In Western culture over the past century, the growth of interest in psychology and Buddhism have occurred together and have often intersected. Yet they come from quite different views of the world and the nature of the mind. What is the relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy in the modern world? Where do these two intersect, and where do they diverge? And how can we understand the nature of mind from both points of view?
On this episode of Treasure Mountain Podcast we are privileged to have as our guest Ayya Jitindriya who is currently resident at Viveka Hermitage in southern New South Wales. Ayya Jitindriyā first trained as a monastic in the Theravada Forest Tradition lineage of Ajahn Chah & Ajahn Sumedho for over 16 years from 1988-2004. After leaving the monastic order she gained a Master’s degree in Buddhist Psychotherapy Practice with the Karuna Institute in the UK, and continued to teach meditation and retreats on invitation. Returning to live in Australia in 2008, she practiced as a Buddhist psychotherapist and taught meditation, Buddhism and psychotherapy in various capacities. She was the Director of Training for Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists for several years. In early 2018 Jitindriyā re-entered the monastic life at Santi Forest Monastery in the Southern Highlands of NSW and held the role of guiding teacher and Spiritual Director there for a time. In 2021 she helped to set up Viveka Hermitage in Southern NSW where she now resides.
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Ayya Jitindriya – Buddhism v Psychotherapy
Sol Hanna
Welcome to Treasure Mountain, the podcast that inspires and guides us to find the treasure within human experience. I'm your host, Sol Hannah. In Western culture, over the past century, the growth of interest in psychology and Buddhism have occurred together and have often intersected. Yet they come from quite different views of the world and the nature of the mind. What is the relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy in the modern world? Where do these two intersect and where do they diverge? And how can we understand the nature of mind from both points of view? On this episode of Treasure Man podcast, we are privileged to have as our guest Aya Andrea, who is currently resident at Viveca Hermitage in southern New South Wales. I had attended at first trained as a monastic in the Truvada Forest traditional lineage of Argentina and Ajahn Semedo for over 16 years, from 1988 to 2004. After leaving the monastic order, she gained a master's degree in Buddhist psychotherapy practice with the Karuna Institute in the UK, and continued to teach meditation and retreats on invitation, returning to live in Australia in 2008. She practised as a Buddhist psychotherapist and taught meditation, Buddhism and psychotherapy in various capacities. She was the director of training for the Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists for several years. In early 2018, Jitendra re-entered the monastic life at Sant Forest Monastery in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales and held the role of guiding teacher and spiritual director there for a time. In 2021, she helped set up The Hermitage in southern New South Wales, where she now resides. I'm so glad that you've joined us on this exploration of Buddhism and psychotherapy as we seek for the treasure within.
Sol Hanna
Welcome to Treasure Mountain. How are you today? I am,
Ayya Jitindriya
Hi, Saul. I'm very good.
Sol Hanna
Thank you. Well, I'm really appreciative that someone with your experience has come to join us on the podcast to deal with this very interesting, yet somewhat tricky topic to deal with about Buddhism and psychotherapy. And I'd like to start with, I guess, your own personal journey. It seems that most of your adult life you've either been a Buddhist nun or a psychotherapist. Could you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to become a Buddhist nun, then a psychotherapist, and now back again?
Ayya Jitindriya
Yes. Gosh, you know, I think, um, the very short answer of what inspired me to become a nun, although it might not sound inspiring that it's suffering, the experience of suffering, the experience of dukkha, um, and the search, actually the search for understanding, that's really the inspiration. So, yes, I was quite young when I first ordained in England. I was, um, 25 years old. And I had travelled overseas when I was just just before I turned 23 and through Southeast Asia and Europe, went out on a one way ticket with a friend and worked for a bit in England. And that was where I first encountered the monasteries in England. So, you know, it's about just before turning 24 was my first retreat at Amravati Buddhist monastery. Now that would have been 1987, the first part of 1987. So Amravati was a fairly new and developing monastery of international community. So my own search I think, and recognition of the kind of. Troublesome ness of the interior emotional world as well as the the, um, what shall we say? That the strangeness of encountering the external world of conflict as a young person. Um. Really? Hmm. It really, uh, whipped up in me, um, a kind of inquiry and desire to understand, um, because I was I was brought up in a very normal kind of, you know, working, middle class situation. But, you know, our parents worked hard to afford us our generation. The children are a good education and the opportunity really to do anything we want when we when we finished our studies. And I found myself upon this question. Well, what do I really want? What do I really want to do? And the thing that truly interested me was really the interior. Well, I could call it the interior life, but really understanding this mind and understanding the world. And that inquiry was quickened through. I trained as an artist. I was naturally proficient in art from a very young age. And it was art and crafts that drew my interest more than academic studies. And the youngster leaving school. I wasn't really aware of the art