The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship

By Susan Piver

"With wisdom, creativity, and artistry, Susan Piver brings a Buddhist lens to the spiritual map of the enneagram. The results are vibrant and nourishing; a banquet of insights that help us transmute our difficult emotions into pure expressions of our basic goodness."
—Tara Brach, best-selling author of Radical Acceptance and Trusting the Gold

"By blending her long-time studies of Buddhism and the enneagram, Piver supports us to turn away from incessant self-improvement and relax into our natural brilliance. She assures us that everything we seek . . .is already here."
—Mark Hyman, MD, 14-time New York Times best-selling author and founder of “Ultrawellness”

The Buddhist Enneagram is a deeply personal exploration of Buddhist teachings on liberation from suffering and how the enneagram illuminates the way. This work is not an academic overview of interesting correlations between the systems. Rather, it shows how the enneagram gives powerful insight into your unique spiritual journey—and how you can support others in theirs.

Buddhist teacher and New York Times best-selling author Susan Piver has spent nearly 30 years in parallel study of Tibetan Buddhism and the enneagram. Piver masterfully weaves together two ancient schools of wisdom and magic in a compassionate exploration of the nine styles of traveling the path from confusion to wisdom.

With Buddhist teachings for each of the nine types, Piver illustrates that, no matter what your spiritual path is (including the path of no-path), the enneagram offers profound support for living a compassionate, fiercely awake life.

In this ground-breaking work, we find a way to untether ourselves from the merciless treadmill of self-improvement to see what is already perfect in ourselves, in others, and in every moment. This is the warrior’s journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lionheart Press, a division of the Open Heart Project
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781736943922

Susan Piver

Susan Piver is the bestselling author of The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say ‘I Do,’ and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. A graduate of a Buddhist seminary, she writes the relationships column for Body & Soul magazine and is a frequent guest on network television, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, and The Tyra Banks Show. She lives in Boston.

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Advance Praise

With wisdom, creativity, and artistry, Susan Piver brings a Buddhist lens to the spiritual map of the enneagram. The results are vibrant and nourishing: a banquet of insights that help us transmute our difficult emotions into pure expressions of our basic goodness.

Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and Trusting the Gold

Speeding past what is profound, noble, and vast seems all too common in our modern world. But here Piver fearlessly proclaims how to dismantle such tragic ignorance with a field guide called The Buddhist Enneagram. But this isn’t just any field guide—and surely not a self-help book. Rather, Piver brings to life an ancient, seemingly magical, wisdom for unleashing our natural compassion, skill, and kindness in a world that is deeply in need of our help. Be prepared to work hard with this book. And be prepared to smile and wake up! 

Michael Carroll, Author of Awake at Work and The Mindful Leader

I first learned of the enneagram a decade ago. I was blessed that it was a direct transmission from Susan Piver. I’ve waited eagerly to hold her latest book, The Buddhist Enneagram, in my hands. As anticipated, Susan perfectly weaves her deep perceptions of both the dharma and the enneagram to once again light our path toward deeper compassion and connection: what the world aches for but isn’t always sure how to find. Far beyond any horoscope gloss over the nine types, The Buddhist Enneagram takes us deep into our subtleties, our blind spots, and opportunities for transcendence in our relationships. As an executive coach to C-level leaders and their high-potential successors, Susan’s enneagram teachings have allowed me to hold up a multidimensional mirror for my clients. When they are willing to look, they see themselves and everyone around them as allies rather than obstacles. The Buddhist Enneagram will deepen the impact of the enneagram on the coaching profession and likely conscious leadership for generations. 

Kristoffer Carter, CEO of Epic Leadership, Author of Permission to Glow

The Buddhist Enneagram is a revelation. A genuinely novel, deeply wise, immensely insightful, and valuable guide that will change the way you see yourself and live your life. Get it now!

Jonathan Fields, founder of Good Life Project, author of SPARKED

I’ve read the seminal books on the enneagram, and none of them so deftly show how it provides a path to compassion, warriorship, and wisdom as well as The Buddhist Enneagram. It’s simultaneously personal, funny, insightful, and tender. In the times we’re in and the ones ahead of us, The Buddhist Enneagram will be a wonderful guide to living more open-heartedly and courageously. 

