Jung, as we know thought that in the later stages of a person’s life we turn naturally to a more religious inclination. In his own life he explored a variety of religious traditions, looking I suspect for some possible value in them that might help his fellow Europeans; especially as he became more and more anxious about the turn of events that had overwhelmed his world and Europe in particular.

 But he cautioned in a timely way that we are each better served by religion if we stay within our own ‘native’ expressions of myth and ritual. To deal with our soulful yearnings we probably don’t have time enough to learn and make sense of foreign and arcane mythologies and ideas. It’s nigh on 100 years ago that Jung was struggling, (did he ever struggle?) with these matters; he referred to Buddhism as Indian Yoga and found the idea of a ‘no self’ really impossible to comprehend.

 In Jung’s day very few people outside of academies both secular and religious would have know little about the religions of ‘the East’. Now of course Buddhism and it’s popular expression; Mindfulness practice and research is commonplace. I have been a Zen Buddhist student for some decades and yet I find myself lapsing, or maybe turning is a better way of saying it, back to the native pull of my Methodist Christianity.

 Zen practice is strangely enough about quite a few things; we can note this in the popular inquiry as to what is Zen?

Zen practice is about the breath; just breath, just breath … a pertinent phrase given that our world is today convulsed by a plea; I can’t breath.

How the light gets in

Brendon Stewart

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in

Anthem Leonard Cohen

Many talks on Buddhism begin with Dogen’s words:

To study Buddhism is to study the self,

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be awakened by all things.

To be awakened by all things is to be free from attachment to the

Body and mind of one’s self and others.

Brendon Stewart is a practicing Zen Buddhist, a Jungian Scholar and eclectic thinker who says of himself “It is a long time since I considered myself an academic. The analytical psychology world has moved on, or at least I hope so. Friends of mine from those Western Sydney days have passed on and some students have become senior academics at different institutions. I think I have mentioned before I spend a good deal of my time painting and gardening and gradually the palette for both has become more diverse and complex.

I remain a student of Zen Practice; it’s very Zen I know but this is a fascination with a process that involves no teleology. (There you go I remember my Jungian material – his dark materials!) . I am a consumer of Televisionisms; Netflix, IView, Youtube and everything on the ABC and SBS.”

 Date: 10th July 2020
Time: 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Venue: Mitchell Theatre Level 1 Sydney Mechanics' School
of Arts, 280 Pitt St, Sydney
Cost: Members $15 Non-Members $25 Non-Member
Concession $20

*Psychotherapists and other practitioners can obtain credit for Professional Development hours recognised by PACFA and ACA for this presentation.