Business to the Buddha

Category: Buddha

  • Endless trip of the mind

    Over thinking can cause a lot of damage. This endless trip of mind creates two worlds within our mind. It is difficult to tame the monkey mind. An easy solution is meditation. My personal experience is Art of living part Happiness Program helps in multiple ways.

    Meditation helps in more than one ways. I shall share a recent incident some time in future. Until I get time to write my experience, here is a wonderful story from the book I have referred multiple times on my blog post – Prayers of the frog.

    Our one mind creates so much of trouble, understand Ravana had ten and the disaster it caused. Better to have a head over shoulders that is balanced, isn’t it? Wish you a very Happy Dussehra and I leave you with these thoughts of bringing peace.

    Endless trip of the mind

    Samuel was down in the dumps and who could blame him? His landlord had ordered him out of the apartment and he had nowhere to go. Suddenly the light dawned. He could live with his good friend Moshe. The thought brought Samuel much comfort until it was assailed by another thought. Samuel thought “what makes you so sure that Moshe will put you up at his place?” “Why wouldn’t he?” Came another question in his mind. He said to himself sharply “After all it is I who found him the place he is living in now; and it was I who advanced him the money to pay his rent for the first six months. Surely the least he could do is put me up for a week or so when I am in trouble.”

    That settled the matter in Samuel’s mind, until after dinner. After dinner, his mind again took a trip of thoughts; “Suppose Moshe were to refuse?” “Refuse?” Samuel again reasoned in his mind; “Why in God’s name would he refuse?” The man owes me everything he has. It is I who got him the job, it is I who introduced him to that lovely wife who has borne him the three sons he glories in. Will he grudge me a room for a week? Impossible.”

    Once again, Samuel’s mind settled until he go to the bed. He could not sleep as the thoughts came back “But just suppose Moshe were to refuse. What then?” This was too much for Samuel. His mind was on an endless trip, the thoughts continued “How the hell could he refuse?” Samuel was losing his temper in thoughts itself. His mind continued the chain of thoughts “If the man is alive today it is because of me. I saved him from drowning when he was a kid. Will he be so ungrateful as to turn me out into the streets in the middle of winter?”

    This mental exercise continued in Samuel’s mind; “Just suppose…”. Poor Samuel struggled with it as long as he could. Finally, he got out of the bed around 2 AM in the morning, went over to Moshe’s home, and kept ringing the doorbell until Moshe, half-asleep, opened the door and said in astonishment, “Samuel! What is it? What brings you here in the middle of the night?” Samuel was so angry by now he could not keep himself from yelling, “I’ll tell you what brings me here at this hour of the mind! If you think I’m going to ask you to put me up even for a single day, you’re mistaken. I don’t want to have anything to do with you, your house, your wife, or your family. To hell with you all!” With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.

    How to get over it

    Before your mind or relationships explode like Samuel’s did, my experience based suggestion would be – register for a course mostly happening online during Covid or reach out to me I shall try to connect you with someone who can help you attend an upcoming course.

  • Choices

    My daughter, Adviti is growing up. She has started asserting her liking and choices gradually. She decides what she wants to eat when she wants to change the song, and what she wants to wear. It is turning out to be a fascinating life lesson for me.

    We start making choices since childhood. I remember spending time with my niece Chinu when she started making choices. She liked watching Kung Fu Panda (movie) I enjoyed watching Kung Fu Panda with her, she also collected pebbles as I did as a kid.

    Smiling-Baby

    I believe some of our choices are involuntary, and some are self-made. Let me take an example – Adviti likes us chanting of Bhojan Mantra (video below) before meals because she has seen us doing it for as much as the last six months. I wonder if she understands it, or whether the rendition is clear. However, she loves it, and if we start eating our meal without the chanting, she forces us to chant the mantra. Possibly this is what Sanskar is. I’d call it an involuntary choice – I may be wrong though, she may be forcing us because she understands! When she changes the Youtube video – it is most likely a self-made choice.

