Psychology & Buddhism.pdf

34 C. Peter Bankart, Kathleen H. Dockett, and G. Rita Dudley-Grant
The role of the teacher is supremely important in Zen practice, and this is
probably one of the main reasons why so many Western psychotherapists and
counselors have been attracted to its application in the consulting room. This is
also, of course, one of the main potential drawbacks to the application of Zen in
therapeutic settings. The teacher/therapist/Master/sensei is so important and so
powerful in the life of the student that the danger of abuse and exploitation is
always present. Reading first-hand accounts of encounters of somewhat naive
Westerners with unscrupulous “Buddhist” gurus (Bankart, 1997; Singer & Lalich,
1996) will fill any ethical therapist with anger and disappointment.
As a great many other writers have noted, individuals encounter great risk in
the process of finding either a therapist or a teacher. It is sadly unlikely that many
people in the West will ever encounter a sensei with the skill, moral fortitude, personal
openness, and human compassion that is required to guide a student/client
through the labyrinth of self discovery that is involved in wisdom practices. The
possibilities for personal, financial, and sexual exploitation are too numerous, and
the screening/training of Western therapists is too superficial for us to imagine
otherwise. It has taken our profession altogether too long to recognize the vulnerability
of women and girls in this process; and we still don’t have any deep
awareness of how often boys and men are also exploited by others in positions of
trust (Bankart, 2000).
Nichiren Buddhism. This Buddhism is a socially engaged form of Mahayana
Buddhism. It emerged in 13th-century Japan at a time of considerable confusion
in the religious community about which of a conflicting array of teachings and
practices represented the definitive teachings of the Buddha. It was also a time of
unprecedented natural disasters, man-made conflicts, and great suffering among
the people. Remonstrations, propagation, and conversions among different sects
were the order of the day as they debated which of the Buddha’s sutras was
correct and therefore had the power to alleviate the sufferings of the people and
the disasters befalling the nation.
Nichiren (1222–1282), the only son of a poor fisherman’s family, was dissatisfied
with the contradictory teachings of the eight Buddhist sects of his day.
Deeply motivated to discover the wisdom of Buddhism and the correct practice to
alleviate the people’s suffering, he entered the priesthood at age 16 and devoted the
remainder of his life to study and propagation. Exhaustive study of all the sutras of
the Buddha and the eight sects of Japan led Nichiren to conclude that the correct
teaching for the time was the Lotus Sutra. This sutra is “a core Mahayana Buddhist
scripture that emphasizes the worth of all people as possessing the Buddha nature
and the mission of Buddhists to be socially active to help others based on compassion
and the sustaining power of eternal Buddhahood” (Chappell, 1999, p. 245).
At age 32, Nichiren proclaimed that chanting the phrase Nam-myohorenge-kyo,
the title and essence of the Lotus Sutra, would lead one to perceive the