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“… I do not think that the mind really exists as an entity — possibly a startling thing for a psychologist to say.” (Ernest Jones, 1946)
“Dwelling nowhere, bring forth that mind.”
(The Diamond Sutra)
The way in which we formulate what the mind is and how it operates shapes the way we think about and conduct clinical work. Our conscious theoretical and technical predilections are the tip of the iceberg, undergirded by a dynamic network of preconscious guiding assumptions, beliefs, personal theories and implicit guiding values (Hamilton, 1996). In the Dhamapada, the Buddha takes it a step further: “We are what we think, having become what we thought.” Content and form, structure and process, contained and container — the “what” and the “how” — although useful for purposes of discussion, can obscure a non-dualistic dimension quite pertinent to who we are and how we affect one another.
Although psychoanalysis and Buddhism are distinct and different disciplines, there are certain convergences that are intriguing. In this paper, I will explore the interplay of these two practices with their implicit philosophies and worldviews along the dimensions of structure and process. By structure I refer to our explicit and implicit models of mind. By process I mean the activity of minds. I do not wish to make an amalgam, and I consider the divergences that emerge as instructive as the areas of overlap. I will describe how elements of psychoanalysis and Buddhism are already in dialogue and why extending, deepening and refining the conversation may be mutually enriching. I hope this will facilitate cross-fertilization of working theories of mind and of the activity of minds and how these impact what we do in the analytic encounter. I suggest that Buddhist teachers and practitioners can benefit at least as much as psychoanalysts from this dialogue.