The Life-Changing Lesson of the Golden Buddha
I want to tell you a story. This story has literally changed my life…
About 250 years ago, the kingdom of Siam, what we know as modern day Thailand, went through a period of great turmoil. They were invaded by the Burmese army who committed atrocities that have left a black mark on Burmese-Thai relations up to the present day. This was followed by a civil war. Nobody could figure out who was in charge, so everybody was killing everybody.
In one particular Siamese temple was a magnificent statue of the Buddha. It was 3 metres tall and made of solid gold, and weighed 5.5 tonnes. The monks of this temple were worried that amidst the chaos and confusion of the war their beloved statue would be stolen. So they devised a plan. They disguised the golden Buddha statue by covering it under layers of stucco and paint, inlaid with pieces of coloured glass.
It worked. When the city was sacked, the statue remained among the ruins of destroyed temple without attracting any attention from the invaders. But tragically, the monks were all killed, and the secret identity of the statue died with them. So for 200 years, nobody knew the true worth of this unassuming looking statue.
The statue was moved around a lot over the next two centuries and even lived outside under a tin roof for 20 years. Then in 1955, a new building was built to house the statue and it was to be relocated. During the final effort to lift the statue from its pedestal, the ropes broke and the statue crashed to the ground. It was damaged. Some of the plaster coating had cracked enough that the workers noticed the gold underneath. Work was stopped immediately so an evaluation could be done. The plaster was carefully removed and the statue restored to its former glory. It's now the most famous statue in Thailand and everybody goes to visit it. It's estimated worth is $250M.
Ever since I was a teenager, I thought there was something wrong with me. That I was broken or inferior. So much of my life over the last 20 years has been trying to compensate for that. I think the reason that I've been so driven is that I was desperately trying to cover it up with musical prowess, with accomplishment, with intelligence, with women, with possessions in the hope that no-one would notice or find out how worthless I was. And also to prove to myself that I wasn't worthless. I've done thousands of hours of personal development work because I thought I had to fix myself.
When I heard the story of the Golden Buddha, it was a revelation to me. The moral of the story was profound; that, like on the statue, we each have these layers of debris that need to be removed to allow our gold to shine through to the rest of the world. It reframed and deepened my understanding of personal development and transformation. It's not about doing more, becoming more or better or different. It's having the understanding that fundamentally I'm OK, I'm not broken, or inferior.
What's held me back is not that I'm inherently broken or inferior or worthless. That's not who I am or who you are. I now see that those things are a facade, they're the layers of plaster and debris that are obscuring the glorious golden being underneath.
Our task is to chip away at the plaster, to remove the layers of debris and detritus; the emotional baggage, the social conditioning, the unproductive habits, the self-defeating thoughts, the obsolete identity. At your core, you're this perfect, golden being. You already have everything you need. You just need to get out of your own way. All that debris that has accumulated over the course of your life doesn't belong to you. It was put there by other people, or accumulated unconsciously through social conditioning. If it doesn't belong to you, you don't have to hold on to it. You can release it. It's not who you really are. It's just a facade. It's other people's projections that, through repetition, we've come to believe. We believe them so deeply that it feels like they're a part of our identity, and so we feel resistance to letting go of those things. We fight for our smallness; we argue for our limitations.
But instead of fighting for our smallness, we need to remember our greatness. The Golden Buddha is a really powerful metaphor to help us remember our greatness. Pursuing our goals is the path to getting to our golden centre, because we have to chip away at the layers of debris to move forward. When we want a goal, it's not really not about the goal itself; it's not about what we get, it's about who we become through the process of working towards that goal. And looking at it through the lens of the Golden Buddha metaphor, we don't become someone greater; we get closer to the essence of who we really are, who we're supposed to be, because we're stripping away what's extraneous to let that shine through.
If you want to achieve your goals, you have to take action: you have to implement. Implementing is about getting out of our own way. As you're working towards your goals and implementing, you're going to be pushed to the edge of your comfort zone. That discomfort you're feeling is you coming face to face with your limiting thoughts, behaviours, habits, and identities; those layers of debris that you've accumulated which are preventing you from seeing the golden statue underneath, from getting closer to the essence of who you are are, the person who can achieve the goal. Our Golden Buddha is only revealed through implementing, because through getting into action we have to remove the layers of debris; the self-defeating thoughts, the unproductive habits, the obsolete identity.
If you want to bring some awareness to this, ask yourself: “where am I fighting for my smallness?” Where are those places in my life where I'm using my perceived limitations as an excuse for not doing something that I'm passionate about or that I value? Where do you need to get out of your own way? I'll give you a hint: it's usually wherever you feel resistance to doing something that you know is important, or valuable, or productive, that will move you closer to your goal.
One place for me that was true was building my coaching business. I knew I'd have to create content for people to interact with, especially videos, if I wanted to get clients. I felt really uncomfortable with appearing on camera in front of the world. The limiting beliefs were that I was shy, I'm a very private person, I'm a perfectionist and I won't be happy with my performance, I'm not a public speaker, I can't present my ideas in an interesting way, and I'll be criticised. But here I am. I've been doing these videos every week for over a year, and twice a week for the last 5 months.
And by doing that, I've been chipping away at those layers of debris. I was thinking about the metaphor of the Golden Buddha a lot as I considered shedding those parts of me that no longer served me. It helped me to not get too attached to my identity, my behaviours, my thoughts, and my habits; being more willing to let them go and not resisting so much.
So keep the Golden Buddha in mind this year as you're working towards your goals. Remember that underneath all of the layers of debris you've accumulated, you're perfect. You already have everything you need. You don't have to fix yourself. You're not trying to become someone else or better. It's your job to excavate that glorious golden being you already are by removing those layers of debris and getting out of your own way, to stop fighting for your smallness and to remember your greatness.