Looking Into Mind: an Undergraduate Course

LOOKING INTO MIND: AN UNDERGRADUATE COURSE

Victor Mansfield Hamilton,New York

There is much concern about preparing students for the political, economic, and technological realities of the twenty-first century. This is laudable and my usual courses in physics and astronomy at Colgate University move in this direction. But in my Freshman Seminar, I have a goal even closer to my heart; I want to introduce students to the quest for Self-realization. On the way, I want to show them that the world does not exist the way it may appear and that the mind plays a mighty role in our experience. I also want to introduce them to modem Westerners, such as Carl Jung or the lesser known philosopher Anthony Damiani (1990), and the teachings of Lamas from ancient Himalayan cultures. the Finally, I want them to appreciate that although we can humbly mind learn from these great teachers, we must never lose our noblest plays birthright-our spiritual independence. a mighty Although I've written technical psychology papers (Mansfield & role Spiegelman, 1989; Spiegelman & Mansfield, 1990; Mansfield & Spiegelman, 1991; Mansfield, 1991) with eminent Jungians, my late teacher of seventeen years, Anthony Damiani, provided the foundation for my psychological understanding. And although I'm grateful for much help in understanding Tibetan Buddhism from scholars and internationally known teachers, Damiani's teaching influences all my technical Buddhist philosophy papers (Mansfield, 1989; 1990a; 1990b; 1991). His teachings are, never theless, quite practical. For example, he repeatedly told us he was an ordinary teacher and that " . . . the ordinary teacher is a shoemaker. Don't get carried away with his importance and don't turn him into a tin God. He is just an older student than you are" (Damiani, p. 184).

The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, Vol. 23, No.1 53 JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY

The course began with the depth-psychology of Carl Jung. I emphasized his notion of individuation and how, through an appreciation of symbolism in our dreams, our waking fantasies, and our interactions with others in the world, we can get a glimpse or an intuition into a higher intelligence working in our lives. I explained how from this perspective, this intelligence orders OUf experience, meaningfully guides our development, and usually works unseen. Jung invites us to establish a dialogue with this inner guide and thereby obtain meaning and direction in life. For most students this was a new idea, but one that seemed instinc tively appealing to them.

I also illustrated the role psychological projection plays in indi viduation. One day I asked the students to think of a person of the same sex whom they strongly disliked. They were to imagine vividly that person and then articulate precisely what qualities they found most offensive. most annoying in that person. Then they were to write these characteristics down, to be brutally honest, since no one else was going to see this list.

I then explained that a strong negative emotional response to the psychological list of characteristics indicates those characteristics are primarily projection ours. We unconsciously project, on a person of the same sex, in what Jung calls the Shadow-the negative, darker, unadapted individuation part of our personality. No one liked this idea and the class erupted into an animated discussion. "But that person really is a braggart!" or "that person really is a liar!" I pointed out that we don't want to recognize or take responsibility for these negative parts of our personality. In fact. the other person may embody vanity, dishonesty, or another negative quality to some extent or another. However, since projection involves our emotions (the guarantee we are projecting), we can neither clearly see the person nor be free from our emotional response toward that person. Of course, projections also can be positive, such as when we fall in love.

In either case, the students began to appreciate that projection is the first avenue to consciousness, our first experience of our unknown inner face, invariably seen in another person. They began to see how projections, being an important aspect of indi viduation, do not erupt randomly: there is an order and intelli gence in when and how they manifest. Projections reveal those aspects of our personality seeking to be known, needing work, requiring integration into our personality and expression in daily life. It is a great help in presenting this material, especially to eighteen-year olds just exploring their sense of authority, that there is no external authority telling us what psychological traits

54 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, Vol 23, No.1 need attention. The students appreciated that individuation does not rely primarily upon faith or someone else's revelation, but upon the cooperation between our honest effort and what lung calls the Self.

