The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life

I enjoyed reading this book, although had to do it over a period of time. As a therapist its interesting to learn that Zen can be incorporated as a way of seeing life with therapy.

I've loved reading Mark Epstein's books ever since discovering The Trauma of Everyday Life. His newest contribution is no exception. They're thoughtful, sincere, and very helpful for dealing with a complicated and challenging world, both inner and outer. The cases presented in this book have helped me better understand not only the strengths of Buddhist philosophy and psychoanalysis, but also the questions I ask of myself when dealing with my own clients. As a student of modern languages, I was trained to appreciate the fine details and nuances of how language reveals human strengths and struggles. I find Mark's books valuable reminders and guideposts for this, as well as for how to live wisely, happily, and with care for others.

Dr. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist and student of Buddhism and meditation. And this book is about the interface of the two explored both directly and through the stories of some of his patient sessions over the course of one year.The conclusion, as it really has to be to end up with a commercially successful book, is that the two are highly correlated. And I readily accept his case. I am not a Buddhist, nor do I meditate in the most commonly perceived way (i.e. I don’t own a mat.), but I have been in psychotherapy and have lived in China for 12 years and studied, in some depth, Eastern religion and philosophy.Starting with the psychotherapy part, I did not have a classically defined mental illness. I was merely not jumping out of bed in the morning and the evidence, I thought, suggested I should be. By most measures I was enjoying a charmed life, at least on the outside.That was resolved fairly quickly, to be honest, but I kept going. And the reason was I so enjoyed it. And a lot of the reason for that is that we didn’t normally talk in Freudian terms or spend much time on my childhood at all. We talked about life, but we did it in a warm, safe, engaging way. And while my psychiatrist was not a Buddhist and I was only slightly spiritual it seemed we spent a lot of time talking about matters of spirituality. (Nothing remotely new age.)I agree with Dr. Epstein that psychotherapy is not something a doctor does to a patient. The patient usually does most of the heavy lifting. “Therapy is not something that a psychiatrist does to a patient, nor is it solely a place to complain about indignities one has suffered; it is a space in which a person can listen to their own voice.” For me therapy ultimately felt very much like a quote he attributes to Ram Dass: “We are all walking each other home.”A lot of the guidance boiled down to “You’re over-thinking it. What you perceive as a short-coming or a failure is no different than what all of your neighbors and colleagues are feeling.” As Dr. Epstein put it, “Freud famously proclaimed that the best he could do for people was to take them from a state of neurotic misery and return them to one of common unhappiness.” Or in a quote he attributes to a Zen monk, “Now that I’m enlightened, I’m just as miserable as ever.”A core tenet of Buddhism, similarly, is that life is misery. The key is not to eliminate the misery but to learn to accept it and accepting its normalcy is a giant first step. And one of the tools for doing that is the achievement of mindfulness, often through meditation.Many people consider meditation to be a process of achieving relaxation through mental and physical focus. And that can be the objective. But as Dr. Epstein points out the ultimately purpose of most Buddhist meditation, particularly in Zen Buddhism, is not focus, but the opposite of focus. Let the thoughts flow, and don’t obsess if the flow seems unfocused or erratic. Out of all of that chaos important thoughts will ultimately jump out, and that is what you’re really looking for. (And as a byproduct you will feel relaxed.)“Inner peace comes not from turning off the mind, but from deliberately confronting one’s own innermost prejudices, expectations, habits, and inclinations.” And that, in my experience, is what psychotherapy is all about. Acceptance, not elimination, although acceptance often leads to elimination, much like conquering your fear of something by actually doing it.Which is why I don’t have a meditation mat or sit on the floor in the traditional position. I nonetheless consider myself to meditate. I just do it by looking out the window or walking in nature. “Mediation by living observantly” is how I’ve come to think of it. I am searching for mindfulness but in my own way and I think that’s okay.I have lived in the corporate world for nearly 50 years now and one of the changes I have noted is that when I walk the hallways today I only see people sitting at their desks, two computer monitors on their desk, pecking away at the keys and scouring the data. It has been years since I have seen someone simply staring out the window. And that, I believe, is why most employees are not engaged and businesses in many, many industries, other than the tech industries that enjoy the financial advantages of monopoly power, are struggling to survive.My only concern about Dr. Epstein’s treatment of Buddhism here is a widespread contradiction in the understanding of most Eastern religions and philosophies. Buddhism, in my opinion, is really quite simple. It is a variation of “Don’t over-think it.” When you really dive into the historical literature of Buddhism, however, you inevitably start talking about concepts that are often unapproachable to many in the West. (e.g., reincarnation, the one-mother, etc.) He doesn’t do much of this, but he strays from the simplicity of the therapy/meditation analogy from time to time. It is at these times that the book takes on the feel of a Buddhist primer and veers from its stated objective.In the end I could not agree more with the author’s conclusion that inner peace is all about kindness and acceptance. Walk people home and you will find the common, but very livable, unhappiness that Freud was referring to.

