
Yesterday we had lunch with two friends - one of whom is soon to become a Jungian Analyst. Chatting, an idea came up which I said during my own Jungian days I had not really understood - the idea is called the ‘psychoid unconscious’. (You can see why it’s hard to understand!). We all had a guess at its meaning and one explanation was that it was connected to another idea which is the ‘unus mundus’ which simple means the universe is one unified whole while being composed of an infinity of parts. So how do these two concepts go together?
Jung’s explanation is that there is something far deeper within our own nature, something fundamental, that permeates the entire universe where it acts as an ordering principle, structuring everything, both matter and the psyche. Jung also said that this archetype could not be known directly or even be represented and so it becomes of necessity something that is both invisible and unfathomable - a mystery! Commentators on this idea have added that this means that at every level everything is linked to everything else and this of course includes the mind and the brain, they are neither separate things nor is one reducible into the other. They are both expressions of a unified universe equally.
So is this ringing any bells for those of us interested in Buddhism? Yes, of course. It sounds remarkably similar to the Buddhist notion of shunyata - emptiness. The notion that the nature of the universe is an infinite process of everything coming and going and that this impermanent parade of ephemeral appearances is suffused with a self-knowing awareness. As for Jung’s thing about the psychoid unconscious being unknowable directly or that it may not be represented - in one sense this is true in that we cannot see ‘impermanence’ directly but nonetheless its effects are visible all the time. (Find something that is not changing). And of course there have been many representations for the Buddhist understanding of emptiness including the most beautiful of all, ‘Indra’s Net,’ which, like the stars in the night sky, spans everything with one vast web of living conscious interconnectivity. However, from the Buddhist perspective this is in fact knowable - it is the direct and experiential knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality that Buddhism calls awakening.
Writing this now another bit of the conversation comes to mind and maybe this is the really important part because it is about what we ultimately value - and in some ways it also colours how we feel about death. Jung was aware of the tension between what was true for all of us and what was personal. He was actually a bit dismissive of what was true for all and called it the ‘collective’, while clearly preferring what was individual and personally unique. Understood more kindly this is really about the sweetness and intimacy of our lives, the great mass of small things that give value, meaning and are usually about love. Buddhism is definitely more chilly here. The Buddha was by inclination an ascetic and when he realised the impermanent nature of the universe, when he fully took on the implications of emptiness, his response was not to engage and value the pain of loss, but rather to walk away and find a means by which this pain need no longer be felt. While the romantic Jung embraced loss as a meaningful part of human life, the Buddha, Siddhartha, said this really hurts and I want no more of it.
So what does this mean for those of us who are trying to practice the Dharma but who in all probability are really situated somewhere between these two views? Who love meditation and the idea of Indra’s Net but at the same time, with Jung, derive most of what makes our lives valuable from our love of each other? I don’t know what the answer to this question is. All I can say is that I find myself made up of parts. One person within me knows with utter certainty that impermanent and imperfect love, with all its pain, has made my life rich with meaning. I can’t wish it away. And another feels that the discovery of the Dharma is like someone giving me a key that allows me to escape a dark locked room. It’s such a relief. So somehow, probably in some messy way, these two things seemingly continue to exist together.
However, I just know with as much certainty as I can muster that when it comes time to die I’m really looking forward to what’s outside that locked room.
NW. 20 January 2025. With many thanks to J C J for her inspiration on this one.
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