Business to the Buddha

Category: Buddha

  • Kanhaiya to Mallya why lessons from Buddha Prevail!

    Recently India saw two very poles apart events and both can make us learn – the Middle Path of the Buddha. One incident was of JNU – ultra leftist & anti establishment – and the other was bank NPAs (one example of Vijay Mallya) – ultra rightist & Crony Capitalistic. I did not write anti-national as those who read news or biased towards one side would find my opinion biased even before reading the post fully, so ‘anti-establishment’ was the word used.

    The backdrop of Javaharlal Nehru University row is this – students union of JNU requested for a cultural event. Well, for those who do not know JNU is a University in Capital city of India. JNU students union is a leftist union. This event turned sloganeering against India. The slogans – besides anti India – included supporting terrorist who (in rarest of rare capital punishment in India) was hung during previous Govt. The previous Govt was run by the  parties currently in opposition – including left front. In twists of the whole drama a hero emerged named Kanhaiya Kumar. When I searched and heard one Professor of JNU, I came to know more about left front. They seem to support the whole drama where slogans were raised against India. This support goes deep down in the intellectual class sitting in news channel studios in Delhi.

    Domestic helpThough anti-establishment word sounds weird because where was the class of Kanhaiya Kumar for last 10 years? Where were they when there were a lot of corruption cases? Suddenly that class is demanding Azadi (freedom), well freedom from whom and what? If you demand freedom from poverty – work! Isn’t it a better solution? Azadi from toot-phoot (breakup) – better you do not do it, isn’t it? Currently who is involved in toot-phoot (look at parts of India where Maoists are active & killing). Azadi from terrorism – better you support or join security forces isn’t it? Why were student’s slogan in support of Afzal Guru (a terrorist)? Azadi from Manuwad & Brahmanwad (it is related to caste system of India) – I too am against caste system. Would it be better to do something at a grass-root level instead of sloganeering ‘against India’? Azadi from suit boot (economically better off) – isn’t it good if you do any of the other things listed above you would get in suit boot? Perhaps someone else will raise voice against you! But does it mean you and the other economically better off should leave everything and become poor in support of you to have Azadi from suit boot? The logic of communism is at question here – to bring affluence or wealth to less privileged is a better approach rather than making everyone equally poor to bring equality. Isn’t it? Read about Aarti Amma here these people should learn from her.

    Indian Big Corporations debtOn the other hand there is another class in India – capitalists. They are those who either mend rules or get rules created to favor themselves. According to some reports the amount of debt big corporate houses in India have goes in lacs of crores (of trillion INR). The example of top 10 debtors is below in image. These corporate houses are those who keep close relations with the law-makers (political parties – either in opposition or in power). So, these debtors enjoy the debt money lavishly. Once they kind of run out of money, they get debt restructured (happens to big companies only). There is a fancy word for that – Corporate Debt Restructuring. One such example in India is Dr Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher Airline. We’ve heard of his lavish birthday bashes and Calendars; he owes 7000 cr (70 Billion INR) to banks. His airline is defunct and he recently fled; banks has declared him willful defaulter a couple of months back.

    So in recent times, India has seen extremes of both the sides – failure of overly capitalistic system where crores of rupees are usurped by organizations without remorse and there are overly leftist those who want to overthrow the establishment itself. We have seen an example of USSR failing and we have seen repeated recession / bankruptcy. These examples teach us same the lessons again and again. There is a middle path that we need to follow, No left or no right. There has to be a balance.

    The solution? Once again it is the eight-fold path –

    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

    All of these have to come from within, outside perspective will contaminate these. Meditation is a one single solution, it may provide each one of us from Kanhaiya to Mallya ‘tranquility’ that will help reduce the fascination to revolt or predilection to cheat. Because if we start following this eight-fold paths we would realize – ‘we all are connected’, ‘we all are interdependent‘ and if we want Azadi, this azadi would be from whom? If we want to cheat the banks, it is in turn cheating with someone who is a family of ours.

  • Truth is really something you do!

    I have been reading one or the other story of Father Anthony De Mello’s books – The Prayer Of The Frog Vol. I and Prayer of The Frog Vol. II and share the same here occasionally. The books have small and very interesting stories. One of the story I read was on a balancing act is here –

    ————

    Truth is really something you DO

    The disciples oprayer of frogf Baal Shem once said, “Tell us, dear Rabbi, how we should serve God.”

