Oct
5
Dynamics of the Meditative Path
- Preliminary practices: inner space
- Dynamically: Paralysis of ego functions other than observing ego
- Danger is self-fragmentation
- Emptiness misunderstood as incompleteness
- Egolessness misunderstood as loss of psychodynamic ego
- Concentration: oceanic feeling
- Dynamically: Merger of ego and ego-ideal
- Danger is self-annihilation
- Emptiness misunderstood as a real nothingness
- Egolessness misunderstood as loss of ego boundaries, abolition of the self
- Mindfulness: surrender
- Dynamically: Loss of self-consciousness without loss of awareness
- Danger is self-abnegation
- Emptiness misunderstood as a quiet mind free of thoughts
- Egolessness misunderstood as relinquishment of the ego or repudiation of the self
- Insight: emptiness/relativity
- Dynamically: Understanding the representational nature of experience
- Danger is self-deception
- Emptiness misunderstood as a real disappearance
- Egolessness misunderstood as the absence of self-representation
— “Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective”, Dr. Mark Epstein M.D.
