Business to the Buddha

Tag: teacher

  • Sickness teaches you







    God afflicts one with sickness? I doubt. Here is what I went through and my two cents on sickness/fever/illness.

    I fell sick last to last week. I was feeling very weak & could not even write a blog, well that apart. I had a very strange idea in that sickness as well. I was observing many things. One thing I observed was this – my body (each cell of the body) does not know that it is a part of something really big, still each of the cells do help in recovery. The cells as individual units & as a group must not be aware of an awareness that resides in the body. The cells may not even know that it is a part of the body which houses some consciousness! I know I may be completely wrong, but I felt this.

    SicknessThe other observations I made included getting to know that we waste a lot of energy. When I was weak, I realized that brushing our teeth also require a lot of energy and we do many such things effortlessly when we are in good health that we waste a lot of energy. One must conserve this energy and use it for better purposes.

    Awareness was a wonderful lesson I learnt. I learnt that I could observe myself however weak I was, but I could have awareness. One need not wait for such observation of self. I dont want to fell sick again but at times I made few very interesting observations. It was that time I realized that I can blog about it. Yes sickness can be a good teacher.

    Lastly, I would not want to blame God for afflicting sickness/illness on me, but here is something interesting from Bible you should read (Psalm 119- 67 to 75) – “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word…It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees…I know, O LORD, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”

    Two cents from my side – next time in case you fell sick (wish that does not happen), try to observe – where your body pains, the weakness and how and where you feel weak. Where your body is hot, how is the movement of any part of your body is happening. Things/actions become so slow that you can do these observations.

    Image source Wikimedia

    Bible Psalm source – Link

  • I will only show you the path…







    (A correction, in the title ‘I’ stands for ‘the teachers’ and ‘you’ stands for me or ‘the students’.)

    I have had privilege of meeting Prof Mankad recently, it is always a pleasant experience meeting him. I realized he always has something very meaningful to share and his opinion are always very well thought off, I have a lot to learn from him. While talking to him I realized that many good teachers have given a message – ‘I will only show you the path; YOU have to walk through the road.’ When the Buddha told the story ‘Finger is not the moon’ the message was –

    1. Do not stick to the finger e.g. me, because this (finger) is only a way to show you the path
    2. Get directions and pave your path. It was a message for Ananda – app dipo bhava (in Pali language) Meaning ‘Be a light unto yourself’ when you are done with identification of path
    3. Walk through the path

    Prof. Mankad taught us Macroeconomics, gave us an Financial Times in the exam to write about any current affair why? To make us start reading FT. Prof Moradian made a statement in a class ‘I will only show you the path, you have to walk through it’ (which is the title of the blog). Prof. Lopez gave us inputs on life beyond books and ‘learn to see’, e.g. did you go to Vivocity (a mall in Singapore)? Did you see this or that? What can you infer from that? Prof Ram Kumar gave us assignments wherein we had to go to market and see the performances of brands on ground. Prof Sohan Shah, gave us sleepless nights (believe me we all enjoyed the grind) while giving us assignments on marketing communication, I am pretty sure that each student of the class (perhaps some non marketing students too Ankit Jain and Rahul Krishnan) can independently workout a plan on integrated marketing communication. They have showed us the path, its our responsibility to walk through the road.

    *What I understand is the Buddha was not in favor of a religion; even it happened in case of many more spiritual masters. Why? Because as time passes the directions become rituals, systems you see! When rituals become the ONLY path to be followed it creates conflicts in individuals mind and actions. Therefore the best thing is – to learn the lessons critically and walk through the road towards the goal keeping lessons in mind rather than the literal content of the message.

    I thought to write about four noble truths and eight fold path, then I asked myself, does it make sense to connect everything of Buddhism to Business or literal Buddhism to Business? Is not it important to concentrate on messages and see whether it fits in the business context?

    * Apologies, if I hurt someone’s belief, though I didn’t intend to do anything like that.