All of these are action steps.  By definition, action steps take you away from where you are.  Nothing wrong with this, except when the answer to a particular situation lies right where you are here and now.  Which is usually the case.

An effective alternative to  “movement” coaching is based on the TIbetan meditation “Stay”.

It takes courage and stamina to stay where you are when every nerve and instinct is telling you to move, change something, look outside yourself for an answer or in some way move away from discomfort.

Only by being with the dis-ease and  only by allowing it to stay around long enough can you watch it fall away.  When you have the experience of seeing that the discomfort is transient and not a permanent state; when you realize that it will subside by and of itself if you don’t distract yourself from it  – it loses its power over you.

Sometimes the appropriate action to take is that of no-action. Sometimes the thing to do is nothing.

As Pema Chodron says “This perfect moment is the best teacher.  And lucky for you it’s right here with you all the time.”

So how can you be coached to do nothing?  Simple. Think of a metaphor of repetition.  Whatever works for you.

Buddhists use the metaphor of dragging an ox along a path.  The ox doesn’t want to go to market or to work.  He wants to meander off into the sweet grasses and weeds at the side of the path.  His owner keeps pulling him back onto the path over and over and over again.

It’s debatable whether the ox learns to stay on the path or whether he just tires himself out. or gives up.

It doesn’t matter.  What is true is that the paradox of “Staying” can move you forward, doing nothing can produce  possibility.

This is not suffering. This is just pain. Suffering has a dimension beyond pain.

We label things as problems and react. When we identify problems in our lives and react to them, we generally create suffering.

The cause of this suffering is that we insist on forming permanent attachments to things which are not, by nature, permanent.

To understand this better, try to come up with one thing you have today that you can be absolutely sure you will have tomorrow.

Not your job. You could be fired or your company could lay you off.

Not your health. You could find out tomorrow you have cancer.

Not your family. Your spouse could divorce you; your kids could move away.

Not your house. It could be lost to fire, flood or weather.

Yet, these may be the most important things in your life today.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t cherish and appreciate the people and things that are precious to you? Far from it. We all gravitate towards pleasure and comfort and we all want nice things. Part of the intrinsic nature of being human is that we want good things to last and bad things to go away.

So, to acknowledge that all things fade and pass away in time doesn’t mean that you’ll never have great pleasure in life and that you’re doomed to be unhappy. But the inescapable fact is that everything, the good and the bad, goes away over time.

Nothing is permanent and everything is transitory. No feeling is ever final. It’s just that we don’t act as if this is the case. We live as if certain things are promised or owed to us. Then we’re surprised and hurt when life does what it does and these things are taken from us. We end up with something other than what we think we signed up for.

The obvious solution to this dilemma is to drop the attachments to what we already have and what we want and to accept our lack of control over the realities of life.

This is one of the more helpful little nuggets of advice a businessperson can take away from Buddhism. It seems counterintuitive, but in fact it’s perfectly logical when you think about it.

When I suggested to a CEO recently that his employees would be better served if they lost attachment to the outcome of their work he had a typical reaction.

Was I nuts? Where would their motivation come from? How could he suggest that they not work towards goals? Was I seriously suggesting that they should just stop trying?

But of course I wasn’t suggesting that they not try an do their absolute best to achieve a desired outcome.. They should know what they want and work as hard as they possibly could to get it with the knowledge that they didn’t have control over the outcome. So if things didn’t turn out they way they expecte they’d at least have the satisfaction of a job well done.

The idea of lack of control was another stumbling block for our CEO.

Wasn’t it true, I asked him, that he didn’t really have control over the outcomes of any of his projects anyway? He denied this. But he was open-minded and willing to go a little further down this road. And I had had too long a run as a business person myself not to know that deals sometimes go sour for the flimsiest of reasons.

“Haven’t you ever had a deal just crash and burn”, I asked?

“Sure” , he said.

“Why did you do that”, I asked?

“I had nothing to do with it,” he responded” the other guy got bought out by”… then he stopped and caught himself with a smile.

Okay, so there was one time he hadn’t had control over the outcome. And if he could find one example – then there were more.

In fact, unless you have 100% control over every detail which may affect your project including the weather, the economy, the exchange rate, not to mention the health, life and death of all participants – the outcome is never secure.

