Zen and Self Psychology

This is my last talk, in a series of talks, on Zen as religious practice. In the first part of the talk, I will summarise some of the reasons why I view Zen as a religious practice, and how I was drawn to Zen because of its teaching of the direct realisation of our true nature in this life – not in some future life to come. From the Zen perspective, “the goal of life is to live fully as a human being, with one’s inherent potential completely developed (Guo Gu, 2012, page 6)”. In the second half of the talk, I will suggest that human development naturally leads to the realisation of our inherent Buddha Nature, given these favourable circumstances and conditions. The seed needs to be nurtured. The realisation that we are Buddha Nature, that all sentient beings are Buddha Nature, can be understood as the most mature form of what Heinz Kohut, the founder of Self Psychology, called healthy narcissism.