I didn't analyze student dreams or talk in detail with them about projections and other personal psychological material. Neverthe less, their papers showed that some students were trying to get a direct experience ofthis ordering force, which seeks to give birth to that unique individual in the center of our being. We joked that the lab in the course goes on continuously, day and night except, perhaps, when we are in dreamless sleep.

This section of the course stressed individuation because it sug gests that Self-realization is directed by a principle both immedi ately accessible and transcendent to the ego. Projection gets so much attention because of its immediate practical value and because philosophically it plays an important role later in the course. It is the first indication that things may not exist the way they appear and that our mind plays a critical role in determining our perceptions.

TIBET AN BUDDHISM

Time limitations did not permit a general survey of Buddhism, so policy I focused on Tibetan Buddhism. (Here Tibetan Buddhism is my of short-hand for the Middle Way Consequence School of Bud compassion dhism.) We began with a short book on the Dalai Lama that discusses how his policy of compassion with its application to daily life, politics, and the environment led to the Nobel Peace Prize he received in 1989.We also watched a one-hour video tape on the Dalai Lama. Because it is easier to identify with such a magnetic personality rather than the dry writing all too often found in Tibetan Buddhism, the students quickly found Bud dhism appealing, despite its foreignness.

The freshmen and I deepened our study of universal compassion, learning that we were not to pursue our development merely to avoid the inevitable pains of earthly existence. The ideal is to seek our liberation primarily for the sake of others-a revolutionary idea, especially for a generation reared on a steady diet of "me first" propaganda. Like many topics in the course, it made us slightly uncomfortable, since we were aware of how far our behavior falls short of this lofty ideal. But a lovely thing about this school of Buddhism is its practical meditation and visualiza tion exercises that help any serious beginner cultivate a genuine concern for the welfare of all sentient beings. Such concern is a notable departure from the Jungian idea of individuation

Looking into Mind: An Undergraduate Course 55 which, despite its virtues, can easily be misunderstood as self centeredness.

We learned that the principle of reincarnation can be an important justification for practicing universal compassion and the virtue of equanimity toward all persons. Tibetan Buddhists claim that innumerable incarnations deeply interrelate us. For example, you, the reader, may have been my loving mother or worst enemy in a previous life! Therefore, the Tibetan Buddhists believe we should treat all persons in this life with the love owed our mother; while simultaneously, to avoid attachments, we must remember that even our most dearly beloved in this life may have been our worst enemy in a previous life. Reincarnation fascinated the students, but many found it difficult to accept. This wasn't a problem, since we were attempting to gain a sympathetic understanding of the ideas, not become followers of lung, the Buddha, or Damiani.

We saw here a major difference between the psychological point a of view and the Buddhist discipline. According to the Buddhists, major when confronted with a person toward whom we feel hate, we are difference not to busy ourselves analyzing projections. By lung' s admis sion. the unconscious is inexhaustible-dissolve one projection and a dozen take its place. Rather than trying to put out a fire with gasoline, as Damiani would say. we are consciously to bring our mind into a positive state, to generate the sincere desire for that other person' s happiness and the causes of their happiness. A tall order, we all admitted, but one in harmony with the different goals of psychological wholeness and the attainment of the infi nite wisdom and compassion of Buddhahood.

I spent a good deal of time showing that the intellectual justifica tion for universal compassion and the pivot of theory and practice is the principle of emptiness: that very feature of reality we believe is most essential, most characteristic-the independent or self-standing nature of all objects and subjects-is precisely what emptiness denies. Contrary to our deepest beliefs, all objects and subjects ultimately lack a separate, isolated existence indepen dent of each other and our knowing. It isn't that they do not exist and function, but rather that they do not independently or "inher ently" exist. Our false beliefs about inherently existent egos and objects are the foundation for all our attachments and aversions, for the power of samsara-the wheel of repeated births, suffer ings, old age, and death.

