I’ve found that when people engage in both psychological and meditative practice, the two can complement each other in mutually beneficial, synergistic ways. Together they provide a journey that includes both healing and awakening. Sometimes one way of working is more appropriate for dealing with a given situation in our lives, sometimes the other is.
I take some encouragement in this approach from the words of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, who has made a point of saying that we need to draw on any teaching or method that can be of help to sentient beings, be it secular or religious, buddhist or nonbuddhist. He even goes so far as to suggest that if you fail to engage in methods that are appropriate just because they do not conform to Buddhist philosophy, you are actually being derelict in your bodhisattva duty.
TF So all of this is about compassion.
JW: Yes. The word “com-passion” literally means “feeling with.” You can’t have compassion unless you’re first willing to feel what you feel. This opens up a certain rawness and tenderness— what Trungpa Rinpoche spoke of as the “soft spot,” which is the seed of bodhicitta.
TF: It’s vulnerable.
JW: Yes. That’s the sign that you’re getting close to bodhicitta. That rawness is also quite humbling. Even if we’ve been doing spiritual practice for decades, we still find these big, raw, messy feelings coming up --- maybe a deep reservoir of sorrow or helplessness. But if we can acknowledge these feelings, and open ourselves nakedly to them, we’re moving toward greater openness, in a way that is grounded in our humanness. We ripen into a genuine person through learning to make room for the full range of experiences we go through.
TF: How do you know when you’re indulging or wallowing in feelings?