Brief Thoughts on Zen and Behavior Therapy

Abstract

Both Zen and behavior therapy focus on the present. From a Zen perspective, the present is all there is. Zen meditation practice, zazen, which makes up much of Zen practice is a silent focus on the present moment. Behavior therapists also focus on client's current difficulties and goals. They may conduct a clinical analysis of the present and the past to determine the variables that control the problem behaviors, but ultimately these efforts contribute directly to their understanding of the present factors that are maintaining a specified problem. Their work, after this analysis has been conducted, is to help the client change the causal factors maintaining problem behaviors in the present. Behavioral change, ultimately, can only happen In the service of present moment awareness. Although Zen and behaviorists have different ways of talking about the self, both recognize a sense of "no self" or a sense of the self as a matter of perspective. That is, from a Zen perspective there is no independent self because al is one. The belief in an independent self is viewed as a delusion that all humans carry with them. Zen practice is aimed at experiencing the wonder of the oneness of all beings. Behavior therapists also do not hold on to an idea of an independent "self" within the individual that influences action. Although the role of genes Is not discounted, the behaviorist is more likely to focus on learning experiences and environmental events, no matter how small or large. Individuals, as well as their behaviors, are seen as products of contexts, relationships, and environments; thus, an individual can never actually be seen as a separate entity. In this sense, Zen and behavior therapy both recognize unity. As noted above, the focus of Zen is on experiencing the unity of all things. Similarly, behaviorists view behavior and context as connected and behavior cannot be understood outside of its context. In other words, there is always a unity between context and behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)