Huntington - The Triumph of Narcissism: Theravada Buddhist Meditation in The Marketplace

The Triumph of Narcissism:
Theravada Buddhist Meditation
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in the Marketplace
C. W. Huntington, Jr.*
In recent years, mindfulness based psychotherapy has emerged as a lu-

crative business with its own brand of tech-savvy, scientific gurus and a
literature that relies heavily on psychotherapeutic language for the trans-
formation of Theravda Buddhist meditation into a secular, Western
idiom. My purpose in this article is to take a fresh look at some of the
earliest rigorous psychological research on vipassan meditation. I argue
first that the perspective articulated in those publications embodies an
understanding of Buddhist meditative practice that is considerably more
nuanced than the perspective of contemporary psychotherapeutic dis-
course aimed at behavioral and affective change. Second, I argue that in
conflating vipassan-bhvan with psychotherapy, we effectively excise
the soteriological heart of Buddhist meditation, the great, sacred mystery
of the transcendent (lokuttara) embodied in teachings on no-self
(anatta). When this excision is complete, Buddhism becomes something
less than a religion, something less than what it is.
Religions draw lines. They distinguish between what is compatible and

what is incompatible with the sacred. In classical terminology, this is the
separation of the sacred and the profane.
William Paden (1988: 141)
*C.W. Huntington, Jr., Department of Religious Studies, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY 13820,
USA. E-mail: huntingtonc@hartwick.edu. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2012
annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. I wish to thank, in particular, Andrew Cooper,
Patrick Pranke, Andy Rotman, and James Shaheen for their helpful comments and criticisms on that
and/or subsequent drafts. The views expressed here are, of course, entirely my own.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, September 2015, Vol. 83, No. 3, pp. 624648
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfv008
Advance Access publication on March 19, 2015
The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of
Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
Huntington: The Triumph of Narcissism 625
BACK IN THE MID-1980s, I did a month-long Buddhist meditation

retreat at a temple in Bodh Gaya, India. The retreat was led by a
Westerner who had trained in Thailand as a Theravda monk. As is the
custom in such retreats, we maintained noble silence except for an hour-
long Dharma talk the instructor delivered each evening. The talk was fol-
lowed by questions from the meditators. One evening someone asked the
teacher if he was enlightened. It was the kind of intimate, personal
question that many Westerners are dying to ask, but by some unspoken
rule of Buddhist etiquette, no one dares. I was eager to hear his answer.
And here is what he said: I have never been enlightened; I am not
enlightened; and I never will be enlightened.
As I recall, he did not explain his response, rather simply let it rever-
berate in stillness of the great stone hall. Coming, as it did, in the context
of weeks of intense vipassan practice, I remember that his words had a
powerful effect on me. There were several hundred participants in that
retreat, and I have wondered, over the years, how many among them
appreciated just how cleverly his answer highlighted the signature teach-
ing of Buddhism.
The Buddhist tradition in virtually all its manifestations asserts that
belief in an unchanging, individual or personal I at the center of experi-
ence is the ultimate delusion that Prince Siddhartha overcame that night
under the Bodhi Tree when he sawwith absolute claritythat the idea
of such a self is similar to an optical illusion. It is but the misreading, or
reification, of a constantly shifting nexus of sensations and perceptions,
memories, feelings, and so forth. There is most definitely an idea of self
that appears to the conscious mind, just as, under certain circumstances,
one can become conscious of a visual perception of water on the highway.
But the perception of waterlike the idea of a personal selfis an illu-
sion in the sense that it is nothing but a mental construct. Nonetheless,
attachment to this mere idea brings with it endless suffering (dukkha),
and the eradication of precisely this kind of egocentric suffering is the
ultimate concern of all Buddhist doctrine and practice. It is this concern,
articulated in this particular fashion, which originally distinguished the
Buddhist perspective from the doctrine of self (tman) we find in the
Upanisads. As Matthew Kapstein explains in his discussion of early
Indian soteriology:
[Freedom from sam sra] was to be won, above all, through the achieve-
ment of self-knowledge. But just what was the nature of this self,
knowing which one might be free? About this there was much disagree-
ment, until, with the teaching of the Buddha, a fundamental assumption
of the religious milieu that produced the Upanisads was cast into doubt:
626 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
possibly there was no concrete thing corresponding to self; possibly

self-knowledge was to consist not in the discovery of a firm ground
underlying the constant flux of becoming, but rather in the discovery
that we are in a profound state of error about ourselves, and that selves
are no things at all. (2001: 113)
Elsewhere Kapstein frames the pan-Buddhist position as it evolved over
the centuries:
It is clear that, even if we disregard the difficult questions surrounding

the precise nature of early Buddhist doctrine, some of the most ancient
among the scriptures attributed to the Buddha unmistakably call into
question the notion that each one of us possesses a unique and persisting
self. From these, from the conflicting interpretations of them that arose
among the Buddhas followers in the generations following the founders
passing, and later from their disputes with the non-Buddhist schools of
Indian thought, there evolved in scholastic circles a rich array of increas-
ingly rigorous arguments all to support one conclusion: the self
(tman) or person (pudgala), conceived as an enduring entity that
somehow individuates an otherwise fragmented continuum of mental
and physical events, simply does not exist. (2001: 77)
Within the Theravda tradition, direct experience of the illusory nature

of the idea of a personal selfand the consequent termination or re-
framing of egocentric sufferingis referred to with the Pali term
vipassan, usually translated into English as insight. In the words of
Winston King: Vipassan is the total, supersaturated existentializing of
the Theravda world view that all existence in personal and individual
modes of being, intrinsically and ineradicably embodies impermanence,
pain, and impersonality (1980: 94). That is to say, vipassan, in essence,
is a kind of understanding; specifically, it is the fully matured understand-
ing (n a) of the doctrine of the three characteristics or marks (tilak-
khan a).1 Where the nave person imagines an independent, personal self,
1
In classical Theravda Abhidhamma, vipassan is cultivated in a graduated series of increasingly
subtle forms of understandingthe ten vipassan-n a-s (Bodhi 2000: 346347). All ten such
n a-s have as their object one or another of the three marks: The word vipassan, rendered
insight . . . is the direct meditative perception of phenomena in terms of the three characteristics
impermanence, suffering, and non-self. It is a function of the cetasika of wisdom (pa) directed
towards uncovering the true nature of things (2000: 330). See also Lopez (2012: 87): This insight is
specific. It is insight into the nature of reality, described in the early texts as the understanding that
everything bears three marks: impermanence, suffering, and no self. More generally, it is a single
insight: that there is no self, that there is nothing permanent, enduring, independent, indivisible,
autonomous among the physical and mental elements that constitute the person and that might be
called the self. The precise nature of the particular absencethis absence of self whose
an accomplished meditator (a buddha or an arahant) finds nothing but

