Pitfalls in Comparing Buddhist and Western Psychology

This essay has the purpose of sharpening psychology's self-understanding by reflecting it against the foil of the "other" of Buddhism as elucidated by what competent Japanese scholars, well versed in both Eastern and Western thinking, have written about the Buddhist conception of the psyche or mind, often contrasting it with Western psychology. Close examination shows, however, that such a comparison meets with serious difficulties because what is compared is not always really comparable or commensurable. It is precisely through the analysis of these difficulties that psychology is enabled to come to a clearer understanding of where it stands.