Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist and founder of Analytical Psychology. He and Sigmund Freud were the nucleus for just about everything there is today in the field of Psychotherapy. These onetime friends and colleagues eventually parted ways because of Jung’s growing disagreements with some of Freud’s basic ideas.
Jung thought that Freud’s focus on sexuality was overdone and that his concept of the unconscious was too negative and limited. For Jung the unconscious was a source of creativity. Jung believed that modern psychotherapy rests on the principle that when allowing fragments from the unconscious mind to be built into the life of the conscious mind a restructuring takes place that negates the conflicts between these psychic entities. As a result the mind becomes more whole.
Zen practice also recognizes the importance of the unconscious in the development of the wholeness of mind. Zen practice accomplishes this by the emptying of content from the conscious mind. According to Jung, as this emptying occurs over a period of time, the contents of the unconscious will transfer to the conscious mind. This is a basis of the Satori experience in Zen.
When I was a much younger man Jung serendipitously fell onto my life’s path. Since then, his work has been a significant influence on my personal development. I had given Freud a try but he always left me confused and wanting. Like Jung, I wasn’t keen on Freud’s emphases on sexuality as a motivating psychological force. Jung’s work seemed to make more sense to me and his view of mankind was a lot more optimistic than Freud’s.
Addressing Jung’s interest in the thought of the East J.J. Clarke in his book, Jung and Eastern Thought wrote that “there is an obvious affinity between his [Jung’s] own thought and the ways of thinking of the Eastern philosophers, and even if he had never written a word on this subject, it would be possible to draw clear parallels between them”. My own interest in Eastern thought began with the writings of German Novelist and poet Herman Hesse. I still have Siddhartha and Journey to the East that I purchased thirty years ago. Understanding the concepts of Buddhism, especially the Zen practice, has been a struggle for me because my Western mind isn’t wired to easily comprehend them. Jung felt that the ideas and views contained in the original Buddhist writings were very difficult for the average western mind to comprehend. He said that by devoting considerable time to the study of Buddhism the perplexities that Westerners experience will eventually fade away. We just have to keep working at it.
Today Buddhism has spread rapidly to the West and as a result the essence of Buddhist teachings have become less difficult for the Western mind to assimilate. There are now hundreds of Buddhist centers throughout North America and Europe and our libraries are full of books on Eastern thought. The Internet is another increasingly popular way for Westerners to receive training in the ways of Buddhism. Zen concepts still remain perplexing to most of us but Zen too has become more assessable thanks to this proliferation of information. Jung’s view that most Westerners wouldn’t sacrifice many years of their lives to the wearisome pursuit of such an object like Zen still stands. It requires a lot of effort to get results. Jung was certain though that the benefits were worth it and if we made an honest effort to understand and follow its precepts, “even to a certain degree”, we would “ come upon certain depths beneath the bizarre cloak of the individual Satori experiences, or we will sense disquieting difficulties which the philosophic West has up to now thought to disregard”. In his foreword to An Introduction to Zen Buddhism he sums it all up this way – “Zen demands intelligence and will power, as do all the greater things which desire to become real”. The author of the book, D.T. Suzuki, refers to Zen as the heart of Buddhism. Jung said that Suzuki, a Japanese writer, brought Zen closer to Western understanding. Jung was particularly impressed with the manner in which Suzuki presented Zen concepts.
Satori is described as the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism. Suzuki said that Satori is the raison d’être of Zen. Without it there would be no Zen. One of the key concepts of Jung’s work is Individuation. Both of them are processes that involve the attainment of self realization after serious and sustained effort. Both involve a substantial transformation by resolving misconceptions between the self and the ego and both result in a psychological healing or sense of wholeness.
Jung divided the unconscious mind into two parts: personal and collective. The personal unconscious is individual. It is mine. It contains my accumulated perceptions, repressed or forgotten memories, wishes, and emotions. The collective unconscious is universal. It predates the individual and is a repository of all of man’s religious, spiritual, and mythological symbols and experiences and is common to all of us. It’s like a universal library. The Self, which is often confused with the Ego, is the central pattern or archetype of the collective unconscious. It unifies the personality. According to Jung self-realization is our goal in life and is the most complete expression of the highest unity that we call individuality. We achieve wholeness with Individuation by coming to know, giving expression to, and harmonizing the various components of the psyche. Our conscious and unconscious minds become united. The Self is liberated.
Zen is also a process involving a unification of psychic parts into a harmonized whole. Like Jung’s Individuation process Zen seeks to overcome the illusion that our ego represents our true Self. The way Jung expresses it is that the enlightenment of Satori “embraces an insight into the nature of self, and … it is an emancipation of the consciousness from an illusionary conception of self”. While Jung concedes that the tasks of Western psychotherapy are too varied and the individual phases involved are met with far more opposition then those of Zen the results of the latter are too meaningful to be ignored. For over two thousand years the “most venturesome minds of the East” have been occupied with the concept of wholeness and have developed philosophical doctrines “which put all Western attempts in the same line into the shade”.
Individuation is a process worked on and brought to consciousness by way of analysis and rigorous self examination. Zen is an extremely elusive and puzzling process that includes concepts such as Satori and Karma as well as the ambiguous and paradoxical method of the Koan to achieve enlightenment. Both processes are available for our use and have the potential to greatly improve our lives.
Jung’s concepts may be more accessible to our Western intellect then Zen but Jung advises us not to “underestimate the spiritual depth of the East, or to assume any kind of cheapness in Zen”. As for the idiosyncrasies, strangeness, and paradox involved with the Zen method Jung said “One must always consider…that on the one hand there are any number of people who cannot distinguish between a spiritual witticism and nonsense, and on the other hand very many people who are convinced of their own cleverness to such an extent that they have never in their lives met any but fools”.