    Choices, Liking and Love

    Though I found time now to write about it, however, I had been thinking about Adviti’s likes, dislikes, and choices for a while. Those who know me know that for my arrange marriage I met two dozen girls. Many rejected me, I rejected some. In these discussions, some accused me of – you are not proceeding further “because I am fat”; “because I am darker shade” etc. I had to respond to these because these were genuinely not the reasons. I will share few arguments that I shared with these prospective alliances.

    One, on complexion, I said, let’s assume I get to marry the fairest girl in the world. Every evening I come from the office. and we start fighting on a trifling matter. In that case, what is the value of the “fairness” to me? It is said that beauty is skin deep, isn’t it?

    Two, on complexion and shape, I said, let’s assume I get married to someone, she met with an accident, or I met with an accident resulting in a body deformity. Would the other person leave the better half who met with an accident? I had to take this example because one alliance had such an incident. I had to tell her that such things are possible after marriage too. A bad example but I took such an example.

    Lastly, on the shape, I said who is going to remain like this forever? With age, we all will be out of shape. why worry about it from now? One must be fit for a healthier life but one should not take serious decisions giving one-factor full weightage.

    Those long discussions (or at times long-distance discussions), in some cases the contest of mind vs heart, for alliances made me look at likes and dislikes little objectively. I asked myself – if I love someone because of face or shape or behavior (or family – yes Indian marriages are not just two people it is their family and extended family too) what if one parameter changes in the same person? In the end, I came to realize – choices are made (or someone or something is loved) because of the whole and not because of the parts. Check this section of an Indian movie – Nayak the real hero – where protagonist is explaining his “dream girl” and what that turns out to be by his father who is a cartoonist.

    If I love someone or something – I love that because of the uniqueness. The uniqueness includes possible flaws. If I had to respond to “why I love someone or something” what would my response be? If my response is because of X, Y, Z and A, B, C, etc. There may be more people with those same qualities. Would it be possible to love those others too? This question helped me realize the lower strata of love. This stratum is for love, liking, or choices we make in the material world. The spiritual world has compassionate affection – of the Buddha – for everyone or full devotion – Bhakti – for the loved one.

    The realization was that we make choices in the whole and start intellectualizing the choices part by part for bringing balance between heart and mind. This justification brings reasoning of “why” and “because of”. Most likely Adviti makes her self-made choices on the whole, once she grows older she too will start intellectualizing the choices to justify her liking.

  • Uncertainties and acceptance

    It has been more than a week, we wake up to the no-water in the overhead tank of our wing of our residential complex. Initially, it was annoying. Daily, I or my wife went downstairs to tell the security to switch on the water pump. We raised the issue to the society manager, secretary, etc. I think it takes about 3 days to form a habit, soon we accepted this challenge as part of our life. The new ritual now is – wake up, open the tap – hoping system is fixed, go downstairs tell security to switch on the pump, come back and proceed as per the available resources. After a week, now security calls me daily to ask “do you have water in your taps now?”

    Uncertainties and acceptance

    Uncertainties make us jittery and annoyed. It depends on the situations, in some cases uncertainties make us anxious too. There was news that Deepika Padukone wanted to face the Narcotics Control Board (NCB) with her Husband because of anxiety; it is just an example. This initial annoyance made way for the acceptance of the situation. Once, we accepted the situation, we started planning our next day before we went off to sleep. The morning started with the acceptance of the unavailability of water and our workflow was changed to accommodate the situation. Once we had figured it out, life was easy, the disappointment of delay in fixing the problem was there but the annoyance and frustration ended. This happens many times in our business too.

    A conversation

    We had figured it out for our daily life. I and my wife were talking about it in the morning, the same evening I received a call from my ex-colleagues – Deepak Taunk. By chance, we happened to speak about the certainties of the outcome. The discussion started with analytics, human intelligence, AI, and business processes. It was an interesting discussion on how our brain connects the dots from analytics and business processes to our daily lives. He is a creative person who questions assumptions. So, when we spoke about some business processes he shared his displeasure with the templatization of work. When I say templatization, I mean making work process-driven and asking others to follow the guidelines. It is not that he is not process-driven – he is a very successful project manager. His point was the templatization results in blindly “follow the guidelines”. People are discouraged to ask questions.

