David Komito: Interview with H.H. Dalai Lama

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Tibetan Buddhism and Psychotherapy: Conversations with the Dalai Lama

Part 2 of 4 (Notes in Part 4)

During the summer of 1982, while I was working on a translation of a Buddhist philosophical treatise at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, I had an opportunity to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We spoke about Buddhism and psychotherapy, and I asked him some questions which had concerned me since the time I had worked as a counseling psychologist. That conversation was later published in this journal (Komito, 1983). As is well known, a good answer to a question often generates several new questions, and our conversation affirmed that rule of thumb. In the summer of 1983 I returned to the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to finish revising my translation and sorting out some of its more subtle technical details with the monk scholars. I again made arrangements to meet with His Holiness, this time to ask him some of the questions which I had been pondering since our previous meeting, as well as a number of questions that readers of the previous interview had raised.

As before, we met in the audience hall of his residence, which is perched on the side of a mountain in the western Himalayas. A lovely room, it has a stillness which is saturated by his radiance and punctuated by the cries of the hawks which ride the air currents around his palace and monastery. As we were to deal with some rather technical points in this interview, we were joined by His Holiness's brother, Tendzin Choegyal Rinpoche and Dr. Alexander Berzin, who both helped by translating some of the more difficult portions of the conversation.

David Komito: "Last summer we concluded our conversation with a brief discussion of the way in which certain specifically tantric types of practices could be incorporated into psychotherapy. I've had a chance to think about your comments and I have some further questions to ask you about them. I also have some questions which some readers of our dialogues have asked. So if I could, I'll read back to you the last question I had asked and your response to it and we can proceed from there. I had asked:

'Some people have looked into the literature on Tantra which says if one meditates on such-and-such a deity, such-and-such a state of mind may be transformed, and they are wondering if such practices could help their clients. On the other hand, I've also read that these practices require the taking of great vows and that you must be a very advanced practitioner to do this sort of thing successfully. So do you think that if psychologists look into the literature on Tantra and bring Tantra into their own practices, they would perhaps be making some very great errors? Could they harm people because of their own lack of qualification to do these things"

"You answered by saying:

'I think, here also, you see, the mere visualization of the mandala of some deity and also the mere practice of yoga, certain yoga breath control, even I think some practices with chakras, kundalini, subtle body - I think it is all right. Now, you see if you take, or if you practice, or you hold the visualization or mandala as a complete form, then, you see, without proper initiation, without proper background, you cannot practice, and even if you try to practice, there will be no good result. It is wrong. It is the wrong thing to do. But if you don't take it as a complete form, as a Buddhist practice, but take a certain thing out of it and actually remain as a non-Buddhist, a non-religious minded practitioner. . .and in this fashion take certain actions, I think that is all right' (Komito, 1983).

"I think that this question and your answer focus on some important issues which are at the heart of the application of Buddhist practices to psychotherapy. And indeed they have stimulated some interesting questions. One of our readers, responding to this dialogue, asked how would a Western psychologist deal with the problem of having an adequate background?"

Dalai Lama: "They were asking how do they know whether they were qualified or not?"

D. K: "Right. Suppose a psychologist was to look at a lot of the literature that has now been written on various kinds of tantric practices, on meditation or visualization of this deity or that deity, and suppose that this psychologist were to think, 'Here, I have a client who has a problem with anger, but does have a kind of religious orientation. What if I were to suggest that this client practice a meditation on Avalokiteshvara [the personification of compassion]?' Or the psychologist who has prescribed this practice himself might think, 'Well, I should meditate on Avalokiteshvara, because I need more compassion with my clients.' On what basis can a psychologist make these kinds of judgments about the appropriate use of this kind of imagery? He has no real training in this very complex sort of practice, yet he says,'This is the deity for compassion, or this is the deity for wisdom, and I need wisdom, so I'll do this practice on the wisdom deity.' "

Dalai Lama: "You experiment I think."