impermanence and suffering.
This use of the Pali word vipassan to identify a particular kind of under-
standing grounded in close study of Buddhist doctrine has been preserved in
a modern Burmese meditative tradition rooted in the teachings of the monk
Ledi Sayadaw (18461923). Ledi Sayadaw developed a lay-oriented style of
meditation that came to define Burmese Buddhism in the twentieth century;
the tradition he founded was eventually transplanted to the West, beginning
in the late 1960s, by Christopher Titmuss, Jack Kornfeld, Joseph Goldstein,
and a number of others who were deeply influencedknowingly or unknow-
inglyby Sayadaws teachings.2 As Eric Braun explains, for lay people prac-
ticing the form of vipassan taught by Ledi Sayadaw,
One begins with the cultivation of the intellect through learning that
leads to more profound levels of understanding through practice. This
approach stresses intellectual understanding as the foundation for
insight. Close observation of experience, particularly bodily experience,
stems from an educated perspective; it depends on knowing what to look
for, and this knowledge comes, above all, from the schooling Ledi pro-
vides in Abhidhamma teachings. (2013: 144)3
Theravda Buddhist teachers working within parameters broadly defined

by this modern Burmese tradition recommend various methods for the
cultivation of insight (vipassan-bhvan). In general, however, most of
the preferred methods involve a particular form of closely focused obser-
vation known as satipatth na, commonly referred to in English as mind-
fulness meditation, or simply mindfulness. As Braun reminds us,
understanding constitutes the highest wisdom, and the liberating insight, in Buddhismis the
subject of endless commentary across the tradition. Yet, there is the consistent claim that the
understanding of the absence is wisdom, that this is insight. Mogok Sayadaw, a modern Theravda
monk, makes the same point: True vipassan begins when the yogi can observe the arising and
vanishing of body and mind without looking on it as self, me, or mine. This clear mindfulness
where he does not think it is I who meditates or my mind which is concentrated is proper
meditation (cited in Kornfield 1996: 220).
2
Braun (2013) provides by far the best account of Ledi Sayadaws life and teaching and his
influence on contemporary Western practice of vipassan. Cadge (2005) is focused more on
American developments, and specifically on differences between immigrant and convert forms of
Theravda Buddhism. In this article, my concern is exclusively with the later.
3
Ledi presented the true enemy of Buddhists as within their minds: the ignorance or
misconceptions that prompt wrongdoing. In the Manual on Right Views (Sammditth idpan), he
states that all wrong action comes from attaditth i, the view of an enduring sense of self. Until a
Buddhist achieves real insight knowledge, he cannot rid himself of this idea of the self, which is, Ledi
says, the seed and root of all bad views, bad dhammas, and bad kamma. . . . What was novel and of
supreme importance to Ledis project was the coupling of the pursuit of such transformative insight
knowledge to serious doctrinal study for all Buddhists (Braun 2013: 8687).
method and goal are in perfect accord: mindfulness in the orthodox

Theravda conception is not conceptualized as merely neutral observa-
tion; it includes a governing awareness of Buddhist truths about the
nature of the world (2013: 166).4 The nature of the world refers here,
of course, to the three marks, but above all to the absence of self.5
Method and goal are so closely associated in contemporary Western
discourse that English speakers are likely to use the words mindfulness
and vipassan as if they were synonyms. The situation is further compli-
cated when, as is often the case, the English word meditation is used
as a cover term not only for vipassan-bhvan and satipatth na, but
also for a third general category of Buddhist mind-training, samatha-
bhvana technique for calming the mind by focusing attention on a
single object.6 Although forms of samatha-bhvan are typically employed
as precursors to the practice of vipassan-bhvan, the two goals of
samatha and vipassan are nevertheless understood to be wholly distinct.
The critical distinction between samatha and vipassan may be appreci-
ated by briefly examining how two very different forms of attention can be
brought to bear in the actual practice of meditation using the sensation of
respiration as a meditative object (lambana). In the practice of samatha-
bhvan, attention is completely absorbed inidentified withthe sensa-
tion of the air as it passes in and out of the nostrils. If attention strays from
this object, the lapse is to be noticed and corrected. In the cultivation of
vipassan, however, attention is no longer fixed on the object itself; rather, at-
tention shifts its focus from the actual sensation of respiration to viewing (or
attending to) this sensation as something that arises and passes away on its
4
The close association between vipassan-bhvana and satipatth na, taken for granted by most
Western Buddhists, has its origins in the teachings of U Nrada (known as the Mingun Sayadaw), a
contemporary of Ledi Sayadaw who finds canonical authority for the technique of mindfulness in
the Satipatth na-sutta (Majjhima-nikya 10). Two subsequent teachersU Ba Khin and Mahasi
Sayadawwere largely responsible for transmitting his ideas to the West (see King 1980: 116144;
Braun 2013: 160162). Within the Burmese tradition there are, however, competing views on the
proper way of practicing satipatth na within the full context of Theravda doctrine. For an
informative overview of various Burmese approaches to vipassan-bhvana, see Braun (2013), King
(1980), and Kornfield (1996).
5
This is so not only in the Theravda. As Kapstein points out, the line between Buddhist theory
and practice is ultimately invisible: Buddhist arguments contra the substance theory of the self
preserved powerful evidence of their origin in the context of systematic training in meditationand
its analogue (and reinforcement) in abhidharma modes of analysiswhere the exercise of trying and
failing to find the self was key (2001: 103).
6
See Bodhi: The word samatha, rendered calm, denotes quietude of mind. The word is almost
synonymous with concentration (samdh), though it derives from a different root, sam, meaning to
become peaceful. Technically, samatha is defined as the one-pointedness of mind (cittassekaggat) in
the eight meditative attainments. . . . These attainments are called calm because, owing to the one-
pointedness of mind, the wavering or trepidation of the mind is subdued and brought to an end
(2000: 329).
own, without the involvement of any self in the form of either agent or
patient. Clearly, vipassan-bhvan involves learning to observe the sensa-
tion of breathing from an educated perspective.7 With continued practice,
the meditator learns to extend a similar form of observation to other sensa-
tions, then to feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.
Calmness (samatha) is, at best, a proximate destination, whereas
insight (vipassan) is direct personal realization of the truths discovered
and enunciated by the Buddha (Bodhi 2000: 329). In this sense, the
highest stage of vipassan is virtually equivalent to nibbna, the ultimate
soteriological goal of the Buddhist spiritual path.8
Which brings me to a second story. Back in the early 1980s when
I was a graduate student, I had a friend who was a classical pianist,
someone who suffered from recurrent stage fright. He and I used to prac-
tice meditation together on occasion, and we made the trip once or twice
from Ann Arbor to the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.
I left for India in 1983 to do research for my thesis, and when I returned a
few years later, I looked up my friend and discovered that in my absence,
he had pursued an intensive meditation practice, including, at one point, a
continuous three-month silent retreat. I recalled his problem with stage
fright and asked him if all the vipassan practice had helped.
Absolutely.
So youre no longer anxious about performing, I said. Thats great.
Oh, no, he replied. Im still just as anxious as I was. But I no longer

