John B Freese

The Buddhist teachings on dependent origination describe how the process of rebirth—also known as becoming—is caused by a deluded consciousness feeding on a person’s body and mind, as well as on external objects of craving and aversion. The process of racial formation that turns European American bodies into white people who feed off of the land, labor, and life force of people of color can be seen as an example of dependent origination. This article argues that whiteness is a deeply rooted existential experience in the bodies and minds of European Americans that serves as a firewall against perpetrator guilt and trauma; it also explains why the threat white people perceive in demographic shifts triggers an existential fear of annihilation. The Buddhist teachings in this article correspond with the concepts of racial formation and racial project articulated by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, and the concept of the possessive investment in whiteness articulated by George Lipsitz. The article then uses the Buddhist antiracist lens formed from these connections to analyze past and present white supremacist behavior in the United States, as well as past and present antiracist behavior in the United States, paying particular attention to Martin Luther King’s involvement in the Chicago Freedom Movement. Although not the primary focus of this article, connections are also made between the Buddhist elements of this analysis and clinical trauma therapy in order to ground this discussion in a secular, empirical, trauma-informed context.

Provides an overview of the history of practical theology from Friedrich Schleirmacher in Germany in the 1700s, to Paul Tillich in the U.S. in the 1900s, to to the revival of the field from the 1980s until now. Comparisons are made between Protestant Christianity and Eastern traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism.

A small but growing number of trauma clinicians are integrating Buddhist practices into their clinical work and a small but growing number of Buddhist writer and teachers are integrating trauma therapy into their work. But the overall theory and practice between the two "traditions" still remains siloed off from each other. Great mutual benefit could be gained by an in-depth comparison and functional correlation between theory and practice of both traditions. This paper argues that a high level of functional correlation exists between the theory and practice of vipassana mediation as taught by S.N. Goenka and Somatic Experiencing® developed by Peter Levine. They appear to be different maps providing different angles on the same territory of theory and practice. In particular that the cause of suffering/posttraumatic-stress is the inability to decouple physical sensation from reactive emotion; and that developing awareness and equanimity towards intense physical sensation is the way to bring about that decoupling resulting in an organic unwinding of suffering/post-traumatic-stress. Because of this high functional correlation, the theory, practice, and leadership training of both traditions would benefit from mutual influence. In addition, because of the high level of functional correlation between these two specific traditions, more comparison of theory and practice should be done between the broader traditions of Buddhist meditation and trauma therapy for further potential correlation.

This dissertation is a Buddhist practical theological work that mutually critically correlates theory and practice from Buddhist meditation and from trauma therapy. The scholarly dialogue between Buddhism and trauma therapy in the U.S. has mainly been between proponents of the Western Vipassana Movement (WVM) and trauma therapy scholar practitioners from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and interpersonal neurobiology. The WVM is made up of the teachers of the Insight Medication Society (IMS), Spirit Rock meditation center, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, and Mindful Self Compassion. The trauma therapy scholar practitioners have included both a mainstream tradition of trauma therapy with clinicians such as John Briere and Catherine Scott and a somatic trauma therapy sub-branch with clinicians such as Dan Siegel and Peter Levine. The focus of the dialogue has mainly been how WVM insight meditation (vipassana meditation) can be used by therapists and their clients to deal with trauma, and how the WVM can integrate principles of somatic trauma therapy into its vipassana meditation teachings. Thus, it has focused on empowering Buddhist-informed trauma therapists and trauma-therapy-informed WVM teachers.
The dialogue has left out the theory and practice of Goekna Vipassana (GV) despite, as this dissertation will demonstrate, significant apparent correlation between GV theory and practice and Somatic Experiencing (SE) theory and practice. The dialogue has also left out the Yogacara Buddhist psychology taught by Thich Nhat Hanh to his monastic and lay ministers in the Order of Interbeing despite apparent significant correlation between OI Yogacra psychology and body-centered relational depth psychology. The dialogue has also not sought to empower Buddhist ministers to develop Buddhist theory and practice to recognize and respond to trauma on behalf of Buddhist ministers.
This dissertation uses a theoretical framework that distinguishes between an early Buddhist yogic mode of knowledge production, a later Buddhist scholastic mode of knowledge production, and a modern scientific scholastic mode of knowledge production to mutually critically correlate a) theory and practice from early Buddhist teachings on the four establishments of mindfulness, b) later Buddhist scholastic teachings on the four establishments of mindfulness and on Yogacara psychology, and c) modern scientific scholastic theory and practice on trauma therapy. It demonstrates that early Buddhist teachings on the four establishments of mindfulness contextualized within the teachings on the links of dependent origination can be combined with later Yogacara teachings on the eight consciousnesses to create a relational Buddhist psychology that includes a somatic trauma counseling technique. It argues that such an integrated theory and practice is in keeping with a best practice in trauma therapy that calls for a relational psychology combined with a somatic trauma therapy technique.
Core texts from GV and SE theory and practice are mutually critically correlated to develop a Buddhist approach to somatic trauma counseling. Phenomenological interviews of six OI psychotherapists are analyzed to develop a Buddhist body-centered and relational approach to trauma counseling. These two Buddhist approaches are combined in a prototypical model of Buddhist counseling that uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a contemplative matrix for the application of Buddhist theory and practice on trauma counseling