Our CEO then volunteered that his staff had been devastated when several months of hard work had gone down the tubes. I could sympathize. It’s hard to come back from a blow like that. It’s tough to have to walk into the office the next day and start all over.

“But what if”, I suggested, “your staff had still worked themselves to the bone and done all they possibly could to achieve their desired outcome with the knowledge that it may or may not happen?

What if they would have gotten intrinsic satisfaction from a job well done as they went along? What if they would have celebrated the quality of their work, the camaraderie, the small triumphs of teamwork and ingenuity along the way?”

He thought about this and nodded slowly.

“Sure, he said “if the outcome would have been successful that would have been gravy. But all they were focusing on was outcome, outcome, outcome – not the process of doing.

So when the outcome was whipped away from them they had nothing to take away from the experience but heartache”.

Loosening our death grip on “the way things should be.” is not surrendering to fatalism. Acknowledging that what we desperately want to have happen may not happen is not giving up.

We influence the future day by day, minute by minute by our present actions. We take productive action to move towards our purpose knowing that there’s no guarantee we will get there.

We do the very best we can. It’s all we can ask of ourselves and others.

1. It’s way bigger than a breadbox and it’s in your visual field not between your ears.
2. It presents no problems only opportunities for action.
3. It has what you need when you need it.
4. It doesn’t require anything of you except your presence.
5. You can’t lose it.
6. You can’t fight it.
7. Everybody’s got one.
8. It’s never right or wrong.
9. It supports you whether you like it or not.




10. It’s right there under your nose!

It’s a tough sell to try to convince a businessperson that he or she might be better off knowing less; an even tougher task to get them to try knowing nothing for an hour or two.

After all they got where they are by acquiring knowledge – knowledge of their industry, the politics, the corporate structure, who to listen to and who to mistrust. Without their knowledge they’re vulnerable. They’re on a foggy moor without any discernible landmarks or up a creek without a paddle – drifting wherever the current takes them.

And that’s kind of the point.

A Buddhist koan reminds us that “not knowing is most intimate.”

What does this mean?

Let’s say you’re on a plane and suddenly the lights go out and the cabin fills with smoke. You realize you don’t know where the exit is. Suddenly, someone grabs your elbow and says “Quick, I know where the emergency exit is.” You’d be an idiot to shrug him off and tell him that you prefer not to know, thank you very much. You’ll just find your own way out. That kind of knowing is useful and practical.

But let’s flash back to when you got on the plane. If you’re nervous about flying you may have sized up the people around you. Maybe you dismissed the skinny kid with the headphones on as being useless in an emergency; you discounted the older guy already asleep with his mouth open. On the other hand, you got a good feeling about the guy in the suit with the briefcase. You formed opinions about all three based on your belief systems. Are you sure, now, that you know which one just grabbed your arm and offered to save your life? It’s this kind of “knowing”, the kind that formed those belief systems and that you mistakenly rely on as Reality, that we’re talking about.

The kind of knowing that his koan refers to is not the kind of knowing where you acquire a learned skill. No-one would suggest that not knowing how to drive a car is a good thing if you’re planning on getting behind the wheel and jumping on the freeway.

On the other hand, if, after passing your driver’s test, you decide that you really know how to drive better than most, that opens the door to judgment and comparison with others. Judgment and comparison are the opposite of intimacy. They also remove you from Reality, so that you’re acting on what’s in your head at any given time, rather than what you see in front of you.

The word “decision” comes from the Latin. It means to cut off at the root. That’s also what we do when we form opinions. We cut off all other options. Our experience and opinions and expectations grow, calcify is actually a better word, into belief systems.

Sometimes this can come in very handy. When we create a belief system we’re actually writing shorthand for our brain. We simply don’t have time to size up every situation and formulate an action plan on the spot so we carry belief systems with us for handy reference so that we can use them as a basis for action.

But belief systems can also be dangerous because they can close us off to possibility and serendipity. We’re not just writing shorthand, we’re also writing code for our computer of a brain. Like a computer, our brain will continue to use the same code over and over, without reference to what else is going on in the world, until we re-write it.

