Analys for Buddhism

Buddhism and Group AnalysisBen Davidson and Alyss Thomas

Abstract
The two disciplines of Buddhism and Group Analysis share some important common ground. The writers, two group analysts who have also been involved in extensive Buddhist training and practice, believe that the rich and diverse resources from Buddhist theory and practice are directly applicable to the theory and practice of Group Analysis. This article is the fruit of a dialogue between them, and represents an initial attempt to chart some simple comparisons and contrasts between Buddhism and Group Analysis.
Introduction
In recent decades, an increasing number of works have represented encounters between psychotherapy and Buddhism. One of the earliest such encounters can be found in Jung's introduction to Evan Wentz's (1927) translation of the classic Buddhist text, the 'Bardo Thodol' (The Tibetan Book of the Dead). In this, Jung claims that the hallucinatory journey described, through the Bardo state (space between lives) is the immediate post-death experience common to all man. This is essentially a journey into and through the symbolic forms of the collective unconscious. Many more recent encounters can be see as cross-pollenisations between Buddhism and the human potential/humanistic psychology movements. Eric Fromm, for example, famous psychotherapist and existential philosopher, found Buddhism a fertile resource for his writing, so much so that his 1957 text, 'The art of loving', was subsequently taken up by the Western Buddhist Order as a particularly good exposition of some fundamental Buddhist beliefs, and became a set text for those working towards ordination. More recently, a range of writers whose work has spanned both disciplines has included Coltart (1996), Watson (1999) and Epstein (1995), the latter of whom is perhaps best known for his Thoughts without a thinker (1995). There have also been compilations of essays published in the past few years such as The Couch and the Tree - Dialogues in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism (Molino, 1998), which includes thoughtful and perceptive articles by psychoanalysts such as Adam Phillips, Michael Eigen and Joyce McDougall. One interesting common thread amongst these publications is the attempt to draw parallels between some of the more esoteric developments in quantum physics and the transcendental visions of Buddhism.
Various training institutes and conferences are also establishing links, for example the Karuna Institute in Devon, UK, alone in the UK to offer a UKCP registered psychotherapy training programme based on Buddhist psychology and practice. Likewise the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, which offers Buddhist psychotherapy trainings to an advanced academic standard. Between these two there has even been some exchange of staff and practice. One of the current authors, having graduated at Karuna in 1992, was involved in setting up supervision training, based on the model used at Naropa.
The welcome Buddhism has received in these quarters may be related to the fact that it is not so much a religion in the traditional Western sense, as a practical philosophy that combines a focus on the politics and craft of everyday living and interaction, with a substantial tradition of psychological theory and training. In addition, all this is within the context of a strong sense of pilgrimage, and all of these (politics, psychology and pilgrimage) are backed by meditation, in its various forms1, as a central tool.
In the following pages, some of the overlaps and contrasts between Buddhism and psychotherapy generally will be outlined, following which a more specific account of the similarities and contrasts between Buddhism and Group Analysis will be sketched.
Overlaps and contrasts
Psychological development and spiritual training are not usually understood as even overlapping, let alone identical, and they certainly have different visions behind and horizons ahead of their practices. Nevertheless, both Buddhism and Group Analysis offer explanations as to why we suffer and what can be done about it, and both offer the vision of a better life along with a range of prescriptions for living it. They are both characterised by a focus on:
1. emotional and mental pain and its causes2. transcendence of suffering by letting go restricting coping styles and beliefs3. the relationship of the subject to his or her sense of self4. the interdependent nature of the individual5. the demarcation between mental health and mental illness.6. doctrinal pragmatism7. balancing forms of intervention - challenge and support
1/ Clarification of the causes of emotional and mental pain
An important tenet of Buddhism is that the realisation and acceptance of Dukkha (Pali -suffering) is the beginning of the road to personal freedom. Similarly, psychotherapy prescribes the bringing into consciousness of the painful experience we try to avoid - honest communication with ourselves - as the foundation of any attempt to move on from that pain.
Insight is, however, a point of both similarity and departure for the two traditions. Analysts could be described as attempting to cure suffering by facilitating insight into how things have come to be as they are, while Buddhists might be encouraged to swim headlong through suffering with their eyes open, in order simply to awaken to things as they really are. In this context, it is evident how a Buddhist emphasis in psychotherapy can encourage the process of simply staying with and feeling difficult experience, rather than making either gross or subtle attempts to change, treat or fix it.
