Buddhism at Google?

Google is at the forefront of many management, organisational and HR innovations (including developing a remarkable quantitative approach to recruitment), so any leadership development initiative at Google is usually worth paying attention to.

It's therefore noteworthy that Google University now has a "school of personal growth" as one of its four main faculties (the others focus on workplace essentials, leadership development, and Google life and culture). It's run by Chade-Meng Tan, a software engineer who is also a Buddhist, and includes instruction in mindfulness meditation from Norman Fischer, a zen priest and one of the Dharma Heirs of Suzuki Roshi (author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind). Tan said

The school's ethos could be a blueprint for workplace education, as "Google wants to help Googlers grow as human beings on all levels - emotional, mental, physical and 'beyond the self'."

Tan's predecessor, Monika Broeker, notes that - like most things in Google - this program has been subjected to intense quantitative scrutiny to assess its impact:

“If you want executive management support, you better back it up with data,” Broecker said. “We did a lot of research as to the effectiveness of our programs. One of the questions [we researched] was whether we could show that people who had gone through our programs were happier in Google than people who had not gone through our programs. And we definitely had data that showed that this was the case.”

Read more at Guardian Online and Chief Learning Officer Online.

Rahula Chapter 6 - Anatta: The Doctrine of No-Self (part 3) & Chapter 7 - Bhavana (Meditation)

A recording of today's teachings and discussion (from 10th May) of Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught" (part 3 on Chapter 6 and chapter 7) can be downloaded here. Among the topics we covered today:

• The purpose of meditation and its benefits in cultivating mental health
• Meditation techniques
• The two forms of meditation, shamatha and vipashyana, and their relationship to each other and to the view (including "form is emptiness, emptiness is form")
• Deconstruction and dis-identification from form, feeling, thoughts, references and self - how meditation allows to cultivate egolessness
• Living in the present moment, losing yourself in your action, flow and positive psychology, creativity and performance

Multitasking is a Myth

From an article on "The Science of Concentration" in the New York Times:

The psychologist William James wrote: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” You can lead a miserable life by obsessing on problems. You can drive yourself crazy trying to multitask and answer every e-mail message instantly.

“Multitasking is a myth,” Ms. Gallagher (author of "Rapt") said. “You cannot do two things at once. The mechanism of attention is selection: it’s either this or it’s that.” She points to calculations that the typical person’s brain can process 173 billion bits of information over the course of a lifetime. “People don’t understand that attention is a finite resource, like money,” she said. “Do you want to invest your cognitive cash on endless Twittering or Net surfing or couch potatoing? You’re constantly making choices, and your choices determine your experience, just as William James said.”

Ms. Gallagher advocates meditation to increase your focus.

Being and Mindfulness

This week's New York Times features an article by Judith Warner on 'Being and Mindfulness', a fascinating snapshot of how meditation and mindfulness is (mis)understood in the West. Judith paints an image of Buddhist practice as "extreme solipsism" leading to a state that is "cold and forbidding, and above all terribly, terribly dull":

Mindfulness is supposed to bring people together. By embracing your essential humanness, getting in touch with and accepting your body, sensations, emotions and thoughts, you are supposed to join with, and empathetically connect to, all humanity ... But in real-life encounters, I’ve come lately to wonder whether meaningful bonds are well forged by the extreme solipsism that mindfulness practice often turns out to be.

Some of us experience our emotions always in capital letters and exclamation points. This isn’t always pleasant but, to go all mindful for a moment, it is what it is, and if you are one of these people then probably one of the great pleasures of your life is finding others like you and settling in with them for a good rant. A world devoid of such souls can be cold and forbidding, and above all terribly, terribly dull.

Thankfully, the Times' readers weren't happy to let such confusion go without comment! There are many excellent and enjoyable responses to her article - 589 in all - most of which are inspiring and insightful, although there are a few that demonstrate even greater confusion or misunderstanding than Judith. Taken as a whole, it's a great read - strongly recommended!

Week 1 teaching - Rinpoche's "new ngöndro" - 11 January 2009

Thanks everyone for coming today!  We managed to set up a successful live web link with the sangha in Victoria, and even joined them in meditation across the internet.  We went through the first part of Rinpoche's new student manual to accompany the ngöndro (if anyone doesn't have this manual, please contact me: alex at khyentsefoundation dot org), and also the commentary on the manual that he taught in Rio de Janeiro, December 2008.

The first part of the ngöndro has three components:

(1) study and contemplation (based on the reading list below)

(2) meditation of "just sitting" for a total of 50 hours, at least 5 minutes a day

(3) post-meditation, where we start to integrate our practice into our daily lives.  Rinpoche suggests we should start to do things that would be good for ourselves and others, that we start to buy "useless things" like Buddha statues rather than "useful things" like iPods, and that we make some kind of vow or commitment to give up something small in samsara as a way of cultivating discipline.

Rinpoche's recommended reading list includes 5 books:

(a) Books on the nature of faith and devotion

- "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris

- "Feet of Clay" by Anthony Storr

(b) Introductions to Buddhism

- "What the Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula

- "Old Path, White Clouds" by Thich Nhat Hanh

(c) Something to help us to "get accustomed to a different logic"

- "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu

We're going to start with "What the Buddha Taught" as our first text, and we'll go through as many of these texts as time allows.  The purpose of this period of study and contemplation is to "test the gold" of the Buddha and his teachings, not just accept them on blind faith. As Buddha himself said:

"As the wise test gold by burning, cutting and rubbing it,  So, bhikshus, should you accept my words - after testing them, and not merely out of respect." 

Homework:

• Contemplate why you are interested in following the spiritual path, and what you expect as a result of following this path
  
• Contemplate what does Rinpoche mean by "useless things"
• Daily practice of "just sitting"
• Buy "What the Buddha Taught"

See you next week

Alex