Jung's warnings

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

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Kynikos
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Jung's warnings

Post by Kynikos »

Jung is warning us about taking on ("affecting") Eastern philosophy in finding our own individual path in the West. Why? What is the danger here he is trying to warn us about?
---jonsjourney
In an earlier post you raised the question about Jung's warnings and I thought I would share this with you.

I've just begun the four foundation practices of Ngondro training and I was researching it a bit and came across an interesting book at Snowlion:
TANTRIC TECHNIQUES
by Jeffrey Hopkins

Deity yoga is the meditative practice of imagining oneself as an ideal being fully endowed with compassion, wisdom, and their resultant altruistic activities. The idea is that by imagining being a Buddha, one gets closer to actually achieving Buddhahood. Tantric Techniques will give the reader a dynamic sense of the potential of the human mind for self-transformation through step-by-step use of the imagination.

The book offers a complete system of Tantric meditation, comparing the views of three seminal Tibetan authors on deity yoga, and on issues such as how to safeguard against psychological inflation and how to use negative emotions on the path.

"Jeffrey Hopkins has made a major contribution to deepening understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, had access to some of the greatest contemporary Tibetan teachers, but—most important of all—he has, over the years, steadily tried to put what he has learned into practice."–His Holiness the Dalai Lama
http://www.snowlionpub.com/html/product_9766.html

I googled around and found Hopkin's commentary on-line as a PDF file:
Jung’s Warnings Against Inflation
Jeffrey Hopkins
University of Virginia, Emeritus
Abstract
In the practice of deity yoga, compassion and wisdom are combined in a single consciousness such that the wisdom consciousness realizing emptiness is used as the basis from which one appears as a deity. Tibetan systems stress the importance of “divine pride,” in which the practitioner seeks to develop such clear imagination of herself or himself as a deity that the sense of being a deity occurs strongly.

For Tsong-kha-pa (1359-1419), visualizing oneself as a deity and identification with that deity comprise the central distinguishing feature of tantric meditation. In Action Tantra this practice begins with emptiness yoga, called the “ultimate deity,” wherein the deity is an appearance of the wisdom realizing the emptiness of inherent existence—the deity being merely the person designated in dependence upon purely appearing mind and body.

Because the empty status of the person is being realized, it is said that deity yoga serves to counteract the conception of oneself as inherently existent and thereby prevents afflicted pride, a version of ego-inflation which the renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) sought to avoid by advising against identifying with assimilated contents. This paper explores the perils of inflation that Jung predicted for Westerners who attempted Eastern yoga, and describes his remedy: assimilation of contents of the collective unconscious, not through identification, but through confrontation, avoiding equation with either the lowest or highest aspects of one’s own psyche.
http://www.chibs.edu.tw/publication/chb ... BJ_V21.pdf

I'm a bit snowed under with my taxes and working on my mother's at the moment but I thought we might discuss this later in the week.

It should be remembered that by deity they are not referring to a God as in a "creator of the universe" or anything like that. Buddhism is a non-theistic tradition and the Buddha never denied or affirmed that God existed.

Thrangu Rinpoche commented on this saying that they exist in the mind and should be seen as psychological principles that are used to evoke certain types of psychic energies in the practioner. Paradoxically though he also said that the Bodhisattvas do exist externally and can influence events in one's life. Exactly how is something I am personally going to take up with him.

Cheers,

Kynikos
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
Last edited by Cindy B. on Sat Mar 27, 2010 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

S_Watson
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Post by S_Watson »

It should be remembered that by deity they are not referring to a God as in a "creator of the universe" or anything like that. Buddhism is a non-theistic tradition and the Buddha never denied or affirmed that God existed.
Exactly right, and this is a cardinal reason - although not the only reason - why most Westerners, conditioned by Abrahamic Monotheism (in which I personally believe although I don't believe it has all psychological answers), TEND to be more vulnerable to "mythic inflation" than most native Buddhists WHEN such Westerners begin to contemplate their identity with "God". The Western Ear hears something a bit different, and it's hard to translate 100 percent.

Campbell had a great analogy for this problem. He said, "(In contrast to Catholics) Protestants don't have God in the bread and wine (the eucharist/communion), and Buddhists don't have "God" in their vocabulary!"

In other words, Catholics (and Orthodox) believe God is especially present in the sacramental bread and wine. Protestants don't, but Protestants believe God is especially present in the Bible, in the "WORD of God". And Buddhists don't believe "God" is especially present in any of those things, but they do believe in "God's" immanence in the World, even though they don't name Him as any "God".

(In this sense, paradoxically, Buddhists DO believe that God is present in the Catholic sacramental bread and wine, although not quite in the same way that Catholics do. But still, in a way, Buddhists actually do believe in the Catholic Eucharist, paradoxically more than most Protestant Christians do!)

Good food for thought? Not a "Holy Supper", but maybe a SNACK of Divine immanence?