This is not to suggest that psychotherapy denies suffering, or, for that matter, that the wish to avoid it is anything other than natural. David Smail, for example, an eclectic psychotherapist, conveys beautifully his sense of the merit in developing our awareness of pain, as follows:
'…The examination and clearing of the confusions which surround the person's deceived or self?deceiving view of what lies behind "symptoms" [may] bring them face to face with circumstances in their lives which are distressing, and which they can only ignore at the cost of "neurotic" suffering… To me, it seems more constructive, and essentially more hopeful, to recognise that real difficulties, real evils and real pain arise in the world around us through our conduct towards one another than it is to resort, albeit unawares, to self?deceiving strategies which, for example, allow 'illness ' to provide the explanation, and indeed the form, of our misery.'
(Smail, 1984 pp.2-4)
Perhaps the difference is that Buddhism portrays suffering as intrinsically fundamental to our human predicament, whereas psychotherapists tend to treat the causes of suffering as arising within an individual's personal life and circumstances. Buddhists distinguish between pain and suffering: they say there is pain, but it is how we deal with this that causes the suffering, not the pain in itself. The aims of Buddhist practice are not modest: they are the relief from and the eventual cessation of suffering altogether.
In any event, the Buddha, like the analytic psychotherapy tradition, promoted the idea that clarification regarding the real conditions behind our suffering might offer the greatest hope of liberation or release. Among his greatest legacies are the Buddhist teachings on Pratitya Samutpada (Pali - conditioned co-production, or interdependent origination). These describe a perpetual circle of linked experiences, in the context of which we find ourselves driven to enact the desire and hatred we feel in response to stimuli, even while it is just such reactions that 'cause' the painful or pleasurable experience in the first place. In particular, sensory (including mental) stimuli occasion affect (seen as 'neutral' feelings of pleasure and pain); these, in turn, occasion craving/aversion (introducing a stronger sense of being drawn to and away from something); in turn, craving/aversion occasions clinging (i.e. activity aimed at perpetuating or curtailing the source of the affect); and such activity occasions more stimuli and affect. This process continues from second to second, lifetime to lifetime, driving the whole process of birth, ageing and death. The suggestion is, that finding ways to develop the sense of reflective space between feeling (neutral affect) and action (perpetuating or curtailing the source of the affect) offers a way out of this endless cycle.
The idea of bringing feelings into consciousness and containing them, rather than enacting them blindly, as a path to mental health, is familiar to every analyst.
Another feature of interdependent origination, is that on this endless circle of linked phenomena there are no first causes. Instead, everything is contextual and determined by everything else. This is also paralleled in both analytic psychology (synchronicity) and, of particular relevance here, in group analysis, if one considers the way co-arising phenomena within a group are understood in terms of resonance and mirroring. It is not that one group member causes another to experience similar emotions, but that somehow the two resonate with each other.
2/ Transcendence of suffering by letting go restricting coping styles (ethics)
Both psychotherapists and Buddhist practitioners are intensely preoccupied with ethics as a foundation for development (even if the former tend not to acknowledge this - Adshead, 1999). Although we psychotherapists are inclined to see our approach as ethically neutral, our essential positions are ethical ones. For example, the position that individuals ought to progress from an absorption in self to awareness of other experiencing beings as subjects; or the position that individuals ought to progress from the tendency to idealise/denigrate to an ability to see others as good enough; or even just the position that the development of a robust ego is a good thing.
From a Buddhist perspective, though, the development of an ethical sense is not only about developing awareness of oneself and others, society, beyond primitive narcissism or a limited horizon of the mother. Neither is it just to do with growth of a socially patterned superego to effect proper ego development and social functioning. While competency in interacting with oneself and others is important, the development of an ethical sense represents for Buddhists the creation of a platform of psychological integration and emotional vibrancy, from which a qualitatively different level of development might occur.
'Ethical' is a rough translation of the Pali word kusala, which, more literally, means skilful. One has to work skilfully to calm and integrate the unconscious and conscious mind, rather than mentally or physically acting out productions of the unconscious. Encouragement and guidance in ethical development is offered as a sort of skill set, a set of means to allow meditative consciousness to expand.
