and tise,ttn buddhism - educare€¦ · jung's psychology and tise,ttn buddhism ... carl...

12
THE ESSENCE OF JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM 'Western and Eastern Paths to the Heart Radmila Moacanin 'Wisdom PubIications . Boston

Upload: buiphuc

Post on 20-Aug-2018

215 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

THE ESSENCE OF

JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGYAND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM

'Western and Eastern Paths to the Heart

Radmila Moacanin

'Wisdom PubIications . Boston

Page 2: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

\,)üistlorrr l)rr bl it rtl ions199 lllnr StrcctSomervillc MA 02 144 tlSAwww.wisdonr pu bs.org

@ Radmila Moacanin 2(X).1

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in :.ury folnr or lry ;ury rnt'rrrrs, clec-tronic or mechanical, including photography, rccortling, ol by :rrry irtfor-mation storage and retrieval system or technol()gics n()w krr0wrr or lirterdeveloped, without the permission in writing from the publishcr.

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Pub lication D ataMoacanin, Radmila

The essence ofJung's psychology and Tibetan Buddhism :

western and eastern paths to the heart / Radmila Moacaninp. cm.

Originally published: Jung's psychology and Tibetan Buddhism.London : \fisdom, 1985.

Includes biblioraphical references and index.ISBN 0-85171-340-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)1. Buddhism-Psychology. 2.Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav),

I87 5-1961. 3. Buddhism-China-Tibet. I. Title8Q4s70.P76 M63 2003294.31375-dc2r

07 06 05 04 035432Interior design by Gopa & Ted2

2002155427

rü(/isdom Publications' books are printed on acid-free paper and meet theguidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on ProductionGuidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Printed in Canada

Contents

vllIX

xlll

Preface to the Second EditionPreface

Acknowledgments

1 BuoorttstvtTibetan BuddhismTantric Buddhism: Vajrayana

2 Cenr Gusrev JuNcCollective Unconscious

Archetypes

The Self

IndividuationAlchemySynchronicity

3 Mr,rsoos IN JUNG's PsvcnorocvAND TIBETAN BUDDHISM

The Cure of Souls

Iimancipation from SufferingThc Spiritu:rl Friend and the An:rlyst

4 An<;r rl,r'fYt'Al. SYUIlol.s'l'ltt"l'iltctttt lJook ol' tbc l)ctd

)t35

39

1

8

1.5

z3

z9

3o

43

43

49

6r(u

57

Page 3: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

z2 The Essence of lung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism

body, speech, and mind. Their purpose is to activate and conjureup powerful but dormant forces from the deep levels of theunconscious; it is a confrontation with our innermost nature toawaken us.

The three basic and prevalent methods are: recitation ofmantras (sacred words) involving the speech; performance of rit-ual gestures (mudras) involving the body; meditation (especiallyvisualization of and identification with deities) involving the mind.

I shall return to these methods in a subsequent chapter anddiscuss them and their meaning in more detail, as well as thesymbolism and function of mandalas. At this point it may sufficeto state that:

The aim of all the tantras is to teach the ways whereby wemay set free the divine light which is mysteriously pres-ent and shining in each one of us, although it is envelopedin an insidious web of the psyche's weaving.aa

2 Carl Gustau lrrg

Two and a half millennia after Buddha and about a century ago,on the other side of the globe from India, Carl Gustav Jung wasborn. He was born and lived his entire life in Switzerland, in thatlovely peaceful country in the heart of Europe and the 'Western

world, the country that has known no wars for many, manyyears. His parents and ancestors on both sides were traditionalpeople, deeply rooted in the Swiss soil and customs, which endureand tolerate no change. He loved his country, but from an earlyage he felt that its beauty belonged to a space and a time that fartranscended the narrow boundaries of that tiny nation and itsimmovable society. His very first memories-first intimation ofsomething larger than himself-were memories of wonder as hestood in awesome contemplation of the blue waters of Lake Con-stance, and the white, snow-covered peaks of the majestic Alps.Already then he had a sense that this was the center of the uni-verse-not the universe of his parents and the few million Swiss,but of a very private universe within himself that he saw mir-rored in the quiet waters of the lake, and extending to the peaksof the Alps, and beyond into infinity.

