered in trees and flowers by the old dirt road leading to a summer they did not then know......

Buddha usually appear as “this very moment”, however perceived or defined. Being always “just that…..” Buddhas may or may not be perceived as Buddhas by others, nevertheless, they always continue being Buddhas just as they are. However, since the “as they are” is inherently empty and not any fixed entity, Buddhas appear as simply “this” […….] or “that” [……..], as me and you, as “this very moment” and as the entire Universe.

They “appear” only when Mind appears (…) divided into its object / subject modes of Being.

Whenever a Buddha realizes that he or she is Buddha as a human being, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha rejoice, leap forward, and “Buddhism” takes yet another turn.

The last 2,600 years of Buddhism have been marked by such occasional appearance of realized Buddhas, of spiritual guides, whose insights, understanding or manifestation of the Dharma not only subsumed and included all prior teaching traditions but also reformulated them into a new philosophical turn, new school or spiritual paradigm.

Today, two centuries after Buddhism was introduced to the West, many practitioners in this country wonder how long will it take for another Buddha, another uniquely enlightened mind, another Nagarjuna, Asanga, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Hakuin or Dogen to appear in American Buddhism?

Alas for all of us, as the timeline in the box below suggests, it may to take quite a long time again.

In the past, it was always at least 600 years after Buddhism was first transplanted to a new culture or country before a truly original teacher / reformer would appear – suggesting, if one can extrapolate from history – that it may take another 450 years for one to emerge here, in the West.

In its birthplace, India, almost an entire millennium passed, before early Buddhism, proselytized by Siddharta Gautama around 500 B.C., spread throughout Southeast Asia and Tibet and matured into its philosophical pinnacle manifested by Madhyamika (Nagarjuna 200 – 300 AD), and Yogacara (Asanga and Vasubandhu 300 – 400 AD).
In China, over 500 years passed since the time Buddhism was first introduced (ca. 100 B.C. – 100 A.D.) to the arrival of Boddhidarma ( 500 A.D), the legendary Indian monk who became the First Patriarch of Chan (Zen).
It took another 150 years and five more generations of teachers after Boddhidarma, before Hui Neng (638 – 674), the revered Sixth Patriarch appeared, and additional 200 years for Lin-chi (Rinzai) (d. 867) and Ts’ao-tung (Soto) ( 830) schools of Chan (Zen) to emerge.
Over 1,000 years passed in China, since Buddhism was first introduced, to the time when the first two major Zen koan collections – “Blue Cliff Record” (1125 A.D.) and “The Gateless Gate” (ca 1228 A.D.) were compiled.
Similarly, even if Buddhism arrived to Japan as early as 550 A.D., it took more than 250 years for it to fully settle in Kyoto during the Heian Period ( 800) and another 400 years to culminate in the Kamakura Period (1185 - 1333 A.D.).
Again, Buddhism was widely present in Japan for at least 650 years before the spiritual and poetic genius of Dogen and his mystical masterpiece Shobogenzo (1200 – 1253) appeared and established Soto Zen’s Ehei-ji temple as a major presence in the Japanese Mahayana Buddhism.
After Dogen, it was another 400 years more till the time when Hakuin (1686 – 1769) reformed Rinzai Zen and its use of koans at the Ryutaku-ji temple in Japan where it still continues today.
Buddhism was originally introduced to the West, about 1800, and it still seems to be in its infancy today.
Several generations of Asian pioneer teachers struggled with cultural and language barriers for several decades, as they attempted to bring authentic practice to the US and Europe.
First legitimate non-Asian Buddhist teachers began to emerge in the second half of the last century (ca 1950 –2000) and a transition to the second and third generations of teachers is currently under way in all major Buddhist traditions, nationwide.

More time is needed for Buddhism to take root on the American soil, more time to assimilate with the culture at large and to mature enough for its new, truly Western, form to eventually emerge.

