Jung and Zen: The Relationship of Consciousness, Suffering, and Individuation

What is Zen? How does it relate to Jung?  These are hard questions, but we will start with a survey of Buddhism and its offshoot that became Zen, including its meditation and ritual practices. Then we’ll look at Jung’s view of Zen – both in his introduction to D. Suzuki’s famous book and in his disappointing though often hilarious encounter with the Zen master Hisamatsu. 

To make matters worse, Zen famously promotes a “no-self” theology while the core of Jung’s model of the psyche is, of course, the self! Once we untangle that mess, we will look at Jung’s take on Zen and analytical psychology. We will see that this orientation diverges from either the historical or the experiential components of Zen but is of great value in understanding Jung’s project. Finally, we can wonder about what is perhaps the central theme that lies under both Zen and Jung: the nature of consciousness and its role in suffering and individuation. Here, finally, we will see some convergence – though not one that might have been predicted. 

In this discussion we will attempt to balance three quite disparate orientations: that of practitioner/believer, that of scholar/historian, and that of the Jungian psychological view. This allows us to feel the tension between words of the believer from the inside, the words of the scholar from the outside, and the analytical psychologist, who takes an empirical and psychological stance.