Awake At Work
February 25, 2005
35 Practical Buddhist Principles for Discovering Clarity and Balance in the Midst of Work's Chaos
written by Michael Carroll
Shambhala Publications, 2005
A Simple Question In A Complex World
A close friend of mine recently asked his Guru how it was possible to stay mindful of his spiritual practice and still do mundane daily tasks (such as being in front of the computer all day).
The response he got was that there was no situation in which he could not be fully engaging his practice and at rest in contemplation.
It’s a simple question, but at root it speaks to anyone who takes on a spiritual practice in the midst of ordinary life.
If you read the biographies of great spiritual masters, you find that most had long periods of solitary cave or temple dwelling, and not a lot of mention of taking teenagers to soccer practice or meeting management deadlines.
Where You Work Is Where You Grow
How to bring a sense of spiritual practice into every aspect of your life and work is the question that Michael Carroll attempts to address in his new book,
Awake at Work.
Carroll is a Buddhist priest and also a man with a long history of corporate life. He offers some simple and practical ways to cultivate the power of mindfulness -- being somewhere completely -- while at work.
He shows that not only can work become part of your practice or faith, but that day-to-day activities and ordinary human interactions are the fertile ground for much needed lessons that lead to human and spiritual growth.
Carroll offers 35 phrases designed to open your heart and mind to what is around you.
Using them on the spot throughout your workday, they help to reflect back patterns of negative presumption, betrayal, stress and self-consciousness, while at the same time serving as reminders of the power of kindness, simple compassion and the pleasure of awareness.
Welcome The Tyrant
“Welcome the tyrant” helps in relating to anger coming from another. “Avoid idiot compassion” reminds us that superficiality is a way of avoiding feeling, and it doesn’t result in making a true connection or offering real help.
Carroll shows us that rather than living as victims of our jobs, we can transform the common hassles and anxieties of life in the workplace into valuable opportunities for personal growth, heightened wisdom, and increased effectiveness.
Awake At Work often reflects on the emptiness of the kind of social ceremony we often find in the work place and how it inhibits true compassion and caring.
Carroll reminds us that we are by nature in relationship with everything and everyone, and it is through self-reflection and simple forms of remembering that we can return, at any moment, to a natural sense of intelligence, delight in what we do and an appreciation for the simple enjoyment of human interaction.
Awake At Work can be found at Shambala Publications
c --
Feeling To Infinity Book Review
February 07, 2005
Fast Food Nation
written by Eric Schlosser
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001
I've wanted to convert my son from his attraction to fast food ever since one spring afternoon in 1993. He was 5 years old and made a fuss that we couldn’t go to McDonald’s for lunch.
The Big Happy Clown Had Made His Mark On My Little Boy
I didn’t become a fanatic about it, and would even on occasion indulge his fascination with a ‘Happy’ Meal, but I also made the point that although his stomach felt full, there was no life in the food and therefore no 'fuel in the tank’.
You can imagine my astonishment when he told me the other day (11 years later) that he was off fast food – for good!
No, he hadn’t joined a radical raw food cult. He had just read a book called Fast Food Nation. I read it myself and decided to pass it on to you here.
Devon’s diet conversion is a testament to the power of knowledge. And it underscores what I’ve always believed to be true: the only way out of our suicidal path of eating ourselves to death is an educated generation who will say no to corporations making money from our own willingness to stay ignorant about what we put in our bodies.
Educating the Happy Meal Kids
You might be surprised to know that Fast Food Nation is required reading for all incoming freshmen at Ball State University in Indiana.
Eric Schlosser paints a disturbing picture of what we’re getting in those little styrofoam boxes. He also exposes government concealment of questionable health standards, and some things we’d rather not know about American meatpacking plants.
Equally revealing is his take on the children this industry feeds (and feeds off of), and how they are lead down the path to MacObesity and MacDisease.
(Sorry MacDonald’s, I know you’re not the only one.)
"Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behavior" (Schlosser)
For the junkies in all of us, find out the true price of that 99 cent Big Mac.
You may not be able to afford it.
--c