The roles of therapist and patient are clearly and rigidly defined in the context of therapy (not just psychotherapy) in the Western world. Someone needing help, mental, emotional or physical, consults the services of an expert – the therapist, who in turn receives monetary compensation for said services. The relationship is strictly professional and often highly commercial.
This paradigm is completely different in A Course in Miracles and in Buddhism.
Both A Course in Miracles and Buddhism stress upon the fact that we are all one. We are but one Mind masquerading as many separate identities. This goes beyond the idea that we are all interconnected and interdependent in this ecosystem called Planet Earth, eg. the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil setting off a tornado in Texas. It is the recognition that we are the butterfly. We are the tornado. We are everything that we see, hear, smell and touch. We are the sun, stars and galaxies innumerable. We are the ‘tiny, mad idea’ of Christ that created all of this and chose to funnel ourselves into the illusion of form.
As human beings, we all have what we could call ordinary minds – the mind that you’ve always assumed you’ve had. It’s a calculating mind, a discriminating mind, a fragmented mind. It’s the mind of ordinary consciousness, the mind of self and other. We generally think of it as “my mind.”
This Mind is nothing other than the Whole. It’s simply thus, the fabric of the world itself – the ongoing arising and falling away that are matter, energy, and events.
Speaking of this Mind, the great Chinese Zen master Huang Po said,
All buddhas and ordinary people are just One Mind…
This Mind is beyond all measurements, names, oppositions: this very being is It; as soon as you stir you mind you turn away from It.
This Mind is self-evident – it’s always switched on, so to speak. We can – and, in fact, we do – see It in every moment. If we would only refrain from stirring our minds (rest our frontal lobes, as my Zen teacher used to say) and let our conceptualizing die down, like the ripples on a pond after the stirring wind has ceased, we would realize – we would know – Mind directly.
pg. 25, Buddhism Plain and Simple, Steve Hagen
A Course in Miracles is entirely uncompromising about this idea of Oneness. Because the Course has one voice and one author who clearly sees no separation, we are forced to think along with him when we read his words – to break out of our rigid thinking and to deeply internalise this idea ourselves.
The role of teaching and learning is actually reversed in the thinking of the world. The reversal is characteristic. It seems as if the teacher and the learner are separated, the teacher giving something to the learner rather than to himself. Further, the act of teaching is regarded as a special activity, in which one engages only a relatively small proportion of one’s time. The course, on the other hand, emphasizes that to teach is to learn, so that teacher and learner are the same. M-in.1. A Course in Miracles
Who, then, is the therapist, and who is the patient? In the end, everyone is both. He who needs healing must heal. Physician, heal thyself. Who else is there to heal? And who else is in need of healing? Each patient who comes to a therapist offers him a chance to heal himself. He is therefore his therapist. And every therapist must learn to heal from each patient who comes to him. He thus becomes his patient. God does not know of separation. What He knows is only that He has one Son. His knowledge is reflected in the ideal patient-therapist relationship. God comes to him who calls, and in Him he recognizes Himself. P-2.VII.1. A Course in Miracles
To give and to receive are one in truth. Workbook Lesson 108
The roles of therapist and patient, teacher and student, healer and healed, are frequently reversed, demonstrating that there is no real separation between the two roles. In teaching, we learn how to teach. In learning, we teach (the teacher) how to teach. It is this quantum leap in perception, with this added spiritual dimension that takes psychotherapy in A Course in Miracles to an entirely new level. With this new paradigm, self-interest and other-interest is firmly aligned. Instead of a scarcity mentality, we have an abundance mentality – enabling us to find true win-win solutions on a practical and spiritual level.
At first glance, Buddhism takes a less pronounced view of this idea, and certainly does not take it to the extremes that A Course in Miracles does. That said, it may be because the purity of the idea has been somewhat overshadowed by the large amount of doctrines, languages and teachings that the totality of Buddhism encompasses.
The concept of ‘dependent origination’ (Pratitya Samutpada) states that all phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. In Mahayana Buddhism, this concept is beautifully expressed in the metaphor of Indra’s net:
Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.
Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Francis Harold Cook
Amongst the Buddhist schools, Dzogchen appears to present a view which is very similar to A Course in Miracles’s nondual concept of Oneness:
- forms that the individual experiences as his or her body, voice and mind
- forms that the individual experiences as an external environment.
What appears as a world of apparently external phenomena, is the energy of the individual him or herself. There is nothing external or separate from the individual. Everything that manifests in the individual’s field of experience is a continuum. This is the ‘Great Perfection’ that is discovered in Dzogchen practice.
Wikipedia, Reality in Buddhism
With this new paradigm of everything being one, what we normally consider forgiveness suddenly takes on a new dimension. We forgive someone not because we think we are morally, ethically, or spiritually superior – we forgive because we recognise ourselves in others. We recognise that others are but mirrors for ourselves. We forgive because we are forgiving with ourselves.
Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred. - Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
The two largest Buddhist schools are Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. While Theravada is focused on the liberation of the individual from suffering, Mahayana is focused on the liberation of all beings from suffering. We see thus, with the paradigm of oneness, that there really is no difference – it is just a matter of approach.
A Course in Miracles states the same truth succinctly in the Manual for Teachers:
The answer to this question is–one. One wholly perfect teacher, whose learning is complete, suffices. This one, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the Self Who is the Son of God. M-12.1. A Course in Miracles
Next: A Course in Miracles & Buddhism – Part 7: Forgiveness, kindness and unconditional love
Back: A Course in Miracles & Buddhism – Part 5: Being in the present moment
On behalf of Spirit, I say, you are very welcome! Love, Ken - 
Ken -