Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism Erich Fromm Contents FOREWORD I. TODAY’S SPIRITUAL CRISIS AND THE ROLE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS II. VALUES AND GOALS IN FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPTS IIII. THE NATURE OF WELL-BEING—MAN’S PSYCHIC EVOLUTION IV. THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, REPRESSION AND DE- REPRESSION V. PRINCIPLES OF ZEN BUDDHISM VI. DE-REPRESSION AND ENLIGHTENMENT INDEX Notes A Biography of Erich Fromm FOREWORD This book has its origin in a workshop with Daisetz T. Suzuki on Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, which was held under the auspices of the Department of Psychoanalysis of the Medical School, Autonomous National University of Mexico, during the first week of August, 1957, in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The conference was attended by about fifty psychiatrists and psychologists from both Mexico and the United States (the majority of them psychoanalysts). Aside from my own paper published here, a number of other papers were given and discussed: Dr. M. Green, “The Roots of Sullivan’s Concept of Self.” Dr. J. Kirsch, “The Role of the Analyst in Jung’s Psychotherapy.” Dr. R. De Martino, “The Human Situation and Zen Buddhism.” Dr. I. Progoff, “The Psychological Dynamism of Zen.” and “The Concept of Neurosis and Cure in Jung.” Miss C. Selver, “Sensory Awareness and Body Functioning.” Dr. A. Stunkard, “Motivation for Treatment.” Dr. D. T. Suzuki: “Lectures on Zen Buddhism.” Dr. E. Tauber, “Sullivan’s Concept of Cure.” Dr. P. Weisz, “The Contribution of Georg W. Groddeck.” Any psychologist, even twenty years ago, would have been greatly surprised—or shocked—to find his colleagues interested in a “mystical” religious system such as Zen Buddhism. He would have been even more surprised to find that most of the people present were not just “interested” but deeply concerned, and that they discovered that the week spent with Dr. Suzuki and his ideas had a most stimulating and refreshing influence on them, to say the least. The reason for this change lies in factors which are discussed in my paper. To sum them up briefly, they are to be found in the development of psychoanalytic theory, in the changes that have occurred in the intellectual and spiritual climate of the Western world, and in the work of Dr. Suzuki, who, by his books, his lectures, and his personality, has made the Western world acquainted with Zen Buddhism. Every participant in the conference was expected to have some acquaintance with Dr. Suzuki’s writings, just as many a reader of this volume may have. My own paper has been completely revised for publication, both in length and in content. The main reason for this revision lies in the conference itself. While I was acquainted with the literature on Zen Buddhism, the stimulation of the conference and subsequent thinking led me to a considerable enlargement and revision of my ideas. This refers not only to my understanding of Zen, but also to certain psychoanalytic concepts, such as the problems of what constitutes the unconscious, of the transformation of the unconscious into consciousness, and of the goal of psychoanalytic therapy. In relating Zen Buddhism to psychoanalysis, one discusses two systems, both dealing with a theory concerned with the nature of man and with a practice leading to his well-being. Each is a characteristic expression of Eastern and Western thought, respectively. Zen Buddhism is a blending of Indian rationality and abstraction with Chinese concreteness and realism. Psychoanalysis is as exquisitely Western as Zen is Eastern; it is the child of Western humanism and rationalism, and of the nineteenth-century romantic search for the dark forces which elude rationalism. Much further back, Greek wisdom and Hebrew ethics are the spiritual godfathers of this scientific-therapeutic approach to man. But in spite of the fact that both psychoanalysis and Zen deal with the nature of man and with a practice leading to his transformation, the differences seem to outweigh these similarities. Psychoanalysis is a scientific method, nonreligious to its core. Zen is a theory and technique to achieve “enlightenment,” an experience which in the West would be called religious or mystical. Psychoanalysis is a therapy for mental illness; Zen a way to spiritual salvation. Can the discussion of the relationship between psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism result in anything but the statement that there exists no relationship except that of radical and unbridgeable difference? Yet there is an unmistakable and increasing interest in Zen Buddhism among psychoanalysts.1 What are the sources of this interest? What is its meaning? To give an answer to these questions is what this book attempts to do. It does not try to give a systematic presentation of Zen Buddhist thought, a task which would transcend my knowledge and experience; nor does it try