    He replied, “How should I know?”…then went on to tell them the following story:

    A king had two friends who were found guilty of crime and sentenced to death. Now even though the king loved them he dared not acquit them outright for fear of giving a bad example to the people. So this is the verdict he gave: A rope was to be stretched across a deep chasm and each of the two men was to walk over it—to safety and freedom or. if he fell, to his death. The first of the two got across safely. The other shouted to the first across the chasm, “Tell me, friend, how you managed it.” The first shouted back, “How should I know? All I did was this: When I found myself listing to one side. I leaned to the other.”

    You don’t learn to ride a bicycle in a classroom.

    ————

    Balance is what needs to be practiced by everyone and not one or the other only, that can bring harmony & peace in the whole world.

    Tolerance Vs Being True To Yourself was the title of this weeks LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic. I have written on tolerance earlier too when India was facing with media created debate of whether India is tolerant? As usual I write by changing the topic a bit, mostly go completely awry and write; hope mostly it connects with the topic. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order are Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. The title was suggested by Shackman. 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!

  • Flawed business model

    There was a company Kingfisher Airlines which owed 7000+ Cr (70+ billion INR or well over 1B USD) to a consortium of banks in India. The company could not pay its debts; its owner/company recently was declared ‘willful defaulter’ by few banks. Now, the owner Dr Vijay Mallya is shifting to England with all funfair.

    Indian Big Corporations debtThis event and the total debt (sourced from a LinkedIn post above) makes one seriously think – is it true that “The wall streets fraud” as Bernie Sanders US presidential candidate has said earlier? In India, we have very contrasting examples – one side there were many farmers who were committing suicide because they couldn’t repay loans and on the other side we have banks with NPA (Non Performing Assets) & professionals who do “Corporate Debt Restructuring” resulting in many if not all NPAs in future. At present Indian PSU’s NPA is more than their Market Capitalization.

    Isn’t it “a subsidy transferring wealth from the rest of us to a select few” as the article rightly says?

    Just imagine – the debts given above, tax evasion, Satyam case and many other cheating happening not just in India but in almost every corner of the world. For me ‘wall street’s fraud’ is just a metaphor, there are many more frauds we are confronting daily. I have written on a few earlier – Volkswagen & Toshiba, Rajat Gupta and Moral Markets! to name a few. Are we really maturing as human race? Or we have become more deceptive and satanic?

    Just another example is the double speak of developed world on saving the earth – read Profit over the Planet.

    The point, after lamenting so much is always – how do we solve these problems? Only way I see is spirituality – Paris attacks – solutions please moving towards being saint in suits rather than Thief in Tuxedo.

    Related blogs – What are you searching for?

    Image source – LinkedIn post of Mr Hariprakash Visant

  • Kingdom of God!

    It was 2010, I was completing my MBA. We friends went to watch a movie ‘Tron‘, a movie by Disney. I was wondering about a few things while watching the movie. One, everyone is trying to make the world a perfect place and two, there is a fight leaving the place as it is or worse than what it was earlier. Why?

    I believe the reason for this is everyone has his/her own definition of ‘perfection’.

    Matrix was destroyed 7 times (in the movie The Matrix). What was the reason for creation of the Matrix?

    To make the world a perfect place. Why destruction?

    In terms of chemistry and dialog of The Matrix Revolution – whatever we do entropy increases. Entropy means “uncertainty of outcomes”.

    The next question arises – why is the trouble with increased entropy and a perfect place?Kingdom of God

    On conceptual levels of any reasonable human being, perfection would result in definitive outcomes. The trouble with that ‘reasonability’ is – perfection is a relative term. Relative concepts create conflicts. What is perfect for me could not be so for you.

    I learnt it from Prof Lopez. I asked for answers and once he told me – “Pravin, exactness is a cage/prison” once you are exact you would not move.

    Trust, this makes the idea simpler.

    The life loves simplicity! How many of us must have felt this. Be it relationship, be it conversations or understanding anything.

