ABSTRACT
There is a long study yet to be written comparing and contrasting the practice of psychoanalysis and the practice of Buddhism. There has never been, from the earliest days, any sense of conflict about combining the practice of Buddhism with that of full-time psychoanalysis. This chapter shows how the practices of Buddhism and psychoanalysis interconnect and work, each to potentiate the other. It outlines the simple skeletal structure of Buddhist teaching in the Theravada tradition, and shows how well it relates to the analytic understanding and intentions. The chapter talks about the use of meditation, as central to the Buddhist practice, and therefore, for a psychoanalyst, to his or her working life. The discipline of meditation practice enhances the discipline of one's contribution to an analytic session which sometimes is, in fact, itself almost indistinguishable from a form of meditation.