When you believe you know something, you point yourself in a particular direction. If you’re facing in that direction you can’t see behind you and you can’t see to either side of you – unless you turn to take in another perspective. Your reality therefore becomes what’s in front of you.

Why narrow your field of vision?

When you believe you “know” you also miss the present. Knowing is a static state. It’s rooted in the past and is closed – not open. Not knowing is a state of openness. You look around and take in all information without pre- judgment or labeling. You still process it into a plan of action. But you realize that maybe on another day with different circumstances your actions may have been different.

If you’re the expert and you have information and experience to share then, ok, be the expert. But also be aware how that status affects you and others. There is a subject/object relationship between you and the non-expert. There is a distance and a delineation of roles.

Knowing is exclusive. Not knowing is inclusive.

So how could you re-write your code of knowing?

How many times have you gone into a meeting with a preconception of who’s going to contribute fresh ideas and who’s going to sit and nod quietly? What if your expectations were a self-fulfilling prophesy? What if the quiet guy had great ideas but was afraid to speak out? No-one ever gave him an opening to speak because everybody “knew” he was a dud. What if you left your expectations at the door and went into the meeting inviting input from all? You would bring possibility into the room with you; a fine thing to have on hand at any business meeting.

What if you didn’t know the answer to a question; the solution to a problem; the right way to do things? Wouldn’t that invite collaboration and creativity? Wouldn’t it leave room for the unexpected to make an appearance?

What if you took an hour or two out of your day and didn’t know? How about if you dropped your thoughts, biases and agendas and just looked and listened? But don’t think about what you’re seeing and hearing; just see and hear. You might be surprised at what you notice.

See without thinking.

Look without judging.

Know without knowing.

Not knowing is most intimate.

There is a practice in Zen Buddhism known as zazen. It’s commonly misconstrued as a meditation but in fact it isn’t. True, if you came upon someone practicing zazen you’d either think they were meditating or they had a fondness for non-prescription medication.

Whereas meditation is about achieving some kind of a relaxed state and withdrawing temporarily from the world – zazen is about staying in the world. Zazen practitioners face a wall, keep their eyes open and basically just sit still and perfectly attentive for periods of time.

The trick is to stay in the world but not of the world. Hence the open eyes. An attempt is made to still the chattering ego mind – that internal, infernal conversation which goes on inside your head all day, every day!

A famous zen teacher, Taezan Maezumi said that when sitting zazen we should “let the myriad of things settle.” How often have you wanted to do that? And what constitutes your particular myriad of things – work; laundry; kid’s soccer games; your “relationship” ;bills; mortgage re-fi’s; PTA meetings; dentists visits; oil changes etc. etc. Sometimes there seems to be no end to the “stuff” we all have to deal with on a daily basis.

If you work in a corporate environment where you are continually interacting with others you also have your myriad of office things – politics; project deadlines; sales and/or strategy meetings; pay raises; performance evaluations; mergers; diversity trainings etc. There’s always a demand on your time, energy and patience.

When you practice zazen you let your original, or unconscious, mind out for a breath of fresh air. So often it’s suffocated by the sheer weight of demands our busy minds place on it. So, when you sit quietly by yourself and allow your mind to be clear and open you are whole and unconditioned. Gradually, your breath slow,; your eyelids soften, your jaw releases it’s tension ). Bet you didn’t know that your jaw was tight much of the time, did you?

Your thoughts still pop in from time to time. But you watch them come and go like clouds scudding across a clear blue sky.

Someone once said to me – anyone can knock on your door anytime but you don’t have to always invite them in for coffee. Try to think of your urgent, insistent thoughts as pesky visitors knocking on your door at the most inopportune time – like just when you’d like a little time to yourself.

When you let your thoughts settle and you clear your mind during the heat of a workday it’s like taking a siesta, going for a cool walk around the block and connecting with life outside of your workplace or having a neck massage.

It takes you out of the place where you normally live all day every day – between your ears – and connects you to things bigger and infinitely less comprehensible than your everyday problems.

Consider letting the myriad of things settle for even a few minutes today.

Let your conditioned mind drift like a blossom drifting gently from a tree in Spring. You can always pick it up later. But right now you’re just going to watch it fall.