Mark Epstein - Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

Thoughts Without a Thinker

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by Broadway Books.

GOING TO PIECES WITHOUT FALLING APART . Copyright 1998 by Mark Epstein. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

First trade paperback edition published 1999.

Designed by Pei Loi Koay

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as:

Epstein, Mark, 1953
Going to pieces without falling apart : a Buddhist perspective on wholeness / Mark Epstein. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Spiritual lifeBuddhismPsychological aspects. I. Title.
BQ4310.E66 1998
294.3444dc21 98-5335

eISBN: 978-0-307-83009-8

Excerpt from Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird from Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens. Copyright 1923 and renewed 1951 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

v3.1

for arlene

Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma.

HUANG PO

I would like to thank all of my patients who have shared their lives, thoughts, and feelings with me as I have constructed this book. Their willingness to enter into dialogue and to range far afield of their own immediate concerns has been a source of continuing inspiration and exhilaration for me. I developed this book in collaboration with them and am grateful for the opportunity they have given me.

I would also like to thank a number of people whose conversations have sparked ideas that have found their way into this work: Michael Eigen, for thoughts on unintegration, Jeffrey Hopkins on sexual tantra, Stephen Batchelor on emptiness and imagination, Manny Ghent on surrender and aggression, Helen Tworkov on emotions in Buddhism, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg on practice, Kiki Smith on writing and speaking, Wes Nisker on the four foundations of mindfulness, Jack Kornfield on relationships and the Dharma, Richard Kohn on the goddesses at the doorway, Daniel Goleman on the whole process of making a book that works, Robbie Stein on fear of breakdown, Jack Engler on mourning, and Michael Vincent Miller on disappointment and empathy. I owe particular thanks to Adam Phillips, from whose inspired writings on the British analyst D. W. Winnicott I appropriated my title.

Anne Edelstein, my literary agent, meticulously steered this project through sometimes rocky waters, and Janet Goldstein, Daisy Alpert, Charles Conrad, and William Shinker at Broadway Books saw fit to give their time and energy to making it come to be. George Lange took great pictures and continues to teach me about play.

My children, Sonia and Will, have discussed many aspects of this book with me since its (and their) inception and have done a great job of giving me support and showing me their pride in my endeavors. My wife Arlene, who has made the Dharma come alive for me and been my equal partner in ways that suffuse and transcend this particular book, has helped develop all of the major ideas in this work. I thank her for her innumerable contributions and for the hours of conversation that we have enjoyed. My parents, Frank and Sherrie, have been wonderfully supportive and interested throughout this process and have shared in its execution from start to finish. My in-laws, Jean and Dave, have encouraged my writing from the beginning, and our babysitter and friend, Sheila Mangyal, has made all of this possible.

Except in the case of well-known figures introduced by first and last names, I have changed names and other identifying details or constructed composites in order to protect privacy.

I n the Zen tradition of Buddhism there is a story of a smart and eager university professor who comes to an old Zen master for teachings. The Zen master offers him tea and upon the mans acceptance he pours the tea into the cup until it overflows. As the professor politely expresses his dismay at the overflowing cup, the Zen master keeps on pouring.

A mind that is already full cannot take in anything new, the master explains. Like this cup, you are full of opinions and preconceptions. In order to find happiness, he teaches his disciple, he must first empty his cup.

The central premise of this book is that the Western psychological notion of what it means to have a self is flawed. We are all trained to approach life like the professor in the story, filling ourselves up the way the master filled the cup with tea. Afflicted, as we are, with a kind of psychological materialism, we are concerned primarily with beefing ourselves up. Self-development, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-expression, self-awareness, and self-control are our most sought after attributes. But Buddhism teaches us that happiness does not come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. In Buddhism, the impenetrable, separate, and individuated self is more of the problem than the solution.