Soul in Zen - Q and A, by John Tarrant, Roshi
1. QUESTION: (Question on what depth psychology is.)
JOHN: Well, I think depth psychology is anything that seems to take a long while and a lot of money. But my sense is that what it does about patient, would be one thing about it. And I think it”s got a rather zen sense of inquiry about it. That when we go into it, we”re not necessarily trying to fix our particular problem, like our fear of flying or whatever. That that might drive us into the room to pay attention to ourselves. It”s more a question of where is my life going, and who am I, and those kind of questions tend to get addressed. In my case there”s a kind of interest, a kind of trust in what the unconscious is trying to do as well as what my ego level awareness is interested in. In that way, it”s rather like zen. Zen rather directly attacks the ego; whereas, depth psychology tends to more directly heal with it, rather than karate or something like that. But in both of them the unconscious is brought out more. What is greater than us that is also in us is invited into the room.
2. QUESTION: You didn”t say very much about change and I just wondered what you thought was implicit in your remarks and your experience that was . . .
JOHN: That”s a great question. Well, I think we do change enormously and we can”t help it. There”s absolutely no use in having a particular idea of how we”re going to change because we”re never going to change that way. We”re somehow always willing to change A and B, but what always seems to get asked of us is to change C and D. The things we”re willing to give up, often we can keep. The things we”re no willing to give up are the very things we must surrender. Think in small things, not great awful things. But ways of thought, characteristic indulgences and particular feelings. My motive for change. What I think we do is as best we can is we harmonize with the Tao and the change happens and we have to have the good grace to accept it.
(Question amplification. Same speaker.)
JOHN: Well, we listen, we”re patient, we do our meditation. My experience of doing a lot of meditation was, my god, all sorts of things came up. I got very good at deep states of mind and rather calm, but as soon as I thought I was very good at it, something very tempestuous would appear. After awhile, again, this is part of this work that I”m sharing with you, after awhile I began to realize that that, too, was part of it. When the something--the pain, the sorrow or whatever it is--appears. Or arrogance or anger or some pomposity, whatever it is, appears because it”s, in a sense, trying to come home. And that”s a lot of the change, to notice that and somehow come to terms with that stuff when it comes up.
QUESTION: (Same questioner) I was thinking more in terms of the initial experience that you talked about.
JOHN: The enlightenment experience
QUESTION: Yes.
JOHN: Well, the enlightenment experience is--I think somebody told me, sitting in the audience here, actually, that Suzuki Shunryu Roshi described it as a 360 degree point of view change. So there”s the old saying in zen that when you begin to practice mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers and everything--breakfast is breakfast--and that”s how it is. Then after you”ve been practicing for awhile mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers so you begin to see the transparence of the world which is both the glow and the beauty and also the insubstantiality of things is just so evident. That this is a dream that we are living in. There”s just no doubt about that. And the dream has different flavors and so on, but it”s a dream. But then at the end of training mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers again. That in some way we do change our point of …
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