Buddhist Meditation and Depth Psychology

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The most important consideration, however, is that Buddhism places very little emphasis on paranormal phenomena and regards them as by-products of spiritual development rather than goals. In fact, the novice is cautioned against experimenting with them, since they distract from one's true goals and in some cases can be obstructive or even dangerous.[52]

Supernormal powers are the supernormal powers of the ordinary man. They are hard to maintain, like a prone infant or like a baby hare, and the slightest thing breaks them. But they are an impediment for insight, not for concentration, since they are obtainable through concentration. So the supernormal powers are an impediment that should be severed by one who seeks insight.[53]

Other Forms of Meditation

The Satipatthana exercises are by far the most valuable and widely practised of all the Theravada meditations. There are, however, a total of forty meditation subjects listed in the Visuddhimagga including those already mentioned, i.e. Satipatthana practices and meditations on love, equanimity, repulsiveness of food, and the Buddha. The remaining subjects are the Dhamma, the Order of Monks, virtue, generosity, devas, peace, compassion, gladness, boundless space, boundless consciousness, nothingness, the base of neither perception nor non-perception, and the ten kasinas. Each of these subjects is intended for specific individual needs, and one should not attempt to undertake all forty. To do so would only dilute one's energies and retard progress.

A kasina is an object (such as a clay disk, a flame, or colour) which the practitioner looks at from a distance of about four feet. The eyes are alternately opened and closed until one has acquired a mental image of the object which is as vivid as the real one.[54] The ten kasina meditations develop the jhanas and do not enhance insight.

Meditation is not an exclusively Buddhist tradition. It is equally important in the Hindu religion and because the two schools employ similar techniques, they are often confused. Thus a comparison is warranted. Both advocate preparatory moral discipline, moderation in eating, quieting the mind, and abolition of selfish desires. The postures are similar, and the breathing meditation is practised by many yogis. Here, however, the similarities cease. Buddhism is concerned with the empirical phenomena of conscious experience, and thus its meditations are psychologically oriented. Hinduism, on the other hand, is mystically, religiously, and metaphysically inclined. Yogic meditation, therefore, has devotional aspects often including prayer. While Buddhism emphasizes motivations and insight, Hinduism speaks of Infinite Consciousness, Cosmic Reality, and oneness with God. To the Hindu, freedom from hatred is not so much an end in itself as it is a step towards Immortality. The following typifies Hindu writings:
Retire into a solitary room. Close your eyes. Have deep silent meditation. Feel his (God's) presence. Repeat His name OM with fervour, joy and love. Fill your heart with love. Destroy the Sankalpas, thoughts, whims, fancies, and desires when they arise from the surface of the mind. Withdraw the wandering mind and fix it upon the Lord. Now, Nishta, meditation will become deep and intense. Do not open your eyes. Do not stir from your seat. Merge in Him. Dive deep into the innermost recesses of the heart. Plunge into the shining Atma (Soul) within. Drink the nectar of Immortality. Enjoy the silence now. I shall leave you there alone. Nectar's son, Rejoice, Rejoice! Peace, Peace! Silence, Silence! Glory, Glory![55]

Another important difference concerns the visions that occur during meditation. The Buddhist regards these as psychological phenomena to be dealt with in the same way as distracting thoughts. The Hindu often interprets them as psychic experiences indicative of spiritual development. In the words of Swami Sivananda:

Sometimes Devatas (gods), Rishis (sages), Nitya Siddhas will appear in meditation. Receive them with honour. Bow to them. Get advice from them. They appear before you to help and give you encouragement.[56]

A few passages in the Tao-Te-Ching suggest that the Chinese mystics discovered meditation independently of Buddhist and Hindu traditions:
Can you govern your animal soul, hold to the One and never depart from it?

Can you throttle your breath, down to the softness of breath in a child?

Can you purify your mystic vision and wash it until it is spotless? (v.10)

Stop your senses,

Close the doors;

Let sharp things be blunted,

Tangles resolved,

The light tempered

And turmoil subdued;

For this is mystic unity

In which the Wise Man is moved

Neither by affection

Nor yet by estrangement

Or profit or loss

Or honor or shame.

Accordingly, by all the world,

He is held highest. (v. 56)

To know that you are ignorant is best;

To know what you do not, is a disease;

But if you recognize the malady

Of mind for what it is, then that is health.

The Wise Man has indeed a healthy mind;

He sees an aberration as it is

And for that reason never will be ill. (v. 71)[57]

The exact nature of early Taoist meditation will probably remain unknown, since later Taoism has intermingled with Mahayana Buddhism.

