Psychology & Buddhism.pdf

Responsibility in Daseinsanalysis and Buddhism 157
responses, but not reacting to them, Therese was able to isolate the core phenomenon,
i.e., her illness, from her responses to her illness. She was experiencing
a different way of being in the world, one that entailed action, but more
importantly, restraint when appropriate.
Therese was encouraged to observe and experience change in nature. She
reported that once when she was feeling depressed about her increasing loss of
hair, she focused her attention on a deciduous tree that was shedding its leaves,
and observed the changing forms of the passing clouds. Her experiences with
impermanence in nature were deeply moving and profound and she gained the
insight that change, including death, is natural and inevitable. In Buddhist terms,
Therese had realised for herself the Buddha’s advice that if a person can see and
accept change universally, it will be easier to accept change at the personal level.
Experiencing change in this way, she spoke of a feeling of oneness and interrelatedness
with the universe, and a lessening sense of isolation and alienation.
Therese appeared to have cultivated a way of understanding and relating to the
world that Heidegger would describe as meditative thinking.
Therese is now in remission. She attributed her “cure” to the fact that while
the medical profession helped her with her physical symptoms, her priest with her
spirituality, meditation and her meditative attitude towards life helped her gained
an inner peace of mind. Therese has succinctly summed up an approach to mental
health that Marsella (1982) would term as “harmony among parts.” (p. 366).
Therese’s case evinces the efficacy of integrating comparable daseinsanalytic
and Buddhist practices and ideas into an approach that helps to empower the
individual to take responsibility. The daseinsanalytic practice of phenomenological
seeing and the Buddhist meditative practice of concentration and mindfulness
enabled her to separate her illness from her fear of dying. However being able to
see the issues does not ensure that she accepts her situation. The Buddhist practice
of experiencing change as ontological assisted her in coming to terms with
the knowledge that she is not exempt from this natural and inevitable process.
This insight helped her to relate the ontological situation (that everything is
impermanent) to her ontic situation (that she is impermanent) and enabled her
to let go of her attachment to life. Hence, for Therese, the possibility of dying no
longer poses an issue and she was able get on with living.
Conclusion
This comparative analysis demonstrates that daseinsanalysis and Buddhism
are fundamentally compatible and that there is a genuine basis for an authentic,
healthy engagement through an enlarged notion of responsibility, since each
perspective is made more meaningful by an understanding of the other. The
Buddha’s teachings relating to impermanence, non-self, unsatisfactoriness,