Banks, Bonus Tax & Zen

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F Scott Fitzgerald

The head of the UK's financial watchdog, Lord Turner, has said that much of the activities of the City of London were 'socially useless'.

Of course, this isn't quite true. The wealth created in the City and in banking filters down through those earning it and spending it. Most investment banks donate to charities, and encourage participation in charitable activities, like running voluntary schemes for people to mentor kids from local schools. Some banks even have schemes to match charitable donations. There is a bit going on. But is that amount proportionate to the profits being made by individuals and by the firms? Put that way, Lord Turner has a point.

Tax is an easy way for politicians to beat the banks with a stick, an easy way to get headlines. It goes in the government's coffers. It doesn't go down well with big earners, and there will always be another country that will welcome big earners with open arms and lower taxes. You get a business drain and a brain drain.

For banking to lose the reputation it's garnered in the last few months and years, it needs to engage in society. It has some of the brightest minds in the country, indeed in the world. They get educated, and then the banks train them, and let them loose to make profit. That's how it works.

Why not add another aspect to this?

Make social responsibility as big a part of banking and finance as profit, as serving our clients, as driving things forward. Or at least demand that an institution devotes a decent percentage of it's operation and it's profit to social responsibility. It would provide employees with a more rounded view of life, more than just their commute from a nice neighbourhood to the bank. It would be as big a challenge as the ones we face at work everyday. That way would face all of life, not just the bits we cherry pick. We put ourselves to work, not only for ourselves and our families, but everyone else as well. It would be one small shift in consciousness.

Why not increase the engagement with charitable organisations?

If the government wants it's pound of flesh from the banks, why not encourage them to set up up profit-making organisations aimed at social change? Let them loose with their business expertise, their talent. Why not get big business to do the job that governments should be doing, but have proved time after time they can't do, caught up in getting re-elected, in bureaucracy, in a good sound bite. Big businesses have been running the show for decades, not governments. But governments can steer them.

There's a middle ground between the point scoring, the veiled insults, the threat of taxation. Governments here and in the US have bailed out banks, indeed bailed out nations, but I've yet to see a politician or a bank leader talk of a new world or a way forward. Why? Because they are stuck in trying to do what is right for them and their people (which is both understandable and fine), but they could be thinking bigger and having a greater vision for their countries and their societies.

That's what we, as a planet, really need if we are to avoid the credit crunch happening again (like the dot com collapse, the property bubble or all those other market crashes). We all need to be pulling in the same direction.

Zen, Stress and Fool's Gold

The Stone Roses were THE band of my generation. It's 20 years this month since the release of their debut album, and I couldn't help smile at these lines on the way to work the other day:

"The pack on my back is aching, the straps seem to cut me like a knife / I'm no clown I won't back down, don't need you to tell me what's going down"

- Fools Gold - The Stone Roses

(Fools Gold wasn't on the debut album, but allow me a little artistic licence here.)

I was having a discussion with a mate a few months back about problems at work and my friend had said to me, "But you're the Monk in the City - that should be easy for you!" And as he said it, I felt an answer drop into place. Or I became 'unstuck'. Your friends can be your greatest teachers. It was like getting a wallop with a big Zen stick.

I've talked about 'duhkka', and that it is that stuck-ness that causes us to suffer. Often we don't even realise we are stuck somewhere until there's some sort of life event that rocks us back on our heels. Sometimes being rocked back brings a relief you’ve been hoping for months.

I'd been stuck in a place where I wouldn't allow anyone to get the better of me. I wouldn't back down. Working in the City, of course, you perceive a lot of injustice, and I’d taken on board the indignation and suffered both for others and by myself. When I talk about acceptance I don’t mean you have to like it. I don’t mean you have to repeat it, or follow it. But you do have to own it, bear witness to it. If you resist it without accepting it fully, it can grow into an unruly beast. Frustration. Anger. Stress. Depression.

One way you can tell you are stuck is when similar events reoccur more than once. In relationships for example, it might be going out with the same sort of man or woman and getting badly treated. It could be working for bosses you perceived as unfair, glory-grabbing, work-shy or even abusive. In reality they might even have been all or none of these things, but you can get stuck in the injustices anyway.

