Buddhism and Management – Balamadana

Hi Volker, i know and so sorry about my silence and lack of words, but i am promising to you i will recover and redeem myself with you…sooner my friend, i ve been reading your posts this past week and days and I so proud of you, you can see things well, even when you are not sure about that. That’s important, i can say very important…starting to see with wild open eyes is the first step to any improvement.
I am actually engaged in promote and work against the ” international amazon – rain forest”, i do not know if you had heard something about it, but the problem is huge..
Look at this video I will send it to you. If we can forget or not see that that company is aiming or really looking after the biogenetic resource in Amazon only, i could accept innocently this video.
Watch the video and tell me what do you thing about.
L&K
Marcelo

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Buddhism

Marcelo,

Reverence for Life: is that all about not killing minerals, animals and humans? Any living being and being nice to them, feeding them and giving to them. Respecting life – is that so simple?

Volker

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5 Mindful Trainings, Reverence for Life

…than I appear to be, all the world’s strength and power rests inside me!

Marcelo,

I know you are very busy.

Just today I am about to finish “For a future to be possible, Buddhist Ethics for everyday life“, by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Have you read that one?

It speaks about the Five Mindulness Trainings:

1. Reverence for Life
2. Generosity
3. Sexual Responsibility
4. Deep Listening and Loving Speech
5. Deit for a Mindful Society

For me it is hard to sum up the book in a post. And, whilst I could imagine eating less meat, drinking less wine, giving it all up would be hard to imagine.

Maybe you have some thoughts and inputs on that? Would you like to start with 1. Reverence for Life?

Love and Peace to you,

Volker

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5 Mindful Trainings

Today is a rainy day. Nothing like yesterday, it was sunny and we went to an animal park in Kent. Today it looks like a day in the gym and at home, catching up on laundry.

Why am I writing you about that?

I am a little philosophic today, catching up on work and thoughts. Thoughts are that like life – life can be in balance one day, it sometimes is a rainy day, then a sunny day. Sometimes we need to accept that we enjoy the sunshine and one day we enjoy the rain and make the most of it.

Marcelo said that I improve in my Buddhist views. That inspires me as I believe that my thinking slowly gets more and more into the direction I would like it to go. However, it is similar to studying an MBA. You get all the theory but you need to link it to the practise. I promise that is my next step, practising meditation.

What I already practise is life-life balance and the idea of patience and helping others. I try to not get angry and control my thoughts. Not too easy living in a 10 million people city going through probably the most stressful time of my life. But latter I keep saying for year, lol.

As Marcelo likes to point out, Buddha Shakyamuni spent 12 years in a retreat to understand his mind and attain enlightenment – so give me some time and patience and I promise I will improve.

I send my love out to everyone reading this and hope to hear back from you, Marcelo, soon.

Volker

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Buddhism

Marcelo,

I am not sure if I can follow you?
Are you saying that the only force opposing life is death and that all other forces that we think oppose us, are from within?

The day we are born, we face the ultimate, we know we are dying. Which is not a bad or scary thing, it just prevents our bodies from continuing?

So does meditation help us balancing our inner thoughts to re-gain balance in life?
Is enlightenment nothing else than balancing ourselves with life and then life with death?

My apologies for all those questions.

When I said to you yesterday, that my life is fast pace and I need to catch up with the speed to balance, you said that maybe meditation could help but also that we can meditate anytime anywhere. That would mean, no matter how fast life is, how much out of balance we are, we can practise to re-gain balance anytime and can succeed. Because balance comes from within?

