Shanjian Dashi

Dharma Psychology: Turning the Mind Rightside Up Shanjian Dashi

Publisher Marketing: As its title suggests, Dharma Psychology is a fruitful marriage of East and West that blends scientific knowledge of our mental and sensory processes with time-honored experiential wisdom about human nature. The result is an eminently compassionate and lucid approach to the human predicament that enhances the Buddha's teachings on suffering with a detailed explanation of why and how it arises -and what can be done about it. Although it is not academic, the book thoroughly analyzes the hidden workings of the human mind, including the path of incoming sense data; the subliminal complexes that interfere with its processing; the tension and stress arising from the conflicts of these stained visceral, emotional and mental complexes with each other, with existing social norms and with the inner voice that cries for the restoration of natural harmony and balance; and the often phony resolutions we implement to assuage those conflicts through cognitive dissonance. In so doing, it depicts an anatomy of human suffering familiar to many yet laden with the ultimate promise that there is a way out. Shanjian is equally straightforward indeed in his appraisal of human beings' potential to retrieve their pure nature. His analysis covers the natural processes involved in that recovery (curiosity, creativity, imagination and humor, among others), reviews compatible humanistic psychology models, and establishes a framework where they can be combined with meditation techniques such as mindfulness, clear comprehension and vipassana (insight meditation) to bring about a release from the symptoms of suffering. Seldom before have the arms for self-liberation been laid so openly before the eyes and hands of the general public. Complete with multiple diagrams and references ranging from the ancient Vedas and Shakespeare to Freud and Simon & Garfunkel, plus an appendix on how to practice vipassana and an index, Dharma Psychology will be an invaluable source for psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists, as well as for meditation instructors. Contributor Bio:  Dashi, Shanjian Shanjian Dashi was born in England, trained as a psychologist and biologist in California, and did research with Leon Festinger at the New York School for Social Research. After rejecting the ways of our Western consumer society, and prompted by his discovery of Dharma teachings that confirmed his scientific findings on visual perception, he encountered his guides Nyanaponika Thera and Narada Maha Thera in Sri Lanka. It was there that Nyanaponika Thera persuaded him of the importance of deeply understanding Right Attention and Right Energy and Narada Maha Thera showed him the essence of Abhidharma, with the idea that, whereas modern psychology could explain perfectly well with cognitive intelligence why the mind works as it does, Buddha Dharma could show how to find the truth through direct experience -a confluence that was absolutely essential for the new world. After fifteen years as a Theravadin, as an arahat unawakened to the Primordial State, Shanjian sought without expectations and received Chan transmission in Kunming (China), after which he reintegrated the Five Houses of Chan along with Zongmi's Huayan model. For thirty years he has taught all the basic Dharma paths at the Mahabodhi Sunyata Seminary in Spain, stressing the transcendental unity underlying the manifold Dharma practices available for all beings: a unified Buddhism without dogmas, ceremonies, or rituals, with emphasis on the depth of all teachings from the simplicity of Chan to the magnificence of Vajrayana, without compromises, without separating apparently different paths, and without straying from the true Dharma spirit.