Business to the Buddha

Tag: Stanford research

  • Waves of peace







    Last week I wrote (The fish will fly in next birth) about a research done at Stanford University on Buddhism. This research was on impact of Buddhist concepts on individuals irrespective of their belief system. Though, I tried being little “story teller” type in writing which might have gone awry – some people did not understand what the whole blog is all about. The story and its title got precedent over the point of view of research. Here is another incident I want to share regarding the same. First a brief on the research –

    Old path white cloudsSome researchers did a research on the impact of Buddhists words on individuals irrespective of the religious background these participating individuals have. Participants included – Western Christians, Westerners who practiced Buddhism and Taiwanese with a Buddhist/Taoist. According to that research, if people are exposed to Buddhists concepts people reacts to things positively more often.

    Why this research seems plausible to me has another story besides the story of Fish. My wife has not been very spiritual person. After our marriage in Dec, she had opted for leave. In this leave period she read about 1/3rd of the book Old Path White Clouds.

    When I used to comeback from office I started noticing that she is very calm and used to get into silence. Yes literally that was the case, it was obvious, no extra efforts required to notice it.

    Initially when I was worried about what went wrong she said nothing, and that bothered me even more. I asked her to go out for walk, meet people in our building, go to nearby Gurudwara and go to market just to get mingled. She was new to Mumbai so her being silent worried me further, whether she is nostalgic or not happy [both cases seemed improbable because of her demeanor]. Yet that worried me.

    Her silence had depth, I observed for a couple of days then I asked her what is the reason, and she showed me the book – she said I get into kind of meditation when I read this book page by page. I have become so calm and at peace!

    I first read Old path white cloud in 2007, since then it has become a treasure for me. I have donated this book to a couple of people. I am not a Buddhist, and in fact I somehow try to avoid getting attached to any -ISM (religion).

    The Stanford research has – time and again – proved to me [without that research itself, any reference of priming or social psychology] that there is something in the teachings of the Buddha that brings positive changes to an individual.

    Related blog –

    Old path white clouds

    Why this title? [of the blog Business to the Buddha]

    Eating for the sake of eating?

  • The fish will fly in next birth







    The phone rang for unusual number of times today. My sister or her daughter is generally not that late to pick up a call.

    When I heard my sister on the other side, I said – “Hi! didi, what are you doing? Where is Chinu?” Her response took me aback. She said – “Chinu and her dad is going to burry our fish, there were two both died today.” Chinu is my niece, who is ~5+ years currently.

    I saw surprised, “when did you bring fish? Last time also the same happened.”

    My sister responded – “Yes, we bought these two about a month back. Last time also the fish could not survive more than a month. Chinu was so attached to these fish that when these died she was very upset and felt very low.”

    My sister continued – “when I could not handle here sorrow face, I told her, Chinu, both the fish were bored of swimming they both wanted to fly. Now they would become birds.”

    FishMy sister reads Jatak tales to her these days. Chinu was satisfied that both the fish are on their way to accomplish what they want to do. When her father called, she informed him also (this time with relatively more happily) – “daddy, both of them will fly now, they wanted to become birds.”

    Chinu was at peace, she went to bury the fish as she did last time also. However, this time she was content. She did everything possible to have the fish and provide them with special fish food and good quality aquarium, but these could not survive.

    Chinu was not upset. When I heard what my sister just said, I remembered an interesting scientific research published recently. This research was done at Stanford University. It falls under Social Psychology using priming as an approach. These things sound very complicated, let me elaborate these points –

    According to psychologists social psychology is usage of scientific methods “to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other objects.”

    Priming is a phenomenon about exposing people to certain words or images that then subconsciously influence their thinking or behavior.

    According to that research, if people are exposed to Buddhists concepts (experiment group included Western Christians, Western Buddhists and East Asian Buddhist individuals) people reacts to things positively more often.

    QUOTE Huffington Post

    Across all groups, people who were exposed to words like “Buddha,” “Dharma” and “awakening” in a word puzzle showed fewer negative associations with African and Muslim people than those who were exposed to Christian or nonreligious words.

    Participants who were primed with Buddhist words also scored higher on a test measuring prosocial behaviors. These effects were particularly pronounced among people who scored higher on tests measuring open-mindedness.

    UNQUOTE

    Though, I myself have questions on the way research was done, what is the impact Kanakia 7on before priming vs after priming etc yet when I relate this research to my niece I believe this must have some correlation.

    I think that is why Kanakia ‘Sevens’ – a residential project – is advertised like this. Also I have been seeing a lot of photos/status etc of the Buddha at various places as “fashion” perhaps having subtle – unknown – meaning.

    Image source – Kanakia Sevens

    Aquarium Image source – Flickr