Zendo for the heartmind

kokorozendo

Recipe of Getafix’s magic potion!

Recipe of Getafix’s magic potion!

by | Dec 17, 2024 | Compassion, Empathy, Joy, Sports, Zen

Those who still wonder who Getafix is!! 

Getafix is the druid and creator of the secret magic potion, which gives all the strength and ability to those Gaul’s to bash up those stupidly authoritarian Roman Empire. And he is one of the central characters of the Asterix series cartoons by Uderzo and Goscinny.  ASterix , Obelix and Getafix came to my life through my  good friend and engg college hostel mage Goofy Sudhakar Raju. Both of us were members of the Dagar gang in our hostel and were real experts in whiling away time. We always had so many good interests other than Engineering subjects. We both did read quite a bit. I remember, once we got a copy of the novel “Gone with the Wind” just before a final exam. Still, we both found time to read it end – end and then went for that exam.  During those days, I happened to get a big poster of Obelix from the pages of The Sunday Observer and it adorned the wall of our room in Second hostel.  That name stuck to me and still many of my  Engg college friends call me by the name of Obelix, after all these years !

Just a few days back, after I returned from a trip to hometown, I told my sons, Manu and Rishi , that I wanted to send some books to Saanvi, bibliophile daughter of Dr. Anju. Since my sons knew very well that both Anju and Appu are quite dear to me, they happily handed over their Asterix book collection to be shipped amongst some other books.  While trying to pack those books in carton boxes, I ended up reading those great comic books again.  It was kind of going to back to our dear room ( Next to Partha’s room   That is another great story  ) in  Second hostel.

 

 

Getafix Photo Courtesy: https://asterix.com/en/portfolio/getafix/

The very next day, I read the below LinkedIn post , really early morning, as I was sitting in rest room..It was posted by a X Partner from one of the premier Consulting firms in the world. In it, under the photograph of Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar

Pic courtesy: SM Linkedin Post

The global “thinktank” wrote and I quote,

“Talent + Luck = Vinod Kambli

Talent + Luck + Discipline + Determination + Commitment + Humility + Learning ability + off field behaviour + Ability to digest success and failure both + Treating the game as bigger than self +++ = Sachin Tendulkar

The gap between cricketer Tendulkar and cricketer Kambli is the gap between talent alone and greatness. “.

I really wanted to send in a blood red hot stinger reply to it. Those who had seen Vinod Kambli bat , in his prime, with those silken touches and left handed graceful elegance , really owe it to him.  It is like G R Viswanath vs Sunil Gavaskar.  Sunny might have scored a way too many runs than Gundappa.  But those who have seen GRV bat still vouch for him.  But then Zen practitioners , practice meditation beyond the Zendo and Zazen. We try to carry the calmness and compassion from sitting meditation to walking (kinhin) to working (Samu) and then even to rest rooms.   Infact   Japanese Zen practitioners belief toilet gods, guard toilets and we got to snap our finger to request them to move on… … So can’t  let oneself  be less compassionate to any one even while in rest room.:-) 

Also, it is a bit difficult for me key into , the small phone screen without my specs and I ended up typing in “Let us be compassionate and let Kambli be ! We don’t have to use every life as a tool to dish out management theories .”

By looking at the responses of many, it was not difficult to conclude, many were in sync with that thought.

In our relentless pursuit of success has created a cottage industry of how to be success.  As a leadership and life coach who tries to make my living out of it, I too plead guilty of it.  Book shops / internet / Social pages etc. are inundated with magic potion/formula for success.    Four steps for this and 6 steps for that !  “ Walk 5 steps in front looking east, turn 30degrees to left, move forward another 6 ft , take u turn .. There you get your success” types !   Osho tells a wonderful story about a meeting between Henry Ford and Napolean Hill, the author of “Think and Grow Rich”.   It is worth listening to.

Secondly and most importantly, we live in a standardized world.  Some amount of standardization is necessarily to keep our life simple.  Like distance in cm, m or kms. Time in seconds, minutes and hours, alcohol in small, large and extra-large etc.

But when that standardization we bring into the spheres of success, love, national pride and spirituality, then it ends up a great disaster.

Some one’s benchmark of hard work for the nation is putting 70 Hrs per week. And someone else standard of being a successful batsman is being a Sachin Tendulkar. And. Someone else’s benchmark of being rich may be Ambani.  No less!

Those who are sports aficionados and soccer enthusiasts, still rate Brazil football team (of Zico, Socrates, Falcao, Eder etc.) as the greatest football team ever assembled. Though they lost out.  George Best, whose life almost rhymes with Kambli still reckoned as one of the best footballers ever played.  There was even a wonderful article/obituary on him by Nirmal Shekar in The Hindu titled, “It was Best, could have been better”.

My Zen Master Ama Samy, who walked on a spiritual path for more than 70+ years, whom many consider as an authority in Zen , Buddhism, Advaita and other religious streams and philosophy, may have around a few hundred disciples.  And we struggle quite a bit to run our Zendo, Bodhi Sangha and affiliated social work we are into. That surely pales in comparison with the other “Gurus” , in numbers, power and wealth ! And I am sure there are many evolved individuals who live low key and anonymous.

 

The moot point, is there a one shoe size fits all kind of measure for success for all beings ?   If there is one, if everyone else becomes a roaring success and there are no “failures” in our world, what will be labelled as success and whom we will call as successful???