    Jesus said the kingdom of god belongs to the children; why because they do not have any filter to make opinion about the world. They see things ‘as is’. The lesson is about 2000 year old, alas! we are struggling hard to make the world a perfect place to live in. Result we making the world more complex, more sophisticated and therefore we are increasing its entropy. Moreover, on a philosophical level, peace lie within us and once someone is peaceful with oneself the place becomes perfect without any chance outside. Kingdom of God lie within us.

    Image Source – http://genius.com/5188338

  • Profit to Purpose

    Since long when I started blogging on Business to the Buddha; I had this in mind – we are all connected (Interdependent co-arising in Buddhism). Therefore, if the whole world wants to look at development, it can only happen if all grow, not at the cost of ‘other’. I have written about 260+ blogs in last 5+ years, recently, I found a perfect way this concept was presented by Tanmay Vora. It’s perfectly said that a picture says a thousand words, Tanmay has proved it right here.

    I requested Tanmay to let me share the drawing on my blog, and he was kind enough to let me do this. You can read his thoughts on Mindset shift here.

    Profit Purpose Saint in SuitThis is the idea of my thoughts on being Saint in Suit. We all need to grow as professionals and as individuals. We have to be saints in business and personal life both this will be profit with purpose.

    To read more of Tanmay’s thoughts go to – http://qaspire.com/

  • Saint in Suit

    It was Feb or March of 2011. We were just completing our MBA and as would be the case with any other B-school companies were visiting campus for recruitment. A big company was scheduled to visit one day. One of my friends – Jaydutt – was among the most likely candidates to be selected. However, he did not even attend the presentation of the company. Everyone was curious, why?

    I – besides others – was shocked it! I went to his room and asked him, why did not you attend the presentation itself forget the recruitment process?

    He said – “I know the company well, and I have firsthand experienced working there. Pravin, as confident you were, other friends too were confident and I was under pressure to make a decision, it was a enormous confusion I was also not able to make a choice. So, yesterday night when I was about to go to bed, I asked myself this question – ‘if I join them, would I be happy getting up every day in the morning and going to office? Would I enjoy working there? I would invest at least 8 hours per day there, which is 33% of my daily life or close to 50% of my hours awake in a day, am I really keen to go there?’ My conscience told me NO! I decided to skip the company.”

    MeditationThis small conversation with Jaydutt made me think – those points were such that even after full 5 years I still remember the discussion. I recalled that small discussion with Jaydutt when I planned another of my journey from Business to the Buddha to Saint in Suit. I realized whenever I say Business to the Buddha, there seems to be a gap between Business and the Buddha. There seems to be a movement from one place to the other. It requires separate effort or action.

    When I met Fateh uncle recently, I realized that it is not going from one place to the other. It is “being” that. He is a successful businessman and a spiritual person. The title Saint in Suit actually came in my mind when we met once and he was wearing a suit! Now or in future we’ll have to be professionals with the spiritual connect. We need to be saints in the form of professionals. That awareness will either sprout or if does not, we need it to be developed. Though, unfortunately currently I don’t have time to commit to this and keep writing regularly there besides keeping my pace here too.

    Saint in Suit concept is spirituality and business are together. In this concept the plan is to write about how business works (or should work) on spiritual practices, how it can work on spiritual practices, sharing any model related spirituality and business, sharing or defining model related to spirituality and business in any business function e.g. Board level to line executive from marketing to HR to suppliers etc.

    I’m hoping to bring like minded people on this platform to start writing about being saint in suits. your contributions are welcome there create your login.

    Image source – http://www.bravefury.com/six-reasons-men-should-do-yoga/

  • Dont divide – we are all interdependent

    Yes I know you must be wondering as if the topic is not complete or I missed something? This blog is not related with politics or religious division either. No, no I am not going to write about terrorist attacks again. They are becoming something very common now a days. We do need a solution to that with Talks, if that does not work perhaps force.

