practitioner brings awareness to his or her own mental processes, disidentification
with them takes place (Deikman 1982; Kapleau 1989). In other words, the
practitioner gains awareness that those distressing thoughts, images, and emotions
‘are not me’ (Brazier 1995:73). The goal in meditation is not to exorcise the psyche
of disturbing thoughts and emotions, nor to suppress them, but to hold them in
non-reactive, friendly awareness. They may not necessarily disappear from the
practitioner’s psyche, but through consistent observing and witnessing of them, they
cease to trouble him or her (Brazier 1995; Epstein 1995; Kapleau 1989; Muzika 1990;
Salzburg 1995; Watson 1996; Welwood 2000). Paradoxically, when it does not
matter anymore whether disturbing cognitions or emotions visit the practitioner, they
cease to be actively unwanted. When they cease to be actively unwanted, they cease
to intrude (Brazier 1995; Epstein 1995; Kapleau 1989; Muzika 1990; Salzburg 1995;
Watson 1996; Welwood 2000).
The non-reactive, non-judgmental attention with which cognitions and emotions
are treated fosters greater affect tolerance in the meditation practitioner. When a wide
variety of mental processes are treated with bare, non-judgmental attention, they are
held in an open, spacious container. This enables the meditation practitioner to
befriend his or her thoughts and emotions, no matter what they are, and reduces the
likelihood of being tyrannized by an inordinately demanding superego (Rubin 1996).
In the course of zazen, mental phenomena such as visual, auditory, olfatory,
gustatory, tactile, or propriocentric hallucinations, as well as euphoric or depressed
states may occur (Kapleau 1989). These phenomena are known as makyo and may
range from mild to intense, from short-term to long-lasting, from pleasant or elating
to unpleasant or disturbing. Usually, the more experienced an individual is in
meditation, the better able he or she will be to handle these states. When strong, vivid
makyo emerge from consciousness, this may indicate a significant intermediate point
in a Zen meditator’s practice; neither is the practitioner a rank beginner, nor has he
or she seen through the layers of self (Kapleau 1989).
Unusual or unfamiliar mental states may also take the form of either pathological
or adaptive regressions (Engler 1984; Epstein and Lieff 1981; Fauteux 1987).
Adaptive regressive states are transitory, easily reversible, and tend to increase
self-esteem (Epstein and Lieff 1981). Such states are reminiscent of Winnicottian
‘good enough mothering’ and ‘transitional phenomena’ that the individual never had,
thus helping to ease the anxiety of separation, and to recreate early feelings of
Eriksonian ‘basic trust’ that are conducive to psychological growth (Fauteux 1987).
Interception of unhealthy habit patternsWhen practicing basic zazen, thoughts are allowed to repeatedly arise and vanish in
a non-judgmental way. Thoughts and other mental processes are witnessed and held
in friendly awareness. This witnessing leads to a gradual disidentification with
ever-changing thoughts and concepts that make up the sense of self (Deikman 1982;
Epstein and Lieff 1981). When the hold on these self-concepts is loosened, they are
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