world that I could enter into, but as soon as I did become aware that I could go to art school, um, that was my direction. And this practice of art really became became a vehicle for my inquiry into the interior world. But really, the psychology, our psychology, our psyche, our being, and the inquiry into, you know, what motivates what's motivating me? And where is this experience of suffering coming from both internally and externally? So I wasn't aware of Buddhism at that young age. I'd done some reading and my, my, uh, existential inquiries were becoming more spiritual. Um, so I'm sure I read some spiritual books, but I felt like I didn't encounter Buddhism in its fullest sense until I went to England and decided to, uh, that meditation was going to be the vehicle for for deeper inquiry. And then I through happenstance, through serendipity, I found, um, a Buddhist vihara near where I was working at the time. Uh, and I practiced there for a couple of months under Venerable Rota Dharma, a well-known Burmese monk. And when I was returning to London, he suggested I go to Amravati monastery to continue my inquiries. And so the rest is kind of
Sol Hanna
history. Yeah, but you've also been a psychotherapist. And in a sense, psychotherapy does try to understand our inner world and our mind. So you've been on that side of the fence as well. Um, how how do you feel like on just on a subjective basis in terms of your own personal search, how has that helped you or has it been different? What are your own impressions in terms of the intersections and contrasts between the Buddhist path and psychotherapy or psychology? Well, I mean, for me it's been a seamless, um, process really, because the, the psychotherapy that I studied after, uh, leaving the monastic life, um, over 16 years as a nun based at Amravati. Um. It was a seamless process because it was a Buddhist psychotherapy training. And, um, we as monastics in England, we already had a relationship with the founders of this Buddhist Psychotherapy Institute. Uh, Mora and Franklin Sils. And they were really supportive. They were Buddhists themselves and had developed a Buddhist based psychotherapeutic model. And, um, it was around, you know, um, trying to think. It probably would have been in the early. To mid-nineties, and they were supporting our communities both, um. In, you know, just as laypeople, supporting community but also as as skilled therapist, helping us, helping parts of our community with our own ways of communicating within community. Um, because it does require some skills that we need to learn at times to navigate, um, you know, the landscape of community. So we'd already been doing some work with the Korean Institute as a group. So when, um, as a group of nuns. So when I did decide to leave. Obviously I had to find a means to support myself, um, coming back into later life. And and the obvious thing for me was to train as a Buddhist psychotherapist. There were training opportunities with Karuna Institute, and that was just felt like a continuation of my learning or the for the Buddhist dharma or the understanding through my own practices, and none was just channeled into the practice of Buddhist based psychotherapy. It was so seamless because their model had been built on Buddhist principles, really grounded in the Buddhist psychology to a large degree. But their model was integrating, um, really the evolution of Western psychotherapeutic understanding with developmental models and ontological philosophical ways of seeing with a Buddhist, um, philosophical and psychological view. Um, yeah. So it you know, what I encountered in. In my life as a nun is obviously when there's there's people think may think that life as a Buddhist monastic much must be so serene and simple. And I know. So you don't think that because you've been on the inside and close to a sanguine. But many people idealize what it's like. But actually living as part of community is, is, is an incredibly interesting and powerful process. It's not all easy sailing and, um, with a, with a sangha that was essentially based in a Thai tradition and had all the cultural trappings not only of Thailand but ancient India. And so you've got all these and a whole range of of Westerners and Asians, Europeans coming from a very idealistic point of view, but trying to live this life of a Buddhist monastic. And so just in the context, there's stuff to navigate, making community work, but also in the interior life. As we develop our practice, we we start to see so much about how suffering is generated and hopefully, potentially how suffering is allayed. But what I encountered was, you know, a full on head collision with with the interior world of emotional turbulence in many cases and grappling with that and trying to understand that through the Buddhist perspective. Is, um, is how our practice unfolds.
Ayya Jitindriya
And there was certainly lots of insights and understandings, but I also felt a lack of really understanding a deeper psychological how, you know, the developmental aspect of the person, of the being. How does this, um, particular personality, uh, ways of being develop? You know, why is why why are there these, you know, problems with, um, uh, particular forms like, you know, strong anger or emotional outbursts or grief or depression or particular obsession or addictions, they all have their particularities. And then, in fact, they're they're kind of based in a developmental history of, of the personality. And the Buddhism doesn't go into the details of that so much. And that's where the psychotherapeutic side I'd like to
Sol Hanna
pick up on that point, because that's an interesting one. Uh, just you spoke about, for instance, you know, any of us who've been in a monastery for any length of time, you know, that you're going to come up against, you know, anger, greed, all of these things that come up in the mind, which are part of the psyche. And it can be incredibly challenging because in a monastic form, there's really no where for them to go. I mean, not not, not.