 

And lastly, I did ask that ex Big % think tank, that if there was a sure shot recipe for success and Sachin did have it, why he could not hand it over to his son and why someone like Yashasvi Jaiswal would find that recipe by the side of the tent, he used to make and sell chats to make ends meet!

 

It is not just the spiritual world a path less land (as Jiddu Krishnamurti had famously said), even the ordinary life is indeed a pathless land. Each one got to create our own paths and lead our own life as per our standards. Many a times, regardless of our talent and capabilities, privileges we are born with, choices we make for ourselves and the probability of luck in this world clears our way.

 

When we really starts to live by the standards we  set in our own heart, mind and soul, be content with what life gives that day, be compassionate and loving to others , and do our value contribution to the world ( 1 or 70 hr /week) and take care of our and our dear and nears needs ( and not wants), and can rest with a good night’s sound sleep… then that is what I would call it a Life… Who cares whether someone labels it as a success or failure.

 

And that is the recipe of Getafix’s magic potion and my realisation.

 

 Though in the comic strip,  Getafix, the venerable druid always  say firmly to  Obelix: “No, Obelix, not you!”, when Obelix insists on having a portion of the magic potion. !

Karpov’s World championships in Thenkara

Karpov’s World championships in Thenkara

by | Dec 15, 2024 | Empathy, Peace, Sports, STRESS, Uncategorized

Maybe I might have been just around 4.5 years old.  Might have been a troublemaker for my parents. They chose to edit my Date of birth by 6 months so that I started going to school. 1st standard in ALP School Mannarkkad. One evening my father got a chess board in Mannarkkad and he taught me the moves.  On the very first game, I happen to win.  That might have boosted the early ego of a very young boy.  It took me some 30 more years to understand, my late father Sankara was a great parent and that was his way of motivating his son.  I too chose to lose games, when I was teaching my sons Manu and Rishi the rules of chess game.

 Soon we moved to Thenkara, a small village on the road to Silent Valley national park. There me and my brother Sasi went to a Govt Upper primary school. A good 2 – 2.5 km walk from our home. There was no electricity there in when we moved.  As I had shared , the village was closer to Silent Valley national park. And people out there, protested and stopped a hydroelectric project across Kunthipuzha river in Silent Valley national park. So KSEB wanted to punish us for that transgression. It took a long constant fight with the authorities med by my father to ensure  the village got electricity. By then I was at 7th standard. Though the school did have big ground, it was uneven and there was an old dilapidated open well in one corner of the ground. So we were allowed to play only during PT hours supervised by teachers.   Leave alone other organized games such as football etc., the school did not have even a proper urinal those days.  But Sasi and me tried to make that up in our neighborhood in our own innovative ways.  A few years back, someone who lived there during those times had written a FB post, in which he narrated, how two Kannadiga boys brought the game of Cricket to Thenkara.  And someone else posted the inauguration of electricity connection in Thenkara, where my father was speaking. 

But this isn’t about him. This is about the Chess rivalry between Sasi and Me. Those were the days of Karpov and later Kasparov came to picture. There were no Indian greats in the game of Chess before Vishy Anand. There was one Pravin Thipsay and another Divyendu Barua if I remember rightly. What I remember absolutely is we, Sasi and I got to toss to decide who is going to be Karpov. And then started our best of 5, 7 or 9 game series.  Usually, it came after my mother’s warning. No more fights. But the great World Championship in Thenkara always ended in major fight. My father had bought us a chess book in Malayalam, which had rules of games plus a few opening, middle and end game strategies.  And the fight was always started by the player who was losing against Karpov.  Sometimes me and most of the times by Sasi.  There would be a challenge on legality of some move. Since there were no FIDE referees to oversee, that book was our judge and jury.  But then it never ended in a proper judicial process. One of us , the losing side, will throw the board and pieces and would storm off.  And my mother, strict disciplinarian as she was, would ensure the probable winner, to collect the pieces and board and keep it back. And winner too cried while collecting the chess pieces, like Gukesh did when he won the World Championship recently, but mostly in pain.

As we grew up, our Chess rivalry ended and the passion for the game too. Much later, I tried to teach Manu the game rules. Manu was much smarter than I was and he picked up the game quite fast.  But then, I was not as good as a parent like my father. After one game, he stormed out and there ended the chess coaching.

Much later, after he had moved to Jindal for his graduation, we noticed, he always used to play in his phone… While he is travelling with us or even at dining tables.   Yesterday morning, he came with me to Little Flower Zendo. He wanted to see for himself, where his Papa is going to live for the rest of his life. And I had plans to take him out and show around Kodai Kanal. But it was raining so heavily here, the Little Flower Zendo waterfalls was roaring like Niagra and we could not even spot the nearby mountain due to mist. We stayed indoor. And he was into his chess.com.  I was watching him play for some time. And after the game, he was telling me about how it works.  He has a very good rating, which means quite an Advanced player. And in Chess.com 2000+ means a GM. I was quite impressed, and I was pushing him to go to tourneys etc. and how it can translate to building a good portfolio for him to apply for his MBAs.  But the boy had Zen like clarity. HE told me the difference between 1800 and 2000 in Chess is like the small mountain in front of our Zendo and Mt Everest.  In Chess, you improve your rating only beating players with a higher rating than yours.  And it is not easy. Secondly, he plays Chess as a de-stressor.   If one start playing it seriously, it really ends up as a stressful act. It is not easy.