You can be so stuck in it at times that you’d rather self-destruct than yield, quit a job with nothing to go to, leave a job where you’ve built otherwise good relationships. Or you’ll blow out a girlfriend or boyfriend without owning your own bullshit, and move on to someone new, only to repeat the same thing.

Zen in the City is about being aware of your own patterns, being conscious, and seeing where you are stuck, and how you cause yourself to suffer - and others to suffer too. Only then you can take the pack off your back, change your patterns, evolve, and move towards being truly free, and stress free in your daily life.

Slumdog Millionaire Zen

I was inspired to write this last week after watching the Oscars. A great result for a really great film.

Slumdog Millionaire Zen

"Unending, inseparable, unborn," said Danny Boyle in his acceptance speech for Best Director at this year’s Oscars when talking about Mumbai. If you’d blinked you may well have missed it.

You may not have even have understood the reference. But this is the unmistakable language of spiritual masters, from Shiva in Hinduism, from Krishna, the Buddha, and Zen masters throughout the ages, of ‘Big Mind’. It’s the description of the state of peace, of nirvana, and of something that is accessible to us at all times. Of things just as they are. It’s the state of Tiggers bouncing up and down, just being Tiggers.

The state of nirvana is completely uncomplicated, but what happens to us is also rather like Tiggers. Tiggers don’t get lost you see. But as we all know Tigers do get lost! So do we. We get caught up in our daily lives, in the daily workings of our minds.

It’d be difficult to argue that Danny Boyle isn’t doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing at this moment. Eight Oscars is an incredible haul for a British film, done on a budget, especially when you consider it touches upon poverty that couldn’t be further from the lives of those in Hollywood, or us in the UK.

What a film like Slumdog does is it touches all of us, it gives us, momentarily, with that feeling that we are not separate from our heroes on the screen. And it appeals to us very strongly, because somewhere within all of us we know that we are all connected.

Of course the road to Oscar glory isn’t without criticism. As the story of Slumdog has grown and grown, from a ‘straight to DVD release’ to the film of the year, there have been questions asked about the use of the word ‘slum dog’, of the payment of the stars, as to whether the film is taking advantage of the poor. The media love a story, they love a spin. In some ways they show us all the polarity of views. All of these points have their merits indeed, there is some truth in all of them.

What is undeniable coming out of the film is that the plight of those in Mumbai and others like them was in the consciousness of those who watched the film for 120 minutes. What every one of us does with that consciousness is up to us. Just to feel that for a while may be enough to change someone. We can never be sure what seeds have been sown.

So where does that leave us all in the City? In the financial world? What should we do next? Answer your email. Phone your client. Eat your lunch. Do whatever needs to be done right now, to the best of your ability. Allow yourself to flow with what is manifesting as your life, right now, in this moment, without judging it. That’s all.

http://life.hereisthecity.com/get_cultured/entertainment/cinema/879.cntns

Here we go with the final of three pieces I did with Genpo Roshi. The 'market place' mind, i.e the enlightened mind we bring back to everyday life, work and business is something I'm really interested in, and I plan to write much more on it in future. In my own case of course I haven't gone off in search of the way like in the Ox herding pictures, I've stayed in the City, in banking looking for it there. I'm still catching a glimpse of the tail but slowly the koan of spirituality and financial markets is taking shape in my own life. It's been an interesting experiment and journey!

http://life.hereisthecity.com/the_soul_clinic/mind_and_body/871.cntns

The Monk

It’s bonus time in the City, and I’m a Zen monk. No one wants to believe they are greedy. But to be honest, I’ve thought about it a lot. It pays the bills, the mortgage, and allows me to give some to family, friends and a little charity. There’s a lot of fear in the financial markets right now with people losing their jobs all over the place. They are losing their savings, their retirement, and their assets. Part of the instinct in a time of economic trouble like now is to adopt the attitude of 'every man for himself'.