Ayya Jitindriya
Yes, you're in quite a boundary. Um, and then I guess, I don't know, would you say that perhaps, you know, the Buddhist approach can perhaps be, I don't know whether idealistic is the right word or whether, um, perhaps, you know, to a certain extent, it just you don't necessarily get that detailed. Uh, advice on what to do in that with that particular thing that just came up in your mind. Do you think that psychotherapy or psychology helps in that regard, or do they help in different ways? What are your thoughts on that?
Sol Hanna
It depends. You know, there are different so many different approaches or different models of psychotherapy. And of course I'm, I'm trained in the Buddhist one. So it it easily works both ways, you know. But um. It's not so much that the Buddhist um, teachings or the Buddhist model is idealistic, but but we as practitioners, we come with a lot of idealism. You know, we we pick up the theory and we understand the theory and then we to a certain degree and then, you know, we've idealized it or reified it to a certain extent. But when things don't go the way we think they should and we come up against obstructions and confusions and difficulties and, but we don't really understand what's going, going on. This is where obviously mindfulness is the basis both of the Buddhist psychotherapeutic practice and and a Buddhist meditation practice and the development of wisdom through seeing clearly what's going on. So the psychotherapeutic approach in my. Understanding is just works from a bit more of a relational perspective. Whereas you you can observe what's going on in your your body, mind experience and to detect, um, say, the process of, of trauma or whatever's arising there which is causing suffering. And you can learn to bring certain skills to that, to allow it to relax. So it's the same in the the Buddhist approach. But sometimes when we haven't developed those skills yet, those very emotions can be so obscuring that you don't know and you don't know what to do, you know. And and sometimes within a monastic life, we can even though you live in community, you can feel quite isolated. Because since there is a lot of upholding of a form in monasticism, and even though we develop spiritual friendship, sometimes it's not the kind of relational field that one always feels completely secure in. If you know what I mean, was the notion in psychotherapy of at least in the Buddhist psychotherapy that I did, is that wounding our experience of suffering actually first occurs in the relational field, and therefore it needs to heal within a skillful relational field.
Ayya Jitindriya
So this is really looking at the territory developmental. The developmental territory of the being prenatal, prenatal, perinatal. And we can also put the Buddhist larger overview on it and think of past lives if we want to take it back that way, because some unresolved stuff bleeds through. You know, it's not necessarily just what happens to being in this life that conditions the body mind system, but stuff can bleed through, although
Sol Hanna
that is a very Buddhist idea rather than a more mainstream psychotherapy idea, you know. Yeah,
Ayya Jitindriya
exactly. Yeah, I really, really the mainstream psychotherapy is just looking at this life in terms of development. Okay. So that's 1.. of distinction. I want to point of difference. Yeah. I wanted to zoom out for a moment and just note that, you know, in the modern Western world, the growth of psychotherapy has been influenced by the growing interest in Buddhism and vice versa. Could you tell us how you think Buddhism and psychotherapy? And I guess, you know, I'm talking a bit more like mainstream psychotherapy. How do you think they've intersected? Well, there's been a great deal of intersection, um. I'd say over the last 40 years particularly. It's not that it wasn't there before, but. As Buddhism itself has become increasingly. Absorbed into our culture in the West. Um, you know, let's say the first generation of Westerners who went to the East to practice spirituality and to practice Buddhism, that would have been, uh, in the 40s, 50s, 60s, but predominantly 50s and 60s. And many of those, uh, practitioners came back and established places. Agent tomato and the senior monks that came back with him. Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, these. Pioneers who did their own practices, uh, and uh, development starting in Asia brought back Buddhist teachings. And there have been some of the main influences over the last few decades. Um, and many others who have done their own, um, journeying into to Buddhism and non-dual spiritual teachings, who have come back to the West and become psychotherapists or psychologists or neuropsychologists and bringing their own understanding into that field. And so more, you know, there's such a. Such an easy overlap because Buddhist psychology. Psychology is looking at how the mind works and particularly looking at how suffering is generated. And we can say the same for the attempts of psychology and psychotherapy. It's concerned primarily with the experience of suffering on the personal level, and the attempt to engage in a way that we can allow get gained some enough insight or relief or understanding to allow that suffering to ease out. So both models and paradigms are concerned with personal suffering and finding a way to relieve it. The difference, I think in, in psychology initially in the early stages was that they saw like a normal level of functioning in society. There would still be some degree of suffering, of course, that we all go through. But, you know, coming out of extreme neurotic or psychotic suffering to something normal level of perception to be able to. Navigate the normal vicissitudes of life. Uh, whereas a Buddhist approach. Is looking at the same but going that much further. It's saying, actually you can come to the complete cessation of suffering through deep insight and penetration to the very nature of reality itself, of consciousness itself. So this is really profound because it's like, yes, we can go that far. As far as psychology says we can go, finding a balanced way of living, coming out of the extremes of mental disease. And then Buddhism says we can go further. You know, the true health is a state completely free of suffering with freed through wisdom and understanding of the nature of reality, the nature of the mind, and complete understanding of how suffering is generated from within. Um, and how it is allayed or no longer generated. No,
Sol Hanna
thank you for that, because that's a really clear answer to that question as well. Like that's both the what they've got in common, like the the concern about the search about overcoming suffering, but also the distinction. And I guess in one sense you're saying, you know, psychology wants to take us to this, you know, normal level, whereas Buddhism says, well, you can go a whole lot further. You can go to the cessation of suffering. Um,
Ayya Jitindriya
22:09
yeah. And Buddhism says, you know, the true normal actually is more that, uh, full understanding. That's a, you know, and it's interesting that one translation of the Dharma, one old translation is the norm. Yeah.
