Kamalamani - Therapist and mentor in Bishopston, Bristol
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These reflections may be of interest if you wish to find out more about some aspects of the relationships (in my mind at least!) between Buddhism, meditation and counselling practices. If you wish to jump to a particular section the article includes the following bookmarks:
- the here and now
- the therapeutic relationship
- embodiment
- interconnectedness
- metta (universal loving kindness)
- ethics and the Buddhist precepts
- impermanence
Reflections on Buddhism, Meditation and Counselling
Kamalamani, February 2008
On this website I say that I draw upon my understanding and practice of meditation and Buddhism in my therapeutic work with clients. So I thought it might be useful to share some preliminary thoughts with those of you who are interested in how Buddhism, meditation and certain counselling and therapeutic approaches ‘coincide’ and entwine in my client work.
The Here and Now. The first thing that comes to mind is that being in the ‘here and now’ is common to both Buddhism and my personal approach to counselling (it’s also important in Gestalt therapy, for those of you who are familiar with that). Being as fully present each moment is central to how I understand and practice Buddhism - to the best of my current ability! Whilst I often forget to be fully present and become distracted, the notion of the ‘here and now’ is a guiding principle for me.
But why the emphasis upon the ‘here and now’? From the point of view of Buddhist teachings and from my own experience of life so far, we/I only have the present moment. The future is unknown, the past has been. This is not to say that we should disregard our experience of the past or our hopes and fears for the future; it’s just a case of being aware that we only really have the present in which to be/think/act. Perhaps it’s useful to notice our individual tendencies as to whether our thoughts and feelings are often past, present or future oriented, so that we can be aware of what that tells us about our thought and feeling patterns.
Of course, it’s also not that easy being in the ‘here and now’. The pushes and pulls of the average human, Golden Labrador like-mind means that we are inevitably drawn to past memories or speculating about future events. That’s a natural part of being human, particularly if we live a full life. Coming to counselling can be an opportunity to dwell more fully in the ‘here and now’ over time, rather than being pushed and pulled around by the past and future. It can create spaciousness and choice for the client (and counsellor) and that ‘here and nowness’ is witnessed by the counsellor. When I was training as a counsellor, I was very drawn to the notion of counselling/therapy as being, at times, with some clients, a ‘shared meditation’. Obviously this appealed to me as a meditating Buddhist. I was also drawn to it as it conveyed this sense of peace, space and reflection for the client. I’ve worked with several clients who come to counselling ‘to find some peace’ so I have realised over time, in my own experience, that the ‘here and now’ is beneficial for clients and for me. When I am working with clients, I am fully present as I am able to be, as I personally see ‘listening’ as listening with ears, eyes, heart, body, spirit and general energetic sense. In others words, picking up non verbal, verbal and more subtle, energetic, signals from clients and from myself in the work we do together.
I am also very aware of practising mindfulness in my work with clients and in my personal process work, which for me is also strongly linked to working in the here and now. Buddhism says a lot about the importance of being mindful in all that we do, if we wish to live a more contented, authentic, fulfilled and ethical life. In the past decade or so, mindfulness has become very popular in an applied therapeutic sense, for example, as practiced in the form of ‘mindfulness based cognitive behavioural therapy’, ‘mindfulness for stress reduction’ and other approaches. When I’m working with clients (and in other contexts), I aspire to be as mindful as I am able to be, as I feel that this creates conditions conducive for therapeutic work.
I would define mindfulness as engaging with what’s alive in your current experience. The meaning of the word implies having a recollected mind. In fact, I think it means mindfulness of heart, mind, body, spirit. Like a sort of alert relaxation. It feels important here to say that mindfulness is a natural state of being, not some weird, exalted spiritual state. When we’re relaxed and in an environment in which we are at ease, we are much more likely to be naturally mindful. When we are at work, with the phone ringing, emails piling up, unexpected visitors dropping in and a day full of back to back meetings, we may are likely (although not necessarily) to be less mindful, as there is a lot of information coming our way to process and assimilate.