Looking forward to your thoughts!
Volker

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life and death

I only can start this post with the followed question: Is there anything else between life and death? Is just that Life or death? What is dream state or what’s happening when we have falled sleep? Wich kind of state of mind have we got during a sleeping time? What’s the difference between death and sleep? Is there any activity going on our mind while we are sleeping besides the dreaming time? That is a subject from the whole civilization history
Can we have a dreaming stage meanwhile we are awake? Let we see previously…what is a awake state of mind? Some one can says it is a alert state of mind or another ones can also says it is the time you are using our mind and processing/creating thoughts. Is that true?
Not being simple or superficial, but do we remember the movie Matrix?
Ok, let we get back to Volkers words “oppositing forces” that we have in our life and the wikipedia say it is something will bring us to the balance in life.
Where are this oppositing forces? Outside of our mind or inside? All phenomena that happened to us externally where are we feeling them? Outside? Is our feeling of pain, outside of our body our mind?Umm! From the Buddhism side when we have got this understanding we have attained enlightenment.
Opposing forces means to me some kind of duality like as hatred, attachment, pride, prejudice, self grasping, selfness, cherishing oneself, ignorance and love, kindness, compassion, humbleness, open minded, freedom, deattachment, cherising others, selflessness…
I believe to get this answers we need to walk down deeper into our mind almost the the time I see myself being very superficial, not keen of get a further understanding about what’s going on into my mind or other people’s mind. From these superficial judments I have got my assessments and their results, judging, analysing, stablishing and labeling people and things in: good/bad, positive/negative, life/death. But where are the middle? the centre of all these things?
Volkers used to say “within” ourselves. Buddha Shakyamuni went to a retreat for almost the time of his life until the day he reached the answers and he got his freedom from all the sorrows, pains, doubts and sufferings, until the day he achieved his enlightment and understood the happiness is within inthe balance between us and others, because there is no others or I to be watched, persived, attached or prayed. We are one…we are the balance, there is no ending nor beginning time, there is no coming nor going neither happiness or suffering…
Maybe we will find the balance of our life in the day we will find the truth of our existence, meantime we are unbalanced, we are unstable, we are in the circle of life and death, passing by, birth, ageing, sicking, death and birth, ageing, sicking, death, and birth….again and again until the day we will attain enlightenment and freedom from this unbalanced circle…and…we will become balanced.
There will be no death either life, it will come the continuun of ourselves within ourselves.
Going for a retreat and finding ourselves, I am not saying specificaly goinf foa a physical retreat but be in a silence and go into a deeper inside retread, find our essence, our internal and inner energy. We can use some tantric teaching or practices to help ourselves.
I am afraid we are not interested on it, we normally prefer to stay and be in a superficial understanding and knowledging obout ourselves, but if we have some questions or not being sure about some stablished question, go to some another of finding your own answers.
L&K
Marcelo

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Buddhism

Hello Marcelo,

I am on my lunch and thought to look up Balance on Wikipedia – interesting a “position between two forces which favours neither one of them”.

Balance is keeping something in equilibrium. Like keeping the work as important in life as life, e.g. living a personal life.

Now, my argument, having a life-life balance, does that mean we keep our life in balance with itself? Where are the opposing forces to that?

Could there be a balance between 2 things that are the same, or what do we mean by having an equilibrium in life.

Lets say we do not differentiate between work and life, or we do not differentiate between life and other activities, then to have an opposite force to life we either have to have death or to have ourselves, questioning life. However, as we are an integral part of the process I’d suggest it is death.

So having a life-life balance we aiming to be between death and life (being alive) and having equal forces on each side. But why not having more forces on the living side?

There are a few articles out there:

• Six Steps to quality of life
• 9 Steps to balance life
• Wealth and the Quality of Life

Not sure about some of those. Not a friend of those magic “7″ or “9″ things to do before you gain balance.

Let me know what you think.

Volker

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Buddhism

Hello Marcelo,

My apologies for not writing this week. This week was great, I had a great balance between work and work and life?
Or is that me saying, I worked too much or did not have enough life?

I jump straight in.

Work-Life Balance: there we go, if you read the HR and Management Books, and that is where I am coming from, then you know that there should be a work life balance. What that means is a different question, as it is and can be a very personal attitude and question.

3 Examples:

a) A friend who work about 80 hours a week, never stops unless he is told to or ill. He was ill and now recovers but is already back at work. Why? He enjoys it and it is something that fulfils him.
b) A story I heard last night about a doctor who works 8-8 most days, one operation after another, helping people, being passionate about his job. Great, it must fulfil him.
c) My old job: 9-5, 1 hour lunch.

3 examples that come down to – nothing really. Whoever is passionate about what they do in their work do not regard it as a burden, do they. They do not see it as work?

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) would suggest that they re-framed work as being part of their life, their personality.

Why my example of my old job? Because I was not happy. I am someone that needs doing, work, something similar to a) and b), I need to be passionate about what I do. My current job for example, I love working long hours, help clients and get things done. I am passionate (I hope my boss reads that). Also, I like my time off, too

Bottom line is that if you really enjoy what you are doing most of your time, e.g. what you are doing during working hours, and you enjoy the people you are with, e.g. your colleagues, then this is the best thing for you. As me, as you, as the examples above you can integrate it into your life and you do not mind having a life-work balance.
Your work becomes life, becomes passion. It goes beyond the perception of work being the activity you need to do to pay the bills. And that is where you want to be.

We at cb consulting, sorry for more advertisement, offer career and personal development coaching. Why? Because people want to be in a job, a position that is a fit to their personality, their passion and drive in life.

Now, what has that to do with Balamadana?
Easy: we have to look on the inside and see whether our decision and our balance is coming from within. Again, something cb consulting looks at, performance from within!