We discussed several philosophic arguments that attempt to show how all phenomena are dependently related, especially upon the perceiver. A simple, but provocative, classroom example of the dependency of objects upon the knower is the cube shown here. Gaze for a while at the figure and notice how it switches between

56 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, Vol 23. No.1 two quite different configurations. Surfaces that first seemed toward the front of the cube suddenly appear at the back. Which configuration independently exists? Which is the true or real configuration independent of knowing? Although the Tibetan Buddhists do not use the cube example, Damiani did, to drama tize how meaningless it is to speak about cube configurations independent of knowing. This is an example where the mind's constructive and interpretive role is striking. Tibetan Buddhists argue that this is true for all phenomena.

If through philosophic study and meditation we get even a modest realization of emptiness, seeing all subjects and objects as inter dependent and interrelated, then our transformation can begin. a Being profoundly interrelated, how can I be happy while you modest suffer, or place my cravings before your happiness? Although realization realization of emptiness is a difficult task, extending over many of lifetimes, it is the foundation for the cultivation of limitless emptiness compassion. Furthermore, the practice of compassion, by direct ing concern away from the biggest impediment to our under standing-our egos-increases our understanding of emptiness. There is a synergistic relation between compassion and empti ness.

Although these are difficult ideas, it was clear from student papers that in the short time available they understood the main points. Fortunately, in the final section of the course, our study of mentalism, the notion that we only experience states of our own mind, helped deepen the students' grasp of emptiness. Buteven with their modest introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, they began to appreciate that Self-realization is not for the seeker alone. It demands a wide concern for the welfare of others and a total transformation of our view of ourselves and the world.

Looking into Mind: An Undergraduate Course 57 MENTALlSM, MEDITATION, AND SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE

Looking into Mind is an edited transcript of talks Anthony Damiani (1990) had with a small group of his Swedish students in 1983. They are ideal for my course because, though they discuss difficult ideas, they are for beginners on the quest for Self realization. In this book we encounter a man with a vast philo sophic background, a mastery of meditation, and nearly two decades of experience in teaching diverse groups of students. His book oscillates between Socratic dialogue and amplification of the latest writings of his teacher, Paul Brunton (Brunton, 1990). The deftly edited transcripts retain the warmth, wit, and informal conversational style of the original discussions.

Damiani's book covers a variety of topics, but it pivots around two ideas: mentalism and meditation. Mentalism, a teaching found in both the East and West, asserts that all we ever experi dependency ence are mental states, that the most fundamental dependency of upon phenomena spoken about in Buddhist emptiness is their depen the dency upon the knowing mind-s-a point Damiani and the Bud knowing dhists agree upon. The book's first few lines explicitly acknowl mind edge the importance of these two ideas and foreshadow another important theme: spiritual independence.

The best thing we can do during the short time I am here is to concentrateon mentalismand meditation.Theseare the two leading things.If! can get acrossto you thesublimevalueof meditationand the perspectivethat a proper understandingof mentalismcan pro vide you, it will be like opening the door. You know, "Open Sesame." It's the door that opens you up to everything, and from thereonyoucanbe onyourown.Youcangetto knowyourownsoul intimately.

So mentalismis the theoreticalside and meditationis the practical side. The two of them together will put your feet on the ground. From then on the infinitejourney begins (Damiani,1990,p. 3).

By this point in the course, the students had begun to appreciate the importance of mind in structuring our world. Psychologically we had understood projection, and philosophically we had fol lowed the Buddhist arguments about the radical dependency of all phenomena upon the mind. Mentalism goes farther by seeking to establish that we only experience states of our mind. However it is very difficult to reverse our innate belief in the reality of objects independent of mind and correct our undervaluation of mind. According to both Damiani and the Buddhists, we labor under the beginningless ignorance that objects are more real than the knowing mind. Although Damiani offers a variety of argu ments for mentalism and explains how we can share the same

58 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, Vol 23, No.1 world and yet experience only our mind, it was still a challenge for the students to follow him when he said things like:

Could we make it simpler, more direct? Let me put it this way: the most immediateexperience you have is that of your own mind. The most immediateexperience you have all the time is your own mind.