Jung and Zen are compellingly representative of the convergence of the Eastern and Western understanding of individual development. Jung sums things up this way: “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. ”
Jung thought that Freud’s focus on sexuality was overdone and that his concept of the unconscious was too negative and limited. For Jung the unconscious was a source of creativity. Jung believed that modern psychotherapy rests on the principle that when allowing fragments from the unconscious mind to be built into the life of the conscious mind a restructuring takes place that negates the conflicts between these psychic entities. As a result the mind becomes more whole.
Zen practice also recognizes the importance of the unconscious in the development of the wholeness of mind. Zen practice accomplishes this by the emptying of content from the conscious mind. According to Jung, as this emptying occurs over a period of time, the contents of the unconscious will transfer to the conscious mind. This is a basis of the Satori experience in Zen.
When I was a much younger man Jung serendipitously fell onto my life’s path. Since then, his work has been a significant influence on my personal development. I had given Freud a try but he always left me confused and wanting. Like Jung, I wasn’t keen on Freud’s emphases on sexuality as a motivating psychological force. Jung’s work seemed to make more sense to me and his view of mankind was a lot more optimistic than Freud’s.
Addressing Jung’s interest in the thought of the East J.J. Clarke in his book, Jung and Eastern Thought wrote that “there is an obvious affinity between his [Jung’s] own thought and the ways of thinking of the Eastern philosophers, and even if he had never written a word on this subject, it would be possible to draw clear parallels between them”. My own interest in Eastern thought began with the writings of German Novelist and poet Herman Hesse. I still have Siddhartha and Journey to the East that I purchased thirty years ago. Understanding the concepts of Buddhism, especially the Zen practice, has been a struggle for me because my Western mind isn’t wired to easily comprehend them. Jung felt that the ideas and views contained in the original Buddhist writings were very difficult for the average western mind to comprehend. He said that by devoting considerable time to the study of Buddhism the perplexities that Westerners experience will eventually fade away. We just have to keep working at it.
Today Buddhism has spread rapidly to the West and as a result the essence of Buddhist teachings have become less difficult for the Western mind to assimilate. There are now hundreds of Buddhist centers throughout North America and Europe and our libraries are full of books on Eastern thought. The Internet is another increasingly popular way for Westerners to receive training in the ways of Buddhism. Zen concepts still remain perplexing to most of us but Zen too has become more assessable thanks to this proliferation of information. Jung’s view that most Westerners wouldn’t sacrifice many years of their lives to the wearisome pursuit of such an object like Zen still stands. It requires a lot of effort to get results. Jung was certain though that the benefits were worth it and if we made an honest effort to understand and follow its precepts, “even to a certain degree”, we would “ come upon certain depths beneath the bizarre cloak of the individual Satori experiences, or we will sense disquieting difficulties which the philosophic West has up to now thought to disregard”. In his foreword to An Introduction to Zen Buddhism he sums it all up this way – “Zen demands intelligence and will power, as do all the greater things which desire to become real”. The author of the book, D.T. Suzuki, refers to Zen as the heart of Buddhism. Jung said that Suzuki, a Japanese writer, brought Zen closer to Western understanding. Jung was particularly impressed with the manner in which Suzuki presented Zen concepts.
Satori is described as the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism. Suzuki said that Satori is the raison d’être of Zen. Without it there would be no Zen. One of the key concepts of Jung’s work is Individuation. Both of them are processes that involve the attainment of self realization after serious and sustained effort. Both involve a substantial transformation by resolving misconceptions between the self and the ego and both result in a psychological healing or sense of wholeness.
Jung divided the unconscious mind into two parts: personal and collective. The personal unconscious is individual. It is mine. It contains my accumulated perceptions, repressed or forgotten memories, wishes, and emotions. The collective unconscious is universal. It predates the individual and is a repository of all of man’s religious, spiritual, and mythological symbols and experiences and is common to all of us. It’s like a universal library. The Self, which is often confused with the Ego, is the central pattern or archetype of the collective unconscious. It unifies the personality. According to Jung self-realization is our goal in life and is the most complete expression of the highest unity that we call individuality. We achieve wholeness with Individuation by coming to know, giving expression to, and harmonizing the various components of the psyche. Our conscious and unconscious minds become united. The Self is liberated.
Zen is also a process involving a unification of psychic parts into a harmonized whole. Like Jung’s Individuation process Zen seeks to overcome the illusion that our ego represents our true Self. The way Jung expresses it is that the enlightenment of Satori “embraces an insight into the nature of self, and … it is an emancipation of the consciousness from an illusionary conception of self”. While Jung concedes that the tasks of Western psychotherapy are too varied and the individual phases involved are met with far more opposition then those of Zen the results of the latter are too meaningful to be ignored. For over two thousand years the “most venturesome minds of the East” have been occupied with the concept of wholeness and have developed philosophical doctrines “which put all Western attempts in the same line into the shade”.
Individuation is a process worked on and brought to consciousness by way of analysis and rigorous self examination. Zen is an extremely elusive and puzzling process that includes concepts such as Satori and Karma as well as the ambiguous and paradoxical method of the Koan to achieve enlightenment. Both processes are available for our use and have the potential to greatly improve our lives.
Jung’s concepts may be more accessible to our Western intellect then Zen but Jung advises us not to “underestimate the spiritual depth of the East, or to assume any kind of cheapness in Zen”. As for the idiosyncrasies, strangeness, and paradox involved with the Zen method Jung said “One must always consider…that on the one hand there are any number of people who cannot distinguish between a spiritual witticism and nonsense, and on the other hand very many people who are convinced of their own cleverness to such an extent that they have never in their lives met any but fools”.
Jung and Zen are compellingly representative of the convergence of the Eastern and Western understanding of individual development. Jung sums things up this way: “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. ”
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