Psychology & Buddhism.pdf

Responsibility in Daseinsanalysis and Buddhism 147
impermanence, and the message that the Buddha wants to convey is that everything
is unsatisfactory because nothing remains the same forever.
In the first noble truth, the Buddha focuses on three types of unsatisfactoriness
or suffering – the suffering associated daily existence such as death, aging,
and disease; the suffering associated with the impermanence of sensation and
experiences, and the suffering associated with the impermanence of conditioned
states. The third type of suffering refers to change which takes place at the
imperceptible level, for example in human bodies when each cell “rises” and
“dies” naturally. No secondary condition is needed to bring about the third type
of suffering, as it occurs spontaneously.
The final concept that provides the ontological foundation for responsibility
is the doctrine of dependent origination. Applied to human existence, this doctrine
highlights a series of psychological factors and shows how they are conditionally
related to each other, that is how one thing leads to another. The importance of
understanding this causal process, the Buddha says, is to give the individual the
option of interrupting the cycle, so that things could be otherwise. For example
when we encounter an unpleasant situation, we may react with anger. This reaction
could snowball into more feelings of anger, fear and anxiety. However if we
understand that anger is perpetuating all the other negative feelings, and take
the responsibility to interrupt the process, either by letting go or working through
the anger, the associative feelings could dissipate.
The principle of dependent origination originally applied to the aggregates
that constitute the human being has been extended by the Mahayana school to
everything in the phenomenal world through the concept of emptiness (sunyata).
According to this concept “nothing exists in itself or by itself... but is dependent
upon and related to everything else” (Jacobson, 1983, p. 64). Hence the Buddhist
view of the world enunciated in the doctrine of dependent origination, and
extended by the concept of sunyata is one of inter-relatedness. In recognising that
everything is inter-connected and changeable, we learn not to cling to the past or
be fearful of the future. In this way, we take responsibility for ourselves in the
present. As Jacobson (1983) points out, in comprehending the transitoriness of
life, people develop an awareness that “what is really real is each fleeting momentary
now (p. 38) and learn to value each moment. We find similar sentiments
expressed in Heidegger’s and Boss’s explanation of Da-sein as “Being-untodeath,”
and Boss’s (1979) advice to people to take responsibility for the present
as no two moments remain the same.
What gives rise to the ontic inability to take responsibility? Buddhism maintains
that this is related to our failure to come to terms with the nature of reality,
and is grounded on ignorance, delusion and craving. Because people are ignorant
that everything is ontologically impermanent, devoid of self-existence, and
unsatisfactory, they delude themselves into thinking that if they could somehow
manipulate things, including life, they could find a measure of satisfaction.