This emphasis upon the ‘here and now’ and mindfulness might be contrary to what some of you expect to hear from a counsellor. Perhaps some of you have the perception that you would be asked to lie on a couch and tell me about your childhood, like the old and rather worn out cliché of psychoanalysis. I certainly won’t ask you to lie on a couch (my room’s got a comfy armchair though) I will be interested in the story of your life so far, or the bits you wish to share or you feel are relevant to your current process. I guess the difference with a ‘here and now’ approach is that I will be most interested in things from your past which affect you in the here and now, rather than starting from a review of the past itself, if that makes sense. Whilst we can’t change the past, we can change our relationship with key events of our past. So we can change how we relate and have related to painful past events, even though we can’t change history. We can change the story we tell ourselves about that history. And we can remember and celebrate what we did well in the past (and present!), something which we sometimes forget to do!
I personally find a ‘here and now’ approach ‘empowering’ from the clients’ point of view. You probably have at least an inkling of your more annoying habits and entrenched tendencies which hold you back, or wind up loved ones and workmates. You might not know how to manage them or what to do with them, but the chances are, you have at least a sense of what they are. So the ‘hear and now’ allows you bring those habits and tendencies, bringing them into the therapeutic relationship in an immediate sense.
The Therapeutic Relationship. So that brings me onto my second theme. In the work I do, the nature of the relationship between the counsellor and the client is central to the work. This reminds me of the notion of interconnectedness in Buddhism, more of which later. Why is this relationship central? Because the relationship can provide the space (the ‘here and now’) and permission (from the counsellor) for the client to be as they are, rather than how they think they should be, or could be, or might be soon. It can be quite a unique experience to allow this space, in therapy, of being, rather than doing. So often in our lives we are ‘in role’ as partner, wife, husband, Mum, Dad, daughter, son, friend, foe, carer, sister, brother, guardian, boss, employee, workmate, spiritual teacher etc. Being in role can get tiring when you don’t get enough space to just be who you currently are, over and above the sum total of your roles and responsibilities. This space in the therapeutic relationship can allow clients to ‘trust’ the relationship with the counsellor, which in turn allows them to get in touch with their experience, which is often lost amongst the busyness and roles of the every day. Gradually clients can get a sense of what’s ‘live’ and meaningful for them, in a creative and authentic way.
Sharing their thoughts, feelings and experiences of significant life events and less positive aspects of relationships in the past and present can offer the opportunity for reparative work, in the context of a positive therapeutic relationship, offering the chance to be witnessed and held. This can be a powerful context, in which healing can take place. This can free energy so that clients can make positive changes in their lives, for others it will be increasing awareness around a particular life event (maybe a bereavement) for others still, it will provide the space to realise that some of their thought patterns are no longer helpful and are limiting them in some way.
This thing about relationship reminds me of the analogy of a garden (apologies to those of you, who aren’t keen on gardening, bear with me...) Perhaps you could say that the relationship in therapy is like preparing the soil from which you and your life can blossom and grow. So the earth needs turning over, oxygen, feeding, nourishment. In the process, we get to know about our own ‘soil’; its colour, texture, smell and what will grow there. The role of the therapist is to allow you time in that garden, reassure you when the soil is a bit hard to dig (and maybe hold your tools whilst you drink your tea), and witness the quality of the soil you create and the flowers and produce you grow.
Embodiment. It seems important to introduce body awareness and our experience of being ‘embodied’ in writing this. Awareness of the body is a vital part of both practising Buddhism and working in the counselling relationship (and being a human being everyday of our lives!) The more I meditate, the more I realise that a deep sense of self awareness comes from my body, heart and mind. As we meditate, we integrate energies and this happens to the extent that we are aware of all our dimensions and not just from our neck upwards. Many people learn to meditate with the wish to calm their minds and feel a greater sense of peace of mind. This is a great starting point and I think the longer we meditate and the greater our ‘embodied’ sense in meditation, the greater we realise that calmness of mind is linked to calmness of body, sensations felt in the body, life that has been lived and which is sometimes remembered through the body.
