Morpheus Coaching

Authentic presence – tashi deley February 15, 2011

I came across a story today that really touched me. It was in a book entitled ‘Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence In Business’ (Cooper and Sawaf), 2000, Texerre, London.
The story is too long and involved to rerproduce here but it was about two people from different cultures exchanging the knowledge of one phrase of each of their languages. The first, a Tibetan boy, taught the other the Tibetan greeting ‘tashi deley’. It means that the sayer is recognising the greatness in the other person. When it was the turn of the English-speaker, their offering was ‘hello’. Once the boy had learnt how to say hello he asked what it meant. It is also a greeting said the English-speaker to which the boy said,”and does that also mean that the speaker honours the greatness in the other person?”

“sadly, no” said the English-speaker… by now in tears.

The cultures prevailing in the Western World seem to come up short with regard to treating people with unconditional positive regard. We do not naturally have our greatness, our fundamental spirituality recognised in the way represented by that simple yet potent Tibetan phrase.