|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.When they follow their true nature, both psychotherapy and Zen inherently place us in awider context.The world is too big for us to restrict it to our personal rules of gain and loss.Weare embedded in the world and depend for our very existence on all around us: all our ancestorsbefore us, all that follows, all who co-exist with us.We are not alone.We practice not forourselves, nor even for others, but with every one.The antidote to neurotic ideas of gain lies notin finding some personal gratification, but in discovering the satisfaction inherent in ourconnectedness with others; the antidote to Zen sickness is not to obtain enlightened bliss, but torealize our interdependence with all beings.We get isolated and blinded when we practice psychotherapy or Zen to gain something forourselves, but we keep falling into the trap.Fortunately, there is a simple antidote: to practicegiving.Giving transforms us by taking us out of ourselves: it inherently connects us to others.Giving is the foundation of both psychotherapeutic and Zen practice.Dogen reminds us thatthough the mind of a sentient being is difficult to change, you should keep onchanging the minds of sentient beings.This should be started by giving.Mind is beyond measure.Things given are beyond measure.Moreover, ingiving, mind transforms the gift and the gift transforms mind34. Many clients come to psychotherapy hoping to get something out of it: some love orvalidation they feel they have not gotten from their parents, some recognition or appreciationthey have not gotten from their employers or children.If the therapist responds to this just bygiving to the client, it only teaches the client about getting, not giving.Often what is equally oreven more healing for clients than being given to is to have an opportunity to give of themselvesto others.Sometimes clients need to learn how to give genuinely of themselves to others in orderto give to themselves; sometimes they need to learn how to give to themselves in order to givegenuinely to others.They are two aspects of the same thing.As Dogen says, If you are to practice giving to yourself, how much more so to your parents,wife, and children.Therefore you should know that to give to yourself is a part ofgiving.To give to your family is also giving.Even when you give a particle of dust,you should rejoice in your own act.In psychotherapy and Zen practice we learn the mutuality of give and take.We are alwaysreceiving from others and always giving to others.We may, however, have the illusion that givingis unidirectional: that we must give to benefit others and deny ourselves, or conversely that we areentitled to be given to without any obligation of returning the favor.If we think we deserve to be given to or must be given to, we will feel either helpless despair or righteous anger when we don tget what we want.On the other hand, if we think we can give to others without being given to,we will put ourselves in a position of feeling one-up to the person we see as needy and dependenton us.Therapists are in real danger of this, since illusions of both the profession and our clientscan pull for this kind of giving.Feeling one-up can be temporarily gratifying, but ultimately itproves draining.There are many different kinds of giving.There is giving where we give in order to feel goodabout ourselves.This is hardly ideal, but often we have to start learning about giving from thispoint.The process of giving in itself helps us learn about the selfless pleasures of generosity.Thiscan lead us to the kind of giving where we give in order to help another person.There, theprocess of giving teaches us empathy as we sorrow at the other person s pain, and rejoice in theirhappiness.But as we practice giving more and more, it becomes as natural as respiration, with aslittle thought of gain and loss as breathing in and breathing out.In this giving we simply rejoicein the act of giving itself, as a simple expression of our true self [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
Archiwum
|