Band-Aids, Baby-Sitting or Real Buddhadarma?
By Karuna Cayton

Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have presented 84,000 various teachings and methods that would lead living beings to happiness. The sole aim of these thousands of teachings is to lead the follower into an understanding of emptiness. Why emptiness? Because the insight of self and phenomena as empty of true, or inherent, existence, is the core, the essence, of all methodologies for freeing the mind of every mental disorder. This can be a very provocative notion for modern psychologists and mental health professionals.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche once commented to me that in my work with therapy clients, if I was just helping them feel better, "There is no benefit." He elaborated, saying that if through feeling better they became interested in engaging Buddhist principles and techniques, then it could be considered beneficial. His comments reverberate and influence my work to this day. Why? Because I am trying to figure out not only how to be beneficial but what it means to be beneficial. My thinking leads me to my opening comments about the 84,000 teachings and the role of emptiness.

If to be beneficial means that, fundamentally, we are to help living beings understand the ultimate nature of their minds and the world around them, then what are the implications of this knowledge for those of us in the helping professions, particularly mental health? The repercussion for me personally is that I need to begin to operate from a different mindset, a different internal stance, so that I therefore begin to show up differently. What does it mean, how do I need to be, how do I need to think, so that I can fulfill my mission to help my clients and others to understand the ultimate nature of their minds. Wow! This is a big mandate for which even the thought drives me to want to escape to late-night television and a bowl of popcorn!

In many modern cultures the role of the psychologist, therapist, social worker, coach, consultant and counselor is looking increasingly like the traditional role of the teacher, lama or guru, particularly if we are interested in being beneficial, i.e., not just helping people feel better. As such, I believe that the level of accountability for us is raised exponentially. I am continuously asked to help people with deep, troubling and heart-wrenching life difficulties. People are requesting, sometimes pleading, for help. I am asked for my advice, my counsel, and if I take the traditional therapist’s stance of being a good listener, an unbiased mirror, an objective viewpoint, then I am hardly helping to expand that person’s wisdom to react differently to problems. These days many therapists are offering advice and suggestions based upon some theory of what is helpful. But is it helpful? What is helpful? I have begun to develop a little conviction about the answer to this question.

In many modern cultures, being helpful means one has to be knowledgeable, an expert, a professional. Someone who is helpful knows the "smart" thing to say, the right technique to proscribe, the appropriate intervention to suggest. Increasingly we are training in these strategies but are we really becoming more helpful. I doubt it. The hardest, most difficult, most vexing challenge we face is this: To be helpful is determined by the quality of your being, your mindset, your presence. The most helpful mindset or quality of being is one that is a balance of wisdom and compassion. We need to move away from tips, techniques and the external, and reaffix our gaze on "How am I being with this person with whom I’m engaging?"

In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, teachers and lamas are the therapists of that culture. To be considered a teacher one needs, ideally, to possess ten qualities such as being disciplined, possessing loving concern for his/her students, a thorough knowledge of reality, has good qualities surpassing those of his students, and so on. If one can’t possess all ten of the qualities then one is expected to possess some and be working at developing the others. The role of the guru, the lama, the teacher, psychologically speaking, is enormous. The teacher’s very presence aids the student in offering an alternative to a student’s troubled mind. The teacher’s (or therapist’s) poise has the effect of offering an alternative to an emotional or mental disturbance. He or she offers a sense of hope, a distinction, and an experience that things can and are different than how the student perceives the situation. The student or client experiences, perhaps for the first time, an absence of loneliness and aloneness. The client has the feeling, for once, "I can really trust this person." The experience of trust arises out of the teacher’s/therapist’s demeanor and knowledge gained through extensive self-discovery and hard inner work. Do those of us in the helping professions (or just trying to be helpful) have the same effect on our clients? Do we offer them a long-term view or are we there to baby-sit? If we are offering a long-term solution, are we sure it is rooted in wisdom that is time-tested or is it just the latest spiritual or psychological fad? Have we analyzed, examined, and dissected our theories to the point where we are convinced that what we are offering leads to an end to the problem and not merely a Band-Aid?

I moved to Nepal in 1975, and it was then that I met my first Tibetan teacher. He was a very kind and warm rinpoche who lived with his family. I cannot exactly remember the question I asked him but it had something to do with finding a guru. At that point, he became very serious, lowered his voice, looked penetratingly into my eyes, and said, "When you meet a teacher, examine him, examine him, examine him, and when he slips up, nail him to the wall like a fly!"* It is this standard to which we need to hold ourselves. We would do our clients, friends, peers, and others great benefit if we are constantly examining our mind first and then doing something second. If we want to be helpful, we have to be in the right headspace.

*(Of course, he was not implying we should kill. He was speaking metaphorically.)

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