There is a tremendous difference between Jung’s understanding of Schopenhauer’s
intellect and Prajnaparamita, Supreme Wisdom, in Mahayana Buddhism. Mark
Epstein, a psychiatrist who has described a Buddhist perspective on psychotherapy,
draws our attention to the fact that in the Buddhist hell, the most miserable of the
six realms of existence, the Bodhisattva appears holding a mirror in his or her hand,
suggesting that healing only takes place through the self-awareness of emotions
(Epstein 1995:22). This exactly corresponds to Schopenhauer’s notion of a mirror
in which the will reflects itself to attain its self-denial, Nirvana.
Schopenhauer does not identify the self-denial of the will with suicide. On the
contrary, he condemns suicide as the self-affirmation of the will. The will here is to
be understood metaphysically as something that subjects us to the principle of
individuation (principium individuationis). The self-denial of the will is nothing but
the freedom from the principle of individuation as egoism. To express the goal of his
therapy, on the other hand, Jung later borrowed the term individuation from
Schopenhauer. Noteworthy, however, is the huge difference in its meaning between
Schopenhauer and Jung.
According to Schopenhauer, the self-denial of the will is nothing but the realization
(Erkenntnis) of another’s suffering. He says, ‘Pure love consists in compassion
(Mitleid)’ (Schopenhauer 1987:526). Mitleid is the German translation of karuna
from the Sanskrit of Mahayana Buddhism. Similarly, Erkenntnis revealed through
Mitleid is the German translation of prajna. In Mahayana Buddhism karuna and
prajna are inseparable from each other. The basic message of Parsifal, the last work
of Richard Wagner, who was deeply involved in Schopenhauer’s philosophy, is
‘knowing through compassion’ (Durch Mitleid wissend). This clearly expresses the
teaching of Mahayana Buddhism (App 1997:13).
The search for a religious-psychological perspectiveIn the so-called Zofingia Lectures during his student days and his dissertation on
occultism, Jung, having recourse to Kant and Schopenhauer, tried to construct his
own psychological perspective for dealing with religious phenomena including
spiritualism (Charet 1993). He regarded religion as something psychological.
Psychology seemed to enable him to cross the boundary between Christianity and
other religions as well as that between religion and science. But as is evident from
Jung’s words in his letter to Freud on 11 February 1910: ‘Religion must be only
replaced by religion.’ To Freud’s great embarrassment, Jung expected psychoanalysis
to become a substitute for Christianity. In other words, he wanted to find something
that would be both religious and psychological. And it is in this respect that Jung
later appreciated Buddhism more explicitly. For him it was ‘the religion of pure
reason’ (McGuire 1984:475) and ‘a most systematic education toward the utmost
consciousness’ (Jarrett 1989:1333), though he remained reserved on the viability of
its prescription.
122 JUNG AND BUDDHISM