He grew up as a shy, sensitive bo5 often at odds with his par-ents' beliefs and his teachers'demands. He felt both very specialand at times inadequate in school in comparison to his class-mates. He was easily hurt and was prone to outbursts of ragewhen in justice was done to him-when, for example, his teacherrrccused him of cheating. But it was in such moments that hesought rrncl f<lund refuge in his personality Number Two, as he

Page 4: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

z4 The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism

used to call it. This personality was his true authentic self, reach-ing deep into the roots of mankind itself, perhaps even beforemankind was.

Somewhere deep in the background I always knew that Iwas two persons. One was the son of my parents, whowent to school and was less intelligent, attentive, hard-working, decent, and clean than many other boys. Theother was grown up-old, in fact-skeptical, mistrustful,remote from the world of men, but close to nature, theearth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures,and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to what-ever "God" worked directly in him.o'

This "other" was a fragile,frail personality that often eludedhim, and so he had to push forward with his so-called personal-ity Number One, a sham, a game, one that gradually more andmore satisfied all around him, but not his own self. So he con-tinued his path, going from one success to another; whatever heworked at he accomplished with flying colors. But the turmoilinside never left him and was a constant prodder that led himastray from where everyone around him expected him to go:while his personality Number One was brilliant, his personalityNumber Two was aching with pain, the pain of unfulfilled whole-ness. He searched for that wholeness all his life.

He heard of a professor in Vienna. He went to see the pro-fessor and paid his respect to him, as he mistook the professor fora genius who was not understood by others. They became closefriends and associates. Jung's personality Number Tlvo, however,rebelled at the very instance of their first encounter. But herefused to heed his personality Number Two, which was stillweak and submerged at that time. The professor in Viennabecame famous, and as his fame grew their friendship dwindled.Only later Jung understood: it was not their friendship that dwin-dled, it was his personality Number Two that became an indi-

Carl Gustau Jung 25

vidual in his own right. The professor from Vienna and Jungparted. This was the greatest shock in his life. It threw him intodarkness such as he had never known before. But out of it hisentire work emerged.

He had left behind not only his friend from Vienna, to whomhe nevertheless always remained grateful, but also his personal-ity Number One. From then on Jung devoted himself fully to hispersonality Number Two. Many people from all the corners ofthe world came to see him and inspire him, as he inspired them.Alone in his stone tower he was in deep and intimate contactwith everything and everyone that was at that time, that pre-ceded him, and would follow him. On a stormy day in latespring, at the age of eighty-five, his long and rich life came to anend. His personality Number One finally left him for good. Buthis personality Number Two goes on living, for there was notime when it was not and there can be no time it will cease to be.

"My life has been in a sense the quintessence of what I havewritten,"a' says C. G. Jung in the introduction to his autobiog-raphy. So his entire life, his myth, should be viewed as an indi-visible whole that proceeded as a gradual and continuousunfoldment out of its own unique seed. No event, no aspect of hisouter or inner life, is unimportant or irrelevant to his work.

My life is what I have done, my scientific work; the oneis inseparable from the other. The work is the expressionof my inner development; for commitment to the con-tents of the unconscious forms the man and produces histransformations. My works can be regarded as stationsalong my life's way.a7

There was a particularly pregnant time in Jung's life, a timewhen new ideas were germinating that were to occupy him forthe rest of his life. This was the period following his break withFreud, when for a while he lost his bearings. It was a time ofconfusion, turmoil, isolation, loneliness-of inner chaos. Jung

Page 5: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

26 Tbe Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tihetan Buddhism

was assailed with confusing dreams. images, visions, a surge ofunconscious material that at times made him doubt his own san-ity. And indeed, in a sense it was not unlike a psychotic break.But it was also a crucial intersection, a most creative station alonghis life's way. These were the years of Jung's confrontation withhis unconscious.