When you say, for instance, "That wan is hard," you have to actually think the hardness into existence. You say,"Well I don't know that I am doing that!" But the fact remains that you have to think it. If you don't think of something, there won't be anything there. You are always thinking.

What I am trying to say is that the immediacyof your experience is of the mind's functions. If you got that, you've got it. Because that is our immediate environment.We live in the mind. We are the mind. We experience ourselves functioning.But we lose sight of that, and we're preoccupied with what it did, rather than what it is. So PB [PaulBrunton] says that it is because of the mind-and only because the mind is there-that we can know that there's thinknrg, know that there's feeling, know that there's willing or any of these things. If you subtract the mind, there'sno knowing of anything.

I am avoiding the academicissues. I am trying to see if I could spear you with an intuition. Did youever havethe experience,for instance, of being very tired, you've workedand you're traveling on the road? You pull over and stop. You get a motel room. You're 80 tired, you the flop into bed and you fall asleep. You wake up, and for a moment weary you don't know where you are. But you know that you are. It just traveler lasts a minute and then, "Oh, I remember." But in that moment that you don't know anything, nonethelessyou knowthat you are. That's the immediacyof the experience of the mind (Damiani, 1990, p. 25).

Damiani had a special genius for explaining difficult ideas through simple examples or evocative images from daily life. Several students praised this aspect of his book, For example, many students had experiences like the weary traveler above who wakes up unable to think the normal world into existence, but who is nevertheless keenly aware of his or her immediate mental being. Damiani frequently evoked a taste of mentalism by using the dream analogy or some other situations from normal life, such as in the following selection, which expands upon a quotation from Brunton (in italics below).

The mind can have dealings only with kindred objects formed from its own substance, that is, with thoughts, ideas. Therefore when it knows material objects they must really be ideas.

Anthony:In a dream it's easier to recognize. When you wake up you see that what you experienced in the dream was an idea. That is, all you experienced was ideas-when you wake upl-s-butwhen you are

Looking into Mind: An Undergraduate Course 59 arousal, this searching and motivation for further study is one of teaching's most precious rewards. Though only ten out of eigh teen students selected my seminar as their first choice among many alternatives, this appreciation of the book and the desire to pursue the subject was mentioned several times in both the cri tiques and the anonymous course evaluations. There were two students who, despite their admiration for it, made minor com plaints about the book's repetitions. One student complained about its difficulty: "It seems that many of Damiani's ideas are well thought out and hold much validity, but the ideas were just too complex."

Anyone of the three parts of the course could have been ex panded into a course by itself. But I wanted to give the students a variety of viewpoints, firmly believing, along with Damiani, in the value of comparison and contrast. This variety of viewpoints the also made it possible to emphasize the crucial notion of spiritual crucial independence. For example, the Jungians emphasize that the notion initial transference (a massive projection on the analyst) required of by a successful analysis must be overcome for individuation to spiritual occur. Moreover, the Tibetan Buddhists are so deeply involved in independence guru yoga, initiations, and ritual that it is easy to miss the essential demand for spiritual independence. But Damiani is clear all this point. (Studentremarks are prefaced by "S:"):

S: I think there is a need for some sort of formal initiation by someone who has mastered the techniques.

Anthony: No, the only one that could initiate you, now listen to this very carefully, is your soul. Nobody else could do that. I have known many people who have received the so-called initiation from their own soul. Bytheir constant aspiration, prayer, meditation, their soul has revealed itself to the person. That' 8 the only place where there is initiation. Everything else is man-made. Don't buy it. You're buying a technique or you're buying a bit of knowledge or something like that, but nobody could initiate you into the soul except the soul itself. That's the God within you. He decides. Sometimes he decides that the best way for you to get initiated is to go to a person who will make you aware of such a situation, such a technique.But Ultimately it's always the soul within you that initiates you....