care.
7
See Lopez: In Buddhist literature, insight is not exactly spontaneous and its knowledge is not
exactly unexpected. . . . Buddhist insight involves arriving at an understanding that many others have
gained in the past, and furthermore, an understanding that one has already arrived at intellectually
(2012: 119).
8
Having developed the final vipassan-n a, called anuloma-n a (adaptive understanding), the
mind generates a moment of gotrabh (change of lineage) consciousness which takes nibbna (that is,
the nibbna dhtu) as its object. This is immediately followed by a moment of path (magga)
consciousness wherein there is the realization of nibbna by way of the eradication of defilements. In
the case of a stream-enterer, this realization is called sotpattimagga-n a. This is followed by the
experience of fruition (phala) which lasts for some moments before the mind subsides again into
bhavanga. Depending on the aptitude of the practitioner, this phala can be experienced thereafter at will
in meditation. In the case of a stream-enterer, this repeated experience is called sotpattiphala-citta.
(See Bodhi 2000: 346 ff.) It is important to understand that the vipassan-n a-s are a necessary but
not sufficient condition for liberation. That is, they set the stage and make it possible for the mind to
turn away from the mundane (lokiya) and directly encounter the supramundane which is the nibbna-
dhtu. It is this direct encounter with the supramundane/transcendent (lokottara) that eradicates
defilements in the mental stream. (I am indebted to Pat Pranke for some of the wording here.)
I knew exactly what he was talking aboutas would, I believe, anyone

who has adequate training in this particular form of Buddhist meditation.
Like the meditation teachers remark that I quoted above, my friends
words perfectly captured the first-hand experience of the peculiar form of
detachment that lies at the heart of vipassan-bhvan. I was reminded
of this recently when reading Mark Epsteins discussion of something
he calls emptying the instincts (1995: 215216). Epstein mentions a
patient of his named Carl, who, after considerable vipassan practice,
knew his pain, his anger, and his guilt thoroughly . . . and yet no longer
felt restricted by them. He compares Carls experience here to what pa-
tients with chronic pain report when they are given effective analgesia:
My pain is the same but it doesnt hurt anymore (1995: 216).
According to a widely respected empirical study co-authored by
Daniel Brown and Jack Engler, published in 1984, Rorschachs of ad-
vanced vipassan meditators suggest that such people still suffer from
idiosyncratic conflictual themes such as fear of rejection; struggles with
dependency and needs for nurturance; fear and doubt regarding hetero-
sexual relationships; [and] fear of destructiveness, but they are no longer
defensive about such conflicts (1986a: 189). Speaking of the accomplished
vipassan meditator, the authors note that the content of his experience
is just as it was prior to meditation (Brown and Engler 1986b: 208):
What changes is not so much the amount or nature of conflict but aware-
ness of and reactivity to it. During enlightenment, the locus of awareness,
in a manner of speaking, transcends conflict. Awareness goes to the
other shore so that it is no longer influenced by any mental content. . . .
In this sense, enlightenment provides sufficient distance, or better, a
vastly different perspective, while one continues to play out the repetitive
dynamic themes of life history. (Brown and Engler 1986b: 210)
As Epstein points out, While Buddhist practices lay great emphasis on il-
luminating the representational process, they make little direct effort to
resolve intrapsychic conflict (1995: 126). In a particularly striking illus-
tration of this curious state of mind, Brown and Engler report that the
Rorschach of an acknowledged South Asian meditation master shows
that such a person is not at all interested in expressing the individual
content of his/her mind to an examiner (1986b: 214).
One might refer to this vastly different perspectivethis total lack
of concern with the problems and conflicts inherent to the egoas a kind
of transcendental contentment. And indeed, in an oblique reference to
Sigmund Freud, Brown and Engler themselves refer to the vipassan
master as an embodiment of the ideal of civilization beyond discontent
(1986b: 217). I call it transcendental to emphasize that this kind of con-

tentment has nothing to do with the ego. That is to say, to be content in
the vipassan sense does not mean that I am content. To step back and
view feelings and thoughts and sensations from this perspectivewith
the unusual form of attention characteristic of vipassan meditation
brings with it a profound ease that can only be expressed in an apparent
oxymoron: I am still anxious, but it no longer bothers me.
One last example from a contemporary source might be helpful in
driving home this point. In his book Teach Us to Sit Still, Tim Parks de-
scribes his experience of the unique dis-identification of vipassan medi-
tation in particularly evocative terms:
There comes a point, where, entering fully into the moment, entirely
focused and concentrated, you do indeed cross a border and leave all
pain, physical and mental, behind; you move into a kind of bliss. Then,
and this is the odd thing, you can go back and forth across that border,
at will, with the tiniest mental shift. Bliss . . . pain . . . bliss . . . pain. The
reflection that one has achieved bliss is the return to pain. The elimina-
tion of the reflection is the return to bliss. You cannot be there and con-
gratulate yourself on having arrived. (2003: 309)
Pride in ones spiritual achievements is a most rarefied and intractable

form of narcissistic obsession with the contents of the mind. Nevertheless,
to adapt a well-known Zen saying: Vipassan is purged of every trace of the
stench of self-interest. This is the whole point of vipassan as the direct
experience of liberation from bondage to false notions regarding the
personal self, and it is a point that simply cannot be overstated. Any equiv-
ocation hereeven the slightest misunderstandingwill unavoidably com-
promise precisely what is of supreme value in this, the gold standard of
Theravda Buddhist meditation.
All of this stands in dramatic contrast to the methods and goals of
psychotherapy. As Jeffrey Rubin writes, There is a general agreement
among psychoanalysts about two things: (1) the self exists, and (2)
strengthening and expanding it is a fundamental goal of psychoanalysis
(1995: 64). Ram Dass (a.k.a. Professor Richard Alpert, who was at one
time Chair of the Department of Psychology at Harvard) has made a
similar point: Psychology, as defined and practiced by people like
Erikson, Maslow, and Rogers and the neo-Freudians, as well as the neo-
Jungians and the gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls and so on, does not in the
ultimate sense transcend the nature of ego structure. They . . . seem to be
focused on developing a functional ego structure with which you can
cope effectively and adequately with the existing culture. They have very
little to say about how deeply identified you are with that ego structure
(Kornfield et al. 1998: 9798). It is no exaggeration to say that in psycho-
therapy concern with the personal self and its problems has historically
been at the very core of the project.9
So we have two systems of theory and practice that could not be more
different in terms of their respective concerns: Vipassan meditation
aims at the soteriological goal of dispelling all attachment to what is un-
derstood to be the inherently painful illusion of personal self, whereas
psychotherapy aims to strengthen this same personal self and help make
it fully functional in the world.10 One might reasonably suspect that
efforts to reconcile these two profoundly divergent orientations toward
this central issue would run up against real, if subtle, barriers, both in
theory and in practice. In fact, some fifteen years ago, Jack Kornfield
himself a trained psychotherapistclearly recognized the problem, which
he summarized in this way:
There has been such an interchange between spiritual practice and psy-
chological growth and human potential movements that there is a preva-
lent notion, at least in the psychological world, that Western psychology
can actually get you to the same place as spiritual practice. I think this is
really quite a dangerous assumption. From my observation of how psy-
chological techniques work I see that although they can lead to some
very useful growth and transformation, they do not develop the penetrat-
ing insight that helps one cut through the deeper layers of illusion and
hallucinations about individual separateness. . . . They are useful tech-
niques but their limitations have to be explicitly stated or people can get
caught in them as a dead end. (1996: 99100)
Ten years before Kornfield wrote these words, Jack Engler had been
equally uncompromising in drawing a distinction between psychotherapy
and vipassan meditation:
[Vipassan] meditation . . . is not exactly a form of therapy but a soteriol-