    Look inwardsThe year started on a very strange note – people wrote if 2016 is similar to 2008? The world bank reduced forecast of world GDP growth rate to 2.9% however had a positive outlook on growth of India. However, as we read news like this, we tend to think – ok make this strata analyse this. How about the developing countries as a whole? How is Europe doing? How about China? So we try to divide and look at each as individual or strata or country, isnt it? We are all interdependent, we must think of the whole world. If we look at worldwide trend, we realize that 2.9% is lowered expectation, that is a cause of concern. When such concerns are raised we must do one thing – turn inwards. This inwards is applied on an individual level as well as a local level e.g. the smallest strata we are considering for growth for example country. Look for options for improvement locally. When we see troubles in GDP growth worldwide – the best option to consider is looking for improving economy at country level – increasing local consumption, improving livelihood of the citizen by infrastructure or other basic needs. Because these small steps add to the monolith of global GDP, isnt it?

    The other thing to keep in mind is – when a hungry person eats, that adds to his/her health. If a stuffed person eats extra, his/her health may deteriorate, isnt it? When we are seeing world GDP, we must concentrate on the underdeveloped not on developed world as the driving force for growth. In the end once again – we are all interdependent.

    Image source – Petfinder.com

  • Jal jagruti abhiyan

    Very interesting video, must watch. It is in Hindi (occasionally English), so apologies for those who cant understand Hindi. Yet a brief for you and some key points from the video –

    The person is talking about environment & in general about agriculture in India.

    1. People are migrating to cities
    2. People are quitting agriculture, to survive we have to eat but no one wants to do farming!
    3. We are saying agriculture is a business of loss. We have made it “business” when we do something as business, greed comes in it inherently. When greed comes somewhere ethics are compromised.
    4. Well and water, how is water used by us?
    5. Are we just bringing up a generation of kids scoring 99% in exam but having now available natural resources such as air, water, food?
    6. Please just do your bit, how? Watch in the end.

    Across the nation and across religious / political affiliation this is something we all must think about.

    Related blog – https://business2buddha.com/2015/09/14/think-it-over/

     

  • Once upon a time

    Where are we taking the earth?
    Making it full of pieces or full of peace?
    Are we gifting our generations hate or harmony?

    Check this wikipedia link Terror incidents in 2015. It had to be divided in 2 half and monthly status, where are we taking our civilization? Ashes!China Air

    Once upon a time
    the pasture was greener
    the air was cleaner
    Water was transparent
    and environment was pleasant

    Wish we all sign-off 2015 with a commitment to ourselves that we would do what we can for making the environment as good as it was Once upon a time and harbor peace.

    Wish you all a Very Happy New Year. Hope sense prevails we work towards better environment and society in 2016. Wish we learn that we grow if we keep in mind ‘interdependent co-arising’ we all grow together and we have to grow together otherwise there is only false sense of personal growth / wealth or health.

    The topic of LBC was suggested by Lin for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order are Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi,Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. 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 – CNN.com – China Parade blue sky!

  • Family Occasion

    I some times contribute to LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) where a couple of people write every weekend (Friday to be precise). This week the topic was “Family Occasion”.

    Sounds weird as a topic, isnt it? This topic has two words Family and occasion. Family we generally define as a smallest social unit of society. This small social unit has parents and kids, dictionary.com has one alternate explanation to the definition – all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.

    I have been taking interest in theory of evolution for some time of late. According to that we are all evolving and have evolved over the years. If we take the definition of family too much back in time, we all are a family. This point brings me back to a concept of Buddhism – interdependent co-arising and another of Hinduism – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (one world family). Effectively according to both the concepts we are all related (in terms of a family) and connected (in terms of something affecting you has an impact on me too). These two concepts are too subtle for understanding on gross level. But since we are struggling at global level from climate change it becomes easy to understand. A car driven in Mumbai is affecting the whole world, because it creates pollution. Hope the point is clear.

    The other word of the topic is Occasion which according to dictionary.com means – a particular time, especially as marked by certain circumstances or occurrences. Well, climate change is an occasion in this definition. Climate change is a definition for family occasion for all of us. Recently we saw Chennai Floods – what is that? That is a family disaster, and largely all of us are responsible for such events – because all of us are responsible of climate change. The mobile I am using for twitting #ChennaiFloods, the laptop I am using for writing this blog all impact climate. Think it over!

    4On a lighter note – I had two family occasions last week – my 1st marriage anniversary (6th Dec) and my fathers 75th Birthday (7th Dec).

    The topic of LBC Family suggested by Maria the gaelikaa for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. 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!