Psychology of Buddhism. Monograph

That is why heavenly experience is always associated with transcendence.

When you are happy, when you are in heaven, you are “beside yourself”.

But why do we get there so rarely?

Heaven is always there. You come home and see that it is clean, tidy and comfortable and your dinner is on the table. You have a charming wife and well-behaved children. But as soon as you notice that your son’s shirt is unironed and your steak is tough, and the next moment it seems that your wife has shot a reproachful look in your direction, you are cast out of heaven. When you begin to make judgments, to criticize reality, the Garden of Eden is destroyed.

Since Ego and critical thinking go together, heaven becomes a place protected by 10 fire angels and 120 harpies. And no merit or righteousness can help us to attain it.

Those who believe that life is a gift from God are in no need of psychology. Those who are self-sufficient and satisfied with the world around them do not have any existentional or personal problems and therefore do not require psychological help.

Inner peace does not call for psychological science. Those who are happy do not need psychology. Their existence is self-sufficient.

It is human anxiety that gives rise to psychology.

Psychology is a science for those who have been cast from the Garden of Eden.

The second realm of Buddhist universe is inhabited by demigods called “Asuras”. It is believed that to be reborn in the Asura realm is a happy lot: Asuras have wealth, wisdom and power. Soma, the drink of eternal drink, is always available to them. But. These demigods, these titans, these warlike spirits differ from the inhabitants of the Deva realm: Asuras have got everything they need, but still they feel that something is wrong.

The feeling of dissatisfaction makes us move to the realm of demigods. We start thinking that somebody is better than we are. Somebody has got something that we have not got.

Last year at the retreat in Nepal in addition to the participants with average income we had 9 millionaires in the group. When everybody introduced himself I thought: “What else do you need in life?”

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“Asura” means “the one who is full of vitality”. Glory, money and power can give you almost everything. They give you strength. The catch is in this “almost everything”. The problem is that they are still unsatisfied with the world itself and their place in it.

It seems that all they can do is to enjoy their life. They have everything they need, they are even clever enough to understand it, but no.

They need more.

They solve the koan of their life and find another one.

They win the heart of Aphrodite and feel bored.

Asura nature is inherent in people. Even when they have everything they need they are unsatisfied.

Even if you put them in heaven they will be unsatisfied. Who had this crazy idea of using gold, silver and precious stones to build palaces? Could not they find something more eco-friendly? The birds of paradise sing too loudly, and the trees should be pruned...

This is when psychology steps in. When one is dissatisfied with himself, with those who surround him and with the world as a whole.

The third loka is the realm of people. It is considered to be an ideal place for attaining nirvana.

The third loka is inhabited by people with all kinds of passions.

They have dreams, desires, attitudes, emotions and plans.

And nobody knows where he goes.

Nobody knows what he lives for.

We do not know what we want. We depend upon others, come into conflicts, get boiling with rage at our own impotence, get green with envy at the success of others. Perfection fills us with disgust. We are not afraid of being worthless, we are proud of being lazy... .

But there is something in the realm of people that gives us hope. It is not without reason that Buddhists say that only those who were born to be people can achieve liberation.

Passion is the central feature of human realm. It is an ability to give oneself up to something, be it an idea, a feeling or some kind of work.

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Or love. Love for the infinite, which is characteristic of Buddha or Christ. If our love is love for the finite, we turn into ordinary people with ordinary human feelings and ordinary human life: semi-love, semi-passion, semi-completeness, stupid dreams of future love, doubts, bitter complaints about the fact that there is no ideal woman/man, etc.

Love is perfect because of its boundless passion, not the one that is fierce and allconsuming, but the one that fills our life with meaning.

When human passion goes beyond the boundaries of fears, concerns, suspicion and mistrust, it becomes superhuman, divine.

The passion of love is sacrificial. If you are ready to give everything, you will experience the completeness of love.

Shiva and Parvati, Buddha and Christ, Aphrodite and Zeus will be there, right next to

you.

One may also feel passion for joy. It is a sign of profound wisdom. Even gods envy the sages who laugh.

Joy is the only feeling that is characteristic of a man and lacks in other living beings. Human laughter is a sign of its completeness.

Why do we feel joy when we see the toothless smile of a baby? We realize that he is a human being, that he belongs to our race, to those who laugh.

Why do we feel joy when we see the toothless smile of an old woman? We realize that she is still with us, with those who laugh.

