A hoza session at the San Antonio Dharma Center.
Mahayana Buddhism is a path of wisdom, compassion, and practice one takes with the aspiration of ending suffering, encouraging self-improvement, and cultivating inner peace. Psychotherapy is a parallel path with similar goals, which include improved self-awareness; reduced symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and anger; and healthier coping strategies for life’s challenges and adversities. The two paths often converge as a system of skillful means for those who walk the bodhisattva path. What, more specifically, do these two schools of thought and practice share, and how are they different?
From a Buddhist perspective, understanding how suffering often arises from karmic recompense for past actions, as a result of intricate cause-and-effect mechanisms beyond our immediate understanding, is the basis for liberating ourselves and others from suffering. As Buddhists we are aware that, in each new moment, we have the potential to break the karmic causal chain by focusing on compassionate thought and skillful action. This knowledge makes the process of becoming—or rebirth—more than an aspiration; it transforms into a vow.
The autonomy that comes with choosing not to suffer frees us to move beyond our typical patterns of behavior, act with more compassion, use skillful means, and become a compassionate cause in our interactions with the world. In similar fashion, many psychotherapies emphasize gaining insight—that is, an emotional understanding of underlying causes, conflicts, and repetitive behaviors that shape a person’s thoughts, emotions, and actions. Psychotherapy often focuses on helping people see their unskillful patterns of thought and action so that they can stop repeating behaviors that cause suffering. Once they have this insight, they can make conscious choices when challenging situations arise.
Buddhism teaches that individuals who are suffering are transmigrating among the lower realms: hells, hungry spirits, and beasts. The teaching of ichinen sanzen (“Three Thousand Realms in One Mind”) demonstrates that no matter what realm of the mind we occupy, all realms are present concurrently, including the higher realms of sravaka, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, and buddha. Awareness of our inherent potential to attain the higher realms helps us navigate experiences more skillfully and reminds us that the mind’s activities can change at any moment. Psychotherapy offers hope by helping people identify their emotions and strategically shift to calmer, kinder, happier, or more productive states.
In the first rolling of the Dharma Wheel, Shakyamuni Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths. The first two of the Four Noble Truths recognize the existence of suffering, allowing us to acknowledge and accept our experience; they also encourage discovery of the causes of suffering as a compassionate and skillful path to liberation. Moreover, the Buddhist teaching of impermanence reminds us that the causes of our suffering are temporary and will change.
The idea of reflection on and acknowledgment of suffering is echoed in many psychotherapeutic approaches, including radical acceptance, a component of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Radical acceptance signifies wholeheartedly accepting reality in its entirety. DBT requires that one accept realistic limitations on the future. An example: As much as I enjoy baseball, I will never play as well as professionals such as Shohei Ohtani. Radical acceptance consists of recognizing that events have causes and that life can still be meaningful even when it is painful. Rejecting reality does not change it; profound change can happen only after one accepts reality. In Buddhism, this rejection—often called ignorance of the truth—keeps people stuck in anger, resentment, bitterness, and sorrow. Radical acceptance also reminds us that the causes of suffering are impermanent. DBT goes on to offer some methods that people can use to radically accept their experiences. These techniques include mindful awareness that one is rejecting reality, acknowledging that many causes have led to one’s suffering, self-compassion, and behaving as though one has accepted the situation even if one has not.
For the Buddhist practitioner, gratitude includes appreciating the truth of interconnectedness: that seemingly unconnected phenomena come into being through the dependent arising of causes and conditions. At Rissho Kosei-kai, we express gratitude to the Buddha and to our ancestors every day when we make offerings and recite the sutra at our home altars. Through our practice, we demonstrate gratitude by appreciating the intricate patterns of causation, and by acknowledging the small joys that can so often be taken for granted.
