Words from Jung

Nothing really important here, but I was reading about Dr. Carl Jung on Wikipedia, and I found some quotations there I thought worth sharing:

• I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life (Jung, [1961] 1989:140).
• The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith (Jung, [1961] 1989:140).
• [Contemporary man] is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by “powers” that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food – and, above all, a large array of neuroses. (Jung, 1964:82).

I thought the third one was especially cool, and true. I consider myself kind of neurotic fellow, and I think what keeps me following Buddhism as long as I have (even when disagree with it at times) is that it helps me deal with my own little neuroses.¹ I guess we’re all kind of neurotic in our own ways. Curing our own neuroses through religion is a big step in the right direction, I believe.

Namo Shakyamuni Buddha

¹ It also helps to have a wife who is a Bodhisattva to put some common sense into you. (just kidding, dear)