Here the vision of the young Siddhartha Gautama comesback to our mind. The well-protected innocent prince suddenlyshocked by the sights of the tragic side of life-sickness, old age,and death-his determination to find answers to the riddle oflife, first unsuccessfully from learned men, and finally fromwithin himself, in deep meditation under the bodhi tree. Simi-larly, Jung could not find answers to his questions either fromFreud or anyone else, from any books and theories, and so likeSiddhartha, he left behind all of them to look for answers withinhis own psyche. In his autobiography Jung tells us he had toundergo the original experience himself. One day he sat at hisdesk, let himself drop, and plunged into the depths of his psyche,submitting to the spontaneous impulses of his unconscious.o'Thiswas the very beginning of an experiment that lasted for severalyears and produced a wealth of material, later to become part ofJung's most important works, his most creative contributions.Throughout that time he not only observed carefully but wrotedown, and embellished with drawings, his dreams, fantasies, andvisions, and they all became part of his famous Red Book. Butbeing trained as a scientist, he felt the obligation to understandthe meaning of all that material. "I had to draw concrete con-clusions from the insight the unconscious had given me-andthat task was to become a life's work."u'He had to show that hisvery personal, subjective experiences were potential experiencesof all humankind, for they were an inherent part of the nature ofthe psyche.''" It was, though, a revolutionary way in scientificmethodologS "a new way of seeing things."5r Above all Jung hadto prove that his own experiences were real, which others couldhave too: that the unconscior-rs was a demonstrable psychic real-

Carl Gustau Jung 27

itv, but which had its own style and spoke its own language,namely the universal language of images and symbols. Further:-rnore Jung became aware that the insights gained from theunconscious must be translated into an ethical obligation.

Not to do so is to fall prey to the power principle, andthis produces dangerous effects which are destrucive notonly to others but even to the knower. The images of theunconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Fail-ure to understand them, or a sbirking of etbical respon-sibility, depriues him of his wholeness and imposes apdinful fragmentariness on bis life."

This thought is reminiscent of Buddhist ethics, as enunciaredin the eightfold path, particularly in right action and right med-itation. Personal suffering cannot be eliminated, and individualwholeness achieved, when ethical conduct is not observed. Jungunderstood, as Buddha pointed out long ago, that mere ego-centered pursuits in disregard of others lead to confusion. Thusknowledge acquired through contact with the unconscious-through "right meditation"-in order to have any significance,must become an integral part of one's life; it must be translatedinto "right action."

After about six years of a fierce struggle with the darkness ofhis unconscious, Jung began to have the first inklings of light.The dawn appeared when he started sketching mandalas-onenew mandala every day. A mandala, the Sanskrit word for circle,is the circular pattern form found in all elements of nature, andin the arts and dances of all people, throughout history. It is alsoen image r:esiding in the depths of the human psyche that spon-tirneously emerges and assumes many different forms. It usuallytakes shape in times of disorganization and inner chaos, and it isr.rr'rtLrre's way of restoring balance and order. Jung discovered,rhror.rgh his own experience, that each single mandala he drewwrls rul cxpression of his inner state of being at that particular

Page 6: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

z8 The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism

time. As his psychic state changed so did the mandala he wouldspontaneously sketch. He came to the conclusion that the man-dala represented "Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind'seternal recreation."'3 At the same time he realized that the effortshe pursued consciouslS prompted so to speak by his personalityNumber One, were undermined by a stronger force that com-pelled him to take a different path. In other words, he could notchoose a goal, rather it chose him.

I had to let myself be carried along by the current, with-out a notion of where it would lead me. When I begandrawing the mandalas, however, I saw that everything,all the paths I had been following, all the steps I hadtaken, were leading back to a single point-namely tothe mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that themandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It isthe path to the center, to individuation.sa

Thus the forceful and persistent question in his mind wasanswered-the question as to what this process is all about andwhat its destination is. The goal was the Self, the alpha and omegaof psychic development, for the Self is the proto-image out ofwhich the person emerges, and the culmination of his growth.

And then Jung had a dream that was symbolic of his situa-tion at the time (darkness and isolation, but also an emergingvision of light and flowering of new life), and through its elab-orate imagery unmistakably pointed to the center, the Self, asthe goal.

