Customer Reviews

Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation

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"In addition to waking up to our ultimate spiritual nature," John Welwood observes about the psychology of awakening, "we also need to grow up--to ripen into a mature, fully developed person" (p. xviii). Welwood is a San Francisco psychotherapist and a thirty-year student of Tibetan Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this collection of articles written over the past three decades, Welwood integrates Eastern spiritual practice with Western psychology, maintaining that "awakening needs psychology just as much as psychology needs awakening" (p. xvi).

Too often Westerners attempt to avoid dealing with their "emotional unfinished business" by turning to spiritual practices instead. Welwood calls this "spiritual bypassing (pp. 5; 11-12; 207-13). Many people engaged in spiritual practice suffer from psychological wounds including self-hatred, aggression, emotional reactivity, narcissistic egocentricity, depression, and other defensive patterns, and Welwood maintains that a course of psychologically-oriented personal work could serve, support and further their movement toward awakening (p. xviii).

Welwood's 330-page book is divided into three sections, each exploring the interface between Eastern spiritual practice and Western psychology. The first explores what it means to be human: the relationship between personal growth--becoming a more mature, authentic person--and spiritual development (p. 3). "Enlightenment is not some ideal goal, perfect state of mind, or spiritual realm on high" Welwood writes, "but a journey that takes place on this earth. It is the process of waking up to all of what we are and making a complete relationship with that" (p. 33). In the second section of his book, he explores the capacity to be fully present with our experience "as it is" through psychological healing (pp. 134-35). He calls this "unconditional presence" (p. 141)--"just being with what is, open and interested, without agenda" (p. 143). Welwood confronts the subject of depression not only as an affliction that should be suppressed, but as "a potential teacher that can convey an important message about our relationship with ourselves, the world, or life as a whole" (p. 172). Part three explores personal relationships, intimacy, love and passion, and more specifically, how to remain conscious in our personal relationships with friends, lovers, coworkers, parents and children (p. 229), "in a sane, wide awake, spiritually vital way" (p. 231).

Fascinating, compelling, and insightful, Welwood's guide to personal and spiritual transformation is sure to become one of the most frequently revisited resources on my bookshelf, and is highly recommended for anyone interested in living a more meaningful life.

G. Merritt

This is the best book on integrating psychology and spirituality that I've read, written in both a clear and heartfelt way.I'm truly moved by the great depths that the author has touched. His ways of discussing how healing happens and the warmth and brilliance and range of his insight are quite inspiring. His way of discussing the ground of being is the clearest I've read, and he writes of it in many different ways that will reach a wider range of people, both in the healing professions and in ordinary life. I felt that everything he discussed came from his own realization. He shows how spiritual work helps us discover how "the ground of our being actually holds us up" and how the essence of healing lies in learning how to let be. Can someone heal who doesn't learn that whatever emotional states they have can be held openly and unconditionally in awareness? This book shows how in both psychotherapy and spiritual work, it is being awake with thoughts, feelings, and sensations, without separation and distance, that heals. Then the mind can "self-liberate" when we stay open right in the middle of what's coming up.In Welwood's words,"unconditional presence is the most powerful transmuting force there is, because it is a willingness to be there with our experience." Each one of the therapy examples in the book moved me and focused on the larger field of how we are with our experience.This book will undoubtedly by a guide for brand new ways of practicing therapy. Let me share one of my favorite quotes (among so many). Welwood describes a client whose fear of nothingness was a symptom of being cut off from herself. As she began to open unconditionally to "being nothing," her inner division fell away "as she stepped out of the fixed stances/attitudes/associations she held toward 'being nothing' with their long history dating back to childhood. In becoming present in a place where she had been absent, she experienced her being, rather than her nothingness. 'Being nothing' transmuted into the empty fullness of being--where the fear of being nothing no longer had a hold on her." For me, this is the crux of healing and the author describes it so wisely and compassionately that it has opened up many new vistas for me.

TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF AWAKENING is a dense book that describes the path of spiritual transformation from both an Eastern and Western perspective. Its primary value lies in trying to synthesize these two ways of looking at reality and describes in detail how each path informs the other.

Many paradigms both East and West aren't necessarily integrative for many modern people. This book is an attempt to provide a more holistic worldview that reconciles psychology with Buddhist insights into human nature, love and transformation.

There is also a good section on relationship as a path. I think this is an important area to address because something arises in intersubjective experience that has emergent qualities that transcend each individual. In other words, things like love, compassion and community. We can only be fully human when we are fully engaged with others in a conscious manner. This book discusses these issues and does a great job of it.

Many people won't find this book an easy read. It contains a lot of material and it explores many ideas in-depth. It also attempts to synthesize a lot of material in a brief space. However, if you have a deep interest in psychology or Buddhism, you will discover a treasure trove of good information and innovative ways of bringing it together.

If you are not very familiar with Western Psychology or Buddhism, but have a deep interest in personal and spiritual growth, you will still get a lot out of this book. However, you may find it a slower read and will undoubtedly have to take time to assimilate all of the concepts. It will be well worth the effort, but this isn't a superficial bedtime story.