Although I am a psychotherapist and a longstanding meditation practitioner, what I have most received from Mark Epstein's book is a sense of how to live Buddhist aspirations that fit's my pandemic style life,and very full psychotherapy practice. To be specific it is Mark"s statement, “It is the bodhisattva, the spiritual friend par excellence, who reaches down to grasp the outstretched arm of the sinking spirit, offering something more helpful to hold on to” that illuminated for me the vexing question of how to be a bodhisattva while sheltering in. Additionally there is a great deal more in "The Zen of Therapy" to learn from: such as how to identify clinging/grasping (holding on to old narratives, blaming, perfectionism) in one's patients, and how to speak to those tendencies in order to assist in freeing patients from them. I am grateful to Mark for his ability to contemplate and articule how he Buddhist points of view can be brough into the therapy room.

This book was recommended to me and they were right, I love it!

I've read and enjoyed all of Mark Epstein's books and his exploration of the intersection of Western therapeutic methods and Buddhist practice. He has an engaged, open-ended curiosity, the willingness to go out on a limb (speculating about the Buddha's motivation as a human being, etc.) and a lack of intellectual pretension. I admire the unique way he has used his considerable intelligence to benefit others. This book, however, was a disappointment. It felt like an "end of life review" and, even more, a kind of "self-justification". There is this tendency, as we get older, to want to tie things up, to look back and create an identifiable trajectory so that our lives make a kind of sense. But the very thing that he admires so much in Ram Das (his perceived lack of a constricted identity) is what Epstein seems caught in. I found his need for Ram Das approval ( "he's...the...real...deal") to be really sad. Not the need for it but the need to publish it as though it really has a larger significance. It was the other side of the very human irritation he felt at the Thai restaurant with his fellow swimmers. Anyone who watched the video of Ram Das swimming with his "pod" would certainly understand the irritation. That was the sense of this whole book for me: some kind of inner reckoning that really should have remained private until it came to a deeper resolution. The fact that it was turned into this book instead is what made the book feel, to me, strangely dissociated. I'll be curious to see where he goes from here and I wish him well.

Mark Epstein is my favorite writer about psychotherapy and the use of Buddist insights to inform his work with clients. Each chapter provides me with valuable insights for working with my clients. In this book he focuses more on his own growth in each session, rather than offering full stories of a few cases. Here he includes brief portions of sessions as they inform his own psychological growth. That took a while to get used to, but once I did, i thoroughly enjoyed his new format. As always, Mark Epstein is the best!

Was NOT AT ALL what I expected. Book is based on multiple very short stories on patients with repeated referrals to past readings, seminars, workshops, and retreats taken by the author. Could make no connection to the title. Sadly this book was just not worth finishing.

Livro pra ler devagar pois o conteúdo é profundo e nos traz pra dentro de nossas próprias experiências!

mit den teils autobiographischen Erzählungen und der therapeutischen Betrachtung unter der Perspektive des Zen Buddhismus ist es ein inspirierendes Buch, das einem den Menschen Mark Epstein näher bringt.