The Big Mind Process is a technique developed by Zen teacher Dennis Merzel that merges Western psychological techniques (specifically Voice Dialogue therapy) with Buddhist conceptions of self and mind.
Contents
Etymology
Japanese Soto Zen founder Dōgen Zenji uses the phrase in his Tenzo Kyōkun (Instructions to the Chief Cook); as does 20th-century Zen master Shunryu Suzuki in talks collected in the book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
The process
Big Mind indicates an awareness of reality that transcends the merely personal, or wholly subjective.
Theory
According to Merzel, the self can take on many personalities, which are subsumed in our unconsciousness. By giving voice to those personalities, they become accessible to the consciousness. Merzel describes "the voices of the self" as follows:
Each of us has innumerable voices, or aspects, within us. To get a clearer picture of how they operate, think of yourself for a moment as a large corporation with many, many employees. How many? Nobody knows. It's a little bizarre.
In getting to know each voice and its function in the self-system one can become experientially aware of the true Self. This happens as a consequence of taking each voice as a point of view. Every time a voice is operating there is a mental shift that is representative of one perspective, a one dimensional view and experience of life. When multiple perspectives are known awareness increases. There is no right or wrong perspective only one's awareness of it. The nature of conscious awareness is a spacious silence and stillness. The emergence of inner voices in the mind is the result of the internal fragmentation of the personality. This fragmenting is due to different parts having different functions and without the presence of Love the parts resist unity. The ego self, the core of the personality, exists in isolation by its own distorted perception. The ego believes it is separate from everything.
Voices of the Self
The Guardians (which are designed to protect the self, the small drop of conscious awareness that gets taken over by the ego, the instinctual animalistic sense of self):
Resistance (is an invisible voice whose only word is NO; it is usually not heard by the self however it is felt almost continually as a string of moving and chronic tensions in the body, tiredness, sleepiness, spacing out as in becoming absent and resisting paying attention):
The Voices of Freedom (inherent in the self-system are voices designed to take the self beyond safety and comfort. The self is meant to mature by living life with all its uncertainties and dangers):
Transcendent Voices (these are qualities of being present in states of consciousness beyond the ego self. They are not in dialogue internally; instead they become obvious when the ego noise is transcended. They can be intuited as inner knowingness and sometime they do manifest as a subtle whisper to the self. They will be presented separately only for the purpose of clear learning and understanding, they are not separate)
Endorsements used by the publisher
Ken Wilber, in the foreword to Big Mind Big Heart, states:
Let me state this as strongly as I can: the Big Mind process founded by Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel is arguably the most important and original discovery in the last two centuries of Buddhism. It is an astonishingly original, profound, and effective path for waking up, or seeing one's True Nature.
At the cover of the book Bernie Glassman is quoted:
A gift to the many Westerners who would like to awaken and live in the world with effectiveness and compassion.
Also at the cover of the book, Hal Stone & Sidra Stone, creators of Voice Dialogue, are cited:
The popularity of Genpo’s work clearly indicates that there are many people whose selves come alive when invited out in this way, and that, for them, this work strikes a deeply resonant chord.
Criticism
According to Brad Warner,
Big Mind™ is irresponsible and dangerous. But there is a lot of irresponsible and dangerous stuff going on in the world of this type of cheesy vaguely Eastern feel-good-now spirituality. The reason I have focused so much attention on Genpo Roshi’s rotten Big Mind™ scam is because it pretends to be related to Zen. Not only to Zen, but to the Soto tradition of Master Dogen. Genpo has even stolen Suzuki Roshi’s phrase “big mind” — first used in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind — and trademarked it for himself (SFZC really should make a legal complaint about that, since they own the copyright to Suzuki’s works). But Big Mind™ has nothing whatsoever in common with real Zen practice.
Barbara O'Brien wrote,
What always (to me) made Big Mind™ sound hinky is that it is marketed as enlightenment on speed dial. By using Genpo's techniques, the pitch said, you could save yourself years of sitting zazen before realizing satori. Big Mind™ is taught mostly through seminars that charge a hefty enrollment fee, beginning at $150, which I'll come back to in a minute. I understand some people have paid as much as $50,000 for quickie enlightenment.