Most ethical codes in Buddhism are divided into guidance regarding three areas of conduct - conduct pertaining to body, speech and mind. The ethical focus on different areas of 'right speech' is broadly seen as a training in skilful communication with oneself and others. This is, of course, also the function of clinical supervision in group analysis, and, indeed, of group analysis itself.
Psychotherapy seems more reluctant to openly acknowledge its ethical base. Ethics endorsed by psychotherapists tend to be explicit only in relation to the guidelines for proper management of professional power relationships. Some acknowledge the extent to which their work contains implicit injunctions in how to live (Adshead, 1999), or even, as Szasz and Schaler argue, constitutes, as a whole, from start to finish, 'conversations in secular ethics' (Schaler, 1998). For the most part, we therapists seem to like the idea that we are being non-judgemental and see holding a neutral position as a good way to be, which is in itself an ethical position that brings up inevitable ethical dilemmas.To summarise, both Buddhism and Group Analysis have strong ethical views about what is good interaction. For Buddhists, though, once one's conduct in relation to oneself and others is sufficiently harmonious to allow the emergence of a sense of meditative calm, one is only just beginning. The task ahead involves the use of this state to attain Prajna, Wisdom. And one does this by, among other means, developing a vision of the emptiness of self.
3/ The relationship of the subject to sense of self - Who am I?
A fundamental tenet of Buddhist thought is the inherent emptiness of the self. In essence, the argument goes, the self, or our sense of who we are, does not have any inherent reality apart from what we ourselves ascribe to it. Our belief in our 'real' or essential self is a flimsy veil we use to protect ourselves from the frightening truth of our insubstantial and impermanent natures.
This sort of approach is somewhat confusing for those of us who struggle for years to build up a robust and confident self, capable of meeting the challenges of life without falling apart. The thought that there is really 'no one there' is too alarming to countenance, when the road behind is littered with false selves dropped in the search for an elusive 'real me'.
This represents, again, both a similarity and a point of departure between the two traditions. On the one hand, analytic psychotherapy, like Buddhism, is very much concerned with raising awareness of our false selves, and the dissolution of whatever fears lie behind our need to cling to them. But for psychotherapists, this work rests on an assumption that a strong and true sense of self, a robust ego, is something to aim for. For students of Buddhism, on the other hand, the aim is to let go of one's belief in any fixed or enduring identity, and to realise that one is not one's ego. One's ego is a metaphor, or a construct, however useful or necessary, and over-identification with one's ego is seen as a cause of further suffering. We create our reality from moment to moment through our perceptions and habitual reactions to them, which only offer the illusion of an enduring identity.
4/ Interdependence - Sangha and Matrix
So far, little has been written on the interface of Buddhist theory and practice with a specifically group approach to psychotherapy. The concept of Sangha, community, is embedded within Buddhist practice and the personal transmission of a living tradition is, for many Buddhist schools, the sine qua non of Buddhism. The Sangha is, in fact, one of the three jewels, or three most valuable things in which to take refuge, of the entire Buddhist tradition2.
Individual practitioners are not seen in isolation but as a node in a network, as in the metaphor of multi-faceted jewels hanging in the net of the Indian Goddess Indra, each one reflecting all of the others and their reflections of each other. This is analogous to the Foulkesian concept of the matrix, the invisible web of connectedness that holds all communication, both conscious and unconscious, between members of groups.
'...our contemporary focus on the isolated individual and his ego is... a misleading abstraction except when viewed as part of the total network of communication in which he has his being and from which he derives his meaning.
Skynner, 1971 p.192
Although some group analysts might baulk at the construction of the matrix being extended so far, Skynner, in a book review of Alan Watts' Psychotherapy East and West writes that:
'The adult or mature version of primal narcissism is... "cosmic consciousness", or the shift from ego?centric awareness to the feeling that one's identity is the whole field of the organism in its environment.
op. cit.
Thus Group Analysis and Buddhism are seen, by some at least, to share some essential aims and ambitions.
5/ The demarcation between mental health and mental illness
It may be of interest to consider the group-analytic and the Buddhist views relating the demarcation between sanity and madness.
