myriad time-tested approaches to understanding and transforming human misery.
Psychotherapy also has something to offer Buddhism, especially in our study of
personal unconscious emotional habit patterns or ‘psychological complexes,’ as I shall
try to show. At this unique moment in history we in America can witness the powerful
influx of ancient Asian teachings into our society where our own psychological
sciences are being eroded by biological determinism and the economics of managed
care.
The spiritual problem of the end of the centuryCarl Jung more than once said that science is the ‘spiritual adventure of our age’ (e.
g. 1992/1939:50). Science, with its skeptical and objective methods, allowed us to
see that many powers we had projected into an animistic world were, in fact, our
own. Jung described this as ‘the last step out of humanity’s childhood, out of a world
where mind-created figures populated a metaphysical heaven and hell’ (1992/
1939:49). Science did not transcend metaphysics, however. It created its own
metaphysics with widespread cultural consequences. For example, (1) science has
awarded the names of ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ to the ultimate principles of existence and
(2) this has led to radically different modern beliefs about human life—as for example
the ‘scientific’ conclusion that afterlife does not exist. Whether or not individuals
actually understand this new metaphysics, we are all constantly influenced by it. For
instance, the ways in which science has permitted humankind to explore and
manipulate our phenomenal world (including our own bodies) leads us to speak of
‘miracles of science’ that have largely replaced the miracles of religion in educated
societies. Renowned geneticist and zoologist Lewontin of Harvard University says
the following about how we have elevated scientific beliefs:
Not only the methods and institutions of science are said to be above ordinary
human relations but...the product of science is claimed to be a kind of universal
truth. The secrets of nature are unlocked. Once the truth about nature is
revealed, one must accept the facts of life.
(1991:8–9)Lewontin goes on to discuss Darwin’s theory of evolution as a case in point. I would
like to address this briefly as a prime example of a particular spiritual problem that
marked the end of the twentieth century.
Much of our reasoning about human life and other beings on this planet now rests
on the theory of natural selection. Most educated people believe (at least vaguely) in
the scientific principle that the living organisms on earth have evolved over billions
of years from other organisms that were unlike them, and are now mostly extinct.
When this story is told of humanity, it wholly eliminates the role of personal meaning
and human intentions in the development of societies and the lives of individuals.
The ‘master molecule’ of the gene, falsely endowed with an autonomous power, is
THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN SUFFERING 67