ADVICE NOT GIVEN: A GUIDE TO GETTING OVER YOURSELF
By Mark Epstein
“Although the conversation is just starting, it is clear that Buddhism and Western psychotherapy have much in common. They each recognize that the key to overcoming suffering is the conscious acknowledgement of the ego’s nefarious ways…when we are able to see the extent of our own fears and desires, there is something in us, recognized by both Buddha and Freud, which is able to break free.”
This is a book about the ego…
It is also, Epstein writes, ‘a how-to guide that refuses a quick fix. It is rooted in two traditions devoted to maximising the human potential for living a better life - traditions that have only begun to to speak to each other.’
‘Advice Not Given’ looks at the similarities between Buddhism and Western psychotherapy - how both identify the ego as the limiting factor in our well-being, and both aim to rebalance the ego by empowering ‘the observing ‘I’ over the unbridled me’ through self-reflection. In Buddhism, the approach is through mindfulness and the ability to be with whatever is happening without becoming victimised or pulled into it. For Freud, this was through free-association and the analysis of dreams. Both approaches help us to transcend our egos and tap into the bigger picture beyond them.
Our ego is what drives us to constantly want to be bigger, better, richer, and more in control and can often be our greatest obstacle. But, Epstein argues, it can also be our greatest hope if we can learn to work with it. Rather than demonising the ego or viewing it as something to be quashed (which is also completely impossible), we can learn to work with it, putting ourselves in the driving seat through increasing our awareness of the ego’s ‘nefarious ways’.
The structure of this book is based on The Eightfold Path of Buddhism: Right View, Right Motivation, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Epstein draws on examples and anecdotes from both Buddhist and Western psychotherapy traditions to reveal the differences and similarities between the two philosophies when it comes to reigning in the ego and discovering a newfound sense of freedom. It’s more serious, and more dense than ‘Tea and Cake with Demons’ which is also based on The Eightfold Path, but I found it to be a fascinating insight into how some of the traditionally-siloed philosophies that we use to analyse the mind can support and speak to one another. If you’re interested either in Buddhism or in psychotherapy (or both!) this is a book for you.
Perhaps the best example of what Epstein is getting at comes in the Epilogue, where he quotes Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Fransisco Zen Center. Roshi uses the expression ‘mind waves’ to describe the turmoil of the ego’s struggle with everyday life:
“Waves, he would always insist, are part of the ocean. If you are trying to find the peace of the ocean by eliminating the waves, you will never succeed. But if you learn to see the waves as part of the whole, to not be bothered by the ego’s endless fluctuations, your sense of yourself as cut off, separate, less than, or unworthy will shift…
…Life gives us endless opportunities to practice. Mostly we fail. Who can say they are not bothered by anything, really? But when we make the effort, the results can be astonishing. In an insecure world, we can become our own refuge. Our egos do not have to have the last word.”
Amen to that.