46. 30 Reasons To Get Out Of Real Estate Part 2
47. The Shock of a New Paradigm
48. Our Great Depression
Category: Morality
Conspiracy.
42. The Duck Dinner
43. The Rigged Game
44. Confiscation and Inflation
Whether we know it or not, we all possess core values that drive our existence. These values are the pillars that support the infrastructure of our lives. They are the reason why we get up in the morning. They are also the fabric of who we are as individuals, because our values — things that are important to us — give us meaning and a sense of identity. Through the years, our core values tend to be neglected or put aside, especially if we have become depressed or preoccupied with excessive worry over life’s unavoidable difficulties. As a result, our self-esteem takes a big hit because we have lost our sense of direction. And, without that direction and purpose we don’t know who we are. Realigning ourselves with our core values will gives us insight into where we can begin to put our energy immediately, and what to begin focusing on as part of the process of rebuilding our self-esteem.
When we rediscover our core values and make a conscious decision to live by them as best we can, we gradually begin to see changes in our lives. And, over time, we start to feel better because we are in harmony with ourselves.
When I give this assignment to my patients (“Rediscovering Core Values”), many report the exercise brings up discomfort because the direct and deliberate focusing on the “self” feels overly indulgent. For example, feelings of shame are inspired, perhaps from the many years of deflecting personal attention. In many cultures it is the norm to put oneself second to the needs of others and to think of you as part of a whole, instead of a separate individual.
But one of the many aspects of building self-esteem is in fact, identifying and acknowledging our separateness in relation to others. But we need to keep in mind that the healthy separateness we are discussing here is not intended to mean indifference or even contentiousness with others. If we can appreciate our uniqueness and value as a person, we may be able to appreciate that in others too.
Exercise
The following is a list of possible life values that may inspire ideas about our own personal core values that are important to us. Keep in mind that “life” itself cannot be used as a value for this exercise because it is too broad. The idea is to get as specific as possible.
Material things are also not workable for this exercise because they are not the kinds of values we are talking about. Therefore, things like money, 401k’s, real estate, cars even our iPods and smartphones are not considered values.
Please place a check mark next to the values that feel right for you. Or as mentioned, come up with your own:
_____Commitment to Family _____Commitment to Spouse/Partner
_____Commitment to Community _____Commitment to God
_____Spirituality _____Health
_____Nutrition _____Exercise
_____Integrity _____Responsibility
_____Self-Respect _____Honesty
_____Self-Reliance _____Sense of Humor
The next step is to think about what it means to begin living into at least two of these values one time per day. In other words, what actions are we willing to commit to taking each day that are in accord with these values?
For example, if one of our identified core values is our sense of Integrity and we are going to align our behaviors with that value, we may decide to make amends with a friend or an acquaintance we have fallen out of communication with in the past. We may call up a family member and perhaps open up a dialogue about an issue that is unresolved between us. Or we may be inspired to follow through on a task or a goal we have put off for a while that has been eating away at us and making us feel inadequate.
If another identified core value is say, our spirituality and we are making a conscious decision to align our behaviors with it, we may choose to engage in some mindfulness meditation in the morning before work or afterwards. We may choose to attend services at a place of worship, we may even pick up reading materials that inspire us and reconnect us to whatever our higher power is. We may decide to be in the presence of nature such as walking in a park, on the beach or hiking in the forest. Or we may even decide to just sit somewhere quietly during our lunch break and take in the sights around us.
So, after identifying two of your most important core values, use the following exercise to begin:
Example:
Core value #1 – Spirituality or connecting to higher power
Actions I will take today:
1) I will practice mindfulness and/or meditation exercises every morning for 15-20 minutes before I go to work.
2) I will attend church, synagogue or mosque, etc., 1 time per week for services and
while I am there, I will engage in conversation with 1-2 new people.
3) I will do 30 minutes of mindfulness walking in nature at a park, beach, forest, etc.
Exercise: List of Actions/Actions
(The list will comprise of planned actions/activities you will schedule or commit to one time per day.)
Core value #1___________________________________________________
Actions I will take today:
1)_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
2)_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3)_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Core value #2____________________________________________________
Actions I will take today:
1)_____________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
2)______________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
If we do this exercise one time per day, every day for one month, we may notice a change or a shift in our thinking about ourselves and about our place in the world.
John Tsilimparis is a writer and psychotherapist in Los Angeles and was featured on the hit TV show “OBSESSED,” where he treated individuals with OCD on camera. The show aired on A&E and received a great deal of exposure and success. John has also appeared on television as an expert on addiction and other psychiatric conditions. He was featured on “Larry King Live,” “The View,” Fox News, KTLA-News, and ABC News. He was also featured on several radio programs in the Los Angeles area.
In his psychotherapy work, he treats individuals suffering from anxiety disorders, particularly OCD, depression and addiction, and also specializes in bereavement counseling. His approach is a cutting-edge theoretical orientation called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which focuses on changing individuals’ personal thinking and belief systems about every aspect of life.