 

Then he talked about the recent World championships. He was following every game minute by minute in Chess.com. He pointed out to me, how Ding was crestfallen immediately a microsecond later after he made a bad move and how Gukesh was crying as if to let go of the tension after winning the crown.  According to him Ding Liren too have a very good name in Chess circle as a gentleman and good human being. He seems to have faced server mental health issues and he kind of stopped playing Chess, which had hit his ELO rating badly. People were expecting him to not to even come for the final match. And he did show up and played very resiliently.  May be if he was fully ok, he might have won again too.

The second point he shared was much more incisive. He said “Ding is almost like V Anand.  He is one of the first player form China to play in Candidates or Chess final like V Anand from India.   Gukesh had the guidance from  Anand , being trained with him at WACA.  And in Chess, the advice and inputs matters a lot, while it is important to recall those inputs at the right moment.”

After that, he slept, and I did not. I started googling on Ding Liren. As someone who had suffered depression and who was on the verge of an abyss, for me, both he and Gukesh were Karpovs. The player with the black pieces was/is black shade of our own mind.  

Just a few months back Chessbase reported, “The Ding Liren of a few years ago, who reached a fantastic 2816 Elo, may not return. This is in the Chinese player’s own words, but what happened and what does this mean for the forthcoming title match? The opinions and rumor mill have been in full swing, and everyone, and we do mean everyone, has an opinion.In January 2023, the World Champion’s rating was still at a fantastic 2811, second only to Magnus Carlsen, but things have taken on a dark and dire drop and in the latest list he has plummeted to 2728.”

And in another interview with a German news paper he says and I quote , “

Normally, a title like this boosts the ego. You feel great. It was different for you. You fell into a deep hole and were away for months.

I had a few problems, that’s true. I was exhausted, but I still couldn’t sleep very well. That led to depression. I was treated twice in a clinic. Fortunately, things are slowly getting better again. Chess is mentally exhausting – and if you can’t sleep well, that’s fatal. At least I’ve been able to reduce my tablets from four a day to one at the moment.

Are you the sensitive type? It was also said that you cried after winning the title.

Yes, the world championship duel lasted so long and was so exhausting. I did my best and after winning the title I thought about all the work I had done before the competition. The emotions and memories overwhelmed me. That’s why I had to cry.

You are surprisingly open about your feelings. Doesn’t a professional athlete have to be tough on themselves and others?

I was probably so tough before I had my mental problems. That’s why I suddenly showed emotions. Now I’m trying to become more balanced again. I now also have a doctor who helps me mentally. I discuss all sorts of things with him. I don’t have a mental coach like the table tennis players, who prepares you for the things that are relevant to the game.”

Today morning, it was all bright Sun shine here at Kodai, though the wind was more chillier. Manu and I went to outing with Prakash our Zendo manager. As  Prakash was talking about the Suicide point , between 3 pillar rocks and Guna Caves, Manu was asking him, why would people want to kill by jumping into the abyss from there.

I told him , from a first person account, that when people gets severely depressed, they first jump into the deep abysses of their own mind.  Only when they are not able to get them out of that place, they jump here.  In the games inside our mind, where our dark side plays against us, no Sicilian or Slav  defences work against it.

For those who survive, by getting out of that abyss in their minds, usually have sound Seconds , in the form of good dear and near and Doctors.

As we were heading back home, in the FB page of  FIDE  there was a quote from Ding. “ I  think I played my best tournament of the year.  It could be better, but considering yesterday’s  lucky survive it is a fair result to lose in the end. I have no regrets.”

While, I feel so proud of Gukesh as a fellow country man winning such a great accolade at the world stage at such a young age,  what bring real smile in my heart, when a fellow human being , win against himself in the arena of his own mind.

No world championship is worth that much, when we we successfully turn our back towards   those  low points, including suicide points to face life and live on…

 

Manu, Rishi, Thara, Zen and Mastercard….

Manu, Rishi, Thara, Zen and Mastercard….

by | Dec 12, 2024 | Change, Compassion, Joy, Management, RElationship, Sports, Uncategorized, Zen

Yesterday was the day I had shared the news of home leaving to many.  Thara and Rishi had got a holiday due to a death of prominent politicians and Manu was at home for his vacation. My second son, Rishi suggested let us give a dinner at Paragon to Papa and we all ended up in Paragon @ Church Street for an early dinner.  He knew my favorite eating places in Blr are TRC and Paragon.

After placing order, as I was looking at Manu and Rishi’s face and listening to their discussion, what came to my mind was what Gibran wrote in The Prophet. I wonder, how many times I would have read that small book.  May be at least 100 times. Though I can type in most of the passages from my memory, let me quote from the text.

 On Children

And a woman who held a baby against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
     And he said:
     Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923). This poem is in the public domain.

 A long time back when Thara’s grand uncle, who was a very wealthy coffee planter in Wynad, had visited us in Bangalore.  He then suggested us to send our children to Rishi Valley School. He himself had his school education at Rishi Valley before Second world war and then went to UCLA for his graduation. When Thara had mentioned that will be too expensive, he did very generously offer that he will pay their fees.  It so seems, even after Thara completed her Engineering , he did offer to fund her higher education in USA. But her conservative father could not even imagine his daughter studying is such a faraway place. visited us in Bangalore.  Maybe I was fortunate  , Or I would not have met her and married her…   

We both moved to Kanakapura Road from BTM Layout, so that our children go to a Krishnamurti school.  When we went for Manu’s interview, (the school interviews parents and not children to ascertain their fitment to school’s purpose and culture), Dr. Satish Inamdar, who was then the Director of the school, told us, you got to let go your child, as a mother bird let her younger one fly away.  Your son may end up as a great artist or ordinary painter. In a way, he was advising us not to project our own life aspirations to our children.  It was quite a sage like, and he said it like a prophet.