To the extent that Group Analysis is practiced as a form of psychotherapy, it probably employs the same sort of continuum of distress and well being as other such traditions, thinking of the mental health of those under treatment in such vague terms as the level of alienation from their experience or, conversely, their authenticity. It probably also uses a disability model, considering the level of social dysfunction presented. And again, to the extent Group Analysis works alongside psychiatry, it is likely to utilise similar concepts of mental health and illness as those categorised within the psychiatric manuals, maybe even employing the currently fashionable and budget-driven tri-partite construction of 'the worried well', the mentally ill (ie psychiatrically diagnosable but functioning adequately) and those with serious mental illness (SMI), i.e. those with a severe and enduring psychopathology likely to require, periodically, intense in-patient psychiatric treatment and follow-up.
In contrast, a pivotal stage on the Path for Buddhists is that of Stream Entry, where the degree of insight into reality (things as they really are) has reached a point where the disciple need make no further effort to progress, carried as s/he is inexorably towards the goal of Enlightenment by the sheer strength of the current. From this point onwards is said to be sanity, whereas up to this point of Insight is said to be essentially one form or another of madness. This applies equally whether we are relatively well-adjusted, experiencing a modicum of neurotic suffering, or suffering full-blown psychosis - all in these states are essentially as mad as each other. The fetters that one (Hinayana) representation of the Path claims must be broken to achieve this state of Stream Entry, include dependence on a fixed view of oneself, that is as unchanging and static (as per section 3/ above); dependence on ethical guidelines as ends in themselves, rather than as tools to be used to grow (as per section 2/ above); and 'doubt and indecision', which might be seen as the inability to let go one's habitual patterns of thought, communication and conduct, so as to allow the development of space between affect and enactment of one's response to it (as per section 1/ above).
Evidently, as suggested in section 1/ above, the horizons of Buddhism and Group Analysis are very different in this respect.
6/ Doctrinal pragmatism - Janus and the raft
One feature of group analysis, in contrast to individual psychotherapy, is its 'Janusian' perspective. Like the mythical god (Janus), who looks in two directions simultaneously, Group Analysis studies its object (the group) from a position astride the boundary, by looking simultaneously within and without. The analysis of the group's constituent parts and their inter?relations (looking within) goes hand in hand with a synthesis of the group (and its parts), along with other such entities, into the context within which they all co?exist (looking without). Context - political, economic, social and cultural - is as critical in fully appreciating the individual and his intimate relations as the internalised object relations that have formed him. As Foulkes writes:
'Groups ... cannot be understood except in their relation to other groups and in the context of the conditions in which they exist. We cannot isolate biological, social, cultural and economic factors ... mental life is the expression of all these forces...'
(1975 p.37)
Similarly, the history of Buddhism has been described in relation to the tension between two tendencies, looking first without to see the necessary context of our being, also inward to realise we are not a single thing-in-itself, but a composite. Sangharakshita (198o) calls these, respectively, the 'dynamic-synthetical', and the 'spatio-analytic' tendencies, since the former invites us to see how our being is inseparable from the context of ongoing processes that link us all, while the latter is a more reductionist approach to analyse and dissect our being into 'a transitory assemblage of evanescent [and ever smaller] parts' (Sangarakshita, 1980 p.87).
The Mahayana tradition (the Great Way), one of the three major historical movements within Buddhism, is overall concerned with bringing about an awakening to things as they really are by understanding that all manner of phenomena - from an empire to a mood of elation; from a marriage to a mountain; from a pillar box to a person to a photon - have no reality in themselves, but are dependent on the synthesis of a multitude of conditions. They are not only transient; they are, in the true sense of the word, insubstantial, without self. Extending this to the person, it is evident that the family, the culture, the society and so on, represent such an intricately woven and necessary contextual web for the person's being, that one glimpses the reality of the proposition that there are no individuals, only groups.
Meditation on interconnectedness might involve focusing on something analogous to this, but easier to grasp, say, a candle flame - what is it without wax, wick, oxygen and heat; or a whirlpool - what is it without flowing water and obstruction? Neither are substantial, neither are things-in-themselves, but exist only in the context of the conditions that give rise to them. They are nothing but those conditions. All of them pass back into the chaos whence they came, other forms taking their place. Same with us.
In contrast, meditators following the Hinayana, or Narrow Way, attempt to deconstruct their sense of self by analysing it down - persons are not an identity, but rather are five constituent parts - corporeality, choice, affect, cognition and subjectivity. And again, each of these can be analysed down further - corporeality might feel like a thing-in-itself, but in reality we are made up of bone, nail, blood, sinew, skin, etc. etc. Many meditation practices are concerned with waking up to the transience of our being as its constituent parts come together and then break up again.
