Tree-ness, Coach-ness and Presence

At the ICF India Conclave, I was invited to speak on “Cultivating Presence: An Indic View.”

The Bengaluru Charter Chapter of ICF ie my home chapter had organised this event.

The conference logo featured a banyan tree.

That immediately reminded me of the Arsha Vidya tradition, where teaching and learning often unfolded beneath the shade of a banyan.

The banyan offers a profound metaphor. It’s roots descend from its branches and reconnect to the earth.

Likewise, our attention becomes dispersed among roles, ambitions, identities, achievements, memories, and expectations.

The teaching tradition invites a return.

Not to a different place, but to what is already here.

This led me to a simple question:

“Is presence really absent?”

After all, cultivation is usually reserved for things that are not yet present.

From an Indic perspective, what comes and goes is attention.

What comes and goes is thought.

What comes and goes is identification.

Presence itself remains.

Perhaps presence is not something we produce.

Perhaps it is something we recognise.

This inquiry eventually led to a discussion on Coachness™ and what I call the evolution of the self:

1) Fragmented self

2) Observing self

3) Regulated self

4) Integrated self

5) Instrumental self

As the self evolves, awareness replaces advice, presence replaces performance, and being expresses itself as coaching.

The banyan does not cultivate tree-ness.

It expresses tree-ness.

Perhaps there is a coach-ness that precedes competencies, methodologies, and frameworks.

Not something added, but something expressed.

A question I left the audience with:

“From which self am I listening right now?”

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