 Much later, as Manu was considering his post school options, as a matter of a fact, he told me and Thara, “while I appreciate what you both are, I really don’t want to be like you.  I want to be rich, and I want to be an investment banker.”.  HE wanted to further pursue his education in financial engineering and currently enrolled in a Applied economics degree at JGU.  Last week, he taught me about Options and futures in such simple terms, I was all ears, and my heart was swelling with pride and admiration for him.

 And Rish is just on the opposite end of the spectrum. He draws and paints well and I was suggesting him to take up Fine arts. But his mind is so focused in Sports management, he even spent a few weeks at Rahul Dravid academy. He is the one of the foremost fan of Manchester United, wants to be in Sports Management.  His craze for ManU might have been started, after I got to him a few original football jerseys , while I was working in Gulf.  The first one was a ManU jersey.  . I jokingly told him that I will work hard to finance his MBA in Sports Mgmt., he will work for Liverpool Football Club instead of his dream job at Man United.  I was asking hm, how can a Liverpool fan, finance a potential employee of our rival Manchester United!!   I was urging him to switch sides.   He with a brave face, told me, Papa I don’t need your money, I will apply for a sports loan. But I am going to work for Manchester United.

 Food came and discussions topics too changed.

 While we were waiting for the bill, Thara shared a recent news story of Anada Krishnan, the Malaysian Tycoon who passed away just a few days ago. It so seems, his son left a $ 5 Billion inheritance to be a Zen monk in a monastery at the age of 18. Now he is an Abbot in that monastery.  When Rishi asked me, “Papa, aren’t you too leaving a billion dollar each, pointing to Manu and himself. “,

 I could just respond with a wry smile.

 I thought as I was getting up after paying the bill with my credit card, but did not say, “there are things money can’t buy, like Manu, Rishi  Thara and Zen.  For rest of the things there is Mastercard.”

 

Gold Medal syndrome! … (Silver, bronze and no medals/Not on podium of life too.)

Gold Medal syndrome! … (Silver, bronze and no medals/Not on podium of life too.)

by | Nov 1, 2024 | Change, Harmony, Joy, Meditation, Peace, Sports, STRESS, Transformation, Uncategorized, Zen

I was aware of this for a very long time. Almost every second coaching client of mine, had this underlying root cause for most of the challenges they faced in their life. One could safely be sure that this is quite prevalent in our current society.  As I am bound by non-disclosure clause,  thought I won’t write about it, as it would not have been possible  to write without mentioning about a specific case study.  Anything that reveals the identity of a coaching client, however remotely possible, is in violation of the sacrosanct spirit of coaching ethics. That is one of the holy grails.

    But then yesterday, a person I did know to an extent from a distance, posted a vlog in LinkedIn about the crisis he faced and how he successfully came out of it.  The parent group which owns that IT company did repost that vlog in LinkedIn. He was a senior leader in the company I am working and currently he is a COO of a Major IT company.  What I found very refreshing was the authentic and honest way he aired out the challenges he faced in his life, and he dared to take a pause from his work for a quarter and how he came out of it.   That takes come personal courage. I felt, also remarkable was the way the parent company, shared that we the world. They do seem to look it in a compassionate way.  

The message said, “What happens when even ‘success’ feels empty?
, COO at  —-, reached that breaking point and made a choice most of us only dream of—he hit pause. No career plans, no future job lined up—just three months to recharge and reconnect. In a world that glorifies the grind, V’s  story is a powerful reminder that sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is to take a step back, breathe, and tend to our minds. Because at the end of the day, your mind matters.

 I wrote a small reply to that.  And there were a quite a few DMs at me, seeking clarifications and guidance.  This blog is in response to that.

 It is very pertinent to highlight that late Ranjan Acharya (who imv was a rare Sage at a Corporate!)  and Kayomarz Shroff recognized this pressing need of the workforce and was instrumental in initiating Mitr, a Counselling initiative, driven by the employees for the fellow employees at Wipro long time back in 2002/03. (It is important to keep in mind that they started it some 2 decades before the current wellness work movement!).  I was one of those early cohort of counselor and cofounder of that initiative.  So, it is not that, organizations are not aware of this challenge, though not much has been done to change the underlying root cause of it.

 From the title of that message in LinkedIn (“What happens when even ‘success’ feels empty?) , it is self-evident, that mental health challenges are not just the result of empty pockets, wallets, bank balance, CV, LinkedIn profiles and meaningless and purposeless life .  Even  “success” can be felt as empty.   Psychologists call it Gold medal syndrome. It is also known as Olympics syndrome. To quote , “Gold medal syndrome is a feeling of dissatisfaction and lack of purpose that can occur after achieving a major life goal.”.  Since many super athletes seek professional help immediately after a major sporting event like  Olympics , it is also known as Olympic syndrome.

 Another related issue is  Silver medal syndrome. ( “Silver medal syndrome is the term used to describe the tendency of silver medalists to be less happy with their medals than bronze medalists. This is because silver medalists tend to compare themselves to the gold medalists, while bronze medalists compare themselves to those who didn’t make the podium. “  from the internet.)