Interestingly, in traditional Buddhism, the word used for mind is ‘citta’. This word doesn’t refer to mind as we would conventionally think of it as westerners, but is synonymous with both heart and mind. So it’s interesting that conceptions of mind in different cultures/traditions vary. Over recent centuries, western culture has prioritised and favoured rational, scientific thought (‘the rational man’ living in an ‘all things being equal world’ to borrow some terms from traditional economics). At times, this emphasis has been considerably detrimental to awareness and care of our embodied experiences. So this sense of embodiment is vital in both practising Buddhism and in the counselling relationship. Often clients communicate as clearly (or sometimes more clearly) through small body signals than the spoken word. Perhaps our bodies sometimes tell us what the mind finds it harder to access and communicate.
Interconnectedness. The previous gardening analogy reminds me of the Buddhist teaching of interconnectedness, my fourth theme. This teaching basically looks at the interconnectedness of human life; the links and connections and interdependence between us all, and all sentient life, which we need in order to survive. The garden also reminds me of the important Buddhist teaching of ‘conditioned co-production’, that all things, all phenomena arise in dependence upon conditions (soil, rain, seeds, some hard graft etc etc). The notion of ‘conditioned co-production’ links to counselling too, in my mind, but I’ll leave that one for another time.
So the teaching of interconnectedness is relevant to me in the work I do, and in particular, linked to the importance of the therapeutic relationship, for a number of reasons. Personally, interconnectedness reminds me that in being a human being, we are alone and at the same time, inextricably connected with others. At times, that can seem (and feel) confusing and contradictory. At difficult times, or at times when our connections with others are thin on the ground, we can feel isolated. This can be particularly true at certain points in life, for example, when we are depressed or recently bereaved or full of doubt and self questioning. Connection with others can feel too painful, too scary, or too much effort to bother to cultivate or receive.
Coming to counselling can help clients to realise that they are less isolated then they can think and that they can feel more connected in quite ordinary ways. We often create our own barriers and maintain unhelpful habits which keep others at bay. So for some clients in therapy (and for all of us in the way we live) becoming ‘more human’ and seeing the interconnectedness between themselves and others can be both painful and growthful. Perhaps one of the most difficult things for a human being to balance is the ability to be contented alone and contented with others and being equally contented with both states of being. The others dimension that Buddhism brings to this is the universal nature of joy, suffering, hope, fear. When we see that we’re not alone in our joy, suffering, hope, fear, it can bring comfort and a new sense of perspective and perhaps a stronger sense of being part of the human race and our very real interconnection with one another.
Metta (universal loving kindness). Leaving the garden, the other thing that is an essential part of the counselling relationship for me is a sense of ‘metta’. Metta is a really important aspect of Buddhism teachings and roughly translates as ‘universal loving kindness’ for all sentient life. It also puts me in mind of one of the ‘core conditions’ of Carl Rogers, (an eminent therapist worth looking up if you haven’t heard of him already); unconditional positive regard. The two have a similar flavour - connecting with our sense of compassion and care for ourselves, all that lives and our world. This sense of metta is central to my practice of life and counselling, as it puts me in touch with respect for human life and respect and care for the client in front of me. Working with this sense of metta also offers the warmth that clients can need to help them at the beginning of their therapeutic work, which can at times be daunting. It also reminds me of the need for metta for myself as a counsellor in the work I do and the need for a balanced approach to my life, so that I have the resources to do the work I do well.