:wink: 8)

PS, I think that for most Western minds (at least decently educated ones), one of the most appropriate mythical prophylactics against "mythic inflation" (inflation of ego) is Homer's Odyssey. Also, the story of how Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, tempting Jesus to identify TOO PERSONALLY with "God the Father". And on that note, one should never underestimate the subtle psychological insights of the Christian Gospels and traditional Christian theology; the concept of the Holy Trinity, "Three Persons in One God", is indeed a paradox, as subtle as any Buddhist paradox.

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Post by Andreas »

Cindy B. wrote:One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
Hi!

This sounds so cool and I think I know what he is talking about but I wish we could discuss it even more or at least give us some clues. :)
“To live is enough.” ― Shunryu Suzuki

Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

Cindy B. wrote:One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
Gampopa, the great Buddhist sage would agree with that statement and pointed out that with out a firm grounding in Shamatha/Vipasyana meditation such practices would not produce results.

Diety visualization is but one tool in the Vajrayana path that increases the effectiveness and depth of the basic meditation and it's activity of "making the darkness conscious."

This is discussed in the remarks section of Professor Hopkins publication I linked to in my post.
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

Andreas
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Post by Andreas »

Whoops! :oops: My eyes just went straight to that jung quote.

Kynikos really nice thread, I hope we can expand more and the paper is really amazing. There are so many things inside there I been thinking the last few days. Thanks.

Will read it and come back for more.
“To live is enough.” ― Shunryu Suzuki

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Andreas wrote:
Cindy B. wrote:One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
This sounds so cool and I think I know what he is talking about but I wish we could discuss it even more or at least give us some clues. :)
Andreas,

Given your recent Jungian studies, I'm sure that this will clear it up for you: "darkness" is equivalent to the shadow/the unconscious. (Jung's dictum--"make the unconscious conscious" via the process of individuation.) :)

***

Kynikos,

I saved the Hopkins article and am looking forward to reading it soon. Thanks!


Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

Cindy B. wrote:
Andreas wrote:
Cindy B. wrote:One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
This sounds so cool and I think I know what he is talking about but I wish we could discuss it even more or at least give us some clues. :)
Andreas,

Given your recent Jungian studies, I'm sure that this will clear it up for you: "darkness" is equivalent to the shadow/the unconscious. (Jung's dictum--"make the unconscious conscious" via the process of individuation.) :)

***

Kynikos,

I saved the Hopkins article and am looking forward to reading it soon. Thanks!


Cindy
You are welcome and I welcome your response from the Jungian perspective as well.

Jung introduced these translations to the west and mined them for their insights. He called the Bardo Thodol "my constant companion" and was reported to be even reading Tibetan texts on his death bed.

As I said previously, we owe him a great debt for his ground breaking work.

It should be noted though that only a very small number of these texts and teachers were available at the time he did his work. Now there is a veritable torrent of them here in the west and a great melding between those teachings and the cognitive studies in western psychology.

Additionally it has to be noted that no student is encouraged to undertake the Vajrayana practices without having undergone many years of Hinayana and Mahayana study and practice. There are many warnings in the teachings about not trying to side step these stages and also the dangers inherent if someone should try to do that.

A good source for information on the path and practices is Thrangu Rinpoche's "The Three Vehicles of Buddhist Practice" which is a book but I found it available on-line here:

http://www.namobuddhapublications.com/d ... rayana.pdf
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

Nermin
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Post by Nermin »

Cindy B. wrote:One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
YES! I totally agree :D
Anytime we think (or dream) and express our will, we're in fact
disintegrating a neutral source (of vitality) and 'what we want' cannot be
created without generating some residue consisting of 'what we don't want'.
Namely, whenever we take what we think to be useful (positive) from a pool of
infinite possibilities (that presents a neutral balance at the start);
a shadow
thought (or a shadow dream or a shadow will) is also born and starts seeking
to express itself
in our lives.
When we cannot accept this, we're projecting it to others and experience it
from outside. That's my understanding of Jungian shadow.

I'm good (but I'm also bad); I'm right (but I'm also wrong) :cry:

Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

S_Watson wrote:
It should be remembered that by deity they are not referring to a God as in a "creator of the universe" or anything like that. Buddhism is a non-theistic tradition and the Buddha never denied or affirmed that God existed.
Exactly right, and this is a cardinal reason - although not the only reason - why most Westerners, conditioned by Abrahamic Monotheism (in which I personally believe although I don't believe it has all psychological answers), TEND to be more vulnerable to "mythic inflation" than most native Buddhists WHEN such Westerners begin to contemplate their identity with "God". The Western Ear hears something a bit different, and it's hard to translate 100 percent.

Campbell had a great analogy for this problem. He said, "(In contrast to Catholics) Protestants don't have God in the bread and wine (the eucharist/communion), and Buddhists don't have "God" in their vocabulary!"

In other words, Catholics (and Orthodox) believe God is especially present in the sacramental bread and wine. Protestants don't, but Protestants believe God is especially present in the Bible, in the "WORD of God". And Buddhists don't believe "God" is especially present in any of those things, but they do believe in "God's" immanence in the World, even though they don't name Him as any "God".

