Gautama with Freud: Floating Mindfulness

Gautama with Freud: Floating Mindfulness

Buddhist Psychoanalysis differs from clinical psychology because it requires to have finalized an analytical meditative practice. Indeed, to ethically enable the spiritual practice of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) three fundamental pillars are required: to have completed an analytical meditation process, freeing the mind from the chains of attachment and guiding the consciousness to the happening of the Awakened Being (Buddha); having completed the theoretical formation, receiving the transmission of the spirit of the investigation of Purpose (Dharma), and to rely on the accompaniment of other colleagues capable of supervise the own contemplative practice within a Commune of apprenticeship (Sangha). These three requirements for the ethical exercise[1] of Maitriyana are the analytical meditative jewels indispensable for the development of the Floating Mindfulness of the spiritual master.

In this sense, every genuine Buddhist psychoanalyst should be an expert meditator, perfecting the listening of the unconscious through what Master Lacan denominated as the training of the third ear. In Buddhist Psychoanalysis this is in accordance with the qualitative development of the third eye, which is the aperture of an existential vision capable of breaking through the imaginary dualism and directly perceiving the Emptiness and Wholeness of life.

Obviously, because it is about a movement of twenty six centuries of experience, it is not exaggerated to announce that many clinical psychologists know more about the teachings of Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas) than about the teachings of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.[2] It is because Buddhist Spirituality is a metapsychological practice which transcends the speculative, having a profound interest in alleviate[3] and liberate the apprentice from his neurotic suffering through the Detachment and Compassionate Love.

Beyond the findings of the neuroscientific[4] community that consider that psychic training of the analytical meditation and its method of Mindfulness not only induce to a neuronal changes of short and long range[5] but also the training of the amygdale,[6] the Maitriyana points that the main feature of the analytical meditative practice is the production of an higher and amplified state of consciousness (H-ASC), that is the sober and postconventional presence of the wellbeing, spontaneity and freedom.[7] This establishes a profound change in the everydayness of the being-in-the-world, making the subject much more responsible and committed to life, approximating him closer to the Sense of his existence and being able to quietly know his Self.

When an existential transformation is produced in the apprentice, everydayness inevitably changes, since the transcendence of the Ego produces a completely radical mind. Therefore, the spiritual master can solve the bonds of attachment more ethically than any human being, staying in a constant state of openness to the becoming.

Evidently, many psychotherapists have not passed the meditative end-of-analysis, so they are not ethically trained to direct the process of the Cure (Nirvana) and to operate as a spiritual guide or midwife of subjectivities. Instead, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva), for having solved his own narcissistic issues, does not confuse Spirituality with religiosity, considering that theoretically and practically becoming enriched from Buddhist Psychoanalysis entails getting lost in the delicate frontier of the Maitriyana. Precisely, it is a delicate frontier being about a transdisciplinary Analytical Discourse that has as fundamental objective to overcome all the adverse psychological circumstances through a new subjective modality. This is feasible not only by the numerous scientific evidence of that the analytical meditation dramatically improves the attention of the subject, but also for the endorsement and authority that has the Buddhist psychoanalysis as a proposal that overcomes the therapeutic mean nourishing with a non-theistic and non-idolatrous perspective from Maitriyana. Thus, it rises an Analytical Discourse that strongly differentiates religion from spiritual practice,[8] within which inserts the synthesis of Buddhist Psychoanalysis. Therefore, the future of psychology is inseparable from Maitriyana, which potentially develops both the ability of Mindfulness and the ethical attitude of every Buddhist psychoanalyst. In accordance with the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas), the Buddhist psychoanalyst considers as ethical not only to the essence of a meditative analytical work which has a listening and a development attention until its maximum capacity, but also to the direction and purpose of the contemporary Spirituality. Buddhist Psychoanalysis has the theoretical and practical tools that are necessary to comply such challenges, slowly and imperceptibly invading the profound existence of the practitioners and professionals of psychology.

The Spiritual growth is a process of awareness about the deep dimensions of the subjectivity, like birth, sexuality, bonds and death. These features constitute the medullar axis of the transformation Way of the apprentice. The beginning of this journey always initiates with the First experience of the angst (anguish) that entails for the subject be assumed himself as a sexual and mortal being, comprehending that inevitably he is going to vanish into Nothingness. In this sense, Buddhist Psychoanalysis affirms that the only thing that the apprentice needs to-face the suffering that implies the existence is to count on another capable of ethically listening and paying attention. This special and significant kind of attention, so different from medical, is the attitude and ethical essence of the meditative analytical practice of the spiritual master. Therefore, along with the aptitude and the theoretical improvement, a Buddhist psychoanalyst should count on the ethical attitude typical of all Mindfulness process. This implies that the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) transmits through his presence a capacity to open up to the unknown and uncover the latent secret of his Real Self that transcends the neurotic duality. Mindfulness, imbued with sense by the analytical meditation, is funded on the act of faith typical of the process of believing in the unconscious, which is such belief that proclaims the existence of the concealed Truth of the subject.[9] By putting in abeyance the own subjectivity, the Desire-of-analyze of the spiritual master is characterized by a silent and patient Attention that incarnates the imagination and humility, thus creating the atmospheric conditions for the apprentice establishes a contact and intimate care of the subjectivity. This requires a permanent thirst for Search of the Real, by transcending the defensive rationalizations and intellectualizations of the Ego to ally with the spontaneity and freedom of the True Self. In this manner, the ethical essence of the complex process of Mindfulness allows the emergence of an authentic and self-determined subject, which ascends to the existential Project through the spiritual apprenticeship. That is why it is a meditative analytical activity that through the agape love[10] to the apprentice mysteriously achieves to sublimate the practice of the being-in-the-world.