    It is a very valid objection. His point of view was – educated people must be allowed to understand “the why”, freedom to figure it out, otherwise what is the need of highly educated people when they have to always follow the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). I personally have seen this issue that even intelligent people follow things blindly or are asked to follow blindly. In case some ask questions they are termed as “unfit” or non-cooperative. This becomes the responsibility of the team leader or the leadership, in general, to figure out the best course of action. There is no right or wrong in being templatized for few things and creative for others. We need both the ways to run a business well – follow the process and question the assumptions.

    World of possibilities

    In business, personal life as well as in spiritual path too both the approaches are required. I had been an inquisitive person, including on my small journey of spirituality. I asked a lot of questions to many of my guides – Dr Saxena, Ramana uncle ji, my father, Sai Kaka, Dada ji, and Dr Agashe, my art of living teacher. Dr Agashe told me – “…for a few things you need to trust the predecessors/process for others ask questions, do not stop any of these. Indian spirituality offers you both the ways…” Interesting isn’t it?

    Following the process brings certainty of outcome whereas questioning assumptions bring opportunities. Uncertainty many times brings opportunities. One has to be aware of the uncertainties, accept the situation, and find out options. When we look at situations, accept the situation(instead of fighting it), look for options, and be creative we have a whole world of possibilities.

  • Competing with ourselves

    Learning is learning, what is the scope or meaning of competition in that? Everyone has his or her level of comprehension and skillset. Some take more time to learn math but are wonderful at poetry others take less time but not good with creativity. Isn’t it common? So life is good when we try to be a better version of ourselves, competing with ourselves rather than trying to compete with everyone out there. I hope the new education policy, keeps this at its core rather than making kids slog to get more marks.

    https://business2buddha.com/2018/10/i-want-to-be-the-winner/
    Now, when I look back I feel most of the times, it is about collective growth rather than me over you. After reading about interdependent co-arising I have always believed in collective growth.
    https://business2buddha.com/2017/07/education/
     some times, “it is ok to stop in life instead of rushing.”
    https://business2buddha.com/2020/02/interdependent-co-arising-in-long-run/
    We at times miss the power of small things and ignore them. This understanding of sensitivity of impact of one thing on a larger scale makes a person compassionate.

    Inspiration for competing to improve myself

    I was an (above) average Joe in school days, used to do a lot of extracurricular. This happened when I was in grade 11. In 11th, we all took admission in this school from different schools. I started sitting with my colony friend Sumit and his friend Nikhil. Both of them were far more intelligent, toppers, and NTSE (National Talent Search Examination) scholars. At the beginning of grade 11, I wasn’t very serious about studies. I wanted to be an engineer however I was still in many extracurricular kind of lacking focus. I found the focus on studies after an interesting incident, and yet continued with extracurricular.

    school

    One day, Nikhil was sitting with his Mathematics “book” and thinking something. Because this book was kept below the desk and there was no notebook. I asked, “what are you reading”? He replied, “I am solving a problem”. I said there is no notebook and you seem to be reading a book. He said “trying to solve it mentally”. I asked again – what problem is it. It was 2 or 3 chapters ahead of our school math classes chapter.

    It made me serious about studies and made me think about how can I solve problems mentally rather than on just pen papers. When I look back, I realized that Nikhil was an inspiration for me. There was no competition for me with him or anyone else in the class. I just wanted to be better than what I was earlier. In fact on a serious note, Nikhil always scored a perfect 100 in Math that I could never. It seems like if I take the Math exam again, there will be still room for improvement. Effectively, he helped me be a better version of myself, I could never become like him in Math though. 🙂

    What better recognition one can expect? Within a year I had improved myself a lot. Once in grade 12, he said “Computer ko lekar Brahma ne banaya kya?” (Did God make you with a computer?) for solving either probability or integration/differentiation problem in class – I used to do it in the head without touching pen paper. This, coming from the same person was a testimony that I had achieved what I set as a goal. Nikhil did not know that he was eventually praising himself because he had motivated me to do something like this.