Ethics. Speaking of which, Buddhist ethics and practising the ten precepts I took at ordination are very important to me in terms of how I work with clients. There is (quite rightly) much debate about ethics in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy; how to ensure the safety of both the client and counsellor, boundary issues in counselling work and issues around confidentiality. At the time of being ordained as a Buddhist, I took ten precepts (sort of ‘training principles’) as vows. These are expressed as abstaining from (on the left) and developing (on the right):
Abstaining from… Developing…
Taking life Loving kindness
Taking what is freely given Generosity
Sexual misconduct Stillness simplicity and contentment
False speech and telling lies Truthful speech
Harsh speech Kindly speech
Frivolous and senseless speech Meaningful speech
Slanderous speech Harmonious speech
Covetousness Tranquillity
Hatred Compassion
False views/ignorance Wisdom
What makes sense to me in my counselling work is to bear in mind the precepts as I work as well as in reflecting upon my work alone and in supervision. To my mind, ethical awareness isn’t a black and white process, so working ethically can be very subtle and therefore needs a lot of care and attention and the support of others to figure things out. Practising the precepts can also be very subtle. For example, the first precept, of abstaining from taking life is far more than about avoiding murdering people. It is as much as about the subtle ways in which I can ‘negate’ the energy of not listening to a client as fully as possible during a counselling session, because I am distracted. To me, this is an important ethical issue and goes far beyond what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Practising Buddhist ethics throw me back on my own behaviour and motivations. It is an ethics of intention, which means that as a Buddhist practitioner, I have to be as aware and as honest as possible in knowing my own motivations. Personally, I appreciate this as an ethical practice as it means I have to keep in touch with myself, my own strengths and weaknesses and my own path of growth and development. I respect the ‘code of ethics’ produced by bodies such as the BACP (see the link on this website). Personally, I also want to supplement adhering to that code with having a ‘live’ sense of my ethical awareness, knowing my own personal strengths and weaknesses.
Impermanence. Finally (and the more I write, the more I see areas of synergy between my practice of counselling and practice of Buddhism!) the whole teaching of impermanence is central to both my understanding of Buddhism, life and counselling. So Buddhism teaches that all things are impermanent, in a constant state of flux, birth - life - death. The last words of the Buddha are reported to have been “all conditioned things are impermanent, with mindfulness strive on”. Often the suffering in our lives (or my life, speaking for myself) is caused by living in a way that is ‘out of sync’ with this view, for example, living as if nothing will ever change. The more we can live in accordance with this ebb and flow of live, the more likely we are to be creative in our responses to more challenging life events. And the more we are likely to be in touch with the everyday joy in life (in the spirit of “kiss the joy as it flies”).
I also value bringing to mind the truth of impermanence as I work with clients. You are not ‘fixed’, I am not ‘fixed’, even though we can feel very ‘fixed’ as human beings, particularly if we have been told that things will never change, or that we’ll never be good enough to do x or y. Or if we are in the middle of a hellish, seemingly never ending bout of depression. The reason I work ‘integratively’ (drawing upon different theoretical counselling approaches) is that each clients works differently, needing different therapeutic support and input from the counsellor. Not only are we not ‘fixed’ entities, we can also be very different in cultural background, experience, class, gender, characteristics, likes and dislikes, religious/beliefs, sexual orientation etc etc. So working integratively allows me to be more fluid in working with a wide range of clients. Talking of ‘fixed’, I will also mention here that I work in a Humanistic way. This basically means that I have faith in the fact that we all know the answers to our own dilemmas and we’ve just become temporarily ‘stuck’ and forgotten the answers to our questions. Or perhaps we’re asking old, outdated questions!
And finally…
It feels to me that there is also a more expansive, positive side to ‘not knowing’, whether it’s the answers to our own questions and seemingly annoying habits, or the meaning of life! There is something about this ‘not knowing’ that reminds me of Buddhism and counselling. The more I see the flux of life, the less I feel I can be definite in my opinions. Having said that, the more I see the suffering we can create for ourselves and others, the more I (personally) wish to practice metta (loving kindness) and ethics in a very ordinary, everyday way to live a positive life. Perhaps it’s living with the mystery (and sometimes the jarring unexpectedness) of life and being engaged with and in awe of that mystery that is the ‘trick’ to living well? I don’t know.
What I do know is that there is an element of magic in the process of change and transformation of myself, others, world. How could it be otherwise? I sit here typing in February. In two or three months time, the world will be greener, full of blossom and (I hope!) more frequent blue skies. Nature itself and the cycle of life are pretty magical. What I find most magical is the reflexive awareness of human beings and the power we have to engage with and respond creatively to our own conditions in life.
