The Courage to Be Present: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Awakening of Natural Wisdom

The quality of presence a psychotherapist or counselor brings to the therapeutic relationship makes all the difference in effective treatment. With this groundbreaking new application of Buddhist practice to psychotherapy, Karen Kissel Wegela offers mental heath professionals a Buddhist’s perspective on bringing compassion, patience, generosity, and equanimity to their work with clients. She presents as a model the Buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva, the archetypal being whose life is radically dedicated to seeking the benefit and welfare of others over his or her own.

Drawing on her background in Buddhist practice and her years of teaching at the university level and of working with clients in private practice, Wegela begins with the basic Buddhist understanding of how suffering arises and ceases, and then continues with teachings on how to discover and cultivate the bodhisattva’s awakened heart. She uses stories from her own practice as well as teachings from the Buddhist tradition to describe how to discover and cultivate the six traditional “awakened actions”: generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom.

The Courage to Be Present offers an effective method for cultivating the wisdom of compassion and equanimity in all relationships—both personal and professional. Wegela shows not only how counselors can apply this wisdom in their own lives, but also how they can help their clients to cultivate these qualities in themselves.