Through this dream I understood that the Self is the prin-ciple and archetype of orientation and meaning. Thereinlies its healing function. For me, this insight signified anapproach to the center and therefore to the goal. Out ofthis emerged a first inkling of my personal myth.ss

Carl Gustau Jung 29

This was an event of tremendous importance, a turning pointin Jung's life and his work. It was the climax of his confronrationwith the unconscious, his six years of solitary battle with the darkdepths of his psyche. Jung describes these years as

the most important in my life-in them everything essen-tial was decided. It all began then; the later details areonly supplements and clarifications of the material thatburst forth from the unconscious , and at first swampedme. It was the prima materia for a lifedme's work.t'

It was during those years that he made the discovery of thecollective unconscious and developed the concepts of the arche-types and the Self. But much work still lay ahead of him: all thefantasies and material that had flooded him from rhe unconsciousand the insights he gained needed to be built on a solid founda-tion of scientific theory. That work gradually unfolded as Jungencountered alchemy.

In alchemy he discovered that, unlike in ChristianitS the fem-inine principle is as important as the masculine. The symbols inalchemS "those old acquaintances" of Jung, fascinated him."But he began really to understand it after reading a Chinesealchemical text,The Secret of the Golden Flower.ss This was alsoprobably the beginning of his interest in Oriental philosophiesand spiritual traditions. To Jung "the secret of the alchemy wasin...the transformation of personality through the blending andfusion of the noble with the base components...of the consciouswith the unconscious."se In alchemy he found a correspondenceto his psychologS which gave his work a confirmation of itsvalidity. It was not, however, the end product of Jung's creativejourneS for he did not stop with psychology: he went beyond it.

(lo lrpcrrvE UNcoNScrous

f rrng's greatest conrribution to psychology was his theory of the

Page 7: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

30 The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism

collective unconscious. He argued that this concept was not a

speculative idea or a philosophical postulate, but that there wasan empirical proof for it.'o He defines the collective unconsciousas the part of the psyche that owes its existence exclusively tohereditS and not to personal experiences that had been consciousat one time and then disappeared from consciousness. The latteris the layer of the psyche that he calls the personal unconsciousand that contains all the material that the individual has merelyforgotten or repressed, either deliberately or unintentionally.''Thus Jung makes the distinction between the personal uncon-scious, the subjective psyche, and the objective psyche that hecalls the impersonal, transpersonal, or collective unconscious. Hediscovered the collective unconscious through his own dreamsand visions, as well as those of his patients, including fantasies ofschizophrenics. He observed that all this material often containedmythological motifs and religious symbols. Jung then came tothe following conclusion:

In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is ofa thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to bethe only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personalunconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psy-chic system of a collective, universal, and impersonalnature which is identical in all individuals. This collec-tive unconscious does not develop individually but isinherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes,which can only become conscious secondarily and whichgive definite form to certain psychic contents.62

Ancnnrvpps

According to Jung, archetypes-the contents of the collectiveunconscious-are analogous to instincts. Both are fundamentaldynamic forces in the human personality that pursue their inher-ent goals, in the psychic or physiological organisms respectively.

Carl Gustau Jung 3r

Jung also refers to archetypes as primordial images, "the mostancient and the most universal thought-form of humanity. Theyare as much feelings as thoughts."53 But it should be stressed thatarchetypes are not inherited ideas; they are merely propensities inthe human psyche that can express themselves in specific formsand meaning when activated.

There are as many archetypes as there are typical situa-tions in life. Endless repetition has engraved these expe-riences into our psychic constitution, not in the form ofimages filled with content, but at first only as forms witb-out content, representing merely the possibility of a cer-tain type of perception and action. \7hen a situationoccurs which corresponds to a given archetype, thatarchetype becomes activated and a compulsivenessappears, which, like an instinctual drive, gains its wayagainst all reason and Will....'o

In developing the concept of archetypes and their dynamism,Jung quotes a remarkable example: the genesis of the idea ofconservation of energS credited to Robert Mayer in the nine-teenth century. The latter was not a physicist who might be nat-urally preoccupied with such a concept, but a physician, and theidea came to him in a most extraordinaty way, during a voyagein the tropics. Here is what Mayer wrote about his experienceand discovery:

I'm far from having hatched out the theory at my writingdesk. [He then reports certain physiological observationshe had made...as ship's doctor.] Now, if one wants to beclear on matters of physiology, some knowledge of phys-ical processes is essential, unless one prefers to work atthings from the metaphysical side, which I find infinitelydisgusting. I therefore held fast to physics and stuck to thesubject with such fondness that, although many may

