entrust oneself to nature. Masatake Morita (1874–1938), the founder of Morita
therapy, seems to be indebted to Inoue’s specifically Eastern ides of the natural
self-observation method.
Other theoretical elaborations in Buddhist psychologyThough less systematically than Inoue, other Japanese psychologists also attempted
to enrich our psychological knowledge beyond Western psychology by elaborating
their traditional spirituality of Buddhism. Characteristically, their emphasis is on the
difference in the concept of mind between Buddhism and Western psychology. They
generally believe that, while Western psychology is either subjectivism or objectivism,
Buddhist psychology is neither this nor that but beyond both. Various authors name
differently the basic principle of Buddhism: the True Self, Suchness (tathatƗ), the
Buddha-nature (Buddha-dhƗtu), Emptiness (ĞnjnyatƗ) and so on. No matter how it
is called, it is neither a merely empirical phenomenon nor a metaphysical entity, but
embraces and is beyond both. It cannot be grasped with the discriminating intellect
but must be experienced directly when the subject and the object are revealed to be
one. That is what Motora, based upon the practice of Zen in a temple, wanted to tell
the Western audience in his presentation at the 1905 seventh International
Conference of Psychology in Rome: ‘The Idea of Ego in Eastern Philosophy’.
With his studies of Kan (1933, 1938), Ryo Kuroda may have greatly contributed
to the development of Buddhist psychology as well as phenomenological psychology.
Kan refers to the intuition functioning in religious experiences, artistic creations, and
crisis management. In his view, the primary concern of Eastern psychology is the
description of jinaishǀ, spontaneous inner verification that is the core of psychological
experiences in Zen.
Now Rinzai Zen recognizes four types of outlook (Japanese: shiryǀken): (1) that
there is no subject without object; (2) that the entire world is a mere reflection of
one’s own consciousness; (3) that there is a state in which the subject-object duality
is transcended; (4) that ultimately there is no subject and object (Daito Shuppansha
1991:319). Kuroda characterizes each of these four types respectively as materialist,
idealist, parallelist, and Zen Buddhist.
Kuroda distinguished the phenomenal mind called consciousness (shiki) from the
essential mind called awareness (kaku). Satori in his view is the experience of directly
pointing to something in the extremely purified form of the latter that is hard to
describe in terms of the former.
Tanenari Chiba (1884–1972) is the first Japanese phychologist who, relying upon
Yogacara psychology, elaborated the concept of the unconscious. His unique concept
of the original consciousness (koynj-ishiki) refers to that consciousness in which
everything conscious is embraced, present, and lively functioning, from which it
emerges, and to which it returns. It is divided into the relative original consciousness
as the basis of personal development and the absolute original consciousness as the
collective spirit beyond the personal consciousness. The original consciousness is
studied by the method of self-observation that is neither empirical nor inductive as
240 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY IN MODERN JAPAN