Mahayana Buddhist meditations include all the above mentioned Theravada practices plus others. The division of Mahayana into numerous and varied sects precludes any general statement about its practices. In some forms it bears similarities to Hinduism by virtue of devotional emphasis and prayer. In other schools this similarity is seen in the Mahayana concepts of Universal Mind, the Void, and Buddha Nature, which sometimes take precedence over the Theravada concerns of greed, hatred, and delusion. The curing of physical illness and the flow of spiritual forces through the body are other features of certain Mahayana practices:

Vibrations (during meditation) show the free passage of the vital principle. As it passes through the stomach and intestines, it vibrates when the belly is empty. But when the belly is full, it ceases to vibrate. The breath reaches the lower belly more easily when the latter is full. Vibrations are not accidental but come from the vital principle circulating in the belly. As time passes, when your meditation is more effective and the vital principle flows freely, then these vibrations will cease.[58]

Of all the Mahayana schools, Zen places the greatest emphasis upon meditation. Zen practice is much like Theravada. It focuses on quieting the mind and shuns conceptual thinking in preference to direct experience. The postures are also similar, and the initial Zen practice usually involves attention to breathing. It does not include as wide a variety of different techniques. Zen places greater emphasis on the details of correct posture and, especially in the Soto school, contrasts with Theravada by preferring group meditation to individual practice. In order to cultivate a suitable state of mind, Zen meditation is often followed by chanting and gongs.

Perhaps the most significant difference is that, as compared to Theravada, Zen makes little mention of the need and means of dealing with motives, feelings, and emotions. It lays great emphasis upon freeing oneself from intellectualizing and conceptualizing in one's quest of "the Ultimate." But at the same time it offers scant advice on the means by which one overcomes unwholesome impulses or confronts mental hindrances that are emotional or motivational in origin.

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Scientific Evaluations of Meditation

The Venerable Anuruddha, a disciple of the Buddha, once became ill with a painful disease. On that occasion several of the monks visited him and inquired:

What might be the state of mind dwelling in which painful bodily sensations are unable to perturb the mind of the Venerable Anuruddha?
He replied:

It is a state of mind, brethren, that is firmly grounded in the four foundations of mindfulness; and due to that, painful bodily sensations cannot perturb my mind.[59]

Throughout Buddhist history, there have been numerous other testimonies as to the benefits of Satipatthana. Yet personal testimonies and case histories are subjective and prone to distortion. The reader may well wonder what, if any, scientific studies have been conducted. To date there are two areas of investigation which have given some evidence as to the benefits of meditation.

Sensory Deprivation

The first scientific evidence does not involve meditation per se, but concerns an experimental situation which has some similarities to meditation practice. This is sensory deprivation, which has been actively studied since 1951. There are two types of sensory deprivation. One reduces sensory input by placing the experimental subject in a totally dark, soundproof room. His hands are encased in soft cotton; the temperature is constant and mild, and he lies on a soft mattress. The other type does not reduce sensory input per se, but does diminish perception. In this latter case the subject wears opaque goggles so that he sees only a diffuse white with no forms or colours. A constant monotonous noise is generated, and no other sounds are heard. Approximately the same results are obtained in either type of experiment. In both kinds the subject lies relatively motionless; he is free to think or sleep as he pleases and may terminate the session if he so desires. Experiments have lasted from four hours to five days.[60]

The lack of practice and lack of any attempt at mental discipline makes sensory deprivation a passive procedure notably different from meditation. However, both meditation and sensory deprivation involve a temporary withdrawal from external stimuli without loss of consciousness, and thus a comparison is warranted.

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of sensory deprivation research to date is the great discrepancies in the findings of different researchers. For example, some studies have shown it to impair learning, while others find that learning is enhanced.61 Most of the early studies reported that the great majority (in some cases all) of experimental subjects had strong visual and sometimes auditory hallucinations beginning from twenty minutes to seventy hours after entering the experiment. Other researchers, however, reported very few hallucinations. Suggestion is a partial, though not total, explanation for this difference in frequency of hallucinations. One study found that under identical sensory deprivation conditions a group of subjects which was told that hallucinations were frequent and normal had over three times more than an identical group which was given no such information.62 This no doubt explains many of the psychic experiences of those yogi devotees who seek visions while meditating in isolation.

Recent studies have indicated that the emotional atmosphere created by the experimenters plus the subject's attitudes, knowledge, and expectations may have greater effect on the results of the experiment than do the physical aspects of sensory deprivation.63 Regarding meditation, this fact suggests the importance of moral, intellectual, and environmental preparation. It also suggests the importance of taking a few moments before meditation to create a wholesome frame of mind.