The Master

That’s all coming out of fear. When people can get beyond fear they can start thinking with wisdom again. You can’t see the bigger picture when you are stuck in fear. I think the shift has already begun - more of us on the planet are already discovering our interconnectedness, that we are one world, and that some can’t prosper while others do not.

Some people get a little stuck in the marketplace mind, and some get stuck in the spiritual mind, in being enlightened conscious beings. I think we can get stuck in either of these seemingly opposite aspects of our nature, and there’s something to be gained from both sides by looking at them as two sides of the base of the triangle, as if from the apex of the triangle.

When you are stuck in the marketplace mind and wrapped up in being competitive, ruthless, not acting with integrity, you probably won’t be a very happy well-adjusted person. Opening up to the spiritual, to what I refer to as Big Mind, Big Heart, empowers people be to feel more content and satisfied in every aspect of their lives.

In Zen we have the Ten Oxherding Pictures, which illustrate the stages of the spiritual path. The tenth picture is 'returning to the marketplace', or 'in the world'.

Often those of us in Zen (i.e., spiritual people) don’t really get what that means. It doesn’t just mean you work in the world. Everybody lives and works in the world. In my understanding, the tenth picture is really about owning the marketplace mind completely. Instead of disowning it and having all these negative ideas about 'the world' and being in the marketplace, one actually becomes the master and owns this state of mind. When we disown either the spiritual or the marketplace mind, we are operating from a more limited capacity, not living up to our potential as fully actualized human beings.

When the spiritual and the marketplace mind are no longer disowned, we see them as two corners of the triangle, rather than as opposites, embracing them both from the apex. Then we enter the marketplace with what we may call 'gift-bestowing hands'. We are 'full' and complete, coming from abundance and not scarcity, with generosity and passion, and without needless fear. We function in the world with wisdom and compassion. We recognize that our own happiness and prosperity are incomplete without the happiness and prosperity of others.

Paul McKenna and the Zen Master

Loads of stuff bubbling away, so much so I'm behind with the blog, despite now having a load of stuff to post! I just got back from the Paul McKenna/Genpo Roshi Big Mind Weekend, more of which later. Anyway, here's part of an interview I did ahead of the seminar.

http://life.hereisthecity.com/the_soul_clinic/mind_and_body/846.cntns

Zen masters throughout history are known for breaking with convention, and Zen Master DenisGenpo Roshi, a practitioner for almost 40 years, is no exception. He'll be coming to London this weekend as part of the Big Mind, Big Heart Weekend Workshop with guest Paul McKenna.

You’ve been coming to Europe for more than 20 years. This time you are working with TV hypnotist Paul McKenna, who just signed a big deal in the US too. A Zen Master and a hypnotist might not seem an obvious combination. How did that come about?

About a year and a half back, a student of mine got in contact to say he’d heard Paul on the radio in the UK (on Desert Island Discs) talking about books that had changed his life. One of them was my book, The Path of the Human Being. He said he’d found someone really talking to him in a way that made sense and he highly recommended it. So when my latest book (on the Big Mind process) came out, I sent Paul a copy and he got in touch. He said he’d started to come to the States a lot and he was working on a deal in Hollywood. He and his friend Michael Neill came out to Utah to see me, and they said it was the most incredible experience. We’ve met for lunch in Los Angeles and become good friends since. He offered to come along next time I was in London to help promote the Big Mind work. It’s very generous of him to give up his time.

Does Zen or Big Mind have a place in the financial world?

It seems Big Mind is flowing and filtering through to different parts of our society - judges and lawyers, mediators, therapists, psychoanalysts, teachers, educators, the armed services. Buddhist teachers, rabbis, priests, personal coaches and doctors are using the Big Mind/Big Heart work in their respective fields. I was just invited this March to do some work with soldiers who have returned from Iraq, men and women suffering from post-traumatic stress. I have done some teaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy too, and some of the people there have become involved with the Big Mind work. I was also invited to share the work with an international group of philosophers two years ago, and with a group of personal life coaches next May.

