Zen and the Unconscious, Part I - Sensei Lawson Sachter

“If you bring forth that which is within you, it will save you.

If you do not bring forth that which is within you, it will destroy you.”

The Gnostic Gospels

A Zen Master once said, “Dharma practice is like the ocean; the farther out you go, the deeper it becomes.”  Deeper levels of practice offer the hope of more than simply calming our seemingly endless internal chatter, and helping us become more ‘mindful’ in each moment.  Intensive forms of practice also open us to a level of non-dual awareness, one that transcends the conceptually-grounded understanding we so naturally take for granted — and in doing so reveal new possibilities of freedom. But those who are drawn to these deeper waters may find themselves confronted by painful and disturbing mindstates.  The Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross somewhat poetically referred to this part of the journey as passing through “the Dark Night of the Soul,” but surely, finding our way through these realms is never easy.

Further, as Western Buddhist practice has unfolded from its Asian roots, we’ve seen new and powerful influences come into play.  More than a few practitioners are grappling with difficulties and challenges seemingly unique to this post-Freudian culture and psyche.  Clearly, as our ‘normal’ levels of awareness begin to dissolve, old feelings and memories can re-connect us to other times.  And as the more subtle, pre-conscious leanings of the mind come into operation, all kinds of unexpected (and unwanted) states can be revealed.  Intensified forms of practice tend to accelerate and magnify this whole process so that along with the ‘friendlier’ kinds of experiences, we may also find ourselves feeling exposed and isolated, lost in helplessness, or drowning in negative and self-critical states.  Still more threatening can be the hurtful and destructive feelings that can sometimes break through the surface.

Almost reflexively we turn from these kinds of disturbing mental and emotional phenomena, or cover them over with something more ‘acceptable.’ One of the real dangers of spiritual practice is how easily, and unwittingly, it can be used ‘in the service of repression’ – even though part of us knows that the more we try to push unacceptable things away the more powerful they become.  By learning to work with difficult opening experiences directly, however, their resolution can lead to rich and meaningful change. As one person wrote after going through some intensive therapy:

“How are you?  I am well, very well!  (some words of thanks, and then)  I have never been more at peace with my life.  I feel so grounded and satisfied with life around me.  I never knew that trees whispering in the wind could bring me joy, yet they do.  Every so often reality sneaks up on me and I am in awe of life…   Forgive me if I am a little sappy, I just have so much to be thankful for.”

These words were written by someone who had grown up with the painful complications that can arise in an alcoholic family.  She came to therapy when a crisis — one of many she had taken a hand in creating, was threatening to destroy her personal and professional life.  The changes she went through came about not only because some disastrous unconscious forces were finally dealt with, but also because of the re-emergence of her original life-affirming spirituality.

A turning point in our lives often comes when we are able to see our part in the re-creation of certain difficulties.  Not surprisingly, the same kinds of self-sabotage can be at work in practice — and they are almost always fueled by repression.  We may even find that, paradoxically, the very efforts we’re making that lead to an initial sense of openness and connection can also be activating unconscious dynamics relating to self-isolation and failure.  Some of these dynamics work in ways that cut us off us from our true aspiration, while others work to undermine our strongest efforts.  If we aren’t aware of what’s going on, practice can suddenly grind to a halt, or in superficial ways circle back on itself over and over again. I find it painful and disturbing to think of how many people may have walked away from practice, blaming themselves and feeling like failures, because they had no clear sense of what was happening, or how to proceed.

My experience as a Zen teacher and a therapist has been that at least for some Westerners, traditional forms of practice don’t deal effectively with these disruptive unconscious forces.  People can have awakening experiences, even deep ones, and still gain little insight into these hidden realms of their psyche.  Dharma practice is about birth and death, not working through old, unresolved feelings. However, if we attempt to by-pass these issues they can haunt us – creating problems for ourselves and others at many different points along the Way.

This is what happened with one Zen practitioner, a woman working with another teacher, who found herself becoming more and more depressed during and after each sesshin.  Hoping and believing that sitting itself would take care of these practice-based experiences she continued, but after working in this way for seven years there was no improvement. As she told me:

“The darkness and gloom and depression (kept growing) bigger and bigger and (lasting) longer and longer… until that last sesshin that prompted me to come here (to therapy).  It was so bad… I had given up hope of even trying to get rid of it.  I thought, ‘let me just survive this sesshin’”

Our work started readily enough with the difficulties that she experienced during practice, but as we went deeper immense blocks began to arise.  It soon became clear that there were other forces at work, hidden beneath a more civilized veneer.  As we continued, and the resistances were stripped away, layer upon layer of highly charged feelings began to break through. The work was difficult, but after finishing therapy she told me in a follow-up session we had a year-and-a-half later:

“Well, my sesshins and sitting in general wound up being… (a pause, with tears welling up). and this is something that really… . I just treasure it so because my sittings became joyous after that.  And we’re not just talking about sesshins.  I will sit on a deck, which is where I sit looking out on a lake, and I will have little balls of happiness just bursting around me.”