John is a former staff clinician at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Bever
Are Consciousness and God The Same?
Science and God
Does science diminish or enrich our understanding of God? His new book discusses many of these topics in War of the Worldviews http://tinyurl.com/42urctv co-written with Leonard Mlodinow, professor of physics at CalTech
How Can I tame my Ego?
Can There Be A Choice Without Judgment?
How do you find peace with yourself?
Confucius was born in the 6th Century B.C.E. in the small state of Lu, located in the present Shantung peninsula. He lived during the Chou Dynasty at a point when the central authority of the dynasty was being challenged by the growth of increasingly powerful states attempting to challenge the power of the central government. Confucius himself was a member of what was referred to as the ju, a class of people primarily occupied with the study of writing from the earliest generations of the Chou period, the writings that become known as the ching or Classics, numbering five or six, but accruing additional numbers with the passage of time. So Confucius was essentially a scholar of his time.
Confucius can be understood in his historic context. That context is the slow disintegration of the stability and order of the political order of his day. His focus is upon a series of writings that described the harmonious ways of the generations before him and even further in the past, a time when sages, sheng, brought their wisdom to the governing of the world. For Confucius the Classics were the documentation that when sages governed, the world was ordered. This concept of order was defined largely in terms of a moral code of humaneness, the concept of jen, goodness, exercised by the sage rulers toward their subjects and in turn became the governing principle for all people in society.
The contrast between what Confucius read of the records of the ancients and his own age was stark. As a result Confucius sought to bring the ways of the ancients to his own generation. For many years he traveled from state to state, often at great personal risk, to attempt to inculcate the teachings of moral goodness to the rulers of the various states
In this endeavor he was a remarkable failure! No ruler was interested in a teaching of moral goodness. Is it any different today? What a surprise, such rulers were only interested in strategies to guarantee their own sustaining power and authority! Finally with no measurable success, Confucius retired to his home state and gathered increasing numbers of students around him, teaching the moral principles of the ancient sages. The formal biography ends with his role as a teacher, but his influence began with his role as a teacher.
And what was the nature of these teachings? He stressed the need to learn, hsüeh, to engage in study of the Classics and the ways of the ancient sages. His hope was that through these teachings the world would be brought back to a state of harmony and order and all society would live at peace. What were the underlying features of these teaching? The focus was upon the cultivation of a moral self, self defined in terms goodness, caring, compassion, altruism and benevolence. There are many specific teachings corresponding to these various ideas but when Confucius was asked by his disciples whether there was not one principle idea running through his teaching, he answered by saying that the “single thread” of his teachings could best be described by the term shu, most frequently translated as reciprocity.
The term reciprocity is central to Confucian teachings. The Chinese character is composed of two parts: one part means “to be like,” the second part means “heart” or “mind.” Taken together the character means literally “like-hearted” or “like-minded,” suggesting one shows care to another. It could be expressed by our word sympathy, but sympathy suggests condescension of attitude and that is not implied. Our word empathy, however, strikes at the quintessential meaning. So reciprocity is empathy. But Confucius himself goes on to define the term in a sentence sounding remarkably familiar to our Western ears: “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.” Confucian teaching is articulated in no more basic moral axiom then this statement and it remains foundational throughout the history of the Confucian tradition.
Why does it matter who Confucius was? To answer this question we need to understand that in the centuries following Confucus’ death, his teaching rose to a position of greater and greater prominence in two spheres. Confucian teachings became the official ideology of the Chinese state, a position it held with virtually no break until into the 20th century. On the individual level, Confucian teachings became the central focus of individual learning and moral cultivation, the goal to become a moral person modeled upon the sages of antiquity.
And this aspect of Confucian teachings lasted not only into the 20th century but to our own day and presumably into the future. Historically we also witness the spread of Confucian teaching at both levels from China to both Korea and Japan and into South East Asia as well. The entire East Asian and South East Asia spheres have been dominated by Confucian values through out their history. To understand the thought and values of East and South East Asia, particularly in our own day, we simply must understand the teachings of this man Confucius.
But it goes further: to understand why Confucian teachings addressed not only the ideology of the state, but found their true focus upon the learning of the self to create a moral self, we must understand this man Confucius. Why? Is it important to create a moral self in a world not unlike the chaos of the world Confucius himself faced? Are we so very different? Have we travelled so very far from that fundamental necessity of finding the single thread of reciprocity and living by its virtue? Perhaps we all need to return to the simple teachings of Confucius to reacquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of living as a moral person and thereby creating a moral world. The message of Confucius is nothing more than the call to each person to fulfill his or her capacity of goodness, jen, and thereby, one by one, transform the world from what it is, to what can be and ought to be.
Dr. Rodney L. Taylor, Professor of Religious Studies at University of Colorado at Boulder for more than 30 years, received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in East Asian religion. His principle area of specialization is the understanding of Confucianism as a religious tradition both historically and in the modern world where Confucianism can be a voice in the contemporary discussion of religion and spirituality.