I think there’s a real appetite for the spiritual in the City. There’s lots of yoga, martial arts, relaxation. The tough part is blending it with the demands of working in the business world. I really struggled with that at first, I saw them as separate, different.

I really want to say I admire those who are doing that. I have great respect for that. I started off with a more or less monastic practice. I made a decision in ‘94 to open up Zen practice here at my Zen Center to the world, to the marketplace. The business marketplace mind and the spiritual mind are two aspects that have to work together. The marketplace mind has to be competitive and get the job done. Then where does that leave the spiritual mind? There has to be one mind, with all the seemingly contradictory aspects working together, otherwise there’s conflict and we are at war with ourselves and that dissipates our energy. If we bring these together, there’s so much energy. I mean, I’m 64, and even after cancer there’s an abundance of energy, and that’s because there’s no conflict. When there’s conflict between the spiritual and the ‘real world’ it is debilitating. My energy is better than it has ever been my entire life.

(Laughs) I’m afraid I’m still very much in the conflict stage, if I’m honest. I’m just going to plough on through it and see how it goes. It’s a journey.

It’s really a matter of owning all aspects of your self, and using them in a wise and compassionate way. Every aspect, every possible state of mind, the worldly and the wisdom of the ages, is in all of us. We just need to own them.

Monk and the Master Part 2: Zen and Sex

As the second part of a three part series for HereistheCity, the website asked me to do a piece on sex, and so in a longer interview Genpo Roshi kindly gave me his views. Loving relationships really are something I'm interested in, partly from Monk-like curiousity and partly due to feeling like I'm on a constant learning curve myself with regards to them. It's a subject I'm sure I'll come back to, I think the Big Mind process and Zen have more to give the West in this area. But for now, here's the article. Enjoy.

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In the next instalment of Monk and The Master, the topic is sex, and how it relates to love and the many facets of ourselves.

The Monk

A therapist friend recently joked with me that everyone outside a relationship is hoping to get in one, and everyone in a relationship is either trying to change his or her partner and/or get out completely. Sex and relationships are no different from any other aspect of our lives in that it's all about how we deal with what is presented to us. To be truly happy - and like anything else at which we want to excel - it requires practice, patience, and maturity. And a lot of mistakes made as sincerely as possible.

The Master

When our walls are down, we are more in touch with our feelings and our emotions, and because we as individuals are based more in trust than in fear, everything is heightened. We are able to be open and vulnerable, having dropped our defenses or barriers, and true intimacy becomes possible. Our sexual life, our ability to communicate and relate is improved. We are in touch with our true self, it’s more tantric, it’s being there with the other person, in a sensitive way. But it’s also being true to ourselves and who we are. It’s a more conscious, awakened state of being, where we are able to use our emotions in a very positive way that gives a richness and fullness to our life. Instead of fearing or suppressing our emotions, we actually use them as the petrol for our life.

In the Eightfold Path in Buddhism, the first is ‘right understanding’ or ‘right view’ and the second is ‘right perception’ or ‘right attitude'. It’s absolutely true that when you have the right view and right perception in a relationship, it’s way beyond being just about sexual satisfaction. Then you are really in a relationship as partners, and it is all about growth - spiritual, mental, emotional, physical. It’s all about both parties doing well because you are attuned to one another, and your sensual and sexual relationship often improves because of the enhanced intimacy.

It’s all about coming from the apex, rather than from a self-centred place in the relationship, from the egocentric corner of the triangle. When you include Big Mind, the other, egoless side of the triangle, then you reach an understanding of both the personal and the impersonal, and you are coming from unconditional compassion as an integrated sexual human being. From here you look at a relationship in terms of how you are supporting one another in growth, maturation, and feelings of love. It’s a much deeper, much more profound place than where we normally come from.

But this doesn’t mean we disown the more sensual, sexual, physical side of ourselves, otherwise it just becomes another disowned voice. So we want to embrace our immature as well as our more mature aspects, and transcend them, which means to include and go beyond both. The moment I knowingly speak from an immature place, I start to acknowledge and recognise my immaturity, and I can see how I can be more mature. We don’t want to disown the immature though, because very often the immature aspect of any voice offers a vitality that may not be found in the more mature. We don’t want to lose this energy. We want to embrace it for what it is, and go beyond.