Sol Hanna
Right. Yeah.
Ayya Jitindriya
To penetrate to the Dharma. To understand the dharma. To understand the norm.
Sol Hanna
Yeah. Okay, well, I want to take just another slightly different angle and ask, how does Buddhism influence your understanding of the mind compared to, say, for instance, the view of psychology's view of the mind? How are those things different?
Ayya Jitindriya
Well, as I said, there are different, many different models, psycho psychological models or psychotherapeutic models. So different models will, uh, take as different starting points, different paradigms for how they see the mind. You know, how they see the cause of, um, disease and how they might go about to relieve it. And since I was trained in a Buddhist model of psychotherapy, we take the very same frameworks of, of the Buddhist approach, which is seeing that, um, you know, the basis of, of the expression of disease is the, you know, the expression of the various Krsna based in greed, hatred, delusion, the cause of which is ignorance at the not understanding the true nature of mind, not understanding these four noble truths, which is very essential that, you know, not understanding suffering as it arises, as it truly is not understanding its cause as it truly is not understanding its cessation, or how it's allayed as it truly is, and not understanding the way to bring that. Uh, about to to a point where that path is said to be complete and one has full understanding and full freedom from suffering. So the Buddhist psychotherapeutic model that. I'm engaged in. I was engaged in. I don't do it anymore since re ordaining, but, um. It takes that same viewpoint. It is possible to come fully out of suffering. And that's true. Realizing the the true nature of mind. And so we might call that Buddha nature or true nature or or the deathless penetrating to the deathless element. But basically there's this other ground of being, to use the Mahayana term, and to learn to trust that and rest in that, and developing the power or the the qualities of mindfulness of presence, assessing the inherent qualities of compassion, of wisdom, particularly the four Brahma vihara, which we talk about as inherent qualities of that Buddha nature. Although we can cultivate kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, ultimately we recognize that there are expressions of the heart when it's resting in its own nature anyway. Then natural expressions, their inherent qualities of a liberated heart. Okay, so let's get a little bit practical now. Um, as, uh, is there any maybe some examples of Buddhist teachings that you think can be beneficially integrated into psychotherapy? 6s Well, yeah, as I said, I guess because I did that psychotherapeutic model, so much can be integrated. Um, Buddhist psychotherapeutic model. The they're fully integrated those for Brahma Vihara. So I am practicing this corporate what's called core process psychotherapy or mindfulness based psychotherapy in the core process style. It rests in in the. Recognition that, uh, awareness itself is curative and that healing happens in this, what we call, uh, emptiness or recognizing true nature of emptiness or the in substantiality of, uh, impermanent phenomena. And that from that place of emptiness or sources, another word that they put onto it that these qualities of kindness, compassion, equanimity, serenity, um, we can learn how to rest in those to trust in, in, in, in that as a response, um, an intuitive response in, in the world, in our life. Um, so, you know, that's a direct reliance on, on Buddhist. Um. Not just concepts, but but models and Buddhist view of reality. And coming into that place really using mindfulness and awareness as your.
Sol Hanna
As your main tools, your main resource. And this is where other, other kinds of psychotherapy in the last few decades have really picked up on what Buddhism offers. In terms of mindfulness, you've got many different mindfulness based, uh, therapies, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, and others that use mindfulness based stuff and, um, body based work. Uh, incorporating mindfulness presence, the power of awareness and observation is another thing. Through the power of mindfulness, we can start to observe the mind in terms of these impermanent formations. So in Buddhism we talk about the aggregates, the personality factors. And our practice is really to see that these are impermanent phenomena, fluctuations within the mind stream. Um, the main problem is that we habitually identify with them, which gives rise to suffering. We don't see that they're truly impermanent. They're conditioned and being impermanent and conditioned. If we grasp at them, it's inherently dukkha. They're not really who and what we are. They're insubstantial and they're conditioned formations. So not only the Buddhist psychotherapeutic model, but other psychotherapeutic approaches have also picked up on this. We may look to Gestalt or other psychotherapies that have been influenced in this way, to really use that quality of mindfulness, awareness and presence to recognize that these various formations that arise mental. Physical, emotional.