His books include: The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism; The Way of Heaven; The Confucian Way of Contemplation; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Confucianism; Confucianism (high school text); The Cultivation of Sagehood as a Religious Goal in Neo-Confucianism; They Shall Not Hurt: Human Suffering and Human Caring (with Dr. Jean Watson); The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective (with Dr. Frederick Denny) and his most recent volume, Confucius, the Analects: The Path of the Sage from Skylight Paths.
Twenty-six centuries after their origination, the principles laid down in the Analects of Confucius still act as the foundation of Chinese philosophy, ethics, society and government, and play a formative role in the development of many Eastern philosophies. In this intriguing look at the ethical and spiritual meaning of the Analects, Rodney L. Taylor, the foremost American researcher of Confucius as a religious and spiritual figure, explains their profound and universal wisdom for our own time. He shows how Confucius advocates learning and self-cultivation to follow the “path of the sage” or “Way of Heaven,” a journey that promises to promote reason, peace and understanding.
Alongside an updated version of the classic translation by Sinologist James Legge, Taylor provides informative and accessible commentary that illuminates the meaning behind selected passages from the Analects and their insights on character development, respect and reverence, and the nature of learning, goodness, truthfulness and righteousness.
Hinduism contains numerous references to the worship of the divine in nature in its Vedas,
Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras and its other sacred texts. Millions of Hindus recite Sanskrit mantras daily to revere their rivers, mountains, trees, animals and the earth. Although the Chipko (tree-hugging) Movement is the most widely known example of Hindu environmental leadership, there are examples of Hindu action for the environment that are centuries old.
Hinduism is a remarkably diverse religious and cultural phenomenon, with many local and
regional manifestations. Within this universe of beliefs, several important themes emerge. The diverse theologies of Hinduism suggest that:
• The earth can be seen as a manifestation of the goddess, and must be treated with respect.
• The five elements — space, air, fire, water and earth — are the foundation of an interconnected web of life.
• Dharma — often translated as “duty” — can be reinterpreted to include our responsibility to care for the earth.
• Simple living is a model for the development of sustainable economies.
• Our treatment of nature directly affects our karma.
Gandhi exemplified many of these teachings, and his example continues to inspire contemporary social, religious and environmental leaders in their efforts to protect the planet.
The following are 10 important Hindu teachings on the environment:
1. Pancha Mahabhutas (The five great elements) create a web of life that is shown forth in the structure and interconnectedness of the cosmos and the human body. Hinduism teaches that the five great elements (space, air, fire, water and earth) that constitute the environment are all derived from prakriti, the primal energy. Each of these elements has its own life and form; together the elements are interconnected and interdependent. The Upanishads explains the interdependence of these elements in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, from which they arise: “From Brahman arises space, from space arises air, from air arises fire, from fire arises water, and from water arises earth.”
Hinduism recognizes that the human body is composed of and related to these five elements,
and connects each of the elements to one of the five senses. The human nose is related to earth, tongue to water, eyes to fire, skin to air and ears to space. This bond between our senses and the elements is the foundation of our human relationship with the natural world. For Hinduism, nature and the environment are not outside us, not alien or hostile to us. They are an inseparable part of our existence, and they constitute our very bodies.
2. Ishavasyam — Divinity is omnipresent and takes infinite forms. Hindu texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita (7.19, 13.13) and the Bhagavad Purana (2.2.41, 2.2.45), contain many references to the omnipresence of the Supreme divinity, including its presence throughout and within nature. Hindus worship and accept the presence of God in nature. For example, many Hindus think of India’s mighty rivers — such as the Ganges — as goddesses. In the Mahabharata, it is noted that the universe and every object in it has been created as an abode of the Supreme God meant for the benefit of all, implying that individual species should enjoy their role within a larger system, in relationship with other species.
3. Protecting the environment is part of Dharma. Dharma, one of the most important Hindu concepts, has been translated into English as duty, virtue, cosmic order and religion. In Hinduism, protecting the environment is an important expression of dharma.
In past centuries, Indian communities — like other traditional communities — did not have an understanding of “the environment” as separate from the other spheres of activity in their lives.
A number of rural Hindu communities such as the Bishnois, Bhils and Swadhyaya have maintained strong communal practices to protect local ecosystems such as forests and water sources. These communities carry out these conservation-oriented practices not as “environmental” acts but rather as expressions of dharma. When Bishnois are protecting animals and trees, when Swadhyayis are building Vrikshamandiras (tree temples) and Nirmal Nirs (water harvesting sites) and when Bhils are practicing their rituals in sacred groves, they are simply expressing their reverence for creation according to Hindu teachings, not “restoring the environment.” These traditional Indian groups do not see religion, ecology and ethics as separate arenas of life. Instead, they understand it to be part of their dharma to treat creation with respect.
