Hello everyone,
I am writing a series of articles presenting the Buddha’s teachings to ACT (a values- and mindfulness-based psychotherapeutic training) practitioners. I want to make sure that my articles are sound and well grounded in the EBTs. Would anyone be kind enough to give me feedback and suggestions for improvement?
Thank you!! <3
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Thanks for sharing this.
In my mind there are plenty of good things in ACT which overlap with the Buddhas teachings. I especially appreciate that ACT uses values as one of the key pivots. I wish people would make more out of this rather than conflating the deep meditation states and wisdom taught by the Buddha with a baseline sense of psychological okayness. The job of western psychology is to bring people from a state of mundane suffering to mundane ease. The goal of the Buddha was to end the round of rebirth and death so that we never have to suffer again. From mundain ease to supreme transcendence. Ajahn Sona has done two talks on western psychology and Buddhist transcendence, which I would highly recommend.
I found most of what you cited in the second half of the article to accurately represent the dhamma, though I am not sure how relevant it was to a general public ACT practitioner. Is your goal to get people more interested in reading the Buddhist texts? It seemed to deviate from the topic of ACT quite significantly, so I am not sure.
In the first half of your article you aligned the following ‘the inner bliss of mindful acceptance (jhāna sukha)’. I don’t think that this is accurate. Mindful acceptance, and most of ACT stems from the second factor of the Noble eightfold path, right intention and may encompass up to, but probably no further than the sixth factor, right effort. You could certainly draw parallels between right effort and the ACT pivots. Both abandoning the hinderances and cultivating the enlightenment factors. ACT definitely does not teach samādhi, nor really the meditation of satipatthana. Additionally, these are not really ‘path factors’ unles they are based on a Buddhist world view of rebirth and karma- Right View. At best they are Buddhist life hacks, the ‘right’ doesn’t really belong if it’s not based on right view. I’ṁ sure ther are references to developing the kinds of skills used in ACT, external to path factors, especially in the Anguttara Nikaya.
I hope this doesn’t come across as too harsh. I think that ACT is good and I see very clearly from your writing that you are wanting to respectfully and accurately represent the Buddha’s teaching. I can see your love of the EBTs. It’s been a while since I was last into looking at ACT, but I’ṁ happy to have a further conversation about the crossover if that is useful
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I wonder if most ACT clinicians might find an introduction more readable if
a. start with the ACT model and map that directly onto dhamma in a succinct visual manner eg using a diagram
b. keep the first article very brief
In terms of accuracy:
With the complete psychological integration that “nothing is worth holding onto”12, Gotama fully let go of all clinging, including clinging to consciousness, and experienced an immortal space, without beginning nor end, unconditioned … the unbinding (nibbāna)13
A. positing a psychological integrative process in awakening is problematic
B. describing nibbana as "experienced an immortal space, without beginning nor end" may be contradictory? Infinite space sounds exactly like the first formless abiding. Infinite space is still in the conditioned realm of space and conditioned perception. As you note nibbana is unconditioned. You might consider checking your sutta references for accuracy?
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Thanks, BrPromise.
I think these are highly important points to differentiate ACT from Buddhist samadhi, satipatthana and anapanasati. Without an adequate grounding in the Buddha’s teachings and the N8FP, an uninstructed person could really suffer from spiritual bypassing.
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