(In this sense, paradoxically, Buddhists DO believe that God is present in the Catholic sacramental bread and wine, although not quite in the same way that Catholics do. But still, in a way, Buddhists actually do believe in the Catholic Eucharist, paradoxically more than most Protestant Christians do!)

Good food for thought? Not a "Holy Supper", but maybe a SNACK of Divine immanence?

:wink: 8)

PS, I think that for most Western minds (at least decently educated ones), one of the most appropriate mythical prophylactics against "mythic inflation" (inflation of ego) is Homer's Odyssey. Also, the story of how Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, tempting Jesus to identify TOO PERSONALLY with "God the Father". And on that note, one should never underestimate the subtle psychological insights of the Christian Gospels and traditional Christian theology; the concept of the Holy Trinity, "Three Persons in One God", is indeed a paradox, as subtle as any Buddhist paradox.
There is some truth in what you say but the Buddhist perspective isn't exactly spot on.

Here is someone who might be of interest to you, Father Robert Kennedy:

At Morning Star Zendo, persons of all faiths are invited to practice Zazen (sitting meditation).

Robert Kennedy, S.J., Roshi, is a Jesuit priest and Zen teacher in the White Plum lineage. He studied with Yamada Roshi in Kamakura, Japan, with Maezumi Roshi in Los Angeles, and with Glassman Roshi in New York. Glassman Roshi installed Kennedy as sensei in 1991 and conferred Inka (his final seal of approval) in 1997, making him a roshi (master).

http://kennedyzen.tripod.com/

He runs several Zendos and as mentioned above is a Roman Catholic Priest, A Zen Roshi, and he was until his retirement the Divinity Chair at St. Mary's in Union City and still lectures at Georgetown.


Zen Gifts to Christians
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Gifts-Christi ... 0826412823
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

jonsjourney
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Post by jonsjourney »

I am bit tied up today, but have recently finished reading Jung's commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower and I think it will lend a great deal to this conversation. Will be posting soon!...
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

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Post by jufa »

By dreams and wishful thinking, men ride the crest of their imagination believing it will lead them through the door of hope and avenues of reverence to achieve success in the world of matter. Men believe their dreams to be the crossroad which will summon their courage to follow their human desire for fame and fortune, forsaking their inner conscience of responsibility by bowing down to the god of this world, and by walking the clear trail of shattered dreams, broken promises, and incomplete endeavors, as all men before them who had forsaken the inner man and became lost within "the valley of the shadow of death."

The essence and substance of man is conscious awareness. Whatsoever comes into the human mind for comprehension is issued forth first in the Spirit of truth, and then through man's soul, which is the storehouse for all human thoughts of his subjective feelings, and objective visions. It is within the soul, which man is, man becomes consciously aware of his subjective and objective thoughts of truth and conjectured images of holiness. "The Illusion of God"
Never give power to anything a person believe is their source of strength - jufa
http://theillusionofgod.yuku.com

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Post by Clemsy »

Hi Jufa.

Is your above post a response to another post? If so it that should be clear. If it isn't, and the topic of your post has something to do with what is being discussed in this thread, that connection should be clear. It isn't.

If your post is neither a response nor addressed to the theme of the thread, then I have to remind you, again, that these forums are for conversations, not a container for your personal scripture.

Please note the theme and topic of a conversation. If you feel you are indeed on topic, compose your post in a manner that is clear to all participants.

Thank you, Jufa.

Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by jufa »

Cindy B. wrote:
Andreas wrote:
Cindy B. wrote:One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. --Jung
This sounds so cool and I think I know what he is talking about but I wish we could discuss it even more or at least give us some clues. :)
Andreas,

Given your recent Jungian studies, I'm sure that this will clear it up for you: "darkness" is equivalent to the shadow/the unconscious. (Jung's dictum--"make the unconscious conscious" via the process of individuation.) :)

***

Kynikos,

I saved the Hopkins article and am looking forward to reading it soon. Thanks!


Cindy
Clemsy wrote:
Hi Jufa.

Is your above post a response to another post? If so it that should be clear. If it isn't, and the topic of your post has something to do with what is being discussed in this thread, that connection should be clear. It isn't.

If your post is neither a response nor addressed to the theme of the thread, then I have to remind you, again, that these forums are for conversations, not a container for your personal scripture.

Please note the theme and topic of a conversation. If you feel you are indeed on topic, compose your post in a manner that is clear to all participants.

Thank you, Jufa.
Is a more clear picture needed as to what I was responding to? Now whether this is what Cindy B., and Andreas or your interpretions deem my respond appropriate, I do not know, I was addressing that highlighted, and whether you admit it or not, the theme here has fluxed.

Thank you though for the attention!!
Never give power to anything a person believe is their source of strength - jufa
http://theillusionofgod.yuku.com

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Post by Clemsy »

I was addressing that highlighted, and whether you admit it or not, the theme here has fluxed.
Jufa, themes can 'flux' as you say, but connections in a text medium have to be clear.
Is a more clear picture needed as to what I was responding to?
Now that you've pointed it out, no. However, is the connection clear? Not as far as I'm concerned. Quote, then connect Jufa. That makes things clear. Hopefully.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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