    Competing with ourselves

    There are inspirations as Nikhil was for me – how can I be like him, solve problems in mind itself. However, when we limit ourselves we either have envy or competition. The world is too big to compete with everyone – currently about 7 billion. It’d be endless and completely outwards journey as Alexander (the great) had. He kept on trying to win the world and died too young learning “I’ll die empty-handed“.

    The endless competition with “self” is better because the goal is to improve oneself daily. Nikhil had been a positive influencer who became an inspiration, not a competition. In fact, Sumit and Nikhil both became an influencer for me (read another incident from the same school here), Sumit was the state topper in 12th. A lot later in my life, I came to understand and relate to these learnings with both of them as interdependent co-arising. I wonder what they learned from me but I improved a lot. The word “competition” must be looked at with a positive perspective, it should help one improve oneself rather than becoming a race. A perspective and an approach make a huge difference in one’s life. Thank you, Nikhil for inspiring me and eventually helping me learn that one has to compete with ourselves rather than the endless world.

    https://business2buddha.com/2019/06/societal-impact-of-interdependent-co-arising/
    We all grow when we help each other to grow whether it is our subordinates or our competitors.

    Competing with ourselves in business

    I understand it becomes difficult to digest the concept of competition in academics, professional life, and business. I shall share more thoughts on that in some future blogs. Here is a pointer until that blog, I am reading a book by my MBA professor – The new rules of business. This book also gives a perspective on competition. A wonderful lesson from that can be paraphrased as – if you compete with your competitors you may end up being a copy of them in fact one may end up doing the mistakes your industry is doing.

  • Develop taste

    In school, we studied the concept of survival of the fittest. However, learned it in Engineering. With the practicals lessons on “survival of the fittest” our tongue had learned tasting food without hurting itself from the hot food. With time, we must learn to develop taste for different things in life, be it good or bad food, experiences, situations, or practices. At least, we must be open to test and experience before making an opinion or choice. Once we develop taste, we can choose to continue with the new things or no, isn’t it?

    The story

    Pramod – my engineering batch-mate – was an awesome cook. He had a roommate whose nickname was Golu. Whenever Pramod used to cook, we used to wait for the final bell to open our attack on the food. I still remember the food, how can I forget the fragrance of lentils (dal) and rice?

    Over time each one had learned, if you wait for the food to get warm, you would remain hungry. Everyone knew this and complied with the principle of attacking the food as soon as possible. Those days were unconventional.

    Golu used to eat with us, however, after the meals he used to start finding fault – salt was less, there was no taste of spices, and so on. Initially, we responded, later we realized it was his habit. So we started ignoring it, yet Pramod had had enough of it. This happened so many times that once Pramod told him – “you won’t be allowed to even touch the utensil, forget eating.” We had dinner, washed utensils, and gave it to him. Golu started cooking we were watching him assuming he is a critique he must be a better cook.

    Golu cooked; while he was cooking we’re aghast and repeatedly told him do not put so much red chilly powder, not so much turmeric, etc. The food was red due to red chilly powder. We refrained from eating the food. We knew it was terrible, however, he kept on praising himself – in vain – his facial expressions were enough for us.

    Learning

    The learning was – either you develop a taste – in this case, it was a rather wonderful food – for the food or learn cooking yourself. A larger lesson for life, we end up making an opinion about things without knowing much about those. Some times we make this error – we follow Yoga or take Ayurvedic medicine and make fun of the same in public. At times, people have not done meditation yet, they critique it. The best I would advise anyone is to practice meditation at least once even if you want to critique it. It would have a positive impact on you. Who knows, you would continue doing meditation, knowing what you have been missing in life?