ogy, i.e., a means of liberation. It is said to be an extensive path of develop-
ment that leads to a particular end: total liberation from the experience of
9
My remarks here hold true notwithstanding the ascendency of D. W. Winnicott and other object
relations theorists who argue for a model of the personal self as provisional and context bound. Such
theorists have simply enthroned a new, de-ontologized self whose problems continue to dominate
the literature and practice of psychotherapy.
10
See Engler: The deepest psychopathological problem from the perspective of psychoanalytic
object relations theory is the lack of a sense of self. . . . In contrast, the deepest psychopathological
problem from the Buddhist perspective is the presence of a self and the feeling of selfhood (1986:
2425).
ordinary human suffering and attainment of the genuine wisdom that

comes from true perception of the nature of mind and its construction of
reality. Western therapy utilizes ideational and affective processes as its
vehicle of treatment toward the end of behavioral and affective change.
This is not so of formal [vipassan] meditation. (1986: 216)
Nevertheless, judging by the sheer number of popular magazine articles
and books that have appeared in recent years, interest among professional
psychotherapists in finding a common ground between vipassan medi-
tation and psychotherapy has blossomed into a virtual obsession. A sub-
stantial portion of this literature is concerned with diagnosing a range of
personality disorders common among Westerners who practice various
forms of Buddhist meditation, and making the case that, for such people,
clinical psychotherapy might be useful. This is, in my view, an entirely
appropriate application of psychotherapy as a kind of skillful means
(upya) for dealing with issues that traditionally fall within the scope of
Buddhist training in ethics and in all the various forms of meditative con-
centration, or so-called calming meditation (samatha-bhvan). Within
the Theravda tradition, this would include everything classified under the
rubric of sla, samdhi, or jhna (to use the terminology of Buddhaghosas
Visuddhimagga). Once again, in Kornfields words,
There really are two levels of [Buddhist meditative] practice. On one

level of practice in any spiritual tradition people are working in order to
become comfortable. That is, in a sense, the psychological level of prac-
tice, which aims, for example, at establishing a harmonious community
where you can chant before meals, and keep enough precepts of conduct
to allow people to live together without exploitation. . . . There is another
level of practice, however, which is really inspired by the greatest teachers
and saints. It comes from the most profound kind of archetypal possibil-
ity for human development. This level of practice requires a very deep
transformation, a death of who you think you are. It requires working
with all the things that bring comfort and then being willing to go far
beyond that comfort through realms of different kinds of neurosis,
through despair, through crisis. I think it is very important thing that in
the West that kind of possibility for transformation be kept alive and not
become confused with other goals. (Kornfield et al. 1998: 102, emphasis
added)11
11
In the Theravda context, the critical distinction between psychological and soteriological
practice is maintained with dramatic force by stressing the qualitative difference between jhnic
meditationa form of samatha-bhvan that involves extreme levels of concentration leading to
increasingly refined and blissful trance statesand vipassan-bhvan. See King: The trance mode,
rapt away from the flux of ordinary consciousness, as a peaceful abiding may seem to the meditator
Writing these words in 1998, Kornfield seems already to have sensed

where things were heading. Since the mid-1990s, attempts to reconcile
vipassan-bhvan/satipatth na with psychology have increasingly gone
beyond the relatively straightforward use of clinical therapy as a sort of
indigenous Western form of samatha-bhvan to help modern medita-
tors deal with their personal problems and into the realm of what some-
times appearsto me, at leastto be hyperbole, if not outright hubris.
For example, in the introduction to his influential book Thoughts without
a Thinker, Mark Epstein makes a considerably broader and more
far-reaching claim. In our culture, Epstein writes,
it is the language of psychoanalysis, developed by Freud and carefully

nurtured by generations of psychotherapists over the past century, that
has seeped into general public awareness. It is in this language that the
insights of the Buddha must be presented to Westerners. (1995: 7, empha-
sis added)
Is the language of psychoanalysis really the only idiom capable of pre-

senting Buddhism to a Western audience? What about the language of
philosophy? Or the language of fiction or poetry? Or the language of apo-
phatic mysticismof Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite or the anony-
mous author of The Cloud of Unknowing? Why must it be the language
psychoanalysis?
But perhaps Epstein simply means that using this language is inevita-
ble; if so, then he may be right. In any case, the thematic affinities between
psychotherapy and Buddhist meditation have been discussed elsewhere
(Metcalf 2002), and Braun (2013) has thoroughly explored the historical
developments that led from Ledi Sayadaw to Mark Epstein. My task here is
a bit different. I want to take a close look at the technical vocabulary of psy-
choanalysis and clinical psychology and ask whether or not this language is
able to convey an adequately nuanced appreciation of Buddhist soteriology.
Specifically, do we find, in the literature on Buddhism and psychotherapy,
a consistent, convincing articulation of the crucial difference between
the soteriological purpose of vipassan-bhvantotal liberation (bodhi,
nibbna) from all forms of obsessive concern with the personal self and
the consequent termination of rebirthand the psychotherapeutic aim of
behavioral and affective change? Or is it the case that the rhetoric of psy-
chotherapy tends, in fact, to conflate these two objectives and thus obscure
to be Nibbnic realization itself. Therefore the vipassan method must be applied to the jhnic
experience especially. The presumption is that it is applied by the meditator immediately upon
emerging from a jhnic state to the state just experienced (1980: 95).
the indispensable distinction in Buddhist doctrine and practice between the

