April 29, 2010
- Kenneth Folk on Necessary Suffering -
Because of the natural progression of development, a yogi will tend to spend a certain amount of time developing or fleshing out each stratum of mind. They are developed in order, one by one (and then again, at a deeper level, as in a spiral). And the “cutting edge” of your practice, the one that forms the temporary ceiling of how far up the spectrum of consciousness you can go in any given sitting, will color your experience all day long. That’s why a yogi whose cutting edge is the A&P thinks life is beautiful and getting better. And that’s why a yogi whose cutting edge is the dukkha nanas thinks life is dreadful and getting worse: it’s all about where you are encountering the stickiness of your own mind. In other words, the place you haven’t yet made peace with draws you like a magnet.
Some parts of your mind are inherently heavenly and some parts are inherently hellish. You won’t get rid of any of it, so you may as well abandon that project as soon as possible. The kind of freedom that will satisfy comes from being equally at home in heaven and hell. Make friends with your own built-in hell and be free. Reject parts of your own mind and only suffering can result.
(from here)
(emphasis mine)
Sounds very Jungian to me, the shadow and the anima.
Comment by speedbird — April 29, 2010 @ 11:30 am
Wow. Nice one speedbird. What similarities do you see?
Also, you wouldn’t happen to know the order Jung thought the archetypes were worked with do you? I know Kenneth Folk is working with the Burmese Vipassana tradition, which says the A&P (arrising and passing away even) always comes right before dukka nanas (aka the Dark Night as in dark night of the soul).
Would be interesting if Jung placed Anima/Animus processing prior to Shadow processing…
Comment by Ian — April 29, 2010 @ 11:54 am
The second paragraph in particular strikes me as pure Jung: you have to integrate everything.
I think I read somewhere that Jung reckoned that integrating the Anima(us) was the greatest challenge. But don’t take my word for it.
The link between the Dark Night and the Shadow seems obvious, but how do you see A&P relating to Anima(us) (if that’s what you mean)?
Comment by speedbird — April 30, 2010 @ 5:39 am
how do you see A&P relating to Anima(us) (if that’s what you mean)?
Actually, that’s what I thought you meant. :)
Its funny you say that, because in Kenneth Folk’s version of enlightenment (and I don’t think Jung believed in enlightenment) you have to dis-embed from each layer of the mind.
But while “integrate” and “disembed” seem at first to be opposites, I think they’re actually talking about the same process. The process of accounting for all parts of the psyche, of acting with them rather then having them act on you.
I guess Jung didn’t really have an order for the archetypes, but I do believe he placed the “self” archetype as the final one (or at least, as far as he got). But while doing a quick bit a research, I did find this, which ties in nicely with our other conversation:
Jung has opened our eyes to the differences between child development and adult development. Children clearly emphasize differentiation — separating one thing from another — in their learning. “What’s this?” ” Why is it this way and not that?” “What kinds are there?” They actively seek diversity. And many people, psychologists included, have been so impressed by this that they have assumed that all learning is a matter of differentiation, of learning more and more “things.”
But Jung has pointed out that adults search more for integration, for the transcending of opposites. Adults search for the connections between things, how things fit together, how they interact, how they contribute to the whole. We want to make sense of it, find the meaning of it, the purpose of it all. Children unravel the world; adults try to knit it back together.
ie: unconscious unity -> information gathering -> information overload -> pattern recognition -> conscious unity
Comment by Ian — April 30, 2010 @ 10:32 am
Don’t know how reliable this is, but interesting:
http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/shadow.html
Comment by speedbird — May 1, 2010 @ 8:47 am
Yeah! That’s what I was talking about, I’d heard it before somewhere, though I can’t remember where.
Stage One: The Shadow
Stage Two: Anima/Animus
Stage Three: Mana Personalities
Stage Four: The Self
Dunno how reliable that site is either, but this basic outline is what I had in mind.
Comment by Ian — May 1, 2010 @ 12:40 pm