 All these points to the fact that it does not take that much to make one unhappy about the station we are at life.  Regardless of whom we are and where we are , it can hit our mind.  One’s intellect, brilliance and other talents rarely equip one to manage those situations and lead himself / ourself to the true path of  joy and peace in life.

 One question below my post read like this, “Finding that balance between hustle and rest is key, huh? Zero time sounds smart. How do you think we could fit that into daily life?”.

 Probably the remedy too starts , reframing that question.  And it is essential to start with that reframing  from  “How” !   Often in life, our solutioning starts with the question “ How to… “ and it more than often creates more issues and problems for us to solve.  It is important to start with “Why ?” .  To paraphrase a famous quote by Nietzsche , “Those who have a WHY will do it any how”.  It points out to finding one’s purpose.

 If you are one of those who don’t like Nietzsche, then let us see what Carl Jung, one of the best psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists and who is considered as the father of analytical psychology says . He  said, “In all my life all the major psychiatrist patients above 30I had met came with religious problems”. What he meant was their issues stem from lack of purpose or vision for themselves.  Elsewhere he says , “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

 Let me buttress my point by quoting Viktor Frankl, whom I think knows a thing or two about surviving real trying circumstances having survived  nazi concentration camps . He writes in his seminal book. Man’s search for meaning “ Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say! — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

 These sums up the need for each one us to have a purpose and meaning for our life and that purpose got to be to a cause great than oneself.

 Once we have the Why question answered, it is time to step on to the  path of How !

 To start with it : Every one of the human beings.. Yes… every one of us are inmates of prisons we have created in our mind.  Those prison bars and walls are invisible to  our inner sight and often we mistake that we directly are in touch with the world out there and are living in it and responding in it. Those prison walls and bars are made up of our own mental images about ourselves, others , belief systems etc.  Unless we are aware of them, we have very little power to transcend it and gain our inner freedom….   Inner freedom precedes outer freedom and is essential for our peace and joy.

 There is a famous quote of maverick Scottish psychiatrist, R.D. Laing, etched in my memory and i dont get tired of sharing it again , again and again. “The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”

 You will be able to transcend the prison cells of your minds, only when you are aware of them.   You got to realise ( and not just understand. While understanding is intellectual in nature, realisations happens when u get insight of it.)  that you don’t directly live and operate in this world.  U create maps of them in your mind. Maps/ images about youself, others in your life and the world in you live in.  And those maps at best are representational model of the world. Quite often a distorted , alternate factual world.

Unless you become aware of your beliefs, mental models, question the assumptions you make in creating them , very little you can do to transcend them.

 Even if one becomes aware of the prison and can see a key Infront of him got to overcome the challenge of bread.   You might have seen this picture , where a prisoner seeks out bread in front of him rather than the key . ( Pic courtesy Facebook.)

 

Pic courtsey: socian media

The bread is just a metaphor. And that is the second challenge.   IT could be a BMW, Benz in your porch, that fancy upmarket villa with a huge mortgage, that foreign vacation, your children’s want to study in an expensive foreign university.  The whole setting of modern society we live in are  that of scarcity and unlimited want.  Scarcity is the bedrock of pseudo discipline called Economics. ( Hope my son Manu , who is an Economics major, don’t read this  ) and unlimited want is our mind’s creation.  Nothing in nature including your brain or heart has unlimited want.  The brain needs limited glucose, and it can’t handle more glucose than really needed. The same goes with Heart. More oxygen is not good for your heart.  Even your body can’t take more water than needed. People can die of poisoning from water.

 Most of our unlimited wants comes from social comparison.  It is not our need. It is society’s want imposed on us.  If success of Gold medal can feel empty, so can a silver medal , bronze or no medal.  

 One of the key to inner freedom is to know and be aware of our needs and wants.  People can spend more than a billion dollar in a marriage and yet feel compelled to come and explain to the world why they did it in advertising time slots between a cricket match.  Then you know it is important to know the thin line between the need and want if you want to be on the path to peace, joy and happiness.

 Third point is that of Balance.  You might have heard umpteen times Life work balance or work life balance.

We separate work from life with solid border or wall.  One got to realise every borderline is a possible battle line.   Our life is the only concept out there in the world for us. Every thing is just part of it. In a way, in our wheel of life,  work is just one  of spoke.  Our life wheel will have other spokes,  our family , friends, social relationships, hobbies and interests, social work etc. Only when all the spokes are in sync , our wheel of life start rolling smoothly without any hiccup.  Every spoke is very important in our wheel of life if we want to read a fulfilling life.

 Now in this era of magnetic levitation and wheelless mobility, smart minds may think of the wheel of life as a single spoked wheel.   Have not you heard that work is life quote and  need to work more , more and more.

 Does life have to be single spoked wheel? Isn’t  it a wrong notion in our circles that Life has to be single dimensional.  Did not Gandhi take time out to listen to a M. S. Subbalakshmi keerthan, even when he was racing against time to get India independence? How many know that Einstein was a gifted violinist and Richard Feynman learned to paint and play drums? Ratan Tata enjoys flying planes and sketching. And a Jack Welch truly worried about his Golf scores and diligently worked on it? Did they had a lesser contribution to the society and their chosen fields compared to others?