Ayya Jitindriya
Not. We're not denying them. We're not trying to get rid of them, but we want to observe them in awareness and particularly recognize that they are impermanent and they're changing. So it's what they call process. That self is a process. It's not a static thing. And when a person really sees this for themselves, that their self images and their ideas of who and what they are and how they should be or how they have been are just mental condition, mental phenomena, and that they don't have to attach to them that this is really a breakthrough in their practice and in and similarly in psychotherapeutic ways. So it doesn't mean, you know, these self formations don't arise, these aggregates don't arise, but it changes your view. You don't feel so caught by them
Sol Hanna
or caught. You want to ask it. Yeah. It does make sense. It makes very much sense. Um, I do want to ask a kind of a prickly question. I don't know if you want to answer it. I know you can't name names, but, uh. Well, this morning I was listening to a, um. I didn't do a podcast, and there was a man who was talking about, you know, he had a pretty normal life, and he got married and had kids. And. But all throughout his adult life, he was experiencing depression. And he went to a psychotherapist. This was not a Buddhist psychotherapist. I don't think he did any mindfulness. And he was taking drugs. And you still reached a point where he wanted to commit suicide. Um, in your experience
Ayya Jitindriya
taking drugs as part of the psychotherapy?
Sol Hanna
Well, yes. The, um, as in prescribed. Prescribed antidepressants. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Medication,
Ayya Jitindriya
medications. Um,
Sol Hanna
uh, my question is, in your experience with psychotherapy, do you think that mindfulness is like this? Is a thing that can be quite. Um, that cannot make that much of a difference. I, um, I guess I'm trying to draw a contrast to psychotherapy without mindfulness to psychotherapy with my infinity. Really feel like it's, um. It can be like that decisive factor that really changes things. Or is there just some cases where people maybe they've got things happening from coming from previous lives and they're just there? Their mental suffering is so great and there's not a lot that can turn it around. What's your your impression of that based on your experience?
Ayya Jitindriya
Look, there's so many very variable factors. What's important, I think, for a successful therapy. And they're not all going to be successful anyway, even with a perfect therapist if there is such one. But the therapists themselves have to be grounded in in an awareness based or mindfulness based.
Sol Hanna
Uh, capacity. If they themselves aren't present or don't understand the mind, and working from some just theoretical model, that's not necessarily. It may be of some help to the client, but not necessarily. And that's, you know, one thing in the in the Buddhist psychotherapy model, in the core process psychotherapy that I did a lot is focused on the therapists. The therapist has to do a lot for him or herself, you know, for themselves. They have to really have a an ability to ground themselves and present moment awareness, be fully aware of what's going on in their own mind, as well as be completely available and open to the client and receive what's happening for the client in a very open, non-judgmental, compassionate way. And hold all of that in the space. In, in a, um, in a way that what we refer to is establishing a holding field, a skillful holding field where the client feels safe, where you're aware of what's going on, but you're allowing those qualities of kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity to emerge as, as needed. And also, you're directing subtly, just helping the client to inquire into what's going on for them. So in the model that I was trained in, you know, the the gentle question of what's what's happening now and how is that for you? So it's a real encouragement for them to inquire. Into what's arising without this idea that we're going to fix it or solve it, or get to the bottom of it. It's an inquiry. So it's a mutual inquiry is what our kind of process was. Now, I think a lot of psychological approaches these days, if it's just theoretical, it's about fixing a problem or talking about a problem in more of a counselling way. And try this and do that and more behavioral techniques, um, that. Can be helpful for people. Now the other variable is what is this client looking for some and what is their personality type. So some people really respond to say cognitive behavioral therapy which is very much about. You know, looking into the conditioned habits of thought and literally changing thoughts, you know, putting, putting in, um. Changing your thoughts really deliberately. You know that for some people that works really well. For some people, they're just not into it. They really want more of an emotional support. They want to support, to explore their emotional reactions to the world. Um, so for the client to find a therapist that works for them is what's important. It's not a any client fits. Every therapist or every therapist fits all client. It has to really. It's about that that person is needing a particular kind of help and. In a way, they're looking for something they might not be aware of. What? Until they meet someone, they feel the sense of trust and an ability to open up. And that that relationship then can become a safe place for them to explore what's going on. And so you may do a lot of talking about what's going on in the present, but that may also include. Going back into the past. Like what's. What's happened in your early family of origin and how it relates to the present? Yeah. So when clients are seeking therapy that, you know, in any models, they're usually encouraged to look around a bit and meet with a therapist here and there and get a sense of, do I feel comfortable with this person with this approach? You know, because that's a big part of opening up and exploring what's going on. Um, so, yeah, one shoe doesn't fit all by any means. Um,
