Netizen: buddhism

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Thursday, October 06, 2011

When I Got Teary Eyed

For the most part I have tried to be philosophical, one Buddhist to another. He died earlier than he needed to, sure. But there was a sense of completion to his life's work. It is like he launched a dozen Apple size startups.

Ever since I got the news I have felt this tremendous hunger to learn more details about his life, and I have scoured the web for the same, sort of knowing it would be hard for anyone to surprise me with new details.

Readings have felt like refreshing memories, not revelations. I have read up on the guy over the years.

And then this afternoon it happened. Someone posted pictures of the Apple store at Central Park's southeast corner on Facebook, and my eyes went wet. I saw the glaze, and felt the warmth from the wet. But then I quickly recomposed myself.

Steve Wozniak On Steve Jobs

A Mass Ordination Of 34,000 Monks

(Via Things Organized Neatly)
A Buddhist Like Richard Gere

Thursday, March 31, 2011

To You I Offer Buddhism And Yoga

Image via WikipediaMinority Majority Nation?
Gender Talk And Pragmatism

TechCrunch: What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology.: By far the most difficult skill for me to learn as CEO was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared to keeping my mind in check. Over the years, I’ve spoken to hundreds of CEOs all with the same experience. Nonetheless, very few people talk about it, and I have never read anything on the topic. It’s like the fight club of management: The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown. ....... this is the most personal and important battle that any CEO will face. ..... no CEO ever has a smooth path to a great company. Along the way, many things go wrong and all of them could have and should have been avoided. ..... If CEOs were graded on a curve, the mean on the test would be 22 out of a 100. This kind of mean can be psychologically challenging for a straight A student. It is particularly challenging, because nobody tells you that the mean is 22. ...... At a certain size, your company will do things that are so bad that you never imagined that you’d be associated with that kind of incompetence. Seeing people fritter away money, waste each other’s time, and do sloppy work can make you feel bad. If you are the CEO, it may well make you sick. ....... Every problem in the company was indeed my fault. ....... Being responsible for everything and getting a 22 on the test starts to weigh on your consciousness. ....... CEOs often make the one of the following two mistakes: 1. They take things too personally 2. They do not take things personally enough ...... Ideally, the CEO will be urgent yet not insane. She will move aggressively and decisively without feeling emotionally culpable. If she can separate the importance of the issues from how she feels about them, she will avoid demonizing her employees or herself. ...... In your darkest moments as CEO, discussing fundamental questions about the viability of your company with your employees can have obvious negative consequences. On the other hand, talking to your board and outside advisors can be fruitless. The knowledge gap between you and them is so vast that you cannot actually bring them fully up to speed in a manner that’s useful in making the decision. You are all alone. ....... asking oneself anything 3,000 times turns out to be a bad idea ...... if you don’t like choosing between horrible and cataclysmic, don’t become CEO ...... Make some friends ..... it is extremely useful from a psychological perspective to talk to people who have been through similarly challenging decisions. ...... Get it out of your head and onto paper ..... I wrote down a detailed explanation of my logic ...... Focus on the road not the wall—When they train racecar drivers, one of the first lessons is when you are going around a curve at 200 MPH, do not focus on the wall; focus on the road. ........ A Final Word of Advice – Don’t Punk Out and Don’t Quit As CEO, there will be many times when you feel like quitting. I have seen CEOs try to cope with the stress by drinking heavily, checking out, and even quitting. In each case, the CEO has a marvelous rationalization why it was OK for him to punk out or quit, but none them will every be great CEOs. Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweat, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary founder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: “I didn’t quit.”

A Buddhist Like Richard Gere

Richard Gere via last.fm

I was in Kentucky for five and a half years, and in Indiana for a few years more. There is nothing you can teach me about race I don't already know. On the other hand, I am much less knee-jerk on social issues these days, and more capable of stepping back a little and finding the exotic in the offensive. And having fun has been important all along the way.

Like I would approach students at college freshly back from Spring Break, burns and all, extend out an arm, and say, "You getting there, you getting there."

The school that I attended - I feel like both a high school and a college dropout - you would hear this question: So are you a Christian or are you a Catholic? I grew up Hindu, my family still is, but one year into America and I started calling myself a Buddhist. Other than a few visits to a Buddhist monastery in Bloomington, Indiana, years later and several trips to the Mahayana Temple by the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown in my years in NYC, I have not been able to pursue my Buddhist faith as much as I have wanted to.

But I have long said, at many opportunities I have sought out, "I am a Buddhist, like Richard Gere." There is obvious glamor to that statement.

Now I learn Tiger Woods is a Buddhist. I am going to see some glamor in that statement. I don't watch baseball, football, basketball, golf. I am in solidarity with a lot of women who are made to feel lesser because they might not share the same passion for mind numbing sports. Actually not. My thing is soccer. This is World Cup year. I don't watch golf. But Tiger Woods is Maradona, Michael Jordan, Pele, one of those guys.

Tiger Woods is human excellence, and I have been eternally fascinated by the mix of cultures in his origin.

How have I reacted to the recent bimbo eruptions around his name in the media? A few different ways. It was hard to skip the news. So I did read my fair share of articles. I looked at the pictures of the women. None of them really stood out for me. His wife is more beautiful.

And I took it for granted that it was not possible all the women who surfaced were telling the truth, and nothing but the truth. It is very possible some of the women Tiger had never met, some women he had met who exaggerated the extent of what actually happened. Light bends near the sun. Reality bends around a famous person.

I also tried to look at him as a person going through this. This was between him and his wife. I was not about to pass judgment. I liked his wife going to visit him in rehab. I liked it when she went to pick up their child in Nike gear.

The intense glare of public attention amplified by the media that surrounds someone like Tiger must take its emotional toll. His wife did not try to hit him with a golf club, the apple did not fall on Newton's head. Those two facts we know. So if the wife did not try to hit him with a golf club like the media stories kept repeating, you have to try and differentiate between Tiger's disgressions and media porn. At least a few of the women must have made up and embellished their stories. It is the nature of the beast.

Most important, I am really liking the ending of the story. I am glad Tiger's family is intact. And I am glad he will be back on the golf course. I might even watch some golf here and there.

I am a Buddhist like Tiger Woods: http://twitter.com/paramendra/status/9303470925.

Telegraph: Dalai Lama Admits He Has Never Heard Of Tiger Woods: said he was returning to the Buddhist faith he had practised as a child....... the self-effacing exiled Tibetan monk called his own lack of knowledge about sports of all kinds "my disgrace". ..... he said self-discipline is among Buddhism's highest values and, when it comes to adultery, all religions "have the same idea". ...... In his apology, which was televised worldwide, Woods said he had "lost track" of his Buddhist faith in recent years. ....... "I have a lot of work to do and intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of this is Buddhism. Buddhism teaches me to stop following every impulse and to know restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught."

New York Times: Mea Culpa, At Arm’s Length: “Why do they have to know everything?” he asked Jaime Diaz of Golf Digest. At the time, Mr. Woods — Tiger — was 14 years old. ...... Athletes and actors would like for us to focus on the work, while reporters know that their editors and audience want more, because while the work is visible, we want our celebrities to show a little leg. ....... Some wear fame as a loose garment. Mr. Woods wore his as a shirt that was a few sizes too small. ........ “He stopped being impressed by coverage at a very young age, and after that, he became very cold-eyed and wondered, ‘What’s in it for me?’ ” Mr. Diaz said. “He would love to play golf and never have to answer a question.” ....... Mr. Woods has never used his family as accessories on his brand as say, Phil Mickelson has, and he has asked paparazzi to stay away from his children.

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