Overall, I give this book my highest recommendation. It is original, well-organized, and well thought out. It is an important contribution in the area of psychological and spiritual growth and the relationship between them.

I have been practicing Zen Buddhism for the past 15 years as a lay person. I can not thank John Welwood enough for his book not only for its insightful and wise content but for his gentle and skilful way of starting a dialog between western psychoanalysis and spiritual practice. This is a must book for anyone who has been practicing seriously any form of Buddhism or any psychotherapist who is open to explore beyond the traditional forms of psychotherapy.

The author integrates Western Psychology & Eastern Spirituality (Tantric Buddhism) in a highly readable book--p. xix: "I have chosen to discuss East & West, psychotherapy, meditation, Buddhist psychology in broad terms, without focusing on the different schools & perspectives w/i these traditions." He has a lyrical style; provides good analogies (Buber's egg to chicken story p. 248), balances opposites, & relates the 2 paths/domains into "psycho-spiritual development." This book is personal, inspired by p. xv "Witnessing the contradiction where spiritual teachers & students who clearly had developed a certain level of genuine spiritual insight & awareness nevertheless remained stuck in unwholesome personality patterns-was both troubling & revealing," demonstrating pp. 11-2: "spiritual bypassing" = "to use spiritual practices to bypass or avoid dealing with certain personal or emotional `unfinished business'...trying to use spirituality to shore up developmental deficiencies." He states that p. 24: "personality is a frozen form of our true nature" & p. 231: "Intimate relationship as a path of awakening." Per Tantric Buddhism's "love affair between absolute & relative truth," he asserts the need to integrate realizations to actualize them--we need to grow up (psychologically) as well as wake up (spiritually), avoiding codependence while pursuing selflessness. Thus, he differentiates between soul work & spiritual work, stating that the West is pioneering new possibilities through the personal (individuation) & the interpersonal (e.g. intimate relationships). He has fine observations On Thoughts: p. 31: "Our thoughts act as a kind of glue that holds our identity structure together" & p. 190: we get "hijacked by our thoughts" On Love: p. 251: "Unconditional love does not imply that a relationship must take a particular form. We may love someone deeply, yet still be unable to live with that person" & p. 253 (quoting) "Unconditional love & support can be damaging to the development of a child's self-esteem" & On Healing: p. 145: "The full presence of our being is healing in & of itself."

But some neologisms are redundant: unfolding, Horizontal/Vertical shifts, & chaos resemble Kuhn's paradigms & the unfreezing/freezing process; "Moment of World Collapse" resembles St. John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul. Despite a Sources section, some quotes only give the author. IMHO he has a pro-feeling/anti-thinking bias--his assertions on thoughts also apply to emotions, seems sight-oriented (persons perceive more with one sense than others), & often refers to people's p. 183 "basic goodness" (cf. M. Scott Peck's "People of the Lie"). His differencing of "submit" & "surrender" isn't in Websters, he fails to note that complementary psychological & spiritual work resembles a yin-yang balancing, & his "meditation" means Shamatha, not Vipashyana. He says p. 293, Part I, Intro., note 1: "strictly speaking there is no Eastern "Psychology" in the Western sense of the term: the objective study of psyche, self, & behavior as they develop through time," agreeing with Jung & profusely uses Jung's term "individuation," but seems p. 63 to confuse unknowable with unknown, ignores Jung's synchronicity & Self, & decries Western psychology's p. 95 determinism. His knowledge of Jung seems limited. He's correct regarding Jung's defining consciousness only by the ego, but Jung's ego-inclusive Self could IMHO become conscious like Castaneda's 2nd Attention. While I didn't find much new in this work, its presentation & insight greatly overshadow its relatively minor deficiencies.

The main problem with this book is that it is another collection of articles edited to become a book. Thus, each chapter doesn't tend to flow with each other chapter. Although divided up into three broad categories. I would like it if the author putt all his ideas fully together in a book about the first two sections. The third section did not seem to fully fit, because it seems to be more about his personal thesis on how love relationships could somehow serve to awaken people. I personally found it unconvincing and too narrow. It would have helped if he would have talked more broadly, on how love between parent/child, friends, and intimate lovers, with full presence could serve as awakening.

Some good notes about this book is that it began my interest on psycho/spiritual thinkers, and introduced me to focusing. But there are a few problems with his emphasis. For one, he is yet another psycho/spiritual thinker-practitioner who draws a sharp delineation between the traditional inner practices and the western psychologies and emphasis on the personal self. Few thinkers along these lines dare question the sufficiency and effectiveness of the traditional spiritual practices. They can see how practitioners are better served by working directly on their egos with certain psychotherapeutic methods, but do not think about the west and east, non-dualistically.
I would refer the interested person to the works of A.H. Almaas, and some by Jack Kornfield.