  • Seeking recognition

    Disclaimer – Death of Sushant Singh Rajpoot (SSR) has moved me deeply. This blog post is dedicated to him. Neither this post nor I mean to insinuate anything related to the causes of death or anything related to the big personality in SSR. I request you to please look at the message at a larger perspective.

    Humans are social animals which eventually results in seeking recognition. We end up seeking recognition from our family, friends, peers, and society. This happened with me a few years back and recently. I realized that one must grow beyond this exercise itself. This social acceptance can take a toll on our physical and mental well-being. This can result in we taking an emotional decision rather than a logical one. Life is a miracle we must simply live it why bother to seek recognition?

    My story – Morality, logic and larger balanced perspective

    A few years back one of my friends was posting some international matter concerns particularly relating to a country East of India. So I replied or spoke with him – I forgot now if I replied or called – I said, this is a matter of concern however it is at Central Govt level to take any decision be it settling the affected in India. He was furious, he said something in rage and shared some disturbing photos on my Facebook messenger. I replied to that saying –

    1. we do not know the authenticity of these pictures and
    2. if we have concerns for the Eastern part of India we must have a balanced approach – western part of India and even the Mediterranean and southwestern Asia. We should have the same scale of measurement on any religious atrocities.
    3. if we concern ourselves with one kind of the oppressed people we must have our ears open for the other oppressed and consider all of them equal. Or the oppressed should consider living in a more socially acceptable country isn’t it?

    This was a question of morality for him for me it was a question of logic and balanced perspective. He was upset, unfriended me on Facebook. I came to know about that later. I felt I was more logical and balanced. When I came to know he unfriended me I wrote to him – “not being a friend on FB does not mean we are not friends, isn’t it?” We had been friends for decades and it was an abrupt end to communication. At times one must leave aside being correct and logical, however this is an afterthought :).

    Seeking recognition

    I had been considering a discussion, in our common friend group too. Unfortunately, there was no reciprocation. So, I tried analyzing. I was trying to seek recognition. Unknowingly, I was seeking recognition for my point of view and logical thought over the emotional opinion of my friend. Why am I ruminating about all these things?

    sushant-singh-rajput

    When I felt is it useless, suddenly, we heard the death of Sushant Singh Rajpoot. There are many theories whether it was murder or suicide. Though, the truth seems elusive until now. Some reports say he was undergoing depression, though it is tough to believe. It is said that he did not receive recognition from the film industry that he deserved. This incident has opened a pandora’s box on not only Bollywood but also in other fields where nepotism is at its peak – publishing brought forward by Author Ameesh and Sanjeev Sanyal. Being an insider, Sushant might have known the awards were for sale – India Today report of Rishi Kapoor.

    Sushant’s death let me ask a question – why would someone seek recognition? In fact I was doing the same off late.

    I felt two things. Assuming it was depression forcing him to take the extreme step, he was seeking recognition at the wrong place and two he could look at brighter side too. He had more than 2 million followers on twitter, 13.9 million followers on Instagram. Numerous (read millions), like me, have watched him on TV or cinema hall and praised his performance. he had a good success rate in movies. I still find it difficult to accept he committed suicide.

    Net-net, point I was ruminating was – at times in our emotional or local circle we try to seek recognition whereas it may be unnecessary to do that. At times, people are emotionally blinded or at times you need to look beyond the small local circle, you have many more who understand your logical reasoning and admire you.

    You do not need to prove anything to anyone. Do not seek recognition from others, especially from those who look down upon you.

  • One consciousness

    I had been thinking about writing on Bhojan Mantra unfortunately for the last couple of days I did not get time. This Covid lockdown has changed me in more than one way, especially regarding spiritual practices and reading books on One consciousness. I have started respecting food a lot. Earlier I used to just gobble in anything – vegetarian of course – without giving it any thought as such. Food is there, I have to eat it at a given time or if I am hungry I am going to eat it. During Covid when people are struggling for food, suddenly my approach to eating is changed. Many people are donating especially for the daily wage workers, in fact, I had been donating also to International associations for human values – donate here –  an organization which is donating food packets to the daily wage earners.

