A Coach’s View: What a Zen Master Can Teach You About Coaching Groups

Like many coaches, I used to assume that pure coaching is best experienced one-to-one or in groups of ten or less, because it  requires a high level of attention to each client and a customized approach from the coach.

That long-held assumption vaporized for me the first time I experienced Big Mind/Big Heart, a process that American Zen Master, Genpo Roshi uses to help Westerners get taste of enlightenment and handle their ‘shadow voices’.

I was so blown away by the Big Mind process, which I first experienced in August 2009 in Denver, that since then, I’ve traveled to Salt Lake City to one of Roshi’s week-long retreats at Kanzeon Western Zen Center, and also to New York City for a recent weekend workshop.

I also asked to officially become one of Roshi’s students, even though previously, I never thought of myself as a Buddhist, nor wanted to become one.

By the way, ‘Roshi’ is a title that means ‘venerable spiritual teacher’, or as Roshi says, ‘old monk’. Genpo is his dharma name. He was born Dennis Merzel, in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Los Angeles, California.

Roshi is incredibly down-to-earth and takes much of the mystique out of enlightenment. But make no mistake; he’s a rigorous Zen Master with a huge mission: to spread enlightenment to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, because he says, we’ve reached a point in our civilization, with devastating wars and climate damage, when everyone needs to be enlightened.

To create Big Mind, his trademark tool for spreading enlightenment, Roshi took a process known as Voice Dialog, derived from Gestalt and Jungian therapies, and integrated it with the 2,500-year-old philosophy of Buddhism. It is a quintessentially 21st-Century American approach to consciousness, enlightenment and shadow work. It’s also challenging, sometimes painful, and a ton of fun.

The impact of Big Mind is dramatic and each person in the room – up to 100 individuals – gets ‘coached’ simultaneously.

How so?

By asking to speak to any one of 10,000 ‘voices’ that we all share, Roshi subtly shifts our consciousness and awareness of our own truths. Because we all share these voices, even if previously some were un-awakened or disowned, we are each, in a way, speaking for the others, sharing a oneness.

What’s it like?

Have you ever watched a school of fish tossed about by ocean waves or seen an enormous flock of birds shifting directions like a giant amoeba? That’s kind of like Big Mind, a hundred individuals shifting consciousness together, with Roshi as the waves or the wind. Maybe that sounds corny, but it’s pretty cool to experience.

Roshi doesn’t call Big Mind ‘coaching’, but I would! Like a coach, he steps out of his own ego and into his Personal Greatness, asking us provocative questions that shift our awareness and create new possibilities. It’s as personal as one-to-one coaching –  and the additional individuals actually increase the value for each other.

Usually, when a coach works with groups this large, the format shifts to that of a seminar, with few participants getting individual attention, but with Big Mind, we’re all getting the experience of personal attention at the same time. Amazing!

Granted, the average coach hasn’t attained Roshi’s level of mastery, when it comes to group facilitation, much less enlightenment, but Big Mind may point to a new approach to coaching that we may want to explore.

It opens possibilities for spreading the power of coaching, itself an important tool for expanding consciousness, to potentially many more people, more economically.

There are no certifications nor licensing programs available for Big Mind, at least not yet, but this format could be one of the Next Big Things coming in the evolution of professional coaching for coaches willing to dive in.