Go back to the home page. Go to Kamalamani's writing page. Go to the spiritual counselling page. Go to spirituality links page.
- the here and now
- the therapeutic relationship
- embodiment
- interconnectedness
- metta (universal loving kindness)
- ethics and the Buddhist precepts
- impermanence
Reflections on Buddhism, Meditation and Counselling
Kamalamani, February 2008
On this website I say that I draw upon my understanding and practice of meditation and Buddhism in my therapeutic work with clients. So I thought it might be useful to share some preliminary thoughts with those of you who are interested in how Buddhism, meditation and certain counselling and therapeutic approaches ‘coincide’ and entwine in my client work.
The Here and Now. The first thing that comes to mind is that being in the ‘here and now’ is common to both Buddhism and my personal approach to counselling (it’s also important in Gestalt therapy, for those of you who are familiar with that). Being as fully present each moment is central to how I understand and practice Buddhism - to the best of my current ability! Whilst I often forget to be fully present and become distracted, the notion of the ‘here and now’ is a guiding principle for me.
But why the emphasis upon the ‘here and now’? From the point of view of Buddhist teachings and from my own experience of life so far, we/I only have the present moment. The future is unknown, the past has been. This is not to say that we should disregard our experience of the past or our hopes and fears for the future; it’s just a case of being aware that we only really have the present in which to be/think/act. Perhaps it’s useful to notice our individual tendencies as to whether our thoughts and feelings are often past, present or future oriented, so that we can be aware of what that tells us about our thought and feeling patterns.
Of course, it’s also not that easy being in the ‘here and now’. The pushes and pulls of the average human, Golden Labrador like-mind means that we are inevitably drawn to past memories or speculating about future events. That’s a natural part of being human, particularly if we live a full life. Coming to counselling can be an opportunity to dwell more fully in the ‘here and now’ over time, rather than being pushed and pulled around by the past and future. It can create spaciousness and choice for the client (and counsellor) and that ‘here and nowness’ is witnessed by the counsellor. When I was training as a counsellor, I was very drawn to the notion of counselling/therapy as being, at times, with some clients, a ‘shared meditation’. Obviously this appealed to me as a meditating Buddhist. I was also drawn to it as it conveyed this sense of peace, space and reflection for the client. I’ve worked with several clients who come to counselling ‘to find some peace’ so I have realised over time, in my own experience, that the ‘here and now’ is beneficial for clients and for me. When I am working with clients, I am fully present as I am able to be, as I personally see ‘listening’ as listening with ears, eyes, heart, body, spirit and general energetic sense. In others words, picking up non verbal, verbal and more subtle, energetic, signals from clients and from myself in the work we do together.
I am also very aware of practising mindfulness in my work with clients and in my personal process work, which for me is also strongly linked to working in the here and now. Buddhism says a lot about the importance of being mindful in all that we do, if we wish to live a more contented, authentic, fulfilled and ethical life. In the past decade or so, mindfulness has become very popular in an applied therapeutic sense, for example, as practiced in the form of ‘mindfulness based cognitive behavioural therapy’, ‘mindfulness for stress reduction’ and other approaches. When I’m working with clients (and in other contexts), I aspire to be as mindful as I am able to be, as I feel that this creates conditions conducive for therapeutic work.
I would define mindfulness as engaging with what’s alive in your current experience. The meaning of the word implies having a recollected mind. In fact, I think it means mindfulness of heart, mind, body, spirit. Like a sort of alert relaxation. It feels important here to say that mindfulness is a natural state of being, not some weird, exalted spiritual state. When we’re relaxed and in an environment in which we are at ease, we are much more likely to be naturally mindful. When we are at work, with the phone ringing, emails piling up, unexpected visitors dropping in and a day full of back to back meetings, we may are likely (although not necessarily) to be less mindful, as there is a lot of information coming our way to process and assimilate.
