Zen and Psychoanalysis: Methodologies and Practices
Methodology and Practices
Now that we grasp some of the disparities in how Zen and psychoanalysis perceive the self and the world, let's examine how their practices and methods, designed to attain higher states of well-being and connectedness, embody these distinctions. I'll primarily discuss free association and Zen meditation, also known as zazen, along with koans—an experiential practice combining cognition levels and deeper consciousness states.
Free association, a therapeutic technique, encourages patients to speak freely without censorship, aiming to uncover unconscious levels by bypassing conscious thought. This raw and authentic speech, devoid of rationalization, unveils repressed memories through symbolic language. For example, if someone experienced abuse in a barn growing up by a close family member, during the free association process they might state words at random such as “The red cow” or some sort of symbolic language that represents the event in the patient's unconsciousness. In contrast, Zen practices, such as zazen, focus on becoming whole with space and time. In the words of Master Dogen the founder of Soto zen school of japan,
“Sit in kekka-fuza with body, sit in kekka-fuza with mind, sit in kekka-fuza of body-mind falling off.” (Dogen).
Unlike conventional meditation, zazen aims for correct posture and mind to harmonize with the whole, eliminating cognitive activities that obscure the present moment, hence the idea of “body-falling off”. Emptying the mind aligns the body and mind with the world and consciousness.
(If you have ever dropped in to moments of deep meditation or stillness you may know what it feels like to have the “body fall off”)
Accompanied by zazen, koans challenge practitioners to abandon reason and language, promoting emptiness to reach profound insights. Though like many concepts in zen, to trully understand one must experience it first hand, I will attempt to describe what a koan is in the following sentences.
A koan is considered a type of meditation, and even this is meant to challenge a practitioners conceptualization of what meditation can and should be. A koan is done between student and master to test the students progres in the practice. Below is an example of a koan.
Q: What is Buddha? R: Three pounds of flax
One might look at the above koan and think that it’s disrespectful, inappropitate, or just makes no sense. However, the koan is meant to challenge these conceptualizations and our immediate tendency to try to figure things out. Through this practice we are becoming okay with not knowing and understanding the ambiguity and paradoxical nature of most things.
In comparison, free association emphasizes language and conceptualization for individual harmony, focusing on understanding the reasons behind individual suffering. On the other hand, Zen methodology reduces emphasis on cognitive agency, abandons reason and conceptualization, and reduced the tendency to label events in our life as good and bad. While both methods are useful, their goals differ. Free association aims to understand the memories and their meaning to our suffering, while meditation and koan practice allows us to see through suffering as something that is neither good nor bad. Though both do an excellent job of leading the individual to a state of acceptance, zen may help the individual break free all weight of a past or present event.
