Business to the Buddha

Tag: The Buddha

  • Clinging to wealth







    prayer of frogThere have been many Messiah, and many have learnt to have peaceful life because of them. There are many who have learnt violence, the lessons were given and listeners have learnt what “they wanted” to learn. It is up to you what you learn.

    The invention of this story is not to hurt any religious sentiments. Here goes the story.

    A wealthy farmer burst into his home one day and cried out in an anguished voice, “Rebecca, there is a terrible story in town—the Messiah is here!”

    “What’s so terrible in that?” asked his wife. “I think it’s great. What are you so upset about?”

    “What am I so upset about?” the man exclaimed. “After all these years of sweat and toil we have finally found prosperity. We have a thousand head of cattle; our barns are full of grain and our trees laden with fruit. Now we will have to give it all away and follow him.”

    “Calm down,” said his wife consolingly. “The Lord our God is good. He knows how much we Jews have always had to suffer. We had a Pharaoh, a Haman, a Hitler—always somebody. But our dear God found a way to deal with them all, didn’t He? Just have faith, my dear husband. He will find a way to deal with the Messiah too.”

    Source – Prayer of the Frog Vol I and Vol II by Father .

  • Mayhem, is that?







    Last month when I heard the word “mayhem” with respect to the share market, instead of checking the SENSEX I checked dictionary. Though I knew the meaning of Mayhem (thanks to my preparation for GRE, when I learnt a lot of English words). I am sure many would know the meaning of the word.

    I had always related the word Mayhem to violence. Is the share market drift up or down a mayhem? Is it not extending our imagination and making share market swings more important than the actual violence around us? For me Mayhem is what is happening in Syria. What has been happening in the name of religion, what is happening around man-made borders of the nations, man-made mental borders (barriers) around ‘my religion’ is better than yours and ‘my belief system’ is better than yours. Have you seen the photographs of Aylan Kurdi? A 3 year old kid who drowned. Those situations are mayhem and not the perceived value around stocks rising and dropping. These perceived values or more valuable to us than the actual values of human life!

    NYSE 10 yearsThose who can pour in their comments about ‘collateral damages’ or ‘life ends one day’ – The teachings of the Buddha about impermanence. Please understand two things – 1. This value of stocks you value and are defending right now, is also impermanent and 2. yes our life is limited (in human form), but it does not give anyone the freedom to kill someone else, which ISIS is doing selectively. All these are man made problems (stock value or terrorism), solution too has to be from us.

    “This too will pass” – No judgement its all about perception. Please apply this not just on the false causes you are fighting (for example ISIS or the terrorists) for or valuing (share market) too much. Some day or the other we will see correction in the values of stock (check image above, 2008-2010, it will keep on repeating at different levels). Are we sure we are going to see appreciation (correction) in the values of our Morales? Our defining one event as “Mayhem” and the other as a twitter trend and moving on? Are we really working towards solving such issues as Terrorism?

    would we please call a right thing “Mayhem” than a share market correction, which is driven by greed and blind following (technical analysis / algorithmic decisions) rather than fundamental position of economy.

  • Arrived… where?







    I checked the Whatsapp message, it was Jay Jiju (Jay Phadke my brother in law), my cousin sister’s husband. He had just sent a messagealien-house2 – “I was having lunch with Soham and we were discussing ‘what is home?’ ‘what is school?’ How do you define home/school etc”

    Soham is my nephew – 9 year old. Smart kid and at times grown-up to his age.

    Instantly I could relate his questions to the Book of Mirdad. The following are the lines from the same book

    ‘Happy are the staff-less,
    They stumble not.
    Happy are the homeless,
    They are at home.
    The stumblers only – like ourselves, Need walk with staff,
    The home-chained only, like ourselves,
    Must have a home.’

    Have you ever questioned yourself – what is home? My brother in law’s question of school some other time. Just concentrate on home. Home in day to day words is a place where we stay, live and dwell. We live even if  there is no place to live; we stay anywhere we go and dwelling is in a way dwelling similar to living or thinking about a point. So effectively what is a home? Is it a place where we get peace of mind, feel we have arrived or perhaps every end of day we run to reach there. But have we ever ‘arrived’? Have we ever really ‘stayed’ there? Home is at times a place where we spend some time.

    All these weird thought about arriving, staying et al remind me of The Buddha saying to Angulimala – “I have stopped long back, now it is your turn to stop”. Because even if we think that I have reached home, the exercise of going and than rushing back HOME never ends. Have we really arrived?

    Jay jiju send another message to me later. In this message he said – HOME, relates more to an experience/feeling. That feeling can be achieved at any other place. The point – it seems – is just ‘be’ – remain arrived.