realms of the worldly (lokiya) and the transcendent (lokuttara)?
In a provocative essay titled The Emperor of Enlightenment May
Have No Clothespublished not long after the appearance of Thoughts
without a ThinkerJeffrey Rubin asserts that the vast knowledge gained
by psychoanalysts about the ubiquity of self-unconsciousness casts grave
doubt on Buddhist claims about permanent and irreversible self-transfor-
mation (1996: 89; see also 1996: 195). What interests me about this
claim are the unarticulated premises that lie behind the words. Notice,
first of all, Rubins mistaken assumption that the ultimate goal of
Buddhist practice is to somehow transform the personal self. Of course, a
great deal of Buddhist doctrine and practice is directed at some sort of
self-transformation, broadly construed. But, as I have been at pains to
make clear, to view vipassan meditation itself as having anything at all
to do with transformation of the personal self would be, at the very least,
highly misleading. Second, notice how Rubin sees Buddhist enlighten-
ment as the end stage of a particular kind of self-transformation that is
permanent and irreversible. Elsewhere in the same essay he writes,
Buddhist models of the mind . . . acknowledge that the mind, like the
universe, is always in flux. But, with this recognition that everything
changesexcept Enlightenment, which is posited as an unchanging
achievementBuddhism attempts to eat its cake of flux and have it too
(Rubin 1996: 90).
This idea of bodhi or nibbna as an unchanging achievement is yet
another misunderstanding rooted in unexamined assumptions that
Rubin apparently brings from his training as a psychotherapist. As we
have seen, vipassan has nothing to do with any achievement or accom-
plishment of the self; rather it is about ceasing to identify with all such
concerns about the self and its constant obsession with gain and loss.
Learning to see through the illusion of self, as one does when cultivating
vipassan, means understanding the ultimate necessity for letting go of
the whole project of accomplishing or achieving anything. Listen closely,
once again, to my meditation teacher in Bodh Gaya: I have never been
enlightened, I am not enlightened, and I never will be enlightened. As the
utter failure to apprehend a real self, nibbnathe unconditioned
(asankhata)is the discovery of a supramundane dimension (lokuttara)
here and now, in the world as it is. Eternity need not refer to the infinite
extension of linear time.
To put it in the simplest of terms, where the self is, enlightenment
(bodhi)or insight (vipassan)is not. And so, to maintain, as Rubin
does, that there is some kind of flaw in Buddhist soteriology because
of the residues of pathology found in enlightened masters (1996: 179) is
simply to fail to appreciate the essence of vipassan practice. Rubin has

many valuable thoughts to share, but Buddhist enlightenment has nothing
to do with terminating the neurotic machinations of the personality. In this
case, as well, it appears that Rubins attachment to the vocabulary and
methodological assumptions of psychotherapy may actually have ham-
pered his ability to understand the radical dis-identification with the per-
sonal self that lies at the core of vipassan practice.
Similarly, for Epstein, the work of meditation . . . is the work of devel-
oping an ego that is flexible, clear, and balanced (1995: 133). The observ-
ing ego, that which engages in bare attention or free association, is . . .
strengthened in meditation practice (1995: 135, emphasis added). Even
Harvey Aronson, a psychotherapist who is for the most part uncommon-
ly sensitive to issues of Buddhist soteriology, seems occasionally to lapse
into viewing vipassan practice as a tool for achieving therapeutic goals,
in particular the goal of dealing with anger: Cultivating mindfulness to
the point of being able to observe the rising and falling of angerwithout
acting it out and without getting lost in its contentis one effective way
of working with and lessening emotion (2004: 109110). Its important
to note, he goes on, that totally giving up anger is not a therapeutic
goal (2004: 111). Nor, we should as well note, is totally giving up anger
a goal of vipassan meditation, though lessening anger is clearly an
element of Buddhist preliminary practices. Vipassan-bhvan aims not
to lessen or to get rid of anger but rather to cease identifying with angry
feelings and thoughts.12 The crucial difference between getting rid of an
emotion and ceasing to identify with it is fundamental to vipassan medi-
tation, and one needs to be extremely alert to the nuances of any language
that compromises our appreciation of this essential distinction. I return to
this point, but before I do, I briefly examine one last example of how ones
understanding of vipassan practice can be subtlybut profoundly
distorted when viewed through the lens of psychotherapy.
Building on the work of Epstein, Rubin, and others, in 2002, a UCLA
psychiatrist named Jeffrey Schwartz published an account of his work
with patients suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). One of
12
In his review of Rubins book, Aronson argues, unconvincingly in my view, that the target of the
Buddhist critique of self is not directed at our clinging to the psychologically differentiated self of
twentieth century psychology (1998: 65), which he defines as follows (citing Arnold Goldberg): The
pattern of ambitions, skills, and goals, the tensions between them, the program of action they create,
and the activities that strive toward the realization of this program are all experienced as continuous
in space and time . . . they are the self, an independent center of initiative, an independent recipient of
impressions (1998: 6566). It seems to me that this definition precisely characterizes the idea of an
individual, unchanging self as karmic agent thatwhen it serves as an object of clingingis linked,
in Buddhism, to suffering (dukkha).
the things that most interested him about OCD is the particular way the
symptoms present themselves in the first-hand experience of someone suf-
fering from the disease.
OCD is marked by something called ego-dystonic character: even in
the most serious cases, when the unwanted thought arisessay, a compul-
sion to wash ones hands for the tenth time in an hourthe patient is
aware that her hands are not actually dirty. That is to say, in people suffer-
ing from OCD, some part of the conscious mind remains aloof, as an im-
partial spectator, aware of the compulsive thought but in no way identified
with it. As Schwartz writes, the diseases intrinsic pathology is, in effect,
replicating an aspect of [vipassan] meditation, affording the patient an
impartial, detached perspective on his own thoughts (2002: 13).
Schwartz was able turn this interesting feature of the disease to the
great advantage of his patients. Drawing on his practical experience with
Buddhist meditation, he painstakingly taught them how to drive a wedge
between the intrusive thought and the simple awareness of that thought,
effectively widening the gap between, on the one hand, the patients sub-
jective sense of self and, on the other, the unwanted urge, which is viewed
as not mine. He calls this first step relabeling the thought. The second
step is to reattribute the obsessive thought, consciously recognizing it as
a function of pathological brain circuitry. The patient then practices shift-
ing her attention away from the obsessive thought (refocusing). Finally,
she revalues it, assigning the thought or urge no power or authority
over her (now) clearly separate identity as a healthy person. Schwartzs
account of the practical and theoretical dimensions of his work with
OCD patients, as recorded in his book The Mind and the Brain, makes
for an absorbing read, and there is a lot in the book that bears directly on
issues relevant to the present discussion. For now, though, I want to focus
on the fundamental methodological assumption that inspired his attempt
to adopt vipassan meditation as a therapeutic technique.
As a psychiatrist, Schwartzs research was guided from the start by a
narrowly defined practical interest: he was searching for a way to improve
the quality of life for his OCD patients. He records his initial realization
of how this might be accomplished in the following words: But perhaps,
I thought, the impartial spectator neednt remain a bystander. Perhaps it
would be possible to use mindfulness training to empower the impartial
spectator to become more than merely an effete observer (Schwartz
2002: 13). Once again, look closely at the language here and at the unexam-
ined assumptions it embodies: For a psychiatrist, the impartial spectator
whether the ego-dystonic character of OCD or the subtly tuned attention of
satipatth nais an effete observer unless it is empowered to serve as an
active agent for behavioral and affective change; that is, as a means to
strengthen and expand the personal self. Given his operating assumption, it
comes as no surprise to discover that Schwartz persistently conflates
vipassan and samatha meditation in ways that permeate both his clinical
therapy and his theoretical speculations about the nature of consciousness
and its effects on the brain.13
Now, compare Schwartzs words above with the following passage
from Thoughts without a Thinker:
The psychotherapeutic environment is a unique domain, it permits the
patient to manifest behaviors and feelings that would almost certainly be
kept in check or ignored outside of the therapeutic relationship. As such
it presents a tremendous opportunity to put the kind of awareness that
the Buddha taught to good use. (Epstein 1995: 183, emphasis added)
The idea that the form of attention characteristic of vipassan practice

