Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

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sort of foundering in political problems over gender issues, and so forth, uhm which I
think can only drive away people who have any serious interest in what I think
religion is about, which is probably more like spirituality when one gets down to it.
Uhm so I suppose what, to try and answer your question, I suppose what I think these
things are about is something ontological, you know how does one actually conceive
the universe and how do we conceive our lives within it (pause) and those questions
are now being debated more interestingly and very often, I think by the people who
are talking about neuroscience and the people talking about consciousness and
psychology and the people talking about Buddhism, which is much more in dialogue
with these things than they are by, as far as I know, the established churches. I think
this may be different, as it is such a vast scene and one just doesn’t know enough and I
think about what you’re saying about not having enough time to read. That is very
true to me too (pause). I think Judaism for example is probably getting into some of
these debates, much more than Christian churches that I know of. But I’m very
struck, for example, by the Dali Lama setting up formal meetings between advanced
meditators and neuroscientists and psychologists and one psychoanalyst has got
involved in those discussions, did I say neuroscientists? Because he is saying
Buddhism has its own way of construing consciousness, which has been very
carefully researched by meditation over the millennia. But now here are scientists
coming from a completely different angle, but with the same interest, so to speak, in
thinking about what does the consciousness tell us, what is consciousness, let’s get
into a dialogue let’s share because Buddhism has something to learn from
neuroscience and neuroscience from Buddhism. This seems to me to be the creative
end of what is going on at the moment, and my sense is that the theistic religions are
probably going to have to join that conversation and probably change very radically in
the process (soft).
AR: Yes I think certainly historically there’s been some
discussion/debate/engagement/dialogue/thinking about mysticism, there have been
theologians who have met with other people, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist and probably
exemplified by Thomas Merton, you know, who was engaging much more with some
ideas. So I think that certainly there is a strand of dialogue that exists.
DB: yes
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