It would be interesting to read a story about one of the successful Generals Indian Army ever had, “So innovative was his operational planning and so meticulous its execution that Lt-Gen J.S. Aurora did not forsake his daily round of golf even once during the 12-day battle to “liberate” East Pakistan, which emerged as Bangladesh in 1971. As India’s Eastern Army commander tasked with evicting the tyrannical Pakistani military from East Pakistan, the Sikh soldier even played a relaxed 18-hole round inside his Fort William headquarters at Calcutta, before leaving for Dacca to accept the surrender of Lt-Gen A.A.K. Niazi and 93,000 soldiers.”

These are all pointes to the fact, there are many good examples of great souls who did excel in their chosen field, without depriving themselves the good moments life offered them moment to moment. One common denominator in all of them is a multi-dimensional approach to life.

 For me the most inspiration story is that of my Zen master Ama Samy as I get to observe it  when ever I am at Zendo.  He is 89 years old. Still has the zeal of a  first day fresher at work. He built the current zendo, Little Flower Zendo when he was 86 years and last year travelled to. Australia, USA and a long European trip ( including icy cold Sweden) to conduct sesshins.  Most of his waking time, he spends in meditation, meeting his students or writing or reading. It just proves to me that if one’s life is aligned with true north of one’s purpose of serving others , then there is no breakdowns.

 Not every one is fortunate for that kind of life. Lesser mortals can still lead one’s life being aware of ourselves, the prison cells we are in, our inner freedom and moment to moment fleeting life.

 How can be one aware of oneself!

 Meditation helps.  Meditation is not limited to what you do on a specific timeslot every day.  One extends one’s meditation to 24 hours.  7 days a week.

 I do follow the Zero minute / every hour, Zero hour/ every day and Zero day / every week with a religious zeal.  The life span of individual cells in our body varies. (Though medical science says average life span of human body cell is 7 – 10 years) . While brain cells last for a life time, the life span of cells that line our stomach and intestines are just last 4 – 5 days. Our body cells are created, live through, get tired or rejuvenated and die every single moment of our life.  When that is the way our body works, what is the point of earmarking a specific time of the day or a specific week of the year for rejuvenation of  our minds ! .

 It just takes a few seconds to do a zazen breath. In that one breath everything is included. Birth, life and death.

 

Understanding Distress and DeSTRESS in Life

Understanding Distress and DeSTRESS in Life

by | Oct 3, 2024 | Compassion, Empathy, Joy, Management, Sports, STRESS, Uncategorized

Over the last few days, air and internet waves were filled with two tragic news.

                   One related to an untimely death of a young professional at a very well-known consulting firm and another a suicide at the premier Management school of India. Regarding the death of the young management professional, the reports said, “stress from a toxic workplace”, while the suicide was attributed to “Stress from organizing The Red Brick Summit is suspected as a contributing factor”.!

 The first one drew a lot of comments and opinion in social media, many of them (even from successful business leaders and public figures) reactionary (imv), while the second news did not elicit that kind of traction.  The world in general, and people (we) in particular, does not have that kind of appetite for tragedy per se. As quite addicted Netflix and Hot stars, we want everything in episodes. One at a time.

 As a primetime member of the social media mob, after scapegoating and fixing the responsibility right there, for those tragedies in a hurry, I too was moving on.  Till I observed two different ways of living and looking at the word from my teenaged sons.

 Before narrating those incidents, it will be pertinent for me introduce them to you.  Both, Manu and Rishi are quite smart, intelligent quite well read and worldly wise beyond their ages. And most importantly they are their own masters. Me and Thara, my better half, had made it a point, to let them choose what they want or need in their life. Whether it is in the matter of career, education, food or even God.  They also had the good fortune to be educated in one of most stress free, supporting, empowering and nontoxic schooling environments the current world can offer.

 Manu is a second-year graduate student of Economics in a premier university. And he had represented his Uty team in an intercollegiate Taekwondo tournament. He was/is very passionate about marital arts.   I was attending a sesshin at Zendo, while he was at the tournament. When I did not see any message from him for 2- 3 days, I was a bit worried. And was quite relieved, when he called me one evening.  He narrated quite happily, how he cleared 4 tough rounds and lost in the quarter final.  To quote his own words, “Papa, he was too fast and good for me, and I got pummeled a bit and I will take a day or two to recover. But my Coach told me, I did well, and I got to be ready for the tournament at IIT Kanpur and i got to practice. Am going there. “

 As a parent, I was quite happy and proud to hear that. Not many things can be as stressful for a youth as an intercollegiate martial tournament. What more a parent, a life coach and Zen teacher can aspire from his son than the way young Manu took a physically hurting (and possibly mentally too) defeat on his stride, and was looking forward to his next stint at the arena !

 

But that pride did not last that long. Just two days later, Thara called me to say, Rishi, our second son, who is in 12th standard, seems to be bit stressed and it is reported he did have some challenges wrt sleep.  And that was a total surprise for me.  I had considered myself as one of the coolest cucumbers in the world as a student. I had shared quite a few times with my children, how as a final year Mech Engineering student in 1994, I chose to watch all the world cup soccer matches held in USA and chose to skip quite a few exams.  Due to time difference often, the matches started early morning and myself and my roomie and good friend. “Goofy” Sudhakar used to be only two idiots in the hostel TV room.  Sudhakar, stopped being a partner in that, once his favorite team Germany lost. And I continued that very valiantly till Brazil won the final against Italy.

