Business to the Buddha

Tag: The Buddha

  • You cannot drive car looking at the rear view mirror







    I was watching a movie “Do Aankhen barah haath”, a very old Hindi movie directed by V Shantaram and also the lead role played by him. Since it is a very old movie acting is melodramatic, could be questioned and people can find many faults too, however as I wrote earlier in one of the blogs “Lost in translation” what is more important message or the presentation? So, you can watch the movie for the message.

    I related the movie to a part of the Buddha’s life. Many of us must have heard the story of Angulimala, a bandit. However, how many know the story of him before he became Angulimala and after the meeting with the Buddha?

    Angulimala was a bandit, killer of people just to get their fingers and make a garland. Yes thats what is known about him. The real name of Angulimala was “Ahinsak” or “Ahimsak“, a Sanskrit/Pali word meaning “nonviolent”. The pre Angulimala view about Ahinsak is on the link. What happened to him after he met the Buddha? When he met the Buddha, he became a Bhikku.

    The following part is from the book Blog – Old path white clouds (Book – Old Path White Clouds). Soon after he became a Bhikku he died, how? As a Bhikku he went to the same village where he killed people for making the garland of fingers. People attacked him to take the revenge, not noticing that he is a Bhikku, completely changed person now and he is not even reacting to the attack. The message of the attack reached the Buddha, he rushed to the place. Severely wounded, Angulimala, died in the laps of the Buddha.

    Similar situation arrives in the movie “Do Aankhen barah haath”, I could relate those sequences to the story of Angulimala.

    My Engineering college professor Dr Anand Swaroop Saxena told me way back (in 2001 some time) – “inherently people are not flawed, situation drive people to react in the way they react.” Dr Saxena taught me a great deal, I worked with him on my undergraduate project (published in a national journal :)). He always intrigued me with his simple, profound and ruminating words. For one question he said “…situations are responsible.”. Later I met a Sant Sai Kaka, he too said almost the same thing with more details and profundity. The reaction part comes from the prior experience (sanskar) one had in life. These statements changed the paradigm for my thinking. Yet it is the responsibility of the person to control oneself not to be driven by the situation/sansakar/prior experience.

    Two points to make here – 1. inherently people are not flawed, situation drive people to react in the way they react and 2. past experiences are the milestone you have left behind while you drive to a destination. You cannot drive car looking at the rear view mirror – is not it right!

  • 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.

  • The Business, the Buddha and both…







    The Business
    What is business? Trade is the underlying concept of business and exchange of one thing for the other is trade. Earlier trade was based on barter system. Later, with the introduction of the concept of money, more sophistication was added to trade e.g. business. Based on a very basic definition of business, I can say life is a business, you trade relations; in fact you trade pretty much everything in life. On a tangent, even the so called most emotional feeling a human being has e.g. love, seems like a trade in today’s depiction of art. Though, love is a sacred feeling which should not be a trade.

    The Buddha
    Here, I want to state I am neither a Buddhist nor supporting Buddhism (any -ims for that matter), I am just associating the business to the longest lasting systems (which are generally religion) in the world. I may write on Islamic banking in future or stories of Jesus. The idea is to keeping eyes and ears open to learn that is how I could relate to Business and the Buddha, and still learning. I found words of wisdom of the Buddha relating to many places in businesses be it Singapore, Western world, India or other places, and that is what Business to Buddha made sense to me.

    … And the business and the Buddha
    There is relationship between business and the Buddha, in future the businesses would be more evolved and we would have more than profits in our mind. I got to watch this Video of Money Control earlier and this is one such instance where we might see an evolution in corporate thinking process. I will take an example on ‘interdependent co-arising’ (a concept of Buddhism) in some future blog. This video is on “Business Sutra” broadcast on CNBC, the link of the same is here relates to the same concept. Indian Walmart – the Big Bazaar – has a dedicated Chief Belief Officer (Dr Devdutt Pattnaik), we might see more involvement of ‘perhaps not belief‘ but social causes in business e.g. CSR.

  • 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.

  • Why are you doing what are you doing?







    In an interview with FT a renowned entrepreneur and hotelier Ian Schrager said that ‘…prison gave me time to think’. He was imprisoned for evading taxes.

