Source Text
He shows how inner spaciousness can be experienced in somatic, psychological and spiritual ways, details some of the many levels of inner space and, more importantly, illustrates how these experiences of space can lead to fundamental healing and integration of our being. This experiential understanding of non-identification with content, discovering the pattern of object relations and self-representations as grasped images in the mind, is called the Truth of Selflessness, the central key to the Buddha’s realization and enlightenment.
The mind is then taken to be the field or sphere of our thoughts, images, feelings, emotions, sensations, and perceptions, plus the apparatus or agent that deals with all these impressions.
The Western casual use of “mind” generally refers to the content of experience, while the Eastern use of the word usually emphasizes the substratum, or the container, of experience. The Western “mind” is the stuff of experience itself, the inner events, the thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions; in the East, “mind” is seen more as the ground of all experience.
Our objective in this book, however, is much more ambitious than achieving this understanding and integration of the two points of view regarding the mind. We are interested in seeing how this understanding will make it possible for us to eliminate the usually accepted contradistinctions between mind and spirit, between psychology and religion, and between psychological understanding and spiritual (essential) development.
He saw the personality (or in his terms, the mind) as a structure—a psychic structure—composed of three units: id, ego, and superego. (Literally translated, the words he used for these three concepts are the It, the I, and the Over-I.)
The psychic structure is simply the structure of the content of experience. It is the pattern or patterning of the content of mind and experience.
A psychologically separate identity develops slowly as the infant interacts with its environment, especially with its mother.
Thus the identity, with its mental apparatus (psychic structure), is a construction in the mind. The particular structure of the mind, the particular patterning of the content of the psyche (ultimately resulting in the sense of self), is something that develops, something that grows.
The literature on spiritual development, on essential or inner development, on all matters of religious concern, generally uses the term “ego” to mean something which is seen as the barrier to spiritual realization. The literature on depth psychology, however, uses the term with a very different meaning. The ego referred to by Freud, and which ego psychology studies, is not the ego which is the barrier to spiritual
The psychoanalytic term “ego” refers, rather, to the functional self, which is the site, organizer, and coordinator of the functions of perception, memory, mobility, and so on.
AI Summary
The Void by A. H. Almaas presents key insights from the Diamond Approach tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.