Buddhism and Management – Balamadana

I have been thinking for a while on how I can progress with this blog. As you know Marcelo has been re-ordained and he is no longer allowed to write this blog. However, I often exchange emails with him and he gives me good advice and help. One of many is to listen to the answers within.

So I have been asking myself a lot of questions lately. One of them, or two to be exact, is about my life style. Alcohol is one of them, whether or not I should give it up. Living in a country where it is rather uncommon to do so, I believe that 2010 will see some changes of behaviour about me drinking alcohol. Whilst I don’t see myself giving it up 100% yet, I believe that I will reduce it massively. It should be about enjoyment and not about diluting my senses. I experienced the absence of alcohol before.

However, as the title suggest, no Buddhist should harm any sentient beings, including animals. Hence I am contemplating of becoming a vegetarian, or similar to alcohol, abstain during the week and have one day at the weekend to enjoy some meat. More as a special treat. I recently watched a TV show about mechanically processed meat which almost made me throw up.

But why should I become a Vegetarian? There are lists of reasons why you should become a vegetarian to be found online. For me it is mainly about not eating cheap and nasty meat, processed meat, and to live more healthily. Of course I then need to feed my almost 6 months old boy vegetarian food too, and he can choose later in life what he would like to do. I think that is fair, don’t you?

Living healthier means living with less risk to get cancer. I read a book I can recommend on “Eat to beat cancer“. It gives you a good insight why eating meat in moderation is much more healthier. It is similar to me giving up smoking: it is just the healthier option to give it up, isn’t it? There is no argument about it either

According to a Buddhist source, a lot of Buddhists and non-Buddhist eventually lose their appetite for meat out of compassion for the welfare of other living creatures. But vegetarianism is not required in order to follow Buddha’s path. That makes sense. It is more about not killing an animal but there is nothing said about not being able or allowed to eat the meat.

So based on the above and the thought of how animals are slaughtered, I believe that I will step up the game and reduce meat or even stop eating it from next year.

Love and Kindness to you, and all sentient beings out there.

Volker

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Hello,

Marcelo got back in touch and will write some thoughts shortly. He has been busy but will tell you directly.

I got a new book this week, the Dalai Lama’s Path of Tranquility. It contains daily wisdom quotes about Buddhism. I really enjoy reading those little daily reminders just before I put myself to rest at night.

Also, I bought a few CDs with Buddhist chanting on it. They are awesome, because you can have them running in the back ground whilst working and you get all relaxed. It is great and I would almost recommend them to enhance your performance at work.

It is one of those things where your unconscious listens to and relaxes you. The other day I was working on a PowerPoint presentation and put some classical music on. I didn’t even notice how much more productive I was until someone interrupted me.

Having a peaceful mind and a relaxed attitude to things, practising patience, makes you more successful. Another great example on how Buddhist principles can influence your performance at work.

Love and Kindness,
Volker

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Buddhism and Management, inner self, personal development chanting, dalai lama, improving work performance, music, relaxation

Hello Marcelo,

Good to see you back. Apologies for being not as good in replying as I used to be.

What are the reasons, and what is going on in my life? As discussed with you yesterday, the recession is hitting Britain hard. Whilst our industry is still growing faster than the overall economy shrinks and our jobs are safe, we are looking at longer sales cycles, longer decision making processes and overall more work per individual to get the same income.

Where does that leave me? Honestly. A bit stressed. But I am working on it and will actually soon write about some stress management over at my personal blog. But also, I have been looking into Tai Chi. Do you know why I like it?

I like Tai Chi as for 1 hour my mind is turned off. It is as if I meditate whilst moving slowly and do figures. It is amazing and I enjoy it so much. You know I had difficulties sitting down and meditate even for 10 minutes. But Tai Chi allows me to move and free my mind at the same time.

Now, that does not mean I am not going back to meditate additionally. I believe Tai Chi is just another form to do it, wouldn’t you agree?

Marcelo, it is all about stress management for me at the moment. My baby is fine, I am going to be a dad and I need to re-think my position. You often say I don’t change that much, and maybe you are right. Maybe I think I prepare myself for the big change in June. Then life might even be more stressful.

But, there is another thought. My mother in law does not like the word stress, and to be overly honest me neither. I like to think of it as a challenge. And sometimes this challenge goes above our horizon, our means and our capabilities.

When we have to meet this deadline and do 3 other things at the same time. Or just when we got on top of things we get thrown off the path again. Sometimes, these challenges are overwhelming, just like life itself.

But I believe that we need to counteract it. Tai Chi, Meditation, exercise, family life. The right life life balance, you remember we were speaking about it earlier?

Marcelo, I leave you with these thoughts for the weekend. Don’t forget to check my personal blog and remember that I am trying to move this blog to a new platform next weekend. Apologies in advance.

Love and Happiness to you.
Volker

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…but don’t worry!

I know there are only a few followers here at the moment. And, thank you for staying with us.

