Buddhism likens its psychological techniques to a raft that is used to cross a river, the river being dukkha. The raft is merely a tool to be used to gain the further shore and then to be abandoned, its task fulfilled. Likewise, the conceptual apparatus used by Buddhism to effect change should not be clung to after their task is fulfilled. (One may ask whether the task of positive mental transformation is ever at an end and schools such as Zen do posit an ongoing process). These techniques are dubbed ‘skilful means’ and are the conceptual toolkit of Buddhist philosophy and psychology. The means by which change is brought about differs from person to person, society to society and time to time giving rise to the variety of practices one finds in Buddhism. At a deeper level, however, the very mental apparatus that is both utilised and worked upon is likewise to be seen as a means and not an end in itself.

This idea is reflected in the lines of argument pursued through the present work. In Chapter 1, neurological material on the nonconscious was introduced in contrast to previous conceptions of the unconscious, which had focused on the element of our mental life which lies below consciousness as either an external phenomena or as an essentially alien and unknowable part of mental functioning. By contrast, the conceptualisation of the nonconscious is of a machine, a series of subroutines, essentially neutral and mechanical in nature.