The convergence

 After a month of Buddhist teachings in Sydney I am back in Adelaide once again. I continue to me amazed - and encouraged - by the similarities between the Buddhist teachings and the techniques now being used in therapy and coaching to help so many people.

The field of NLP arose from the simple assumption that if you want to successful at something then pick a successful person and model them - that is, do, talk and think the same way they do and you should get the same results. One of the main meditations of the Buddhist tradition is to do exactly that. Visualise yourself as a Buddha and try to think, talk and act in the same way.

Mindfulness is of course another major part of Buddhism and today Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is becoming an ever increasing from of Therapy for any number of mental related problems.

Other fields such as Spiral Dynamics, yoga and physiotherapy, hypnosis and even new movements like "The Secret" popularised by Ronda Byrne all seem to have strong relations to Buddhist teachings. This is very encouraging as it means that there is now a convergence of ideas on what is best course of action to help us deal with life and if we can all reach agreement on the most effective techuniques that can only be a good thing.