needs to beor even can beput to good use in the service of the per-
sonal self is the root error that infects much of the literature on Buddhism
and psychotherapy, and it is an error with potentially enormous conse-
quences for our understanding of Buddhist soteriologyespecially insofar
as we in the West struggle to assimilate the teachings of Buddhism through
the medium of a vocabulary and a set of methodological assumptions bor-
rowed from psychotherapy.
But why is it that we have so much trouble appreciating the crucial
Buddhist distinction between, on the one hand, giving up or getting rid of
an emotion, and, on the other, ceasing to identify with it? In closing, I
offer one further observation that seems to me to be relevant to our
present concerns.
In the contemporary West, we are familiar with the idealized figure
of the saint as moral exemplar, a virtuous, active person capable of
working effectively in the world as an agent for meaningful change. Think,
for example, of Mother Teresa. Moreover, this image of the saint as
someone engaged with the spiritual task of making the world a better place
dovetails handily with our modern notion of progress, and in particular
with our faith in the continual advance of scientific technology. In this
sense, the scientist functions in popular culture as a kind of secular saint.
However, we are much less familiarand considerably less comfortable
with the morally ambiguous figure of the hermit or the yogi, a solitary
13
Schwartzs notion of consciousness as immaterial force is the real theme of his book, but
examination of how his mistaken understanding of vipassan meditation influences his theoretical
speculations about the distinction between mind and brain would take us well beyond the present
discussion.
contemplative who often exhibits behaviors lifted straight out of the pages
of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The biogra-
phy of the famous Hindu yogi Ramana Maharshi offers a classic example
of the type: a dreamy, anxious boy, at age seventeen, he ran away from
home and for the next four years ceased speaking altogether. Unwashed,
bitten by insects and covered by running sores, he would eat only if the
food was literally placed in his mouth by compassionate strangers
(Osbourne 1970: passim; also discussed in Rubin 1996: 46). The history of
Buddhism in Asia is replete with tales of such realized masters, from the
naked Mahsiddhas and Tantric sages of India, with their matted hair and
their bodies painted with the ash from cremation fires, to the yathe of
Myanmar, the drubnyan of Tibet, and the wildly eccentric Chan monks
and recluses of China and Japan. Judged solely by contemporary standards
of psychological health, some of the most famous Buddhist teachersleg-
endary figures like Tilopa, Drukpa Kunley, Tsangnyon Heruka, Kukuripa,
Bodhidharma, Budai, Hanshan, Shide, Puhua, Daigu Ryokan, and Ikkyu
would appear to be seriously disturbed.14 Nor is this simply a matter of
history or myth. One of the most highly esteemed Tibetan teachers in the
contemporary West, Chogyam Trungpa, was notorious for his heavy
drinking, his endless sexual escapades, and various instances of erratic
behavior, as when, at a meditation retreat, he ordered his Vajra Guards to
strip naked and publically humiliate the poet W. S. Merwin and his girl-
friend (Sanders 1980). Trungpa and others like him often appear to inhabit
an antinomian universe located entirely outside the constraints of social or
even, occasionally, legal considerations. Western ideals about mental health
seem to play no role whatsoever in the lives of such people. Helen Tworkov
reports that an American once asked the Dalai Lama how he could reliably
identify a true Buddhist teacher, and the Dalai Lama replied, Watch them.
See how they behave (1994: 157). It seems unlikely that His Holiness
could have been referring here to Trungpa and his spiritual kin.
Understandably, perhaps, in its appropriation of Buddhist role
models, the literature of Buddhism and psychotherapy steers a wide berth
around these quixotic exemplars of crazy wisdom, preferring instead to
hold up for our edification the saintly typesthe Dalai Lama is a favorite,
as is the Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanhwhose behaviors conform
to received models of virtue in Western society. And when Western
14
While working on this article, I put out an inquiry on an academic list serve for buddhologists,
requesting names of men or womenlay or monasticswho were considered to be spiritually
advanced and who attained some level of notoriety for their odd or iconoclasticor even sociopathic
behavior. My e-mail inbox was inundated with suggestions (some of which I have listed here). For two
extended studies on the subject, see Benares (1977) and Devalerio (2011).
Buddhist teachers behave like Trungpaas they do, from time to time
there is seldom, if ever, any talk of crazy wisdom; rather they are roundly
condemned and, as often as not, stripped of their credentials.15 We want our
spiritual people to be recognizably goodor, at the very least, comfortably
sane; but unfortunately, the truth appears to be much less tidy. Most of the
high spiritual beings, observes Ram Dass, are at least neurotic if not
completely off their rockers. . . . It seems to me that from the spiritual point
of view nuts just means to be holding on to something. It is the clinging
mind that is crazy. Thats very different from the Western notion of sanity
(Kornfield et al. 1998: 190).16
So let us turn the tables for a moment and take a look at psychothera-
py through the lens of vipassan: What is most immediately obvious,
from this point of view, is what cannot help but appear as an anxious fixa-
tion on the contents of awarenesssensations, feelings, thoughts, and so
forth on the basis of which we posit a self. Not surprisingly, recent efforts
to combine Buddhist meditation and psychotherapy reflect this preoccu-
pation with the care and feeding of the personality.
Dr. Andrew Weil, author of a best-selling book titled Spontaneous
Happiness: A New Path to Emotional Well Being, advocates mindfulness
meditation as one technique in his eight-week path to feel bettermuch
betterthan you do now (2011: 12). Want a happier brain? asks Daniel
Goleman, on his Huffington Post blog. Try Mindfulness (Goleman 2011).
In a groundbreaking audio-book by the same author, we are introduced
to some of the ways in which mindfulness can be applied by a variety of
institutions and businesses to make better leaders and improve the quality
of the workplace (Goleman and Kabat-Zinn 2007). At UCLA, psychia-
trists with the Mindful Awareness Research Center are promoting mindful-
ness meditation to address health issues such as lower blood pressure
and boost the immune system; increase attention and focus, including aid
to those suffering from ADHD; help with difficult mental states such as
anxiety and depression, fostering well-being and less emotional reactivity;
and thicken the brain in areas in charge of decision making, emotional
15
See Rubin, in which he writes of the rash of grossly self-centered and conspicuously
unenlightened behavior exhibited by Buddhist teachers in recent years that challenges the pervasive
idealization of the ideal of Enlightenment (1996: 85).
16
See Aronson: Having been a professor of religious studies before becoming a psychotherapist, I
would at least like to crack the door on the possibility that not every interpersonal interaction is what
it appears to be and that there may be alternate meanings to behavior, at least in some instances. If
Abraham were to report his instructions to sacrifice Isaac to his therapist, should the therapist feel
witness to a great religious drama or call Childrens Protective Services? Could there be an Abraham
and Isaac episode in our era of psychological reductionism and media over-exposure? . . . Univocal
interpretations of human behavior cannot appreciate the religious significance of Abrahams actions
(1998: 70).
flexibility, and empathy (UCLA Health 2012). In an article posted on