Rishi is one up on me on the coolness quotient, so that he will wait even if someone raises an alarm that sky is going to fall down his head. As the news about him being stressed was a bit amusing to me.  I was suspecting some romance in the air, when I spoke to him after I came back home.  After doing his two-week internships at Rahul Dravid Academy, he does talk a bit of about joining a sport management course and his dream job is to work for ManUnited his favorite team.  But he had not applied his mind on how to reach his goal. And that would have hit on the head, when he happened to hear all those clear-cut plans of his hostel mates about what they are doing next year + when he had realized that he did not have any such plans.  May be, for the very first time in his life, my son was worried and stressed.  He did manage to hide that within himself, till it started affecting his life and behavior. Fortunately for him and us, we noticed in time and could help him out.   All it took was just a 5- 10 minute “Reframing the perspective” exercise Thara and me had learnt from venerable NLP Guru Dr. Richard McHugh some 20 years back. That did the trick and sooner he was back to his normal self. The very next day, Tuesday, I had to wake him up so that he won’t miss his bus to school and his term examination. 

It is not my case that the world in which we live and environmental factors don’t play a role in making our life miserable and stressful. It does. But the real villain is the 3 pound of human cells behind our eyes and between our ears. Nature/God/Natural Selection/Evolution have ended up in designing we human beings for survival than for our wellbeing.  They don’t give a damn, if we are left scared, fearful and miserable, as long as we last one more day more in our account of life and manages to pass on our genes to the next gene. That is their common minimum program and nothing more. We are all wired and programmed for it.

 To quote from one of the foremost  modern texts on the matter : “The individual’s perception of environmental demands and personal coping resources is the critical variable in determining the nature of the stress response. The objective conditions of the environment are important only to the extent that they influence these processes of primary and secondary appraisal. (Evans and Cohen on Environmental Stress) .” That is written in academic English for psychology professionals.

 But from my Epistemology classes of Prof. Indrani Bhattacharjee at Azim Premji Uty, I know that is no different from  rajju-sarpa-nyaya of  Indian philosophy.  As per that when there is less light, a curled up rope is mistaken for a snake.  And that happens due to the inbuilt programming  Nature had written inside our skulls which results in fright and fear and anxiety.  But when the Light returns, calm and peace comes back due to the accurate perception of it being a mere rope.  And the gap between destress and distress is  approximately 23.7 mm. That is the sagittal vertical (height) of a human adult eye.

No wonder, Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, the noble one, chose Samma Dhitti,( Right view ) as his first core teaching in his eight fold path to wisdom.  And we will be able to perceive this reality as it is only when we are aware of the programmed filters Nature had put in us, with which we look, hear and feel this world.  

Even if the “Rope” is a real poisonous snake, remember that Stephen Covey’s quote,

 “it isn’t the snake bite that does the serious damage; it’s chasing the snake that drives the poison to the heart”. 

MedIT- action for in-NO- OVATION :   whyZEN for kaiZEN ??  :-)

MedIT- action for in-NO- OVATION :   whyZEN for kaiZEN ??  :-)

by | Aug 1, 2024 | Sports, Uncategorized, Zen

Frederik Pferdt  was first ever Chief Innovation Evangelist of Google.  He has recently published a  book .” What’s Next Is Now: How to Live Future Ready”.

According to him  the book can help anyone  to live a more meaningful life. Recommend the book highly.   Especially  the last point.   “Spend time with yourself “.

The book emphases the importance of taking breaks on  a regular basis, just to be with yourself.  It is not about taking a vacation with family and friends. Rather  taking time to be just with yourself. More frequently. 

There is a famous quote by Kafka.  ” “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”   French Philosopher and Mathematician Pascal too  wrote, ” “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Btw some 30 years back, in pregoogle times, I learnt computer programming, in Pascal and Turbo Pascal and  Kafka was a great writer and philosopher. He  is a data streaming tool now. 🙂 

Pferdt says, “. Meditating every day helps to keep him open to new ideas and steer away from negativity.”

The word  “MEDIT”  literally means to focus one’s thoughts on : reflect on or ponder over.And the word “ACTION” means, the state of acting for a specific purpose.  In this world, there are as many types of  “Meditation”, as many types of human perspectives.  And currently, “Mindfulness” seems to be the most used/overused/abused term, at least in the Corporate circles, especially since Zen reached the western shores during early 20th century.

For many in the western world, hardwired in their brain, with that  dry logic of Aristotle,  mindfulness and meditation are just means to meet some other ends. A de- stressor, productivity enhancer  and some soothing balm for their tired nerves.  But for an orientalist, who  have grown up in the cradle of  Patanjali, Buddha, Nagarjuna , Bodhidharma, Tao and Zen,  journey is the destination. The Way is  made by walking on it.  And Salvation/self-realization is here and now. It lies at the meeting point of eternal and temporal,  doing and do-nothing, action and nonaction and between breathing inspiration (inbreath) and expiration (outbreath).  Aspiration, a strong desire to achieve something else , is not just a medical risk but an hindrance to a spiritual seeker as well.