The feeling of joy unites us.

We recognize each other in laughter, it reminds us of the fact that we belong to the human community.

Why do I want to go to Thailand again?

Why do those who have gone there return again and again?

It is because people smile there a lot.

Not because it is useful for making contacts.

Not because it creates a friendly atmosphere.

They smile sincerely.

It is their soul that laughs.

No matter where you meet a smile, in Bali, Hamburg, Moscow or Jerusalem.

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No matter who is smiling at you, an old woman or a young girl, a boy or a greybearded old man, a Thai, a German, a Russian or a Jew.

Every sincere smile favors you with the energy of recognition and the light of empathy.

Joy provokes fearlessness, the feeling of integrity and immortality.

The creaturely, perishable life, the life full of suffering, absurdity, loneliness and fear disappears at the moment when people begin to laugh.

Laughter is a hymn to human power and strength.

When we feel passion for joy, we go beyond the boundaries of disease, old age and

death.

We do not know whether gods laugh.

But we know that the light of human laughter and joy can lit the Universe.

Passion for compassion leads to the experience of Mahakaruna, the Great compassion.

We think of passion for the truth and see a sage, who has partaken of a heavenly

fruit.

We think of passion for beauty, and we are touched by perfection.

Passion for creative work makes us think of a divine demiurge.

The gates to heaven are always open to people.

A man is a potential for self-realization and transcendence. Psychology may help him to attain the Self and realize his passion.

The fourth loka is the animal realm.

It is a feast of sex, food and reproduction, and a fight for resources... .

Here we see a dog that sees only what is in front of it, or a man who sees nothing but his own interests.

Here we see a complacent pig, growing fat, waiting for piglets to be born; it is waiting for somebody to bring it a bucket of food, like a wife, waiting for her husband to come home from work and to bring her money, so that she could champ and think that life is good.

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Here we see a buck that covers a hundred goats a day and thinks that he is the great Giacomo Casanova.

Here are wolves ready to bite each other to death in order to capture the prey, be it money, territory or power. The inhabitants of the fourth loka have no need in psychology. It is an orgy of animal energy and instincts.

Psychologists are powerless to help others or even themselves when the bodily, animal nature of people makes itself felt.

The fifth loka is the preta realm, the realm of hungry ghosts, creatures with a huge stomach and a narrow throat. They constantly feel the lack of something.

According to the Buddhist mythology, pretas look like trees on fire, with a throat as narrow as the eye of a needle and a belly as big as a mountain. That guy has this and that, he has got a car, an enormous house, a beautiful wife, he has done so much in his life, and I have not... .

Incessant insatiability, expectation and envy. This feeling becomes all-consuming. His belly is huge and insatiable, but his abilities are low and limited. Narrow throat,

constant hunger and extreme envy at the strength, youth, wit, talent, courage to be different, diligence and self-realization of others.

If you suffer from this all-consuming hunger, if you thumb bundles of banknotes and think that your life is a total failure, that others have more money and do not take pains to earn them, throw them away. Hunger for money will kill you earlier than your work will.

If you are haunted by the thought of your plot of land being smaller than the neighbor’s, sell it.

If you are filled with envy at the success of somebody else and tormented by thoughts of destroying him, you should move to another place.

You are a preta. Your insatiability is eternal. Your stomach, heart and soul will never be sated. Your hunger will eat you.

If there is a hungry preta beside you, if he consumes your feelings, money, energy and time, just go away.

Do not fight against him. It will be just a waste of energy.

Turn away and forget all about it.

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Even the energy of a few universes cannot satiate the black hole.

Black hole is in their look, their words, their posture and feelings.

Pretas do not need psychology. All they want is pieces of feelings, emotional energy and vitality. But they are insatiable.

The sixth loka is hell, the realm of narakas. They endure terrible sufferings as a result of their sinful life, which was full of destructive actions. In contrast to the sufferings of those who get into the Christian or Muslim hell, the sufferings of narakas are not eternal. After a long period of redemption the negative karma is purified and narakas are able to be reborn in the higher realms. But they have to do it themselves. Nobody can help them. Psychology is powerless here, too.

