Business to the Buddha

Tag: interdependent co-arising

  • Profit to Purpose







    Since long when I started blogging on Business to the Buddha; I had this in mind – we are all connected (Interdependent co-arising in Buddhism). Therefore, if the whole world wants to look at development, it can only happen if all grow, not at the cost of ‘other’. I have written about 260+ blogs in last 5+ years, recently, I found a perfect way this concept was presented by Tanmay Vora. It’s perfectly said that a picture says a thousand words, Tanmay has proved it right here.

    I requested Tanmay to let me share the drawing on my blog, and he was kind enough to let me do this. You can read his thoughts on Mindset shift here.

    Profit Purpose Saint in SuitThis is the idea of my thoughts on being Saint in Suit. We all need to grow as professionals and as individuals. We have to be saints in business and personal life both this will be profit with purpose.

    To read more of Tanmay’s thoughts go to – http://qaspire.com/

  • Saint in Suit







    It was Feb or March of 2011. We were just completing our MBA and as would be the case with any other B-school companies were visiting campus for recruitment. A big company was scheduled to visit one day. One of my friends – Jaydutt – was among the most likely candidates to be selected. However, he did not even attend the presentation of the company. Everyone was curious, why?

    I – besides others – was shocked it! I went to his room and asked him, why did not you attend the presentation itself forget the recruitment process?

    He said – “I know the company well, and I have firsthand experienced working there. Pravin, as confident you were, other friends too were confident and I was under pressure to make a decision, it was a enormous confusion I was also not able to make a choice. So, yesterday night when I was about to go to bed, I asked myself this question – ‘if I join them, would I be happy getting up every day in the morning and going to office? Would I enjoy working there? I would invest at least 8 hours per day there, which is 33% of my daily life or close to 50% of my hours awake in a day, am I really keen to go there?’ My conscience told me NO! I decided to skip the company.”

    MeditationThis small conversation with Jaydutt made me think – those points were such that even after full 5 years I still remember the discussion. I recalled that small discussion with Jaydutt when I planned another of my journey from Business to the Buddha to Saint in Suit. I realized whenever I say Business to the Buddha, there seems to be a gap between Business and the Buddha. There seems to be a movement from one place to the other. It requires separate effort or action.

    When I met Fateh uncle recently, I realized that it is not going from one place to the other. It is “being” that. He is a successful businessman and a spiritual person. The title Saint in Suit actually came in my mind when we met once and he was wearing a suit! Now or in future we’ll have to be professionals with the spiritual connect. We need to be saints in the form of professionals. That awareness will either sprout or if does not, we need it to be developed. Though, unfortunately currently I don’t have time to commit to this and keep writing regularly there besides keeping my pace here too.

    Saint in Suit concept is spirituality and business are together. In this concept the plan is to write about how business works (or should work) on spiritual practices, how it can work on spiritual practices, sharing any model related spirituality and business, sharing or defining model related to spirituality and business in any business function e.g. Board level to line executive from marketing to HR to suppliers etc.

    I’m hoping to bring like minded people on this platform to start writing about being saint in suits. your contributions are welcome there create your login.

    Image source – http://www.bravefury.com/six-reasons-men-should-do-yoga/

  • Dont divide – we are all interdependent







    Yes I know you must be wondering as if the topic is not complete or I missed something? This blog is not related with politics or religious division either. No, no I am not going to write about terrorist attacks again. They are becoming something very common now a days. We do need a solution to that with Talks, if that does not work perhaps force.

    Look inwardsThe year started on a very strange note – people wrote if 2016 is similar to 2008? The world bank reduced forecast of world GDP growth rate to 2.9% however had a positive outlook on growth of India. However, as we read news like this, we tend to think – ok make this strata analyse this. How about the developing countries as a whole? How is Europe doing? How about China? So we try to divide and look at each as individual or strata or country, isnt it? We are all interdependent, we must think of the whole world. If we look at worldwide trend, we realize that 2.9% is lowered expectation, that is a cause of concern. When such concerns are raised we must do one thing – turn inwards. This inwards is applied on an individual level as well as a local level e.g. the smallest strata we are considering for growth for example country. Look for options for improvement locally. When we see troubles in GDP growth worldwide – the best option to consider is looking for improving economy at country level – increasing local consumption, improving livelihood of the citizen by infrastructure or other basic needs. Because these small steps add to the monolith of global GDP, isnt it?