    JailWhile reading this I started asking myself – Are not we so busy with our work that the best place to sit and think could be a place where we do not want to be. Is not it an irony?

    The biggest difference between animals and humans is the ability to think. However, we are so busy with our ‘work’ (daily chore) that we do not have time to think, we do not pause. How many times have you sat in a coffee shop and thought for your actions? How many times have you sat in balcony of your apartment with a cup of tea just doing nothing? ‘We are very busy for that’, right?

    What we can expect a person to do in a prison? (On a lighter side – when verdict is not ‘rigorous imprisonment’). Think for yourself – when you are sitting in a place where you do not have anything to do, no TV, no Internet, and no mobile you are all by yourself. It is difficult to pass time like that. And so when we hear a statement ‘…prison gave me time to think’ it seems to make perfect sense?

    Long back I read a book by Steven Covey – Seven habits of highly effective people. In that book there was an example for habit 1 – being proactive. The example was of Victor Frankl a Jewish German psychiatrist who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He realized that he has the power to respond to the situation he was in. He could think of this in a very adverse condition, we occasionally thing about it even after receiving forward mails regarding the same (I received a mail forward which says – …life is 90% how we respond to situation).

    How many times have we thought – why am I doing what am I doing? What do I want to do in life? What is the purpose of my life? Do we question ourselves for reason of our existence? This is what the Buddha also thought when he left his family…

    Effectively, I had a question to myself and to all of us in general, what does it take to stop and sit down and think. Do we need to go to jails to have time for ourselves to think? When are we taking a leave from our chore for at least few hours in a week, get out of our rut and think something beyond the daily chore?

  • Old path white clouds!







    I was inspired by the book “Old Path White Clouds” and learnt a lot about Buddhism and the Buddha from the same. The concept of the blog also came from that understanding. So, here in this blog I am posting what I felt while I was reading the last chapters of the book –

    When I was reading the last 3-4 chapters of the book, I stopped and was not willing to continue because I did not want The Buddha to die. I was so much connected to the book that I was not reading the book – “I was living the book”, and so I was not willing to let the time reach when The Buddha had to depart. In other words I did not want the Buddha to die (even in the book), it is worth appreciating the way the last chapters have been compiled and written. I realized later –

    1) This (what I was reading) has happened 2500 years ago

    2) The book itself says at various places (repeat various places) that

    i. the thing which has a start will eventually end, if there is birth there is death. So, why am I worried that The Buddha will die or to complete it? Or am I thinking that The Buddha will die when I read those chapters (of course when I was living the book i.e. reading the book, I was in that mindset)?

    ii. Our body is only one manifestation rather a physical manifestation and if the body dies it does not mean we cease to exist

    And I continued to read and completed the book. The book has become a treasure for me, and I have started looking at business from a different perspective. If you want to know about the Buddha and Buddhism the book is a must read.

  • Balancing act… continued!







    Recently, I wrote about the ‘balancing act’ based on the story of the Buddha. I started observing the concept of balance to a greater detail when I received the story from Prof Mankad, and here are few pointers in this continued blog.

    What I have realized in my studies lately is, the “engineerish thinking” (numbers all the time all the way) is not the end in itself. Marketing has long been a function requiring creative thinking. Long time back – before my joining my MBA – someone (talking to me) made a remark – ‘marketing is a bottomless pit, you do not know the return on investment etc etc. Now in the era of result orientation everything is being measured and therefore the results are key for marketing departments too’. Here again creativity should not take toll on numbers. Thus, a balance has to be made between being creative and being critical for return on investment.

    Second thing what came to my mind with reference to marketing, and in general to all of us, was perceptions. While communicating to outside world e.g. marketing companies try to play on ’emotional’ hot button of target audience yet want to be analytical of the effect of the marketing efforts. Again the balancing act comes into play based on the perspective inside out Vs outside in.

    In case of say leading teams, one needs to balance. Leader needs to involve and empower his team at the same time guide when anyone needs help (I wrote about this earlier in blog Growing and becoming leaders). Thus, a balance has to be made between giving power to take decision and taking control of situations when required. I had few things in my mind regarding the same in the language of TRIZ. In TRIZ there is a principle called separation on condition (giving control and taking control based on condition) for such cases. I would write more on application of TRIZ in marketing and sales in some other blog.

