The Mission
My mission here at Zen-ish Coaching is well-represented in the logo.
The pond
The blue oval represents a pond, which itself represents one's life.
The lotus
The lotus flower is one of the main symbols of Zen, or more generally of the peace of mind Buddhist teachings are collectively aimed at helping us achieve, there in the midst of one's real, demanding life.
People admire the lotus for its ability to thrive in challenging environments. Like you, its seeds can survive for many years even in harsh conditions. The lotus germinates and grows in murky water yet emerges from the mud below to produce clean, beautiful, radiant flowers. Thus for many people the lotus symbolizes purity, hope, perseverance, strength, and resilience.
No mud, no lotus
The expression "no mud, no lotus" paraphrases the Buddhist teaching that there is no life that is free of suffering. If you are going to be alive, there is going to be some suffering. People want the lotus but not the mud, but the lotus does not exist in a mud-free world, and neither do we. Like the lotus, for us to bloom we must escape being mired within the mud, yet we must not (and cannot) sever our connection to it.
A lotus cut free from its mud soon dies. Humanity's flowering beauty also turns lifeless and ugly if we lose connection with our mud (understanding our own history, development, and dependencies), or if we lose compassion for the mud in other people's lives, or the ability to see their beauty. Rising above our personal mud doesn't mean denying it or pretending it is merely something in the past. As the lotus draws nutrients form the mud, so too we must make the most of whatever value we can extract from the mud in our lives. No mud, no lotus. Also, when there is mud, there can be a lotus.
The red heart swoosh
The red swoosh suggests a heart, bigger than one's personal life (the pond). Heart, love, compassion – among life's most important forms of beauty, and a great treasure for us to nurture and protect, especially because of all the mud it will help us slog through.
The warrior
The figure of a person is in the yoga pose known as "Warrior II". It is also nearly identical to an often-depicted posture from Kung Fu, a martial art created by pre-Zen Buddhist monks in the Henan province of China, around the beginning of the 6th century. We must sometimes be strong and courageous to vigorously develop, defend, and share life's treasures, and not fall back into the mud by being passive or defeated.
Putting it together
You are going to have struggles. We all do. Life ensures this. Why not get really good at handling them? You are going to have joys and accomplishments too, but these do not spontaneously arise as frequently as struggles do. We must get better at generating positive experiences, and learn to both share them and internalize them more fully.
Why Zen-ish
The Zen
Zen is a flavor of Buddhism, and much of my thinking happens to align with a secular reading of Zen. The -ish in "Zen-ish" is deliberate. I am not a Buddhist influenced by humanism, science, and modernity. I am a modern, science-respecting, secular humanist, influenced by selected Zen teachings. Zen teachings are frequently psychologically astute and productive while they avoid religious dogmatism. Zen in general freely admits that its stories are parables and not history. Even some prominent Zen priests say it is more psychology and philosophy than religion. Buddha himself repeatedly described his teachings as tools to be tested, used when helpful, and set aside when not. He did not propound doctrines to be taken on faith. He actively evaded questions about absolute cosmic universals.
The Stoicism
I am also strongly influenced by Western Stoicism, and so are you, even if you don't explicitly know anything about it. Through philosophy, religion, law, and literature, Stoicism's main ideas have so thoroughly seeped into Western culture that most of us absorb them without knowing where they came from. I am not a Stoic, and I reject its religious and cosmological assumptions, just as I reject mysticism from any source. I am a secular humanist, influenced by Stoic teachings, principally where they arrive at observations similar to those in Zen, but by a different route. In fact I strongly suspect it is because of Stoicism's influence on the Western culture in which I was raised that I came to find as much value in Zen as I do. Among other things, and much like Zen, Stoicism advises that emotions must not be our masters. Emotions serve us best when combined with objective observation, reason, and a value system, and should not be treated as if they are proof of facts and justification for impulsive actions.
If this sounds good to you, let's talk
From Midwest Book Review:
With a voice that is both warm and intellectually rigorous, Bennett Barouch guides readers through life's hardest questions without dogma or pretense. Drawing from Zen, Stoicism, and modern science, Bennett offers practical wisdom for real-world challenges – always with compassion, clarity, and a deep respect for the reader's own journey.
Want to know if we will work well together in coaching? Prefer to learn from reading instead of coaching? Click to see reviews of the book, or to preview or buy it.
The least exercise that actually makes a whole body difference to strength, balance, and independence, especially as we get older – exercise for people who hate exercise.
While this site is mostly about emotionally loaded challenges, taking care of ourselves physically is important too. Living well, especially as we age, requires strength, balance, and a healthy metabolism. Most people hate to exercise. It's not a natural behavior. But we live such an unnatural lifestyle that we need exercise to compensate for the many natural behaviors such as walking ten miles a day, hunting, gathering, tool-making, and so on, that we no longer do.
Click to see more about the book, or to preview or buy it.