their web site, Macleans reports that the first mindful leadership experi-
ence workshop was conducted at the World Economic Summit in Davos,
Switzerland: A mindfulness industry has taken root. . . . What has gripped
Western attention is mindfulnesss ability to improve performanceof
Olympic athletes, parents, and even nations (Kingston 2013). Patricia
Rockman, director of education at Torontos Centre for Mindfulness
Studies, sees the secularization of Buddhist meditation as a plus because it
means anyone can buy it (Kingston 2013). Among the buyersas the
Macleans article goes on to detailis the U.S. Marine Corps, which aims to
improve the fighting capacity of soldiers through mindfulness-based
mind-fitness training or (in the military acronym) MBMFT for warriors.
New York Times reporter James Atlas appears to sum all of this up
when he writes enthusiastically about the pragmatic tone of Western
Buddhists, who are making Buddhism active by using mindfulness prac-
tice to learn how to have a skillful, successful, well-organized, productive
life (2012: 4).17
Concerns with mental health and professional success18 serve a legiti-
mate purpose in contemporary society, and I do not mean to imply other-
wise: I do not wish to appear callous or cynical. Anything that can be done
to mitigate the myriad forms of suffering that plague the human personali-
ty is certainly worthwhile. And there is little doubt that Buddhism com-
mands a repertoire of powerful techniques that can be harnessed to the
task of making ourselves into better, happier, more successful peopleit is
just that vipassan meditation is not one of them: If you are meditating in
order to somehow improve yourself, then you are not doing vipassan-
bhvan. It is that simple.
But of course it is not simple at all. Although understanding the ne-
cessity for relinquishing self-interest is the linchpin on which the entire
apparatus of Buddhist soteriology turns, when it comes to meditation,
What is in it for me? is the first question we want answered. Why should I
take time away from all the other things I could be doing in order to train
17
Atlas language here is similar to the language used by Schwartz and Epstein: All three apparently
view Asian forms of Buddhism as effete and waiting to be empowered or put to good use by
Western practitioners. The Orientalist overtones of such rhetoric are hard to ignore. For the definitive
catalogue of the ways mindfulness is being used by Americans for, among other things, increasing
the pleasure of eating and shopping, promoting weight loss, andinevitablyhaving better sex, see
Wilson: Instead of everyday activities being used as a skillful means by which to awaken
transcendental Buddhist insight into no-self and impermanence, monastic techniques now are being
used to transform everyday activities so that they provide greater happiness, health, and self-control
to laypeople, many of whom do not consider themselves Buddhist (2014: 113).
18
I set aside, for the moment, any potential reservations about the ethical implications of using a
Theravda Buddhist meditative technique to train soldiers.
myself in the difficult and often painful practice of sitting still and trying,
diligently, to be present? If there is not some sort of benefit to me, then
what is the point?
So long as one is engaged in some form of samatha-bhvan, which
aims toward calming the mind, there are any number of possible answers
to this question. Butnotwithstanding the myriad claims made by the ad-
vocates of mindfulness-based psychotherapythere neither is, nor can
there be, any personal benefits to vipassan meditation. Or, to be precise,
there may be benefits that accrue to the cultivation of vipassan, but if you
meditate with the understanding that you will reap some personal gain,
then by definition, you are not practicing vipassan-bhvan; rather you
are engaged in some form of samatha meditation, and the benefits you
reap will have nothing to do with vipassan. This is one reason that, in the
Theravda tradition, prior to immersion in vipassan-bhvan a monk
first cultivates loving kindness (metta) and formally donates any merit
(pua) resulting from his practice to the welfare of others. By doing so, he
short-circuits, from the start, all thought of personal gain from his medita-
tion practice. This is simply a ritualized way of putting ones understanding
of the doctrine of no-self into practice.
Over the years, I have developed several ways to help students under-
stand how the doctrine of no-self factors into the cultivation of vipassan.
I often begin by pointing out that so much of what we normally do is
done with the understanding that there is something in it for me; and in
this sense, one might think of vipassan-bhvan as a vacation from our
usual self-centered, purpose-driven lives. As before, Tim Parks manages
to capture this vital point with particular force and clarity. What is
crucial, in Parks words, is not so much the technique of the vipassan
process, but rather the the attitude with which it is undertaken:
One renounces any objective beyond the contemplation itself. You are
not here in order to relax, or to overcome pain, or to resolve a health
problemthe experience is not subordinated to a higher goalyou are
here to be here, side by side with the infinitely nuanced flux of sensation
in the body. (2003: 234)
Implausible as it may seem, vipassan meditation is founded on the possi-

bility of a great, free, unconditional surrender (Merton and Brenman
1959: 159), on the understanding that one can learn to let go of all concern
with the personality and its endlessly replicating desires and fears, its
compulsive need to produce results, to do and to have. According to this
understanding discussed above, one can learn to observe literally all ele-
ments of experienceeven thoughtsas things that simply happen, things
that come and go spontaneously, without reference to any self. Once

again, consider the words of Winston King: Vipassan is the total, super-
saturated existentializing of the Theravda world view that all existence in
personal and individual modes of being, intrinsically and ineradicably em-
bodies impermanence, pain, and impersonality (1980: 94).
You can see that man wants the impossible, writes Ernest Becker,
noting the deep irony of our predicament, the distinctive form of suffer-
ing that characterizes human consciousness. He wants to lose his isola-
tion and keep it at the same time (1973: 155). In a similar veinand in a
book published the same year as Beckers Denial of DeathChogyam
Trungpa commented that ego is always trying to achieve spirituality. It
is, he observed, rather like wanting to witness your own funeral (1973:
63). It is good to remember that, over a quarter century ago, Dan Brown
and Jack Engler diagnosed the problem of conflating vipassan medita-
tion and clinical psychotherapy for exactly what it is: a misunderstanding
rooted in language and concepts peculiar to contemporary Western sensi-
bilities. And they were explicit about the dangers involved: Once the cul-
tural belief that formal [vipassan] meditation is a form of therapy is
firmly entrenched, students are likely to engage the content of their internal
milieu at the expense of attentional training, even during intensive practice
(1986: 197). Brown and Engler wrote these words during a critical period
in the early evolution of Western vipassan meditation that now appears,
in many ways, like ancient history. Have we, then, become moreor less
discriminating about such matters in the last twenty-five years?
The issues I raise here cut against the grain of a view of Buddhist medita-
tion that has become both popular and profitable. Over the past decade,
mindfulness based psychotherapy has emerged as a big business with its
own brand of well-connected, tech-savvy, scientific gurus who are equally at
home in a neuroscience laboratory or a corporate boardroom. We have
come to a point at which Brown and Englers carefully framed, cautionary
wordsnot to mention the orthodox Theravda emphasis on the necessity
for the study of Abhidhammahave been submerged under a tsunami of
audio-books, magazine articles, YouTube videos, and executive workshops
in which the distinction between samatha and vipassan has been all but
erased, and nibbnathe ultimate, liberating truth (paramatthasacca) re-
vealed through Buddhist yogic practicehas been reduced to the entirely
conventional (sammuti) terms of a discourse on mental health. In Eric
Brauns blunt understatement: The psychologization of Buddhist medita-
tion as a secular technique has led to its use as a tool for self-cultivation and
personal flourishing outside Theravda goals for practice (2013: 167).
So what are we to make of all this? Toward the end of his article on
Buddhism and psychology, Aubrey Metcalf poses a serious question:
Can vipassan survive in America without the traditional institutions