This emphasis upon the ‘here and now’ and mindfulness might be contrary to what some of you expect to hear from a counsellor. Perhaps some of you have the perception that you would be asked to lie on a couch and tell me about your childhood, like the old and rather worn out cliché of psychoanalysis. I certainly won’t ask you to lie on a couch (my room’s got a comfy armchair though) I will be interested in the story of your life so far, or the bits you wish to share or you feel are relevant to your current process. I guess the difference with a ‘here and now’ approach is that I will be most interested in things from your past which affect you in the here and now, rather than starting from a review of the past itself, if that makes sense. Whilst we can’t change the past, we can change our relationship with key events of our past. So we can change how we relate and have related to painful past events, even though we can’t change history. We can change the story we tell ourselves about that history. And we can remember and celebrate what we did well in the past (and present!), something which we sometimes forget to do!
I personally find a ‘here and now’ approach ‘empowering’ from the clients’ point of view. You probably have at least an inkling of your more annoying habits and entrenched tendencies which hold you back, or wind up loved ones and workmates. You might not know how to manage them or what to do with them, but the chances are, you have at least a sense of what they are. So the ‘hear and now’ allows you bring those habits and tendencies, bringing them into the therapeutic relationship in an immediate sense.
The Therapeutic Relationship. So that brings me onto my second theme. In the work I do, the nature of the relationship between the counsellor and the client is central to the work. This reminds me of the notion of interconnectedness in Buddhism, more of which later. Why is this relationship central? Because the relationship can provide the space (the ‘here and now’) and permission (from the counsellor) for the client to be as they are, rather than how they think they should be, or could be, or might be soon. It can be quite a unique experience to allow this space, in therapy, of being, rather than doing. So often in our lives we are ‘in role’ as partner, wife, husband, Mum, Dad, daughter, son, friend, foe, carer, sister, brother, guardian, boss, employee, workmate, spiritual teacher etc. Being in role can get tiring when you don’t get enough space to just be who you currently are, over and above the sum total of your roles and responsibilities. This space in the therapeutic relationship can allow clients to ‘trust’ the relationship with the counsellor, which in turn allows them to get in touch with their experience, which is often lost amongst the busyness and roles of the every day. Gradually clients can get a sense of what’s ‘live’ and meaningful for them, in a creative and authentic way.
Sharing their thoughts, feelings and experiences of significant life events and less positive aspects of relationships in the past and present can offer the opportunity for reparative work, in the context of a positive therapeutic relationship, offering the chance to be witnessed and held. This can be a powerful context, in which healing can take place. This can free energy so that clients can make positive changes in their lives, for others it will be increasing awareness around a particular life event (maybe a bereavement) for others still, it will provide the space to realise that some of their thought patterns are no longer helpful and are limiting them in some way.
This thing about relationship reminds me of the analogy of a garden (apologies to those of you, who aren’t keen on gardening, bear with me...) Perhaps you could say that the relationship in therapy is like preparing the soil from which you and your life can blossom and grow. So the earth needs turning over, oxygen, feeding, nourishment. In the process, we get to know about our own ‘soil’; its colour, texture, smell and what will grow there. The role of the therapist is to allow you time in that garden, reassure you when the soil is a bit hard to dig (and maybe hold your tools whilst you drink your tea), and witness the quality of the soil you create and the flowers and produce you grow.
Embodiment. It seems important to introduce body awareness and our experience of being ‘embodied’ in writing this. Awareness of the body is a vital part of both practising Buddhism and working in the counselling relationship (and being a human being everyday of our lives!) The more I meditate, the more I realise that a deep sense of self awareness comes from my body, heart and mind. As we meditate, we integrate energies and this happens to the extent that we are aware of all our dimensions and not just from our neck upwards. Many people learn to meditate with the wish to calm their minds and feel a greater sense of peace of mind. This is a great starting point and I think the longer we meditate and the greater our ‘embodied’ sense in meditation, the greater we realise that calmness of mind is linked to calmness of body, sensations felt in the body, life that has been lived and which is sometimes remembered through the body.