Gratitude practice may also be a component of psychotherapy. Scientific research shows that this technique improves psychological well-being and personal satisfaction while reducing depression and anxiety. Psychotherapists may explain to clients how our nervous systems are programmed to identify adverse or threatening stimuli. Sometimes people get out of balance and focus only on those seemingly negative experiences. Maintaining a balanced and harmonious mental attitude can be a source of joy and contentment. Through our practice of gratitude, we begin to notice what is truly present and to recontextualize our experiences as sources of real-world wisdom. Therapy offers a number of techniques for practicing gratitude so that gratitude becomes a habit.
Meditation is a common doorway to Buddhism for Westerners, particularly in North America. Meditation practice encourages individuals to notice thoughts and images arising in the mind, without judgment, without discourse, and without attaching to those images. For Rissho Kosei-kai members in North America, and perhaps for Buddhist practitioners worldwide, meditation can be an important component of a robust mental hygiene program as well as an engaged spiritual practice, particularly when combined with the wisdom teachings of Buddhism. By cultivating a peaceful mental platform for quiet and mindful observation, meditation heightens one’s awareness of the distracting activity within the “monkey mind” and of the effects that can arise from our engagement with that activity. This awareness can be a pathway to deep insight.
In some types of psychotherapy, the ability to notice the mind’s activity and become aware of the processes that lead to unskillful actions is called “developing an observing ego.” The observing ego is the part of the psyche that can see what one’s thoughts are doing and how one is responding in a given situation, reminiscent of the practice of reflection and correction that is a focal point of the Sutra of the Method for Contemplating the Bodhisattva Universal Sage. In this perspective, the ego is like a watcher of the mind. Mindfulness of the thoughts generated by our minds is vital for self-knowledge and understanding. Many newer therapies intentionally incorporate mindfulness exercises that help people to focus completely on the present moment. Several Japanese arts, such as chado (the tea ceremony) and kodo (the way of fragrance) are excellent examples of practices that embody the potential for merging traditional rituals, Buddhist wisdom, and psychotherapy to cultivate awareness of present mind as a key promoter of mental health.
Both Buddhist and psychotherapeutic principles encourage us to have “a flexible and forbearing mind” (see chapter 10 of the Lotus Sutra) to view our sufferings from multiple angles, and to be aware of the impermanence of our experience. When we understand an experience in the context of a broader perspective, we really don’t know if that experience is good or bad. It may appear good or bad in our current mind and in our current situation, but we really don’t know how we will view the experience in the future. Buddhist wisdom helps us see events in a way that allows us to reduce the pervasive suffering that arises from ignorance. The thoughts we have about any event—the stories we tell ourselves—can fuel the flames of suffering. In reality, it is the leaning of the mind toward preferences, toward craving, that leads us to suffering.
In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), reframing is a series of techniques that help individuals understand that, though an event may initially feel like a negative or tragic source of suffering, there are multiple ways of looking at it. CBT focuses on identifying thoughts that are distorted, recognizing the evidence for and against the distorted thoughts, and then working to create thoughts that are based in reality. CBT encourages individuals to develop cognitive flexibility, which allows them to have multiple views about an experience.
Finally, one of the key practices of Rissho Kosei-kai is the tradition of hoza, “Dharma circle.” Members engage in a facilitated exercise of compassionate listening with a member who is talking about their own suffering. Both the speaker and the sangha gain insight, wisdom, and empathy through the sharing of compassion. Hoza, group psychotherapy, and peer-led self-help groups can be viewed as similar practices. In all three of these methods, individuals express their sufferings within a community of peers. These techniques can provide a sense of empathy, shared experience, and a realization of suffering’s universality, which fosters a sense of interdependency, understanding, and mutual respect.
Buddhism and psychotherapy, therefore, use similar strategies to uncover the roots of suffering; nurture a deeper, more compassionate understanding of one’s inner life; and liberate the individual from unnecessary suffering.
Authors
Dr. Dawn Velligan, PhD, Clinical Psychologist and Dharma Teacher at Rissho Kosei-kai Buddhist Center of San Antonio
Reverend Kevin Roche, Minister of Rissho Kosei-kai Buddhist Center of San Antonio