Charlie Gilkey, author of the award-winning Start Finishing

Susan Piver is one of my favorite people on the planet. She is genuine, deep, and warm. Her voice is entirely unique, and she seems to have an endless stream of unexpected wisdom. By blending her long-time studies of Buddhism and the enneagram, she supports us to turn away from incessant self-improvement and relax into our natural brilliance. She assures us that everything we seek—love, insight, creativity, authenticity—is already here. 

Mark Hyman, MD, 14-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of The UltraWellness Center

Susan Piver’s voice is so trustworthy and real. This book made me catch my breath in its new and deep approach to the enneagram. It is a remarkable work of art, a raw, real, and intelligent field guide to your own freedom. You need to read this book. The whole world needs to read this book. Piver shows us a pathway out of confusion and guesswork and into insight and truth.

Christine Kane, author of The Soul Sourced Entrepreneur

With a fresh, wise, and unassuming voice, Susan Piver weaves profound Buddhist wisdom with the enneagram, showing us a way to personal freedom and liberation. She anchors complex ancient teachings in deeply human experiences we can all relate to. 

Marcela Lobos, author of Awakening your Inner Shaman

If you’ve ever wondered why you are the way you are and why the heck other people are the way they are—and, even more importantly, how to accept yourself and maybe even all those other people—you will love this book. Susan Piver offers you a brilliant heart-opening road map to understanding yourself and everyone you care about—and those that you don’t but need to co-exist with—in ways that will change your life forever. This book is pure magic! 

Jennifer Louden, bestselling author of Why Bother?

Right here, in this unusual and exceptional book, Susan takes a powerful shot at integrating her two great pursuits—Buddhism and the enneagram—on her journey toward personal realization and deepening her (and our) understanding of this thing we call life. I dug this book…It will make you think and it will make you stop thinking…Drop in and check it out! 

David Nichtern, author of Awakening From the Daydream and Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck

This wonderful book rescues the enneagram from a sea of meme-worthy flotsam, reinstating it among the mysterious treasures of human wisdom. Susan Piver’s witty, penetrating prose proclaims the enneagram as true dharma: a sacred torch that illuminates the path from suffering to liberation. But, hey, if it also helps you pick out the perfect paint color for your bedroom and understand your mother-in-law better along the way, so be it!

Kevin Townley, Author of Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again

The Buddhist Enneagram is audacious and light-hearted, a brilliant foray into love and numbers, dharma and the confounding and courageous journey we each travel. Susan’s refreshing take on the enneagram is a compass for the trip.

Alberto Villoldo, PhD, bestselling author of Shaman, Healer, Sage and The Wisdom Wheel

The Buddhist

Enneagram

TitlePage

Susan Piver © 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and articles.

Lionheart Press, Somerville,

MA

,

USA

lionheartpress.net

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022911171

ISBN

978-1-7369439-1-5 (paperback)

ISBN

978-1-7369439-2-2 (e-book)

Every reasonable effort has been made to contact the copyright holders for work reproduced in this book.

Permission to reprint a lyric from Rain Just Falls kindly granted by its author, David Halley.

Cover & text design by Jazmin Welch - fleck creative studio

Ebook by Legible Publishing Services

Also by the Author

The Wisdom of a Broken Heart:

An Uncommon Guide to Healing, Insight, and Love

Start Here Now:

An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation

The Four Noble Truths of Love: ,

Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships

For Crystal, who read this book before it was written

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Where Does the Enneagram Come From?

How to Get the Most from This Book

The Buddhist Enneagram

Facets of the Enneagram

One: The Warrior of Exertion

Two: The Warrior of Love

Three: The Warrior of Accomplishment

Four: The Warrior of Poetics

Five: The Warrior of Clear Seeing

Six: The Warrior of Truth

Seven: The Warrior of Magic

Eight: The Warrior of Power

Nine: The Warrior of Presence

How to Type Yourself

The Enneagram as a Path

Afterword

FAQ

Appendix A: How I Found My Type

Appendix B: The Hornevian Directional Theory

Appendix C: The Bodhisattvas of the Enneagram

Appendix D: Suggested Works

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Preface

We are talking about the mandala principle from the point of view of the map of enlightenment.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

When I was a little girl, I had conversations with numbers. It seemed quite ordinary to me.

