8
JUNG AND BUDDHIS
Shoji Muramoto
Jungian psychology and the historical JungCarl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) is one of the few Western psychologists who most
early recognized and appreciated the psychological nature and value of an Eastern
religion, Buddhism. The seeds he sowed in Western soil more than half a century
ago were growing up as two trends from the late 1980s to the 1990s: the emergence
of Buddhist Jungian analysts (Spiegelman and Mokusen 1985; Young-Eisendrath
1996; Odajnyk 1998) and the development of a discipline that is concerned with the
comparison of Jung’s analytical psychology and Buddhism (Coward 1985; Meckel
and Moore 1992; Clarke 1994).
Remembering his own studies of alchemy in his autobiography, Jung says: ‘it
became clear to me that without history there can be no psychology, and certainly
no psychology of the unconscious’ (Jaffé 1965:205–6). History was for Jung the
search for his precedents and the experience of solidarity amidst loneliness in the
confrontation with the unconscious, as well as an interpretive framework in assessing
contemporary phenomena, clinical or social. History arouses a passion for and the
question of origin, and at the same time teaches us to see things calmly and broadly
while our contemporaries are fanatic in presenting their own distinct vision.
Why don’t we apply this historical stance exemplified by Jung himself to his own
psychology? Since Jung’s death in 1961, his followers have searched for the logic
inherent in his psychology in a way that may not have occurred to Jung himself. And,
the emergence of Buddhist Jungians is one of the results. While this development of
analytical psychology is to be validated because of the relative autonomy of any system
from its alleged creator, it is necessary to trace back the history of Jung’s encounter
with Buddhism.
The present essay is concerned with the historical Jung in his relationship to
Buddhism. In what historical, ideological, and personal context did he come to know
this Eastern religion? What was the basic motif in his encounter with Buddhism?
What were his reactions? What aspects of Buddhism made him enthusiastic, and what
aspects reserved? Did his view of Buddhism remain the same or change in the course
of his life? What are Jung’s contributions to Buddhism? These are the questions with
which I want to deal here.