What is most significant for the purpose of this writing, however, is whether or not sensory deprivation and its accompanying social isolation facilitate awareness of one's inner emotional conflicts and thereby facilitate personality growth. Several studies have indicated that such is the case. Most significant was an experiment conducted on thirty white male psychiatric patients in Richmond, Virginia. The group consisted of approximately equal numbers of neurotics, schizophrenics, and character disorders, and all were subjected to a maximum six hours of sensory deprivation. Each subject was given a battery of psychological tests the day before the experiment, and the same tests were repeated the day after and again one week later. The tests rated the subjects on twenty items such as anxiety, depression, hostility, memory deficit, disorganized thinking, etc. It was found that on each of the twenty items some subjects improved, some worsened and some revealed no change. However, the desirable changes outnumbered the undesirable ones by a ratio of two to one, and one week after the experiment most of the beneficial changes were found to have persisted while the undesirable ones had mostly subsided. Some subjects showed no desirable changes on any of the twenty items; others revealed as many as thirteen. The average subject improved on four of the twenty items and worsened on two. The experimenters also reported that the subjects displayed "increased awareness of inner conflicts and anxieties, and heightened perception of the fact that their difficulties stemmed from inner rather than outer factors.... A second major change observed was a less rigid utilization of repressive and inhibitory defenses. The reduction of incoming stimulation led to recall and verbalization of previously forgotten experiences in many instances. For some subjects this recall was anxiety-inducing...."[64]

Other studies have supported this finding that short term sensory deprivation is psychologically beneficial. (Deprivation of a day or more is likely to be detrimental.) However, other carefully conducted investigations have found no such improvements,[65] and therefore further studies are indicated before any definite conclusions can be made about the therapeutic value of sensory deprivation

Electroencephalographic Analysis of Meditation

In 1963 a fascinating and unique report on Zen meditation was presented by Dr. Akira Kasamatsu and Dr. Tomio Hirai of the Department of Neuro-Psychiatry, Tokyo University. It contained the results of a ten-year study of the brain wave or electroencephalographic (EEG) tracings of Zen masters.[66,67]

The EEG tracings revealed that about ninety seconds after an accomplished Zen practitioner begins meditation, a rhythmic slowing in the brain wave pattern known as alpha waves occurs. This slowing occurs with eyes open and progresses with meditation, and after thirty minutes one finds rhythmic alpha waves of seven or eight per second. This effect persists for some minutes after meditation. What is most significant is that this EEG pattern is notably different from those of sleep, normal waking consciousness, and hypnotic trance, and is unusual in persons who have not made considerable progress in meditation. In other words, it suggests an unusual mental state; though from the subjective reports of the practitioners, it does not appear to be a unique or highly unusual conscious experience. It was also found that a Zen master's evaluation of the amount of progress another practitioner had made correlated directly with the latter's EEG changes.

Another finding of the same study concerned what is called alpha blocking and habituation. To understand these phenomena let us imagine that a person who is reading quietly is suddenly interrupted by a loud noise. For a few seconds his attention is diverted from the reading to the noise. If the same sound is then repeated a few seconds later his attention will again be diverted, only not as strongly nor for as long a time. If the sound is then repeated at regular intervals, the person will continue reading and become oblivious to the sound. A normal subject with closed eyes produces alpha waves on an EEG tracing. An auditory stimulation, such as a loud noise, normally obliterates alpha waves for seven seconds or more; this is termed alpha blocking. In a Zen master the alpha blocking produced by the first noise lasts only two seconds. If the noise is repeated at 15 second intervals, we find that in the normal subject there is virtually no alpha blocking remaining by the fifth successive noise. This diminution of alpha blocking is termed habituation and persists in normal subjects for as long as the noise continues at regular and frequent intervals. In the Zen master, however, no habituation is seen. His alpha blocking lasts two seconds with the first sound, two seconds with the fifth sound, and two seconds with the twentieth sound. This implies that the Zen master has a greater awareness of his environment as the paradoxical result of meditative concentration. One master described such a state of mind as that of noticing every person he sees on the street but of not looking back with emotional lingering.

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The Social Fruits of Meditation

Through science, technology, and social organization Western man has built a civilization of unprecedented wealth and grandeur. Yet despite this mastery of his environment, he has given little thought to mastery of himself. In fact, his newly-acquired wealth and leisure have heightened his sensuality and weakened his self-discipline. It becomes increasingly apparent, however, that a stable and prosperous democracy can endure only so long as we have intelligent, self-disciplined, and properly motivated citizens; legislation and education alone will not ensure this. Buddhism presents a technique by which this can be obtained, but the responsibility rests with each individual. No one can cure our neuroses and strengthen our characters except ourselves.

In the Sumbha country in the town of Sedaka the Buddha once said:
"I shall protect myself," in that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practised. "I shall protect others," in that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practised. Protecting oneself one protects others; protecting others one protects oneself. And how does one, in protecting oneself, protect others? By the repeated and frequent practice of meditation. And how does one, in protecting others, protect oneself? By patience and forbearance, by a non-violent and harmless life, by loving-kindness and compassion. "I shall protect myself," in that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practised. "I shall protect others," in that way the foundations of mindfulness should be practised. Protecting oneself, one protects others; protecting others, one protects oneself.[68]