    I said that Covid-19 changed me in a certain manner, food is one very change. Almost always whenever I eat my lunch or dinner I recite this Mantra called Bhojan Mantra. There are two mantras the video of the same is given here a loose translation of the same is also available on this video. This is my first trial of creating video, Sanskrit recitation is not an issue, the challenge is the usage of technology. I wish someone could help me in creating or editing the videos better.

    The first Mantra (sourced by Bhagvad Geeta Chapter 4, Shloka 24) loosely means that whatever we are eating is the energy or the Brahman whoever is eating it is a Brahman and the action performed afterward and even during eating the food is also Brahman that is by the Brahman for the Brahman of the Brahman. Interesting isn’t it? Everything is made up of the same energy – only forms are different – and everything is going to go back in the same energy. If you now try to relate it to the concept of Physics concept E=Mc2 (Mass-Energy Equivalence) you realize that this Mantra was written long back and it means the same thing which has been accepted and proven scientifically.

    Note – Here Brahman is not the varna that Indian system has.

    I was attending a meditation session of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – Guruji – in the session, he said every incoming Breath energizes You and outgoing breath relaxes it suddenly struck to me the moment you eat your food it becomes you, the moment you breathe in that air the air also becomes you and the moment you breathe out that air going out actually is no more you. In a way, we can say that the breath becomes me and dies as me when it goes out! Or if we expand our Horizons actually everything is ME – the air the food.

    https://business2buddha.com/2012/12/tender-coconut/

    We define ourselves as the body alone which was some mineral in some parts of the world some time ago. Now it is me, or perhaps now I am feeling that it is me, it was, it is and it will remain me – only thing is I need to look beyond the body alone. This is also a concept of Indian spirituality – Adwait – everything is one single Monolithic entity represented or manifestation of the same energy or consciousness – Brahman – in multiple ways.

  • Online Meditation session

    Stressed, frustrated, bored or worried about world after #lockdown. Join #meditation session it’ll be stress buster.

    Date: 9th May 2020 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM India Time
    Register: http://tiny.cc/bbSat

    Date: 10th May 2020 11:00 AM – 12:00 AM India Time
    Register: http://tiny.cc/bbSun

    A one hour Free Introduction session for Meditation Workshop

    You’ll understand how to :

    ✔ Learn to deal with your thoughts and stress ?
    ✔ Increase your Happiness quotient
    ✔ Learn a scientific breathing techniques and guided meditation

    Venue: Zoom call

    Because IN is the only way OUT.

    Conceptualized and planned on Buddha Poornima and delivered over the weekend for bust people.

  • Change in belief

    Incidents shape our experience, experiences shape our opinions and opinions in long term shape our beliefs and set of belief become our religious practices. With time everything must evolve and must change! We must always remember – This too shall pass and should always be ready to accept change in belief, questioning our assumptions based on new experiences. Here is an incident that changed a laughing stock of our life into a serious affair after the Corona pandemic in which more than 2,00,000 reported deaths have happened until now.

    Our incident

    It was the year 2015, I had married to Simple – my wife – for only 8 months. In these 8 months, I had to travel out of India twice for a month or more. So before leaving for the second time, I had arranged for my wife’s travel to join me in Toronto. Due to her half-yearly audit preparation, she flew later. This is a story how things make or change us.

    While in flight, Simple sneezed. Fellow passenger, who was flying to the USA, was somewhat taken aback. She quickly took out her first aid box and gave a tablet to Simple. Initially, Simple was a bit hesitant to take this medicine. Remember we were told in our childhood – “while traveling do not eat anything given by others.” She said I am alright, it was due to the cabin temperature I do not have a cough or a cold. Probably the co-passenger was also told something like, don’t eat anything given by strangers, in her childhood. So the co-passenger read the content line by line and said it is just multivitamin. Somehow Simple got away this time. However, she sneezed again, this time she could not say no to her. Simple had realized by now how petrified the lady on her next seat was. So, this time around she took the medicine – unwillingly though. So, the whole flight afterward was peaceful for both – Simple and the passenger.

