You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
With Jung's introduction to Suzuki's Zen Buddhism in mind, analytical psychologists will read this book with special interest. Only recently published in England, it is composed of three papers out of the ten, including two by James Kirsch and Ira Progoff, that were read and discussed in a workshop on Zen Buddhism and psychoanalysis held in Cuernavaca, Mexico as long ago as 1957.
The presentation of Zen Buddhism, on its religious side, was undertaken by Suzuki, while de Martino described it in psychological terms. Their papers, informative and persuasive, are implicitly critical of the alleged intellectualism, aim-directedness, materialism and ego-centred-instinctuality of the West. Zen is presented very gently as an alternative form of wise living reckoned to support the well-being, the ‘wholeness’ and the true nature of man. By contrast, however, we are also reminded of the well-known violence of the Zen teacher's responses when asked intellectualistic-sounding or practical questions by their pupils. At such a point, the immediate and non-rationalistic riposte is