Business to the Buddha

Tag: suffering

  • How do you identify your mojo?







    This LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) blog title was suggested by yours truly. It was not a suggested topic in real sense, it was a question raised in mail to all the 12 long time authors of LBC; though only a few write on LBC now. When this question was sent, I was under an impression that Mojo means – your one or few passions that you can do best or something you enjoy doing or something you would do without cheating even if no one is watching you.

    The topic sounds strange when you replace mojo with my assumed meanings. How do you identify your passion, or how do you identify what you enjoy doing? Does not it sound weird. You dont find these things, you just know it!

    Ready to Race

    My problem had been different – I had enjoyed many of the things. As a kid whenever I took something up I took it up very sincerely and seriously, an example is improving mathematics. When I played I played just to win (more here). When I was in NCC I did everything possible to be the best cadet. Anyways. So, mostly if I got involved with something, I was involved passionately. Thus came this thought, how does one find out one’s passion? I did whatever I did with complete sincerity and commitment so I think I dont know what is that something I am passionate about intrinsically. So how can one find one’s passion. This was the question I asked my fellow authors! Do I know what I am passionate about? For example writing on management & spirituality is that I am passionate about? Because besides this I do other things too, so can I learn from others that how do I identify my passion. This was the reason the blog title came into existence.

    So the question itself was incorrect if I review the dictionary meaning of Mojo, which is influence, charm or magic spell. I do not know what is my magic spell. I think I need to go back to few of the potential alliances whom I met for my marriage proposals. I know few of them rejected me – perhaps they can tell me what is not “that good” in me! I am surely going to ask my wife about it.

    Now, when I am looking back at the topic, I am wondering – why should one know about one’s mojo? Do what you enjoy doing or find what you enjoy doing and just do it.

    This knowing / doing point at times confuses me – knowing my mojo (passion or charm) is one thing, utilizing it for achieve something is another. In conclusion on this conundrum I would like to quote a Zen master

    “…The significance of our life is not experienced in striving to create some perfect thing. We must simply start with accepting ourselves. Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are… Self-acceptance is the hardest thing to do. If we can’t accept ourselves, we are living in ignorance, this darkest night. We may still be awake, but we don’t know where we are. We cannot see. The mind has no light…”

    Missed it earlier – read thoughts of my fellow blogger’s on this topic at Shackman and Rummuser.

  • Paris attacks – Solution please!







    PeaceHow would the Buddha look at the scenario of Paris attack? Or any other terrorist attack? I was wondering with the same sadness and anger as any other person. I twitted also regarding the Paris attack. However, there came an afterthought, what would the Buddha do? How would the Buddha react to such incidents? Well, I cannot think as the Buddha may think. So I started thinking on the basic lessons of the Buddha. There are four noble truths –

    1. There is suffering,
    2. There is a cause of suffering,
    3. There is an end to suffering, and
    4. Sufferings can end if one follows eight fold path

    Everyone agrees, there is a problem of terrorism (suffering). What I think is – The Buddha will approach the problem of terrorism by analyzing it – what is the cause of this suffering. No doubt if there is suffering we can safely assuming there could be an end to it. In this case I believe the Buddha would try to analyze the problem and suggest a solution (as he suggested eight fold path).

    So, I tried searching for possible reasons for Syria issue (I am not touching the terrorist activities of Taliban and Pakistan sponsored terrorist activities for this blog). There were various impacts I tried analyzing such as – why ISIS came into existence? A first level answer to it was Iraq war. Is it really an issue of 2003 Iraq war? Then I read this – You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia so I started questioning on the very purpose of existence of ISIS? I started creating analogy of creation of Taliban (by USA) to fight former USSR and ISIS as one sub-section of Saudi Arabia. I may be completely wrong in the analogy however who gains if the ideology of ISIS gains more ground worldwide? Is it a problem of religious supremacy or political and power struggle? Perhaps it is both – I could not conclude on that with fair bit of confidence. I left the question aside for some time.

    The other side I heard of Syria crisis is power struggle of Shia and Sunni faith of Islam which is contesting of supremacy. Sunni Muslims of Saudi Vs Shia Muslims of Iran are fueling the fight in a third country Syria. So, it is getting more garbled within the religion itself.

    I moved to analyze the other thing – what is the impact of refugees fleeing to Europe? Does Europe need to show that much mercy to the fighting clans? Is Europe responsible for the mess and therefore it is moral responsibility of Europe to provide shelter to the refugees? Or it is economical requirement of Europe to have working hands for its economy? If these 500,000+ refugees are coming to Europe would it impact the religious balance of Europe? I think the growth rate of European Muslim population is already alarming. So, what is the impact? If the impact of this is intolerance and terrorist attack by fanatics, Europe may close the doors to refugees who knows?

    Many refugees are coming to save their lives and other for improved standard of living. The – currently unknown – leaders sitting in their offices / mansions are letting people die (whether a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh or a Muslim) to have a last laugh. All these are “craving” in the opinion of the Buddha. Method for working on these craving can be same (eight fold path) however for each type of craving the approach may differ.

    The question is – would the leaders, refugees and the terrorists follow the path of the Buddha?

    1. Perfect Vision,
    2. Perfected Emotion,
    3. Right speech,
    4. Right action,
    5. Right livelihood,
    6. Right effort,
    7. Right mindfulness, and
    8. Right meditation

    If the answer is even a 1% “NO”, this is what an after thought could be –

    Related Terrorist meets The Buddha.

  • Cause…







    Two thousand five hundred years ago, a man (The Buddha) said – there is suffering, there is cause of suffering, there is a solution and the solution. After so many years, we understood the cause and effect relationship, yet we experience sufferings…

    Japan was hit by a major earth quack, economy of big super powers is still struggling, inflation is rising, corruption (in India at least) etc. These are macro problems, there are many micro problems happening daily in life of each one of us. Yes there is suffering.

    At the first place, we are ambitious, in last five hundred years we have progressed so much. We tried solving so many riddles, went on moon too, still there is suffering. Is our being ambitious a cause of suffering? We want money, power and respect in society, is that a driving force? Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory seems pertinent to me here. I was reading todays DNA (Daily News and Analysis) – a newspaper in Mumbai. Front page first item today is on Suicide and how to avoid that. I was wondering the real issue of facing the problem (cause of suffering) is not issued, why? I think we are avoiding the real issue.

    No doubt there is suffering, there is a cause of suffering too. The question to ask is – what is the cause? If a man (The Buddha) could find solution and suggest it to us 2500 years ago why cannot we do one of the two possible things?
    1. learn the solution he preached
    2. try to find our own solution

    If one (the Buddha) person could do it so many years ago, why cannot we do it now? We are evolved (I presume) and we can solve our sufferings… we at least have a (many paths) path. Path suggested to us by many masters in the past – Jesus, Prophet and many Indian Masters in the past have preached. Still after many hundreds of years we have not moved from – there is suffering, and there is cause of suffering… when are we going to move to the next step of solution…

    The macro problems I wrote above, can be solved when we start solving micro problems, it is collective wisdom which would play a major role when we are individually wise.