S.. But isn't initiation the same as getting grace?

Anthony: Yes.

S: But can't that come from your teacher?

Anthony: No, that comes from your soul.

S: But through your teacher?

62 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, Vol 23, No.1 Anthony: I love my teacher very much. And when the aspiration is there, the reverence, and I reach up to him in loving thought, then let's say a response takes place, It's from my soul.

S: But isn't the teacher a channel for the grace to come through?

Anthony: No! The teacher may be a guide, an influence, a direc tion, point out certain things to you, But if grace comes it comes from your soul. It couldn't come from anywhere else, You know what you want to do when you get an opportunity, if you get the chance? There's one man whom I respect and I always admired, who put me on the track a long time ago, His name is Ralph Waldo Emerson, Read him. There's an essay of his called "Self-Reliance," Read it. Self-reliance: rely on your own higher Self (Damiani, 1990, pp, 179-80).

Damiani makes clear, here and elsewhere, that self-reliance is not disguised egotism. The reliance is on our "higher Self' and it requires a still, receptive mind and the utmost humility.

Today's students and our society are beleaguered by unprec edented problems from within and without. Those college the courses preparing students for the political, economic, and tech adventure nological realities of the twenty-first century will help them meet of some of the challenges. However, as many great thinkers have self- realization taught, a noble society springs from noble citizens. If this seminar succeeds in encouraging a few students to begin the adventure of Self-realization and gives them some ideas about how to contact the best in themselves, then it may be able to move them toward noble citizenship. If it also encourages them to maintain both their reason and their spiritual independence, then I have truly served my teacher and my profession.

NOTE

'I thank the Colgate University Division of University Studies for allowing me, a physicist, to share my nonscience interests with students in a variety of classes over the years. I especially thank the members of Wisdom's Goldenrod Center for Philosophic Studies for teaching me the meaning and value of a spiritual community. I have deepened my understanding of many of the ideas in this paper through participating in innumerable seminars, classes, and meditations with them over the years. Of course, any misunderstandings are completely mine. Finally. I wish to acknowledge our late teacher, the founder of Goldenrod, Anthony Damiani, as the inspiration for our approach to life and learning-an approach inspired by many great traditions, but limited to none.

REFERENCES

BRUNTON, P, (1990), The notebooks of Paul Brunton. Burdett, NY: Larson Publications.

Looking into Mind: An Undergraduate Course 63 DAMIANI,A. (1990). Looking into mind: How to recognizewho you are and how you know. Burdett, NY: Larson Publications. MANSFIELD,V. (1989). Madhyamika Buddhism and quantum mechanics: Beginning a dialogue. InternationalPhilosophicalQuarterly,XXIX, 4,371. MANSFIELD,V. (1990a). Relativity in MiidhyamikaBuddhism and mod em physics. Philosophy East and West,XL, 1,59. MANSFIELD,V. (1990b). Tsongkhapa's bell, Bell's inequality, and Miidhyamikaemptiness. TibetJournal,XV, 1,42. MANSFIELD,V. (1991). Possible worlds, quantum mechanics, and Mid dle Way Buddhism. To be published in the Symposium on the Foundationsof Modern Physics 1990 . Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. MANSFIELD,V. (1991). The opposites in quantum mechanics and Jungian psychology: Part II, Applications. Journal of Analytical Psychology, to be published, MANSfIELD,V. & SPIEGELMAN,M. (1989). Quantum mechanics and Jungian psychology: Building a bridge. Journal of Analytical Psy chology,34(1),3-32. MANSFIELD,V. & SPIEGELMAN,M. The opposites in quantum mechanics and Jungian psychology: Part I, theoretical foundations. Journal of Analytical Psychology, to be published. SPIEGELMAN,M. & MANSFIELD,V. (1990). Complex numbers in the psyche and matter. Harvest, 36, 121-29.

Requests for reprints to: Professor Victor Mansfield, Physics and Astronomy Department, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346.

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