to give a full presentation of psychoanalysis, which would go beyond the scope of this book. Nevertheless, I shall—in the first part of this book—present in some detail those aspects of psychoanalysis which are of immediate relevance to the relation between psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism and which, at the same time, represent basic concepts of that continuation of Freudian analysis which I sometimes have called “humanistic psychoanalysis.” I hope in this way to show why the study of Zen Buddhism has been of vital significance to me and, as I believe—is significant for all students of psychoanalysis. I. TODAY’S SPIRITUAL CRISIS AND THE ROLE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS As a first approach to our topic, we must consider the spiritual crisis which Western man is undergoing in this crucial historical epoch, and the function of psychoanalysis in this crisis. While the majority of people living in the West do not consciously feel as if they were living through a crisis of Western culture (probably never have the majority of people in a radically critical situation been aware of the crisis), there is agreement, at least among a number of critical observers, as to the existence and the nature of this crisis. It is the crisis which has been described as “malaise,” “ennui,” “mal du siècle,” the deadening of life, the automatization of man, his alienation from himself, from his fellow man and from nature.2 Man has followed rationalism to the point where rationalism has transformed itself into utter irrationality. Since Descartes, man has increasingly split thought from affect; thought alone is considered rational—affect, by its very nature, irrational; the person, I, has been split off into an intellect, which constitutes my self, and which is to control me as it is to control nature. Control by the intellect over nature, and the production of more and more things, became the paramount aims of life. In this process man has transformed himself into a thing, life has become subordinated to property, “to be” is dominated by “to have.” Where the roots of Western culture, both Greek and Hebrew, considered the aim of life the perfection of man, modern man is concerned with the perfection of things, and the knowledge of how to make them. Western man is in a state of schizoid inability to experience affect, hence he is anxious, depressed, and desperate. He still pays lip service to the aims of happiness, individualism, initiative—but actually he has no aim. Ask him what he is living for, what is the aim of all his strivings—and he will be embarrassed. Some may say they live for the family, others, “to have fun,” still others, to make money, but in reality nobody knows what he is living for; he has no goal, except the wish to escape insecurity and aloneness. It is true, church membership today is higher than ever before, books on religion become best sellers, and more people speak of God than ever before. Yet this kind of religious profession only covers up a profoundly materialistic and irreligious attitude, and is to be understood as an ideological reaction— caused by insecurity and conformism—to the trend of the nineteenth century, which Nietzsche characterized by his famous “God is dead.” As a truly religious attitude, it has no reality. The abandonment of theistic ideas in the nineteenth century was—seen from one angle—no small achievement. Man took a big plunge to objectivity. The earth ceased to be the center of the universe; man lost his central role of the creature destined by God to dominate all other creatures. Studying man’s hidden motivations with a new objectivity, Freud recognized that the faith in an all- powerful, omniscient God, had its root in the helplessness of human existence and in man’s attempt to cope with his helplessness by means of belief in a helping father and mother represented by God in heaven. He saw that man only can save himself; the teaching of the great teachers, the loving help of parents, friends, and loved ones can help him—but can help him only to dare to accept the challenge of existence and to react to it with all his might and all his heart. Man gave up the illusion of a fatherly God as a parental helper—but he gave up also the true aims of all great humanistic religions: overcoming the limitations of an egotistical self, achieving love, objectivity, and humility and respecting life so that the aim of life is living itself, and man becomes what he potentially is. These were the aims of the great Western religions, as they were the aims of the great Eastern religions. The East, however, was not burdened with the concept of a transcendent father-savior in which the monotheistic religions expressed their longings. Taoism and Buddhism had a rationality and realism superior to that of the Western religions. They could see man realistically and objectively, having nobody but the “awakened” ones to guide him, and being able to be guided because