John Welwood - Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation

A very important book. It represents a perceptive, scholarly and at the same time highly practical attempt to see not only how Western psychology and Buddhism relate to each other but also how they complement each other. I cannot commend this book too highly.

The Middle Way

Brilliant and thought provoking. This ambitious work succeeds so well because it sheds light on the interplay between meditation, inner work, and conscious relationship as a spiritual practice.

Spirituality & Health

Marvelously fluent, personable, and eminently compassionate.

NAPRA Review

Rich, potentially transforming insights abound here. Psychotherapists and spiritual seekers alike will be enriched by this book.

Publishers Weekly

ABOUT THE BOOK

How can we connect the spiritual realizations of Buddhism with the psychological insights of the West? In Toward a Psychology of Awakening John Welwood addresses this question with comprehensiveness and depth. Along the way he shows how meditative awareness can help us develop more dynamic and vital relationships and how psychotherapy can help us embody spiritual realization more fully in everyday life. Welwood's psychology of awakening brings together the three major dimensions of human experience: personal, interpersonal, and suprapersonal, in one overall framework of understanding and practice.

As a psychotherapist, teacher, and author, JOHN WELWOOD has been a pioneer in integrating psychological and spiritual work. Welwood has published six books, including the best-selling Journey of the Heart (HarperCollins, 1990), as well as Challenge of the Heart (Shambhala, 1985), and Love and Awakening (HarperCollins, 1996). He is an associate editor of the Journal for Transpersonal Psychology. He leads workshops and trainings in psychospiritual work and conscious relationship throughout the world.

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Toward a Psychology of Awakening

Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation

John Welwood

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London
2014

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2000 by John Welwood

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Robert Bly for permission to reprint portions of his translation of Goethes The Holy Longing. Reprinted from News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness, edited by Robert Bly. Sierra Club Books, 1986. Copyright 1984 by Robert Bly.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Welwood, John, 1943

Toward a psychology of awakening: Buddhism, psychotherapy, and the path of personal and spiritual transformation/John Welwood.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2554-3

ISBN 978-1-57062-540-4 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-57062-823-8 (pbk.)

1. BuddhismPsychology. 2. PsychotherapyReligious aspectsBuddhism. 3. Spiritual lifeBuddhism. I. Title.

BQ4570.P76 W45 2000

294.3375dc21 99-046050

I would like to dedicate this book
to my first real mentor,

EUGENE GENDLIN,

who helped me discover
and appreciate
the subtle beauty and mystery
of inner experiencing.

Contents

PART ONE
INTEGRATING PSYCHOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY

PART TWO
PSYCHOTHERAPY IN A SPIRITUAL CONTEXT

PART THREE
THE AWAKENING POWER OF RELATIONSHIP

D EEP WITHIN THE HUMAN SPIRIT, now largely severed from its ancient moorings, there is a search unfoldingfor a new vision of why we are here and what we may become. Perhaps it is only now, in postmodern times, when we have unprecedented access to all the worlds spiritual traditions, as well as more than a century of Western psychology to draw on, that we can forge a larger understanding of the human journey that addresses all the different facets of our nature. The new vision we are needing is one that brings together two different halves of our nature, which have been cultivated in different ways on opposite sides of the globe. While the traditional spiritual cultures of the East have specialized in illuminating the timeless, suprapersonal ground of beingthe heaven side of human natureWestern psychology has focused on the earthly halfthe personal and the interpersonal. We need a new vision that embraces all three domains of human existencethe suprapersonal, the personal, and the interpersonalwhich no single tradition, East or West, has ever fully addressed within a single overall framework of understanding and practice.

Spiritual practice, when cut off from the rich feeling-textures of personal life, can become dry and remote, just as personal life becomes narrow and confining when cut off from the fresh breezes of spiritual realization. Now that our world has become so disconnected from larger spiritual values and purpose, we need to find new ways of integrating spiritual wisdom into our personal lives if we are to meet the great challenges we face heading into the new millennium. The emerging dialogue between the ancient spiritual traditions of the East and the modern therapeutic psychology of the West holds great promise in this regard.

By helping us explore the relationship between the personal and spiritual sides of our nature, this East/West dialogue can bring into focus the vital connections between mind, heart, body, soul, and spirit, so that we may recognize them as inseparable facets of a single, living whole. And on a practical level, it may also help us develop a more integrated approach to spiritual growth, health and well-being, relationship and human community.

The convergence of East and West raises particularly interesting questions in the psychological arena. How might psychotherapy and spiritual practice work as allies in helping people awaken to who they genuinely are? What can the spiritual traditions of the East tell us about the source of psychological balance? What implications does meditative awareness have for psychological health and for the development of dynamic, transformative interpersonal relationships? What new possibilities emerge when psychological work takes place in a spiritual context? And how might Western psychological insights and methods actually contribute to spiritual development? How can Buddhism and other ancient spiritual traditions most effectively address our psychologically-minded culture, where individual development is such a central value? What is the relationship between individuationthe development of souland spiritual liberationtotal release from the limiting boundaries of self? How is it possible to integrate the personal/psychological and the suprapersonal/universal sides of our nature?

These are some of the issues addressed in this book, which is divided into three sections. The first explores basic issues and questions about the relationship between contemplative spirituality and Western psychology. The second addresses the practical implications of this encounter for psychological health and healing. And the third explores major implications for relationship and community.

My inspiration to explore the interface of Eastern and Western psychology first arose in 1963, when, as a young man in my twenties in Paris, I found myself staring into the black hole of Western materialism without the slightest idea of how to fashion a meaningful life for myself. While I appreciated the ritual and music of the church I grew up in, Christianity, at least as it was taught to me, did not provide an experiential practice that allowed me to access the living spirit. My discovery of Zen in the early 1960s opened up a totally appealing and revolutionary new perspective: that each of us can discover our own true nature, which lies directly within, realize it experientially, and thus awaken to a richer and deeper way of being.