    The other thing to keep in mind is – when a hungry person eats, that adds to his/her health. If a stuffed person eats extra, his/her health may deteriorate, isnt it? When we are seeing world GDP, we must concentrate on the underdeveloped not on developed world as the driving force for growth. In the end once again – we are all interdependent.

    Image source – Petfinder.com

  • Once upon a time







    Where are we taking the earth?
    Making it full of pieces or full of peace?
    Are we gifting our generations hate or harmony?

    Check this wikipedia link Terror incidents in 2015. It had to be divided in 2 half and monthly status, where are we taking our civilization? Ashes!China Air

    Once upon a time
    the pasture was greener
    the air was cleaner
    Water was transparent
    and environment was pleasant

    Wish we all sign-off 2015 with a commitment to ourselves that we would do what we can for making the environment as good as it was Once upon a time and harbor peace.

    Wish you all a Very Happy New Year. Hope sense prevails we work towards better environment and society in 2016. Wish we learn that we grow if we keep in mind ‘interdependent co-arising’ we all grow together and we have to grow together otherwise there is only false sense of personal growth / wealth or health.

    The topic of LBC was suggested by Lin for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order are Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi,Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

    Image source – CNN.com – China Parade blue sky!

  • Family Occasion







    I some times contribute to LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) where a couple of people write every weekend (Friday to be precise). This week the topic was “Family Occasion”.

    Sounds weird as a topic, isnt it? This topic has two words Family and occasion. Family we generally define as a smallest social unit of society. This small social unit has parents and kids, dictionary.com has one alternate explanation to the definition – all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.

    I have been taking interest in theory of evolution for some time of late. According to that we are all evolving and have evolved over the years. If we take the definition of family too much back in time, we all are a family. This point brings me back to a concept of Buddhism – interdependent co-arising and another of Hinduism – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (one world family). Effectively according to both the concepts we are all related (in terms of a family) and connected (in terms of something affecting you has an impact on me too). These two concepts are too subtle for understanding on gross level. But since we are struggling at global level from climate change it becomes easy to understand. A car driven in Mumbai is affecting the whole world, because it creates pollution. Hope the point is clear.

    The other word of the topic is Occasion which according to dictionary.com means – a particular time, especially as marked by certain circumstances or occurrences. Well, climate change is an occasion in this definition. Climate change is a definition for family occasion for all of us. Recently we saw Chennai Floods – what is that? That is a family disaster, and largely all of us are responsible for such events – because all of us are responsible of climate change. The mobile I am using for twitting #ChennaiFloods, the laptop I am using for writing this blog all impact climate. Think it over!

    4On a lighter note – I had two family occasions last week – my 1st marriage anniversary (6th Dec) and my fathers 75th Birthday (7th Dec).

    The topic of LBC Family suggested by Maria the gaelikaa for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

  • Beggar and a Celestial being







    One day, by the side of a beggar, a golden chariot with divine being descended from the sky. The beggar thought that he was lucky and would become rich. But to his surprise, the divine being asked him for alms. Cursing his stars and out of disgust, the beggar took out a small Piece of grain from his bag and offered it to the divine being.

    The whole day, the beggar was very unhappy that he had lost a grain. Before going to sleep, the beggar opened his bag to see what he had collected throughout the day. To his great surprise, he found a piece of gold in the form of a grain. He immediately realized it was in return for what he had given to the Celestial being. He cursed himself for not having given all that he had in his possession.’

    Learn to give. The more you give the more will you receive in return; if you hoard, it would only be for others.

    Related blogs – Interdependent coarising, Random act of kindness, Just do it… ok try it, Three Avocados

    Source – I read this story in a book of Swami Sukhbodhananda Oh Mind relax please.

  • This and That







    When you see me as different from you, you get into the idea of “This” and “That”. When there is an “Me” and “other” there is a question of “This” and “That”. In Indian philosophy we call it dvait (द्वैत) or duality. There is a whole philosophy in India on duality – Adwait Vedanta. I am neither an expert nor have I read much about the vedanta so I wont be commenting on those lines.

    crossroadsWhen Maria suggested this topic, I felt this is a unique and interesting topic. However, my line of thought did not go beyond the Indian philosophy of Adwait Vedanta. The mind suddenly moved to “free will” and choices when This Vs that came to my mind.

    Are we really free to make choices? Science may suggests now that our perception of free will is a kind of illusion. Perhaps, in future we would prove with big data analytics that there is no free will. I am sure we can do this with analytics as I have been involved with analytics on various levels and have personally seen what decision and output we may get when it is rightly done. So how a person would react in given situation may be predictable and the choice of “This and That” may not be the “choice” actually. Our choices are influenced by what we have been exposed to, how our mind is conditioned. I think a game of chess can explain how we make decisions – we make one decision and if that works we may say this was right. If that decision fails we may say the other option we skipped would have been better. [relevant blog here]. So the free will of This and That makes us rational individuals but that rationality is also under question.