D. K: "Yes. But how do they know the limits for experimenting and what tantric type of practices to prescribe to people?"

Dalai Lama: "You have to experiment, the best way to find out is to experiment. Now for example, you see, you choose. The psychologist gives some imagination (1) of some deity like Manjushri [the personification of wisdom], or Avalokiteshvara [the personification of compassion], for some time: if there is some good effect, then continue; if there is not, then try another different kind of deity. It could be a male deity or a female deity, and so on. That person will not follow the complete practice of the deity yoga, you know, the different stages. So, you see, they do not have initiation, they simply follow one or two methods, just do some parts of the complete practice."

D. K: "So because they just prescribe some parts, they needn't worry about feeling unqualified to prescribe these techniques?"

Dalai Lama: "Now the person who is giving the instruction, his knowledge may be limited, so his own case also is taken care of and implemented in that experiment."

D.K.: "So, it is all right to actually just check out these different techniques and, based on their own Western training, judge how these things work. If they seem successful, go ahead. If they don't seem successful, stop, do something else, but don't feel strongly inhibited that they have not trained in the Buddhist tradition. Earlier you mentioned 'a complete form' and 'a complete practice' which would not be prescribed. What do you mean by a 'complete form'?"

Dalai Lama: "Take, for example, the deity Avalokiteshvara; there are different ways to practice Avalokiteshvara. There are mainly four different kinds of Tantra or ways to practice Tantrayana, that is: Action Tantra (Kriyatantra), Performance Tantra (Charyatantra), Yoga Tantra (Yogatantra), and Highest Yoga Tantra (Anuttarayogatantra) (Tsong-ka-pa, 1977, 1981). Now you see, according to the different systems, there are different ways to practice, different methods. So to practice each system you need initiation according to that doctrinal system. So you see, in the beginning, you have to know about initiation, then afterwards, how many precepts or points to keep, and then on these bases, one practices the first divisions of visualization, then one progresses onwards with the help of the understanding of shunyata [emptiness] and the determination of the bodhichitta [altruistic mind of enlightenment].(2) Then, according to Kriya Tantra, the next stage is a visualization of sound, a visualization of fire, the visualization of the end of sound which is complete shunyata. So once you know these things completely, and go accordingly, then that means something," he said laughingly.

D. K: "That's the complete practice. What you're suggesting is that psychologists can take a little piece out of this to use for themselves and for their clients. But if they want to do the whole thing, then they really must take it up as a Buddhist practice for themselves."

Dalai Lama: "Now you see, the main reason is, without understanding shunyata, then the realization which comes from these practices cannot produce the Buddhist side [i.e., will not have a Buddhist character, and goals specific to Buddhism will not be attained]."

D. K: "The images used in tantric visualizations have the transformation of the mind as their purpose and were developed out of a very long Buddhist tradition. Some of them may be unsuitable for psychologists to use with their patients. I'm thinking, for example, of deities with multiple arms, which would be a little strange for Westerners to imagine or visualize. If Your Holiness thinks that it is the case that some of these deity images may be inappropriate, then where will Westerners find the images to use? From the imagination of the psychologists, or perhaps the myths and stories of Western society? I mean, where would these transformative images come from?"

Dalai Lama: "If you could not imagine a deity with a hundred hands, then just imagine deities with one head and two hands. Use these deities."

D. K: "So then Your Holiness thinks that the images of the deities that are currently used in Buddhist practices can easily be adapted for use by Westerners; they don't have to develop new images of their own?"

Dalai Lama: "Now, first, we have to think purposefully. If there is simply a scientist who is just seeking a kind of technique to help patients, that's all right."

D. K: "They could develop their own images?"

Dalai Lama: "Oh, yes. No problem. But if a person's basic purpose, or real purpose, is to practice the tantric teaching, then, just to simply make up one's own new invention, that makes no sense. Now, you see, if someone practices these, this deity yoga, then it is better to follow the authentic textbooks."

