Jung’s view on suffering being necessary is interesting, particularly from a Buddhist viewpoint - the ending of suffering being the goal of the Buddha. Are the two incompatible I wonder? I find much of value in both.
The core idea of wisdom traditions like Buddhism is that enlightenment or salvation begins with acknowledging suffering — Jungian psychology is the same.
While their methods and imagined endpoints differ (the recognition of emptiness or non-self in Buddhism vs union with the Self and wholeness in Jungian individuation), they’re both fundamentally about self-knowledge, and how lacking it is synonymous with suffering.
Bud Harris talks about this in Becoming Whole — view below:
‘Our wisdom traditions tell us that the root meaning of the word salvation means “the way of redemption” or the “way to wholeness.” As we follow this line of thinking, we discover that our journey into wholeness, or holiness, in the words of the mystical traditions, begins in a paradoxical way—not by a search for peace and joy—but by acknowledging the grit and grist of life: suffering, illness, death, and our alienation from ourselves and the depth of our own spiritual and psychological capacities. Now, this is a very important point: it is the full acceptance of these aspects of ourselves that initiates our journey into becoming fully human, fully incarnated, and more open to joy.’
It’s something I want to learn a lot more about, and having originally started this newsletter writing about Buddhism and nondual teachings, I’m sure I’ll eventually write more about how they all converge.
Hope this helps and interested to hear what you both think.
It’s a simple matter to understand the body is not self - it’s composed of particles that have migrated through countless other forms for billions of years. Yet it is not so easy to transcend the physical pain we feel when we are sick of injured. I was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and have spent much of the last week in constant pain and exhaustion. No amount of non-identifying with, or acceptance of suffering, was as effective as the life-saving intervention of emergency treatment I received in hospital, however. And yet the infamous image of Thich Quang Duc calmly burning to death, reminds me there are those with the ability to totally transcend pain consciously, through meditation or detachment. If I’m honest, it’s not something I wish to be well practiced in. Perhaps my problem is not the pain itself, but that I am too attached to comfort?
I'm curious to know in what way is lacking self-knowledge synonymous with suffering in the buddhist tradition given that it relies so much on the no-head / no-self philosophy. I can see what you mean if I think about it not as knowing the self but as not having a resistance to what is natural and beyond control, but I'm not sure that's what you mean or if I'm understanding it correctly. Would love your input!
I don't think Jung was saying anything incompatible with the buddhist viewpoint on suffering. We have to keep in mind neither Buddha nor Jung spoke english as a first language, and it's quite limited. I think what this article talks about when talking about suffering is, from a buddhist perspective, not really suffering but pain. And buddhism also considers pain to be inevitable, it just considers that suffering is the resistance to that very vital part of life that is what's not pleasant. In this particular subject, I think they were quite on the same page — it's just a matter of semantics.
Jung’s view on suffering being necessary is interesting, particularly from a Buddhist viewpoint - the ending of suffering being the goal of the Buddha. Are the two incompatible I wonder? I find much of value in both.
The core idea of wisdom traditions like Buddhism is that enlightenment or salvation begins with acknowledging suffering — Jungian psychology is the same.
While their methods and imagined endpoints differ (the recognition of emptiness or non-self in Buddhism vs union with the Self and wholeness in Jungian individuation), they’re both fundamentally about self-knowledge, and how lacking it is synonymous with suffering.
Bud Harris talks about this in Becoming Whole — view below:
‘Our wisdom traditions tell us that the root meaning of the word salvation means “the way of redemption” or the “way to wholeness.” As we follow this line of thinking, we discover that our journey into wholeness, or holiness, in the words of the mystical traditions, begins in a paradoxical way—not by a search for peace and joy—but by acknowledging the grit and grist of life: suffering, illness, death, and our alienation from ourselves and the depth of our own spiritual and psychological capacities. Now, this is a very important point: it is the full acceptance of these aspects of ourselves that initiates our journey into becoming fully human, fully incarnated, and more open to joy.’
It’s something I want to learn a lot more about, and having originally started this newsletter writing about Buddhism and nondual teachings, I’m sure I’ll eventually write more about how they all converge.
Hope this helps and interested to hear what you both think.
It’s a simple matter to understand the body is not self - it’s composed of particles that have migrated through countless other forms for billions of years. Yet it is not so easy to transcend the physical pain we feel when we are sick of injured. I was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and have spent much of the last week in constant pain and exhaustion. No amount of non-identifying with, or acceptance of suffering, was as effective as the life-saving intervention of emergency treatment I received in hospital, however. And yet the infamous image of Thich Quang Duc calmly burning to death, reminds me there are those with the ability to totally transcend pain consciously, through meditation or detachment. If I’m honest, it’s not something I wish to be well practiced in. Perhaps my problem is not the pain itself, but that I am too attached to comfort?
I'm curious to know in what way is lacking self-knowledge synonymous with suffering in the buddhist tradition given that it relies so much on the no-head / no-self philosophy. I can see what you mean if I think about it not as knowing the self but as not having a resistance to what is natural and beyond control, but I'm not sure that's what you mean or if I'm understanding it correctly. Would love your input!
I don't think Jung was saying anything incompatible with the buddhist viewpoint on suffering. We have to keep in mind neither Buddha nor Jung spoke english as a first language, and it's quite limited. I think what this article talks about when talking about suffering is, from a buddhist perspective, not really suffering but pain. And buddhism also considers pain to be inevitable, it just considers that suffering is the resistance to that very vital part of life that is what's not pleasant. In this particular subject, I think they were quite on the same page — it's just a matter of semantics.