MARK EPSTEIN
Open to Desire
Course ID: | TTT-04 |
Original Dates: | 1/11, 1/18, 1/24, 2/1 (2006) |
Archived Content: | MP3 (digital audio file) recordings / PDF transcripts | Price: | $60.00 |
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Course Description:
Drawing simultaneously from Western psychoanalytic and Eastern Buddhist psychological traditions, this presentation explores an approach to desire that recognizes its potential to both deepen the sense of subjectivity and relieve us of the burden of self. Dr. Mark Epstein, author of Thoughts Without a Thinker and a number of other works exploring the relevance of Buddhist thought for Western psychotherapy, argues that desire is often mistakenly thought to be a source of suffering in Buddhist psychology, reinforcing a Western tendency to disparage, or reduce, desire's place in our lives.
It is clinging, not desire, that is the focal point of Buddhist meditation, and it is therefore possible that desire without clinging can continue to inform an examined (or spiritual) life. Joining personal reflection, clinical vignettes, Buddhist and psychoanalytic theory, spiritual teachings from the world's wisdom traditions, and mindfulness meditation, Epstein argues that desire can be freed from its tendency to become stuck in addictions, compulsions, resentments and shame.
In describing what is sometimes called the “left-handed path,” Epstein explores the Buddhist method of engaging with the world of the senses to awaken the mind. Rather than liberation from desire, Buddhism teaches a method of liberation through desire. As Epstein explains, this approach, while distinct from the more widely known “right-handed path” of meditative disengagement and withdrawal, is necessary if we are to bring spiritual understanding to worldly life. This workshop will focus on an exploration of this “left-handed” approach to desire and will show how relevant it can be for both our relational lives and the practice of psychotherapy. Desire, it turns out, can become a means of breaking through an objectified view of self and other, a meditation in its own right.
Course Overview:
Session One: Desire - The left-handed path
Explores the use of desire as a means of opening the mind to its true nature. Desire as a spiritual path.
Session Two: Clinging
The difference between clinging and desire. The necessity (and place) of renunciation. The nature of addiction.
Session Three: Subjectivity
'Male' vs. 'Female' desire. Moving away from an object-based desire.
Session Four: Meditation in action
Finding stillness in the midst of urgency. Desire as a subject of meditation.
Recommended Readings:
Carson, Anne. Eros The Bittersweet. Dalkey Archive Press, 1998.
Eigen, Michael. Ecstasy. Wesleyan University Press, 2001.
Epstein, Mark. Going to Pieces without Falling Apart. Broadway, 1998.
Epstein, Mark. Open to Desire : Embracing a Lust for Life Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Gotham, 2005
Teacher Bio:
Mark Epstein, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City and the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Thoughts Without a Thinker, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, Going on Being and his recently published Open to Desire, which explores desire as a subject of meditative awareness. He is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at New York University.
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