Interestingly, in traditional Buddhism, the word used for mind is ‘citta’. This word doesn’t refer to mind as we would conventionally think of it as westerners, but is synonymous with both heart and mind. So it’s interesting that conceptions of mind in different cultures/traditions vary. Over recent centuries, western culture has prioritised and favoured rational, scientific thought (‘the rational man’ living in an ‘all things being equal world’ to borrow some terms from traditional economics). At times, this emphasis has been considerably detrimental to awareness and care of our embodied experiences. So this sense of embodiment is vital in both practising Buddhism and in the counselling relationship. Often clients communicate as clearly (or sometimes more clearly) through small body signals than the spoken word. Perhaps our bodies sometimes tell us what the mind finds it harder to access and communicate.
Interconnectedness. The previous gardening analogy reminds me of the Buddhist teaching of interconnectedness, my fourth theme. This teaching basically looks at the interconnectedness of human life; the links and connections and interdependence between us all, and all sentient life, which we need in order to survive. The garden also reminds me of the important Buddhist teaching of ‘conditioned co-production’, that all things, all phenomena arise in dependence upon conditions (soil, rain, seeds, some hard graft etc etc). The notion of ‘conditioned co-production’ links to counselling too, in my mind, but I’ll leave that one for another time.
So the teaching of interconnectedness is relevant to me in the work I do, and in particular, linked to the importance of the therapeutic relationship, for a number of reasons. Personally, interconnectedness reminds me that in being a human being, we are alone and at the same time, inextricably connected with others. At times, that can seem (and feel) confusing and contradictory. At difficult times, or at times when our connections with others are thin on the ground, we can feel isolated. This can be particularly true at certain points in life, for example, when we are depressed or recently bereaved or full of doubt and self questioning. Connection with others can feel too painful, too scary, or too much effort to bother to cultivate or receive.
Coming to counselling can help clients to realise that they are less isolated then they can think and that they can feel more connected in quite ordinary ways. We often create our own barriers and maintain unhelpful habits which keep others at bay. So for some clients in therapy (and for all of us in the way we live) becoming ‘more human’ and seeing the interconnectedness between themselves and others can be both painful and growthful. Perhaps one of the most difficult things for a human being to balance is the ability to be contented alone and contented with others and being equally contented with both states of being. The others dimension that Buddhism brings to this is the universal nature of joy, suffering, hope, fear. When we see that we’re not alone in our joy, suffering, hope, fear, it can bring comfort and a new sense of perspective and perhaps a stronger sense of being part of the human race and our very real interconnection with one another.
Metta (universal loving kindness). Leaving the garden, the other thing that is an essential part of the counselling relationship for me is a sense of ‘metta’. Metta is a really important aspect of Buddhism teachings and roughly translates as ‘universal loving kindness’ for all sentient life. It also puts me in mind of one of the ‘core conditions’ of Carl Rogers, (an eminent therapist worth looking up if you haven’t heard of him already); unconditional positive regard. The two have a similar flavour - connecting with our sense of compassion and care for ourselves, all that lives and our world. This sense of metta is central to my practice of life and counselling, as it puts me in touch with respect for human life and respect and care for the client in front of me. Working with this sense of metta also offers the warmth that clients can need to help them at the beginning of their therapeutic work, which can at times be daunting. It also reminds me of the need for metta for myself as a counsellor in the work I do and the need for a balanced approach to my life, so that I have the resources to do the work I do well.
