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4. Disentangling from the Object:Transference, the Body, and the Nondual Field
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FOUR Disentangling from the Object: Transference, the Body, and the Nondual Field THIS CHAPTER looks at the theme of transference from the perspectives of Asian nondual philosophy, intersubjectivity theory, and realization process. All these disciplines consider habitual, rigid organizations of perception and behavior to be problematic to human development and happiness. Realization process contributes an understanding of these subjective organizations as anchored in the tissues of the body, where they constrict both our experience and expression of ourselves and our participation in the relational field. I will show how the relational field of rigidly organized perceptions and behaviors can unfold toward the nondual field of self and other, as these somatically anchored patterns are released. T R A N S F E R E N C E A N D A S I A N P H I L O S O P H Y As I have said, many Asian philosophies claim that nondual consciousness , transcending the duality of self and other, is an innate, core dimension of our being. This means that we each have the innate 63 potential to overcome our sense of separateness and become increasingly open and unified with our environment. Upon his enlightenment , the Buddha is said to have remarked,“We are all already enlightened ; we just don’t know it.” And Zen Buddhism says of this core dimension,“I have never moved from the beginning.” In this view, our true nature is always nondual consciousness, pervading self and other as a unity, even if we never realize it. Our dualistic perception of a world “out there,” separate from our own consciousness, is considered a distortion or misperception of this underlying reality. As the illusory barrier between self and other, or between subject and object, is relinquished , our perception becomes increasingly subtle and direct. Objects seem to appear directly out of the spaciousness of nondual consciousness without any effort on our part. It is this immediacy of perception that gives one the sense of living “in the moment.” In Asian philosophies, the misperception that solidifies and divides subject and object is referred to as superimposition (Sanskrit: adhyasa) or obscuration. According to Advaita Vedanta, we both veil and distort our direct perception of phenomena (Deutsch, 1969, p. 30). Shankara defined superimposition as “the apparent presentation by the memory of something previously perceived elsewhere” (cited in Loy, 1998, p. 65). And,“It is the unreal assumption about the attributes of one thing as being the attributes of some other thing” (cited in Deutsch, 1969, p. 33).The most famous example of superimposition in the Indian literature is the snake on the road that one regards with terror, until on closer inspection, one sees that it is a piece of rope. Asian philosophies regard “emotional affliction” as one of the causes of obscurations. They teach that it is not worldly phenomena themselves that bind us, but rather our fixation on these phenomena, either as objects of desire or aversion (Ponlop Rinpoche, lecture, May 16, 2004). Our obsessive cravings and aversions cause us to manipulate and distort our perceptions, to cling to or push away from people and things, and to obstruct the spontaneous flow of events. Another cause of obscurations is mental elaboration.Asian philosophies are concerned with the distinction between one’s habitual, abstract experience of phenomena and the immediate experience that they claim is possible when the mind becomes free of mental elaboration . To illustrate this, there is a famous Zen story in which a monk is 64 T h e E m p a t h i c G r o u n d [23.22.23.162] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:00 GMT) walking through a garden with a Zen master and says to him, “Seng Chao says that everything is of one and the same root as one’s own self. What is the meaning of this?”The master points to a flower and says, “Most people see this flower as if in a dream.”The Asian teachings insist that we can wake up from our trancelike automaton state and allow each unique moment to reveal itself to us with freshness and directness. Loy (1998) writes,“whether this thought-construction is due completely to language acquisition and other socialization, or partly to innate faculties of the mind, the claim of the nondualist Asian systems is that this process can be undone—quite literally deconstructed or ‘deautomatized ’. . . . In this way the nondualist presents us with the possibility of actually returning to...