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Psychotherapy - Seeds
Buddhist psychology has existed for 2,500 years, while Western psychotherapy is only about 100 years old; the meeting between these two foundations can enrich both. Western therapeutic principles often rely on bringing up unconscious suffering and using transference onto the doctor to find relief. Conversely, meditation practice is not an anesthetic to escape reality or seek a neutral state, but a method to face the truth and the suffering within oneself. The practitioner does not fight alone but takes refuge in the teacher and friends, avoiding the projection of father-son feelings onto the guide, but building a teacher-student relationship and friendship to support each other in transforming suffering.
According to statistics in the United States, there are four types of people who enter mental hospitals the most:
- Dentists.
- Lawyers.
- Doctors.
- Psychiatrists.
A human being is a composite of all seeds (bīja). When a seed manifests, it is called a mental formation; afterwards, it falls back down into consciousness to become a seed again. Happiness or suffering depends on the nature of these seeds; if dark seeds are watered frequently, one will look at life through the lens of suffering. Suppressed suffering creates internal formations (formation antérieure), and the practice is to intervene in that totality of seeds with the light of mindfulness. Mindfulness is like a boat carrying a rock of suffering so it does not sink, supporting and transforming anger just as sunshine causes a flower to bloom. In the spiritual domain, it is necessary to let natural elements intervene in the healing process. Good seeds in the consciousness act like antibodies (anticorps), automatically surrounding and transforming painful internal formations when one knows how to dwell in peace, touch the wonders of life, and nourish bodhicitta.
