everal years ago Hoffer and Osmond, two Canadian orthomolecular psychiatrists (shrinks who tend to see most serious psychiatric patients as people who suffer from altered brain chemistry), developed a written test designed to distinguish schizophrenics from non-schizophrenics. I think its called the Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test, or something like that. The test if pretty cool because it can also be used by people suffering from neuroses, depression, or anxiety. The test can be self-administered, and it can be taken while referring either to the present moment or the past. For example, a person suffering from extreme anxiety can take the test, and answer the questions as they apply in the present. As time goes by, s/he can take the test again and again and see if his/her score is rising or falling (whether they are improving or getting worse). A "normal" person will have a very low score, perhaps 25. A severely depressed or anxious person will have a higher score, perhaps 40 or 45. Schizophrenics will have very high scores, which indicate how badly their perceptions of reality are skewed. Schizophrenics who score high, perhaps, 110, and then receive medications, can take the test repeatedly and their docs can watch the scores fall as the meds help bring them back to a more "normal" way of perceiving reality.
I've often thought that a similar test could be devised that could be used to self-test one's clarity regarding existential issues. This is essentially the way the Rinzai school of Zen uses koans. After ZM Seung Sahn had his big breakthrough in understanding, he went to see ZM Ko Bong. Ko Bong began asking him koans to see how clear he was. ZMSS effortlessly answered all of ZMKB's questions until he encountered one question that he couldn't answer to ZMKB's satisfaction. Supposedly they sat face to face for a long time without speaking before SS finally saw-through the koan. SS was the first person that KB sanctioned as a ZM, and SS was only 22 years old at the time. After SS spent some time as a chaplain in the Korean army, he returned to KB's monastery. KB took one look at SS, and said "You have Army eyes! You need to be silent for a year."
Reading the dialogues of some of the early Chan Masters from China is interesting because, like the HO test, one can see if one's understanding is changing over time. Dialogues that are utterly opaque when first encountered, gradually become more and more transparent as one spends more and more time silently contemplating and interacting with "what is."
I've often thought that a similar test could be devised that could be used to self-test one's clarity regarding existential issues. This is essentially the way the Rinzai school of Zen uses koans. After ZM Seung Sahn had his big breakthrough in understanding, he went to see ZM Ko Bong. Ko Bong began asking him koans to see how clear he was. ZMSS effortlessly answered all of ZMKB's questions until he encountered one question that he couldn't answer to ZMKB's satisfaction. Supposedly they sat face to face for a long time without speaking before SS finally saw-through the koan. SS was the first person that KB sanctioned as a ZM, and SS was only 22 years old at the time. After SS spent some time as a chaplain in the Korean army, he returned to KB's monastery. KB took one look at SS, and said "You have Army eyes! You need to be silent for a year."
Reading the dialogues of some of the early Chan Masters from China is interesting because, like the HO test, one can see if one's understanding is changing over time. Dialogues that are utterly opaque when first encountered, gradually become more and more transparent as one spends more and more time silently contemplating and interacting with "what is."