Page 8: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

)z The Essence of Jung's Psycbctlogy and Tibetan Buddhism

laugh at me for this, I paid but little attention to thatremote quarter of the globe in which we were, preferringto remain on board where I could work without inter-mission, and where I passed many an hour as thoughinspired, the like of which I cannot remember eitherbefore or since. Some flashes of thought that passedthrough me while in the roads of Surabaya were at onceassiduously followed up, and in their turn led to freshsubjects. Those lines have passed, but the quiet examina-tion of that which then came to the surface in me hastaught me that it is a truth, which cannot only be subjec-tively felt, but objectively proved. It remains to be seenwhether this can be accomplished by a man so littleversed in physics as I am.''i

The question that Jung asked himself is: where did this newidea come from and impose itself upon consciousness, and whatis the force behind it that overwhelmed the personality? And theanswer can be found only in applying his theory of archetypes,that is, that "the idea of energy and its conservation must be a

primordial image that was dormant in the collective uncon-scious."'n Jung then proceeds to demonstrate that such a pri-mordial image indeed existed since most primitive times,expressed in many different forms, as for example the idea ofdemonism, magic power, the soul's immortality, and many oth-ers. The notion of energg its preservation or rather transmuta-tion, is the central concept in all tantras.

THp SE.rp

As already stated, there are countless archetypes, but the one thatencompasses all others, the quintessential archetype, is the Self.It is the organizing, guiding, and uniting principle that gives thepersonality directlon and meaning ln life. It is the beeinning, thesourcc of the personality ancl its ultimirtc goirl. thc culrrinrrti<ln <lf

Carl Gustau Jung 3)

one's growth, that is, self-realization. The Self is the homo tottts,the timeless man, that not only expresses his unique individual-ity and wholeness but is the symbol of man's divinity when hetouches the cosmos, his microcosm reflecting the macrocosm.

Intellectr"rally the Self is no more than a psychological con-cept, a construct that serves to express an unknowableessence which we cannot grasp as such, since by defini-tion it transcends our powers of comprehension. It mightequally well be called the "God within us." The begin-nings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricablyrooted in this point, and all our highest and ultimate pur-poses seern to be striving towards it.";

Jung also refers to the Self as being both unitemporal andlunique, and universal and eternal, the one expressing man'sessence, and the other being a God-image, an archetypal symbol.o'

INorvrouRTIoN

Between the stages of the self as a source in the beginning and theSelf as a goal, in its ultimate destination, there is an ongoing con-tinuity of development, which Jung has called the process of indi-viduation. It is the process of integration of the personality. Thisarchetypal, universal psychic process is autonomous and uncon-scious, and it has run its course since immemorial time. It reflectspsyche's striving to harmonize its conscious and unconscious con-rents, and it is the natural and spontaneous urge for self-realization and wholeness, the quest for meaning. Collectively ithas been expressed in the multitudes of myths and symbols inwhich mankind has given outward form to its inner experiences.()n an individual level, although the process always goes on sincerhe psyche never rests, it may remain purely unconscious or itnrrry become a conscious task. Whether it will lead in one direc-tiorr or thc othcr depcnds orr the irrtervclttiorr <tf corrsci<lusr.tcss.

Page 9: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

tj4 The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism

The difference between the two roads is tremendous, and theiroutcome far reaching. In one instance when consciousness is notinvolved, "the end remains as dark as the beginning." In theother instance "the personality is permeated with light," and con-sciousness is further extended and enhanced.o'

Through alchemy and its symbolism Jung became aware thatthe transformation of personality takes place in the interactionbetween the ego and the unconscious, out of which a new unifiedbeing emerges. It is a new being, yet not entirely new, for it wasalways there, but dormant and hidden in the chaos of the uncon-scious. The process requires an open communication betweenthe conscious mind and its unconscious counterpart, a sensitiv-ity to the signals of the unconscious, which speaks in the lan-guage of symbols. It is the constant dialogue between the outerand the inner, the mundane life and its symbolic dimensions-dreams, fantasies, visions.

The arduous task of conscious confrontation with the uncon-scious has the effect of expanding consciousness, of diminishingthe sovereign powers of the unconscious and bringing about therenewal and transformation of personality. This change, which isthe central object of alchemy and of Jung's psychotherapy, comesabout through the principle that Jung called the transcendentfunction.'"

