Shifting Grounds: A Comparison of the Notion of the Ground (gzhi) in the Tibetan Great Perfection Tradition with the Idea of the Unconscious in the Analytical Psychology of Carl Gustav Jung
Manuel LOPEZ is a scholar of Buddhism with a particular regional focus on Tibet and the Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal). He is an assistant professor of religion at New College of Florida, where he teaches courses on Buddhism, Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism, Buddhist Contemplative Systems, Hinduism, and Asian Religions in general. He is currently working on a research project that explores the changes in the monastic curriculum that have taken place in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan over the last few decades. This project is a collaboration with Prof. Dorji Gyeltshen, of the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (JSWSL). Email: mlopezzafra@ncf.edu
This article examines the ideology and practices of the Tibetan Great Perfection as presented by the 14th-century Tibetan scholar Longchenpa in his work The Treasury of Words and Meanings by means of Carl Gustav Jung’s psychological theory. Specifically, the article explores the possible analogies of the Great Perfection concept of the ‘ground’ (Tib. gzhi) with the Jungian concept of the ‘unconscious.’ The article, using J.Z. Smith’s methodological approach of comparison, argues that the similarities observed by some scholars, Jung among them, between the notion of the unconscious and the idea of the ground can offer suggestive insights into the complex ideology of the Great Perfection tradition, by translating the cosmological, and cosmogonical descriptions of the processes in which the ground is involved, in psychological terms. This exercise joins the efforts of other scholars such as Odin (1982), Waldron (2003, 2008), and Waldron and Germano (2006) in offering an alternative interpretation of the Great Perfection notion of the ground in connection to the various background processes that shape the individual’s view and understanding of the world without being aware of it.
目次
Abstract 150 Introduction 151 A Note on Methodology 153 The original comparison Defining the terms The unconscious The Ground The unconscious and the ground: reexamining the original comparison. The ground as unconscious 166 The problem of duality 168 The cellar and the youthful body in a vase The unconscious, the ground, and the body Conclusion: Reviewing the original comparison 173 Notes 174 References 177