I do respect that this book drew me back into the psychological world and planted the seeds on my interest in looking into the field of client-centered pscyhotherapy. But I do believe that a few points need to be emphasised for the east and west to inform each other and the psycho/spiritual dialogue to evolve:
1. Thinking does not have to be the enemy. And if wielded correctly, can serve the practice of awakening (See Almaas)
2. The personal is not a barrier to awakening. There is a reason that the west keeps emphasizing the personal in-relation to the absolute in it's spiritualities.
3. Psychotherapeutic technique can be a spritual practice in and of itself if used correctly. And meditative techniques and philosophies of the past are not always perfectly sufficient.

What needs to happen is a reexamining of the traditional practices and philosophies of the past on awakening, and the potential depth of change possible in modern psychotherapy.
A quote by Jung emphasizes my point well:

"No insight is gained... by imitating methods which have grown up under totally different psychological conditions. In the course of the centuries the West will produce its own yoga."
Or you can replace the west with modern civilization.

Most folks who join a Buddhist center in the West likely have a combination of psychological pain and spiritual angst, and it is often difficult to sort out which is which. There are many Western Buddhists with years of meditation practice under their belts, but who nevertheless feel anxious about their so-called negative emotions and who, in some part of their minds, hold doubts about their worthiness as human beings. Unfortunately, these folks are wary of psychotherapy and labor under the delusion that more meditation, more community service, and a stricter adherence to the Buddhist precepts will "cure" this state of affairs. It won't. As John Welwood points out in *Toward a Psychology of Awakening*, most Westerners have grown up in modern societies in which obtaining stable, meaningful work, engaging in significant long-term relationships and belonging to supportive communities are tasks that were much easier achieved by their grandparents than by themselves. Thus, meditation practice in and of itself is never sufficient to attain wholeness. Welwood shows us that it is only by acknowledging our wounds and fully opening to being present with ourselves will we begin the slow task of integrating ourselves with our experience--a task which in many cases will necessitate psychotherapy. This book complements Rob Preece's *The Wisdom of Imperfection* and Harvey B. Aronson's *Buddhist Practice on Western Ground* very nicely.

This is an excellent book on the theory of enlightenment. I have asked numerous Buddhists of differing denominations, what is enlightenment, and few have been able to give me a straight answer. Some acted like it was a supernatural state of being that was impossible to achieve unless you were destined to achieve it in this lifetime. Others claimed that enlightenment was undefinable and only the one enlightened would know if they were (of course, if the only person who could tell they were enlightened was themselves, enlightenment was no more than a self-delusion). Without understanding what enlightenment is, there is no reason for anyone to wish to be enlightened.

John Welwood does an excellent job at explaining the state of enlightenment. John clarifies the distinction between being non-existent and the non-existence of the self, since they are not the same thing. John shows how the source of suffering can be caused by the split between our perceptions of reality and reality itself. We think we know reality when all we really know is our are mis-perceptions of reality created by the constant filtering of reality by the ego. We live in a dream world of our own re-making and whenever our dream world clashes with actual reality, reality always wins, and we suffer as a result. We need to awaken and start trying to see reality as it is instead of what we wish it were like. This is what enlightenment is -- awakening from suffering and the games people play and the misperception of reality -- but although many try, few succeed in ever attaining it. There are many things to distract a person from ever reaching that goal so it takes belief, desire, and a little guidance, from time-to-time, from someone 'higher up' than ourselves. John believes the next step in conscious or psychological evolution is going to be in the realm of passionate relationships and devotes a third of the book to this topic. He gives a good case for this belief, one that shoe horns nicely into the theories of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. In other words, by concentrating on fully conscious, passionate relationships, we have the greatest chance of reaching enlightenment today.

This is all excellent material except for one thing: theory is nice but theory is all talk and no action. Passionate relationships is only half of the equation and John is a heavy promoter of meditation -- the other half of the equation -- yet he offers no guidance whatsoever on how to meditate. His excuse? Psychological therapy and meditation do not mix -- to which I say, what a stupid excuse! I've tried John's method of meditation, which he describes as focusing on the silence between thoughts, and all that happens to me is I fall asleep. So why did I give this book five stars, despite this glaring omission and blunder? Because the theory is well thought out, easy to understand, and confirmed by demonstrable facts -- much more so than many other books I've read on the topic. This book is a great compliment to HOW TO SEE YOURSELF AS YOU REALLY ARE by the Dalai Lama, a book which goes into exquisite detail on how to meditate.

Ok, this guy knows what he's talking about. I've been looking for a book like this for a long, long time. So many books offer advice on how to attain enlightenment, like the excellent The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but there is so little about what to do after you do. Like how to bring what you realize back to your life and community in a safe, mature and responsible way. This book is the one to get if you need a guide to your enlightened experience....get it even before you have an enlightenment experience, it's THAT good. Cheers!

Welwood's writing on psycho-spiritual union is a gift that keeps on giving. This is a book that i've turned to over the years, one i wish were known to all interested in the evolution of consciousness, psychological health and spiritual fulfillment. I've got many a page corner folded and many a passage marked. Welwood offers a much needed holism in personal & spiritual terms. Highly recommended.