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ZEN and DEATH: JUNG's FINAL EXPERIENCE Michael Gellert This Lecture Was Delivered in the Public Programs of the C. G. Jung In

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ZEN and DEATH: JUNG's FINAL EXPERIENCE Michael Gellert This Lecture Was Delivered in the Public Programs of the C. G. Jung In ZEN AND DEATH: JUNG’S FINAL EXPERIENCE Michael Gellert This lecture was delivered in the Public Programs of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles in 1996; at the Central Coast Jung Society, San Luis Obispo, California in 1998; the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles in 1999; and in the Analyst Training Program of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles in 2003. In the latter it was part of a series on mortificatio, the alchemical process of psychological or inner death inherent in such diminishing experiences as depression, illness, failure, aging, and dying. “Death,” Jung wrote in 1945 not long after his heart attack, “is the hardest thing from the outside and as long as we are outside of it. But once inside you taste of such completeness and peace and fulfillment that you don’t want to return.” Jung was speaking here of his out-of-body, near-death experience, whose gripping effect indeed made it difficult for him to return to the world of everyday life even though he resiliently recovered from his illness. He remarked how “life has fortunately become provisional. It has become a transitory prejudice, a working hypothesis for the time being, but not existence itself.” Well, Jung lived seventeen more years after this experience, making the most out of this life which he now saw so provisionally and transitorily. He produced some of his most important works, and had several insights further deepening his understanding of the psyche. When death did finally come to claim him, he was prepared. He knew his health was failing, as he had had two strokes shortly before, and he had also had two or three dreams announcing that the end was near. Indeed, he was looking forward to his death in a curious, almost eager way. The family and friends who were present during his final days all observed how peaceful and clear-headed he was. “Quick!,” he said to his son when his housekeeper momentarily left the room the evening before he died. “Help me out of bed before she comes back or she’ll stop me. I want to look at the sunset.” Wishing to celebrate his passing as a special occasion, his last words to his housekeeper were, “Let’s have a really good wine tonight.” The experience of dying as a conscious, creative act has become a focus of interest in recent times as people are more and more recognizing it as the final, culminating act of life itself, the crowning event for which one’s whole life has in a certain way been a preparation. How different this is from the attitude expressed by Woody Allen: “I have no problem with dying,” he said, “as long as I’m not there when it happens.” Dying consciously brings up the related idea of living life with a consciousness of death. Becoming aware of our mortality in more than just the detached manner with which we usually tend to think about it can help us appreciate the here-and-now, the fullness of the moment—or indeed, whether this moment really is as full as it could be. This kind of contemplation sharpens us to the quality of our lives and the choices we make. As Dr. Johnson said, the prospect of death wonderfully concentrates the mind. For this reason do Thai Buddhist monks meditate in graveyards where the recently deceased are being cremated. Jung’s own experiences nearly dying and while dying—how his mind was concentrated—brought him to some interesting discoveries, and evidently, a revision of his views on Eastern religion and Zen in particular. This then brings us to our present topic, Jung’s Zen experience in his final days. To begin, it is important to first have some understanding of what makes a Zen experience distinct from other kinds of religious experience. * * * * In the mystical traditions of all the major world religions, there have evolved disciplines that attempt to cultivate a state of mind in which the mysterium tremendum, or awe-inspiring mystery of the divine, can manifest and flourish. In Western religions, the predominant discipline has been prayer, though in alchemy, an underground current of Western religion, the chief method involved a meditation upon the transmutation of material substances (for example, turning lead into gold). Jung showed that this external focus was a psychic projection of inner transformation. In Eastern religion, the predominant discipline has been meditation directly focused on transforming the psyche itself. Though there are many schools and methods, their aims tend to be similar: to transcend the limitations of ego-consciousness