For the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva), to pay attention to the other in a constant manner supposes a state of openness and sacralization of the subjective bonds. This is because Maitriyana, in accordance with Freud and Lacan, denominates the phenomenon of transference as a gimmick that is capable of representing a nondirective, real and pure love.

Another feature of the ethical essence of the analytical meditation is the interpretation, being a professional instrument that always is the fruit of a paradoxical practice (koan) that passes through all the existence. In addition, for Buddhist Psychoanalysis, the term Attention derives from tend toward, establishing a bond of reunification or reconciliation toward an object, another or a project. Obviously, this tendency to other that performs the Mindfulness implies a restructuring of the bonds that have woven the symbolic subjectivity of the subject, which evidences that the meditative analytical practice erects a new kind of mind to rebuild it through a bridge and spiritual bond sustained in the spiritual platform of the Love-to-the-truth. In this sense, the Buddhist psychoanalyst is an artist of the attention, illuminating the apprentice through signage and interpretations that help him to discover and to respond the dark meaning of his existence.

Thus, the complex exercise of Mindfulness of the spiritual master is always characterized by a curious courtesy and respect for the other, being a care and a non-reflective love that ethically keeps the conflict and tension so that the subject may observe and recognize his Truth, both spiritually holding hands.[11] This contemplative accompaniment of the Buddhist psychoanalyst implies a renunciation of the position of psychological power that characterizes the traditional psychotherapist in which subjectivity is monitored and stalked in order to set a relationship that actually should always be supported by freedom.

Despite the superficiality that orders the circumstances of the being-in-the-world, the Mindfulness of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is characterized at all times by the direct catchment of the Real through an acute listening, a profound gaze and a mouth capable of absorbing words. Obviously, this is something very difficult to achieve, since when it does not occur the Sublimation (Nirodh) may be produced an immobility and paralysis of the mind, along with a subsequent sadness and nostalgia due to the enchantment and rapture of sense that has the captivating production of love.[12]

The Gautama-Freud articulation allows to clarify that a constant attitude of Floating Mindfulness is essential, without which any psychotherapist would not find more than what he already knows.

Precisely, Maitriyana cultivates the Mindfulness through the analytical meditation, which is an ancient practice that comprises the metapsychological reaches of the mystical experience, finding not only a technique but also an appropriate language to represent the meaningful process of the Awakening (Bodhi).

By overcoming the anguish (angst), melancholy and existential frustration, the method of Mindfulness becomes the transcendental teaching of the spiritual master to his apprentice. Ergo, the Art of the Floating and Free Attention is structured and settled on the platform of meditative analytical practice. Buddhist Psychoanalysis recognizes then that the objective and practice of Mindfulness are the same both in Freud, Searles or Bion like in the great Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas).[13]

By examining the theories of spiritual masters of Mindfulness, the articulation Gautama-Freud affirms that the higher and amplified state of consciousness (H-ASC) is constructed from the profound Responsibility and Commitment with the Purpose of existence.

An approximation to the traditional psychotherapists towards this subjective re-positioning is the interest in the various manifestations of the Analytical Discourse of Spirituality, whose love for freedom allows the Sublimation (Nirodh) of all creations and events of the active and impermanent spirit of the Being.

In this way, the qualities that characterize the Mindfulness of the Buddhist psychoanalyst are sublimatory Productivity, holistic Globality and Unconditional Compassion, being all of these aspects that embody the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva). Being fully absorbed in his task and praxis, by means of the subjective destitution and the transcendence of the Ego, the ethical essence of the spiritual master is merely a special form of gazing and a listening, responding with brief signage through the silent and complicated ethics of well-say.

The Gautama-Freud articulation allows understanding the Awakened Being (Buddha) as the simultaneous combination of the higher degree of presence with the highest degree of absence. This description is fundamental in the Maitriyana, for which the essence of the spiritual life is based on the act of staying fully attentive into the here and now, which is the moment in that Wholeness is combined with Emptiness. This transcendentality is an extraordinary achievement, therefore the psychoanalyst keeps it at all times as a goal or ideal. All traditional psychotherapists should ask what are the psychological factors that frustrate that Unconditional Attention, understanding at the same time that without the training of the analytical meditation is unlikely to acquire such a degree of efficiency. However, with the practice and experience of the Buddhist Psychoanalysis, that attitude of complete absorption in the present becomes possible.[14]

Maitriyana recognizes that this Chan-Zen technique would have produced enormous effects within the vision of psychology if both Fromm and Horney would have remained more time in the world.[15]

 

 

[1] E. Rosch, Mindfulness meditation and the private (?) self.

[2] J. D. Safran, Introduction to Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: an Unfolding Dialogue.

[3] L. Learman, Buddhist Missionaries in the Era of Globalization.

[4] O. Flanagan, The Bodhisattva´s Brain: Neuroscience and happiness.

[5] A. Lutz, L. L. Greishar, N. B. Rawlings, M. Ricard y R. J. Davidson: Long-term meditators self-induce high- amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice.

[6] P. Eckman, J. Campos, R. J. Davidson y F. De Waals, Emotions Inside Out.

[7] D. T. Suzuki y E. Fromm, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis.

[8] A. Compte-Sponville, The soul of atheism: introduction to spirituality without god.

[9] N. Coltart, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

[10] M. Von Der Ruhr, Simone Weil: An Apprenticeship in Attention.

[11] T. E. Cheever, Wired Love: Romance of Dots and Dashes.

[12] E. Jones, The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud.

[13] N. Coltart, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

[14] K. Horney, Final Readings.

[15] S. Quinn, A mind of her own: the life of Karen Horney.