These two groups of Buddhist traditions span the continuum between the two group-analytic approaches described above, looking without and looking within. What Sangharakshita terms the dynamic-synthetical approach is equivalent to the synthesis of the group (and its parts), along with other such entities, into their shared context. What Sangharakshita terms the static-analytic approach parallels the analysis of the group's constituent part, members' inter?relations and the internalised object relations that have formed them.
The way these two major, and apparently contradictory philosophies happily co-exist within Buddhism, is somewhat akin to the group-analytic, Janusian perspective described above. Both traditions could be seen as standing at the boundaries of our being, looking both within and without to understand its nature.
Despite the argument elsewhere in this issue about the lack of theoretical rigour in group analysis, and its tendency to be 'all things to all people' (Carter, 2002 p.??), its flexibility in this respect has to be seen as a strength. Buddhism, too, sees this feature as an asset. In the collection of sutras known as the Majjhima-Nikaya, the metaphor is developed of Buddhism as a raft. If one needs to cross a river, rafts are very useful, but once home and dry on the other side, about to forge a path through the jungle, one is wise to leave the raft behind, rather than carry it on one's head. Similarly spiritual teachings - they are there to serve a purpose, not as ends in themselves, and one does well to dispense with them once they have served it. In a devotional recitation practiced by Buddhists daily worldwide, the qualities of the three jewels are enumerated, in the context of which Buddhism itself is described as something 'to be tested against experience'. Buddhism is, 'as the Buddha explicitly declares3 … essentially that which conduces to the attainment of Enlightenment… whatever conduces to the attainment of Enlightenment is [Buddhism]… The criteria of what is or what is not Buddhism is ultimately pragmatic.' (Sangharakshita, 1980 p.192)
Perhaps it is therefore of little surprise that just as Buddhism has never engaged in a holy war, but instead happily integrates aspects of other traditions that prove useful, Group Analysis, similarly, is less rigid about its boundaries, and indeed, less professionally imperialistic than some other therapeutic modalities.
7/ Balancing forms of intervention - support and challenge
Both Buddhism and Group Analysis adopt an attitude of protecting frailty at the same time as courting exposure, seeking to develop a conducive, nurturing environment, as well as engaging individuals and the group gradually with the experience of that which is most feared.
Although in the battle for territory between analytic and behavioural approaches, practitioners of the former tend to ignore this, Freud wrote of phobias thus:
"One can hardly ever master a phobia if one waits till the patient lets the analysis influence him to give it up… one succeeds only when one can induce them… to go about alone and to struggle with their anxiety."
Freud, 1919 pp.399-400
This is no doubt the case whether the phobia relates to something as specific as a spider or something as abstract as intimacy, as the object of fear and avoidance.
Just as Freud counselled a behavioural approach within psychodynamic theory, it is interesting how in recent decades in behavioural psychotherapy the preferred method of treatment has changed from flooding to graded exposure, emphasising the importance of a relationship where the experience of exposure can be gradually debriefed. Perhaps this sort of lessening polarisation amongst psychotherapeutic approaches makes it possible to see an overall balance in the interventions offered, both within and between the therapies. As an approach that arguably encompasses aspects of all the therapeutic modalities, Group Analysis could be said to represent this holistic stance par excellence.
Bringing the focus of this section now back to the comparison between Group Analysis and Buddhism, it is instructive to chart the parallels between the Buddhist view of the five skhandas (the five psycho-physical arenas of our being), and the main therapeutic approaches (see fig. 1)

Figure 1 - parallels between the Buddhist five skhandas and Western therapeutic approaches
Five Skhandas (Buddhism)
Therapeutic Model
form/corporeality
medicine - pharmacotherapy
behaviour/choice
behavioural psychotherapy
affect/emotion
dynamic psychotherapy
cognition/perception
cognitive psychotherapy
consciousness/raw subjectivity
existential psychotherapy
But specifically in relation to the tension between the need for support/comfort/containment and the need for exposure/anxiety/challenge, Buddhism appears to have struggled, in its 2,500-year history, with what is an appropriate degree of anxiety to facilitate personal growth, as do so many analytic approaches.
One of the Buddha's most commonly used formulations describes the experience of Enlightenment as 'Knowledge and Vision of Things As They Really Are'. The way they are is characterised by three phenomena - Dukkha (unsatisfactory or linked to suffering - see section 1/ above), Anatta (insubstantial or without their own essential being - see section 3/ above) and Sankhara (impermanent).