4. Our environmental actions affect our karma. Karma, a central Hindu teaching, holds that each of our actions creates consequences — good and bad — which constitute our karma and determine our future fate, including the place we will assume when we are reincarnated in our next life. Moral behavior creates good karma, and our behavior toward the environment has karmic consequences. Because we have free choice, even though we may have harmed the environment in the past, we can choose to protect the environment in the future, replacing environmentally destructive karmic patterns with good ones.
5. The earth – Devi — is a goddess and our mother and deserves our devotion and protection. Many Hindu rituals recognize that human beings benefit from the earth, and offer gratitude and protection in response. Many Hindus touch the floor before getting out of bed every morning and ask Devi to forgive them for trampling on her body. Millions of Hindus create kolams daily — artwork consisting of bits of rice or other food placed at their doorways in the morning. These kolams express Hindu’s desire to offer sustenance to the earth, just as the earth sustains themselves. The Chipko movement — made famous by Chipko women’s commitment to “hugging” trees in their community to protect them from clear-cutting by outside interests — represents a similar devotion to the earth.
6. Hinduism’s tantric and yogic traditions affirm the sacredness of material reality and contain teachings and practices to unite people with divine energy. Hinduism’s Tantric tradition teaches that the entire universe is the manifestation of divine energy. Yoga, derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “to yoke” or “to unite,” refers to a series of mental and physical practices designed to connect the individual with this divine energy. Both these traditions affirm that all phenomena, objects and individuals are expressions of the divine. And because these traditions both envision the earth as a goddess, contemporary Hindu teachers have used these teachings to demonstrate the wrongness of the exploitation of the environment, women and indigenous peoples.
7. Belief in reincarnation supports a sense of interconnectedness of all creation. Hindus believe in the cycle of rebirth, wherein every being travels through millions of cycles of birth and rebirth in different forms, depending on their karma from previous lives. So a person may be reincarnated as a person, animal, bird or another part of the wider community of life. Because of this, and because all people are understood to pass through many lives on their pathway to ultimate liberation, reincarnation creates a sense of solidarity between people and all living things.
Through belief in reincarnation, Hinduism teaches that all species and all parts of the earth are part of an extended network of relationships connected over the millennia, with each part of this network deserving respect and reverence.
8. Non-violence — ahimsa — is the greatest dharma. Ahimsa to the earth improves one’s karma. For observant Hindus, hurting or harming another being damages one’s karma and obstructs advancement toward moksha — liberation. To prevent the further accrual of bad karma, Hindus are instructed to avoid activities associated with violence and to follow a vegetarian diet.
Based on this doctrine of ahimsa, many observant Hindus oppose the institutionalized breeding and killing of animals, birds and fish for human consumption.
9. Sanyasa (asceticism) represents a path to liberation and is good for the earth. Hinduism teaches that asceticism — restraint in consumption and simplicity in living — represents a pathway toward moksha (liberation), which treats the earth with respect. A well-known Hindu teaching — Tain tyakten bhunjitha — has been translated, “Take what you need for your sustenance without a sense of entitlement or ownership.”
One of the most prominent Hindu environmental leaders, Sunderlal Bahuguna, inspired many Hindus by his ascetic lifestyle. His repeated fasts and strenuous foot marches, undertaken to support and spread the message of the Chipko, distinguished him as a notable ascetic in our own time. In his capacity for suffering and his spirit of self-sacrifice, Hindus saw a living example of the renunciation of worldly ambition exhorted by Hindu scriptures.
10. Gandhi is a role model for simple living. Gandhi’s entire life can be seen as an ecological treatise. This is one life in which every minute act, emotion or thought functioned much like an ecosystem: his small meals of nuts and fruits, his morning ablutions and everyday bodily practices, his periodic observances of silence, his morning walks, his cultivation of the small as much as of the big, his spinning wheel, his abhorrence of waste, his resorting to basic Hindu and Jain values of truth, nonviolence, celibacy and fasting. The moralists, nonviolent activists, feminists, journalists, social reformers, trade union leaders, peasants, prohibitionists, nature-cure lovers, renouncers and environmentalists all take their inspirations from Gandhi’s life and writings.
(Acknowledgment: Adapted from the essays by Christopher K. Chapple, O. P. Dwivedi, K. L. Seshagiri Rao, Vinay Lal, and George A. James in Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water and Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, both published by Harvard University Press. Thanks also to the essays by Harold Coward and Rita DasGupta Sherma in Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, published by SUNY Press.
Pankaj is the author of Sustenance and Sustainability: Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities (May 2011) and has also published articles in journals such as Religious Studies Review, Worldviews, Religion Compass, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Union Seminary Quarterly Review and the Journal of Visual Anthropology. He also contributes to the Washington Post’s forum “On Faith” and the e-zine Patheos.com.