My childhood bed was in a corner of the room under a window. On sunny mornings, I would lie there and watch flecks of dust circulate in the light. They floated and mixed and drifted and disappeared and reappeared. It was an odd delight just to be with them. At some point, the flecks turned into numbers. Numbers would float and mix and drift and disappear and reappear, sometimes alone, sometimes with other numbers. They arranged themselves in designs that arose and fell apart, arose and fell apart. There was endless movement and endless meaning to the movement. The numbers engaged in unceasing play and, due to some stroke of luck, my mind was a part of this strange choreography. The numbers felt like friends that teased me, shared insights, fell into comfortable silence, and offered wordless teachings. It wasn’t until I discovered the enneagram, a fascinating system that describes nine types of people, that I gained additional insight into what it all might mean.

The enneagram is a complex mandala made of numbers. It is divided into parts that together express a single universe but, just as I experienced in my childhood reveries, the primary meaning exists in the ever-shifting interplay. While it is enticing to think, I enjoy solitude, I must be a Five or All Twos are generous, such thoughts deprive the system of its true magic, which is to connect us to insight beyond conventional models of understanding. This is what makes it a spiritual system, one that shows who you really are, which includes—but goes far beyond—your personality. With the enneagram, we untether ourselves from the merciless treadmill of self-improvement to see what is already perfect—in ourselves, in others, and in every moment. This is a warrior’s journey. It takes courage to look at what we cannot see under normal circumstances. I hope that this book will support you to do so.

This work is a result of my decades-long investigation into both the enneagram and the Buddhadharma. They have mixed in my mind to create the amalgam that follows. It is important to acknowledge right up front that the ideas in this book are, as far as I know, mine and mine alone. That is the good news and the bad news: good, because it might offer something fresh; bad, because I may be full of it. One never knows.

I hope you know what I’m hinting at: don’t take my word for anything. I can’t even say how much I mean that. Please consider what is contained herein and then investigate it for yourself. What you find to be true and/or useful is now your own wisdom, and you can forget about me. Same goes for what you find impossible to corroborate. Ignore it…and forget about me. In fact, just forget about me altogether and simply listen to your own wisdom mind.

Susan Piver

March 22, 2022 | Austin,

TX

Introduction

I once worked closely on creative projects with a brilliant and accomplished colleague. Every time I came up with a new idea, he immediately told me why it would never work. I left each meeting in a huff, feeling some combination of shame at my stupid ideas and anger at him for not recognizing my secret genius. Creative projects involve a lot of brainstorming, experimentation, and trial and error. There was no room for any of that. I despaired of ever finding a way to work together…until I realized he was a Six on the enneagram. Sixes are preternaturally attuned to danger. They assume a hidden threat in every situation and keep looking until they find it. The moment I saw this, I stopped telling him my ideas until they were a bit more formed and I wanted to know what could go wrong—an essential bridge to cross in any creative endeavor. Once I saw that he was the perfect person to talk to, not in the germination stage, but in the execution phase of our ideas, the agita in our dynamic fell away. I saw my previous reactions to him as rooted in my own type (Four), rather than in his responses.

This ability to distinguish between your presence and my perceptions of that presence actually has the power to change the world. When I can own my feelings as generated by me (not you), I can work with them (and you) much more skillfully to either pacify, amplify, disregard, or dismantle the situation, whichever is appropriate. Without this ability, I remain trapped on the hamster wheel of self-absorption, always chasing my right and assigning my wrong.

When our differences can be appreciated as alternative superpowers rather than personal insults, difficult dynamics fade away. We can assume our rightful roles in whatever we are doing together, whether it is about love, work, cooking dinner, or saving the planet.

This is the brilliance of the enneagram. It allows us to see ourselves and others clearly. It points the way to skillful action. It shows us how to love.

The Enneagram as a Path to Love

Just as my Six colleague paid attention to potential pitfalls first and everything else second, each type has a very particular arc of attention. When entering a new situation, for example, each type will focus on something different. Broadly speaking, One’s attention will go to error. Two’s attention will go to need. Threes will attend to status, Fours to meaning or intensity, Fives to data points, Sixes to threat, Sevens to pleasure, Eights to power, and Nines to comfort. We all know how to pay attention to such things, but for each of us, one aspect will get our attention first. Until we know our differences, we naturally assume that what we think is important is what everyone ought also to notice first. It is confounding that they do not. But when you can see where another’s attention goes, you can meet them there, instead of discounting them for, well, being not you.