She also told me about a number of other changes that had happened, including how her work situation had improved, and how her relationships had become much closer, and then said:

“Before we did this, I never recalled my dreams, or very rarely, and it was really hard, and if I did, there was always some disturbing element to it.  As a kid, I always used to fly in my dreams, and then I lost that as I grew older.  It became harder and harder to fly.  I had a lot of chase dreams, and when I was a kid I could fly away.  When I got older, I couldn’t fly away, so I stopped remembering most of my dreams. Right after, shortly after the experience with you, and up to now, where it’s so vivid I remember everything in great detail, in vivid color, and I fly.

 I tell you, (laughs) I love going to sleep. I love dreaming.  I’ve been in outer space.  I’ve flown on Mars…  it’s joyous, I do aerial ballets in these things, I mean I am swirling around, all sorts of wonderful things, seeing everything from a bird’s eye view, and there’s no body.  There’s just an awareness flying. There’s no concern.  Even as a kid I had to flap my arms to fly (laughs) but I’m not aware of a body, I’m just flying”.

Both people quoted above experienced a wide range of feelings during therapy, often feelings that had been squelched for many years.  Without question, though, the most significant changes they went through had to do with initial experiences of anger that opened into profound experiences of long-buried rage. This rage, in running its course, then called forth many more complex layers of feelings.  Though grief often comes up as part of an opening process in therapy, for most of us it is the complex layers of anger we most heavily guard against.  And though grief itself may be intensely painful, unconscious anger — and the guilt and grief connected to it — is threatening on a whole other level.  Naturally a part of us wants to avoid the whole thing. As the second person put it, referring to her sesshin experience:

“I wasn’t sure what I was doing at that point.  I felt utterly hopeless at being able to tackle this feeling of depression which as I think was just a result of pushing back anger…

And then, talking about her initial experience of therapy:

 “I didn’t want to be looking at this anger; I didn’t want to be (experiencing) this anger.  I wanted to get away…  But right from the beginning there was an accompanying feeling of ‘there’s something happening here’. I’m not stupid; I knew something was happening… and that this was going to turn into something that would be valuable for me.”

Unfortunately in many Buddhist circles there’s the strong underlying message that compassion is a sign of spirituality, but that anger is an expression of ego — one that inevitably leads to suffering.  During my early years of training I believed much the same thing.  Over the years, however, I’ve come to see how complex our conscious and unconscious feelings can be. I’ve also come to understand that nurturing a simplistic view of anger is not only inaccurate, but that it reinforces the long-standing forces of repression.

Just opening up various levels of either grief or anger, and leaving the guilt and other related feelings untouched, can lead to greater disruption in a person’s life. The resolution of core issues depends not only on allowing the hidden depths of these feelings into consciousness, but on working through all the layers of genuine feeling that inevitably follow. Clarifying the defensive structures, which are the actual processes we use to avoid, deny, and repress our emotional life, can be enormously helpful; uprooting the core issues is what leads to lasting change.  Of course, working on deeper levels calls for special training, and must be done with great care.

Fortunately there are relatively new and powerful ways of working with the unconscious – both with its strengths as well as with its more punitive side. The two people quoted above went through a type of therapy based on the work of Dr. Habib Davanloo, a psychiatrist living and teaching in Montreal.  Over the past 30 or 40 years he has developed a system of psychotherapy known as Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, or ISTDP, which is an experientially-based therapy specifically designed to “unlock” areas of the unconscious sealed over by repression. Many people have found that it fits seamlessly with their Zen practice, even though it deals with areas all-to-often side-stepped in Dharma work.