D. K: "Right. But if the images were being used in the practice of psychotherapy, the psychologist could pick the images that seem to work? Experiment with them?"

Dalai Lama: "Sure. That's all right."

D. K: "O.K. Well, then let's assume that we have some psychologists who are using such images in their work with their clients. Then is working with one image sufficient, or is it necessary to go through a sequence of images, and if the latter, how would a psychologist judge the appropriate order of the sequence?"

Dalai Lama: "For what purpose?"

D. K: "Suppose that the psychologist were to perceive that a major need of this client was to transform anger, and that this person also was very greedy and maybe also had some other very negative feelings. Now, the psychologist wanted this person to do some visualizations as part of the therapeutic process; how would the psychologist determine where to begin, which image to have that person work with first, and then which image to work with next?"

Dalai Lama: "[In regards to] visualization, I don't know, I have no particular idea for controlling these different bad thoughts. But you see, on the other hand, the general, the real practice, is to combat these various different mental defilements, these delusions. Now, we cannot deal with one particular mental thought exclusively since, for example, anger is somehow related to attachment, and attachment is somehow related to anger. Again, now, you see, doubt, pride, ego, all these interact, they have one root. So usually it is something like this: you deal with attachment, and in the meantime take every precaution for dealing with anger. Like when you deal with medicine, you must bring together many different things; you have to consider many circumstances and be able to deal with those circumstances. So then, you see, that is the basic way to meet with these mental defilements, these mental delusions. Now using imagination and visualization, in this case I don't know, I have no particular idea [about the appropriate sequence for the visualizations]."

D. K: "But basically, all these things have to be dealt with at the same time, because they are all interconnected."

Dalai Lama: "Yes."

D. K: "Perhaps Your Holiness could elaborate on how psychologists could use visualization practices to transform negative mental states? For example, there are some traditional techniques which monks and nuns use for conquering lust, such as if one has desire for a woman or man, one could intentionally imagine that person as being like a cannibal demoness or demon in order to free oneself from that desire for that person. Or one can imagine that person as like a skeleton, in order to free oneself from the desire for that person. Are there techniques like that, that psychologists could use with their clients?"

Dalai Lama: "Probably. It seems like there are. Now you see, there is a Buddhist practice such as the one you mentioned - with the skeleton."

His Holiness then began to elaborate on a series of analytic meditations on traditional themes intended to free the practitioner from the control of excessive attachments. Although he described these practices from the perspective of a monk trying to conquer lust for a woman, they could also be utilized by women who were trying to conquer lust for men, so I have taken the liberty of substituting the term "person" in place of "man" or "woman" in the next two passages. Clearly, these practices are intended for persons of sound mental disposition, and could prove disturbing to others. As His Holiness pointed out a bit later in the interview, one must consider each person's situation individually, as the analytic meditations which follow could prove dangerous to disturbed individuals, in which case they should not engage in this type of practice.(3)

Dalai Lama: "There are several practices there, such as to analyze into parts the [quality] of the beauty of the [person]. You take the color of the skin and go like this, analyze in detail. When you look on the surface, it's very beautiful, a very good color, good touch, something like that. Then in imagination you open that cover, and you see human flesh, you see the blood.... Then you can think about the cause of the body, the semen from the male, and the [ovum] from the female. You think about this [ovum] and this semen and what it produces here [i.e., the zygote], nobody would desire that or respect it. If there were something like that on your clothes, or on your lap, you'd just throw it away. Now the source of the body, no matter how beautiful that body is, the main substance is like that. [On the surface it all seems very] pleasant, but now again you divide: skin, flesh, bones, etc. [then it seems quite different]. You see, without investigation, simply due to our past bag chags - instincts - we feel that great love, desire, attachment. But if you investigate, by analyzing into parts and pieces, then this is no longer a beautiful thing, you see. Then, again, the actual result or the production of the body is just waste products. Now, the real production of the human body is that. So you can investigate the cause of the present substance and its result.