Additional Perspectives
Denis Hamill of the New York Daily News briefly describes his experience with the "Big Mind, Big Heart" book:
I approached "Big Mind, Big Heart" with a jaundiced eye, expecting snake oil. But I found it compelling and life-changing. I can't say that I have achieved "kensho." But I have reached a place where I no longer do a Ben Hur chariot race on the BQE after someone flips me the bird. I shout a lot less. I deal with envy and petty jealousies by embracing and owning the emotion and then transcending it.
Clinical trial
Michael Johnson, a masters graduate from the University of Utah, conducted a randomized clinical trial of Merzel's Big Mind process to
... test the hypothesis that a Zen training method using a self-based dialogue approach called Big Mind (Merzel, 2007) produces significant changes in subjective experience that are similar to the spiritual experiences of long-term meditators during deep meditation and, second, to examine whether the effect brings about any lasting positive psychological improvements in both spirituality and well-being measures.
The participants appeared to score higher on various measures after participation, but the reported effects may also result from factors such as group effect, suggestibility, and/or simple expectation, and the study may have limited generalizability due to the high level of education of the participants.
Theoretical background
According to Johnson, meaning can be found through self-transcendence, which he describes as de-identification with externally based constructs of self. Meditation practices may lead to such de-identification, but may take many years of practice. According to Johnson, the "transcendental goal of meditation" can also be achieved "by limiting or entirely avoiding prolonged sitting meditation practices", for example the dialogue-based pointing-out instruction in Tibetan practice. According to Johnson,
A person without any formal meditation or spiritual training thus has the potential for immediate apprehension of his or her own deeper spiritual reality leading to profound self-transcendence, and the corresponding sense of peace.
Method
The trial was conducted on twenty-eight highly educated participants with no prior formal Zen or meditation training, and compared for homogeneity. Fourteen of them participated in a one-day dialogue-session with Dennis Merzel, while the other fourteen formed the control-group. The intent of the session was to bring awareness and understanding of specific modes of functioning through dialogue-based methods. The participants were asked to first contact and then assume the role of a common self-identification motif, or mode of functioning. Having identified with that motif the participants then engaged in a dialogue with the Dennis Merzel, speaking from this mode of functioning.
The study used a number of well-established measures to examine changes in traits associated with subjective well-being, spirituality, and mindfulness. The questionnaires also included state measures based on meditation depth and both attention and consciousness using descriptive characteristics of subjective state.
Results
A repeated-measures analysis of variance showed statistically significant differences between the treatment and control groups for all parameters measured.
Discussion
According to Johnson,
The data suggest that a large portion of novice participants without any formal meditation training can have profound spiritual experiences with persistent enhancement of well-being.
According to Johnson, the Meditation Depth Questionnaire (MEDEQ) scores, which is based on the experiences of advanced meditation teachers and measures dhyāna, not insight, "appear to be comparable with advanced meditators reported in other studies."
The phenomology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI), which needs at least 60 participants to be statistically reliable, was used by Johnson "in a semiqualitative manner". According to Johnson comparison with phenomenological descriptions of "deep states" of meditation as reported by Gifford-May and Thompson added "additional evidence" of similarities with many dimensions of the PCI, and of similarities with D.T. Suzuki's descriptions of kensho, spontaneous realizations of oneness, or one’s true nature. Dennis Merzel himself reported an "intuitive sense from the training interaction that the majority of the group had experienced kensho."
The FFMQ also showed significant changes. Two of the four factors of this questionnaire, "act with awareness" and "observe," are viewed by proponents of mindfulness training as requiring an active and prolonged attentional training process. This increase was partially unexpected, because of the short duration of the method used in the current study.
Limitations
Johnson notes that the reported effects may also result from factors such as group effect, suggestibility, and/or simple expectation, and that the study may have limited generalizability due to the high level of education of the participants.
Conclusion
Johnson concludes that the Merzel's dialogue method is worthy of further investigation. According to Johnson, voice dialogue may be a quick method for inducing enlightement, which may be an "enormous benefit for the spiritual development of individuals". It may be more effective than "pointing out instruction" methods since therapeutic techniques are congenial to the more "self-oriented" modern Western mind. According to Johnson, the inducement of profound effects in a short time may also be beneficial for "clinical populations where prolonged meditation-based interventions may not be practical."