Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation

TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF AWAKENING is a dense book that describes the path of spiritual transformation from both an Eastern and Western perspective. Its primary value lies in trying to synthesize these two ways of looking at reality and describes in detail how each path informs the other. Many paradigms both East and West aren't necessarily integrative for many modern people. This book is an attempt to provide a more holistic worldview that reconciles psychology with Buddhist insights into human nature, love and transformation. There is also a good section on relationship as a path. I think this is an important area to address because something arises in intersubjective experience that has emergent qualities that transcend each individual. In other words, things like love, compassion and community. We can only be fully human when we are fully engaged with others in a conscious manner. This book discusses these issues and does a great job of it. Many people won't find this book an easy read. It contains a lot of material and it explores many ideas in-depth. It also attempts to synthesize a lot of material in a brief space. However, if you have a deep interest in psychology or Buddhism, you will discover a treasure trove of good information and innovative ways of bringing it together. If you are not very familiar with Western Psychology or Buddhism, but have a deep interest in personal and spiritual growth, you will still get a lot out of this book. However, you may find it a slower read and will undoubtedly have to take time to assimilate all of the concepts. It will be well worth the effort, but this isn't a superficial bedtime story. Overall, I give this book my highest recommendation. It is original, well-organized, and well thought out. It is an important contribution in the area of psychological and spiritual growth and the relationship between them.

I have been practicing Zen Buddhism for the past 15 years as a lay person. I can not thank John Welwood enough for his book not only for its insightful and wise content but for his gentle and skilful way of starting a dialog between western psychoanalysis and spiritual practice. This is a must book for anyone who has been practicing seriously any form of Buddhism or any psychotherapist who is open to explore beyond the traditional forms of psychotherapy.

"In addition to waking up to our ultimate spiritual nature," John Welwood observes about the psychology of awakening, "we also need to grow up--to ripen into a mature, fully developed person" (p. xviii). Welwood is a San Francisco psychotherapist and a thirty-year student of Tibetan Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this collection of articles written over the past three decades, Welwood integrates Eastern spiritual practice with Western psychology, maintaining that "awakening needs psychology just as much as psychology needs awakening" (p. xvi).Too often Westerners attempt to avoid dealing with their "emotional unfinished business" by turning to spiritual practices instead. Welwood calls this "spiritual bypassing (pp. 5; 11-12; 207-13). Many people engaged in spiritual practice suffer from psychological wounds including self-hatred, aggression, emotional reactivity, narcissistic egocentricity, depression, and other defensive patterns, and Welwood maintains that a course of psychologically-oriented personal work could serve, support and further their movement toward awakening (p. xviii).Welwood's 330-page book is divided into three sections, each exploring the interface between Eastern spiritual practice and Western psychology. The first explores what it means to be human: the relationship between personal growth--becoming a more mature, authentic person--and spiritual development (p. 3). "Enlightenment is not some ideal goal, perfect state of mind, or spiritual realm on high" Welwood writes, "but a journey that takes place on this earth. It is the process of waking up to all of what we are and making a complete relationship with that" (p. 33). In the second section of his book, he explores the capacity to be fully present with our experience "as it is" through psychological healing (pp. 134-35). He calls this "unconditional presence" (p. 141)--"just being with what is, open and interested, without agenda" (p. 143). Welwood confronts the subject of depression not only as an affliction that should be suppressed, but as "a potential teacher that can convey an important message about our relationship with ourselves, the world, or life as a whole" (p. 172). Part three explores personal relationships, intimacy, love and passion, and more specifically, how to remain conscious in our personal relationships with friends, lovers, coworkers, parents and children (p. 229), "in a sane, wide awake, spiritually vital way" (p. 231).Fascinating, compelling, and insightful, Welwood's guide to personal and spiritual transformation is sure to become one of the most frequently revisited resources on my bookshelf, and is highly recommended for anyone interested in living a more meaningful life.G. Merritt

Ok, this guy knows what he's talking about. I've been looking for a book like this for a long, long time. So many books offer advice on how to attain enlightenment, like the excellent The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but there is so little about what to do after you do. Like how to bring what you realize back to your life and community in a safe, mature and responsible way. This book is the one to get if you need a guide to your enlightened experience....get it even before you have an enlightenment experience, it's THAT good. Cheers!

This is the best book on integrating psychology and spirituality that I've read, written in both a clear and heartfelt way.I'm truly moved by the great depths that the author has touched. His ways of discussing how healing happens and the warmth and brilliance and range of his insight are quite inspiring. His way of discussing the ground of being is the clearest I've read, and he writes of it in many different ways that will reach a wider range of people, both in the healing professions and in ordinary life. I felt that everything he discussed came from his own realization. He shows how spiritual work helps us discover how "the ground of our being actually holds us up" and how the essence of healing lies in learning how to let be. Can someone heal who doesn't learn that whatever emotional states they have can be held openly and unconditionally in awareness? This book shows how in both psychotherapy and spiritual work, it is being awake with thoughts, feelings, and sensations, without separation and distance, that heals. Then the mind can "self-liberate" when we stay open right in the middle of what's coming up.In Welwood's words,"unconditional presence is the most powerful transmuting force there is, because it is a willingness to be there with our experience." Each one of the therapy examples in the book moved me and focused on the larger field of how we are with our experience.This book will undoubtedly by a guide for brand new ways of practicing therapy. Let me share one of my favorite quotes (among so many). Welwood describes a client whose fear of nothingness was a symptom of being cut off from herself. As she began to open unconditionally to "being nothing," her inner division fell away "as she stepped out of the fixed stances/attitudes/associations she held toward 'being nothing' with their long history dating back to childhood. In becoming present in a place where she had been absent, she experienced her being, rather than her nothingness. 'Being nothing' transmuted into the empty fullness of being--where the fear of being nothing no longer had a hold on her." For me, this is the crux of healing and the author describes it so wisely and compassionately that it has opened up many new vistas for me.