Marcelo is just back from holidays and I wait for his spiritual input before posting more.

My personal blog, Volker’s Blurb, has just moved to a Wordpress CMS on its own URL. So in the near future, e.g. this month, I plan to move blog.balamdana.com to www.balamadana.com. That means the site will be down for a few days. But I will give you plenty of warning!

Other than that I have been very busy with work, nothing new there.

My spiritual development has shifted a bit to Tai Chi. Next week, over on my blog, I will write about my Tai Chi classes and what benefits I hope to get from it.

Stay with us and I am sure that Marcelo will post shortly.

Love and Kindness
Volker

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Dear Volker

I am now back to my normal life, after being on my own holidays enjoying a especial time with my daughter, family and lovely friends.

I would like to complement your words about the purpose of this blog. You are all right, and what can I say is, Buddhism is a method to help ourselves to find our happiness and peace within ourselves. Looking inside throughout special and beautiful way.

Normally we try to be happy doing things, doing external things, getting close to someone or something, contacting to our body and health from outside, but Buddha Shakyamuny taught us that our way to accomplish ourselves is just going into ourselves. Everything is there, nothing outside of there.

Our body could get ill, our mind could be controlled by our delusions and we could talk meaningless when we follow ordinary appearences and concepts of life, happiness and peace.

When we look inside we can see our own faults, mistakes and negative actions but also we can find our peace and meaning within ourselves.

Buddha says, meditation is to focus our mind on a virtuos object, such as love, compassion, other’s Living Beings sufferings and generate a positive mind, determination and meaningful wish to help them and ourselves to attain enlightenment for the benefit of others.

If we can apply these purpose on all our daily activities, at work, with our family and friends, at ll time, our life will become meaningfulness. But we need wisdom to do that, otherwise we can make a lot of mistakes in order to attain our own benefit only.

Wisdom is the mind which can see the real nature of all phenomena and persons. By meditating and following Buddha’s words we can find and hold it up always.

Geshe-la in his book, “Transform your Life” he says:

Our human life is precious and of real value only when we use it to train in spiritual paths. In itself it is a true suffering. We experience various types of suffering because we have taken a rebirth that is contaminated by the inner poison of delusions. This experience has no beginning, because we have taken contaminated rebirths since beginningless time, and it will have no end unless we attain the supreme inner peace of nirvana. If we contemplate and meditate on how we experience sufferings and difficulties throughout our life, and in life after life, we shall come to the strong conclusion that every single one of our suffering and problems arises because we took contaminated rebirth. We shall then develop a strong wish to abandon the cycle of contaminated rebirth, samsara. This is the first step towards the happiness of nirvana, or liberation. From this point of view, contemplating and meditating on suffering has great meaning. The main purpose of this meditation is to avoid having to go through all of these experiences again in the future.

I sugest a meditation on the real meaning of our human life using the text above.

Enjoy yourself.

With Love and Kindness

Marcelo

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Marcelo,

How are you? Happy New Year to you.

My new year started with all the things I didn’t want it to start. Lots and lots of work.
Whilst in a recession I should not complain about it, the next 2 weeks will be busy too.

However, Marcelo, I am hoping the New Year brings to you what you wish for. Mine will be very excited with the expected birth of my son the beginning of June.

Also, I get more and more into “micro blogging”, Twitter. I wrote about it quite a lot in my personal Blurb Blog. I found a few people on there blogging about Buddhism so I get a new thought of Buddhism every day. That is nice and a nice reminder in this busy and difficult times.

I want to let you into a secret too. My plan is to join a Tai Chi class. I just don’t find the time nor the motivation to go to the gym, or to sit down and meditate. So I thought a combination of both would be good. What do you think of that? I have not discussed that with anyone yet, so not sure how many friends actually read this blog but….och well, if they know they know. Have you ever done that?

Other than that things are going well. If it gets quieter at work, I aim to read some more books and re-read books of Geshe. Any you could recommend.

For all our readers, have a great 2009, may all your wishes come true and please leave a comment on how you find this blog.

Love and Happiness,
Volker

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Hello Marcelo,

I hope you had a peaceful time around Christmas. I had a lovely time with my pregnant wife, my mother in law and our 2 kittens. It was full of food to be honest. We spend more time preparing and eating food than anything else. It was great. Did you spend a nice time with your family also?

However, Christmas is over, so is the quiet time. I am back to work on Tuesday for 2 days and then full on from 5th of January. It seems weird, I managed to really calm down and unwind for almost a week. I didn’t even realise that a whole week has passed.

Marcelo, a new year starts so soon. There are so many things I want to accomplish. So many things I want to do. How will I be able to fit it all into my life?

So, I was thinking how do we accomplish all of our dreams and all of our ideas for next year or any year? How much can we plan and think ahead?

Would my best bet for 2009 be to “take each day at a time”? To start “not to plan ahead” and actually work on my development on a day-by-day basis?

