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Posted on 2022-06-05
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about two different ways of conceptualizing the mind. On one hand, I have been diving back into psychoanalytic theory, and on the other, I have been reading and practicing Zen.
Critics often attack psychoanalysis as being "unscientific", or, under the Popperian criteria, "unfalsifiable". Some defenders will counter that, as it is the study of subjectivity itself, psychoanalysis cannot (and should not) be scientifically objective. Yet, psychoanalysis did very much start as a scientific project. Sigmund Freud was a neurologist by training, and his theories were based on the leading scientific paradigms of the time. His theory of drives flows naturally from the application of Darwinian evolution to the psyche, coupled with a physical energy metaphor for how desires are generated and satisfied. Most of all, psychoanalysis derives its theories through empirical observation of clients. It is not quantifiable, it is not statistical, but it is indeed observational and experimental.
I would argue that Eastern investigations of the mind, such as Zen, are also empirical. However, they are phenomenological rather than observational. Zen masters did not come to the unreality of thoughts by observing students -- they meditated for long hours and through that were able to observe their own minds.
These two paradigms came to very different conclusions about the mind. Freudians locate two (or one, depending on the school) drives that form the core of the mind. One drive is procreative (libido) and seeks pleasure. The other (thanatos) is aggressive, and seeks the destruction of others and self. These drives are then "repressed", or brought under control, by the structures of socialization -- first the parents, then society. These drives remain at constant tension, only held in check by repressive mechanisms. A "healthy" mind in psychoanalysis is one where the mechanisms of repression, along with their outlet valves for tension release, are acceptable to society and to the client.
In Zen, the core of the mind is the no-self. It is unfiltered being-there, undifferentiated experiencing. This no-self is not passive; it is what drives virtuous action. But it is ineffable. The only way to understand what it is is to experience it directly through meditation.
So which is true? Are we dark battles of repressed forces, or are we pure, virtuous no-selves? I am very much a beginner practitioner, but when I sit zazen, I do experience aspects of Zen phenomenology. It is "objectively" true that you can observe and quiet cognitions. What I don't ever experience are drives. What does libido feel like? What is it like to encounter pure thanatos?
Perhaps a way to synthesize these paradigms is by recognizing the boundaries of both. Zen is focused on intuitive, non-cognitive mind, and has not much to say on the structure of cognition. Psychoanalysis, as it is only observing others, is not able to speak of experience that does not provoke behavior. Lacanian psychoanalysis is even more cognizant of its limits. Lacan recognized that psychoanalysis is only suited to working within the realms of language and symbols, and everything else must be relegated to the register of the "Real". Maybe psychoanalysis can be the study of the symbolic and the imaginary, and Zen can be the study of the real.