Ayya Jitindriya
yeah. So I answer your question. I do, I
Sol Hanna
do think it adds to the question. And I also just I got a kind of a supplementary question. I'm not sure whether you can answer this from your own experience as a Buddhist nun. Um, because it's also it also seems to me that perhaps even though they've both got this concern with, um, alleviating and ending suffering, they've got a slightly different domain. And I know that some it's not uncommon for people who do have mental health problems to go to a Buddhist teacher to not not necessarily to go to, you know, the senior monk, the senior nun. Uh, and that, you know, what's your feeling about that? Because I know some senior monks that have, uh, feeling like, well, we're not really. Equipped to deal with, uh, particularly serious psychological illnesses. Mhm. Um, it's I don't know whether we could say that's a point of departure or they've got slightly different or somewhat different, um, concerns. What, what's your experience? You know, in terms of people with mental ill health illnesses coming to monastics for help? And is there perhaps a limitation on what Buddhism, traditional Buddhism can offer, or what are your thoughts on that matter? Well, it depends very much on that particular teacher and their own insights, their own, um, capacity to respond to who's presenting. Obviously, someone who has serious, um, you know, really debilitating mental health issues. Then they need a much larger, um, field of support. You know, they'll need a psychologist, a psychiatrist, maybe some medication and regular, you know, psychotherapeutic support. But they could still, you know, they might still gain a lot of insight from what the Buddhist teacher, that Buddhist teacher might be able to offer, depending on their questions, depending on their inquiry, depending on their level of insight already. But sometimes, you know, just feeling the compassion of the other, whether it be a Buddhist teacher or a psychotherapist, just feeling the kindness and compassion of someone can, without judgment, you know, can actually bring a sense of of feeling. Um, a little bit of ease for that person who's in distress and, and then an ability to just relax more and, and then look more clearly into their own mind and heart. So whatever advice they might get from the teacher or support from the psychotherapist can help. It's it's it's a dance, you know, whether it's from a Buddhist teacher or with a within a psychotherapy. You really don't know which way it's going. I mean, you you don't you don't necessarily know what's going to help this client. It's a it's a dance. It's a step by step movement that you take, and you don't know what that next step may be, but you have to be fully with what's happening now. And that's exactly how the murder to do process happens. If we have ideas about where this should go and what I should be getting. We're just creating a field of dust and dukkha. We have to learn how to be fully present and and observe what's happening by itself and observe the, uh, the particular causes and effects and, and start to develop skill which allows, you know, the suffering to open out and, um, wisdom to deepen its, it's exact same process in, in a psychotherapeutic relationship. If it's. You know, grounded in that kind of wisdom. Because if you're proceeding just with ideas, reality isn't going to come along and agree with that. Reality is going to show you something different, you know? And if you've got your own ideas, this person feels is not going to be met. If they're not being met, they don't feel like they're being seen or heard or understood. There's no real resolution. So when we learn to meet the other or meet our own, the manifestation of suffering as it arises within us, or not just suffering any phenomenal experience, we learn to meet that with presence, with compassion, with kindness. It teaches us, yeah,
Ayya Jitindriya
it teaches us. And it
Sol Hanna
sounds to me like it's unfolding. Sounds also like this is not an either or situation. It could very well be that a person who's suffering from mental illness could benefit from doing both as what you're saying as well.
Ayya Jitindriya
Absolutely, absolutely. And in some cases, depending on the person and their particular experience, meditation is not necessarily, um, a good thing because people can get caught up in a lot of rumination, you know, just remembering or retraumatized through just getting stuck in traumatic memory. So
Sol Hanna
can I pick you up on that? So can I pick up on that? Because that was where I was really heading with my next question, actually, which was, um, I mean, you've explained how the practice of mindfulness has really seeped pretty heavily into the realm of psychotherapy, and there's various forms of mindfulness based therapies that are available now. And you yourself have, uh. Emphasize this a lot yourself. And of course, it's the seventh factor of the of the Eightfold path. One of the things that's come up recently in some of the interviews I've done is that well, and this is it's great mindfulness. It's great. But what about all these other factors? So, uh, from a Buddhist perspective, um, what I mean, apart from mindfulness, mindfulness is great. Yeah. Do mindfulness. But are there other aspects of the path that could really support someone? And particularly, I mean, for some people with mental illness, maybe meditation is not a good starting point and I think this is not well understood. I think at the moment a lot of people in Western society saying, oh yeah, meditation is going to fix everything. And in some cases, particularly people who have psychotic disorders, or maybe just like you say, excessive thinking, just like this obsessive thinking, maybe meditation isn't the best place to start. What are your thoughts on that? Are there other things apart from mindfulness that could really benefit people who have, you know, a mental illness?