Let’s look at spiritual development: if I plan to attend classes, meditate 5 minutes a day and 30 minutes each weekend – how would that make me feel if I cannot accomplish it?

Let’s look at workouts/sports: if I plan to do 30 minute gym workout each day and 90 minutes at the weekend – how would it make me feel if I cannot do it or don’t do it?

These are 2 examples. However, I think if we were more content and work more on a day by day basis, would we not be happier if we actually go to the gym or meditate. Then we are more positive about improving our performance and do things more often, as it makes us feel better achieving little steps rather than just “ticking the box to achieve goals” – would that make sense?

Marcelo, lets see what happens in 2009 but I aim to make it one of the best ones ever. But, that could mean anything.

Love and kindness.
Volker

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Dear Volker, I hope you can get better sooner.

Good question, why have we always looked inside us when we are sick, having problems or difficulties in life?

Budha gives us some reasons for that.

The main one is because we are afraid of any suffering, we cannot accept any slightly pain. Our attachment to our own things makes us to feel bad about leaving, passing away and let behind our ordinary pleasureable life, our friends, family, work, money, achievements and our afraid of not having time to enjoy all this achievements that we have gathered together but not did it and at the time we´ve got sick we got scared of dying before enjoying all our belongs, money and gains.

Our attachment to our own body and life and mind cannot afford any difficulty, any suffering, sorrow or pain. Immediately it can disturb our mind and request some more care for them. Becoming even more attached to them. In this way the consciousness of our own body, mind and life became stronger and then causes us even more pain and suffering – like a circle, without end… if you tide up yourself even more tightened you will feel even more pain and attachment, nut you cannot let things go, because we want to be attached to something. It is an endless circle of suffering.

Some people has mental pains not just body ones, but those one which are constantly causing them a lot of sorrow, with no peace, their mind, their delusion cause them troubles and unhappiness all the time.

When we have got sicknesses (mental ou body ones) we start to feel more about the real meaning of life, we feel uncomfortable about our pains and more conscious about how distracted or how we waste our time and life in meaningless things.

We just start to look for something more meanigful for our lifes, only when we have realized the drift of being Human Beings. We are all together, love, compassion, kindness, friend, sufferings, pains, sorrows, everything and nothing else, we are one and we are also infinite, we do not start on the bounders of our body or mind, we come and go beyond that, beyond our understanding.

Do you want to find more about yourself, Go and do some meditations, reading and learning more about Buddhism and the greatest Compassion of Buddha.

L&K

Marcelo

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My Dearest Volker and Jen – you are going to have a child!!! How wonderful your lifes will become.

Congratulations for both of you! I am very happy of your conquerer. You have found the balance between your energies and opened the gates to let the mind of your positive seed Karma to enter in Jen’s body, passing through the inner channels and all chakras.

That’s a very important time for both of you, your collective Karma is flourishing and giving some fruits.

About your last post, I can say YES you are right we always, every single moment, we get involved and distracted by everyday things, duties and toughts. You are distracted in essence.

And sure, we use all excuses to not do what we want to do, sometimes we use excuses to not work, to not get up, to not exercise, to not read, to not relax, to not meditate and so forth.But can you imagine a Yogui or a Highest Buddha, they can do everything by their minds, they can do everything at the same time, they do not need to finish one task to start another, actualy for them, remember, there is no beggining and no ending. Is it not incredible?

You are so concentrate on the true nature of all phenomena that nothing can distracte us. Without understanding the true nature of all phenomena you will remain forever in the distracted world. Lossing our life, time, wishes, dreams, desires, aspirations by our self-grasping.

From Shantideva book “Guide to the Bodhisattva’s way of Life, we can have this instructions:

“…It is suffering and its causes that need to be abandoned,
And it is the ignorance of self-grasping that causes delusions and sufferings to increase.
“But there is no way to abandon self-grasping so that it will never recur.”
On the contrary, meditation on selflessness, or empitness, is the supreme method for accomplishing this.

Neither the feet nor the calves are the body,
Nor are the thighs or the loins.
Neither the front nor the back of the abdomen is the body,
Nor are the chest or the shouolders.

Neither the sides nor the hands are the body,
Nor are the arms or the armpits.
None of the inner organs is the body,
Nor is the head or the neck.
So where is the body to be found?

If you say that the body is distributed
Among all its different parts,
Although we can say that the parts exist in the parts,
Where does a separate possessor of these parts abide?

And if you say that the entire body exists
Within each part, such as the hand,
It follows that there are as many bodies
As there are different parts!”

Buddha says, there is no body neither its parts, we are not an unit nor a colection of them. The day we start to understand empitness and put its knowledge into practice, we will be permanent happy and there will not be any distraction, because there is no parts to get involved with and also there will be not unit to be stocked in.

You will never get me wrong. Do not worry, if I cannot understand whatever you are telling me it is because my selg-grasping ignorance and my karma, not because you are not being clear enough.

Love & Kindness

Marcelo

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