His research and teaching interests include Hinduism, Jainism, environmental ethics, Indian films, Sanskrit, and Hindi/Urdu languages and literatures. Before joining UNT, he taught at North Carolina State University, Rutgers, Kean and New Jersey City University. Interested in connecting ancient practices with contemporary issues, he is exploring the connections between religious traditions and sustainability in Hindu and Jain communities in the North Texas area. He serves as a research affiliate with Harvard University’s Pluralism Project and as scholar-in-residence with GreenFaith. He is also a Roving Professor at the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at UNT.
He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and an M.A. from Columbia University (both in Religious Studies). In his “previous life” he had also earned a B.S. in Computer Science from India and had worked as a software engineer in India and in New Jersey.
The video Gaia’s Prayer launches a series of articles and actions based on Spiritual Environmentalism. Spiritual Environmentalism is the application of Spiritual practices and methodologies to raising awareness and initiating actions to halt and reverse the downward spiral of mankind’s harmful impact on the environment.
Along with the concept of Spiritual Activism, Spiritual Environmentalism is one that embraces the immutable truth of the underlined connection among all beings and ascribes a new way of interaction with our environment based on the Ethics of Living Consciously.
To adopt this lens as a way to see our planet is to understand it as a living entity: one that hosts and nurtures all forms of life and levels of consciousness; not exclusively Human beings, but trees, animals and other living creatures as well. All forms of life are sacred and valuable to the existence and maintenance of the balance of the entire system.
Oneness does not refer to just Oneness within Humanity, although that is a major component. Oneness is the understanding and awareness of your place in and connection to all of Creation.
On 10-10, Humanity Healing hosted a global meditation on the Oneness Blessing, emphasizing One Humanity. On 11-11, Humanity Healing will host a global meditation on Oneness with the environment, emphasizing One Earth.
Join us on 11:11 by spending a few moments to send your Love, your Light, your Compassion, your Understanding, and your Healing Energy out to the vast web of life that is the Spirit of Gaia.
We are ONE Earth. We are ONE Humanity.
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Music: “Gaia’s Lament” by Isabella Rajotte
Kind Courtesy of Web of Sound – Canada
Images: Google/Photobucket
We Honor the Unknown Artists
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Lewis Richmond
Buddhist writer and teacher
The baby boomer generation has been criticized for making every stage of life — whether it be adolescence, college, child-rearing and now their aging — into a self-referential adventure of transformation and improvement. From that point of view, the notion of aging as a spiritual practice could be seen as just the latest of these baby boomer projects: “We’re going to do aging differently and better than anyone!” Some commentators have concluded that the baby boomers were a coddled, spoiled generation. To them, the bumper sticker “Life is hard and then you die” is more how things actually are.
Needless to say, I see things differently. Yes, we baby boomers came to maturity at a time of great social upheaval and change, and we participated in and helped engineer that change. And due to the affluence of the postwar America in which we grew up, we had the time and energy to devote to our own inner development and outer social transformation. In the 1960s, 70 percent of college students rated “personal fulfillment” as their most important life goal, while today the same percentage mention financial success as their life’s goal. Money and career seemed easy 40 years ago; now they seem hard.
In that sense, times have changed, and today’s Generations X and Y have very different priorities than we did. What has not changed are the fundamentals of the human condition, which includes aging. There is the old saying, “Youth is wasted on the young.” If only we had 60-year-old wisdom in a 30-year-old body! There have been a number of hit movies that have explored this fantasy. Well, dream on. It has never happened and barring some medical miracle, it never will.
We don’t worry about things we don’t care about. Worry and care go together. We care about our family and friends; that is why we worry about them. We care about the fate of the planet, or of the hardships of people losing their jobs or their homes. These things matter to us a lot, and it would seem that if we gave up worry we would also be giving up our care. That doesn’t seem right.
Buddhist teaching understands this connection between worry and care quite well. Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, spent his whole life working on this single problem: How can we relieve the unnecessary suffering that we impose on ourselves because we care so much and can’t see a perspective larger than our care?
Or to put it another way: How can we transform our conditional, limited love for just those people and things we care about into an unconditional love which cares equally about everyone and everything?
When I was a child in Sunday school, we would ask our teacher, “What is God? Who is God?” And we were told, “God is love.” I never gave a whole lot of thought to that answer at the time, I just accepted it as true without understanding what it meant. Now in our crisis-ridden world, where war and violence and hatred seem as prevalent as any time in the past, God as love seems a lot more complicated than it did when I first heard it. How is it that this unconditional love continues to elude us, generation after generation? How can we find it? What can we do?
I think this quest is the particular mission of elders, those who have lived long enough for youthful idealism to fade and deeper wisdom to dawn. The spiritual practice of aging, I think, is to add some words to that cynical bumper sticker. I would say it this way:
Yes, life is hard, and then you die, but before you do find out what love is.
“Work is not just a job. It is the sum of all our purposeful activities. Seen in this light, work is our whole life.” — — from A Whole Life’s Work What is work in the truest sense of the word? For Buddhist priest and acclaimed author Lewis Richmond, work is more than just having a job, or a means to a profitable end. It is the key to cultivating inner life and contributing to the developing consciousness of all humanity.
