The Supreme Doctrine

240 Pages·2011·4.67 MB·English

Inner Traditions International
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
www.lnnerTraditions.com

Revised edition published in 1990

First published in French under the title La Doctrine Suprême
First quality paperback edition published in 1984 by Inner Traditions
International under the title The Supreme Doctrine
Published by arrangement with Pantheon Books

Copyright © 1955 by Pantheon Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Benoit, Hubert.
[Doctrine suprême. English]
Zen and the psychology of transformation : the supreme doctrine / Hubert
Benoit ; foreword by Aldous Huxley.
Translation of: La doctrine suprême.
Reprint. Originally published: New York : Pantheon Books, 1955.
ISBN 0-89281-272-9
1. Zen Buddhism—Psychology. I. Title.
[BQ9268.6B4613 1990]
294.3'375—dc20 90-30217
CIP
CONTENTS

page
FOREWORD BY ALDOUS HUXLEY 6
AUTHOR’S PREFACE 9
I. ON THE GENERAL SENSE OF ZEN THOUGHT 14
II. ‘GOOD’ AND ‘EVIL’ 19
III. THE IDOLATRY OF ‘SALVATION’ 28
IV. THE EXISTENTIALISM OF ZEN 31
V. THE MECHANISM OF ANXIETY 41
VI. THE FIVE MODES OF THOUGHT OF THE NATURAL MAN—
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF SATORI 56
VII. LIBERTY AS ‘TOTAL DETERMINISM’ 71
VIII. THE EGOTISTICAL STATES 76
IX. THE ZEN UNCONSCIOUS 80
X. METAPHYSICAL DISTRESS 86
XI. SEEING INTO ONE’S OWN NATURE—THE SPECTATOR OF
THE SPECTACLE 91
XII. HOW TO CONCEIVE THE INNER TASK ACCORDING TO ZEN 103
XIII. OBEDIENCE TO THE NATURE OF THINGS 110
XIV. EMOTION AND THE EMOTIVE STATE 121
XV. SENSATION AND SENTIMENT 138
XVI. ON AFFECTIVITY 148
XVII. THE HORSEMAN AND THE HORSE 155
XVIII. THE PRIMORDIAL ERROR OR ‘ORIGINAL SIN’ 163

4
CONTENTS

page
XIX. THE IMMEDIATE PRESENCE OF SATORI 171
XX. PASSIVITY OF THE MIND AND DISINTEGRATION OF
OUR ENERGY 177
XXI. ON THE IDEA OF ‘DISCIPLINE’ 192
XXII. THE COMPENSATIONS 206
XXIII. THE INNER ALCHEMY 220
XXIV. ON HUMILITY 231
EPILOGUE 237

5
FOREWORD

P
in the Orient is never pure speculation, but always some
HILOSOPHY
form of transcendental pragmatism. Its truths, like those of modern
physics, are to be tested operationally. Consider, for example, the basic
doctrine of Vedânta, of Mahayana Buddhism, of Taoism, of Zen. 'Tat tvam
asi—thou art That.' 'Tao is the root to which we may return, and so become
again That which, in fact, we have always been.' 'Samsara and Nirvana, Mind
and individual minds, sentient beings and the Buddha, are one.' Nothing
could be more enormously metaphysical than such affirmations; but, at the
same time, nothing could be less theoretical, idealistic, Pickwickian. They are
known to be true because, in a super-Jamesian way, they work, because there
is something that can be done with them. The doing of this something
modifies the doer's relations with reality as a whole. But knowledge is in the
knower according to the mode of the knower. When transcendental
pragmatists apply the operational test to their metaphysical hypotheses, the
mode of their existence changes, and they know everything, including the
proposition, 'thou art That', in an entirely new and illuminating way.
The author of this book is a psychiatrist, and his thoughts about the
Philosophia Perennis in general and about Zen in particular are those of a
man professionally concerned with the treatment of troubled minds. The
difference between Eastern philosophy, in its therapeutic aspects, and most of
the systems of psychotherapy current in the modern West may be
summarised in a few sentences.
The aim of Western psychiatry is to help the troubled individual to
adjust himself to the society of less troubled individuals—individuals who
are observed to be well adjusted to one another and the local institutions, but
about whose adjustment to the fundamental Order of Things no enquiry is
made. Counselling, analysis, and other methods of therapy are used to bring
these troubled and maladjusted persons back to a normality, which is defined,
for lack of any better criterion, in statistical terms. To be normal is to be a
member of the majority party—or in totalitarian societies, such as Calvinist
Geneva, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, of the party which happens to be
in power. For the exponents of the transcendental pragmatisms of the Orient,
6
FOREWORD
statistical normality is of little or no interest. History and anthropology make
it abundantly clear that societies composed of individuals who think, feel,
believe and act according to the most preposterous conventions can survive
for long periods of time. Statistical normality is perfectly compatible with a
high degree of folly and wickedness.
But there is another kind of normality—a normality of perfect
functioning, a normality of actualised potentialities, a normality of nature in
fullest flower. This normality has nothing to do with the observed behaviour
of the greatest number—for the greatest number live, and have always lived,
with their potentialities unrealised, their nature denied its full development.
In so far as he is a psychotherapist, the Oriental philosopher tries to help
statistically normal individuals to become normal in the other, more
fundamental sense of the word. He begins by pointing out to those who think
themselves sane that, in fact, they are mad, but that they do not have to
remain so if they don't want to. Even a man who is perfectly adjusted to a
deranged society can prepare himself, if he so desires, to become adjusted to
the Nature of Things, as it manifests itself in the universe at large and in his
own mind-body. This preparation must be carried out on two levels
simultaneously. On the psycho-physical level, there must be a letting-go of
the ego's frantic clutch on the mind-body, a breaking of its bad habits of
interfering with the otherwise infallible workings of the entelechy, of
obstructing the flow of life and grace and inspiration. At the same time, on
the intellectual level, there must be a constant self-reminder that our all too
human likes and dislikes are not absolutes, that yin and yang, negative and
positive, are reconciled in the Tao, that 'One is the denial of all denials', that
the eye with which we see God (if and when we see him) is the same as the
eye with which God sees us, and that it is the eye to which, in Matthew
Arnold's words:

Each moment in its race,
Crowd as we will its neutral space,
Is but a quiet watershed,
Whence, equally, the seas of life and death are fed.