Buddha’s attempt to help a naraka, which ended in failure, is described by Ryunosuke Akutagava in his short story “The Spider’s Thread” (taken from mmisi.org, translated by Edwin McClellan):

“One day the lord Buddha was taking a walk by the edge of the lotus pond in

Paradise. The lotus flowers blossoming in the pond were white as pearls, and an indescribably delicate fragrance, rising from their golden stamens, filled the air, never ending. The hour in Paradise was perhaps early morn.

Then the lord Buddha paused, and through a clear patch of water between those lotus flowers that covered the surface of the pond, he looked at the scene below. At the bottom of the lotus pond in Paradise was Hell, and through the crystal-clear water could be seen, as though in a peep-show, such sights as the River of Death and the Mountain of Needles.

And almost immediately the lord Buddha noticed a man named Kandata, writhing in the midst of other sinners. This man Kandata had been a great thief, and had done many wicked deeds on earth, killing men and burning houses. Yet even he had once acted with kindness. One day, when walking through a thick forest, he saw a little spider crawling across his path. He lifted his foot, and was about to crush it to death, when he suddenly changed his mind. “No”, he said to himself, “I must not. Even a little creature such as this has life, and to kill it without cause would be a great pity.” And so he spared the life of the spider.

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The lord Buddha, as he looked at the scene in Hell, remembered Kandata’s kindness to the spider; and he thought that he should save Kandata if he could, in return for his one good deed. Fortunately, beside him, on a lotus leaf the color of dark jade, a spider of Paradise was weaving a silvery web. The lord Buddha picked up the spider gently, and then began to let it down between the pearl-white flowers, straight towards Hell far beneath.

Meanwhile, Kandata, with other sinners, was struggling to keep afloat in the Lake of Blood, which was in the lowest depths of Hell. All was darkness, except for an occasional, ghostly glimmer of half-light coming from the fearful Mountain of Needles. The quiet was like that of a graveyard, and the only sound that could be heard was the faint sighing of the sinners. Perhaps those that had come so far down in Hell had gone through too many torments to have any strength left for loud cries of self-pity. And in the Lake of Blood, even the great thief Kandata could only writhe and choke like a dying frog.

But it so happened that Kandata, in the midst of his suffering, raised his head and looked towards the sky above the lake. And he saw, descending gradually towards him in a straight, shimmering line, as though fearful of being seen by man’s eyes, the silvery thread of the spider. It seemed to come from far, far above, through the silent darkness. Kandata clapped his hands for joy. Surely, he thought, if he could once get hold of the thread and climb far enough, he would eventually get out of Hell. With luck, he might even reach Paradise. And then, he would no more be chased up the Mountain of Needles, or be pushed down into the Lake of Blood.

With this hope in his heart, he reached for the thread, and grasping it firmly with both hands, he began to climb up, up, and up, with all his might. Having once been a burglar, he was a skilful climber.

But the ascent was by no means an easy one, for thousands of miles separated Paradise from Hell. After a time, Kandata grew very tired, and could climb no more. Reluctantly, he paused to rest, and still clinging firmly to the thread, he looked down into the depths below.

He must have come a long way up indeed, for already, the Lake of Blood was no longer visible, and even the top of the dully gleaming Mountain of Needles was beneath him. At this rate, he thought, getting out of Hell might not be so difficult after all. In a tone of

voice he had not used for many a year, he cried, “Good, good!” and began to laugh. Then

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suddenly he espied far below a procession of sinners, numberless as a column of ants, coming after him up the spider’s thread. For a while, Kandata, struck dumb with amazement and fear, could only stare open-mouthed at the scene. How could such a thin spider’s thread, which seemed too fragile to bear the weight of one man, bear the added burden of so many others! And if the thread did break, he would drop straight back into Hell. And as such frightening thoughts passed through his mind, hundreds, nay thousands, more sinners were crawling out of the darkness of the Lake of Blood, and were climbing up the thread. Unless Kandata stopped them, the thread would surely break in the middle, and they would all fall.

And so Kandata with a loud voice began to scream at his fellow-sinners. “Listen to me, you sinners! This spider’s thread is mine! Who said you could come up after me? Get off! Get off!”

It was at this moment that the spider’s thread, which until then had shown no signs of breaking snapped just above Kandata’s clinging hands. Spinning round and round through the air like a top, Kandata’s body plunged into the darkness.

All that now remained in the moonless and starless sky was the thin thread of the spider of Paradise, shimmering softly in the dark.