     

  • Convenience or simplicity







    I had just landed from a developed nation back to India. The first experience at Mumbai airport was as usual – Humidity! I came out from the airport and boarded taxi to home. The driver – though driving taxi in Mumbai for about 2 decades – took a longer route. Exposed me to very shabby roads and potholes etc. I reached home to find out that there is some issue in water distribution pipeline of Municipal corporation. Corporation would not do any work until end of the rainy season! Just imagine – there is water all over on roads but not at home. All this made me almost utter to myself – “What the #@%^&*#” you know what I mean?

    Drop meeting OceanThough, this thick skin got in the groove of the problems quickly – actually there was no option :). I told my wife (her name is ‘Simple’) and in a way to myself too – “Simple, during summers, I – as a teenager – used to go about 1/2 KM or more to bring about 50 lts water on my bicycle about 4 times daily. We are far better off now, don’t worry this time will pass. Also, the quality of water we use to flush our toilets is far better than potable water at some places!” The real problem was storing water when our society ordered for tankers. We did not have more than 2 buckets – 15 lts each. When we shifted to this locality we were told there is water 24X7 here, so there was no need either.

    These things connected a number of dots in my mind. I did not write last week about it because of our Independence Day. At times I wonder – how long we (average citizen) will try to save these corrupt politicians in the name of patriotism. Just imagine countries of northern hemisphere have a lot of snowfall, but their roads don’t have potholes, their airport function. Wonder what happens when the temperature is in negative, how does water supply work in there during winters? In India that – too one of the most developed city – in Mumbai we observe – water on runway so flights are delayed, its raining so we wont fix pipeline!

    The other thought was – before my marriage I was more of a nomad total stuff I had with me were my 3 C’s (cloths, consumables and certificates) and 6 carton books. After marriage I started buying required things e.g. a bike, washing machine and fridge. Now, when we faced water shortage I realized this list will grow and the things we will own will include things we never imagined we will buy. One is here – water container. Now, next time if I get robbed – read what happened last year – and this water container is missing I know someone needs it more than I do and municipal corporation is responsible for this.

    These seemingly different points – comparison of India & other countries and my owning up things (at times having limited usage in my life) made me think about convenience and living life with simplicity. The water container was a requirement, which sooner or later may not be. I have learnt – from Mahavir and the Buddha – “no hoarding, no stealing etc. They taught that we have forgotten, we will leave everything here but still we want to own stuff.” Now, I am calling all those things written above as – “convenience”, “required to make life easier”. But how long we would keep on mending the definition of convenience?

    This blog relates to LBC (Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium) blog topic but not exactly the same – simplicity. 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. This time I was the one who posted very late, do visit blogs of others they must have posted their opinions too.

  • 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/

  • I’d Rather Be







    The topic is esoteric for me. If I can just “BE” I would just want to “be”. Unfortunately until my mind runs round I would keep on BEcoming rather than just being someone/somebody.

    I am a wanderer, not physically as much but yes the mind does not stay at one place. You can check – I have found relationship between spirituality and business. I have written how technical methodology (TRIZ) can be associated with business. These are signs of just-be-597091_640my hyper active (rather wanderlust) mind. Can I just “be” – if yes I would just “BE”.

    A final thought – how about BEing the Buddha? The Buddha of this age?

    This topic was suggested by Shackman, 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 eight other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser,  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 – http://pixabay.com/en/just-be-being-i-am-existence-597091/

  • You Can’t Do That!







    When I read this title – “you can’t do that!” – for the LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) I asked myself “what is ‘that’?”

    The title gave me a sort of shock, why would someone ask the other to not do something? It is a different case that when we tell a child not to do something, well we say this with some reason. Or let us grow the logic of not letting someone do something – someone who is not aware of the environment can be “advised” not to do something. This logic can be explained in the business as – a new joinee told about keeping away from the wipers / foxes of the office. How they should manage the office and department politics.

    Guruji

    I have heard a story. A master told his one of the disciple – “Do not eat outside food.” He meant that you are doing meditation practice, you should restrict yourself to the Satvik food of the Ashram. Specially for this disciple the reason was that he was progressing well. As the fate had been – Adam ate the apple! This disciple was tempted to eat some Moong bhajia [an Indian delicacy]. He ate it. Next day the disciple could not meditate properly. The master realized it but kept quiet. In the evening disciple confessed – Master I am not able to meditate properly. Master asked – did you eat something outside? Disciple confessed yes ate moong bhajia. After a brief silence the Master said – “The person who was making that bhajia was not paid for last few weeks, and he was cursing his fate and the owner of the shop. The person was worried for his family and daily expenses.”

    When I was a kid my father used to tell us that the food is also affected by the feelings of the maker. I remember Indian philosophy saying “what you eat you become”. [Tweet “It’s True: You Are What You Eat www.inc.com/magazine/201307/adam-bluestein/the-best-foods-for-leaders-to-eathtml.html”] Read Inc article It’s True: You Are What You Eat.

    Me being me – I ask occasionally, the Buddha used to beg. How about that? But as instructed – You Can’t Do That!