The central quality of impermanence, has, in the two and a half thousand years since the Buddha lived, been the focus of many meditation practices, including the 'Contemplation of the Decomposition of a Corpse'. For one who has attained a sufficient degree of psychological integration and emotional vibrancy, this focus is intended to impel him or her forward towards Enlightenment. But just as there has to be a sufficiency of nurturing from the world if our experience of its separate being is to be transformed from envy into gratitude, a foundation of psychological and emotional maturity is required for the impact of Insight into impermanence to be positive. When the Buddha once returned to a cremation ground to review the progress of two disciples he had left there, he found that one had committed suicide and the other gone psychotic. Evidently, seeing things as they really are is not a comfortable experience and determining whether someone will attain spiritual transformation or psychic disintegration as a result is a close call… graded exposure seems to be indicated.
Conclusion
Some scholars and clinicians perceive an overlap between Buddhism and Group Analysis but feel more comfortable employing Buddhist ideas and practices as tools for professional development rather than therapeutic intervention. Watson (1998), for example, suggests that Buddhist meditation practice has most to offer psychotherapists, rather than patients, as a method of being able to monitor the full range of one's mental and emotional states without plunging into reactivity. Through meditation practice one develops an open and friendly attitude to one's own inner experience, which enables one to respond openly, fully and mindfully to what occurs in the relational field between psychotherapists and patients. This type of mental training can help one to really listen without evaluating and categorising too quickly, as also described by Groves (1998).
Even the cursory sketch above, however, suggests that these disciplines of Buddhism and Group Analysis might have much more to offer each other. The experience of the authors has been that they may indeed even need each other. Buddhist meditators often get stuck in psychological conditioning, which 'spiritual' work alone may not release, and which meditation practices may subtly reinforce; similarly, groups of Buddhists are every bit as prone to anti-group, or other destructive group-specific processes as any other group. Attempting to follow an advanced spiritual path in the absence of psychological health, or in the context of groups which are not functioning well, can be disastrous. Conversely, psychological work can lack inspiration and become dry, leading to more adaptive behavioural patterns but not profound and lasting insight, flexible and spontaneous awareness, permanent loosening of defensive structures or the sort of transformation of our being aspired to by Buddhism. Clinical work with no spiritual awareness, which does not involve itself with a sense of mystery, impermanence or the ineffable, can neglect the importance of being over having, doing or achieving, or become stagnant through lack of horizons beyond the translation of neurotic suffering into ordinary misery.
But even if the synergy described above between Group Analysis and Buddhism were better appreciated, what of the bigger picture? As the new millennium now gets underway, a backdrop comes into focus, representing perhaps what Berke has called 'the Tyranny of Malice': Religious bigotry, cultural imperialism, patriotic fervour and hatred appear to be advancing on the ability of humankind to maintain what little reflective space there is between experience and reaction. Meanwhile, both Buddhism and Group Analysis offer the paradox that while the insight and awakening available within what reflective space there is are but a hair's breadth away, such treasures nevertheless have to be worked for with immense care and mindfulness, in the context of openhearted community.
At such a point in our history, it could be that these two traditions have a particularly important role in keeping humankind from perpetuating its destructive tendencies. The authors' over-riding sense in their own groups over the few weeks since the events of 11th September 2001 is of what a healthy and resourceful context a well-functioning group provides. The impression of people in their groups reaching out to each other through the destruction and fear, trying to raise their consciousness of each other and of the way the world really is, underlines the importance of Sangha, interconnectedness, and offers not only solace, but the prospect of a point of leverage where we might all exercise some constructive influence on our worlds.


1. Meditation comes in two flavours: Samatha and Vipassana. Samatha (calming) practice is sometimes likened to emotional integration, while Vipassana (Insight) practice is seen metaphorically as the erection of a lightening rod, through which can be absorbed transformational Insight into the way things are. Without sufficient Samatha, the effects of Vipassana can be disastrous. (back)
2. The other two jewels are the Buddha, or the ideal of Enlightenment itself, and the Dharma, or the path by which one might grow toward that goal. (back)
3. Majjhima-Nikaya, I. 134. (Woodward's translation - Some Sayings of the Buddha, pp.316-7) (back)

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