The Frazzled Entrepreneur's Balance Beam

Beyond Change to Metanoia

Things have changed so much, but when I was junior and senior high school, we had to study a lot of history. At the time, it wasn't much more than a bunch of curious names, dates, and events all thrown together. The famous 'lessons of history' were almost completely lost on me back then. It mainly comprised background information that I could sometimes use to hang historical references on. Back then, it was all a giant time line stretching from 'back there' to the present. Somewhere, somehow, my own personal time line fit neatly into the giant whole. The wisdom of history would only reveal itself to me later on: a wisdom that came to understand and appreciate that time unfolds, not in smooth and consistent lines, but in convulsions.

Chinese Ch'an Zen master Lin-chi I-hsüan (d. 866) taught, "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet the patriarchs, kill the patriarchs; if you meet an Arhat, kill the Arhat; if you meet your parents, kill your parents… in this way, you attain liberation." As is so often the case with these Zen ko'ans, therein we discover one of the Great Truths. This life strategy is the one that I call 'comprehension' and it can be expressed simply by accepting that 'nothing is what it seems.' Only by being willing to 'kill' (metaphorically speaking) our most dearly-held beliefs and ideals can we actually 'break through' from consistent illusion to convulsive reality.

The Curse of Success — The Gift of Desperation

Life exhibits many ironic twists, but I think that our misapprehension of 'success' and 'desperation' have got to take top billing. The pursuit of success leads women and men into dire straights, while an exaggerated and misplaced sense of 'duty' propels them forward and blinds them from considering other alternatives. Whether or not you officially subscribe to the dictum, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' the chances are enormous that you're acting it out in your daily choices. The problem doesn't arise from the pursuit of success, rather, it traps us because of our definition of 'success'.  Imagine that a guy defines 'success' as being healthy, and therefore spends three hours a day, every day, at the gym. Is he 'successful'? Perhaps, in his mind, he is, because he's making himself as healthy as possible. He's completely dedicated to 'success' as he defines it. But, is he really a success? Unless he's a professional athlete, most people would have to say, no. Physical health makes up only a small part of living a healthy life. That odd definition of 'health' is what we might call 'Synecdoche': taking a part for the whole. There's the curse of success: if you're definition of success is inadequate, so will your pursuit of it be.

Consider the term that addiction counsellors use to describe someone who can 'hold his or her liquor' to the extreme: a 'functional drunk'.That's a perfect example of success gone awry. Often, alcohol addicts are very proud of their accomplishments — being able to dring large quantities without apparently showing the effects — and often, too, their social network is completely supportive, praising the individual for his or her prowess. In fact, these same people often ridicule those who haven't built their tolerance levels to such extremes. It's the curse of success: 'beating the odds' until, eventually, the odds catch up with you. Without consequences, where's the motivation to change? Without motivation, why would anyone do anything? There it is in all its illogical glory: success can often mean hurtling yourself into the arms of disaster.

Mahatma Gandhi Is a Fan of Mine

I'm really thrilled: as it turns out, Mahatma Gandhi agrees with me! (The apparent anachronism shouldn't be too disturbing to anyone who's accepted that it makes sense to invade one country in response to an attack from people in another country — but that's an issue between the politicians and the oil companies.) As it turns out, Gandhi gave only two recorded addresses in English: one in the 1930's and one one April 2, 1947, only weeks before he was assassinated. Only four copies of that recording were made and, so far as anyone knows, only one still exists. This copy is newsworthy because it only recently came to light after over 60 years.

The themes that Gandhi touched on in this recording sound like echoes of some of the life strategies that I've been learning and teaching over the past number of years. Seriously, I'm certain that echoes of the Mahatma's thoughts have reached me (and certainly not the other way around), but much of what is radical about both of our beliefs I think came from a commonality of spiritual experience (his much deeper and more fundamental than mine, but still with many similarities). Regardless of our origins or destinies (and our unique perspectives), the relationship between the human and divine Spirit is the same.