Every Moment Is the Guru
Learning from Adversity in Advocacy
Story Spine
Once upon a time, I believed obstacles were meaningless frustrations.
And every day, I fought them, cursed them, and resisted them.
Until one day, I realized each obstacle was teacher, each moment guru.
And because of that, I began to meet delays, losses, and hostile people as opportunities to learn.
And because of that, I found resilience and growth in the very places I once despised.
Until finally, I understood that the courtroom is not just contest but classroom.
And ever since that day, I have trusted that every breath, every obstacle, every role is my teacher.
Joko Beck writes: “Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment… Every moment is the guru.” This wisdom challenges us to reframe every frustration, loss, or difficulty not as meaningless obstacles but as opportunities for transformation. In advocacy, this shift is profound. Trials are filled with red lights, delays, hostile witnesses, difficult judges, and heartbreaking losses. If we approach each as an unwanted accident, despair follows. But if each is teacher, every setback becomes part of the curriculum of growth.
In psychodrama, Moreno called this surplus reality—the recognition that even the most painful roles can become spaces for learning when enacted consciously. The witness who trembles, the juror who resists, the lawyer who falters—each carries a teaching moment. The key is not to fight reality, but to meet it as role and revelation.
Neuroscience shows that our brains are plastic, constantly reshaped by experience. Each moment of stress or difficulty is not only a threat but a potential rewiring of resilience. By reframing adversity as teacher, we train the nervous system to transform reactivity into presence.
Sociometry expands the frame: every difficult person or obstacle is not only our personal teacher, but a node in the social matrix teaching the group. An obnoxious supervisor or hostile cross-examiner is not only “against me”—they are shaping the collective roles of everyone who encounters them. The group grows by how it meets challenge.
BTC applies this wisdom to trial practice. In the courtroom, every interruption, every objection, every hostile glance can be reframed as the guru. Instead of resisting, the advocate learns to engage: “What is this teaching me? What role is being revealed here?” In this way, trial is no longer just contest, but classroom.
Didactic Section
1. Every Obstacle as Teacher
The mosquito, the red light, the traffic jam—these represent daily irritations. In court, they are delays, rulings, or procedural setbacks. By seeing them as teachers, we stop fighting reality and start learning from it.
2. Difficult People as Gurus
The obnoxious supervisor or hostile opposing counsel is not just opponent, but teacher. They reveal our triggers, force us to practice boundaries, and invite us to live into new roles of patience and authority.
3. Illness and Loss as Deep Curriculum
Suffering and grief are teachers of humility, compassion, and endurance. In the courtroom, cases built on loss remind us that pain itself is a professor—teaching us to honor lives, not just argue facts.
4. Joy, Depression, and Addiction as Instructors
Every internal state teaches. Joy expands our capacity for presence; depression teaches surrender and depth; addiction teaches longing for wholeness. For lawyers, these lessons shape empathy for clients whose lives hold these very struggles.
5. Every Breath as the Guru
The most fundamental teacher is breath. In trial, returning to breath grounds the advocate, restores the nervous system, and opens access to spontaneity. Breath is the guru reminding us that presence, not perfection, is the way forward.
The 5 W’s of Learning from Adversity
Who
The “who” of this teaching is not only the individual lawyer or witness but the entire courtroom community. Each participant—judge, jury, advocate, client, clerk—is both student and teacher at once. A juror frustrated by the length of testimony becomes the guru of patience. A client overwhelmed by cross-examination becomes the guru of resilience. Even the judge’s stern rebuke can become the guru of humility and focus for the lawyer. The “who” is universal: no one is exempt from this dynamic. In fact, the most unlikely figures often emerge as the most profound teachers, precisely because they reveal roles and reactions we try hardest to avoid.
What
What is revealed by Joko Beck’s teaching is a radical reframing of adversity: every obstacle is not an accident to be dismissed or fought against, but a deliberate opportunity to grow. The mosquito is not just irritation; it is the lesson of tolerance. The hostile witness is not just opposition; they are the lesson of containment and groundedness. In BTC practice, what emerges is the recognition that the story is not only about events, but about how roles evolve when pressure mounts. Each obstacle becomes a mirror, showing us what role we currently inhabit and what role we are invited to grow into. The “what” is the invitation to see meaning where we once only saw misfortune.
When
Teaching moments occur most powerfully at rupture points—moments when the flow of a trial, a conversation, or a life is disrupted. A red light halts us. A hostile objection derails our rhythm. A sudden loss shakes the ground beneath us. These ruptures feel like setbacks, but in fact they are the very conditions that make new learning possible. Neuroscience shows that brains rewire under stress; sociometry shows that groups reorganize under pressure. The “when” is not in moments of ease but in moments of tension, when old patterns no longer suffice and new roles must be lived into. The trial, with its constant interruptions, objections, and rulings, becomes a laboratory of teachers.
Where
The guru appears everywhere—on the drive to court, in the witness chair, in the jury box, in chambers, even in the lawyer’s own body as anxiety rises before speaking. There is no “neutral space” where learning is absent. The courtroom itself is a crucible of teaching, each corner holding a lesson. The hallway outside may teach patience; the bench may teach humility; the jury’s silence may teach presence. And yet the “where” extends beyond court: every environment, from the traffic jam to the quiet of chambers, is charged with the possibility of teaching. Wherever resistance arises, the guru waits.
Why
The why is liberation. If life’s obstacles are only misfortunes, advocacy becomes an exhausting war against circumstance. Lawyers burn out, clients collapse, jurors disengage. But if every moment is the guru, then nothing is wasted—each obstacle becomes fuel for growth. This reframing changes the meaning of trial: it is not simply contest but curriculum, not only a fight but a path of transformation. The “why” is that without this perspective, trial practice corrodes the soul. With it, trial becomes a teacher of resilience, compassion, and presence. In the end, the why is survival—not merely surviving the courtroom, but surviving as a whole and human advocate.
Demo-Action
Exercise: The Guru in the Obstacle
Ask participants to recall a recent trial setback or frustration.
Place a chair in the center labeled “The Guru.”
Invite the participant to role reverse: become the obstacle (the objection, the hostile witness, the loss).
Speak as the obstacle: “I am here to teach you patience.”
Double the obstacle: reveal the deeper teaching.
Debrief: What did you learn? How might you meet obstacles differently if each is guru?
Conclusion
Joko Beck’s teaching—“Every moment is the guru”—resonates deeply with Moreno’s role theory and BTC’s approach to advocacy. Roles are not accidents; they are teachers. Neuroscience confirms that embodied challenge reshapes the nervous system. Sociometry shows that every obstacle shifts the group matrix. BTC reframes trial not as battle alone but as classroom of transformation.
For the lawyer, this means that each objection, delay, and loss is not wasted. Each is an invitation to live into new roles of patience, courage, compassion, and presence. The guru is always here, disguised as difficulty, whispering the lessons that grow us into advocates who can endure, heal, and transform.
“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment… Every moment is the guru.” — Joko Beck
References
Beck, J. (1993). Everyday Zen: Love and Work. HarperOne.
Moreno, J. L. (1946). Who Shall Survive? Beacon House.
Moreno, J. L. (1953). Psychodrama: Volume 1. Beacon House.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory. Norton.
Johnson, L. E. (2025). Building The Case: Storytelling When Facts Are Fixed and Stakes Are High. Trial Whisperer Press.