Brief highlight of the book
In the first Chapter, the author provided us with his personal journey from East to West. Being the first licensed Jungian analyst who has practiced psychotherapy in Japan for more than thirty years, he is definitely entitled to discuss the differences and similarities of human psychology in both traditions. Although he showed strong tendency to identify with eastern tradition in this book and Jungian psychotherapy is only a branch of many psychotherapeutic systems, he did contribute his rich understandings and reflections on this topic.
I was deeply impressed by his accurate diagnosis and precise discussion of modern people’s suffering and its root, for example, he sharply pointed out that the western ego development leads people to suffer from the symptom of “loss of relatedness”. In order to further elaborate his argument, he discussed about the ego consciousness of West and East by comparing the painting series “Ten Oxherding Pictures” and the alchemical “Rosarium Philosophorum”. He asserted that such comparison would sufficiently demonstrate the different sense of individuation of these two traditions: western people tend to stand out as an individual among people. “I”, in western culture, is quite substantial. On the contrary, eastern people perceive individuation is a process of integration and tend to attain a state of in-divided (embodying all things as self). He used a Buddhist story of a samurai in the medieval Japan to introduce the notion of “no self-nature”. In other words, nothing exists as an individual particular by itself alone. All things continually and simultaneously manifest themselves together as a whole. Undoubtedly, this observation was very insightful and important. I believe that to be aware of this different orientation to ego consciousness is definitely a prerequisite for any attempt of integration.
When going through the process of individuation, the author was well aware of his connection to his original cultural heritage in his life. He opened himself to Buddhism and experienced how it transformed his practice. i.e., he moved from a position of ego curing to one of non-ego healing, and from active interpretation to just sitting and listening. Being inspired by The Awakening of Faith sutra, he started to appreciate the process of containing contradictions without integrating them for resolution. He also proposed his “impersonal” psychotherapeutic approach which is contrast to the personal psychotherapy in western tradition.
Overall speaking, this book is well organized and shares a similar structure with those of the Four Noble Truth: firstly he pointed out modern people’s suffering and then looked into its root and solutions. By this writing skeleton and without using too many technical terms, the author could clearly present his viewpoints and arguments step by step.
Discussion
Among the discussions, I would like to identify the “process of individuation” as the most important theme of the book. Individuation, from Jung’s perspective, is to denote the process of becoming a single, homogeneous and in-divided being. The author, as most Jungian analyst did, discussed about the analysis of dreams and artworks. It is an important means to help people identify archetypes from their unconsciousness and is also a departure of individuation. In fact, we may say that this book is talking about the author’s personal experience of individuation – how he transformed from a Jungian to a Jungian-Buddhist and finally to a Zen master liked psychotherapist. Hayao Kawai, just liked the Japanese woman, has “reprinted” his “Ten Oxherding Pictures” by words in this book.
Moreover, I believe that the “Ten Oxherding Picture” series is a vivid illustration of the individuation process: searching, struggling and integrating. I have learned form the book that both traditions emphasize on the necessity of going through the individuation process. Both aim at achieving an “in-divided” state of being although they have contradictory orientation. It is the inner urge to achieve self-realization or in Buddhist term, “searching for the original self” (尋找本來面目). Miyuki even stated that many Zen koans can be understood as the experience of the psychological process termed as “individuation”. The book held a clear and substantial discussion on these differences.
Besides, I would like to discuss about the idea of “impersonal”. It should not be understood in ordinary sense such as dehumanized or affectionless. On the contrast, it described a relationship which discarded the dualistic perspective. It is talking about a deeper level of human relationship. If the premise of “embodying all things as self” is established, it will automatically reject the subject-object relationship. Therefore, the proposed “impersonal” approach aims at promoting such a non-dualistic and non-discriminating therapeutic relationship. By shifting to such a deep relationship, one can free his feelings. The author found that it was an effective way to handle the intra-conflict aroused from particular therapist-client relationship.
Furthermore, as a Jungian analyst with strong faith in Buddhism, the author considered integrating both the traditions as his primary concern. However, he found that he was caught and suffered. Finally he reached a conclusion as follows:
“…after trying hard many times, I gradually came to know that it is, in fact, impossible to ‘integrate” them. It even seems dangerous to attempt quick integration, as I have realized that people who attempt it tend to ignore things which are “inconvenient”….after determining that integration is impossible, I can add that, with time and insight, integration is also possible.
Facing this conclusion, if we draw reference from Jack Engler’s model “Developmental spectrum concept of psychopathology”, I would like to argue that integration of these two traditions is possible and necessary. Individuation in western sense can contribute its strengths on developing a comparatively strong, stable and coherent self which is need for Buddhist meditation. It is because a scattered and fragmented ego consciousness has little chance of being able to identify its non-self nature. Therefore, we should not underestimate the contribution from western tradition regarding a whole person development. From this perspective, both traditions can work hand-in hand to promote the process of individuation across different developmental stages of a human being. Actually, the author’s personal journey itself has already demonstrated how these two traditions contribute to a whole person development in different moment of life. There is no doubt that his training of Jungian analyst did offer him a healthy and coherent self which he could investigate into. Therefore, these two traditions can dynamically interplay with each other. I would suggest that a true integration is the integration happened within a human being but not the theories. Nevertheless, the author’s strong identification of eastern tradition blinded him from evaluating the contribution of the western tradition equitably.
Overall speaking, follow the footprints of the author, I was introduced to the worldview of western and eastern psychotherapies and was guided to explore their differences and similarities. Although there are still many meaningful and insightful discussions have yet not been mentioned in this book review, what touched me the most was the author’s personal experience of individuation. This book do crystallize the author’s effort and experience in the past thirty years. When reading his story and thinking of the “Ten Oxherding Pictures”, I seem to hear his whispers: ‘Yes…, you have to search for your own bull yourself.’