In this companion to his national bestseller, Work as a Spiritual Practice, Richmond applies his Buddhist understanding to address what is perhaps one of the primary struggles of contemporary Western life: how to achieve a healthy balance between professional ambition and personal happiness. Here he adapts Buddhist categories of spiritual virtue in defining eight important modes of work�the Earner, the Hobbyist, the Creator, the Monk, the Helper, the Parent, the Learner, and the Elder�along with their corresponding eight modes of inner work: Precepts, Vitality, Patience, Calm, Equanimity, Giving, Humility, and Wisdom. How to internalize these modes of work, and lead a more meaningful and spiritual life, is what this groundbreaking guidebook is all about. Whether we are professionals, artists, hobbyists, parents, students, or spiritual leaders, A Whole Life1s Work can teach us how to reconcile our outer livelihood with our inner lives…and reap the benefits of hard work well done.
In my post this week in Psychology Today I outlined the brain systems that work against moral behavior, throwing us into chaotic internal states. The brain is wired for morality, but it is also wired for fear and craving, which are powerful and often insurmountable opponents. Similarly, the brain is wired for forgiveness and retribution, so we are always caught between opposing poles, trying to resolve them.
The problem is, we know what we believe is “right,” but the more primitive brain usually wins the battle or else causes us to freeze in our daily strivings. How do we overcome the opposites in the brain? And if we rely on Einstein’s belief that “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created,” how can we access this new level? In my book: “Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons To Overcome Fear,” I outline the biology of spirituality, which I will draw on here to form my arguments.
To increase the force of the moral brain, we cannot simply bolster our conviction. Fighting the “negative” side of ourselves often gets us the very thing that we dread. Research has shown that when we dread an outcome, we are more likely to choose it because we cannot stand the waiting [1]. This arises, not just due to the fear, but due to the attention we pay to the things that worry us. Brain-imaging studies show us that the brain’s attention center is over activated in relation to the dreaded outcome; thus we may be able to practice alternate foci of attention and build new brain pathways that are focused on what we want rather than what we do not want. Rather than fear the affair, focus on building the relationship. Rather than fearing losing your money and then gambling, focus on building your wealth.
Furthermore, many people believe that by analyzing our problems, we can reach a solution. But sometimes, analysis leads to paralysis. In fact, brain-imaging studies show that thinking about a problem with vested attention rather than simply placing one’s attention where one feels the distress (turning it inward without thought or judgment) can help to decrease the activation in the fear center of the brain [2]. Thus another way we can move to another level is to remove analysis and judgment when things become hectic, and simply place our attention on the emotions that our needs bring us.
Thirdly, studies show that “transcendence” correlates with greater alpha coherence on brain wave tests [3]. When we struggle with inner conflicts, this fragments the brain into a thousand different directions. We develop “should I or shouldn’t I” brains. Meditation can help to bring the different parts of the thinking brain into alignment. Thus, we fight this duality by creating “oneness” amongst the different parts of our brains. This often resolves the anxiety created by the fight between opposites in the brain.
We also often read that tackling the problem of human consciousness requires giving up the “ego.” This sense of self is sometimes thought to be obstructive to spiritual development. It causes us to identify without struggles and keeps us stuck in the mud of the dueling opposites. To escape this self, spirituality and congregational support (the data are not as conclusive about religious practice yet) can help a person approach this problem from a different level. It just so happens that this decreased sense of “self” that happens with spiritual experiences correlates with decreased activation of the parietal lobe of the brain — a brain region that is responsible for sense of self [4].
Thus, when we are faced with “inner struggles” due to dueling opposites, we can know that all of these opposites are actually brain circuits that are actively running in the brain. Simple brain-based tips are:
1. Change the level: Do not approach the problem at the same level at which it is created.
2. Compose, not oppose: Compose new positive ideas rather than dreading the negative.
3. Avoid analysis paralysis: Remember that you take the sting out of fear by observing it non-judgmentally in yourself.
4. Cohere rather than adhere: Meditation kicks your decision-making up a notch by increasing the synchrony of different brain regions.
5. Escape the “self” to find the “real self”: Instead of identifying with your struggle (“I am my struggle or craving”) remove your adherence to this by recognizing that you are not what you feel when your conflict is high. Remove your attention from your conflict.
Your sense of incompleteness is directly related to how much fear and anxiety you have, since anxiety fragments your brain’s functioning. We sometimes experience these fragments as dueling opposites — an internal torture that is difficult to resolve. I contend that if we reduce the fear, your sense of “wholeness” will be enhanced.
# Name Dr. Srini Pillay
# Location boston, ma
# Bio m.d., certified master coach, harvard trained psychiatrist, brain imaging researcher and speaker specializing in stress and anxiety.
