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Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

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Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#81

Post by michaelt »

nabla9 wrote: post #47
mudita wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own personal experience differed from yours. In a retreat in Burma I observed a lot of traditions, which made it very clear that men had a higher standing than women. When forming a line for going to lunch, the monks were first, then the laymen, then the nuns and then the laywomen; only the monks ate on a raised platform, but not the nuns or laypeople etc. This was not just old books, which nobody cared about, but…

The reason why you saw what you saw is twofold. 1) You did not see nuns. Formal lineage of nuns died in Theravada lineage hundreds of years ago. Women were wearing white robes right? Those are the robes of novices. You need 5? female nuns to ordain a new nun. Sri Lankan monk, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (aka Bhante G) asked Tibetan nuns so bootstrap the tradition in Theravada, but it's just starting and there is resis…

> Women are considered less than men in Asian cultures (equality of sexes is new in the West too). Religions are not separate from the culture around them.

Sure - but aren't monks and priests also supposed to be a model, demonstrating what a really dedicated, pious follower of the religion should look like?

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#82

Post by open-source-ux »

toyg wrote: post #14

In Italy, in the '90s, we had a popular tv program with comedians doing sketches. One of those sketches was written and interpreted a guy who used to work in important advertising agencies. The sketch had a corporate manager who always started as a calm and devout supporter of buddhist-like tranquility in the workplace, all meditation and zen and care for personal wellbeing; by the end of the sketch his schizophrenic…

The TV show Silicon Valley also satirises the aggressive, egotistical CEO (a character called Gavin Belson).

Belson spends some time at a Buddhist retreat which seems to impart nothing from his experience. The attraction to Buddhist ideas are only at shallow, surface level.

He also employs a full-time spiritual adviser. Even the adviser looks out for opportunities advantageous to him and manipulate situations.

It's a cynical (but honest?) look at personality traits in tech.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#85

Post by prox »

shp0ngle wrote: post #8

I’m a Catholic (so I have … my own view on Buddhism) but I lived in SEA for a long time. I want to say, this article is very good. The buddhism as practiced in the west has very little to do with actual practices in the east. But, Buddhism is also very confusing, and it’s hard to say “what is the true buddhism” (mahayana, therevada, vajrayana and zen buddhism in Japan (formally mahayana) are all very different)

Focussing on all these different ways also occludes the general idea that there is a thing such as enlightment and a way to see all beings interconnected. You can have the same experience as a Catholic if you move beyond words (remember Jesus primary teaching (love God completely and love your neighbor like yourself)

Many things we notice in our minds are just labels and people are crazy easy to get hung up on them as being the thing in themselves.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#86

Post by nicbou »

open-source-ux wrote: post #82
toyg wrote: post #14

In Italy, in the '90s, we had a popular tv program with comedians doing sketches. One of those sketches was written and interpreted a guy who used to work in important advertising agencies. The sketch had a corporate manager who always started as a calm and devout supporter of buddhist-like tranquility in the workplace, all meditation and zen and care for personal wellbeing; by the end of the sketch his schizophrenic…

The TV show Silicon Valley also satirises the aggressive, egotistical CEO (a character called Gavin Belson). Belson spends some time at a Buddhist retreat which seems to impart nothing from his experience. The attraction to Buddhist ideas are only at shallow, surface level. He also employs a full-time spiritual adviser. Even the adviser looks out for opportunities advantageous to him and manipulate situations. It's a…

It also shows an opportunistic, career-driven teacher. There's a whole bit about the teacher losing his parking pass and finessing his way back into the CEOs council.

And doesn't Gavin kill someone at his Buddhist retreat?

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#87

Post by soco »

open-source-ux wrote: post #82
toyg wrote: post #14

In Italy, in the '90s, we had a popular tv program with comedians doing sketches. One of those sketches was written and interpreted a guy who used to work in important advertising agencies. The sketch had a corporate manager who always started as a calm and devout supporter of buddhist-like tranquility in the workplace, all meditation and zen and care for personal wellbeing; by the end of the sketch his schizophrenic…

The TV show Silicon Valley also satirises the aggressive, egotistical CEO (a character called Gavin Belson). Belson spends some time at a Buddhist retreat which seems to impart nothing from his experience. The attraction to Buddhist ideas are only at shallow, surface level. He also employs a full-time spiritual adviser. Even the adviser looks out for opportunities advantageous to him and manipulate situations. It's a…

Oh well this reminds me of a certain prime minister of a certain two letter country starting with U and ending in, K having a full time ethics adviser, which he subsequently fired...

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#88

Post by pawsforthought »

mkmk3 wrote: post #35
oneepic wrote: post #5

>imbue work with a spiritual aura What? >"turn workplaces into productivity-centered 'faith communities.'" Huh? >"Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism" Appropriation feels like a strong word. Are we not supposed to try new ideas from outside the tech industry? Ever? Chen's thesis in this article feels like a dramatic take.

You can try whatever you like, I think the angle is more about how meditation of various kinds are being adopted while other pieces of their source may be neglected, and this is in service to corporations and capitalism. I don't think it's inherently bad, but the insinuation is it's putting more of the spiritual/community stuff that we got from religion into our work, by moving stuff like mindfulness and conscious 'l…

I think one extremely problematic part of this trend is that civic participation necessarily suffers when one’s life is in such close orbit around the workplace.

If one scarcely has the time to be informed about the state of the world, then forget being engaged or even organizing others.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#89

Post by jan_Inkepa »

godmode2019 wrote: post #79
prox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of chapter one of the Dao te Ching : >The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Why use the correct word in the title but the western mispronunciation in the quote. Dao

The 道德经 was not written in the last century, and the ancient pronunciation is only approximately known. Yes it's written in Modern Standard Chinese/pinyin as "Dào Dé Jīng" but the text has existence in the western world older than the Modern Standard Chinese language, certainly longer than modern Chinese orthography.

Looking at Zhengzhang reconstruction of the title, for instance, we get the pronuciation /l'uːʔ tɯːɡ keːŋ/ (I don't know old Chinese phonology at all, I'm just working from wiktionary - please forgive any errors/take with a grain of salt). I don't see any particular reason for English-speakers to use the Modern Standard Chinese pinyin orthography/pronunciation to write terms that come from a considerably older way of speaking. (I say this as someone learning Classical + Middle Chinese using Middle-Chinese pronunciation).

Okay one possible reason is that it might be seen as good if the main inheritors of the tradition (the modern Chinese state+people) get given 'ownership' of it, and that outsiders speak using their preferred terminology/pronunciation. But I'm not personally on board with that, any more than I'd insist that people pronounce Shakespeare in American English.

[ I apologise for any snark that might be residual in this reply (and acknowledge that the remark is slightly tangential to the topic of this page) - I've tried to keep it constructive. ]

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#90

Post by toyg »

victornomad wrote: post #22
toyg wrote: post #14

In Italy, in the '90s, we had a popular tv program with comedians doing sketches. One of those sketches was written and interpreted a guy who used to work in important advertising agencies. The sketch had a corporate manager who always started as a calm and devout supporter of buddhist-like tranquility in the workplace, all meditation and zen and care for personal wellbeing; by the end of the sketch his schizophrenic…

I'd love to watch it. Do you mind sharing a link?

Sadly it doesn't seem to have made it to YouTube. The character was called Dottor Frattale, by comedian Walter Fontana https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Fontana

If you read Italian, I'd recommend tracking down his short comedy novel L'Uomo di Marketing e la Variante al Limone, which satirizes the milanese advertising industry of the '90s (but I bet it's still mostly like that, lol).

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