Indeed it is more than an arduous and often painful task, as

Jung experienced himself. It is a battle between two opposingforces, each contending for its own rights, the battle between rea-son and rationality versus chaos and irrationality. At the sametime it has to be a collaboration between the conscious and uncon-scious attitudes of the psyche: consciousness must heed its uncon-scious counterpart, must listen to the inner voices, so that thelatter can cooperate with consciousness instead of disturbing it.

The confrontation of the two positions generates a ten-sion charged with energy and creates a living, thirdthing-not a logical stillbirth...but a rrovenrent or-rt of

Carl Gwstau Jung

the suspension berween opposites, a living birth that leadsto a new level of being....''

Since the process aims at the total transformation of person-ality, nothing that belongs to it, no aspect of it, must beexcluded.'2 And the consummation of this union of opposites, inorder to create new life-not a logical stillbirth-musr beattended not only by Logos, the rational principle, but by Erostoo, the principle of relatedness."

So, individuation leads from oneness, emptiness, the undif-ferentiated state of unconscious ness, participation mystique,,u toever-increasing differentiation, the supremacy of the ego, to one-ness, emptiness again, which has become fullness-to the Self,the mandala. The end has rejoined its beginning, and the ulti-mate goal its original source.

ArcnEl.yThe evolution of personality or, as Jung called it, the individua-tion process, has been expressed in different terms by the sym-bolism of alchemy. Even though the alchemists set themselves thetask of revealing the secrets of matter and chemical transforma-tion, their labor primarily reflected a parallel psychic process,which met with a strong resonance in Jung's mind and had anenormous impact on his work.

To Jung the chemical experiments of the alchemists, thewhole alchemical opus, was of a psychic nature rather than asearch for the secret of gold-making. The alchemists themselvesproclaimed that "Aurum nostrum non est aurum uwlgi.-,'Whileworking in his laboratory the alchemist had certain psychic expe-riences that he attributed to the properties of the matter; Jungbelieved that in fact he was experiencing his own unconscious."ln seeking to explore it [the matterl he projected rhe uncon-scious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it."'o

It hrrs bccn generirlly unclerstood that the purpose of alchemy

35

Page 10: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

I)6 The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Bwddhism

was to produce a miraculous substance, gold, panacea, elixir oflife. But in actuality, above and beyond that, the very essence ofall alchemical work was a spiritual exercise whose goal was noneother than spiritual transformation, Iiberation of God from thedarkness of matter." The bewildering profusion of complicatedand often grotesque alchemical symbolism describes pictoriallythe process of change from psychic sleep to awakening, and thestages along that journey. Jung found in this symbolism an illus-tration of what he had called the process of individuation: one'sgradual unfoldment from an unconscious to a conscious state,and the healing process underlying it.'8

In medieval European alchemy, which he discovered by wayof Chinese alchemy, Jung found the spiritual roots of a Westerntradition that addressed itself to the same issues that preoccu-pied him all his life. Thus alchemy provided him with a histori-cal foundation as well as validation for his own findings.

As in Jung's psychology, opposites and their union play a

major role in alchemical procedure. The union is the motivatingforce and the goal of the process. But at the beginning of theprocess the opposites form a dualism, conceived in numerousterms such as: upper and lower, cold and warm, spirit (soul) andbodS heaven and earth, bright and dark, active and passive, pre-cious and cheap, good and evil, open and hidden, inner and outer,East and West, god and goddess, masculine and feminine."

The primal opposites are consciousness and unconsciousness,whose symbols are Sol and Luna-sun and moon-the one rep-resenting the diurnal and the other the nocturnal side of con-sciousness, the male and female principles. The correspondingalchemical substances are sulfur and salt. Sulfur, because of itsassociation with the sun, is the masculine principle expressingconsciousness. In alchemical texts it is referred to as "the maleand universal seed," the "spirit of generative power," the "sourceof illumination and all knowledge." It has a double nature: in itsinitial crude form it is burning and corrosive and has an offensiveodor, but when transmuted, "cleansed of a[ impurities, it is the

Carl Gustau .lung j7

matter of our stone."8" Salt, because of its association with themoon, is the feminine principle and expresses various aspects ofthe unconscious. Like its counterpart sulfur, salt contains a dou-ble nature: in its unrefined form, coming from the sea, it is bitterand harsh, like tears and sorrow, yet at the same time it is themother of wisdom when transmuted. As the principle of Eros, itconnects everything. Salt is also associated with earth, and assuch represents the Great Mother and the archetype of the fem-inine deity.