each man has within himself the capacity to awake and be enlightened. This is precisely the reason why Eastern religious thought, Taoism and Buddhism—and their blending in Zen Buddhism —assume such importance for the West today. Zen Buddhism helps man to find an answer to the question of his existence, an answer which is essentially the same as that given in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and yet which does not contradict the rationality, realism, and independence which are modern man’s precious achievements. Paradoxically, Eastern religious thought turns out to be more congenial to Western rational thought than does Western religious thought itself. II. VALUES AND GOALS IN FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPTS Psychoanalysis is a characteristic expression of Western man’s spiritual crisis, and an attempt to find a solution. This is explicitly so in the more recent developments of psychoanalysis, in “humanist” or “existentialist” analysis. But before I discuss my own “humanist” concept, I want to show that, quite contrary to a widely held assumption Freud’s own system transcended the concept of “illness” and “cure” and was concerned with the “salvation” of man, rather than only with a therapy for mentally sick patients. Superficially seen, Freud was the creator of a new therapy for mental illness, and this was the subject matter to which his main interest and all the efforts of his life were devoted. However, if we look more closely, we find that behind this concept of a medical therapy for the cure of neurosis was an entirely different interest, rarely expressed by Freud, and probably rarely conscious even to himself. This hidden or only implicit concept did not primarily deal with the cure of mental illness, but with something which transcended the concept of illness and cure. What was this something? What was the nature of the “psychoanalytic movement” he founded? What was Freud’s vision for man’s future? What was the dogma on which his movement was founded? Freud answered this question perhaps most clearly in the sentence: “Where there was Id—there shall be Ego.” His aim was the domination of irrational and unconscious passions by reason; the liberation of man from the power of the unconscious, within the possibilities of man. Man had to become aware of the unconscious forces within him, in order to dominate and control them. Freud’s aim was the optimum knowledge of truth, and that is the knowledge of reality; this knowledge to him was the only guiding light man had on this earth. These aims were the traditional aims of rationalism, of the Enlightenment philosophy, and of Puritan ethics. But while religion and philosophy had postulated these aims of self-control in, what might be called a utopian way, Freud was—or believed himself to be—the first one to put these aims on a scientific basis (by the exploration of the unconscious) and hence to show the way to their realization. While Freud represents the culmination of Western rationalism, it was his genius to overcome at the same time the false rationalistic and superficially optimistic aspects of rationalism, and to create a synthesis with romanticism, the very movement which during the nineteenth century opposed rationalism by its own interest in and reverence for the irrational, affective side of man.3 With regard to the treatment of the individual, Freud was also more concerned with a philosophical and ethical aim than he was generally believed to be. In the Introductory Lectures, he speaks of the attempts certain mystical practices make to produce a basic transformation within the personality. “We have to admit,” he continues, “that the therapeutic efforts of psychoanalysis have chosen a similar point of approach. Its intention is to strengthen the Ego, to make it more independent from the Super-Ego, to enlarge its field of observation, so that it can appropriate for itself new parts of Id. Where there was Id there shall be Ego. It is a work of culture like the reclamation of the Zuyder Zee.” In the same vein he speaks of psychoanalytic therapy as consisting in “the liberation of the human being from his neurotic symptoms, inhibitions and abnormalities of character.”* He sees also the role of the analyst in a light which transcends that of the doctor who “cures” the patient. “The analyst,” he says, “must be in a superior position in some sense, if he is to serve as a model for the patient in certain analytic situations, and in others to act as his teacher. (Ibid., p. 351. Italics mine—E.F.) “Finally,” Freud writes, “we must not forget that the relationship between analyst and patient is based on a lone of truth, that is, on acknowledgement of reality, that it precludes any kind of sham, and deception.” There are other factors in Freud’s concept of psychoanalysis which transcend the conventional notion of illness and cure. Those familiar with Eastern thought, and especially with Zen Buddhism, will notice that the factors