As mentioned I am a Four. My husband is a One. My attention goes to meaning. I try to use my discernment to understand what is happening, not to change it, particularly, but to name it. Sad. Rocky. Distant. Suffocating. Helpful. Weird. There is something about being able to label the subtler aspects of a feeling, conversation, or problem that gives me comfort. We Fours find our way by attuning to nuance.

Ones pay attention to something entirely different. Rather than turning within to name feeling tones, Ones are concerned with right and wrong. Done properly or improperly. Conforms or does not conform to standards. What is soothing to a Four may be irritating to Ones, who navigate difficulty by a moral compass.

What happens when a Four and a One get into an argument? Fours want you to understand the flavor of what they feel and their interpretation of events, not to problem-solve, but to mix our minds and hearts. If I can make known my feelings and observations and sense that you are attuned to my inner experience, I feel safe. We are already halfway to solving the problem.

Ones aren’t having it. What my One partner wants to know is not why I feel the way I do or how many shades of gray I can uncover to describe it perfectly (which I can); he wants to know if I see what went wrong, or more accurately, if I see what he sees went wrong. This makes him feel safe.

I want to know if he understands my inner experience. He wants to know if I share his judgments. Those are very different ways of finding one’s footing in a disagreement.

To have a useful conversation about our disconnections, it is extremely helpful if, at the outset, I acknowledge wrongdoing. My own, his, ours, whatever. I misinterpreted what you said. If you had said it this way, I would have understood you better. We tried to talk about it when we were both tired; that wasn’t such a great idea. These things are not of particular concern to me, but when I can communicate that I also find value in spotting mistakes, acknowledging missteps, or determining the exact moment the problem began, I feel him relax. Conversely, if he says, I’m curious about what you feel right now, or, simply, Tell me more, I relax. In this sense, knowing and, as important, accepting that the other’s point of view and set of concerns are as valid as your own opens door after door to each other’s hearts.

Where Does the

Enneagram Come From?

It is quite natural to wonder about this. Where does the enneagram system come from? Good question. I have searched high and low for the answer.

Some people say it comes from Sufism. About a decade ago, I tracked down a renowned Sufi scholar (and Sheikh) and asked him if he knew the enneagram. He had heard of it but only outside of Sufi circles. It had not come up at all in his decades of practice and study, and so he wasn’t aware of any reason to think they were connected. It’s just one guy, I realize. Other Sufi masters might have said otherwise. Also, there is a long tradition in the esoteric lineages of remaining opaque in the presence of those who ask questions from naiveté rather than a more informed interest in the answer. Zen masters are said to slam the door in your face three times before admitting you to the zendo. In some forms of Orthodox Judaism, prospective converts must be sternly turned away three times before a conversation is possible. (That fourth time must be the universal charm.) The crazy wisdom masters of Tibetan Buddhism are known for all sorts of pranks and mischief (and worse) in the presence of naiveté. So it is entirely possible that someone like me showing up with self-interested questions and no knowledge of Sufism or Islam could be told, well, anything in the spirit of Don’t bother me until you actually understand what you are asking and know enough about my tradition to ask with respect and reverence.

In any case, he subsequently tracked down and sent to me a fascinating passage from the Qur’an that describes the nine types of men. They are:

At Taibun: Those who repent

Al Abidun: Those who worship Him

Al Hamidun: Those who praise Him

As Sa’ihun: Those who travel

Ar Raki’un: Those who bow down

As Sajidun: Those who prostrate themselves

Al Amirun Bil Ma’rouf: Those who foster the good

An Nahun ’An El Munkar: Those who forbid what is blameworthy

Al Hafizun Li Hudud Allah: Those who are the guardians of all divine laws

That is as far as I have gotten in directly connecting the enneagram to Sufism. (Which is not saying much, I realize.)

The enneagram’s origin, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is as follows:

The first person known to have taught the system was George Gurdjieff, a Russian philosopher-mystic of Greek-Armenian descent who died in 1949. He taught it to his students as a means for understanding the natural cycles of existence, not as personality typing. He said he learned about the enneagram from the mysterious Sarmoun (sometimes spelled Sarmoung) Brotherhood,