Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy

What a find - a book that explains what is essentially unexplainable! The Sacred Mirror is the "Bible" for any therapist who works from the nondual perspective. The Sacred Mirror expertly guides readers beyond what the words themselves point to. It is very rare to find anything on the subject of Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, let alone a book that does the subject any justice. I appreciated the essays by John J. Prendergast and Dorthy Hunt. Prendergast writes, "The critical question is whether the therapist's awareness is centered in the moment and creatively responsive to what is." And Hunt writes about, "...the healing that unfolds when that which is awake directly and intimately touches what is." I found the same power and clearity in these authors' words that is typically found in the most illumined teachers. Both of these writers are seasoned psychotherapists. They write from their direct experience. This book serves as a wise mentor to my work as a psychotherapist. It encourages therapists to trust such "non-tangibles" as silence and presence. It helps evoke the living experience of oneself as THAT which IS awake while expertly exploring how this "understanding" connects with psychotherapy. It is no wonder that the Sacred Mirror is considered the current reference in its field. - Jonathan Gustin M.A. LMFT, Psychotherapist; Founder of San Francisco Integral Transformative Practice; Founder of Green Sangha: Spiritually Engaged Environmental Activism; and teacher of Mind/Body Medicine at Kaiser Permanente.

Reality, Self, unconditioned mind, awakening, presence, silence, emptiness, being, nondual. If these are words you'd like to hear associated with psychotherapy, this book will be very welcome. The Sacred Mirror is a collection of original writings by leading practitioners of nondual psychotherapy. Each author -- in his or her own fashion, and with varying degrees of emphasis -- addresses the nature of nondual disposition, what nondual therapy is, how it is practiced, and its role in psychotherapy. It is angled toward psychotherapists and the healing of psychological problems, but will appeal to anyone interested in nonduality, whether a professional healer or not. This book will be appreciated by one who senses or knows presence, whether one is held, or holds, in presence. Since the function and work of the guru or spiritual teacher is essentially the same as that of the nondual therapist, both voices are heard from each author. Since these authors and therapists are intimate with nondual awareness, there is no underlying difference. What nondual therapists possess that most gurus do not, is formal training in psychology and a set of skills allowing them to practice conventional psychotherapy. The first two chapters give overviews of nonduality and nondual therapy. John J. Prendergast, in the first chapter, asks whether the nondual approach makes for a new school of psychotherapy. He talks about how nonduality fits into practice. He addresses whether psychotherapy is evolving into a vehicle for transmission of truth, and whether awakening therapists are in the same lineage as Buddha or other great sages of all time. Prendergast speaks of the primary and secondary impacts of awakening. He discusses psychotherapy methods and skills in light of nondual awareness and how awakening impacts the psychotherapist. Following the first two introductory chapters is an interview with Adyashanti. This, the third chapter, could also be considered an introductory chapter, as it gives further overview of nondual therapy and nonduality. Adyashanti is a significant character in this book since he is an outsider to the profession of psychotherapy yet works one on one with people who are awakening. His perspectives on nondual therapy would seem to be important. The interviewers ask over two dozen excellent questions, not including follow-up questions and comments. Chapter Four is by Prendergast, who writes, "When we look into an ordinary mirror, we see how we appear. When we look into a sacred mirror, we see who we are." The role of "sacred mirror" has traditionally belonged to the guru or spiritual teacher. This chapter describes how the role is being played by the therapist and explores ways of including this function into transpersonal psychology. Chapter Five is entitled, A Nondual Approach to EMDR: Psychotherapy as Satsang, by Sheila Krystal. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. For the reader who has some familiarity wit