References
1. Berns, G.S., et al., Neurobiological substrates of dread. Science, 2006. 312(5774): p. 754-8.
2. Herwig, U., et al., Self-related awareness and emotion regulation. Neuroimage. 50(2): p. 734-41.
3. Travis, F. and A. Arenander, Cross-sectional and longitudinal study of effects of transcendental meditation practice on interhemispheric frontal asymmetry and frontal coherence. Int J Neurosci, 2006. 116(12): p. 1519-38.
We live in exciting times it seems. In the recent Queens speech debate, Tony Blair claimed that a new Industrial Revolution is currently taking place; one which will take not two hundred years to transform our way of life, but twenty.
This revolution is being both enabled by and driven via the Internet. The ramifications are immense in terms of the nature and structure of work and the way we conduct our lives. The implications for managers and leaders of organizations are no less profound.
My own work centers around helping people and organizations to change, but more specifically to enable people to find more meaning and purpose in their work and hopefully their lives. Most organizations with whom I work are finding it harder and harder to cope with the overwhelming demands placed upon them both to change and to demonstrate continuous improvement along the way.
There is in my view a fundamental crisis developing in much of British industry and the public sector. This crisis is often vocalized by management as a morale problem or a demotivated workforce, whilst others describe it as the product of work-stress and overload. What most people do not express however, and what most senior managers will never admit, is that they have absolutely no idea as to what to do about it.
If Tony Blair is right, those people aged thirty-five to forty who currently occupy middle or senior management positions are, in the course of their own careers, going to have to manage the historical equivalent of two hundred years of change in working practices. Furthermore, they will have to do so in a climate in which a substantial percentage of their staff feel overworked and bewildered by the pace of recent change. Under pressure to become ever more efficient, managers are running out (at least in the private sector) of fads and quality schemes with which to improve productivity and commitment. It has finally sunk in that the quick fixes simply do not work. The quality programmes have run out of steam, by which people mean: “The results, after an initial burst of success have not resulted in the kind of sustained improvement we had hoped for.”
Not that there is anything inherently wrong in the quality systems, but the central tenet of the quality movement points out that 95% of the problems are the fault of the system. Whereas typical organizational improvement programmes are aimed at changing the people, not the system. It is also in my view a failure by the leadership of organizations to realise that if the organization is going to have to change then they themselves are going to have to change.
All too often, culture change and employee development is something senior managers view as being something those that work for them are in need of. They need only manage the process. Managing change is recognized as the most important skill requirement of modern managers. Personal growth and change is not usually even on the agenda.
The search is now on for a new system of managing that is congruent with our times and the new values and mission statements so popular in the eighties and nineties. Whilst we are on the verge of a technological revolution (if recent business titles are any indicator), we are also on the verge of a spiritual revolution. It would seem that the search is now on for the corporate soul.
With intellectual heavyweights like Charles Handy trumpeting the call for us to question our corporate “reason for being,” it is evident that the business world has begun to take notice. With companies like Boeing Corporation hiring the poet David Whyte as part of a programme to uplift the spirits and creativity of its managers, we can be assured that spirituality has finally arrived in the corporate boardroom.
And so, the search for the corporate spirit is on. The major question in my mind however, and one that remains to be answered, is why? What exactly is driving this shift toward the sublime? One thing that seems clear is that it has become fashionable in recent years to talk about the softer issues in management, to consider people as whole human beings with emotional and spiritual needs which cannot be ignored.
One only has to look at the proliferation of Employee Assistance Programs, Stress Reduction Schemes, and Staff Counselling and Welfare provisions to find evidence for this. We appear to be living in, or at least moving towards, a culture in which the well-being of staff is seen as a priority within organizations. But as we become a more litigacious society and, given recent test cases requiring employers to observe a duty of care to not only employees physical but also mental well being, one can be forgiven for suspecting motives.
Much is being written on this subject, and many people are beginning to question the role of business and the assumption that the sole purpose of business is to make a profit. “Profit for what?” is the question asked by Charles Handy in a recent work interestingly titled The Hungry Spirit. People are questioning the fundamental structure, power relationships and ownership of our institutions.
Talk of devolution of power, empowered organizations, spirituality in the workplace, etc. is being driven by something. But we are faced with an apparent paradox: big businesses, in their current structure, simply do not work as enterprises which serve the spiritual needs of their employees. This is hardly surprising, since they were never designed to do so. At the risk of stating the exceedingly obvious, the bottom line of business is to make a profit.
I must confess to a certain amount of ambivalence. The cynic within me might argue that the real reason that business has begun to embrace spirituality is born out of financial and economic desperation rather than compassion. If all else fails, why not seek divine inspiration as a last resort. But nonetheless, I remain cautiously optimistic.
The search for the corporate soul is on – and with it the need to find an authentic spirituality, one that is congruent with both spiritual traditions and the profit motive. Can western capitalist models of “for profit” organizations ever be reconciled with either eastern or western forms of spirituality, with their eschewing of material values (surely this is anathema)? Can one reconcile “awakening corporate soul” with the maximization of return to shareholders? Can the interests of the owners and other stakeholders be balanced? These are the pressing issues facing leaders of business today. My answer is an emphatic yes! But to explore this apparent paradox we must first define our terms.