and allow a deeper consciousness—a consciousness of the Absolute (regardless of which name it is known by)—to emerge. In Zen, it is less important what the discipline is than what the quality of discipline invested is. This fluid attitude allows Zen practitioners to encounter the Absolute through a variety of disciplines—calligraphy, tea ceremony, pottery making, bamboo flute music, flower arrangement, haiku poetry, archery, and swordfighting—as easily as through zazen or sitting meditation, the most common form of Zen discipline. Though I should say that these disciplines are anything but easy. They usually take many years if not a lifetime to master. For what is involved is precisely the investment of a highly refined, focused quality of discipline, of concentration or what Zen Buddhists call “one-pointedness of mind.” If the one-pointedness of mind is strong enough, pure enough, and sustained for long enough, the Zen practitioner becomes so absorbed in the activity of his or her chosen discipline that the usual boundaries of the ego become extended. If they become extended enough, there comes a moment when the practitioner merges not only with the activity, but with the true self as it manifests through the activity. This principle expresses the central idea of Zen, the Doctrine of No Mind. No Mind is also called “Mind,” “Buddha-mind,” “Zen Mind,” “Big Mind,” the “Self” or “true self,” the “Void,” the “Unconscious,” and “It.” The “It” here is not the “It” of Nietzsche or the “id” of Freud (id in Latin means “it”), but the transpersonal Self. As for the Zen usage of the term “Unconscious,” it is of special interest. That Zen is first and foremost a way of understanding the unconscious is overlooked by many people. As the renowned Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki writes, “the concept of the unconscious is the foundation of Zen Buddhism.” One may find it discussed at length in the teachings of early Chinese Zen masters such as Hui-neng and Shen-hui, both of whom lived in the 7th century. However, the Zen conception of the unconscious clearly differs from that of most Western psychology, and is remarkably close in key regards to Jung’s conception. As Suzuki comments, “in Zen Buddhism the unconscious is not a psychological term either in a narrower or in a broader sense. [It is] fundamentally different from the psychologists’ Unconscious. It has a metaphysical connotation. When Hui-neng speaks of the Unconscious in Consciousness, he steps beyond psychology.” The Unconscious in Zen is, simply put, the mind of the cosmos. Suzuki on occasion calls it the “Cosmic Unconscious.” Eugen Herrigel offers an illustration of the Zen Unconscious in action in Zen in the Art of Archery, his book about his years of arduous training in this martial art. He recounts an incident in which his teacher told him how he hits the target without using his eyes. When Herrigel scoffed at this, the master, to prove his point, allowed Herrigel to set up the target in a practice hall that was brightly lit but in which the target area was pitch-black, thus making it impossible for one’s vision to adjust to the darkness and delineate the target. Herrigel writes: “[The master’s] first arrow shot out of dazzling brightness into deep night. I knew from the sound that it had hit the target. The second arrow was a hit, too. When I switched on the light in the target- stand, I discovered to my amazement that the first arrow was lodged full in the middle of the black [bull’s-eye], while the second arrow had splintered the butt of the first and plowed through the shaft before embedding itself beside it.” Explaining his precision, the master said, “It is not ‘I’ who must be given credit for this shot. ‘It’ shot and ‘It’ made the hit.” “It” here is spelled, again, with a capital “I.” Of course, the true goal of any martial art practiced in the Zen spirit is not to achieve spectacular feats but to attune oneself to the Unconscious, to “It”; winning against one’s opponent or hitting the target is only a by-product of this inner attunement. In Herrigel’s account, we see certain distinct features typical to the Zen experience: a merging of the inner with the outer, a merging of the ego with the Unconscious or the Self, and, very significantly, the occurrence of all this while one is fully awake and alert as opposed to being in a visionary, dream, or trance state. There is one other crucial feature that makes Zen distinct from many other kinds of religious experience. Together with oneness there occurs the experience of emptiness, what in Buddhism is called the Void. When the universe is perceived as a single, infinite expanse with nothing separate in it or beside it to quantify or contrast it to, it has the sensation of being nothing at all and is hence experienced as a Void.
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