Shambhala The Sacred Path of the Warrior
by Chogyam Trungpa

This book was the first one I read from coaches’ bookshelf and now, when I open it to flip through the pages I feel drawn to read it again as it appears in a different way than I can remember. It is a really rich source that originates from an ancient path of the warriors that is not bound by any single tradition. What is meant by warriorship is the tradition of human bravery. To be brave essentially means not to be afraid of one-self. Examples of traditions that have embodied such bravery can be found in north and south American Indians, Japanese samurais, king Arthur, king David and others.  The Shambhala vision is opposite to selfishness and aims to establish an enlightened society. Something that I feel goes hand in hand with what coaching is doing and what is my personal intentions. The premise is that in order to develop such society each of us need to discover what inherently we have to offer the world bringing what is of value to help ourselves and others to uplift their experience.

The book introduces a duality between the Great Eastern Sun and the Setting Sun. Great Eastern Sun vision is based on appreciation and taking care of ourselves and our surroundings – the world we live in while the Setting Sun vision is based on fear. The darkness that come with the setting sun and the fear is characterized by the cocoon – a set of familiar patterns that keeps us seemingly safe from experiencing our own fear and imprisoned in the familiarity of it where no true novelty is possible, we are split off the reality. It is described that through renunciation – a process of removing barriers between one’s self and others – and daring – a process of taking a leap – one can move from the setting sun vision into the Great Eastern Sun. I find it a great description of the developmental path and the movement towards enlightenment that can be applied as a map in the work with clients as well. The concept of Cocoon can be used to become aware of one’s safe locked-in identity and the ways we keep ourselves from meeting novelty. For development to take place, one needs to take a leap beyond those patterns.

I find it very interesting how this book addresses loneliness – something that as I mentioned in the previous review is of resonance for me. “The combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others” I think I can really feel that dance that is being described there. It is interesting though how this fits with what Wilber says about boundaries and the unity – this keeps being an open inquiry for me.

The next great take away was the invitation to awaken the relationship with discipline. It is said that one has to conquer the feeling of something being fundamentally wrong with one’s human nature and that the discipline is needed to correct the behavior. The awakened way of relating to discipline is as an expression of one’s basic goodness rather than external pressure to “fix” ones-self.  Letting go of that contracted way of relating to discipline, which seems to be fear and inner critic driven is something that needs to be done in order to proclaim one’s goodness and basic sanity for the benefit to others. This really speaks to my experience of the lockdown situation. I have found this natural discipline that I can really enjoy and that was built out of my own being rather than an external pressure. I have learned to relax in it and I am wondering how I can take it with me as some of the unwanted pressures return in my life. I believe this can be a central topic for many people as the way we are being cultured in today’s society is rarely supportive of acceptance and relaxation in the way one is being in the world.

In the chapter called Sacred World the author talks about connection to nature. It is said that as human beings lose that connection what also gets lost is the ability to nurture our environment and “rule the world”. A concept of Drala is used that fundamentally means connecting the wisdom of one’s own being with the power of the things as they are – that enables discovering magic in everything. Therefore, healing of society goes hand in hand with healing of each person’s individual connection to the phenomenal world. To take care of the world might seem as predominantly Q4 type of issue, however, if one has not overcome their own confusion and aggression in their state of mind then the efforts might only contribute to the global problem. Therefore, individual development is crucial for a global change and is said to be addressed before addressing the larger issue of how to help the world. The journey is characterized by discovering what is intrinsically good about human existence and how to share that basic nature of goodness with others.

The last thing I will mention is the incredibly powerful and for me impactful concept and image of The Universal Monarch. The chapter talks about the way of actualizing warriorship by emulation – going through stages of training and reflecting and examining the consequences – sometimes finding development and sometimes finding that one has missed the point. The fruition of warriorship is the experience of primordial goodness, egolessness or no reference point – interchangeably.  That means not being afraid of space. It is said that in the setting-sun world people are afraid of space, of the truth of nonreference point, of being vulnerable. In that world people believe absolutely in their reference points. They work to maintain the cocoon as a suit or an armor to protect themselves. There is fear that if they didn’t shield and hide themselves they might get “eaten”. But who are they really protecting themselves from? Space. Here the invitation for a warrior is to expose the open flesh and the open wound unconditionally – being completely raw and exposed with one’s husband, wife, banker or any person one meets. It is said that out of that comes the birth of The Universal Monarch – someone raw and sensitive, willing to open their heart to others. That is how you can become the ruler of your world. To rule the universe is to expose your heart completely. At that point there is no doubt about basic goodness or about one’s self. There is no room for question like “am I too naked?”.

Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change by Ann Weiser Cornell

This book was a great deeper dive in focusing after having read the Gene Gendlin’s book “Focusing”. This was illustrative and provided much detail to the process and the application. The central concept of focusing and as described in the book “the essence of change” is the felt sense. It is a fresh, immediate here and now experience that is characterized by the organism forming the next step. The felt sense is the experience of that formation process. It is something bodily experienced in the present moment that will appear hard to describe as words might seem insufficient. It will often require metaphorical language for expression. In the research by Gendlin and Hendricks it was found that the clients that attended directly to this process of experiencing were to be significantly more successful in therapy than those that did not.

The formation of felt sense itself is already a shift and it might be the most crucial one. If one is able to notice that process and be with it what happens is the making of “it”, which implies that the relationship with the situational phenomenon has already shifted. There is an “it” that I can relate to rather than this unknown something that I am had by. That enables the client to be curious and compassionate towards their inner experience. Which in turn enables the client to gain a new perspective of the past event. The event does not change, but the way one experiences it can. Getting a felt sense of the whole situation is the first step that can be sufficient in itself for facilitating that shift.  The way the practitioner is relating to the client can mirror and support the client’s inner relationship of openness, curiosity and sensing.  And that again has an enabling effect for the client to experience the change in a self-generative and corrective manner.

Shifts are like steps of change. While measurable changes can take a while to be noticed, shifts can happen in short amount of time. Cognitively the client might not notice that anything is different, however, over time a number of small shifts can add up to a substantial change. Shifts can be felt and observed, however, insight or change in behavior might come later. There are observable indicators that characterize a shift such as deeper breathing, sigh, shoulders dropping etc. In coaching I feel like the major moments to watch for shifts happening are when making distinctions and dealing with breakdowns. Being sensitive to these shifts occurring enables the coach to be attuned with the client and respond appropriately.

Implying forward is another useful concept. It refers to the “implied” next step of the process. Being sensitive to the implying forward is like listening to what’s next. If someone performs a jump what is implied is the landing and your body knows it, it makes the predictions for it and if that does not happen, there is a sense of discomfort – something not being right. When what is implied happens, that is called “carrying forward”.  In coaching we want to listen to what is implied and breakdowns often might happen when that does not happen. To resolve a breakdown, we want to make distinctions and find ways to enable carrying forward.

The subtle body or where do we feel the felt sense and how to talk about it? In focusing and also often in coaching we understand body not merely as a physiological and non-conscious, but as the interactive process of being alive, experienced from the inside. The body is not separate from the mind. The Centaur how Wilber would describe it in the “No Boundary” book. The way Levine has put this across here is “The way we know we’re alive is rooted in our capacity to feel, to our depths, the physical reality of aliveness embedded within our bodily sensations – through direct experience. This, in short, is embodiment.” Clients often might have a different concept of body and introducing this new way of thinking about it could be useful at times, however, in some cases getting to felt sense without ever mentioning body can be the better way to go. As the word “body” can be misunderstood and also touch on trauma that in turn can enable protective mechanisms to block access to any further exploration.  For inviting felt sense without using the word “body” the following phrases can be helpful: “notice how that feels right now”, “notice what comes about that”, “take some time to notice the whole way this sits in you now”, “take some time to get the whole feel of that”.

What to do if the client reports feeling nothing? No-one really feels nothing. What might be happening is that they are feeling something, but not counting it in. There might be a feeling of numbness or blankness, maybe a sense of absence of something expected. However, all of these are somethings.  Sometimes we can have a certain feeling for a long time and become so accustomed to it that we do not recognize it as a body feeling. Another way in is to ask if the stomach feels “relaxed” or “peaceful”. If it does – that is an experience. If it does not – that too is something to be explored. Those experiences might not be felt senses, however, they will provide the access to the body feeling dimension which in turn will enable getting a felt sense.