    I love how the Buddha has put things across for such kind of situations. Free will seems to be an illusion – “Go meditation”. Free will is not concerned with you. Does God exist? “Go meditation” that question is irrelevant. Though I am not Buddhist (This) nor I am staunch Hindu (That) or follower of any other religion as such but somehow I love the way The Buddha has explained his line of thought. It is “This” and “That” together – Interdependent co-arising.

    This topic was suggested by Maria, for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently nine of us write on the same topic every Friday.  I hope that you enjoyed my contribution to that effort.  The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order – Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Ramana Uncleji, Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

    Image source – https://pixabay.com/en/crossroads-signpost-directions-wood-303896/

  • landslide







    When Alan Greenspan said in 2008 – “I really didn’t get it until very late.” It was as if someone was digging under his feet and Mr AG did not know. May be Mr AG really did not know, because he was keeping his eyes and ears closed. May be he was so inebriated in the wheel of growth that not just Mr AG but any banker was not willing to feel the “overheating economy”, hear or see that someone was digging deeper – under their feet.

    These words overheating and digging remind me of environment and when I received the above video* from someone on Whatsapp I could relate this video to one and only thing – economy.

    When I was watching this video, I was having strange feelings in my mind that the economy is going to do in down turn once again in 2015-16. “Everything just works as perfectly as it can…until it stops working!” That seems to be the case yet again for the economy.

    There are other reasons to believe that we are going to have a tough time. Though I do not want to be a doomsayer or conspiracy theorist, but here are few things – Developed world wages freeze analysis (The Economist), ISIS is likely to help economy sustain (wars have helped bring economy back on track), Upcoming elections in the USA, France unhappy and rise of EU opponent leader there. Though when it comes to EU, I wish it remains an integrated unit, that is a start for unifying the world in the lines of – interdependent co-arising.

    Watch that video once again – remember Economy goes down like this. Have we ever questioned the actual reasons for these things? Dig deeper! This digging deeper to make some extra pound creates the problem. Economy crumbles like this when we do not nurture it the way we – as a collective group – fail to maintain the hill which just crumbled in the video. As capitalists too – we are individually smart collectively dumb.

    *The origin of this video is unknown to the author – video shared by Dr Mala Kapadia.

  • Interdependent co-arising in Ecosystem







    As I have been writing a lot about interdependent co-arising, I came across this video and thought to share it without delay on my blog.

    If you can understand this video you can understand the concept of Buddhism on interdependent co-arising. Please watch this small <5 min video a wonderful experiment. According to the description of the video – When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable “trophic cascade” occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers?

    “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir

    An interesting way to explain interdependence. Hope we learn this sooner rather than later that ecology has to be balanced, political, social and religious ideas should also be balanced because perhaps nothing is perfect! I think therefore Mahavir used the concept of Syadvada (doctorine of postulation) and the Buddha middle path.

    Source – Youtube channel Sustainable Human http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYv_csqWJTSfQK3vOZDJKQw

  • Butterfly Effect, is it?







    One fine day morning, a very strange thought came in my mind. Whatever we are doing, is it creating any problem in the nature or it is development?

    I shifted to suburb some time back, I found that there is relatively less cleanliness in suburb compared to where I used to live in South Mumbai (SoBo). Almost everyday there used to be swapping of the roads and all. By noon you could not find foliage on the roads. Why did this strange thought of swapping came to mind mind?

    In my suburban apartment a pigeon has made a nest with leafs. The same happens & happened in SoBo apartment too. I have seen at least three (actually five) times the pigeon could not properly hatch the eggs. Whereas I believe the suburban pigeon’s hatching could be better. In SoBo, pigeon’s nests were not as warm as Suburban pigeon’s nest is. This is because SoBo pigeon did not get foliage leafs whereas suburban pigeon did! Three times I observed eggs ended with no baby pigeon because proper warmth was missing! Had I done something for the nest, pigeon wont have accepted it. I tried it once threw some cotton to help him/her.

    So both these pigeon’s a suburban and a SoBo made me think – when we do something for “Good” e.g. swapping for cleaning roads, are we really doing something good for the nature? Who knows!

    Is it butterfly effect – no matter how small, an event can change the course of the universe forever.