Much of the argument in this debate will no doubt center around what we mean by spirituality, spirit, soul, religion, dogma, etc… we all know this old chestnut, and no doubt we will hear it again and again as spirituality takes hold as the preoccupation in every field, from science to art to sport to politics. We should be careful, however, not to mistake a growing interest in spirituality with a growing openness to explore its meaning.
As recent events show, Glenn Hoddle has been made a martyr for saying simply what a large proportion of the people on this planet believe, namely that our birth circumstances are determined a priori either as a result of karma or choice. No, the establishment, it seems, is far from ready to take an enlightened look at what other wisdom traditions may offer. For the moment anyway, political correctness is still much more important than the notion that there might be more to our physical life circumstances than the purely material, biological or genetic factors.
If commercial organizations are to fare any better at the hands of shareholders and the establishment, then they had better watch what they say, and to whom they say it. And herein lies the first great barrier to liberation of “corporate soul”: they lay themselves open to ridicule, but this is precisely what an authentic spirituality calls for. We can see clearly how the city treats the “romantic” notions of its leaders, with just one recent example: witness the treatment of Rocco Forte in the battle for control of his hotel group in the hostile takeover bid by Granada.
If the recent TV programme is a fair reflection it would seem stating your desire to put employees before short term profit is enough to condemn you as incompetent and out of touch. No, we must be more realistic, we should welcome the current trend as evidence of corporations recognizing the need to address spiritual issues, but settle ourselves in for a long and tough ride – which is, of course, just how it should be. Any individual who has experienced personal growth, especially into the higher realms (above the emotional and into the transpersonal), will bear witness that this is always an excruciatingly painful process and one which takes a lifetime. Why should corporations have it any easier?
So here we see the emergence of the second barrier to organizational growth: the timeframe involved. The arguments and problems of short-termism in our economy are well known. This factor alone will mitigate against organizations’ attempts at liberating soul. Ignoring the fact that growth can be slow and often involves periods of pain, the rewards are very often not what was expected or sought. Convincing organizations to undertake a perilous, long journey with no guarantees as to even the destination, expecting stormy weather and certainly encountering despair, this is a seemingly impossible task. And yet this is precisely what will need to be done, and what an authentic spirituality calls for. The path of the spiritual adventurer is a lonely one; few have the courage to take it.
But (and perhaps here lies our most optimistic prospect), there there is no longer any choice. It is inevitable that we recognise the only long term strategy offering any enduring hope is to open oneself to the possibility that there may be another way.
I started this article by saying that it is possible to integrate an authentic spirituality with business, that this integration is indeed possible. Why my emphatic yes? Well, in fact, the argument does not even arise once we correctly define spirit and stop confusing it with soul or corporate soul. What do the great wisdom traditions tell us about God, Spirit, the ultimate ground of being, Atman, Gaia, Ati, Nirvana, Enlightenment, however you personally wish to recognize it. All of them point to the fact that spirit is all embracing, all encompassing, everywhere and everything. In eastern traditions particularly, you are already enlightened spirit, the act of grasping or trying to attain it is simply to deny Spirit.
Spirit pervades, includes, and composes every realm – material, emotional, mental, social, cultural – it is all manifestation of Spirit. Carl Jung supposedly had a sign over his study saying, “Invited or not, God is present.” In the act of attempting to grasp spirit or soul, to liberate what is already present, organizations fall prey (just as individuals do) to the Buddhist notion of samsara, and thus perpetuate and exacerbate the problem.
Even logically, if the management of an organization sets out to awaken its corporate soul, then it means that they must recognize its presence. But it was there all along; it did not manifest only after being acknowledged and added to the corporate mission statement. Organizations can indeed liberate the soul, if by that they mean make the workplace a fit and worthy place for the soul to shine in. They can liberate and engage the submerged iceberg of skill, talent and energy that lies both fallow and neglected in most organizations. But they are guilty of the worst form of spiritual materialism and reductionism if they believe that they can appropriate, or buy, peoples’ souls in the pursuit of material gain.
Workplace communities, fluid project teams and networks, these are indeed the way of the future. They are the template for future organizational structures. Indeed business organizations are realizing that to retain their life force they will need to cater to employees higher needs, lest they end up as sinking ships, with nothing more than hydrophobic rodents as crewmates. In attempting to incorporate spiritual values into a new ethical business structure, however, leaders must also be mindful, to render unto Caesar only that which is rightfully his.
David Ring is the owner of The Personal Development Partnership of Manchester, England, whose purpose is to help organizations recognize the need to raise their heads from the numbers and integrate an authentic and sincere spirituality in their workplace. He has run workshops entitled Managing Change in the Workplace for The British Association for Counselling and The Association for Counselling at Work. he can be contacted by email at david@thepdp.co.uk and on the web at www.integral-business.com