All our feelings, particularly compassion and anger (which, in truth, are often unconsciously linked), can become doorways to deeper practice and greater freedom. And this is where Dr. Davanloo’s work shines.  ISTDP helps us to take down the walls that have internally closed us off from our feelings, and at the same time isolated us from others.  It helps to reveal and uproot the defensive structures that obstruct and disrupt our essential freedom.  It helps us to re-discover for ourselves what it means to experience feelings directly, and with our whole being.  It clarifies the difference between indulging in what we commonly (mis)understand to be grief or anger, and directly experiencing them. Genuine grief does not lead us into helplessness or isolation, nor does it last ‘forever.’ True anger has nothing to do with screaming or slamming doors, punching walls, or bursting into tears. It’s not about getting an upset stomach, grinding one’s teeth, or running away.  It’s not about cold or frozen states, or getting depressed.  Nor is it about smashing a pillow or exploding into crude or cruel speech.

When we authentically experience any strong feeling, it surges through us.  We know exactly what we’re feeling, and who it relates to — no questions asked. Grief surges through us in waves, while true anger is experienced as a clear, direct state filled with great presence and power. These are primarily internal experiences, freed from anxiety and tension.  They come with a firm sense of control and focus even as intense grief or rage unfolds.  When we freely experience anger, this experience itself opens a doorway to many other feelings, including forgiveness, repentance, and love.  Once we directly experience these feelings, we’re free to communicate them, to act on them, or to simply be with them.  Again, these are dynamic internal experiences.  They do not depend on venting or cursing, or slipping into weepy, self-pitying or self-deprecating mindstates.

This kind of work is certainly not for everyone.  Not everyone needs it, and not everyone is suited to it.  ISTDP certainly won’t resolve all the obstructive mindstates that arise in practice (of which there can be many), and going through this therapy doesn’t guarantee any particular type of experience.  At the same time, because ISTDP resolves unconscious issues, it can, and has, made a real difference in many people’s practice – particularly in areas related to intimacy and empowerment.  The second client mentioned above sent me this account after returning from a backpacking retreat:

It was still dark when I awoke, but a hint of dawn was just visible in the eastern sky.  I sat and clutched my sleeping bag about my chin.  It was then that I noticed ‘Hank’ beside me, propped on his elbows as he looked out into the predawn sky. There, straight ahead and centered over the lake was a dazzling diamond, hanging in solitary brilliance and reflecting its shiny twin on the calm lake waters. Venus was rising.

Time stopped.  Something shifted.  The moment hung suspendedand a sublime calm enfolded me.  The boundaries blurred and I was scarcely aware of any distinction between outside and inside.  Wispy thoughts fluttered at the edges of my consciousness and I sensed a sureness, a bone-deep knowledge that this moment, this very moment, was an echo of what Shakyamuni Buddha experienced when he gazed at Venus on that December morning…

The Dharma is many things, but above all, it is a teaching and practice dedicated to helping us realize the essential non-dual nature of existence — and it would be a mistake to confuse ‘unlockings’ with awakening experiences.  With a genuine kensho or satori experience, the sense of a fixed and separate self falls away — the deeper the awakening, the more vivid and alive is this all-embracing Wholeness.  Though there are clearly instances where ISTDP-based unlockings have facilitated awakening experiences, no one actually going through this work would ever confuse the two.

Although ISTDP is primarily a form of psychotherapy, it is not simply for people experiencing “mental problems.”  Integrated with Dharma training, it has helped people engaged in all levels of practice change their lives.  With an “unlocking” unconscious defensive structures lose their stranglehold, freeing us to directly experience our authentic feelings. By uprooting long-standing characterological defenses we can live and practice with greater freedom.  And when we break our identification with these crippling defensive structures our hearts naturally open to all that’s around.

Dharma practice has gone through countless changes over the centuries and many of the forms it has taken would certainly be unrecognizable to even Shakyamuni.  As he himself taught: “Do not be (mis)led by Holy Scriptures, or by mere logic or inference, or by appearances, or by the authority of religious teachers. But when you realize that something is unwholesome and bad for you, give it up.  And when you realize that something is wholesome and good for you, do it.” Applying this teaching on an intrapsychic level we could say that we are in the process of both exploring and refining ways of dealing with the disruptive side of the unconscious as it manifests itself in this culture, and of bringing forth it’s rich, life-affirming potential.

Buddhism has both informed and been transformed by each new culture it has entered, a process that doesn’t happen overnight.  As one visiting Japanese monk commented some years ago, “The first hundred years are always the hardest.” In coming to the West, Buddhism is attempting the biggest, most radical leap of all.  My hope is that our part will be to help bring clarity and light to this unfolding, to find ways of keeping this precious teaching and practice strong and vibrant without diluting its timeless essence.  The absolute value of our Dharma work is always and forever present, but we might also say that in a very real sense there has never been a time when the cultivation of strong practice, and with it strong and caring people, has ever been more essential.