Therapist and Buddha As Trickster

                    Therapist and Buddha As Trickster

 

                        

 

Along the lines of a psychotherapist as a shaman and spiritual guide, let’s look at Buddha as Trickster. The Buddha, in its archetypal form, is seen as “Buddha Nature,” that is, one’s essential, divine and enlightened self, one’s Higher Self. This is what we are trying to make contact with and engender with empowerment in good therapeutic practice. A therapist is also a catalyst, “disrupting” and interrupting the status quo of one’s ego long enough to allow the ego to loosen its grip on the psyche, herein lies the trickster.

 

Trickster figures are pervasive in literature, folk tale, and myth. They come in many forms, and are in themselves shapeshifters, so they are chameleon like and will change form right before your eyes. This is helpful therapeutically to help recognize the ephemeral, ever-changing nature of reality and how the ego tries to fix things in a static idealized form.

 

                          

 

The trickster and therapist are “wise fools,” as they will often find themselves ensnared in their own models of reality. Some of their wisdom will come in not taking themselves too seriously (a major pitfall in therapy and spirituality!).

One of the major functions of trickster energy is entertainment that disrupts tension. The court jester was used to deflate the grandiosity of the King. Clowns, mascots, and standup comedians bring humor that often offends or mocks, and provides commentary through insults or mockery, forcing us to confront ourselves.
       
                                       

 

 Some of the forms of trickster are Coyote, Spider woman, and Raven, from Native American myth, Rabbit from Africa, Hermes, from Greek culture, Mercury from Rome, Loki from Norse mythology, Jacob, from the bible…. the list is quite long!

              

 

The Buddha is tricksteresk as he presents himself as ‘awakened,’ and suggests that “you too, can awaken!” The ability to awaken is an outrageous thing to suggest in a world of sleep walking unconsciousness! The Buddha doesn’t want you to worship him as a god, he wants you to get to work and wake up!  Tricksters violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis. This is what a spiritual path and therapeutic intervention is all about. People come to therapy, not because things are going so well, they come because they are suffering, just like the Buddhist path is meant to alleviate suffering, as did Christ when he said “I come to give life abundantly!” This is what a trickster does, he or she enlivens, invigorates, brings vitality, passion, and appetite to living as a human being. The trickster is all inclusive, bringing everything to bear, especially things we don’t want to look at or repress, such as death, lust, suffering, and flatulence. The Buddha is often depicted with a big ‘ol belly, or big ears, he is full of life, and doesn’t miss meals! The Buddha tried asceticism for a while, but rejected it for the “middle way.” This was quite an affront to Hindu spirituality at the time.

                                                                             
 

In order to achieve this all inclusivity, the trickster must cross boundaries, piss people off, and stir up the pot.  The Trickster openly questions and mocks authority, he can be a champion of the oppressed and the "master’s house" can be "dismantled" using his "tools" if the tools are used in a new or unconventional way, this requires great cunning, guile, and deceit. Brer Rabbit not only was the "personification of the ethic of self-preservation" for the slave community, but also "an alternative response to their oppressor’s false doctrine of anthropology."  Two other example of African American trickery is the invention of Blues and Jazz music, which takes all the "rules" and forms of convention, puts them in a blender and shakes, rattles and rolls the shit outta of 'em!

 

              

 

All this doesn’t bode well for tricksters, and they usually end up in pretty hot water or tarred and feathered as the case may be. Tricksters steal fire, carry messages, transport souls to and from, outwit systems, mock seriousness, are sacrilegious, and pretty much every other way of being the life of the party.

 

The trickster is not interested in the persona, role or title of being the Buddha, Therapist, Priest, etc. he’s interested in having a good time, and being free of the scripted data of what anything and anyone “means.” This is because meaning is usually a constructed, and contrived piece of data that is handed down and inculcated into youth. It doesn’t mean trickster is a rebel without a cause, he’s just a boundary pusher that helps everyone question what’s “normal” and push themselves to greater freedom and awareness.

 

                                            

 

                    

 

The trickster is a liminal figure, who is not really in one place but stands on the threshold, crossroads, or bridge between one world and another. He is neither sacred nor profane, but both, and neither. The Buddha and therapist help people make the passage from one state to another, they are guides along the way, passing out of the familiar into the mysterious, “the road less traveled.” The psychopomp that takes souls to and from Hades is a mythological example of this. When Hermes transports Persephone from Hades, this is what allows spring to follow winter.

 

Herein lies the trickster as cultural hero, because in spite of his rebellious nature, he also sets a new order of how things can or should be. As a culture hero, Coyote appears in various mythic traditions, but generally with the same magical powers of transformation, resurrection, and then Coyote's "medicine". He is engaged in changing the ways of rivers, creating new landscapes and getting sacred things for people. When Prometheus steals fire from the gods, he gives humanity a new way of being, just as the serpent gives Adam and Eve a new self-knowledge when he tempts them to eat and become self-aware. This is what therapy and meditation bring; more self-awareness and attendant power.

 

                       

 

But self-awareness doesn’t come without a price. Here we see the horrible cost that tricksters pay; crucifying, tarring and feathering, rolling a huge boulder up hill, and paying high psychotherapy fees! Tricksters are notorious for “corrupting the youth,” this was one of Socrates ‘crimes’ for which he was sentenced to death.

 

The trickster is a fix-it man, tinkerer, inventor, and creative artist, she will take what has been discarded and create something new and beautiful from it. The insight, vitality, and creativity found from working with the trickster is the stuff of genius, you will not recognize your original face if you paint by numbers, you must color outside the box and outwit the high priest of your ego if you are to awaken.

 

The trickster, Buddha, and therapist do not help from a place of altruism, they do not shake up the ego from a place of malice, they don’t care if you throw followers or rocks, don’t take credit or blame, they don’t have concern or contempt, and they will display transcendence as well as the lewd aspects of life, because both are part of being human!