Starting with the original substance, the prima materia thatcontains the opposites, the alchemist's task is to harmonize them,to bring them into unity, which culminates in the "chymical mar-riage," the consummation of his work. Jung postulates that on apsychological level the union of opposites cannot be achieved bythe conscious ego alone-by reason, analysis-which separatesand divides; nor even by the unconscious alone-which unites; itneeds a third element, the transcendent function. In the sameway, for the conjunction to take place, the alchemist needed athird factor, a medium, which was Mercurius (mercury). Thusthere is sulfur, the masculine principle, salt, its feminine coun-terpart, and mercury, the substance that is both liquid and solid.By nature Mercurius is androgynous and partakes of both themasculine and feminine elementsl in himself he unites the spiri-tual and physical, the highest and lowest.

Alchemy is full of paradoxes-as Jung's work is-since para-doxes are the only way remotely to express the inexpressible, thephenomena of the psyche that can be apprehended only throughdirect experience.'' The mysterious Mercurius is the paradox parexcellence. The fertile imagination of the alchemists gave count-less synonyms to Mercurius, and the most fantastic descriptionsof his attributes. Here is one example, taken from an alchemicaltreatise, in which the alchemist asks nature to tell him about hersorr Mercurius, and she responds:

Know that I have only one such son; he is one of seven,

Page 11: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

18 The Essence of lung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddbism

and the first among them; and though he is now allthings, he was at first only one. In him are the four ele-ments, yet he is not an element. He is a spirit, yet he hasa body; a man, yet he performs a woman's parti a boy, yethe bears a man's weapons; a beast, yet he has the wingsof a bird. He is poison, yet he cures leprosy; life, yet hekills all things; a King, yet another occupies his throne; heflees from the fire, yet fire is taken from him; he is water,yet does not wet the hands; he is earth, yet is sown; he isair and lives by water.82

Jung recognized in the multiple and paradoxical aspects ofMercurius a reflection of the nature of the self, which is a com-plexio oppositorum, and must necessarily be such if it is to sym-bolize man's totality. To Jung, Mercurius represented not onlythe self but the individuation process as well, and because of thelimitless number of his names, also the collective unconscious.s3

The first phase of the alchemical process was the black stage,nigredo, characterized by confusion, frustration, depression, "thedark night of the soul" of St. John of the Cross, in which never-theless all potentialities and the seeds of future development arecontained. Then as the fire of the alchemical retort, the psychicfire, purges the elements, the second white phase, albedo, isbrought about. It is the stage of clarification and intensificationof life and consciousness. The final phase is the red stage, whenthe drama reaches its conclusion: the chemical process of con-iunctio, the appearance of the philosophers' stone, and at thesame time the completion of psychic synthesis-the emergence ofthe Self.

\fhat is the philosophers' stone, the lapis? It was said that itheals and bestows immortality. To Jung "the lapis is a fabulousentity of cosmic dimensions which surpasses human under-standing." Like "man's totality, the Self, [itl is by definitionbeyond the bounds of knowledge.""

However, to the alchemist Gerhard Dorn, the lapis was not

Carl Gustau lung 39

the completion of the art. The final and highest conjunction wasthe union of the whole human being with unus mwndus, the oneworld. This is when the individual psyche touches eternity, theidentity of the personal with the transpersonal. It is the numi-nous event, the mystery of the unio mystica, or in the Orientaltraditions, the experiences of tao, samadhi, or sdtori.ss

Jung concluded that the phases of the alchemical procedures,the reconciliation of conflicting opposites into a unity, paralleledthe stages of the individuation process." In his dreams, as well asthose of his patients, he could at times discern a portrayal of themandala, symbolizing the multiplicity of the phenomenal worldwithin an underlying unity. The mandala symbolism represenrsthe psychological equivalent of unws mwndws, while its parapsy-chological equivalent is Jung's concept of synchronicity.

