EPISODE 9

Was Buddha the First ACT Therapist? Exploring Ancient Roots of Psychological Flexibility

In this episode of The Practitioner’s Heart, psychologist and Buddhist practitioner Poh Gan explores a compelling question:

Was the Buddha the first Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) therapist?

Long before ACT introduced concepts like psychological flexibility, acceptance, defusion, and self-as-context, the Buddha was teaching remarkably similar principles over 2,600 years ago. This episode invites therapists and helping professionals to look at ACT not just as a modern evidence-based model, but as part of a much older lineage of wisdom about the human mind.

ACT and Buddhism: Shared Foundations

At its core, ACT is grounded in functional contextualism — the idea that behaviour and experience can only be understood within context, and that what matters most is what works in reducing suffering and increasing meaningful living.

Buddhist psychology teaches something strikingly similar through dependent origination, also known as the Twelve Links of Causal Conditions. The Buddha described how suffering unfolds through a chain of causes:

Ignorance → mental formations → consciousness → sense contact → feeling → craving → clinging → becoming → birth → aging, sickness, grief, and death.

This is not abstract philosophy. It is a living map of how distress arises moment to moment.

Poh reflects on how this closely mirrors functional behavioural analysis (A-B-C) and systemic thinking in therapy. When we intervene — particularly between feeling and craving — through mindful awareness, we interrupt the chain of reactivity. This is psychological flexibility in action.

Where Suffering Takes Root

In both ACT and Buddhist teaching, suffering is not caused simply by pain itself.

It arises when we:

• Fuse with thoughts and memories

• Attach to labels and identity narratives

• Cling to how things “should” be

• Resist uncomfortable internal experiences

Buddhism described this long before modern psychology had language for cognitive fusion or experiential avoidance.

Suffering arises not only from events, but from our relationship to them.

Kisa Gotami: Acceptance in Action

One of the most powerful illustrations of acceptance comes from the story of Kisa Gotami, a grieving mother who lost her child. Desperate, she asked the Buddha to bring him back to life.

Instead of offering reassurance or doctrine, the Buddha asked her to gather mustard seeds from a household that had never experienced death.

She returned empty-handed.

Through direct experience — not intellectual explanation — she discovered that loss is universal. This is experiential acceptance. It is defusion from the belief that “this should not have happened to me.”

The Buddha did not argue with her thoughts. He created a context in which she could see clearly for herself.

Huike and the Teaching of Self-as-Context

Another timeless story comes from Zen tradition. Huike approached Bodhidharma saying, “My mind is not at peace. Please pacify it.”

Bodhidharma replied, “Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it.”

Huike searched — and could not find it.

“There,” Bodhidharma said. “I have pacified it.”

This exchange is perhaps one of the earliest teachings of what ACT calls self-as-context — the observing awareness that is not identical to passing thoughts or emotions.

When we look for the solid “self” behind our suffering, we discover spacious awareness instead.

Psychological Flexibility as a Spiritual Practice

ACT encourages openness, awareness, and engaged action aligned with values.

Buddhist practice encourages:

• Acceptance of impermanence

• Mindful awareness of experience

• Compassionate action

• Non-attachment to identity

These are not separate systems. They are deeply resonant.

For therapists navigating burnout, compassion fatigue, or an overactive mind, this integration offers grounding and clarity. Psychological flexibility becomes more than a clinical outcome — it becomes a way of being.

Embodying the Work

This episode invites therapists to reflect:

• Where am I fusing with my professional identity?

• Where am I clinging to being competent, effective, or “good”?

• Can I notice feeling before craving takes over?

• What would it mean to practice flexibility not just with clients — but with myself?

Ancient Buddhist wisdom does not replace modern therapy. It deepens it.

When we see that these principles have been guiding human beings for millennia, our work feels less like performance and more like participation in a long lineage of understanding the mind.

If you are a therapist, counsellor, psychologist, or healer seeking deeper meaning in your work, this episode offers a bridge between science and spirituality — between evidence-based practice and timeless wisdom.

🎧 Listen to Episode 9: Was Buddha the First ACT Therapist? Exploring Ancient Roots of Psychological Flexibility on The Practitioner’s Heart.

May it bring clarity, steadiness, and a renewed sense of purpose to your path.