    Simple landed in Toronto and the first thing that she narrated was this incident. We laughed together on this and, I told her somehow in India it is not a big deal, I think we are so immune to it isn’t it? We remembered this incident whenever we flew, smiled at each other. Karma you call it. This small smile and fun started haunting me recently.

    Change-in-belief

    This Corona happened and we are all locked down at home. Now whenever we go out for buying essentials, we get hand sanitizer at the entrance of D-Mart as if it is a Prasad! Honestly speaking, touching the shopping trolley I feel scared and giving cash or card, I tell myself hope this person is safe. Now, I realize how that co-passenger must be feeling about sneezing of Simple. How life, experience and opinions change, isn’t it?

    One virus that is bothering everyone across the globe has given a new perspective to the joke we used to tell each other almost every time we flew. Small or big all types of incidents shape us as we grow up. So I changed my opinion about coughing, sneezing and more! If someone coughs around us now the eyebrows rise. Simple and I changed our opinion towards the fellow passenger of Simple in 2015.

    https://business2buddha.com/2019/11/10/this-too-shall-pass/

  • “Greedy” monk

    Prayers of the Frog Volume 1 and Volume 2 is a wonderful story book. Here is another story from the same. This story connects the dots with perception that I had been writing. We do have some monks like this in our society. Do read the story for now.

    Monk

    Greedy monk

    Gessen was a Buddhist monk. He was also an exceptionally talented artist. Before he started work on any painting, however, he always demanded payment in advance. And his fees were exorbitant. So he came to be known as the Greedy Monk.

    A geisha (Japanese women who entertain through performing the ancient traditions) once sent for him to have a painting done. Gessen said. “How much will you pay me?” The girl happened to be entertaining a patron at that time. She said, “Any sum you ask for. But the painting must be done right now before me.”

    Gessen set to work at once and when the painting was completed he asked for the highest sum he had ever charged. As the geisha was giving him his money, she said to her patron, “This man is supposed to be a monk but all he thinks of is money. His talent is exceptional but he has a filthy, money-loving mind. How does one exhibit the canvas of a filthy-minded man like that? His work is good enough for my underclothing!”

    With that she flung a petticoat at him and asked him to paint a picture on it. Gessen asked the usual question before he started the work: “How much will you give me?” “Oh, any sum you ask for,” said the girl. Gessen named his price, painted the picture, shamelessly pocketed the money and walked away.

    • Many years later quite by chance someone found out why Gessen was so greedy for money. A devastating famine often struck his home province. The rich would do nothing to help the poor. So Gessen had secret barns built in the area and had them filled with grain for such emergencies. No one knew where the grain came from or who the benefactor of the province was.
    • Another reason why Gessen wanted money was the road leading to his village from the city many miles away. It was in such bad condition that ox-carts could not move on it; this caused much suffering to the aged and the infirm when they needed to get to the city. So Gessen had the road repaired.
    • The final reason was a meditation temple which Gessen’s teacher had always desired to build but could not, Gessen built this temple as a token of gratitude to his revered teacher.

    After the Greedy Monk had built the road, the temple and the barns, he threw away his paint and brushes, retired to the mountains to give himself to the contemplative life and never painted another canvas again.

    Read other such good stories and learn for yourself. I have referred to the book and its stories many times earlier too check here.

    https://business2buddha.com/2018/07/21/intentions/
    https://business2buddha.com/2018/07/08/perceptions-create-reality/
    https://business2buddha.com/2011/02/15/no-judgement-its-all-about-perception/

    Essence – A person’s conduct generally shows what the observer imagines it to show.

    Again this boils down to perception.

    https://business2buddha.com/2020/04/06/perceptions/