    Changing gears, in personal life we manage relationships. At times these relationships come to such a point that we need to act as a funambulist (tightrope walker) to sail through the rough patch of managing the relation. So, balancing act continues throughout the life.

  • ‘Balancing act’







    This is one of the stories shared by Prof Mankad with me.

    Once on his tour, the Buddha was resting in the shade of a large pipal tree. Under a nearby tree a group of dancing girls was also resting. One of the apprentice musician girls asked the leader of the group, “How do I tune this string instrument?” The head of the group, a ravishing beauty of a dancing girl, obviously with limited virtue and ignominious fame said, “do not stretch it so much that it breaks and do not leave it so loose that it does not play”. Buddha hearing this went to her and bowed to her with respect. His disciples seeing him bow to a very infamous character were disturbed and intrigued. When they asked Buddha about his behavior, he said, she taught me a valuable lesson in life.

    This story tells us a very valuable lesson. The lesson of balancing act, I recalled the recent incident of Cricket test match between India and South Africa. In that match Indian player Sreesanth and South African player Graeme Smith had an altercation. For this incident Indian Cricket team captain M S Dhoni made a statement in press for Sreesanth – “…there is nothing called over aggression till you don’t cross the limit. There are guidelines which need to be followed. You need to be yourself but at the same time shouldn’t get into others’ space…”

    The balancing act also applies to businesses in terms of product portfolio, organizational behavior and a balance between business and social responsibility (triple bottom line). This also applies to individuals e.g. work-life balance.

    The other important lesson to learn from the story is – one can learn from wherever one wants to learn from and no one is old or young to learn from. This is what an earlier blog suggested – Learning… and possibility thinking.

  • Lost in translation







    I read some status messages on gtalk and other places – ‘lost in translation’.

    It is good that people get caught only in translation; there are chances when someone can be lost in words. Take an example – when I write business to Buddha, meaning is not limited to ‘business to Buddha’. Here Buddha relates to humanity, to the messages of the masters (prophets) and how message of the masters are applicable to businesses e.g. Islamic banking. In a more subtle sense what these prophets taught and which is applicable, in general, in businesses too.

    The problem with us today is not translation only; the problem is getting hold of words incorrectly and staying with them. When the words could mean much more than the only dictionary meaning they convey, that’s where we find problems in understanding poetries. I have heard that someone was reading out a poem written by a Noble laureate to an aristocrat. Suddenly, the aristocrat stopped the reader and said either the line you read just now is incorrect or there is some mismatch. The reader re-read the line with some change of words (resulting in grammatically incorrect sentence) and hearing to the incorrect line the aristocrat said it sounds good with the poem. Later, the reader informed the aristocrat, sir “I suggested the correction in that line! Poet was not willing to accept the correction but when I told him the GRAMATICAL mistake he accepted my argument”. Here the big question to ask is – whether the message is important or the words, meaning and beauty or the grammar is more important? [Here again it seems a fight between system and utility of system relating to my earlier blog on line of understanding]

    During his life time, the Buddha never accepted his bhikkus to translate his messages to any other language. Why? May be for the reason that ‘soul of the message would be lost’. After his enlightenment he did not utter a word for few days. Why? Because ‘words create a boundary to any expression or feeling’. I have seen mails floating on why for many feelings we not only stop speaking but also close our eyes for? Because words fail to explain some deeper feelings of life. However, in business that cannot be accepted, you have to speak and you have to express. Therefore, marketing heavily resort on visual advertisements. I was reading an article of Harvard Business Review. The strategy initiatives fail not because of improper strategy formulation. The initiatives fail because there could be one of the reasons: miscommunication and therefore problem in implementation. So, how are you going to tackle this challenge of translation?

    I understand it this way – make life simple. Keep your messages simple. Say what you do, do what you believe in and believe in what you are. In my opinion, organizations too have an identity and this identity is formed by behavior of management and the employee. Understanding and sticking to this identity would make life simpler for organization, employee and internal and external interactions amongst all stakeholders. This would help reduce the bewilderment of translating strategy in to actions. This does not require anyone to be being “grammatically correct” always.