Eastern and Western Approaches to Philosophy

When the East Meets the West: Introduction

That there is a distinct difference between an Eastern and a Western approach to reality is without question.  Below, I try to summarize what I believe to be the main differences between the two approaches to philosophy.  Some terms I have used may overlap with others. Also, in a certain and significant sense my contrasting of the two approaches sets them up as very much polar opposites which, of course, they are not.  In fact, there is a certain amount of overlap, a certain middle ground and certain nuances of thinking in either approach that allow for some element of the other to enter its domain.  Therefore, what's below is to be taken as somewhat pointed and even simplistic, though instructive to give a beginner a taste for the main distinctions.  Later study of both can allow for the similarities and more learned and subtle nuances.

                                               

Eastern Approaches	Western Approaches
circular	linear
inner	outer
integration of opposites	polarity of opposites
Interconnectedness of everything	Division of things
Truth as a given	Truth has to be proved
Knowledge as received	Knowledge as discovered               Importance of empirical research
Emphasis on the collective/group	Emphasis on the individual
Reverence for Tradition	Radical questioning of Tradition
Spiritual	Materialistic
Synthesis	Analysis
Leadership from within or behind	Leadership from the front
Eternal and recurring	Logical, Linear, Rational
Being/Meditating/Contemplating	Doing/Action
Mystery	Problem

          

Given this rather long introduction, I wish to review two books I read on holidays. The first is one of Daniel Goleman's earlier books, Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience (London: Thorsons, 1996), and the second is Dr. Radmila Moacanin's The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism: Western and Eastern Paths to the Heart (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003).

My copies of these two books

The most distinctive characteristic of both books is their shared simplicity of explanation, making them accessible to a general audience and to a more specialized one. What makes Meditative Mind most interesting is that it can be a foundational text for anyone who wishes to study the art and practice of meditation. Goleman's book is a comprehensive study of the phenomenon of meditation from the point of view of a Western psychologist who had months of training and practice in meditation techniques in India.  Meditative Mind is, thus, an acclaimed study of meditation in the context of all the world's great religions because its author draws on Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity and distils from them the central aspects of the phenomenon of meditation and the skills involved therein. By incorporating into the text such a comprehensive comparative study, he provides the reader with a marvellous variety of perspectives on what could be wrongly adjudged to be the sole possession of one tradition only. Ram Dass, who provides an insightful preface points out that Dan Goleman has done a wonderful job in this book of explaining meditation to the scientific and academic community worldwide.  Indeed, he has gone on to write many other wonderful books since then in this regard - Meditative Mind is an early work - 1996.* Dass puts his point succinctly thus: "Dan could do the intellectual task of integration: provide a much-needed overview of spiritual paths and the states of consciousness they traverse. As you will find in this book, he has done just that." (p. xv)

For those with a mathematical bent, Goleman's description of the essence of meditative practice, one which he had learnt from Dr Daniel Goldstein, is of interest.  It runs: "It's simple mathematics... All meditation systems either aim for One or Zero - union with God or emptiness.  The path to the one is through concentration on Him (God, as in Christian or Hebrew meditation), to the Zero (e.g., Zen) is insight into the voidness of one's mind." (p. xvii).  As I have an abiding interest in theology since my student days I was very taken by the following statement from Goleman, a statement I believe to be most true indeed:

All too often, religious institutions and theologies outlive the transmission of the original transcendental states that generated them. Without these living experiences, the institutions of religion become pointless, and their theology appear empty. In my view the modern crisis of established religions is caused by the scarcity of personal experience of these transcendental states - the living spirit at the common core of all religions. (p. xxiv)

The way I put this point is by stating that religion without a spiritual heart is destined for its own self-destruction. In short, I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in meditation in any spiritual or religious tradition. 

Dr. Moacanin's book The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism does, as a current cliché puts it, exactly what it says on the tin! The author, who is a leading psychotherapist, international scholar and adjunct professor of psychology at San Diego University, brings together these two radically different cultures or two differing worldviews and points out with Carl Jung that they both share a common ground in wanting to increase our consciousness or awareness of being.  

Jung's psychology shared much with Buddhism. Just as the "cure" or "care" of "souls" was Jung's main task and a central concern in his type of therapy (Analytical Psychology), suffering, and emancipation from suffering is the ultimate goal of Buddhism. Once again both looked to actual experience of life as being far more important than theory.  Dr Moacanin puts it thus:

Only knowledge gained through direct experience has life-giving value. For this reason Buddha maintained the "noble silence" when asked metaphysical questions on the nature of the absolute, "the eternal truths." Instead he pointed out the way and insisted that each of us individually must find the solutions to our fundamental existential problems, not through our intellect and logical thinking, but through development of a higher consciousness, BODHI: the absolute, the infinite, the numinous, is not to be conceptualized but realized within oneself.  (p. 49)

Jung would have shared a similar belief when treating his patients or clients. In this book, Dr Moacanin brings the ideas and methods of both the Buddha and Carl Jung beyond the theoretical to base them solidly in the realm of human experience.  In doing so, he brings them alive for the twenty-first-century reader.

Endnote:

*Goleman has written a plethora of books and among them is one he co-wrote with the Dalai Lama called Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? (New York: Bantam, 2003).  The Dalai Lama described this landmark book as a "great work of dialogue between Buddhism and scientific thought."   I believe that any book by Goleman is well worth reading.