Introducing the Buddhist concept of dukkha--literally, being off center like a wheel riding off its axle--in comparison with Jung's concept of neurosis, this presentation shows how our suffering arises in our own attitudes, intentions, and actions. Seeing the roots of our suffering, we develop self-awareness and self-knowledge. Recognizing and taking responsibility for how we make ourselves and others suffer, we develop compassion--literally, a "suffering with" others. Drawing on her recent book The Resilient Spirit (formerly called The Gifts of Suffering), Polly Young-Eisendrath will give illustrations and show video clips of Rosamund Miller, June Singer, Elaine Pagels, and Dan Gottlieb, who describe the transformation of their own suffering into meaning and purpose in life.
Contrary to what many westerners believe, the Buddhist notion of karma is not of predetermination, but of the fluid development from moment to moment of certain consequences from our own intentions, attitudes, and actions. The theory of karma--that we are heir to the consequences of our intentions and actions, not only in a particular lifetime, but over lifetimes--fits well with Jung's theory of psychological complexes. We are each born into a family in which a great drama is already under way, something that has strong emotional pulls made up in large part from the roles of the parents and siblings, carried over from one generation to the next. Our psychological complexes grow out of our emotional adaptation to this family constellation and our continuing (mostly unconscious) desire to reproduce this drama in our adult lives. Using illustrations from psychotherapy and life, the workshop will show how the process of individuation rests on giving up an old cherished identity or set of habits in favor of something new. This is a process she calls "letting the self die" and connecting to rebirth. After a discussion of these ideas and their applications to personal and clinical work, we'll watch a film made by the Canadian Film Board, narrated by Leonard Cohen, illustrating the Buddhist theory of rebirth by following the case of a dying man in Tibet.
Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D., a noted Jungian psychoanalyst and psychologist, is clinical associate professor in psychiatry at the Medical College of the University of Vermont. She writes and lectures extensively and has published eight books. She has also recently completed work on The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge University Press, 1997) with Terence Dawson, and Gender and Desire: Uncursing Pandora.