    This topic was suggested by Shackman, 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 eight other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order,  Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser,  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!

  • 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

  • Terrorist meets The Buddha







    I heard a news that ISIS has sent a threat message to Sri Sri Ravishankar (Guruji). This blog is inspired from that message and story of The Buddha and angulimala. From This blog – …My Engineering college professor Dr Anand Swaroop Saxena told me some time in 2001 – “inherently people are not flawed, situation drive people to react in the way they react.”…

    Just imagine if a terrorist crosses roads on which The Buddha is traveling! In this high-tech age, it isn’t same as Angulimala confronting The Buddha. Angulimala was having a purpose of making a garland of 1000 fingers (read the purpose here) and he had knife/sword. The current times are different, terrorist doesn’t need to be next to you, they can kill from a long distance. If the terrorist knows The Buddha, he (assuming most terrorists are male) wont come near, chances are that The Buddha will change his heart. But for argument sake imagine terrorist confronts The Buddha (Sri Sri).

    What and how the discussion may start –Sri Sri ISIS threat
    Terrorist (T) – I’m going to kill you.

    The Buddha (B) – Why?

    T – (confused, this fellow isn’t scared) – thinking… thinking… thinking… Because you’re a threat to us.

    B – Threat? I don’t even have arms / weapon, instead you’ve. How can I be a threat? And what do you mean by “us”?

    T – (again, confused never expected this logical question. Uses his logic whatever he has) I’m armed because of you. You’re a threat to my community.

    B – How am I a threat to “Your community”? What is “YOUR community”. I never killed anyone why do you think I’m the reason of you keeping arms?

    T – (totally confused) I don’t want to listen to your stupidities. You’re a threat to us.

    B – Who is “us”? Did I bother you? Did I hurt you?

    T – Your people and those who are against us hurt my people and therefore I’m here to kill you.

    B – “Your people”… “My people” who are these? who is against YOU? How can you say that you represent the whole community? What is your community?

    T – You’re against Islam and my people are all muslims in this world. “Your people” are all non-muslims of the world. They’ve not been
    just to us.

    B – Firstly, speak for yourself and don’t try to talk about millions of others who don’t know you and do not (may not) agree to your point of view. Secondly, I am not against any religion. My religion is compassion [author’s mind – provided this Terrorist understand what this god forsaken word “compassion” means], happiness, equality, human values, meditation, peace etc. Do you believe in any of these?

    What unjust has anyone done to you? How can you speak about millions of others who are muslims, you have not met them and are happily living in their country of birth? How can you say justice wasn’t done to them? Furthermore, what harm am I causing you or likely to cause to you or in your words to your people? Am I killing them? Am I asking (advising) them to hate you? Am I asking (advising) them to do something that is against you?

    At best I’ve helped some of the people in XYZ country to help each other and rescue those whom you want to kill. Is it incorrect? Do you have license to kill anyone and everyone you wish? Does your owning weapon means you’ve license to spread hatred, riots and terror? If that is the case there are nations that have abilities to finish the whole world numerous of times. Your one weapon is just nothing compared to that.

    This time terrorist could not even comprehend and think of what all has been spoken and he has heard. Thanks to Ananda besides the Buddha, Ananda recited each sentence and gave him time to think of a reply.

    T – (reply to firstly speak for yourself…) I represent my people.
    T – (reply to secondly, I am not against any religion) You are against my religion. Why are you doing any rescue operations in XYZ country?  Meaning of my religion is peace, purity, submission and obedience to the GOD…

    B – (to this The Buddha interrupted) have you taken (or they gave you) permission to speak on behalf of the people whom “you think”, you represent? Secondly, if your religion means “peace” what are you doing? Having arms in hand and killing people does it mean the meaning itself is wrong or you have interpreted your religion incorrectly?

    T – (could not digest this) This is blasphemy you can’t question my religion who are you to question my faith and that is the problem
    because of which I want to kill you? You are infidel.

    B – Do you know what is the meaning of infidel? I am just questioning on your actions and interpretations of what you’ve in your mind. Infidel is the one who doesn’t have a religion. I listed out my religion is peace, compassion, happiness, equality, human values, meditation. Another meaning of infidel is one who is not in majority. Do you think you are in majority? Muslims all across the globe do not have gun in  their hands, according to that definition you are an infidel in – what you call it – “your community” itself. Moreover, when I said my religion includes peace, we’re on the same side, isn’t it? Your religion means peace to you. Why do you want to disregard your religion (peace) assuming you are protecting your religion by not obeying the meaning of your religion itself?

    …

    This may go on and on in author’s mind – the author is not the Buddha. Perhaps the Buddha (Sri Sri) would perfect the discussion with a compassionate glance, no single word. Who knows in the end – terrorist bows down with no argument left and becomes a true follower of peace.

    Dedicated to Guruji (Sri Sri Ravishankar)

    Related blogs – on Angulimala

    Story of Angulimala