Zen Master Genpo Roshi will be at the Big Mind Big Heart Weekend Workshop with guest Paul McKenna at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London on the 24th and 25th of January.

Monk and the Master Part 1 - Shopping

Well I've been working on some new articles, but my main focus for January is the upcoming Genpo Roshi and Paul McKenna seminar in London on the 24-25th . I first went to see Genpo Roshi in January 2006, completely by chance having been looking for Zen groups in London. I went along expecting some sitting on the floor, maybe some dharma talks (buddhist talks), but was slightly blown away by a teacher using a completely different way of teaching, combining Western psychotherapy and a teaching known in Zen as the 'Five Ranks of Tozan'. The Roshi was giving a talk in a central London church on the following Monday night, and so at the end of the talk, and convinced that here was a Western teacher who could really teach, I marched up to the front and asked him to take me on for some traditional Zen study. Roshi kindly offered to do it by e mail and the phone, not necessarily a traditional Zen way either! 

Anyway I've been to see him a couple of times since, and he didn't come to London last year, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Between now and the seminar the seminar I've co authored 3 articles with Roshi on shopping, sex and money (all the good stuff!), one of which was published the week before Christmas. Anyway, it still applies for the sales season, so if you are feeling in the grip of the desire to 'buy now, pay later!' and you haven't read it before, enjoy.
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In the run-up to Christmas, there is no one better to advise us on shopping than Zen Master Genpo Roshi, author of Big Mind, Big Heart: Finding Your Way, and pioneer of the Big Mind Process, a mix Eastern Zen with Western psychology. But first as usual, the Monk.

The Monk on Shopping

There’s a lot of pressure this time of year, buying for the kids, the boyfriend or girlfriend. Things are a little tighter, too. The old saying about it being better to give than receive is true, but the reality of explaining that to an irate partner come Christmas morning is best avoided.

But it’s not wrong to desire. Desire just is what it is. It’s such a powerful emotion. Ask yourself to identify with the one who desires, and feel the grin on your face! You literally feel the energy jolt through you. It's so powerful, it can be wild and consuming. Now identify with the mind of no desire. The difference is incredible. It’s peaceful and complete. But it also isn’t very sexy. A healthy integration is necessary.

The fully integrated Christmas shopper is at the top of the triangle, like the star on a tree. It knows what it wants, but it is comfortable whether it gets it or not. Its elbows are less sharp, its heartbeat less panicky, and it probably hasn’t left its shopping till lunchtime on Christmas Eve.

The Master on Shopping

The Big Mind work or meditation allows us to become aware of what our real desires and our real needs are. In his final talk, Buddha gave eight brilliant teachings that we now call the Eight Awareness of the Buddha. With regard to shopping, I want to emphasize the first two.

The first is 'to have few desires'. The second is 'to know how to be satisfied with what you have'. I think these two can really help us in the marketplace world. We don’t need to want everything, but we can learn to prioritize what we really do need, and what we really do want. To have fewer desires. The major cause of suffering is not being satisfied with what you have, and wanting what you don’t have. Learn to be satisfied with what we do have, not dissatisfied by wanting what we don’t have.

So how can we get to this place of satisfaction and sufficiency? Think of yourself as the sitting figure outlined by a triangle in the illustration, with the left corner (knee) representing the self that desires, the right corner (knee) representing the one that has no desire (pure being, free from desire), and the apex as that which includes and transcends both of them.

At the apex, which is our True Self, we can recognize the old patterns and habits of desire without having to be run by them, and we can see more clearly what we really need and what is sufficient. We can also be in touch with the mind of unconditional satisfaction that does not require anything to be whole and complete. From here we can appreciate who we truly are and enjoy what we do have, which in itself is a great gift.

Genpo Roshi will be at the Big Mind Big Heart Weekend Workshop with guest Paul McKenna at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London on the 24th and 25th of January.