Ayya Jitindriya
Well, just there's a lot of good things in what you question then just to make a difference between mindfulness and meditation. Because I think mindfulness is good always because mindfulness is not just about sitting down and and watching your breath. That's you know what, I would class more a meditation practice. But mindfulness is something we can engage in everyday life. So it's just bringing attention to what you're actually doing, what you're engaged with. And rather than just. So we're actually, um, working against the habit of being absorbed in thinking of the future or thinking of the past and just acting automatically to just bringing attention to what we're doing so anyone can benefit from that. I think if they want to, that's the key. They need to be interested enough to want to pick that up. Which just a little aside, um, you know, just bringing mindfulness into all the mental health facilities and trying to teach people. It's not it's not the answer because many of them don't give aren't, aren't interested. They don't want to hear about it because they're not being introduced in the right way. Then it's not grabbing their interest. They're just seeing it as a psychologist trying to give them some intervention. And it's not really being necessarily taught in an in-depth way, but those who are interested in
Sol Hanna
briefly, because I want to pick up on that because I, I work in the field of education. And I saw, um, a recent study was released and it said very much what you just said, which is that there's a lot of people in different schools introducing mindfulness into schools or meditation into schools. And. The finding was that it's not working and it's not working, because where there is no buy in, where there is no where, the student is not interested. Perhaps I've seen these cookie cutter solutions in this kind of template. The teachers don't meditate, and yet they're told to to teach meditation teaching and it doesn't work. Yeah,
Ayya Jitindriya
that's why it won't work. There's no understanding. There's no understanding, understanding and compassion, actually. Wisdom and compassion. Right view. You know, it really has to you know, the Buddha taught very intuitively, specifically for who was in front of him. And he had a different way of saying something to each different person or group, because that was what they needed to hear at that time to catch their interest, to break through the obstacle or whatever it was. Um, so even though we have these paradigms that sound a bit cookie cutter like the Eightfold Path and Four Foundations of Mindfulness, actually to teach them takes real understanding and real skill. And even if you have a little bit of understanding, personal understanding, if you've practiced it yourself, then you'll be able to convey it better. The more wisdom you have, I think, or compassion, the more you'll be able to show someone how to access that. But even the Buddha wasn't able to make people interested where they were interested. You know, he couldn't he couldn't enlighten the whole world. And even those he couldn't enlighten. All of his disciples there was still obstructed by different levels of ignorance. So he did his best. Even he wasn't 100% successful. But yeah, that's a problem. You know, when things become, ah, you know, these you use the term
Sol Hanna
systematized system solutions systematization. It's deadening in a way. It's very deadening. But um, yeah. So that's true. So getting back to what you said. So making that distinction between mindfulness and meditation. I think mindfulness is always good because it's just an encouragement to be here now, you know, wake up because our suffering is predominantly coming from our habitual habitual fixation on thinking thoughts of the past, thoughts of future, all about me, me, me. But the more we wake up, just be here. Be present. Breathe. Connect with the body you feel already. A lot of that tension is beginning to ease out, but it takes a while for your whole body mind system to get the hang of it and feel the benefit of it. Because I have it. Patterns are so strong, um, and our delusion is so strong. So yeah, I think mindfulness is always beneficial depending how it's taught and picked up. But meditation for someone who has um, maybe in a particularly. A situation where the obsessively thinking about something really painful to sit down and that that's all that assails them. It's not going to help them very much. So they may be better off sitting down or lying down and listening to something with some beneficial, relaxing music, because the music bypasses the the, um, conceptual mind and goes straight to the sympathetic parasympathetic system. It calms the body. If you have calming music, uh, you know, because has nothing to do with thinking if you just listen. And sometimes some simple guided meditation can can help. But to sit down with your own obsessive thoughts, for most of us, you know, without, um, an extreme mental health issue, we've all got mental health issues, we all experience dukkha, and we will sit down and meditate and be assailed by our thoughts. But we tend to have enough ability to recognize, you know, that's what's happening and to see it as conditioned.