that created itinstitutions that are threatened now and that convert
Buddhists and Buddhist psychologists, such as Epstein, tend to under-
mine (2002: 360)? The answer to this questionwhatever it might be
is unavoidably bound up with the hermeneutical mystery of how religious
traditions are transmitted from one culture and one historical period to
another, and how they are transformed in the process. This is certainly
not the first time the old wine of Indian Buddhism has been poured into
a new bottle. As Braun has amply documented, the lay tradition that grew
out of Ledi Sayadaws teachings was in many respects a radical reshaping
of earlier Burmese Theravda in response to the pressures of British colo-
nialism. In any case, Metcalf follows his question (above) with a direct
appeal to academic buddhologists: The partial or distorted views of
psychologist-practitioners are a clear call for the academy to do its duty
and inform the larger public. Such duties are the raison dtre of scholars
of religion, and in this case can aid not only societys understanding
of Buddhism but Buddhists understanding of their own traditions
(2002: 360).
My purpose in this article has been to take a fresh look at some of
the earliest rigorous psychological research on vipassan meditation and
to argue, first, that the perspective articulated in those publications em-
bodies an understanding of Buddhist meditative practices that is consid-
erably more nuanced than our profoundly secular obsession with the ego
and its interminable catalogue of afflictions, and second, that in conflat-
ing vipassan-bhvan with psychotherapy we effectively excise the soter-
iological heart of Buddhism, the great, sacred mystery of the transcendent
(lokuttara) embodied in teachings on no-self. This excision of the tran-
scendent does not take place in the clear light of argument and reason;
rather it happens out of sight, at the level of our unexamined premises,
the foundational assumptions that define the parameters of the modern
Western cultural imagination. It is, in this sense, a surgical procedure
accomplished in darkness, by an invisible hand. And when the scalpel
has done its work, all that remains is one overarching question . . . Whats
in it for me?
I am concerned here with the importance of correct understanding
grounded in the study of Buddhist doctrine, since that is what vipassan
is about; and to understand vipassan in the full context of Theravda
Abhidhamma means to understand, above all else, one thing: What is in
it for me is always nothing but suffering (dukkha) and loss (anicca).
Surely, this is what Ledi Sayadaw had in mind when he exclaimed, How
very fearful, scary, abhorrent, detestable, and sickening is the state of an
ordinary person (cited in Braun 2013: 167).
To practice vipassan meditationwhether through some form of

mindfulness or any other techniqueis to cultivate, refine, and deepen
this basic understanding, to weave it into the fabric of ones intellectual,
emotional, and volitional life until the whole project of being an ordi-
nary person (puthujjana)which is all I ever can beis finally revealed
for what it is from the Theravda point of view. According to this ancient
Buddhist understanding or insight, I can achieve a great deal of success
and self-satisfaction in life, I can be very happy with myself and my
world, but I cannot be enlightened. I can even, if karmic conditions
are favorable, be reborn as a long-lived deity in The Realm of the Gods
Who Lord Over the Creations of Others; but I can never, ever become a
buddha.19
Not so long ago, the summer 2012 issue of Buddhadharmaa
popular Buddhist magazine that bills itself as the practitioners quarterly
ran a splashy cover article on Western psychology and Buddhism, titled
Heal the Self, Free the Self. To imagine that there is a self that can be
fixed up or healed is, no doubt, the proper business of psychotherapy. To
imagine, however, that there is a self that can be set free isfrom the per-
spective of vipassanthe ultimate triumph of a narcissism that knows no
bounds.
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Huntington - The Triumph of Narcissism: Theravada Buddhist Meditation in The Marketplace

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Huntington - The Triumph of Narcissism: Theravada Buddhist Meditation in The Marketplace

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The Triumph of Narcissism:

Theravada Buddhist Meditation

In recent years, mindfulness based psychotherapy has emerged as a lu-

Religions draw lines. They distinguish between what is compatible and

William Paden (1988: 141)

BACK IN THE MID-1980s, I did a month-long Buddhist meditation

possibly there was no concrete thing corresponding to self; possibly

Elsewhere Kapstein frames the pan-Buddhist position as it evolved over

It is clear that, even if we disregard the difficult questions surrounding

Within the Theravda tradition, direct experience of the illusory nature

an accomplished meditator (a buddha or an arahant) finds nothing but

Theravda Buddhist teachers working within parameters broadly defined

method and goal are in perfect accord: mindfulness in the orthodox

So youre no longer anxious about performing, I said. Thats great.

Oh, no, he replied. Im still just as anxious as I was. But I no longer

I knew exactly what he was talking aboutas would, I believe, anyone

(1986b: 217). I call it transcendental to emphasize that this kind of con-

Pride in ones spiritual achievements is a most rarefied and intractable

[Vipassan] meditation . . . is not exactly a form of therapy but a soteriol-

ordinary human suffering and attainment of the genuine wisdom that

Nevertheless, judging by the sheer number of popular magazine articles

There really are two levels of [Buddhist meditative] practice. On one

Writing these words in 1998, Kornfield seems already to have sensed

it is the language of psychoanalysis, developed by Freud and carefully

Is the language of psychoanalysis really the only idiom capable of pre-

the indispensable distinction in Buddhist doctrine and practice between the

simply to fail to appreciate the essence of vipassan practice. Rubin has

The idea that the form of attention characteristic of vipassan practice

flexibility, and empathy (UCLA Health 2012). In an article posted on

Implausible as it may seem, vipassan meditation is founded on the possi-

that come and go spontaneously, without reference to any self. Once

Can vipassan survive in America without the traditional institutions

To practice vipassan meditationwhether through some form of

Benares, Camden Zen without Zen Masters. Tempe, AZ:

Goleman, Daniel Want a Happier Brain? Try Mindfulness.

Paden, William Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of

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