Buddha… As A Life Coach?

Insights from Buddha’s Last Teaching

“Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves and do not rely on external help. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Seek salvation alone in the truth. Look not for assistance to anyone besides yourself! ….

Those who can become lamps unto themselves… are seeking their salvation in the truth alone, and shall not find it [anywhere else]

If they persist, it is they who will reach the very topmost heights!”

As one’s first reading of this advice, written and preserved for us in The Darmapada is can strongly affirm that we need not rely on anyone in our pursuit for spiritual truth! At first, this admonition and advice appears to negate or at least discourage going to anyone for guidance… However, that conclusion is hasty. It remains true only if you are abdicating your personal responsibility to be aware of your choices and that every action has consequences, etc. If we want to accuse or blame someone, in truth we cannot. We chose to follow that advice or counseling, and we cannot hold others accountable for our own actions.

Here psychotherapists, pastoral counselors, psychiatrists, and coaches can all agree: our primary responsibility in the dispensing of ideas, theories, explanations, etc., is to assist any person/client/patient to more quickly arrive at their own best answers and to garner their own best insights that will clarify and then accelerate their problem solving ability!

Buddha’s advice echo’s the thoughts of Emerson when he wrote his essay on Self Reliance. In those pages, Emerson, very possibly inspired by his reading of the Buddhist wisdom, we are given many ideas to ponder… including these:

“Its the not the Destination, It’s the journey.”

Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

From my spiritual life coaching perspective, I completely agree that no coach should provide someone with the answers they seek! The individual soul, who has personally interpreted all the events, experiences and episodes that are contained within their own lives, cannot adopt or substitute the advice or counsel of someone else- no matter how wise it seems to be! The pursuit of truth has to be singular, if it also desires to be genuine and authentic.

Having been a counselor, a clergyman, a spiritual director, and now a spiritual life coach, I can confidently say that while the roles can differ, especially when it comes to be directive and having been given some culturally derived and perceived authority by the person seeking advice and counsel, I can say that coaching is the least directive way to assist people in their personal search. Yet coaching is far from a passive art form.

Being no-directive however, does not mean being laid back, uncreative, non-challenging or being without a willingness to question a clients assumptions, conclusions, or course of action. Because coaching is collaborative, and that coaching sessions are more based on current dialogue than past patterns or preset expectations, the coach can more actively seek our or elicit responses to questions and concerns that he/she sees that could be barriers or obstacles to their chosen goals or results. Because of this, the dynamics of the dialogue reign supreme; it is from the openness, the willingness, and the motivation that the client expresses that will best determine there will be a positive outcome.

In the words of the Buddha, when it is well done, coaching encourages the ability for each person to become a lamp unto themselves; Coaching gives them skills, insights and tools to walk down a more illumined path that can more clearly lead them to their own inner truths.

 

PS; If you like this idea, about the possible link between spiritual teaches and coaching, please let me know! I will not be posting next week, as I am a co-host of the Tibetan Cultural Tour in Charleston… The central activity will be the construction and dissolution of a mandala from the Tibetan wisdom tradition…

On my interfaithservicesofthelowcountry.com website, I will adding articles on the meaning of mandalas… Thanks!