meditators who are experiencing unusual mental states might consider working with
senior meditation teachers (Finn and Rubin 1999).
Ignoring personal woundsConsciously or unconsciously, Western meditation practitioners may use their
meditation practice to avoid facing developmental tasks or old psychic wounds that
would be better dealt with in psychotherapy. Quite a few meditation teachers convey
the message that enlightenment or seeing through the false self gets to the root of
human suffering, and thereby eradicates personal emotional difficulties.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Enlightenment is seeing through the illusion of
self, but is not necessarily a way to heal a wounded self. In fact, wounds may continue
to be there, hidden from consciousness, and operating in much the same way as they
did before enlightenment (Engler 1984; Kornfield 1993a; 1993b; Muzika 1990;
Odajnyk 1998; Rubin 1996; Welwood 2000; Young-Eisendrath forthcoming).
Mistaken, glamorized notions of enlightenment present it as a discrete, unchanging,
once-and-for-all life-changing event that will eradicate all kinds of suffering and
human shortcomings (Brown and Engler 1980; Epstein 1990; Kapleau 1989;
Kornfield 1993a; 1993b; Muzika 1990; Rubin 1996; Young-Eisendrath
forthcoming). Enlightenment experiences may be shallow or deep, short- or
long-lasting, but in any case, they are capable of endless development and are part of
a continuum (Epstein 1990; Kapleau 1989). Enlightenment experiences may be
temporarily healing, but if old wounds are still operating, the practitioner will be
unable to integrate those experiences into his or her daily life and may be using
spirituality to avoid dealing with those very wounds (Kornfield 1993a; 1993b).
Engler coined the well-known phrase, ‘you have to be somebody before you can
be nobody’ (Engler 1984:31). Many students who are attracted to meditation practice
may mistakenly attempt to bypass or prematurely transcend important developmental
tasks by annihilating the self at all costs (Engler 1984). From a developmental
perspective, it is necessary to integrate a differentiated, cohesive self-structure before
undertaking rigorous meditation practice to see through the self (Engler 1984;
Welwood 2000). This minimum of cohesiveness is presupposed in Buddhist thought:
if Zen Buddhism emphasizes seeing through the self, it is because it implicitly
acknowledges its centrality in human development (Engler 1984; Suler 1995;
Welwood 2000). Initially, Engler argued that this basic, intact self-structure must
precede the perception of ultimate illusoriness of the self. More recently, Engler has
modified his views and has stated that this process need not be linear (Engler as cited
in Cohen 2000) but, because spiritual life and psychological life are interwoven, work
in both realms may proceed synergistically.
Epstein (1990; 1995) takes issue with Engler’s dictum of ‘you have to be somebody
before you can be nobody,’ but nevertheless describes a similar process of disownment
of negative mind states. Some meditators may observe their thoughts and feelings
during meditation in a detached manner as a means to intellectualize, to dissociate
from libidinal drives, rationality or aggression, or to produce the opposite of their
158 KATHERINE V.MASÍS