The lord Buddha, standing by the lotus pond of Paradise, saw all that passed below. And when at last the body of Kandata had sunk like a stone on the bottom of the Lake of Blood, he resumed his walk, sadly.

There was probably much pity in the lord Buddha’s heart for Kandata, who was sent back to Hell for his heartlessness.

But the pearl-white flowers in the lotus pond of Paradise, innocent of wickedness or sorrow, swayed gently about the feet of the lord Buddha, and from the golden stamens, there came the same delicate fragrance, filling the air as always. The hour in paradise was perhaps near noon.”

Thus, there are only two realms where psychology seems appropriate: the world of demigods, who have enormous strength but are not satisfied, and the world of humans, with their potentiality and strive for integrity.

What can psychology offer them?

It can lead them to the highest loka, the realm of inner peace and calm.

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Modern man uses empirical evidence to form his beliefs. He considers personal experience to be of the utmost importance. He is in no need of churches or temples, his body and his nature being the environment for experience of the sacred dimensions of reality, inner harmony and integrity of being. All he needs is not a priest but a group of like-minded people, who would support him, or a guidance of a teacher or a psychologist, who has more experience in inner journey than he does.

Here I would like to remind you of the well-known words of Karl Gustav Jung. When an interviewer asked him: “Do you believe in God?”, he replied “No”, and added after a pause: “I do not need to believe in God: I know him”.

We have already stated that the integrative model is based on the holistic, organic, holographic vision of the world. This model works with holistic, gestalt states. In other words, according to the integrative point of view, the world and people form a single whole. But this integrity has to be realized and experienced.

The frantic search for harmony, strength and beauty should be inseparable from understanding of the world. Being a psychologist means that you have a considerable life experience and are able to reflect upon it. First of all, it means that you are a human with high moral principles, that you have values acquired through much suffering and inner truths arrived at with blood, sweat and tears.

There is no individuality. People do not exist apart from the world. There is a man living in the world and for the world, there is consciousness and personality dissolved in the world. Ontology and psychology, the subjective and the objective do not co-exist, they form a single act of human experience, a single impulse of action and thought.

I believe that there is no Atman, no soul, no fixed, impersonal, God-given principle. The subject of my research is a dynamically developing, insatiable and free human consciousness.

The German mystic Meister Eckhart said: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me”. If we replace the word “God” with “individual free consciousness”, we will get an adequate psychological text.

Meister Eckhart believed that human self-reflection is connected both with the light of consciousness and experience that one goes through, experience that is directed both at

one’s consciousness and the reality that is being reflected upon.

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In Christianity there is a concept of the imperishable “spark of God”, which lives within the human soul. A soul is like a reservoir containing images, emotions, feelings, concepts and symbolic meanings. In my opinion, it is an extremely concise description of the productive function of consciousness. This “imperishable spark” (in other words, individual free consciousness) helps us to see the ultimate purity, integrity and harmony, to behold God as the eternity of time, the endlessness of space. We cannot understand it, but we can experience it.

Meister Eckhart writes: “God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so as far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you.” He argues that “if the soul is to know God, then it must forget itself...If the soul is self-aware and self-conscious, then it will not be fully conscious of God”. And in conclusion, I would like to cite his words from the “Fragmets”: “Love Him as He is, a not-god, a notghost, apersonal, formless. Love Him as He is the One, pure, sheer, and clear, in whom there is no duality. For we are to sink eternally from negation to negation in the One” (taken from enlightened-spirituality.org).

I agree with Meister Eckhart in his view that consciousness is characterized by integrity, non-duality and void. It is a compressed semantic vacuum. I doubt that it is possible to “sink eternally from negation to negation in the One”. On the contrary, people have to sink into being and to realize themselves in it. But they also have to be aware of their non-dual clear consciousness in order to be able to tell the essence from husk, the true and eternal from superficial and temporary, the source of light from its reflection.

It is important to understand that a man is designed for self-realization, which is possible only in the density of living in the world. His goal is not to erase his personal history or to fight against the slightest manifestations of Ego. Ego is the major and the most reliable support one has in life. It is a tool wisely designed by evolution for comprehending consciousness and realizing its potential.

The fact that human consciousness is transpersonal does not mean that one should destroy the Ego or despise personality, associated with dissatisfaction, impermanence and selflessness. Experience should not be neglected, but treated gently and with care, as it represents steps towards the transpersonal, clear vision of consciousness.

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