1. Psychology and the Buddha’s Teachings
There have been several attempts to integrate psychology theory with the
Buddha’s teachings. For example, the collaboration of Erich Fromm, Zen
Buddhist teacher and author D. T. Suzuki and Richard De Martino led to
the publication of Zen and Psychoanalysis in 1960. This work represents
one of the first serious attempts to effectively blend Buddhist teachings
with Psychoanalytic thought. Alan Watts (1961) was also a key figure in
some of the more popular efforts at mixing Western forms of psychology
and psychotherapy with Buddhist and Daoist approaches. For some
contemporary Psychoanalysts, Zen Buddhist meditation remains an
acceptable way to explore the unconscious and to bring hitherto unknown
or unacknowledged (repressed) desires and material into consciousness
awareness (Cooper 2004). Also, clinicians and writers such as Carl
Jung, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Fritz
Perls and Mark Epstein have attempted to bridge and integrate psychology
and Buddhism.
With the recent rise of influence of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in
psychology, there has been a fruitful yet limited integration between
certain aspects of ‘Buddhist psychology’ and certain parallel areas of
psychology. For example, for the control of unwanted, intrusive
cognitions, which particularly hinder one’s meditative efforts and can
therefore be a major problem, several strategies are recommended; to
reflect on an object which is associated with thoughts which are the
opposite of the unwanted thought; ponder on harmful consequences or
the perils and disadvantages of the thought; one strives not to ignore and
distract the unwanted cognition; to reflect on the removal or stopping of
the causes of the target thought. Interventions similar to these meditation
strategies and techniques are also used for related problems in cognitive-
behavior therapy. Thought-stopping, thought-switching, distraction and
covert sensitization are all foreshadowed in the meditation techniques.
Another aspect of Buddhist psychology for modern therapeutic purposes
lies in the area of prophylaxis. Several Buddhist techniques can have a
role to play in the prevention of certain kinds of psychological disorders.
For example, training in meditation, leading to greater ability to achieve
calmness and tranquility, can help enhance one’s tolerance of the
numerous inevitable stresses in modern life. With meditation one can
achieve a degree of immunity against the psychological effects of stress
and frustration. The facility and skill in self-monitoring one can acquire
with the aid of mindfulness meditation can provide a valuable means of
self-control. The role of self-monitoring is well-documented in the self-
regulation of behavior. The overall self-development that Buddhism
encourages and recommends also has something to offer for prevention
purposes. Some of the meditation exercises and other personal
development behaviors found in

2. Buddhism can potentially enable a person to develop a positive outlook on
life and patterns of response, which, in turn, will help cope with the
problem of living; by enabling greater calmness and assurance, and with
reduced vulnerability to common psychological disorders. A positive
modern wellness program can easily incorporate many of the practices of
the Eightfold Path.
Recently, another Buddhist meditation practice called Mindfulness has
grown in usage and popularity in both the medical and psychological
fields. Now there are many programs offering Mindfulness training to the
general public with assertions that Mindfulness can help reduce negative
thinking and habits and increase positive experiences and thinking – to
name a few. Mindfulness has become a treatment for depression, anxiety
and reducing stress and relapses (Williams, Teasdale, Segal, Kabat-Zinn
2007). However, these adaptations of mindfulness are being used to
reduce our stress, to make us less depressed, more fulfilled and happy but
are rarely requiring us to make the necessary life changes that the
accompanying practices of the Eightfold Path require. Remember in
Buddhism meditation is not a standalone practice but is closely
intertwined with the wisdom and ethical practices. As a consequence,
Buddhism has mistakenly become part of a secular quest for happiness
even though the Buddha‘s understanding of happiness was radically
different. The Buddha’s teachings addressed suffering and cessation of
suffering. He consistently taught that the pursuit of happiness based upon
our erroneous and pre-awakened understanding of the world with our
craving for sensory delights and distractions was at the heart of our
problems. The Buddha taught that in the eyes of the awakened the very
things we consider to be the sources of our happiness are actually the
very sources of our misery. Not surprisingly the aspects of Buddhism
which appear to be most popular in the West have little or nothing to do
with renunciation and more to do with ‘enhancing’ life and seeking
personal fulfillment. As a consequence the Buddha’s teachings become
ignored by our sense of entitlement to happiness often irrespective of our
moral conduct.
Indeed, examples of this entitlement to happiness are easily found on
Mindfulness websites by psychotherapists and psychologists on the
application of mindfulness to psychotherapy: “The practice of meditation
and mindfulness will clear away the dullness of being on autopilot and free
you to live more fully than you ever have before.”; “LIBERATE your true
Self and discover inner balance, wellbeing and happiness as well as
RESPOND to life and relationships with greater intelligence, creativity,
intuition and compassion.” and “The more we increase mindfulness, the
more we increase happiness.” Also we are often reminded that
mindfulness was originated by the Buddha, -“Mindfulness meditation, as it
is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince,

3. Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha” – and all cite meditation
( ‘non-judgmental awareness of the now’) as the sole technique to be used.
Quite different from the Buddha’s original teachings, these
psychotherapeutic/wellness adaptations of mindfulness are usually
presented independent of any ethical/moral requirements and instead
emphasize an amoral immediacy of being. While, in fact, Buddhist
meditation is supported by the factors of ethical training as taught in the
Noble Eightfold Path. The eight factors complement each other and are an
integrated practice. Therefore, if psychotherapists and researchers want to
clearly apply the use of meditation as in Buddhist practice, with its
accompanying positive results, they need to look at how all factors of the
Eightfold Path are involved and how this complete package would have a
positive effect on wider diagnostic categories of clients of psychotherapy
being now treated with the intervention of mindfulness.
Mindfulness in popular western psychology has now only become yet
another coping mechanism for dealing with the stresses of modern life.
While the central teachings of the Buddha and the original purpose of
cultivating mindfulness was to reach full and complete awakening; to
completely overcome ignorance, hatred and craving and to put an end to
suffering. While, as in the similarity of meditative techniques and other
cognitive-behavioral techniques, there is a complementary aspect which
can enhance each other, another problem with the current popular
psychologizing of mindfulness is the name of the meditation that the
Buddha originated is being converted and misrepresented into something
very different. This is harmful as the Buddha’s message of Awakening is
lost as it becomes represented as the rush for happiness and self-
fulfillment.
The Buddha was not a psychologist and there is a real risk that the
psychologizing of the Buddha’s teachings does a great disservice to, and
distorts, the original purpose of them and, specifically, reduces the
practice of mindfulness to a self-centered pursuit more concerned with
allowing us to have more productive and intense experiences than the
original purpose which was for us to reach awakening, to overcome
ignorance, hatred and craving and to put an end to our suffering and re-
birth. Psychologizing the Buddha’s teachings can twist and subvert them
into a mental health gimmick, and thereby prevent them from introducing
the sharply alternative vision of life they are capable of bringing us. In fact,
beyond some positive interaction and influence that Buddhist psychology
can have on modern psychology, as mentioned above, it is neither feasible
or desirable to assume that the two systems in their entirety can ever be
integrated because the highest goal of psychology/psychotherapy is
limited to various forms of psychological adjustment, higher functioning
or promoting self-actualization and individual fulfillment and these are
simply not what the Buddha wanted us to understand. In fact, those goals

4. are merely band aids for the deeper problem which is our suffering due to
the ignorance of our pre-enlightened existence.