By Mark Epstein — 2007
Psychology and Buddhism: what they share, how they differ, and do we need both?
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CLEAR ALL
The ongoing dialogue I have with my own perspective and emotions is the biggest job I’ve ever undertaken. Exploring this internal give-and-take forces me to grow in surprising ways.
How should we read psychoanalysis? Many of its great theorists – Sigmund Freud, Donald Winnicott, Jacques Lacan – trained as doctors, and their successors tend to follow the rigid formulae of academic papers.
When Hillman questions some of the basic tenets of psychology, audiences turn to him to come up with answers. Hillman retorts to such pleas in his dry New England style, "I don't have answers. I have questions."
One key distinction in this new wave of scholars—including books by Coles, Dossey and Bernie Siegel—is that these experts are not selling any specific religious creed. They’re not “faith healers.
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Grounded in our formal practice of meditation, we can relax into the vast, open awareness that is our ultimate nature. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche tells the story of his own introduction to the Great Perfection.
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The tantric path of Buddhism is complex and arduous, but its surprising culmination is the practice of spaciousness, ease, and simplicity known as Dzogchen, the Great Perfection.
It’s surprisingly easy to achieve lasting happiness — we just have to understand our own basic nature. The hard part, says Mingyur Rinpoche, is getting over our bad habit of seeking happiness in transient experiences.
There are two kinds of refuge, says Mingyur Rinpoche—outer and inner. The reason we take refuge in the outer forms of enlightenment is so that we may find the buddha within.