New Book

Aha! Just what I've been looking for--a psychologist who is a Buddhist and writes well. John Welwood 's Toward a Psychology of Awakening. All through my adult life I have been fascinated by theories of personhood, development, human psyche, whatever. Hence my ancient Psychology Major and my newfound quest for a counseling license. I have also considered a non-strict Buddhist interpretation of the universe to be as close as I need to get to spirituality; at least it makes me a lot less queasy than the Episcopal Sunday School did 50 years ago.
Jung, Freud et al brought the concept of "the unconscious" to the consciousness of Western thinkers 100 years ago and that is about all they are still admired. Read a history of Western thought and you will find this "discovery" marked as one of the milestones, which I sure it was. But the whole idea has frustrated me, and I'm sure a lot of other seekers, all my life. So you have this huge place inside you full of repressed and impossible to understand forces, demons, that control much of your thinking and behavior and cause you to say the wrong thing at times. You are taught to look askance at your innocent dreams "they aren't about what you think they're about …"(intoned ominously). That is not how I understand myself.
John Welwood, trained in all the dreary theories of Freud, Jung, Adler, but also a lifelong student of Eastern thought and meditation, makes it simple and to me explains my misgivings--the unconscious is not something separate from the ego, it is not a place inside you, and it is not always unconscious. It is a place full of awareness and knowledge--you just have to open yourself to it, to wake up. For all of us there are four levels of perception or ground (like figure vs. ground in painting) 1) the situational--what you respond to and perceive in the immediate situation that you are involved in, 2) the personal--the information and perceptions, the chain of conditioning, that relates to your personal history from your birth, 3) the transpersonal--the connections and karma and conditioning, (racial memory if you like) that connects you to the rest of the human race, and 4) the totality, the open, the chain of connection that makes whatever it is that is you a part of the entire universe, the idea of your molecules being recycled through endless suns. Meditation is an exercise in increasing perception, becoming aware of these levels, not retreating into your "unconscious" as Jung thought.
My deep interest in this kind of stuff might put some people off--never fear, I am not a preacher. I do think we all need at some level to arrive at a cogent concept of the universe and our place in it. Otherwise you will eventually run out of new places to shop and then what? Anyway, I recommend John Welwood. He has written other books, I will peruse them in the future. (Om)