Out of the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram, Mary R. Bast, Ph.D. 
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised: January 18, 2012  

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"Somebody" First, then "Nobody"

The therapeutic issue in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis is how to "re-grow" a basic sense of self... The therapeutic issue in Buddhism is how to "see through" the illusion or construct of the self. Are the two therapeutic goals mutually exclusive, as they appear to be? Or from a wider perspective might they actually be compatible? The latter is the view I want to propose. Put very simply, you have to be somebody before you can be nobody (John H. Engler, "Becoming Somebody and Nobody: Psychoanalysis and Buddhism" in Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision).

When I first read Engler's essay I had an intellectual "aha." I'd been wrestling with some differences among people I'd interviewed about their experience of transformation. Some recalled a strengthening of their self-esteem, which could be seen as deepening their Enneagram trance instead of transforming themselves. But I was uncomfortable with that judgment. These people were clearly shifting to a new and necessary self-awareness and self-acceptance. 

A Two, for example, said "I was miserable, even thinking about how I could take my life. And realizing, 'Hey, I've got four children. I cannot do this, so that means get to a shrink!' I did, and that was a wonderful process, to have that affirmation. I came to realize, 'You're O.K. There's a reason to be miserable. Your marriage is terrible. But you're pretty great.' My parents were critical, not demonstrative. And my husband also cut me down all the time. No wonder I was miserable. Nobody in my lifetime had ever told me I was good, balanced, sensitive, caring. I think that was transforming." Clearly, this woman was describing becoming "somebody," and that somebody could be described in part as an Enneagram Two, with all the attendant gifts and ego traps. 

Another Two referred to "the reality of death in the context of war in Viet Nam" as one of several transforming experiences, later integrated "in a five-year spiritual mastery journey under the auspices of a spiritual teacher and guide." "For me," he said, "transformation is a function of what we choose to do with the major events and circumstances of our life. It involves de-structuring one's worldview or primary paradigms, living '40 years in the wilderness,' being open to whatever emerges, acting on clarity when it emerges." When asked how he's different as a consequence of these experiences, he said "My worldview is far more expansive. I take far greater 'risks.' I've let go of a lot of control needs, of rage, and most of my anger. I live much more in the present, am more closely bonded to those I love and care about. I'm partnered with someone on the path, and the relationship is predicated on health and respect for individuality." 

This latter description sounds much more like standing outside of ego, dropping away the Enneagram traps, in this case, of the Two. But is it better? Is this person somehow farther along the path? "Buddhist psychology and practice appear to... presuppose a more or less normal course of development and an intact or 'normal' ego," writes Engler. "Both a sense of self and no-self -- in that order -- seem to be necessary to realize that state (the Buddha) described as 'the end of suffering.'" So it makes sense to me that some of our transformational experiences will be preparing us to have a self before we can begin the transformation to no-self. And perhaps it's even an unnecessary and inappropriate judgment to think of this as sequential. My guess is that we go in and out of self and no-self cyclically, depending upon the particular aspect of self under scrutiny. 

I like the pronouncement of another reader who answered my question "How do you know when it's your true nature calling and not some ego-trip? How do you know when you're on the path?"   

"I don't know any of these things. They're all speculative metaphysical balderdash. I trust that whatever is happening is all I have to work with, no less, no more, no need to change it or to want it to be different. That is a statement of faith. I don't believe it's possible to be off the path."

I certainly hope it's not possible to be off the path!

For the Nine the quest involves figuring out where and how you begin to negate yourself. And it was the damnedest thing! To my horror, I discovered I had a very subtle One-ish voice I thought was a built-in Buddhist spiritual director ("What's the spiritually correct thing to do here?") when it was only another way to lose my self in favor of being the "good" Nine. In his inimical way Tom joked, "So, 'the Buddha made you do it?'" I had sought the Buddha voice to be freed from inner turmoil. I thought this was releasing me from my Nine's habits and assumptions; instead it was giving me yet another voice to remind me how to be a Nine, erase my self and merge with others' needs.

As Elmore Leonard wrote in Riding the Rap, "The personality and the ego scream, while the soul whispers." According to Condon the basic sensory strategy of Nines "is auditory and kinesthetic, a loop of talking to yourself and getting feelings." Well, I'm hearing the screams. They're telling me to be somebody. I wish I were better able to hear those whispers of the soul, the messages that lead me to no-self.