A thought.. What would a Buddhist business look like?

This isn’t elegant, or eloquent or profound. It’s just a little though I had while catching up on my RSS.

Some posts on engaged Buddhism, a little from “The Social Business Blog”, Doug Richard’s “The Naked Business”.. and then a thought. What would a Buddhist business look like?

Could my business be a Buddhist business? how would that manifest?

How many kinds of businesses could run entirely on dāna. Not charities, I don’t think the flow of money or intention would be the same, but commercial entities with variable fees set by the customer based on worth… kind of Gordon Ramsay-eque (but perhaps with more mindful speech). Ethical, honest, mindful entities.

..thoughts,
Buddhist businesses,
..a penny for them. or whatever you think they’re worth.

What to Remember When Waking

“In that first
hardly noticed moment
in which you wake,
coming back to this life
from the other more secret,
moveable and frighteningly
honest world where everything began,
there is a small opening
into the new day
which closes the moment
you begin your plans.
What you can plan
is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly
will make plans enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night than the one
from which you have just emerged….”

— David Whyte, from What to Remember When Waking

Yellow Roses

My dreams are yellow roses on the longest of stems; rooted to people and places, grown in disparate memories, and moments in time.

I grasp tightly at the bouquet, welcoming to my chest their robust beauty.
The heads of the blooms crush against each other, petals folding and jostling for space under my grip.

I run my fingers over the tapering stem as far as my reach will allow. And where tactile contact ends, my gaze resumes. I follow the trail to the edge of my horizon.

Ever fearful that one day I will see signs of decay and know that out there, somewhere, that stem has been uprooted.

Ever fearful that today may be that day’s eve; the day of the uprooting..
And the demise is set in motion and travelling ever closer.
And I, unaware.

Ever fearful that I never made clear what was to become of the seeds I left entrusted. To those nurturing the roots, how they and I are still connected somehow.

And of those I never told. Those whom unwittingly offered such fertile ground for my imaginings, I carelessly dropped one or two, curious, to see if they took.

Diligent horticulturalists and unsuspecting gardeners, alike.
Who could have known how I would rely upon you now?

Lesson 3: Don’t Carelessly Flap Your Wings

Today was a timely and necessary illustration towards the concept of ‘living in the moment’. I could not in a million years have predicted the ebb and flow of the day and I wouldn’t have survived any attempt to foresee, halt or change the course of events that occured.

What pleases me most, I think, and on a day where it almost seems cruel to be pleased at all such is the havoc I have left in my wake (*note to butterflies everywhere, don’t carelessly flap your wings) is that I didn’t hold back and I acted on two distinct impulses. Both unexpected, both of which felt right, both were fraught with barriers (fear, insecurity, path of least resistance) and accordingly, both of which I could easily have over-analysed into inaction. Similarly, I didn’t act on another impulse, which if I am honest felt instinctively wrong, but I desperately wanted and could easily have rationalised as right.

I made choices.
I feel like I made the right choices.
I survived the day.
Yet I am in vast amounts of pain and have caused Tornados in Texas

So I can’t help but wonder how to reconcile my desperate need for independence and completeness of self, with an awareness and care for everyone and everything else. If I act solely in my own self interest for a short while as I am going to need to do (because, surely, if anything has been learnt to date it is that the chasm created by my insecurity, faithlessness in my worth and low entire lack of self esteem, cannot be solved by my attachments to drugs or food or, more importantly, to people.) Then, in this instance, what is my responsibility and rational for the pain my personal growth causes others?

But i guess i already answered my own question.
I mustn’t carelessly flap my wings. Or to rephrase. Be far more mindful of causing unecessary harm.

All at once.

I got caught at a particularly difficult moment in my life but perhaps there was a reason for that. Maybe it took a disarming instance of vulnerability for me to see with any clarity how I needed to reshape my life in order to continue to grow.

I have decided not to seek to learn but simply to be more open to what the world is trying to teach me. It isn’t always the case that I know where the shadows in my understanding lie, it is certainly not always true that the lessons will come in the order i expect, and no matter what Einstein theorised it isn’t a fact that time will prevent everything happening all at once.