"Then again now, you can investigate this human physical structure. Usually we say it is composed of four or five elements. These elements in their very nature are hostile to each other; they contradict. You know, earth, fire, water, etc., these four or five elements which in their very nature are hostile to each other, contradict each other. Because of that nature, human health means to minimize the hostility of these things. That's what we call healthy, the healthiest."

D. K: "Do you mean physically or mentally healthy?"

Dalai Lama: "Mainly I'm talking about the physical. Therefore, these kinds of analyses [according to quality, cause, result and substance] help minimize the attachments, that is one thing. [Now this is the kind of analysis which is done with the skeleton you mentioned.] It might be difficult to do the visualization of the demoness [or demon] because at that moment you may feel this is some projection or self-deception and that actually underneath this is a very beautiful woman [or man] and you are just imagining [that person] as a demoness - or - demon]. Then there is another thing. Think, again, investigate, what is the real value of sexual actions and desire?"

D. K: "Rationally investigate."

Dalai Lama: "O. K. Now, this is a sexual action, one time, or a second time, or ten times, or a hundred times, or a thousand times; would you really get satisfaction? If you just did that totally as the only thing, would you really be satisfied? What is the real substantial value of the desire? If there is someone who has no use for such desires, is he more relaxed, or is the person who has a very strong feeling of desire about sexual things? Which person gets more relaxation [or satisfaction]? That person who desires their lover, the basic motivation is getting pleasure. Now, because he or she wants happiness, and happiness comes from pleasure, so he or she desires and approaches their lover. So we analyze. These are the methods."

D. K: "Now looking back for a moment at this kind of technique of visualization or imagining certain characteristics on the person, such as the skeleton on the woman or man, if one were to employ this type of technique, could one employ it with both disturbed people and normal people, or should one not employ this kind of technique with disturbed people? Could it make them more disturbed?"

Dalai Lama: "I think again, we have to make clear distinctions between disturbances, what kind of disturbance the person has. We have to go according to the individual person."

D. K: "Right, so in some cases it could be very dangerous and in other cases no problem, even with disturbed people. O.K. Now in these tantric practices, the practitioner can visualize the deity in front of himself or herself or can visualize himself or herself as the deity and 'assume the pride' [i.e., the qualities] of the deity. Now, if psychologists used such a technique with their patients, what cautions should they employ to prevent them from grasping at these images in an ignorant way and becoming unbalanced or inflated or going crazy. Since their patients don't have the protection of the practice of bodhichitta or the understanding of shunyata, they could get attached to the images in some way or otherwise become disturbed. Whereas attaining bodhichitta and understanding shunyata, these act as protections to keep the practitioner from getting overly attached to the images. So what kind of cautions should psychologists employ when they are doing this kind of work with their clients, so their clients don't get captivated by these images?"

Dalai Lama: "It is better not to get involved in that type of practice beforehand if that is going to happen. If there is a danger, no. If there is a way, right from the beginning, that these things will upset a person, then they should avoid imagining these things. But then, somehow, if someone is already practicing and gets that problem, then I don't know. If I met such a person, then I would argue the facts with him. If he imagines himself as a deity, or, for example, is doing the moon crystal meditation [which is opposed to fire] and meantime touches a fire, it will burn him. You see, that's the actual argument, reasoning out [the facts]. Now, for example, take a needle, and imagine it as shunya [empty] and here [this body], imagine it as shunya. Then do this [His Holiness mimes putting the needle in his finger], you will come to conclude the imagination is imagination and reality is reality."

D. K: "Right, so the psychologist then rationally engages the client, saying, 'Well, if you're such and such a person, you can do this, and if you can't do this, then you're not such and such a person.' "

Dalai Lama: "Yes. That's what I would do."

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