A powerful article that just came out on leading existential psychotherapist Irv Yalom. Yalom is a leading theorist and clinician who has transformed the way we view psychotherapy. He suggests that much of human suffering comes from people’s unacknowledged and unresolveddeath related anxiety. He’s turning 86 and facing declining health and talks candidly about facing his own death. Interestingly this article accurately contrasts Yalom’s thought with that of Morrie Schwartz, the subject of Tuesdays with Morrie. Tuesdays with Morrie contains a powerful explication of the Buddhist idea of detachment; Morrie was himself a steady mindfulness meditation practitioner. Morrie Schwartz and Irv Yalom face death very differently, yet they both have much to offer. Check out this article on Yalom and let me know what you think.
Here is the passage by Morrie Schwartz on detachment, a fruit of mindfulness meditation: "You know what the Buddhists say? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent…. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it…. If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’ I know you think this is just about dying, but it’s like I keep telling you. When you learn how to die, you learn how to live (Tuesdays with Morrie, page 104)."
Here is the passage by Morrie Schwartz on detachment, a fruit of mindfulness meditation: "You know what the Buddhists say? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent…. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it…. If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’ I know you think this is just about dying, but it’s like I keep telling you. When you learn how to die, you learn how to live (Tuesdays with Morrie, page 104)."
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