Can You Work with a Buddhist?

Jesus is my primary spiritual teacher.  As a spiritual director, am I able to work with others who follow a different path?  That’s what a Buddhist woman wanted to know. Perhaps you’ve wondered about that.

The following is a text version of this blog.

The question was simple and straightforward.  “Can you work with a Buddhist?”  The woman was inquiring about working with me as a spiritual director.  She was interested in integrating the spiritual dimension of her life with other aspects of how she lives.  Given that many people lead busy lives and that our cultural norms draw us toward isolation from others, this kind of integration can be difficult for most people. Working with a spiritual director can be helpful for spiritual growth and personal well-being.

When people look for a spiritual director, they often think that they need to work with someone who has the same faith, beliefs, or experiences that they have.  That would seem to make sense since sharing a similar spiritual path provides shared points of understanding.  However, assuming that one needs someone from the same spiritual path to serve as a spiritual director is an incorrect assumption. What makes a spiritual director helpful is not that the person is just like you.  Instead, what’s important and vital is that the spiritual director listens to you and carefully attends to your experience. 

Let’s be honest about something.  Two people from the same tradition or with the same background don’t have the exact same experiences.  There may be a commonality between them.  But the deeper spiritual experiences are not the same.  When a spiritual director is from a person’s tradition, some people are hesitant to share experiences that may be outside of the tradition or talk about something that may seem contrary to the spiritual director’s beliefs and practices.  For example, a few decades ago, I worked with a woman who knew that I was the pastor of a local church.  She was not a member of the church.  But she presented herself as a Christian person who was very devout.  It took her months to tell me that an important part of her spiritual practice was working with tarot cards.  She was embarrassed because she thought I’d condemn her for doing something most people consider “unchristian.”  She was surprised when I recommended that she bring her deck to our next meeting and that we’d begin with the tarot as it was an important part of her practice.

Here’s the thing about spiritual direction:  the focus is your spiritual experience and how it fits into your life.  It’s not about the spiritual director’s beliefs and practices.  Each of us has our own beliefs and practices as well as unique ways of looking at the world.  A solid spiritual director should set aside the director’s own assumptions and focus on the person who shares the details of their life, whatever those details may be. 

When someone is aware of beliefs. practices or experiences which are different from that of a spiritual director, it can be difficult to be vulnerable enough to share what resonates with them deeply. One aspect of spiritual abuse is when a religious or spiritual authority figure tells someone that they are wrong and need to conform to some particular guidelines or dogma.    The irony is that throughout the ages and across traditions, the people who became the most admired and respected spiritual writers and mystics were thought to be at least a little bit heretical by others in their time period.  Many Muslims question whether Sufis like Rumi or Hafiz were really Muslim.  Christians forget that Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were under threat from the Spanish Inquisition. These are examples of people whose spiritual experiences and beliefs were outside of the mainstream yet they were profoundly enlightened and experienced great depth along the spiritual path. 

Back to the original question.  Do I work with Buddhists?  The truth is that I’ve had Buddhist monks contact me for spiritual direction as well as people whose faith and practices have been very different from my own.  That includes those of no particular belief system who are finding their way outside of any one tradition.  What makes me able to work with others is that I focus on listening and gaining an understanding of a person’s experience, whatever that may be.  When I’ve taught in spiritual direction training programs, I’ve tried to convey that deep listening and tending to the other’s experience are primary aspects of the work of spiritual direction.  My spiritual path is my own and no one else should try to walk it.  Similarly, I can’t judge or evaluate another’s path.  By careful attention to the other, I can support others in clarifying their own path and spiritual direction.