Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy

Her second and third trials to find out if I intend to provide her with the misery
she expects—her ‘We have a problem’ and ‘I’ve to manage it all by myself’—don’t
arouse any unkind feelings or ironic thoughts in me anymore. My ‘I can’t help you’
means with the alcohol problem, with money, but maybe also ‘I can’t take notice of
this provocation.’ And indirectly this remark also suggests that it is possible that one
has to manage something all by oneself, that this need not be avoided. It’s a paradox
of course: I support you even if I can’t help and you have to manage ‘all by yourself’.
Maybe I sensed that what she tells me in these first few statements isn’t an issue for
her now on a feeling level. That she’s provoking and testing is an interpretation
afterwards; at that moment itself I wasn’t aware of being busy with it.
Later it turns out that she hadn’t been drinking excessively in the past few weeks
and that she spent much time with her new lover, who helped her to solve her
problems. So at this moment she is not that alone. But I did not know that yet in the
situation described and I didn’t have to know it either, I just had to be open and
attentive, the rest comes of itself. After the third time she tested me, she considers
the situation safe enough to come forward with what’s on her mind really: she is in
love and very happy. That’s a possibility also, life doesn’t have to be always miserable.

Insight into the interwovenness and variability of all things

Insight, or wisdom, is a second facet of the Buddhist way. Wisdom is insight into the
nature of reality itself. Everything in our world is in continuous movement: it arises,
changes, flows, and decays. Usually this is called ‘impermanence.’ I call it variability,
which sounds to me more neutral and more precise: everything arises and falls apart.
Everything is connected with everything else, is interwoven with everything. I call it
interwovenness. I illustrated this earlier with the glass of water. Buddha found out
that if we resist this interwovenness and variability and cling to one thing and reject
another, then our openness gets lost and we create a fake or delusional world and
suffering.

Variability, relationships

Louis comes to ask for therapy because he is not able to have a relationship

with a mate after a few disappointments in this area. Exploration of this

problem tells us that he doesn’t want to run the risk of having to endure

that much pain and sorrow again.

Previously I would have been inclined to work from the unspoken viewpoint that the
fact that something fails a few times does not necessarily mean that it will fail again,
and that in principle, it is possible to engage in a relationship that doesn’t break down.
I could have said: ‘So because you’re afraid to lose the other again and you would
have to endure that sadness once more, you had rather not start it again,’ by which
I would implicitly reinforce the illusion that the fairy-tale could end with: ‘And they

ENKO ELSE HEYNEKAMP 251