SyNcnnoNrrcrry

All of Jung's discoveries were accompanied by dreams or syn-chronistic events that either pointed the way or gave him confir-mation that he was proceeding in the right direction. At the timewhen he was diligently drawing mandalas, he produced a paint-ing of a golden castle. The painting was particularly intriguingbecause of its Chinese quality, and he was puzzled by it. Shortlyafterward he received from the sinologist Richard Wilhelm acopy of The Secret of the Golden Flower, an old Chinese alchem-ical text, which marked the beginning of his fascination withalchemy. The event of receiving the Chinese manuscript was a

synchronistic one, and furthermore it was connected with a man-dala painting of Jung's. This striking coincidence, this singleevent, contained in itself both the mandala symbolism and theprinciple of synchronicitS namel5 the double expression of unwsmundus-psychological and parapsychological. And indeed Jungfelt the powerful effect one experiences in moments of encounterwith the unus mundus. This event occurred at the time when thecycle of his alienation was drawing to a close. In his autobiogra-

Page 12: AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM - educare€¦ · JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND TISE,TTN BUDDHISM ... Carl Gustav Jung was born. ... and they all became part of his famous Red Book. But

I40 The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism

phy Jung remembers: "That was the first event which broke myisolation. I became aware of an affinity: I could establish tieswith something and someone."'- Perhaps it is not a mere coinci-dence that Jung for the first time announced to the world hisconcept of synchronicity in a memorial address to his friendRichard Wilhelm, the man who played such a significant part ata crucial period in Jung's life.

Synchronicity is the most abstract and most elusive of Jung'sconcepts. Jung describes synchronicity as "a meaningful coinci-dence of two or more events, where something other than theprobability of chance is involved""' The connections of eventsare not the result of the principle of cause and effect, but of some-thing else that Jung called an acausal connecting principle. Thecritical factor is the meaning, the subjective experience that comesto the person: events are connected in a meaningful way' that is'events of the inner and outer world, the invisible and the tangi-ble, the mind and the physical universe. This coming together atthe right moment can happen only without the conscious inter-vention of the ego. Instead it is prepared in the unconsciousnessof the psyche, and it is as though the psyche had its own secretdesign, irrespective of ego's conscious wishes. Such synchronisticevents, of smaller or larger proportions' occur to most people indaily life, but as with dreams, if we do not recognize them andpay attention to them, they remain insignificant.

Jung gives examples from his practice when patients he wastreating had uncanny coincidences that put them in touch with a

deeper than conscious level of experience, and convinced them ina dramatic, unequivocal way of the reality and limitlessness of theunconscious. Of particular interest is the case of the young, well-educated woman, who, with her very one-sided logical mind,was stubbornly unresponsive to Jung's efforts to soften herrationalism. One day as she was telling her dream of the nightbefore, involving a golden scarab that was given to her, a flyinginsect persistently knocked at the window obviously attemptingto enter tlre room..f ung opened the windoq let the ir.rsect irr ancl

Carl Gustau Jung 4r

caught it. The insect turned out to be a golden-green beetle, verymuch resembling the scarab from the dream.

I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, "Hereis your scarab." This experience punctured the desiredhole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellec-tual resistance. The treatment could now be continuedwith satisfactory results."

In developing his concept of synchronicity, Jung related it tothe discoveries of modern theoretical physics, from which we hadlearned that causality and prediction are no longer valid in themicrophysical world.'" He concluded that there is a commonbackground between microphysics and his depth psychology.''At the same time Jung went back to ancient Chinese philosophyand recognized a correspondence between synchronicity and theineffable idea of tao. In fact it was the I Cbing, the Chinese BooAof Cbanges, and its method, with which Jung had personal expe-rience, that was to him a major inspiration in developing the con-cept of synchronicity. The two seemingly opposite frameworks,the rational scientific and the intuitive philosophical, are by nomeans contradictory. In his book, The Tao of Physics, FritjofCapra addresses himself to this very point and argues that thereare close parallels between basic concepts of modern physics andEastern mystical teachings. The findings of theoretical physicsreveal a universe that is a harmonious, unified process, a dynamicweb of interrelated elements. This is precisely the fundamentalthought in Buddhist and Taoist philosophies. And to Jung, syn-chronistic events point to "a profound harmony between allforms of existence."t' 'V7hen experienced as such, the synchro-nistic event becomes a tremendously powerful occurrence thatgives the individual a sense of transcending time and space.