Ayya Jitindriya
Um, you know, condition stuff playing out and to make decisions. Okay, I'm going to get up and do something else, or I'm going to do something else rather than be stuck in that place. But for people with mental health issues, they don't necessarily have that facility to make those choices and just feel assailed by and get lost in. Yeah. So no, no cookie cutter solutions. But back to part of the earlier part of that question. Yeah, it's not just mindfulness. Mindfulness has been shown from it's other factors of the path. And this is one place where there are big distinctions between a psychotherapeutic intervention and a Buddhist practice. The Buddhist practice is. Um. Rooted. Founded in um. The the practitioner's willingness to take on a training in Selah that I want to take on, you know, refraining from harmful activity of body, speech and mind. Accordingly, let's say the five precepts as the basic foundation. Um, and this is really supports the path, as we know, as Buddhist practitioners. Um, the path of Selah, um, is really supportive and we all get it wrong, but we learn from that, you know, that's what we have to, to do. But at least we're making that choice. Whereas some people, maybe in a psychotherapeutic intervention with mindfulness ethics might not come into the picture at all. And it's not for a therapist to so-called teach or advise a client in terms of their, you know, their ethics. It's not what that particular relationship about, unless the client is really asking and inquiring into it. Um, so it differs a lot there. And. No, I would say that would be the main difference. And in Buddhism, certainly all these eight factors of the Eightfold Path, they're all connected. They all work together very clearly and developing right view in terms of starting to understand the mind in relation to the Four Noble Truths, um, trying to generate wholesome intentions and actions, body, speech and mind, and to develop some kind of. Meditation practice is is the whole of the path, and it develops in its own time. Whereas just taking mindfulness, it can have some benefits but without those other factors. One hopes that, and I've certainly seen cases where clients get more interested in it. And just the increased capacity of mindfulness and awareness brings a natural wisdom and which, you know, bleeds into all of their their life.
Sol Hanna
Hmm. Okay. Well, that's a fantastic answer. I've got one more question. I'm going to put you on the on the spot here. The hard question. Uh. Buddhism or psychotherapy? Which one do you think works better? Oh, well, I think given everything I've said. Um. Gosh, I can't say one works better. I think they and when I'm talking psychotherapy, I'm talking Buddhist psychotherapy. So I can't really make that distinction if it's informed with Buddhist models. I think from my perspective, that Buddhist psychotherapeutic model is really quite a profound and holistic. Um. Paradigm to work with. It's still very variable as it is for a monastic. You know, we can say, or a Buddhist practitioner, we can say the Buddhist model. Uh, the Buddhist dharma is holistic and complete. But in terms of finding a teacher. You know, or finding a sangha to practice with, or finding a source of of learning where you can continue to learn. Um, about Buddha Dharma. It's similar for the client finding a therapist that they really resonate with a skilled therapist and engaging in therapy. And if it's working, then, then that's great. If it's helping, it's great. Um. For us. You know, as you know, the practice of Buddha dharma is not a quick fix either. And, you know, much of our learning actually coming into a deeper wisdom is recognizing that, you know, we start out enlightenment or bust. You know, we give it everything, and we usually end up smashing against a brick wall, um, metaphorically. And. Oh, right. So it's not it's not as easy as it sounds, you know, and so you have to trust the process, but keep deepening the inquiry and, um.
Ayya Jitindriya
You know, I'm not sure. I've always stayed interested in Buddhism. I'm not sure if there's probably many people who've gotten into Buddhist practice, but then fallen away altogether. And I've lost interest. I don't know, but I trust as. Spiritual beings having a human experience that people will come into their their, uh. Own spiritual journey in different ways. And if it's not Buddhism that works for them, they'll find another way.
Sol Hanna
Very well stated.
Ayya Jitindriya
So I can't say it's not an easy thing to answer. So it's not it's
Sol Hanna
not at all. It's a false dichotomy really, because of course we can. You can you can do both. You can do both as
Ayya Jitindriya
well. It's that on this. And there's so many variables within both as well. Okay.
Sol Hanna
Very well stated. Thank you very much, Jitendra for coming on Treasure Bound podcast and sharing your experience and wisdom. Thank you very kindly.
Ayya Jitindriya
You're welcome. Thanks so much.
So and thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of Treasure Mountain about Buddhism and psychotherapy with Aya Andrea. If you'd like to find out more about Andrea, you can go to Viveka hermitage.com, and there's a link in the show notes below. If you enjoy this podcast, I'd appreciate if you could share this episode with your friends or other people who you think could benefit from its sage advice. Treasure bound Podcast is part of the Everyday Dharma Network. You can find out more about the Treasure Man podcast by going to every day Dharma Dot net. There you can find out about previous episodes and guests, as well as transcriptions of our interviews. You find out about the other podcasts on the Everyday Dharma Network as well. I hope you can join us again for our next episode of Treasure Man Podcast, as we seek for the treasure within.
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