I have been a student of spirituality and meditation for some 30 + years. And I did  read quite a bit (in fact  late Dr.Satish Inamdar, KFI Trustee and Director of The Valley School had said to me once, I will find my “way”  when I stopped reading!) and did my quota of channel surfing and spiritual shopping in my life

Seeds of Zen was planted in my mind in the most unlikely of places. West Haven. During June 19998.  That was my first visit to the land of Baseball and Basketball. Both Greek and Latin games for me as a spectator. In the NBA final. Chicago Bulls was playing against Utah Jazz. What got my eye and attention , was  Chicago Bulls Coach.  Phil Jackson. There was an article in NYTimes that he used to make players like Dennis Rodman , who was an out and out rebellious, rule breaking, toughie and Scottie Pippen and the larger than life Micheal Jordan were managed by the  Zen Coach , Phil Jackson. I would have read and reread his book Sacred hoops  more than once.  He was deeply spiritual with Native Indian and Zen philosophy.  In fact, Jackson spent a large part of his life studying Buddhism and its principles, from his mentor Shun Ryu Suzuki.  Jackson written, “What appealed to me about Zen practice was its inherent simplicity. It didn’t involve chanting mantras or visualizing complex images, as had other practices I’d tried. Zen is pragmatic, down-to-earth, and open to exploration. It doesn’t require you to subscribe to a certain set of principles or take anything on faith.”

 14 years later,  In 2012, after my own experiments with truth and lies of spirituality,  I did a hard landing into Bodhizendo and Zen and real spiritual seeking started.   

AMA Samy and Bodhi Zendo were different. I would compare Bodhi Zendo   a bit with Esalen ,of Big Sur, CA. One of the most beautiful place of learning I had visited. It was not as regimented as a Vipassana session. It did allow a good amount of personal space to oneself.  Sometimes a good conversation, a good joke and laughter at the dining table along with some yummy food, is as good as anything else in this world towards one’s spiritual seeking.  There are many who were/are real serous seekers.  And then there were many others.  Some  had made it their very affordable summer resort  more for getting away from the  Pondy or Chennai summer.  . They were so full to the brim with Aurobindo or many others, it was quite doubtful whether they have any space in their mind for Zen. Though Zen is about empty mind and nothingness and does not add anything more to us.

Secondly,  AMA Samy had one of the best collection of books on Spirituality, philosophy , theology and psychology I have seen in my life. (AMA does seems to have read most of them.  When I was a full time student of MA Education  at APU Bangalore, I had to write a term paper on  Phenomenology of  Krishna murti’s teachings as an assignment for Dr. Kaustav Roy. I was searching for a book of Heidegger at the Zendo library one December afternoon.  AMA walked in to keep some book and he asked me what I am reading.   When I explained to him my struggle with that phenomenology paper,  he  spend 15 – 20 mins to  sum it up for me like a precis.  I ran back to my room, and jotted down in my note book, whatever I could remember.  That assignment  is one of the few for which I got an O grade. And getting it from Dr. Kaustav Roy was almost like a Fields medal.:-) )   

 Thirdly and most importantly, no one demanded that the camel got to pass through the eye of needle test of  Faith  first and salvation later.  The Kalama sutta poster on the wall said it so succinctly , ““Don’t blindly believe what I say. Don’t believe me because others convince you of my words. Don’t believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts.” And AMA Samy did practice it to every dot in the I and j  and crosses  in the t.  Though he had a tough and rough demeanour as a Zen master, there  was an endearing quality of  integrity and compassion about the man. He took his spirituality and teaching  seriously, not himself.  That was absolutely refreshing to my  tired  seeking mind.

Even then, it took me 3 years to seek to be accepted as AMA’s Zen student. As the saying goes, once bitten twice shy and the cat which falls into a hot water tub will stay even from a cold water one.  Heidi, was a co-student of AMA in JAPAN with YAMADA Roshi and later was AMA’s student  spoke to me and asked me to join Bodhi Sangha.

And I did decide to seek to be accepted as a student of AMA Samy, after reading this passage in one of the books written by him.

“The master cannot give you satori; she/ he is there to guide, to challenge, to test, to confirm. In truth, all the world is your teacher, the whole life of birth‑and‑death is the training field. The task of the Zen master is not to teach Self‑Being but to convey that it cannot be taught, that no methodology is capable of bringing it about. By forcing the student to look within her/himself, however, for that mode which (though unactualized) has been there all along, the Zen master may be said to be teaching. This teaching which is a non‑teaching is Zen’s most unique pedagogy. Rarely will a Zen master say what Zen is but will inexorably express what it is not. Zen, therefore, is a teaching by negation, negating everything that the student supposes Zen to be, hoping that the student will realize that by not being any particular thing, s/he is everything; and that by not being any particular self, s/he is selflessly all selves. Negation, thus, is an affirmation which is not acquired but which happens, which is awakened as naturally as ordinary consciousness, as though it had been there all along”.

Wont venture into a personal account of merits and demerits of all the other spiritual teacher and their “teaching”. Believe in the dictum , each their own.  And my better half Thara has clearly taught me that , “What is good for goose, may not be good for the gander”.  . In fact, if. Nithya Chaitanya Yati or Eknath Easwaran were alive, I would have sought them out.. Would have crossed a desert or swam across an ocean. At the same time, I stay away from a few, though I am living at walking distance from where they “teach”.

Have been a student of AMA Samy for some 9+ years now and since Jan 2023, almost every month  I had made it a point to be there in Little Flower Zendo, Perumal Malai, Kodaikanal.

Commend and Recommend:  Zen, AMA Samy and  https://littleflowerzendo.in .  That is the most Zen like reference one Zen student can offer to one’s dear and near. 

Skip to content