Even more time is probably needed for an American teacher, another Nagarjuna, Asanga, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Hakuin or Dogen to appear in the U.S., a teacher who will not only conclude the transmission of Dharma to this new land but who will also legitimize American Buddhism as a new and fully autonomous tradition.

And when it finally arrives, what is the American Buddhism likely to be, 400 - 500 years from now?

How is that future American Maitreya Buddha, likely to lead, galvanize and propel American Buddhism into its next Millennium?

Historically, Buddhism, born out of Hinduism and Yoga traditions in ancient India, has always tended to absorb native spiritual tradition and culture of the country to which it arrived. As it moved East throughout Asia, it merged with Confucianism and Taoism in China, assimilated shamanism in Tibet and adapted to the Shinto Samurai culture in Japan.

Similarly, the future of American Buddhism is likely to be shaped by the entire Western / American culture and its future evolution in the time to come.

One can anticipate that, by the year 2,500, American Buddhism in will have assimilated and merged with the following “Western” influences:

· Language – translating Buddhism into the Western context will impose the English language and its vocabulary on the Dharma. A complete translation of most of Sanscrit, Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese texts should be completed within the next 100 years and most of the Buddhist canon will be available to Western readers in English. Terminology and understanding of particular terms is likely to evolve to adjust to the usage within the Western culture. New, original, modern “sutras”, or Dharma texts, will appear and gradually replace the old ones. Future, American, Nagarjuna, Asanga, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Hakuin and Dogen will “re-write” the old texts and create a uniquely English-language “school” of Buddhism.

The future is always different from our speculations about it. However, we know that Buddhism will have to change in its encounter with the West. The old Theravada / Mahayana tradition will be, eventually, replaced by a new "school" or paradigm.

Since science and technology, along with democracy and global marketplace, are the most dominant forces shaping the world today, the postmodern science will become the next discourse of Buddhism, not only in the West but worldwide.

That fully autonomous American / Western Scientific Buddhism will need a teacher, who like others did before, will propel it into the next Millennia. That person, whoever he/she will be, will find a way to translate the Dharma into a new language of science, psychology, cognitive neuroscience and postmodern / postindustrial culture.

To save all sentient beings, we all need to do our best to make it happen as soon as possible.

They “appear” only when Mind appears (…) divided into its object / subject modes of Being.

Whenever a Buddha realizes that he or she is Buddha as a human being, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha rejoice, leap forward, and “Buddhism” takes yet another turn.

Postmodern psychology and psychotherapy can not be reduced to a definition.

They do not exist as a “thing” or a “theory” to be labeled or categorized, and it is not immediately apparent how exactly they do “exist” because the very notion of “being” is itself under intense questioning when they are practiced.

They are not anything that already has, or can be described using, a recognized name, or we should say, they are not only that.

What is that which is more than “psychoanalysis”, “psychiatry”, “psychology” and “psychotherapy” without rejecting any of them?

Postmodern Psychotherapy engages three great traditions within which Truth and subjectivity of the Mind have been explored throughout history – Art (truth of beauty, aesthetics), Religion (truth of God / spirituality, ethics) and Science (truth / philosophy of knowledge).

One needs the Real and Being to be-come alive as a subject, one needs the Truth to understand, one needs Mind to experience and embody Emptiness.

One has to embrace and be the Real, the Truth, Mind and Emptiness to become truly liberated and psychologically healthy.

But what is Real? What is Truth? What is Emptiness? What is Being? What is Mind? And, of course, to the extent the spiritual realm overlaps with the psychological, what is God?

How does one explore, understand, embrace, become and practice the Real, the Truth, Mind and Emptiness in one’s life? What does it mean to become liberated and healthy? How does one meet one's God?

Postmodern Psychotherapy has been particularly useful in the treatment of the disorders of the Self, also referred to as Personality Disorders, where biological and behavioral approaches have only a peripheral role.

The Self, a phenomenological center of one’s subjectivity, is that which is aware of its own being-experience.

Postmodern Psychotherapy

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