This process of intellectual and psycho-physical adjustment to the Nature of
Things is necessary; but it cannot, of itself, result in the normalisation (in the
non-statistical sense) of the deranged individual. It will, however, prepare the
7
FOREWORD
way for that revolutionary event. That, when it comes, is the work not of the
personal self, but of that great Not-Self, of which our personality is a partial
and distorted manifestation. 'God and God's will,' says Eckhart, 'are one; I
and my will are two.' However, I can always use my will to will myself out of
my own light, to prevent my ego from interfering with God's will and
eclipsing the Godhead manifested by that will. In theological language, we
are helpless without grace, but grace cannot help us unless we choose to co-
operate with it.
In the pages which follow, Dr. Benoit has discussed the 'supreme
doctrine' of Zen Buddhism in the light of Western psychological theory and
Western psychiatric practice—and in the process he has offered a searching
criticism of Western psychology and Western psychotherapy as they appear
in the light of Zen. This is a book that should be read by everyone who
aspires to know who he is and what he can do to acquire such self-
knowledge.
ALDOUS HUXLEY

8
AUTHOR’S PREFACE

T
book contains a certain number of basic ideas that seek to improve
HIS
our understanding of the state of man. I assume, therefore, that anyone
will admit that he has still something to learn on this subject. This is
not a jest. Man needs, in order to live his daily life, to be inwardly as if he
had settled or eliminated the great questions that concern his state. Most men
never reflect on their state because they are convinced explicitly or implicitly,
that they understand it. Ask, for example, different men why they desire to
exist, what is the reason for what one calls the 'instinct of self-preservation'.
One will tell you: 'It is so because it is so; why look for a problem where
none exists?' This man depends on the belief that there is no such question.
Another will say to you: 'I desire to exist because God wishes it so; He
wishes that I desire to exist so that I may, in the course of my life, save my
soul and perform all the good deeds that He expects of His creature.' This
man depends on an explicit belief; if you press him further, if you ask him
why God wishes him to save his soul, etc., he will end by telling you that
human reason cannot and is not called upon to understand the real basis of
such things. In saying which he approaches the agnostic who will tell you
that the wise man ought to resign himself always to remaining ignorant of
ultimate reality, and that, after all, life is not so disagreeable despite this
ignorance. Every man, whether he admits it or not, lives by a personal system
of metaphysics that he believes to be true; this practical system of
metaphysics implies positive beliefs, which the man in question calls his
principles, his scale of values, and a negative belief, belief in the
impossibility for man to know the ultimate reality of anything. Man in
general has faith in his system of metaphysics, explicit or implicit; that is to
say, he is sure that he has nothing to learn in this domain. It is where he is
most ignorant that he has the greatest assurance, because it is therein that he
has the greatest need of assurance.
Since I write on the problems that concern the state of man I should
expect some difficulty in encountering a man who will read my words with
an open mind. If I were writing on pre-Columbian civilisation or on some
technical subject my reader would assuredly admit my right to instruct him.
9
PREFACE
But it is concerning the most intimate part of himself that I write, and it is
highly probable that he will rebel and that he will close his mind, saying of
me, 'All the same I hope you are not going to teach me my own business.'
But I am not able to give anything in the domain of which I speak if it
is not admitted that there is still something to learn therein. The reader to
whom I address myself in writing this book must admit that his
understanding of the state of man is capable of improvement; he should be
good enough to assume also—while waiting for proof—that my
understanding therein is greater than his and that, therefore, I am capable of
teaching him; finally, and this is certainly the most difficult part, let him not
adopt the attitude of resignation according to which the ultimate reality of
things must always escape him, and let him accept, as a hypothesis, the
possibility of that which Zen calls Satori, that is to say the possibility of a
modification of the internal functioning of Man which will secure him at last
the enjoyment of his absolute essence.
If then, these three ideas are admitted: the possibility of improving the
understanding of the state of man, the possibility that I may be able to help to
this end, the possibility for man to arrive at a radical alteration of his natural
state; then perhaps the time spent reading this book will not be wasted. 'But,'
it may be argued, 'perhaps the book will enable one to accept these ideas that
are not now admitted?' This, however, is not possible; a man can influence
another man in the emotional domain, he can lead him to various sentiments
and to various ideas that result from such sentiments, but he cannot influence
him in the domain of pure intellect, the only domain in which today we enjoy
freedom. I can lay bare pure intellectual points of view that were latent; they
were there, asleep, and I shall have awakened them; but nothing of pure
intellectuality can be 'introduced' within the reader; if, for example, the
reading of my book seems to bring to birth a definite acceptance of the idea
that 'Satori' is possible, it will be in the degree in which such acceptance
already existed, more or less dormant, within the reader. In order that the
reading of my book may have a chance of being helpful it is certainly not
necessary to admit with force and clarity the three ideas that I have
mentioned—although it is necessary to admit them a little at least. But above
all it is necessary to avoid a hostile attitude a priori; if the attitude were
hostile I could not convince, and anyhow I would not even make the attempt;
metaphysical ideas do not belong to the domain of that which can be
demonstrated; each one of us accepts them only to the degree in which
10