The Sacred Mirror is truly a landmark book in the history of psychotherapy, and can be considered "must reading" for all therapists, therapists-in-training, their instructors, and, I daresay, many spiritual teachers. Editors John Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal have done an outstanding job, not only in the quality of their own articles (for instance, senior editor John Prendergast's "Introduction" and his article for chapter 4, "The Sacred Mirror: Being Together," are alone well worth the modest price of the book), but also in the high quality of all the other multi-faceted papers they have inspired their fellow authors to draft. Note that all these papers are original, not having been previously published elsewhere. Each essay is a gem. Having spent over three decades in "the nondual way" exploring its relevance for authentic living, loving, working and serving, I had wondered, before reading this book, just how much new insight could be generated by having so many contributors to this topic, "Nondual Wisdom in Psychotherapy" (the book's subtitle). After all, Alan Watts had brilliantly touched on many issues in his classic "Psychotherapy East and West," and Ken Wilber had written a fair amount on the nondual culmination of the psycho-spiritual development process. I was pleasantly surprised. Whereas there is some overlap, especially in that each author must define what "nondual" means for them--and the term tends to evoke a lot of the same definitions--even here I was impressed at the wealth of nuance in how each author has truly "owned" the language of nonduality, and doesn't merely sound like s/he is parroting nondual wording from the Perennial Wisdom traditions of Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Saivism, Zen Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and contemplative Taoism (the main five sacred traditions that have engendered the rise of nonduality in the West). Not only are these pages abundantly filled with "nondual insight" and good conceptual overview, most of the authors present transcripts or synopses of interesting individual cases clearly showing how nondual awareness-- arising either spontaneously or via gentle suggestion -- allowed for the therapeutic relationship to deepen profoundly and then, suddenly or gradually, radical healing/wholing could occur. Limited space for this review prevents my discussing each of the papers presented in The Sacred Mirror. Suffice it to say that this book should be required reading for anyone working in the fields of transpersonal, humanistic or depth psychology. Persons in other "helping professions" and many other walks of life will also greatly benefit from reading this authentic compilation of enlightened teachings, thoroughly grounded in psychotherapeutic sensitivity and pragmatic common sense. Congratulations and "Thank you!" to Prendergast, Fenner, Krystal, John Welwood, Jennifer Welwood, Dorothy Hunt, Dan Berkow, Richard Miller, Stephan Bodian, Lynn Marie Lumiere, Bryan Wittine, and Ady

As a therapist in training, I have been confounded again and again by my mind's attempts to find a "theory" of human change that fits my actual experience of being human. The simple recognitions of the "direct approach" of the non-dual wisdom traditions - that silence is our essential nature and that this silence unfolds in form - provide the "un-theory" that my mind has always sought but has never been able to find. Reading the words of these seasoned practitioners is to be invited into this silence again and again. Their case presentations, observations, and recognitions speak intimately to the practice of being with another human being in an authentic way. I am grateful for every word.

In the growing body of Transpersonal literature exploring the interface between Eastern spirituality and Western psychology, this anthology is the first to address the infiltration of specifically nondual awareness into psychotherapy practice. This ground-breaking work comes out of the maturing spiritual realization of its authors, who have generally committed decades of their lives to the practice of nondual Asian teachings, such as, Zen, Advaita Vedanta, TM, Prajnaparamita, Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. The aim of the text is less to contrast East with West than to present the authors' cutting-edge integrations of nondual wisdom within their therapy practices. A couple authors are not therapists, but spiritual teachers who, conversely, are lacing psychotherapeutic sensibilities into their nondual teachings. This combination of attitudes makes for a provocative, paradoxical presentation; at times - in the service of openness - blurring the boundaries between the "spiritual" and "psychological". At other times - in the service of self-honesty - clarifying these boundaries and differences. The chapters generally present a theoretical overview combined with case studies. The cases run the gamut from cursory summaries to an indepth case history. The psychotherapeutic orientations of the authors vary as widely as their spiritual practices. Included are Existential, Cognitive, Humanistic-Transpersonal and Psychoanalytic practitioners, each addressing unconditioned being, albeit dressed in differing perspectives. What the text lacks in depth, were it limited to specific orientation, it makes up for in breadth and variety, as befits an introduction to a new field of inquiry.The Sacred Mirror recognizes that the actuality and depth of the unconditioned mind is decisive for dissolving neurotic fixations of all kinds, including the most subtle and enduring fixation that clings to the construct of a separate sense of self. The therapeutic skillful means most emphasized in the book include promoting the primacy of presence, or unconditioned openness in being with an other, ie. "sacred mirroring", and the therapeutic use of deconstructing mental constructs through radical forms of questioning. Written largely by seasoned clinicians, the authors return frequently to the necessity of existential grounding for nondual therapeutics. Dangers of spiritual bypassing are spoken to throughout. But the real brilliance of this text lies in the courageous, at times erudite, at times gritty displays of sanity in being fully human and evoking that fullness in an other. The book encourages us to open to unconditioned presence and to bring a fearless relational field to bear on therapeutic exchanges, so that self-limiting constructs dissolve into no-thing, thus releasing both client and therapist to discover they need not defend themselves from anything. Touching, knowing and resting in moments of nondual wakefulness builds confidence in being with things as they are, undefende