Ethics. Speaking of which, Buddhist ethics and practising the ten precepts I took at ordination are very important to me in terms of how I work with clients. There is (quite rightly) much debate about ethics in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy; how to ensure the safety of both the client and counsellor, boundary issues in counselling work and issues around confidentiality. At the time of being ordained as a Buddhist, I took ten precepts (sort of ‘training principles’) as vows. These are expressed as abstaining from (on the left) and developing (on the right):
Abstaining from… Developing…
Taking life Loving kindness
Taking what is freely given Generosity
Sexual misconduct Stillness simplicity and contentment
False speech and telling lies Truthful speech
Harsh speech Kindly speech
Frivolous and senseless speech Meaningful speech
Slanderous speech Harmonious speech
Covetousness Tranquillity
Hatred Compassion
False views/ignorance Wisdom
What makes sense to me in my counselling work is to bear in mind the precepts as I work as well as in reflecting upon my work alone and in supervision. To my mind, ethical awareness isn’t a black and white process, so working ethically can be very subtle and therefore needs a lot of care and attention and the support of others to figure things out. Practising the precepts can also be very subtle. For example, the first precept, of abstaining from taking life is far more than about avoiding murdering people. It is as much as about the subtle ways in which I can ‘negate’ the energy of not listening to a client as fully as possible during a counselling session, because I am distracted. To me, this is an important ethical issue and goes far beyond what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Practising Buddhist ethics throw me back on my own behaviour and motivations. It is an ethics of intention, which means that as a Buddhist practitioner, I have to be as aware and as honest as possible in knowing my own motivations. Personally, I appreciate this as an ethical practice as it means I have to keep in touch with myself, my own strengths and weaknesses and my own path of growth and development. I respect the ‘code of ethics’ produced by bodies such as the BACP (see the link on this website). Personally, I also want to supplement adhering to that code with having a ‘live’ sense of my ethical awareness, knowing my own personal strengths and weaknesses.
Impermanence. Finally (and the more I write, the more I see areas of synergy between my practice of counselling and practice of Buddhism!) the whole teaching of impermanence is central to both my understanding of Buddhism, life and counselling. So Buddhism teaches that all things are impermanent, in a constant state of flux, birth - life - death. The last words of the Buddha are reported to have been “all conditioned things are impermanent, with mindfulness strive on”. Often the suffering in our lives (or my life, speaking for myself) is caused by living in a way that is ‘out of sync’ with this view, for example, living as if nothing will ever change. The more we can live in accordance with this ebb and flow of live, the more likely we are to be creative in our responses to more challenging life events. And the more we are likely to be in touch with the everyday joy in life (in the spirit of “kiss the joy as it flies”).
I also value bringing to mind the truth of impermanence as I work with clients. You are not ‘fixed’, I am not ‘fixed’, even though we can feel very ‘fixed’ as human beings, particularly if we have been told that things will never change, or that we’ll never be good enough to do x or y. Or if we are in the middle of a hellish, seemingly never ending bout of depression. The reason I work ‘integratively’ (drawing upon different theoretical counselling approaches) is that each clients works differently, needing different therapeutic support and input from the counsellor. Not only are we not ‘fixed’ entities, we can also be very different in cultural background, experience, class, gender, characteristics, likes and dislikes, religious/beliefs, sexual orientation etc etc. So working integratively allows me to be more fluid in working with a wide range of clients. Talking of ‘fixed’, I will also mention here that I work in a Humanistic way. This basically means that I have faith in the fact that we all know the answers to our own dilemmas and we’ve just become temporarily ‘stuck’ and forgotten the answers to our questions. Or perhaps we’re asking old, outdated questions!
And finally…
It feels to me that there is also a more expansive, positive side to ‘not knowing’, whether it’s the answers to our own questions and seemingly annoying habits, or the meaning of life! There is something about this ‘not knowing’ that reminds me of Buddhism and counselling. The more I see the flux of life, the less I feel I can be definite in my opinions. Having said that, the more I see the suffering we can create for ourselves and others, the more I (personally) wish to practice metta (loving kindness) and ethics in a very ordinary, everyday way to live a positive life. Perhaps it’s living with the mystery (and sometimes the jarring unexpectedness) of life and being engaged with and in awe of that mystery that is the ‘trick’ to living well? I don’t know.
What I do know is that there is an element of magic in the process of change and transformation of myself, others, world. How could it be otherwise? I sit here typing in February. In two or three months time, the world will be greener, full of blossom and (I hope!) more frequent blue skies. Nature itself and the cycle of life are pretty magical. What I find most magical is the reflexive awareness of human beings and the power we have to engage with and respond creatively to our own conditions in life.
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