If everything inside you corresponds to everything on the outside, then you are in balance. Not sure who said that (someone famous anyway) and there we go – but how do we get the correspondence, the peacefulness inside to make us peaceful on the outside?

Meditation is the key? Balancing your life by sitting down in peace and quiet and looking into yourself. Discover yourself. Is that not right, Marcelo?

And, from the balance within, we can look at the balance on the outside. Work-Life, Life-Life. You are right, if we are 100% enjoying and integrating work into life, there is no such thing at work. It does not matter how much you earn (as long as it is enough) and you are happy.

Things like ill health, a problem in your partnership, a bad day at work (again), a bad day in life (see where I am coming from), anything like that can throw you out of your path of balance. You need to create a tool, e.g. meditation, sports etc., to actually bringing balance back to your life.

Another, not recommended way, is to take drugs, drink and smoke. A lot of people do, Marcelo, they bring balance to their life by poisoning their body, by oppressing their feeling and pain. We need to reach out to them and help them.

You take care, enjoy your weekend and speak soon.

Love to you.

Volker

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Buddhism

Good morning Volker, hopefuly you have been great and having a fantastic friday…tomorrow is weekend and this is part of the balance in our lifes.
Balance life-life or balance work-life, that was the point Volker has asked me about?
This is a further question, is there any difference between life/work? Is not work part of our life? is it not the same as having dinner, relationships, cinema, sleeping time…?
What is work? what is work-life? what is balance in work-life?
Ummmm, I am not sure, but this question, I believe, is not just mine, many people say is work apart of my lilfe? Other people say work is work, life is life??? I am really not sure about it.
My work is life, my personal issues and matters in life affect my work and vice-versa, or not?
Balance, is like my mum said to me when I was 18 years old: we need to have time to pray, to enjoy the nature, to work, to study, to love, to have fun with our friends, to walk, to sleep, to eat, to do nothing.
My Guru the Buddhist Monk and Master of my tradition Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says: We cannot stop and do nothing, we are not able to sit down and close our eyes to enjoy ourselves any longer, we have a sense of obligation to be productives, to have our minds fulfill of every and anything all the time, we cannot be by ourselves in complete inner silence, even when we are reading a good book sudenly in a second our mind runs out to another point or object. We are so distracted and there is no balance on it.
Shantideva (AD687-763) a Indian Buddhist Master says:
The defining characteristic of guarding alertness
Is to examine again and again
The state of our body, speech, and mind
And to understand whether our actions are correct or not.
What do you thing about it? Let me know…
L&K
Marcelo

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Buddhism

Somedays a go I wrote about balance in life, but first of all let me tell all you what this blog represents to me. Having a blog is an opportunity to talk to me and to other about my feelings, views, understandinga, expectations in life and for my career. Specially this one that I am developing it with Volker, we have held a discussion between us about many subjects, this time our focus is on the stages of our lifes or just islands for us. We both agree that island are like stages on our personal development or as Volker said: stones on our path.
This is another answer, now i will talk about balance… All my life I have watched myself, inner and outer, my actions and reactions, trying to get a balance in life…I became a Buddhist and that helps me a lot, because make me see and understand that everything starts and happen inside myself, in my own mind – the phenomena and my feelings about them.
I have been trying all my life since I was a child -believe you or not – to find my balance, my way, my convictions, my space. I have refused the labels or the belongings, like you belong to this group so you are that… or even something like: you think and behave like that, so you are that…
I have never accepted that. Life is much more than that we are much more than that. We are unlimited, our brain is not used more than 1% of its potentiality, my limits are my believes or what I believe i can do or cannot.
For me balance much easier is about to understanding what’s going on. For example, right now I have got a problem in my left leg as consequence of something I did wrong or just as a consequence of my genetics or even from 1991’s my car crash. To be in balance is to respect its pain, to respect that limit but taking some actions and understanding these actions need a time to heal my body.
Last week I wasn’t balaced because this pain clouded my sky/my mind and it did not allowed me to work and live in harmony i decided to be in silence, like an internal assemement and being honest to myself and others I was afraid of my leg and as my body and my mind were in pain I became utterly depressed.
So I went on meditation, I went deeper into myself and realised things about my pain and found my balance on there. Because I understood my sorrow, my fear I could accept it and restablish my balance. Normally we do not go deeper and we don’t pay to much atention to our soul/mind/wishes – this is sinonimous of weakness, for me is just going back to the ocean deeper than before until find another island, or even the same island but with different aspects on it.
Now, to conclude, balance is to understand that life is an arrangment of bad and good things, negative and positive, realisations and frustrations, pain and relief. Accepting the dualities in life!

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Buddhism