Meditation vs Psychotherapy ~ with Mark Kuren Westmoquette

Senior dharma teacher Mark Kuren Westmoquette offers some personal perspectives on meditation and psychotherapy, and how the combination of the two approaches can be of great use to us.
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Zenways promotes and encourages activities and practices that enhance human wellbeing, balance and awakening (satori or kensho - the enlightenment of Zen) in the many different situations we find ourselves in. Over many years of strict training, in Japan and the west, Julian Daizan Skinner received dharma transmission and permission to teach in both the Rinzai and Soto lineages of Zen. He now teaches at the Yugagyo Dojo in London, UK. May these recordings help you and those around you to find and realise the truth.
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[@clarabsl5529]

To me, meditation starts where psychotherapy leaves off. In my experience, psychotherapy can help you get to a place where you feel safe enough to be present to your experience, which is where meditation can come in. It all depends on where you start from. Some people don't need psychotherapy to be able to tolerate feelings; others may use psychotherapy as a help during specific life difficulties. Also, therapies differ enormously and one or two are closer to or very compatible with a Zen understanding.

[@paulilott2478]

Good points. Psychoanalysis and other therapies are an attempt to explain why the ego/self develops neurotic symptoms in addition facilitating the release and integration of repressed emotion and ideas. Zen practice moves beyond that to the deconstruction of the self. I did primal therapy many years ago which certainly involved mindfulness based practices and working with the body, but the notion of an authentic self that had become distorted over time was at the heart of the practice. Arthur Janov’s book exhorted readers to ‘be themselves’, which is a mantra you still hear repeated in popular culture today.Your points raise the question of how Zen approaches the question of the subconscious. Presumably ancient Zen masters wouldn’t have had an understanding of the subconscious and how it affects our behaviour in the same way society understands it today post Freud. In meditation we experience empty phenomena appearing in awareness, but we don’t have access to the subconscious and so don’t see the full picture, even though feelings may come up from the subconscious into conscious awareness.

[@harrybradley9770]

Have you ever noticed that in zazen things that were previously occurring subconsciously become subject to our awareness? I think the direct experience of Buddhist practice could lend some practical understanding to the theory of a subconscious, particularly the notion that it is maybe like a fixed mental/ psychological place or 'thing'. Regards, H.

[@Vince-ml9gw]

Mark, thank you. Wonderful talk.

[@Zenways_zen]

Thanks!