Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy

In the next two paragraphs we will describe in more detail a Buddhist path, as
found in the work of Nishitani, and a psychotherapeutic path, as found in Dialectical
Behavior therapy for borderline personality disorders. In describing the work of
Nishitani and Linehan (the founder of the therapy), we will keep to the structure of
the path. We will thus describe the following aspects: starting point, different phases,
goal, guiding rules and techniques, and underlying principles.

The Buddhist path in Nishitani

Starting point

The starting point of the path in Nishitani can be indicated in his description of how
life, which is experienced as meaningful, can be shattered and broken into a
meaningless, fearful, doubting mass of existence. In his work Religion and Nothingness,
Nishitani shows in different ways how in modern life nihility can loom up, draining
everything of meaning. One way Nishitani elaborates on how this crisis works is by
analyzing the way people ordinarily live their lives:

Ordinarily people see their lives as more or less ordered—organized according

to usefulness and functionality of things. We want to know what everything is

for, something to be eaten, something to drink, etc. This division of life on the

basis of the function of things happens constantly and most of human life is

limited to this level of existence.

(Nishitani 1982:1)

In this process the person sees herself or himself as the center and aim of all things.
The objects outside ourselves are held as real, but in fact we have no real contact with
objects and people. In that sphere of consciousness where we normally dwell we are
separated from things. There is an interior world (I) and an exterior world (objects).
This separation is functional and enables the person to act but at the same time places
the person in opposition to things and prevents real contact. Experienced as most
real is the I in the center of the world. Each I is experienced as independent, but at
the same time it is imprisoned in itself—isolated and endlessly mirroring itself
(Nishitani 1982:14).
Nishitani indicates that the position of self-consciousness is the position with I as
the middle point, and looking from this position it cannot be seen that our existence
coincides with non-existence. Death and nothingness are fundamental problems for
the person living in the ordinarily meaningful world, because, viewed from the
position of I, death and nothingness do not exist.
But death and nothingness are realities and by their reality the meaningful world
with the absolute I in the center can be turned upside-down and lose its
matter-of-factness. If a person is existentially confronted by the inevitability of death,

NISHITANI AND DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY 187